Myra let out a sleepy yawn, giving her body a satisfying stretch as she wandered through the Amber lit alleyways of the slums. Ugh, her grandpa would kill her for messing up her sleep schedule again. But she had barely gotten a single shut eye last night - everything had been so new and exciting! - and then those stupids Guards had chased her into the slums today. Of course she was going to catch some sleep after a finding a nice, cozy alcove hidden away from everyone in the shadows. And now she couldn’t sleep despite it being well into the night already!

She had thrown a simple sheet of brown cloth over her to hide her admittedly rather striking tech. A cute pout puffed her cheeks up and she crossed her arms.

“Haa.. and I just wanted to see what this city had to offer… Heh, they acted like they had never seen Amber Tech before… when this place is brimming with it~!”

Giggling with mocking grin Myra let her bright eyes wander around, sparkling at all the pipes and numerous Amber lights lining the alleyways. Her smile grew wide, already numerous ideas on how to enhance her tech flitted and danced through her mind.

“I would have killed for so much high grade junk!”

On she wandered through the alleyways and slowly but surely Myra came to a definite conclusion. Hands stemmed against her side, she nodded firm and solemnly.

“Yup, I’m lost.”

But there really wasn’t much for her to orient herself with! Everything just looked the same to her, walls upon walls upon walls covered in pipes and lamps and vents. Maybe there was door or some windows, clotheslines hanging between alleys. Not even the sky was any help, often completely covered by the crooked shapes of the buildings, the piping, the edges of the roofs or clotheslines again. And then what was visible was completely covered up by thick steam clouds anyways.

“Right, I’m not getting anywhere down here. Time to get back up!”

Intention declared with a cheerful smile, Myra rolled her shoulders and threw off her very simplistic disguise. It was quickly rolled up on her back and she leaped up to the closest pipe. The bright glow of her Amber Pads illuminated the alleyways and she soon reached the roof tops.

“Oah~!”

Myra gazed across the slums as they stretched out before her. The skyline of the main city dominated the horizon like a perfect, immutable landmark. She grinned.

“Now that’s better~!”

Without a second thought Myra flitted into a random direction. She didn’t know a thing about this place anyways, so she would just go about as she did normally. Look around for random junk and see what she could make out of it! That’s how she had made her first grappling hook. And it should work with finding her way just as much.

Leaping across the alleys below, the line pulling her this way and that at high speeds, a sudden shout in the distance caught her attention. Changing trajectory midair with a quick redeploy of her hook, Myra went to investigate. Maybe she could finally find someone who could help her!

Instead she was the one who got to help first.

———

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!!!”

Myra’s shout echoed through the air just after her Amber Pads had burst with power, catapulting her like a rocket towards the monstrous thing pressing its victim against the ground.

Her fist connected, Amber gleamed within her glove and the grappling hook accelerated with the force of a jackhammer. For a fragment of a second its face deformed around her punch like a pillow. Then it snapped back into shape. A loud crack echoed through the air followed by consecutive claps as the Demon was flung through the air, skipping over the roof until It impacted the edge with a hard, second crack.

The shadow creature unnerved Myra as she continued to glare at it, unwilling to let it out of her sight. What had it been doing to that wolf cat she had just rescued? That darkness that had grasped around his head… had it been some kind of form of Amber? It couldn’t be Gaian, that oily, chrome black smoothness of its body and how it moved. All of it was impossible for a living being and it certainly wasn’t an exoskeleton.

In the darkness of the rooftops it was nearly invisible, but pulling her goggles down over her eyes that was immediately a non-issue. She had worked in the pitch black engine rooms of numerous vehicles, of course she had tools for that!

With an unnatural jitter the creature climbed back to its feet, neck clicking as it turned its head. Cracks of angry crimson spread around a crater of smouldering magma where her fist had struck true. On the same side the burning glow of its eye flickered. Crimson sparked into a deep purple as it glared back.

“You are lucky.”

Pure loathing gleamed within its gaze and yet the whisper was disconcertingly gentle before it quickly scurried off the side of the roof, vanishing out of sight.

Myra’s heart was racing as she stood guard for what felt like an eon, waiting for it to suddenly return from the darkness and ambush them. But after a while it became clear that it had actually fled the scene for good. Immediately she slumped backwards, breathing out a heavy whine of relief. Real fighting was never something she liked to do. Especially not against something scary like that!

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Her eyes widened and she whirled around, kneeling down to get a look at Jak who had been slowly recovering at her side. The wolf cat winced as he pushed himself back up.

“Oh! Are you okay?!”

“Y-yeah… definitely better than before you got here…”

“Phew, that’s a relief.”

Myra sighed with a happy smile at his nod. Only to freeze a moment later and panic tinged her voice as she pointed at his torn up and bloody face.

“W-w-w-wait! You’re face’s completely drenched in blood! No way you’re okay!”

Jak blinked and realised that, yes, his face was still burning with five deep claw cuts framing it. Reflexively he felt the cut on his cheeks with a finger. Only to immediately regret it as he let out a strangled gasp at the burning pain piercing through his head. It was like needles were getting smashed directly into his brain. He hissed, punching his leg to power through the agony.

“Agh, f-freaking Abyss! That s-smarts!”

“Don’t touch it! That needs to be cleaned out and disinfected! And then immediately bandaged up!”

Myra’s eyes narrowed with chiding words, taking this extremely seriously. You could catch all sorts of dangerous illness and infections from dirty wounds! Her grandpa had hammered that into her stubborn head with extreme prejudice the moment she had started tinkering. Already she had pulled out a small flask and some clean paper towels which she always had at hand. The sharp smell of disinfectant alcohol filled the air.

