ANDRY

There were a lot of enforcers. There were even more villagers. What there was, more than anything, was confusion. Andry was doing his best to fight through the enforcers, but with so many people crammed into the town square—most of them friendly—he didn't dare use his sonic blasts. Fann had a similar problem, a katana with it's wide slashing arc was not a weapon for fighting in a crowd, at least not a crowd where you didn't want to hurt some of the people in it.

At least there weren't more enforcers coming, although they tried. Verro had that part covered. He pelted any hover car that got too close to the square with auram arrows until it backed off.

“They're going to think of putting down somewhere else in town and charging here eventually!” Verro warned. “But I think I can keep them down to a trickle for now!”

The only one with free use of their abilities—minus the sword—was Tyram. And even he was nursing a sprained arm. Andry snorted at how ridiculous it all was and threw himself back into the fray.

He didn't care that the fight was nothing but noise and confusion.

He didn't care that he was fighting against the police.

He didn't care what might happen to them, and the town, after this.

All he cared about was that after all this time, all that pain, the one place he'd always thought help might come from had betrayed him. He'd given up on them a long time ago, but to have them show up like this and just kick over everything...

He was tempted to roar and blow everything away, but he stopped himself. Not because knights didn't hurt civilians, he still didn't think of himself as a knight, but because Andry didn't. Andry's grandfather, silly chivalric notions or not, had helped raise him better than that. So every so often he paused to calm himself, and in one of those pauses he saw Ms. Fadden dragging Aurina into one of the air cars.

“AURINA!” he shouted, forcing his way through the crowd. “AURINA!”

She didn't hear him, and from the zombielike way she stumble along after the government agent she had to be drugged. She was pulled aboard the air car long before he could reach her, and with a humming whir the car rose into the air. Followed seconds later by a human figure. Somehow in the confusion Tyram had reached the air car, and as it rose into the air he leaped with auram-infused legs and caught onto the back.

The idiot is going to get himself killed, Andry thought as if he hadn't intended to do exactly the same thing.

“ENOUGH!” Chief Revinson bellowed, firing a pair of revolvers into the air. Their loud bang cut through the noise, quieted the crowd by shock if nothing else. The weapons were made of a brass-like metal, with a sheen of auram about them. The same metal now formed a visor over his eyes, one covered with strange telescopic attachments. “This is called the Deadeye Regalia. Anyone still resisting by the time I finish this sentence gets to find out why.”

“A couple of popguns aren't enough to scare me,” Andry said. “Not after Jalgoz ripped a hole in the wall with his blades. Besides, in case you didn't notice you lost this fight.”

Andry gestured around. Now that the chaos had died down it was obvious, the enforcers lay unconscious all over the square. The only one still in any shape to fight was Revinson. Andry didn't think anyone was dead, but it had been a chaotic mess and the villagers had been furious. Something to sort out later.

“What I noticed,” Chief Revinson said, “is that I'm the only one here with both a Regalia and a gun. Two guns, even.”

“And all I've got is fists,” Andry said, clenching his. “You really wanna draw?”

“I'm already drawn,” Revinson said, leveling his guns at Andry. Andry threw out his fists, the roars from his lion gauntlets catching the enforcer chief in the chest and throwing him backwards. The crowd parted like a school of fish when a stone is dropped into the water and Revinson collapsed on empty ground.. He struggled to get up but was barely sitting before the blade of a katana pressed against his throat and the point of an arrow poked into his neck.

“I wouldn't,” Verro said. “We're having almost as bad a day as you are.”

“And if you make us nervous,” Fann added, “we just might get all....jumpy.”

Chaddim stomped out of the crowd, glaring at the enforcer chief.

“I was wrong to call you,” Chaddim said. “I don't know what all this is about, but take your men and go. We'll handle this ourselves.”

“You idiots,” Revinson snarled. “You'll regret this. You have no idea who you're up against. They've got friends, you morons! They've got relations. This is a mess you can't clean up. The best case for everyone is that you all end up dead.”

“We already established you won't explain your cryptic comments,” Chaddim said. “Just go.”

He grumbled, but he barked an order for his men to pick themselves up and leave. As they piled into their air cars, Andry couldn't help but look to the sky in the direction another aircar carrying his sister and one idiot obsessed with fairy tales had disappeared.

TYRAM

This was a very stupid idea.

Tyram would have liked to refute the accusation of his inner voice but he didn't have the evidence to make a solid defense. Leaping on the back of a moving air car—even a big one like this, where he had about as much floor space as an average living room—was an incredibly stupid idea. Especially since he had no idea what to do next. He could probably punch a hole through the roof, but that might make the whole thing fall...

