Water crashed down around Emilia. So cold—the water was so cold, and when the torrent stopped, her attacker’s magic briefly stymied by the burst of energy Emilia had sent spiralling towards them, her body screamed at her for making it move.
She needed to move. Freezing limbs or no, she needed to move—because of her freezing limbs, she needed to move, needed to get her blood moving.
The sound of Astra forcing herself smaller in a nearby alley stung Emilia’s senses. Luckily, from what she could tell, her attacker was either a member of the Enclave or just some other random local. Had they been a Risen Guard, they likely would have been able to hear Astra for how much noise she was making. The person—Emilia wasn’t sure if they were a man or a woman—had given no indication they could hear Astra, who Emilia had set aside while she worked to extricate Stephy from the hole she had tumbled into.
At the moment, Stephy’s safety was more on the line. The girl had fallen too far down, one if not both of her legs broken, based on what the girl had said between her sobs. Who leaves a random, street entrance to the cavern system open? So unsafe.
Emilia had been in the midst of trying to figure out how to get down to the girl, after having convinced Astra to tuck herself away in a little area cut out of a nearby building, several side roads away. Something had just felt… wrong, and Emilia wasn’t one for ignoring those feelings, something she was now profoundly grateful for.
Crates full of bottles had littered the area she had left Astra in, and Emilia assumed it was used for either recycling or a change over of supplies. Her parent’s estate had something similar: an area where the staff would put out items to be taken for recycling or reuse, to be exchanged with fresh food and supplies.
None of that mattered, what mattered was Astra was safe and this asshole was endangering Stephy. The child couldn’t move, but water from her attacker’s magic was sliding down the hole to join her. She could hear the girl’s screams, and Emilia cursed herself and the last heartcore for not giving her the ability to speak to locals.
“Move yourself!” Emilia tried to scream at the girl, willing some of her intention to reach her through the aether. The girl’s legs might be broken, but she had arms, and she needed to not just sit there and wait to drown! “Move! Claw your way to safety!”
If she had thought her words would somehow transmit through the aether to Stephy—which she hadn't, because, seriously? Everything about this raid was going wrong and there was no way something like that was going to happen for her—they didn’t. Instead, Emilia switched her thoughts to her magic gems. She just needed to get one of work. Gale and Sawyer had pointed out the ones they thought would be the most powerful for combat, but they had warned her they would be difficult to use—not to mention extremely dangerous to her if they failed.
Another {Blood Needle} shot from her hand. It sang through the air before colliding with her assailant’s magic, just as all her previous attacks had. The needle exploded harmlessly, several metres from the person. Against her thigh, Emilia felt the telltale sign of blood converging out of the aether to form another explosive needle for her, not that it would do her any good. At this rate, she was just wasting ammo. She’d hoped the sound—real and physical as it was—would attract the attention of someone, but it hadn’t. As much as another visitor or a Risen Guard showing up would potentially put them all in more danger, she needed help.
She wasn’t enough, and at this rate, they were all going to die for it.
She wasn’t used to not being enough, but this was the umpteenth time in only a few days where she had needed help. This was why so few people had joined this raid. This—this helplessness—was why she wouldn’t be surprised if half the people who had risked joining would be popping out with at least a little psychological damage.
The fact that this raid was designed to have such disparity in its rewards certainly wouldn’t help either. She may not have come across many other visitors, but this raid was designed to force separation between them—unless they were like V, more concerned with the welfare of the locals than winning, or that crazy family, who had entered alone.
A raid designed to be completed solo.
Allies were a necessity, as much as the government was obsessed with stressing the importance of self-reliance and solitary ability onto the public. Why the government tried to encourage both soldiers and heroes alike to work alone more than as a team, she had no idea. During the war, the government and military had pushed for units and teams to be mixed and shifted more often than necessary or sensible. Her own unit had never had to deal with that—not for more than a few rotating members who came in to learn how they did things before reporting back to another unit, anyways. For the most part, their unit was set. They didn’t have to worry about such strange politics. They were above the control of their so-called superiors. They could rely on each other, learn each member like the backs of their hands, and trust them in times of trouble.
Emilia rolled through a torrent of frozen rain, her body screaming at her to stop—to get out. She still couldn’t stop. There was no one to help her, no magical ally to show up and blow up the random asshole who’d decided to attack her while her back was turned—while she had been trying to save a frightened child.
Seriously? What kind of person attacks someone who is trying to save a child? Yes, she was a visitor, but still! The child was obviously local, their broken calls for help a clear indicator—
Emilia’s thoughts cut off as she contemplated that. Stephy was being loud. They had still been blocks away when the girl’s aethervoice reached them. Someone else should have heard her—realistically, it could have been her cries that brought their attacker to them.
So, why was no one else coming?
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As far as she’d seen, the buildings in these cities weren’t made of anything aethervoices couldn’t penetrate. Briefly, she turned her focus to the buildings around her and—
“Fucking stars!” Emilia hissed as she scurried back, trying to get as much distance between her and the hole Stephy had fallen into as possible. It wasn’t easy, the alley the girl had fallen into cramped with tripping hazards.
The people inside the surrounding buildings were awake. She could hear them—could hear them listening to the battle and Stephy’s screams. They knew what was happening, the words visitor and enemy and magic and child thrown between all the people who had been awoken by their fight, maybe even the child’s first screams.
