⸂Hurry up.⸃
Emilia forced herself not to start—or growl—as her Risen Guard saviour’s voice slide through her, close and intimate. Instead, she focused on the makeshift carrier she was creating for Stephy. Carrying the child on her hip had been difficult, but it wasn’t like the girl could wrap her legs around her middle to help support herself. Hence, makeshift carrier. It was taking a bit, but her saviour seemed to be holding his own for the moment, even if the man was getting a little testy. It would make travelling with the girl faster, less painful and more convenient, and she figured it was worth lingering,
“If you have enough time to tell me to hurry up, do you have enough time to translate for me?” she hissed under her breath. She had no idea if the man would be able to hear her over the scream of magic around them, but it was worth a shot.
Was Emilia currently thinking about the fact that her stalker had magic? Bubbles of something shadowy slipping out of the aether at his command? No, no she was not. It was good to know it was possible to figure out how to use magic in this world, but for all she knew, this man was just one of dozens who had learned how to use magic—or worse, gained access to the system—long before she’d done so.
Fuck, she hadn’t even had a chance to try her and Zach’s one theory on accessing the system yet. The night before—two nights before? Fuck, fuck, fuck. Whenever she’d slept with V, she’d contemplated asking him to help—or at least asking for his opinion on the matter. You let someone stick their dick inside you, you should trust them with such things. They’d never gotten the chance to even chat about it, let alone try anything out, however.
Toby’s fault. That kid had stumbled in, and then they’d had to get out of there and—
⸂What do you want translated?⸃ the Risen Guard asked, voice more strained than the last time he’d spoken.
Emilia chanced a glance behind her, to where he and her stalker were throwing magic across the world. Above them, more window frames had lit up as their fight woke the neighbourhood. Occasionally, eyes peered out of those windows, taking in the raging flames below. Flames splashed up the buildings, but whatever they were made of was apparently fireproof, and other than a few singes here and there, they appeared otherwise unharmed. Even when those flames spiralled upwards, sizzling across windows and upper floors, the eyes in the windows didn’t vanish—didn’t disappear to hide from flames burning the world a pane of glass away.
The Risen Guard’s voice echoed through Emilia and the children’s heads, repeating her instructions to them. Get Stephy to sit. Get her onto Emilia’s back. Help Emilia to stand. Get onto that barrel so she can grab you as well.
Emilia’s arm pulled Astra to her, the impossibly helpful little girl’s arms wrapping around her neck while she tried to figure out where to put her legs now that Stephy was effectively locked into place, her useless legs secured around Emilia’s hips. It had hurt, but not as much as Emilia would have thought. A brief peek at Stephy’s own energy—to make sure she wasn’t bleeding internally or anything—had revealed the Risen Guard’s energy, suppressing the girl’s pain, she assumed.
⸂Follow this.⸃
A map popped up in the corner of Emilia’s vision, startling her. It hadn’t been so long since her Censor had been removed from her constant vision, but the suddenness of being connected to the system shocked her—no one had ever said something like this was possible.
⸂For the Risen Guard it is,⸃ her saviour said when she asked him about it. His voice was calm once more, perhaps because Emilia and the children were finally moving, following the winding trail he had set out for them. ⸂It is temporary. I will try to keep it updated, but I suggest trying to memorize it, in case it disappears.⸃
Something in the man’s voice implied that if he died, it would disappear.
“Update?”
⸂Yes, the childre… marked on… moving…⸃
Shit. Out of range. Well, at least Emilia knew the guy was attempting to keep them all safe. Her core shuddered, energy reaching out of it and lurching in the direction the map indicated the children would be found. From the looks of it, Benny’s group was no longer headed in the same direction as Sawyer’s. They also weren’t moving as fast as they should have been. Sawyer’s group had always been faster, but the gap between the groups had grown so wide in so little time…
⸂Emilia…⸃
Emilia’s neck twisted. There was no way she could see Stephy, given the awkward angle, her still aching knee and Astra in her arms, but hopefully the slight acknowledgement was enough. It took the girl a moment, until she finally mumbled an apology.
⸂I didn’t mean to run off and cause all this,⸃ the girl sniffled, arms tightening around Emilia’s neck.
She wished she could say something in response—tell the girl that it was fine. Accidents happened, people freaked out, and freaking out because energy had suddenly engulfed the air next to you was probably a pretty reasonable thing to freak about. Tell her that, realistically, her running off had saved the rest of the children from being caught in all this.
If she could speak, however, Emilia thought she would have more to say than that, even if she knew the words she wished she could scream at the girl would do more harm than good.
There’s no need to be sorry about running.
What you should be sorry about is the way you’ve been treating the homeless kids.
They risked their lives for you, and yet you treated them like trash.
Stephy had been one of the crueller homed children, ever since she had come back to herself during the kitchen challenge. Some of the kids seemed to just go along with the hatred of the others. Stephy was one of the leaders, constantly speaking disparagingly about them, making faces at them, refusing to entertain their opinions on everything from what food they should make to where they should go and whether they should rest.
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The girl was afraid and stressed, but neither of those were excuses for her behaviour, and Emilia wished she could tell her that, even if she was sure it wouldn’t help. She knew well enough how closed people’s brains became in the middle of terrible situations, and even when they seemed open…
Emilia shook herself, reaching her free hand awkwardly over her head to pat Stephy. All she could do was keep working to keep these kids alive and hope that one day their views would change—that one day, perhaps, the homed and homeless children would find friendship, or at least a middle ground of tolerance, with one another.
