Four hours after the escape, we had reached level four of the local district., which was one of the lowest levels we could access without going into the tunnels.

The sky was gone, roads, overpasses, buildings, and tons of hardcrete separated us from the moonlight.

We crouched in an alleyway, hiding from the dozen or so patrols we had seen on this level already. Luckily, i could use my senses to avoid any direct attention, and we had been safe for the past few minutes,

Keith grunted, and I heard metal clatter to the ground on my left.

When I looked over towards him, He held the remains of his collar in his hands, most of the metallic device was scattered across the ground at our feet.

"Shit, Keith, get this fucking thing off me" Emma asked, walking over towards him.

He reached towards her, gripping it gently in his huge hands. “No problem” he said. With another grunt, he pulled hers apart as well, then I lined up for mine, which quickly joined the other two on the ground.

"We need new clothes, prison orange is a dead give away" I suggested, looking towards my two partners in crime. Emma nodded when I looked towards her.

"I think I can handle that shit, you two wait here and stay quiet" she hissed, and started heading deeper into the alley way.

Me and Keith just turned back to our hiding spots, crouching lower as another patrol of VPD roamed down the street nearby.

I looked over to Keith, and took a moment to examine his aura.

He was conflicted, emotions swirling around him in a haze, it was complicated enough that I could barely make out what he was feeling.

Every power was different, it was unique. I was an empath, so I could sense people's emotions, but I did it differently than most mentalists. .

My particular brand was what I called "Aura Sight." I could see a haze around people, which reflected a lot about them. Their mood, their intentions, their feelings, all of it. I also could listen to the background noise of the emotions around me, and get a general sense of a larger area.

It was a trick I used to give me a heads up against attacks I couldn't see coming, people’s aura’s would give away their intentions moments before they began acting.

Keith was a Strongman, which meant he was strong, tough, and could take a hell of a beating. He wasn't a particularly Powerful one, but he had some crazy endurance for a D-class Strong man.

Oh yeah, power classifications, it was pretty basic, Starting at F, the lowest rank, and ending at A, the highest. There was also supposedly an S-class, but that was only allegedly. There hadn't been an S-class Paragon in the city since it was founded.

Me? I was a C-Class empath, which didn't mean much. Just meant it was harder to block my power.

Oh, and emma? She was a D rank Symbiat.

Symbiats were a strange power class, they essentially had a separate entity living alongside themselves. Putting her into the Rarer power classification.

Her symbiat was her blood, which is just as creepy as it sounds.

Especially when the damn thing talks to you.

Luckily for me, as long as she didnt have an open wound, it stayed comfortably inside her body.

As we sat in the dark, silent, I felt an aura suddenly charge with fear, and looked behind me.

A younger child stood behind me, his eyes staring at the prison clothes.

His left arm was covered in chitin, and his fingers ended in sharpened points.

"Uh, hey kid" I said quietly, and I could feel Keith's concerned Reaction.

He was a mutant, most likely by genetics. Atleast, I hoped it was a genetic mutation and not a triggered reaction.

Mutations were caused by the X-virus, which was some para-enhanced virus that had started during the End.

The basics I knew about it, it was practically undetectable, and the virus couldn't be cured except by extraordinary means. Supposedly some B-rank Healers could cure it, but undo its effects.

It was, however, completely harmless to the host. Until you got injured.

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Then it would rapidly mutate your body, to try to protect the body from future harm.

Luckily paragons were immune to the virus.

"Hey, kid, why don't you run along?" I shooed him away.

He just turned away and ran into one of the branching paths of the alleyway, leaving us alone with our thoughts

I heard the steps disappear into the distance. then sighed in relief as I heard him get out of earshot, hoping that I did just make a mistake that would cost me my freedom.

That thought triggered something in my mind, the thought of freedom. The fact is I was free, not in some cage under a casino, and not locked away in a prison cell.

For the first time in my life, I was free.

It was a terrifying, and exhilarating feeling. But right as my small crisis was starting to begin, i heard a voice from behind us.

"Hey fuckers, come look at what I found" Emma's growl of a voice echoed throughout the alley.

