She doesn't know how their roles got reversed.

Just moments ago, she was hot on their trails, the bunch of generic looking thugs scampering through the moon washed forest like frightened rodents, snapping branches in all directions and startling resting birds off trees. Now they've managed to loop behind her, two, from the trampling footsteps. Another three more closing in on her left, so she makes a right. Her heavy axe dragging across the forest floor is making her off balanced. She still needs an arm to swipe at branches that strikes her face like vipers, but she's too busy pressing her phone into her ear. The drone of Killian's monotonous voice through it isn't helping either. She barely hears the arrow whishing in at nine o'clock, barely dodges it in time to reaffirm into the speaker,

"Which one's the target again?" as she chases the feathered tip to watch it anchor into a bark before a spark ignites, crackling into the surface like webs. Sizzling for a bit, exploding the tree into pieces. The shockwave blasts her into the readied blade of a pursuer. But she's managed to turn around and catch his attacks, and once again, miss Killian's reply. So, she repeats to him

"Is it this one?" whilst sparing the thug a glance and pressing her axe down,

"The ugly one with a sword." she should've taken a wanted poster pasted all over town. Through the receiver, a faint female voice resounds in the background of Killian's banter,

"I can't see what you're seeing, it's the-"

Killian's womanizing again, she thinks, before her phone is knocked out of her hand by a bat of the thug's reinforcement. The sound of glass shattering tells her he's completely broken it. She can't do a double take, weaving through the flurry of assault as she is, instead, she studies her attackers as she retreats with dodges.

Their motions aren't very fluid, too many movements wasted on dramatic swings make it easy for her to slip through the gaps of their attacks. The other three has caught up now. Surrounding her with her back pressed against a tree.

The leader, she supposes, steps forward. Smiting the bat in his palm, he taunts,

"What the heck, it's just a little brat. For a moment, I thought it was one of Felmane's bounty hunters." and winds his weapon over his shoulders. Vines behind her, begin climbing past her upper arms to wrap her torso.

There're Magia users amongst them. One's the archer on a tall branch behind them. The glint of his drawn arrow gives him away, the other's the plant manipulator that's just caught up on the leader's left.

The sword minion on his right hurries,

"Quickly boss. The boat is departing by daylight. We have to get the product onboard."

Product. She asks immediately,

"Which one of you have the-" but the leader interrupts her with a coo,

"Chill out." lowering his weapon to address his minion with a tilt over the shoulders,

"We have plenty of time..." then he steps forward, gripping her chin and yanks her head up to examine her beneath his baseball cap,

"The ship departs at dawn. This kid's quite the looker, I'd reckon she'll sell to the Southerland guilds." completely ignoring her question. The unsettling note in his voice tells her, he's deriding her. His third minion points out,

"Boss, she looks... ten-"

That's rude. She's fourteen.

"Besides, there's something off about her, the way she's running around with that giant axe as if it's weightless. I reckon she's a Magia user."

She tries again, staring the leader hard in the eyes with more affirmation,

"Which one of you have the product?" maybe they didn't hear her the first time.

At that, he bellows, throwing his head back and finally acknowledging her,

"Little missy, do you not realize your own predicament?" before releasing his grip to instead, run his grubby fingers through her hair, pulling the spiraling dark locks forward, beneath his lips.

She puffs a cheek at him, oblivious,

"You'll make my life easier if you just told me who has the product!"

Killian's made her promise to avoid collateral damage. If she returns with the wrong target, he's going to cut her rewards again. But her patience is running thin with the way he's breathing onto her. Unnerving her to instinctively tighten her grip on her weapon, and when he leans in to brush against her lips.

She decides she's had enough. She doesn't like this.

Killian's warned her about middle age men like these. Child predators, he called them, and she shouldn't associate. They don't deserve her patience.

Craning her neck, she musters all her strength and bashes her forehead against him. Attempting to throw him back, but she hadn't anticipated for it to, instead, pop like a balloon. Splattering brain matter over her cheeks.

Just as the body falls on its knees, she lowers her posture, gathering Vita onto her shins to leap upwards. Kicking the dirt violently to launch herself through the vines and heads of the remaining stupefied minions in her axe's trajectory. Leaving blood gushing like crow's wings behind her. She's aiming for the tall branch. The archer had just released his exploding arrow. His panicked aim misses her by a graze on the shoulder. It goes off behind her to the corpses of his four headless comrades. She winds her weapon up. Swinging for his neck and is short by a hair as he retracts like a startled turtle. Tumbling to the ground beneath her as she finally lands on the branch.