The map across Emilia’s vision flickered, the image slowly overridden by a new map, the indicator dots all a bit removed from where they had previously been. Unfortunately, the dots that indicated her stalker and saviour fighting also moved. That wasn’t a complete surprise—Emilia could hear their fight following her, but she’d been holding out hope that the sound was mostly just echoing through the city, and they weren’t actually as close as they seemed.
They were as close as they sounded, unfortunately, and Emilia abruptly switched direction. The alley they moved down was just as cramped and dirty as the other ones they’d traversed, and Emilia was forced to slow her steps, lest she trip and bang her knee again. They’d have to travel down an alley eventually, although the one the Risen Guard had picked out was still a ways off. Why the man had bothered to pick out a specific route in a city of infinitely interconnecting roads, she had no idea. Probably just the system auto-mapping, or something like that.
They emerged onto the next main street, and Emilia briefly contemplated continuing on to the next main road or heading down this one. The map updated again, a static of slowly updating sections of a map revealing themselves.
It looked like the group of homed children had… started backtracking? That was concerning, giving Benny had specifically said that the aether didn’t lead people backwards. While it was possible he had just decided he’d read the universe wrong, it seemed more likely that something bad had happened.
Emilia moved quickly through the street, searching out the alley’s that seemed the least cluttered so she could make her way to the kids as fast as she could.
Another update. More backtracking. The kids were moving too slowly.
They were still streets away. Emilia couldn’t even ask either of the girls to try and reach out to the group, let them know they were coming. Then again, perhaps their doing so wasn’t the best idea.
Another update. Another. They were coming through faster, as though the Risen Guard or his system also knew something was wrong. He and the stalker had barely moved, compared to Emilia or the homed children’s movements, but it was clear that one or both of them were forcing their conflict to follow her path.
Then, there was the strange dot coming from the far left. Their group was congregated in the upper right section of the city. Had the strange dot been moving slower, she might have assumed it was just a local, up early. They were moving faster than even she was, however, and Emilia’s stomach dropped. There were so many options of whom the strange dot could be, and practically none of them seemed good. Had there been another bundle of dots elsewhere, she could have pretended it was V, returned from his disappearance in the labyrinth, along with all the other kids.
There was no third bundle of dots on her map. Only the homed children, driven back her way because of stars knew what. The homeless children, their group slowly appearing increasingly fractured along their route—another concern that Emilia was trying to ignore because they were too far away for her to do anything for them. Her and the girls. The Risen Guard and her stalker. That strange, speedy dot.
And one black dot, unmoving. Emilia couldn’t be sure, given her abysmal sense of direction, but it seemed to be located near the hole Stephy had tumbled into—where the Risen Guard and Enclave member had been fighting. Dead, or knocked out. It seemed more likely they were dead, but Emilia didn’t have it in her to send her energy searching out that answer.
Instead, she sent energy surging into the darkness, searching for the unknown dot. That could just as easily be that Enclave member, having escaped the Risen Guard and now headed for the kids. Emilia hoped not—she hoped that the energy she had sent back to the Risen Guard, the one that had screamed “HELP” at him before scurrying back to let her know it had accomplished its mission, hadn’t inadvertently put the other children in danger.
Another update. Emilia slid around a corner, Stephy’s chin digging painfully into her shoulder with every step, but Emilia didn’t dare slow down and the girl didn’t dare complain. Kids aren’t stupid, and these kids knew that her racing through the city was a sign that something bad was happening.
Potentially bad. Who knew, maybe the kids were just having an argument. The homed children already hadn’t wanted to go along with Miira’s plan to have Benny lead them. Perhaps this was just the consequence of that: the homed children finally deciding not to continue on with him and trying to find their own way.
The map update again. They were a single main street apart. The children were just entering an ally on the other side of it. Emilia tried to count the dots, line them up with the children in her head. It was impossible. There were too many kids, too many faces that she couldn’t quite recall. Which group had which child belonged to? Had all the homed children stayed with her when Stephy ran off? She thought so, but…
The dots overlapped with each other. The youngest children tucked into the arms of the older kids. Kelly and Gale and Miira weighed down by sleeping bodies, or legs that couldn’t bear to walk more. There were too many dots, Emilia thought, but her brain burned. Too many dots. Too many faces. Too much stress.
It was all just too much.
An aethervoice shuffled through Emilia’s head as she swerved down the next alley, her body pulling up into a walk. She turned, as much as she could, and pressed a finger to her lips. Unfortunately, she had no idea if this world understood the symbol to mean quiet, but it was the best she could do.
Astra, quiet as her general state of being, blinked back at her. A tiny hand rose to her mouth, a delicate finger pressing to it. Big eyes turned on Stephy. Emilia couldn't see the older girl’s expression, but hopefully she understood the assignment: be quiet.
Emilia stepped carefully around the items scattered over the ground, stopping at the edge of the alley. Her map updated. Across the main street, one alley down, the children would be emerging soon.
Unfortunately, her hair was just as bloody silver as ever. Her coat had been cannibalized for Stephy’s support, hood included, and when she peeked out of the alley, searching for any sign of the kids, Emilia knew how much she would stand out.
Several of the younger kids emerged first—strange, given it would make more sense for an older child to clear the way. They didn’t notice her, but when Miira stepped out a moment later, her eyes snapped to Emilia’s—her wide, terrified eyes.
The girl’s head shifted, the most minute of shakes, before her eyes flicked backwards and then back to the road in front of her. The rest of the group followed, Benny carting along the child that Kelly had been holding, both of their eyes wide and teary. Gale was the last to come, several long seconds after the previous members of their group had emerged. Against her, one arm slung over her too high shoulder, Kelly was being hauled along, his other arm—
Even before the last figure stepped out of the alley, Emilia had already decided that if she had to kill anyone tonight, it was going to be the person who had done that to a child.