"Clothes in my size, I hope" Keith responded as we slid further into the alley way. Stepping towards her, I followed. The three of us standing in the darkness.

"Shut your smart mouth and follow me" she hissed back, and started walking through the maze of old buildings and support structures for the levels above us.

She led us to a skeleton of a building, concrete and metal beams reaching up to the road overhead, but it was just the frame of what could have been a building. Most of the walls were construction grade plastic frames, and lacked the panels that would close out the elements of the city,

She led us into it, a twenty foot by twenty foot room, the rotten guts of a building around us, and a staircase heading up.

Walking up, there was a mostly clean room, other than the sheets of Plastic Board spread around the room on the floor. three out of four of the walls were complete, the boards already nailed to the outside of the structure, and the open wall faced into the alley way we had come in from.

It was a nice little place for three fugitives to spend their first night of freedom.

"Wow Emma, I like what you've done with the place" Keith quipped, his voice thick with accent, as he noted the pile of cloth and supplies in on one of the Plastic boards

"Heh. Yeah, it's the new paint" she responded, but her joke lacked any mirth, waving her hands at the room.

Without much preamble, I unzipped my prison jumper, and started digging through the pile of clothes, pulling out anything that looked remotely close to my size.

Keith and Emma did the same, each of us taking our respective loot and turning away from each other as I pulled my jumper off, the cold air pressing against my skin.

I heard the other two undressing and sliding into their street clothes.

I pulled on the jeans and plain T, sighing at the comfortable clothes, even if they were a tad too big for me, it was still a world of difference from the tight, heavy fabric of the jumper.

The other two were finished as well, Emma dressed in black denim shorts and a band shirt, labeled "Black Sabbath" which was some Pre End rock band. While Keith wore gym shorts and a tank top that showed off his huge arms, his dark skin in contrast to the white tank top.

Both of their aura’s were considerably more positive, and had calmed some.

Then we took stock of our supplies.

Fifteen bucks, a folding knife,, and five Soy Rations.

The knife and money went to Emma. she slid the knife into a pocket and folded the money up, and it vanished afew moments later.

Then we have the shitty, nearly flavorless bars of protein and calories.

They had a texture like toothpaste, but firmer, and a flavor like bean-y milk.

I couldn't stand them, but food was food right now, and I was definitely hungry enough to shove one of them down. And the other two did the same. Both of them took an extra bar.

After quietly eating, I looked towards my friends.

"So, what now?" I asked, and I could practically watch the calm of their aura’s wash away and return to a nervous storm at the simple question.

We looked between each other, their aura’s pulsing nervously. As a long moment stretched between us.

We had zero experience in this city, no connections, no homes, no families that would take us, and basically no money.

"I know some folks from district eight," Keith said, thoughtfully.

"That's days away, if we are lucky, weeks, if we get lost" I replied but shrugged. “It's not a terrible idea though, we could start making our way there. If we move carefully we can avoid any check points that get set up down here.”. .

"But we need to get back on our feet," she added. "We could always do villain work, they pay well" she added, with her teeth showing In a attempt at a smile..

Emma didn't really smile, her attempts at smiling always looked like a predator promising violence with bared fangs.

"I don't know, but I'm going to sleep on it" Keith sighed, laying down on a Plastic board and turning away from us. He pulled his unzipped jumper over him as a makeshift blanket.

I nodded, and looked to emma. She was pulling her legs up to her chest, and her pissed off expression told me she was thinking hard.

"I don't know how else to live," she responded. "Imagine me, doing what, a receptionist?" She laughed, laying down on her own board. "Fuck that noise" she finished. “Villainy and crime are my best chance in this world,” she confessed.

I wasn't sure what to say, so I grunted a half committal noise.

"We'll figure something out, as long as we avoid heroes, we will be fine" I added. With a smile to her, and started wrapping my old jumper to use as a pillow. “No matter what happens, we are gonna make it.” I said sternly, and set my new pillow down and began resting, and I could hear her doing the same.

I wondered if she was talking through her choices with her symbiat, and how that whole relationship worked.

I closed my eyes and let sleep take me.

And my dreams were filled with the roar of the crowd and a spray of blood as I fought for other entertainment.