They didn’t care. These people hated her, regardless of what she’d done—regardless of the fact that she was trying everything she could to save the kids in her care or the fact that she wanted to help remove the blood curse from this world. They might not know most of that, but to hate her simply for her existence here? Had other visitors been here before? Had someone from her world come here, and done something terrible to the people of this city? Or was this simply the result of a near century of hatred for the group who had failed to earn a blessing? Perhaps an even older hatred for the fact that a blessing had caused the blood cause in the first place?
Hatred for the fact that they knew their world was a game to the people outside it?
Honestly, there were a thousand reasons to hate her—Emilia would hate people like her too. If the next echo she saw was a fluffy baby, wanting to snuggle her and be loved, she wouldn’t hesitate to kill it.
But if it were protecting a human child? If killing it meant endangering some child who had befriended it?
Emilia shook herself as she dove behind a pile of crates. They shuttered when her attacker’s magic hit it, whatever was inside clattering loudly through the otherwise silent night. Her breaths, the sound of her attacker’s steps, slowly bringing them closer, and the sizzling of fire and—
Sizzling?
Fire spewed through the air, not from the direction of her attacker, but from the opposite end of the alley. It avoided her and all the supplies stuffed into the alley, seeking out her attacker. A scream erupted out of the aether, her attacker’s feet racing back the way they had come—back towards Stephy.
Emilia swore, surging back towards the girl as well. Behind her, she could feel whoever had stepped into the fight following, their steps light and effortless over the cluttered ground. Sliding forward, she peered down the hole, finding Stephy alive and no more harmed than when she’d first found her, only a lot wetter.
⸂Emilia!⸃ the girl called up, voice filled with tears and stress.
“I’m here!” Emilia signed down at the girl, cursing herself for her inability to even reactivate her light gem, which had gone dark as she tried to survive her assailant’s magic.
The person who had helped her stopped moving, their body positioned between Emilia and her attacker, who was backing slowly away from them. The person—a man, based on their height and build—glanced back at her, face obscured by the mask of a Risen Guard. Emilia had only seen them wear those masks in the world below. She had assumed their purpose was to keep their wearer safe from the hazardous air, but perhaps that wasn’t all.
The man nodded to her, to the child below them, before turning back to her attacker.
⸂Get out of the way, Risen Scum,⸃ her attacker hissed. Veins of water swirled around their arms, lashing out at the aether and leaving brutal scars across it.
Something in the man shifted as they watched the scars bubble closed. Emilia couldn’t put her finger on what, his stance never shifting from that of a perfect military man. Something in his vibe, perhaps. Where serious, unbending protectiveness had been, there now lay anger with her assailant as well.
⸂The Risen Guard does not abide vigilante justice, regardless of the target,⸃ he said, voice sharp and icy. ⸂There is a local child here, and yet you attack in ways that care nothing for their safety. Shame on you.⸃
Her attacker hissed—a mesh of gibberish and garbled insults—at the Risen Guard. ⸂The Risen Guard are fools. You should be happy we are doing your job for you.⸃
The man’s head cocked. ⸂Not all of you.⸃
⸂Enough!⸃
⸂I don’t imagine you’ll tell me who, exactly, is involved in all this?⸃ the Risen Guard asked, tone holding a touch of amusement and complete knowledge that they would be getting no answer.
Technically, they did get an answer: another hiss, following by a wave of water rolling towards them. A wall of flame rose, the heat enough to make Emilia wish she could skirt out of distance. The flames settled, the wave evaporated, and their attacker was bolting away.
“There’s another child!” Emilia yelled, as the Risen Guard moved toward follow her attacker.
The man looked back, whatever eyes lay behind that mask of his analyzing her. ⸂Where?⸃
Emilia blurted out a description of where the girl was tucked away. Fast and dirty and somehow barely intelligible. Why was she fumbling so much? They’d had entire lectures during the war on effectively relaying information—she’d even led a few of those lectures, for stars sake! Something about the situation, and her sudden saviour who almost certainly had designs on killing or at least detaining her, perhaps.
The man nodded, turning back to her attacker. Magic sparked around their fingers. ⸂I’m going to enjoy this,⸃ he said, voice chasing after the figure disappearing into the dark, before his was surging after them.
Magic collided, fire and ice rending their way through the aether. Emilia didn’t have time to deal with that. Either the man would win, and he’d be able to help her get the child out, or he’d lose, and then she’d better hope Stephy was already free and they could run away.
Or, she could run away. Fuck. Carrying a seven? eight? year old and Astra? Running for their lives while doing so?
Her eyes flicked back to her saviour as she rummaged through the junk cast through the alley, looking for anything that could help her get Stephy up. The man’s moves were confident as he danced through waves of water magic, his own fire sizzling out as their magics collided.
He seemed confident. He seemed like he could win.
Emilia wasn’t going to be waiting to find out. Her focus narrowed down onto the alley, onto the items strewn through it and—
Rope. Old, worn rope, but rope enough to at least try getting Stephy out with it. Focus—she needed to focus on this and this alone. Hope the man won, hope he kept Astra safe as he did so.
Emilia slid back towards the hole, her clothing increasingly coated in layers of grime, increasingly weighed down by all the water covering the ground. Stephy’s wide eyes peered up at her, watery even in the dimness of the cave. She sniffled, and Emilia’s heart clenched. Something crashed nearby. Someone swore. Emilia looked at her rope and nothing else.
Knots. She needed to tie some knots.