A hatch opened and Ms. Fadden climbed out, leveling a gun at him. A gun wouldn't normally do anything to someone in an active Regalia, but he didn't get the impression Ms. Fadden did useless things. In fact he got the impression she was the kind of woman who knew exactly how many times to chew all varieties of food so she never wasted an extra jaw movement. If she was pointing a gun at him it wasn't an ordinary gun, and there were kinds of ammunition that could puncture regalia.

“Shouldn't you be steering?” Tyram asked.

“It's on autopilot,” she said. “It would get where it's going even if I died. Meanwhile, I've got to get rid of a hitchiker.”

“Where are you even taking her?” Tyram demanded. He'd ditched the sling, and a few experimental stretches...well, with his amount of auram it might be healed already. Okay enough to take a chance for something this important.

“To the bandits,” Mz. Hound said. “It's the only way. We need time. Eight months. After all these years we need eight little months, and this all has to happen now.”

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“Well it's not happening to Aurina,” Tyram said. “Or that kid I saw you carrying. Hand them over.”

“No. But for what it's worth, I am sorry about this.”

She fired the gun, and he ducked under it. As he suspected the “bullet” was actually a sizzling teardrop of accelerated plasma that would, indeed, have cut through his auram, damaged his regalia, and if he was very lucky only cooked the outer layer of skin without going into his organs. They were expensive to make, but it made sense a government whatever-the-hell-she-was would have access to them. With her confirmed as a real lethal threat every fiber of his body and every ounce of his training demanded he take care of her quickly so he dropped to the ground and hooked her ankle, tugging her off balance and over the side of the air car.

He couldn't bring himself to watch her fall. He felt painfully guilty for that, for killing her but being too cowardly to see what the ground would do to her, as if he had some kind of obligation to watch her final moments. Assuming they weren't too high up to see when she...no, no, can't think about that right now I have to find the hostages.

Finding them wasn't actually very hard, although he was a little surprised to see the kid was Rimni. He wondered how she'd subdued the rambunctious Rat Knight, but that wasn't important he had to get them out. Which was the hard part.

The ship was designed to carry prisoners, with all manner of cuffs, chains, magnetic shackles, energy clamps, pretty much every form of restraint not widely considered cruel and unusual torture. Only Mz. Hound hadn't used any of those. The captives hung from the wall in cocoons of some thick, white, sticky material. He tried to rip it apart but it yielded, stretched when pulled instead of snapping. He had no idea what it was or how to deal with it. Maybe a blade? He didn't dare draw the sword, but...

Something caught him from behind and lifted him out the door and back onto the air car roof. It tried to throw him off the aircar entirely, but he managed to grab the edge and pull himself up. When he finally got his bearings, two things were immediately obvious to him.

One, Ms. Fadden did not die when he kicked her,

Two, she had a Regalia.

Her forehead had sprouted four extra eyes, glowing beads of red in a V pattern over her sunglasses, a dull red glow now visible behind the lenses. Her once fully black suit now had a red hourglass emblazoned on the back, and at each of it's four outer corners a huge metallic spider's leg sprouted, ending in a wicked point. Auram metal was normally a copperish color, but these gleamed silver in the sunlight.

“I wish you'd listened,” she said, “I don't actually like using the Widow's Regalia very much.”

“You didn't give us anything to listen to,” Tyram countered. “You just showed up throwing your weight around and expected us to jump.”

“There's something to that,” she shrugged. “I was trying to keep the village safe and keep a secret. I guess it wasn't possible.”

“Then you should have ditched the secret.”

“You don't know what you're asking,” she said. “It's the difference between protecting a few villages and protecting a planet. It always has been. And I don't see much point talking about it anymore. I'm taking the girl and the kid to the bandits.”

“Not if I can stop you,” Tyram told her.

She came at him with her spider legs. It was like being assaulted by a sewing machine. They moved quickly and with eerie precision, their tips gleaming in that special way only the sharpest of edges ever do. He had no doubt they'd cut right through his Regalia so he avoided them, knocking the bladed legs aside with his forearms to try and get through her guard. One of the gleaming metal points he pushed aside twitched and fired a long stream of sticky thread, the same kind Aurina and Rimni were tied with inside the air car.

She's not trying to stab me, Tyram realized. She's trying to web me!

With that realization came understanding, and he was finally able to see through her attack pattern. He used his newfound insight to get between her stabbing spider limbs and delivered a blow to her gut, doubling her over. She leaned back, raising herself on her spider limbs and scuttling to the underside of the air car.

Tyram was struck by just how muchof an advantage being able to walk on walls was when you were hundreds of feet above the ground.

