When Tristan came to, he was in the corner of a dark room. He could barely see a thing, though he did feel a blanket draped over him, and it felt like he was on a bed.

It was then that he noticed a pair of red cat eyes hovering over him.

"Shit!" he shouted, scrambling to his feet.

He jumped out of the bed and grasped at the air, accidentally tearing a curtain. Light flooded in.

There, crouching at the foot of the bed, was a hooded woman. She was wearing a mask around her mouth, and a bandana obscured her forehead.

Though her hair was golden like Aurelia's, her complexion was quite pale.

She squinted at the sudden flood of light, but calmly pulled the blanket back and patted the bed.

"You… want me to lie down?" Tristan asked.

She patted the bed once more in confirmation. Seeing that she was possibly the one who had saved him from a possible execution, he complied.

Upon lying down, she served him with lunch.

"Wait, what's—holy shit, is that sinigang?"

All thoughts of asking for an explanation left his head, and he happily downed the chicken, soup and all. Such a delicacy had been lost for a long time, especially since access to the vegetables necessary to make the complete dish had been lost with the collapse of the modern economy.

He was wiping his mouth when he'd noticed an unusually-fluffy cloak hanging by a hook in the corner of the room. Innumerable bullet holes had torn it into a fluffy, cloak-shaped rag.

The more he looked, the more bullet holes he found, and the bigger those bullet holes got. At some point, it seemed as if there was a shotgun blast at point blank range—it was even singed around the edges!

He turned towards his benefactor. No, no, she was probably wearing a bulletproof vest or something—he thought to himself, all the while completely aware that all those hits should've broken half her ribs, and yet, she looked fine—Yeah, that's some really good kevlar, probably.

He couldn't find said bulletproof vest anywhere in the room—Well, it might've been made useless after taking all those hits, after all, so she must have thrown it away.

Without a word, the woman stood up and started moving things around and preparing equipment. In the meantime, Tristan took naps on and off, sometimes waking up to something falling off a shelf, or the woman accidentally knocking a box over. "What a klutz," he thought. He momentarily thought about Aurelia—a thought that he quickly knocked away.

In the middle of one of his naps, he felt something tugging on his arm. He opened his eyes, and the woman kept tugging at his arm.

"What?" he asked, but she just kept tugging.

—'Stand up' huh…

He groggily sat up, and his feet felt the floor. She kept tugging at him until he stood up, then when he did, she went and tugged him all the way to the door.

"Wait, we're going out? Now?!"

Like this, they spent several days together, combing the confused cityscape of Quezon City, where residential blocks were, at once, fully exposed to highways and malls, while the city park — in itself, a rare concept in Metro Manila — served as a gravestone for the last vestiges of organized resistance in the outbreak. They passed by that area several times, but they never did actually set foot in it.

Tristan had finally come to recognize that the woman he was with wasn't Aurelia. Never once did the woman reveal her face, nor even a single square inch of her skin that weren't those around her eyes. He had been mistaken to think that her hair was even golden, as well. It turned out to be some hazel-like hair that turned nearly golden under the sun. On the other hand, Aurelia's hair was golden no matter what, to the point that they had exempted her from wearing a reflectorized vest on night patrols as a joke.

This girl had never even quipped a word all these days. Maybe she's mute? It was a bit disappointing that he couldn't have a conversation partner, though she somehow managed to communicate with slight nods and tiny gestures. Communication was communication, and he wasn't choosy at the slightest.

Even being like this—being a fugitive—was… okay. Tristan had easily forgotten that he was on the run. It vaguely reminded him of the time he had spent with Aurelia. Whenever they were to eat, she would leave him and guard the area. After a while, she would return right around when he had finished, then he would leave her and guard the area. Taking turns like that, and just plain relying on each other, was a luxury of life that evened out the anxiety of being killed on a mission at any time.

He found it strange, though, that she smelled a bit different before and after they changed shifts guarding the other's lunchtime. Thinking that that was a creepy thought to have about his newfound acquaintance, he disregarded this oddity.

The next day was like any other.

The woman pointed at a hardware store. Tristan was aware that some of their equipment had been falling apart, so restocking on few zip ties and some duct tape was a harmless idea.

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They entered through the backdoor. It was dark. Turning on their flashlights, he and the woman split up to cover more ground and secure the various aisles. A pipe in his hand, shelves to his left and right—some emptied, others somewhat full—he quickly emerged from the aisle and checked left and right. To his right, he made eye contact with the woman, who then gave a thumbs up—but not towards him.

It was then that he felt his feet leave the earth. The feeling's become familiar.

His previous experience betrayed him, however, as he fell to the ground. The impact robbed all the air from his lungs. He had dropped his flashlight, and he soon found himself sliding along the floor back to where he came from at a scary speed, watching the beam of his flashlight bounce around and diminish in size as he left it behind. Without even the time to scream for help, he came to a full stop. The next thing he saw was a shotgun barrel pointed at his face.

"Hey, Tristan," James said, "How's the past few days been?"

"End of the line for me, huh?" Tristan said. He'd raised his hands in surrender.

While Karlson grabbed him by the collar, another scout—Michael, an older man at the tail end of his 40's—unlooped the cord that had snared his feet. Besides them, two other persons arrived at the scene. One was the resident girl scout—Tali, a teenage girl under the Scout Group's employ—while the other…

"N- No way…" Tristan's voice quavered for a moment.

"Well?" the woman said.

"Oi, you can speak?!" Tristan exclaimed, "And not just that…"

It was definitely Aurelia's voice—that one where she's perpetually annoyed at absolutely everyone.

"It was hard on me, you know? Being banned from speaking for almost a week. Damn you, James."

"It's easier to explain this way," James said with a bit of a nervous laugh.