“F-fine, fine…! Do it already!”

But Myra hadn’t even waited for Jak to finish grinding out his words and without hesitation pressed a soaked towel against his first cut.

“AAAAAAAGH!! THAT’S EVEN WORSE!!!”

Jak howled, struggling to get away from Myra who diligently continued to clean out his wounds with those accursed towels while completely ignoring his complains.

“No moving! You will only make it worse.”

She glared at him sternly, her hold an iron vice around his arm. A comical sob of regret escaped him as the agonising torture of her work continued for the next few minutes, though they felt like hours. He should have just let that Demon deal with him back then!

Finally Myra was all finished.

“… thanks.” Jak mumbled awkwardly, his face now fully bandaged. There was still a dull, pulling pain from his wounds but it was no longer the constant burning that he hadn’t even noticed until now. And now there was the familiar cool, healing tingle instead. Embarrassed he rubbed his neck and clarified.

“For both cleaning my wounds and rescuing me back there. My name’s Jak, by the way.”

“Hehe, I’m Myra. And no problem. What was that thing anyways?”

Myra smiled warmly back before furrowing her brow in question, a light shiver rolling down her back. Jak sighed and shook his head.

“I have no idea. Haggard called it a ‘mere wretch’ but I’ve no idea what that means and don’t like the implications. Didn’t seem Gaian. Or even any kind of Arc Summon.” It had felt far too alien for that even as he was unsure why he was so certain about this

Myra blinked, tilting her head confused to the side and question marks popped up around her head.

“Haggard? Arc Summon?”

“Haggard’s the bully of my old orphanage. He apparently deals with that thing’s mistress? But that’s about all I really know, not really all that helpful. And, you know, Arc stuff? How it’s super illegal to use Arc? Walk around with a Halo and you’ll be banished, no questions asked.”

Jak gave a helpless shrug as he ended while Myra’s eyes began to shine bright with curiosity.

“Wow, I never heard of that Arc stuff. What does it do that it’s so illegal?”

“Wha?! How do you not know about Arc? It’s like the first thing anyone gets taught before you even get to school!”

A look of disbelief crossed Jak’s face as he gaped at her question, making Myra pout.

“Excuse me for not being from around here.”

Huffing she crossed her arms and grumbled annoyed, eyes narrowed at him as she turned her head away.

Jak blinked. And then realisation began to set in as he went over their conversation again. His eyes widened in understanding. He hadn’t really given her strange accent much thought until then - when you were around the Main Back Markets or the Central Market you got used to strange sounding folk - but now it finally clicked. An awkward chuckle escaped him and he sheepishly rubbed his neck.

“Oh, wow. Sorry. Didn’t think a tourist would wander off and help me out. Didn’t think Arc was all that unknown, though? Where are you from?”

An earnest smile played over his lips but then he quickly shook his head and shuddered.

“Wait, no. Let’s go somewhere else first. I really don’t want to stay out in the open any longer than necessary anymore.”

“Sure! I have no idea about anything around here anyways. Lead the way.”

Myra perked up, somewhat mollified by his attitude change. She was still a bit miffed, though.

“… Let’s go to my home, then.” Jak decided after a moment of hesitation, there was no reason not to trust her after all of this. And he had a feeling she was better at this sneaking thing than Jenny.

“Great! Now, what’s that stuff about Arcs…?”

Eagerly Myra poked him with an impish grin from behind as he climbed down into the alleyways first.

“Ah, right… They are like your personal super power. And with how crazy those can get Ebenerz really doesn’t want to risk the coming… any tyrant from rising up again.”

Jak interrupted himself mid-climb as he wasn’t sure if she even knew who the Kerzen König was. Ignoring, or maybe just oblivious to his pause, Myra’s eyes still sparkled at his answer and she leaped down after him.

“Cool~!”

“So, where did you get those nifty gadgets from?”

Jak was quick to change the topic, asking out of genuine curiosity but mostly to stop her from poking him more about Arcs. Because he had absolutely no idea how you even awoke your Arc. Ebenerz was more about teaching the dangers of these powers than how to gain them, after all.

“Oh, I made them all myself.”

“Woah, seriously?!”

“Yeah! These ones I made after…!”

Cheerfully the bunny cat began to recount all about her various gadgets and how she had first built them as they wandered deeper and deeper into the Amber glow of the slums, more than happy to answer his questions. Their animated conversation echoed more and more muffled as they moved further and further away, vanishing within the winding alleyways.

The world began to pull upwards until the night clad and steam shadowed vent slums stretched out below in their entirety. A shattered plane of obsidian glowing with veins of burning Amber. Everything began to blur and then…

Rehn shot up with a gasp, her eyes wide and panting. Cold sweat drenched her body as she woke up in her room, warmly illuminated by the morning sun shining gently through the window. Already the memories of her dream started to distort, but still. She could clearly remember the horror that Vee’s date, and his tentative new friend, had faced. A soft mumble left her lips and she shuddered lightly.

“Brrr, what a nightmare…”

But even as Rehn tried to reassure herself, as she climbed out of bed to get ready for the school day, there was this niggling fear in the back of her head. The certain, unconscious knowledge that what she had just seen had not just been a mere bad dream. Firmly she pushed these thoughts out of her head and they were already completely out of mind by the time she was wandering through the beautiful hallways of the Dampf Tower’s upper floors to join breakfast.