It’s the second day of Alice’s training, and she’s keeping up better than expected. She hasn’t been complaining at all, and she hasn’t even questioned it after our conversation yesterday. I can’t say that walking in a straight line through a house is the most engaging activity I’ve ever participated in, but it’s better than sitting around. At least this is working toward something, and that sense of progress allows the monotony to feel meditative rather than stifling. I’m still looking forward to when she’s doing well enough to start combat training again. I need to punch something, even if I’ll have to hold back pretty hard. Even the barest hint of exertion will help.
We’re coming up on the end of today’s walk, and I can tell it’s taking its toll on Alice. She’s panting heavily and is beginning to struggle keeping up with me. It shouldn’t be too much longer before we get back to the kitchen, and when we do I’ll call it a night. She’s got a long way to go, but I won’t actually get her any closer to it if I run her too hard, and I think I have a good handle on how much she can actually take in a day.
Not long after I make this decision, there’s a deafening crash further down the hall. I turn toward Alice. “Duck into one of these doorways. Doesn’t matter which one.”
She quickly does so and I pull out the one sickle I still have. I don’t activate it, yet. If that sound was who I think it was, I don’t want to alert her to my presence just yet. I run a bit further down the hall and duck into one of the open doorways, sticking one hand out slightly and opening a single eye on it. Sure enough, I see Kara and another combat demon, a scrawny guy with short hair and two pistols, standing next to a massive hole in the wall with their backs turned toward me. As I watch, the skinny guy advances down the corridor and begins firing shots at a doll who just emerged from the stairwell. Immediately after it falls, I see Penny emerge behind him and channel what looks like raw cosma directly into his back. As soon as she does so, Kara lets out a war cry and begins sprinting down the corridor toward her, hammer raised. The perfect opportunity to announce myself.
I flex my shoulders, spreading my wings and opening all my eyes as I take a running start down the corridor. Kara’s too fixated on Penny to notice, until I’m almost upon her and press my sickle’s activation rune. Instantly it springs to life with an ear-splitting scream, as does the one currently clipped to the back of her belt. Its bright yellow, flaming blade instantly tears a steaming gash in her back, and she shrieks, freezing in place and dropping her hammer. I deactivate both sickles so that I can grab the one from her back without having to worry about burning myself like I just did to her, and use one of my wings to knock her hammer further down the hallway before firing a punch directly into her jaw. She’s still reeling from the burning of a white-hot sickle in her back, and fails to respond before I can follow my punch up with a rocket-boosted tackle that slams her against the wall. There’s a sickening crack as her head collides with it, and I can see that one of her horns has snapped off about halfway along its length. The impact probably also lacerated her scalp a bit, as there’s now blood pouring down her face. She doesn’t even try to resist as I toss her down the hallway, next to her buddy. Seems that was enough to knock her out, and her wounds should be bad enough that when she wakes up, she’ll be more worried about getting medical attention than immediately pursuing us.
With the threat adequately neutralized, I stick both my sickles back onto my belt and crack my neck, my wings and extra eyes disappearing once again. I return to where I left Alice, and once I’ve retrieved her we make our way to the hole our uninvited guests entered through. When we get there, they’re still out cold, as expected. Alice does a double-take at the sight of them. “Who the hell ar-”
“Not now. We’re leaving, quickly.”
She nods and follows me through the hole in the wall. We make our way down the street, and at the juncture of a nearby alley our attention is drawn by Penny calling out to us from further down the alley. I assume she’s cloaked, since I didn’t notice her until she called out to us, and sure enough when Alice and I get closer she casts a similar cloak over the two of us. “I only saw two demons in there, were there more?”
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“Just the two, and the one you hit was already out when I got there.”
“Yeah, he shouldn’t wake up for a few more hours. What about the girl with the hammer?”
“She’s gonna be spending a little time in recovery. We should be able to get away clean if we move now.”
Penny nods. "Lead the way, then."
I lead them down into the maintenance tunnels; a risky prospect, since at this point we can be pretty certain that everyone in their organization knows who they’re looking for and there’s no telling where they could have eyes. The tunnels are still a better option than the streets, though, if only because it’s darker in here and that’ll make it harder to reliably spot us. I have a few little hiding places nearby that we could potentially take up residence in, but they’re not really suitable for long-term stays and, besides that, staying too close to Penny’s house seems like a bad idea. I hear a little bit of chatter between the others as I lead them toward where we’ll be staying for the foreseeable future, but they at least know enough to stay reasonably quiet, and it sounds like it’s mostly pretty practical stuff, so I let it pass.
We make our way to one of the old maintenance bunkers, from before the strikes, and quickly set up camp. There’s not much to do, really, there are already cots built into the wall, albeit not particularly comfortable ones (though I have made a point of slightly furnishing and maintaining the bunkers I’m aware of so we at least have pillows to sleep on) and we didn’t really have a chance to bring anything that could be particularly useful for improving it beyond where it’s at when we arrive. I’m pretty exhausted from the unexpected encounter, and I know that it’s not going to do me any good to still be exhausted if and when they track us down again, so I quickly take my place on one of the cots and fall asleep.
When I wake up, Alice is sitting up on her cot, while Penny and Jackie each sleep on theirs. “Have you slept? If you haven’t, you should,” I advise her.
“I have,” she replies, hugging her knees to her chest. “I just… couldn’t anymore. I don’t know, there’s a lot going on in my head right now.”
I nod, not really knowing how to respond to that. I’m no therapist, certainly not hers.
“What are we going to do about my training, now that we’re stuck in here? I’m assuming we can’t just go out for walks, or runs, through the maintenance tunnels.”
“That shouldn’t be an issue, there are plenty of ways to work out within a limited space. It’s a little more monotonous than being able to actually walk from place to place, but we’ll manage.”
She nods, chewing her lower lip. “I think you’re right. About the halo, I mean. If I’m going to be pursued by these people, I don’t want to be helpless like I was today. I don’t want to sit and hide while you and Penny do all the work. I want to be able to take care of myself. It feels awful, having to rely on everyone else to do it for me.”
“It does, doesn’t it? I never could stand that feeling, and I’ve spent a long time avoiding it. Too much uncertainty, too much wasted time. I’ll never go back to that. Only thing I need to keep myself safe is right here,” I say, gesturing up above my head. I don’t bother flashing my halo, she knows exactly what I’m talking about.
She nods, resting her chin on her knees. “How long do you think it’ll take? Before I can make a new halo, and really stand a chance in all this?”
“Hard to say. That’s gonna depend on you, and how closely you follow my directions. Speaking of, you definitely need more sleep than you’ve gotten so far. Even if you can’t get back to sleep, laying down and closing your eyes will give you more rest than you’ll get sitting up with them open.
She opens her mouth as if to say something, then closes it, nods, and lays back down on her cot. It's a start. I've gotten as much rest as I need already, so I check over what little we have in the bunker and make a few mental notes about what to send Jackie out for later. 5