She popped up to his right and fired a stream of webbing at him, but he flattened himself to the roof. She scuttled back up and stood over him, stabbing and stomping with her spider legs as he rolled back and forth on top of the air car to dodge. His hand dangled off the side and he realized once again she wasn't trying to stab him, this time she wanted to herd him over the side. He grit his teeth and rolled the other way, catching her off guard and grabbing one of her metallic legs. The edge of the point cut into his leg but he ignored it, hugging the spider leg and twisting until it snapped off at the joint. Ms. Fadden screamed as if she'd lost one of her own limbs, and the stump bled glowing bluish ichor.

Tyram got to his feet and swung the metal leg like a bat. The impact made the bladed end cut into his fingers and he lost his grip, the section of leg dropping off the air car to the ground below, but Ms. Fadden didn't go down. She stumbled, groggy but still on her feet, so he went in for one last punch. It landed squarely in the center of her face, dropping her unconscious to the roof of the air car.

But as she fell, her remaining spider legs fired one last time.

He'd thought she was beaten. She was beaten. Completely unconscious, but it didn't matter. He'd let his guard down and strands of sticky webbing wrapped around him, the impact sending him off the side of the air car plummeting down towards the fields below.

He poured all the auram he could into his muscles and managed to rip his bonds apart. A split second of relief was blown away by the wind whipping past, reminding him that the ground was approaching quickly, and even with auram flooding his body he couldn't survive a fall that high.

He hesitated. He had an idea, but....

No time, no time I'm going to die.

He thrust out his palms and aura popped from them like a bubble. It was a hasty, bastardized version of his most powerful technique, the Rising Celestial Dragon, which he had only used outside of training once before.

There was a hole in Jarlo's gut again, and he could see spine through it, and between him and the spine blood and organs dropping from their places before the bandit mercifully fell backwards...

Tyram hit the ground, but the blast of auram had done it's job and arrested his momentum. He ached all over, and his arms were sore, but he had survived the fall. He shook away the memories and stood, looking to the sky where the aircar was a dot on the horizon, still doing the job Ms. Fadden had programmed it to do and carrying Aurina to the bandits.

Aurina...and Rimni.

Despite everything, that thought made him smile. He was pretty sure she didn't know who she'd grabbed. Nobody was dumb enough to capture the little hellion on purpose, were they? She'd regret it soon enough. But in the meantime they had to figure out what to do...and he needed to figure out how to get back to town.

JALGOZ

Jalgoz came out to see the aircar himself. It wasn't every day enforcers landed right outside his base. He wasn't surprised when Ms. Fadden stepped out, but he was surprised to see her bleeding nose and the swollen bruise encircling one eye.

“Oh I wondered what was up,” he gave a rumbling chuckle. “But it was just you. My favorite agent. What happened to your face? It looks nicer than usual.”

“Shut it Jalgoz,” Ms. Fadden snapped. “I do not need it today. I brought you a couple of hostages.”

“Why?” Jalgoz asked.

“Because now both sides have hostages,” Mz. Hound said. “I'm just trying to keep things even.”

“Go check it out,” Jalgoz ordered his men. They went into the air car and pulled out two bound figures. One was a beautiful girl, who still seemed groggy. From knockout drugs, Jalgoz guessed. The other was a little kid who was nothing but mouth.

“Just wait!” the kid was shouting. “I'll slit your throats! I'm a knight!”

“Yeah sure kid,” one of the bandit's chuckled. “What do we do with them, boss?”

“We got cells,” Jalgoz shrugged. “Lock them up.”

“Great,” Mz. Hound sighed. “I did my job, and now I'm leaving. I hope you choke on your food and die, Jalgoz.”

“Really?” Jalgoz's eyes twinkled.

“We'd still have your brothers,” Ms. Fadden said. “I don't care about any of you, Jalgoz. What would make me really happy is if eight months from now you all decided to slit your own throats.”

“Well thank you very much,” Jalgo said with another rumbling chuckle. He turned away and followed the prisoners back into the base.

“I'm serious!” the kid shouted. “Just you wait! You're making a big mistake!”

“Shut up,” one of the guards cuffed the kid on the chin. Jalgoz expected the kid to cry, or at least yell, but he just looked up at the guard who hit him.

“I'll remember your face,” was all he said.

“Alright alright,” Jalgoz said. “Lock up the creepy kid. And then get some boys together, we're going raiding.”

“I thought we were holding off for another attack on the village, boss,” a bandit asked.

“Yeah but they got a weapon we don't,” Jalgoz said. “Or they used to. What we had until now was a Hostage Gap. We're closing it, but it's still there. What have they got, twenty, thirty of the guys? We'll need to grab enough people to match that. I don't care who you get, just bring them here. That way every time they kill one of ours, we can kill one of theirs.”

“Oh!” the bandit said. “That's a good idea boss!”

“I know!” Jalgoz snorted. “I thought of it.”