In the employee's lounge, a little lamp sat on the desk. Michael and Tali hung around in the corridor outside the room. Karlson laid down on the sofa and kicked his feet up. James and Aurelia sat on the other side of the desk from Tristan, though Aurelia's face remained mostly obscured, despite not wearing her hood.

Tristan hunched over the desk, burying his face into his hands. He looked up and eyed Aurelia.

"Aurelia?" he asked.

"What?—Hey, wait, are you crying?"

"…No…"

He wiped his eyes with a handkerchief.

"Agh, what a hard thing we'd done on him," James remarked. Aurelia's forehead furrowed into disgust.

"Said the guy who organized this whole mess."

"…why…"

They barely caught Tristan's whimper. They looked to him.

"Why are you alive?!"

"Oh what, so you're not happy?"

"Don't give me that!"

Aurelia went to pat him on the back.

"There, there—oh?"

Faster than sound, he had embraced her. No one said anything for a while.

"Aurey, why…"

He looked her in the eyes.

"…Why are you so cold?"

There was no warmth where there was supposed to be—as if blood no longer coursed through her veins, though they clearly did, and she was clearly alive. Aurelia and James shot glances at each other.

"Tristan, you'll need to sit down for this one— Karl?"

"Huh? Ah, right."

After Tristan and Aurelia sat themselves down, Karlson got off the sofa and stood behind Tristan's seat. James glanced at Aurelia and nodded.

"Tristan," Aurelia started.

His attention was squarely on her. First, she took off her bandana, and at the sight of what lay underneath, Tristan immediately tried to jump up. At this, Karlson pushed him down and kept him on his seat.

"What the fuck is that?!" Tristan exclaimed, "Aurelia? That's really you, aren't you?!"

She quietly wrapped the bandana back around her head.

"Strictly-speaking, Tristan, I really did die," Aurelia explained. What she had shown him was the bullet hole left in her forehead from when James had killed her.

"Ya can poke a stick through here and it'll stick out the other side of me head, you know?" Aurelia continued, laughing.

James and Karlson snorted. Tristan vibrated in place, the force of his attempting to stand up being resisted by Karlson's weight on his shoulders.

"Confused as all hell and back, are you?" James said.

"Damn straight!"

James spent the better part of two hours explaining things to him, during which Aurelia spent her time enjoying Tristan's reactions.

"So… you faked killing Aurelia by actually killing her?"

"Yes."

"Ha?"

He scratched his head—How could this guy have even known that she'd come back alive?

"And you killed her because… you had to hide her?"

"That's right."

"From the… Bio-Police?!"

"I said what I said."

"What the fuck is the Bio-Police? In this economy?!"

Just then, Michael burst through the door.

"James, it's bad! It's the Bio-Police!"

At the announcement, Karlson loaded fresh shells into his shotgun, and James checked all three of his revolvers. Aurelia, meanwhile, readied several vials of… something.

Poor Tristan's comprehension was left behind. In fact, he stopped comprehending anything the moment James mentioned the Scout Group's accidental involvement with the Medical Mafia, which was hoarding medical supplies in caches around the city, which incidentally led to becoming at odds with the Bio-Police, which suddenly targeted Aurelia for one reason or another.

Events escalated too fast.

"The heck is this situation?" Tristan thought to himself, "A coup was normal enough, and then there was a double coup—"

"Ah right, the water pump sabotage was faked, by the way," James remarked.

"Wait, really?!"

"No one needs to get hurt! Please come out with your hands up!" the loudspeaker resumed.

Two armored vans had parked in front of the hardware store, blocking the way of escape for the group. Beyond even that, they were outnumbered 2-to-1 by heavily-armed and armored opponents: the Bio-Police. Each soldier was armed with a fully-kitted assault rifle, topped off with innumerable scopes and flashlights for innumerable scenarios. Beyond that, it seemed that they had an attachment that fired tranquilizers, and another that fired electric stun darts.

How the rifles themselves hadn't bent from the weight of all those attachments was a mystery in itself.

Fighting wasn't an immediate option. None of the scouts' weapons would be able to even put a dent in the armor that the soldiers were clad in. High collars shielded their necks, and plates hung from their shoulders like some sort of tactical samurai. Meanwhile, machine gun turrets on the armored vans continuously scanned the area—it would be a nightmare to think of what would happen if those guns were pointed at them.

The scouts hid around the corner of the side alley which led into the backdoor entrance.

"Goddamnit, I keep telling you! She's already dead! What more do you want!" James shouted at the Bio-Police.

After a short pause, he turned back to the others.

"Alright, it looks like they're still processing the context of my words."

"They're pretty gullible, huh?" Karlson added.

"But also somehow deadly competent, don't let your guard down," Aurelia joined in.

She picked up Tristan and carried him under her arm. He didn't even realize it until he was horizontal.

"What—What?! Wait! I—"

He couldn't even finish his sentence before Aurelia jumped up 10 feet onto the roof of the store. She shouldn't have been seen from the front of the store, and none of the Bio-Police teams should have been able to encircle them before then.

Landing on the roof, she looked back down.

"Tristan's a fugitive himself, right? I'll take care of him! Meet y'all whenever!" she shouted.

With that, she disappeared. Karlson faced James.

"So uh… What now?" he asked.

Meanwhile, the Bio-Police squad leader spoke with the negotiator.

"Are you certain? It's not with them?" the squad leader asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure," the negotiator replied. He had been doing this for 3 weeks, so he was pretty confident in his skills.

"Damn… How do you know?"

"They said so."

"They said so?!"

Despair descended upon the squad leader's paycheck.

"Damn it—but we need to confirm it at least," he continued.

"Understood," the negotiator replied, "I'm going in."