She takes a moment to wipe the gore off her face with her black hoodie sleeve. It's feels as though someone's shoved her face in a raspberry pie. Only it doesn't smell as pleasant. Then she lowers her gaze when she hears the archer mutter,

"What the fuck..." with a wide-eye gaze like he's caught red handed stealing candies from a jar. He repeats it louder the second time,

"What the fuck!" flickering between her and the burning bodies that's beginning to reek of charr. He didn't need to reiterate; she's heard him the first time. She asks again,

"Are you the one with the produc-" and couldn't finish her sentence before he's sprinting for his life through the bushes.

How rude.

She pursues, leaping after him branch after branch, swatting leaves from her face and attempts to persuade with her best whining voice,

"Please tell me you didn't just burn it!" but he's just tilting over his shoulders to draw his bow against her again.

He's so stubborn, shouldn't he already know it wouldn't work? She's seen how his Magia work. It needs to lodge before it explodes, so she tilts on a side, letting the arrow whisp past her ear. She's preparing to hear the bang go off again behind her, but instead, she's caught in her tracks by a furling net. Causing her to crash through the branches unceremoniously on her way down.

Maybe her analysis isn't all that accurate. Looks like he has utility-based arrows too. Just as she sits up to untangle herself, the archer stops with a smirk,

"Goodbye, pesky little girly." it's more terrified than confident. The corner of his lips is trembling as he releases another arrow right for her head,

"Now die!"

Focusing her Vita on the flat of her double headed axe, she furls herself behind it. The arrow lands with a clink. She braces the blast of the explosion. Fire, cascading off her sides to burn the net. Bursting her surroundings into flames, so deafeningly, it rings in her ears like church bells. When the sound finally settles, she climbs on her feet, petting her white plaid skirt of the dirt before she curiously studies him again with a tilt of her head.

He's stumbling backwards, arming himself defensively with the bow before his chest as though it'll shield him from her. She takes a step forward. It startles him. Clumsily, he reaches into the pockets of his trousers and pulls out a purple glowing syringe,

"Stay back!" he orders, outstretching his arm to line the needle to the insides of his elbow. That's the product she's looking for, the Crystalline. She's tries to warn him,

"You shouldn't! It's going to kill you." just as he injects it. Emptying the tube completely into his bloodstream.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Immediately, his veins glow red, mapping up his arm to his neck, his face, until it finally turns his eyes in the same shade of purple-pink glow, and suddenly, he's gone from her sight. Vanishing so quickly, she imagines, she still sees an after image.

A whisp goes off on a branch above her left, she manages to barricade herself with her axe. Another arrow lands, the explosion, much stronger this time flings her backwards. Slamming her spine first, violently through a line of trees. Snapping them in half with the force of her trajectory like toothpicks before she finally comes to a halt. A good fifty meters away.

She doesn't have time to orient herself when two more arrows follow in her tracks at sonic speed. She tumbles out of the way, letting the force of the blast throw her forward this time. Midair, she readies her axe towards the frenzied archer, perched on a branch, drawing three more arrows at her. The red glow has made it to the opposite side of his body now. Crawling downwards to his legs. She'll need to be fast if she wishes to retrieve at least his head intact.

He releases the arrows. She braces them with her axe, the explosion pushes her to the ground. She lands on her feet, gathering Vita in her shins, she leaps through the ball of fire cloud. Shielding her eyes with a forearm as she does, until she bursts through it. With the other hand, she winds her axe, ready to swing. He's gone. Snapping her head over her shoulders, she realizes.

She's fucked up.

He's repositioned himself on the opposite branch. His arrows drawn near point blank,

"Die, pesky girl!" his war cry resounds harrowingly. It echoes, even though all the crackling of fire consuming the forest. There isn't enough time for her to reposition. No surface to deflect her in the air. But just as he's about to release them. The red glow becomes violent, seeping from him as though the morning sun through gaps of curtains. Screaming as he is, the light is relentless. Bursting through his orifices, looking for escape. Then it takes him, consumes him entirely, in a deafening wet pop like an overfilled water balloon just as she lands herself on a branch of a burning tree. The raining blood isn't enough to extinguish the fire, instead, it just drenches her in more gore and chunks of flesh.

She's failed her task. Brilliant.

Leaping down to the soil, she sulks as she, defeatedly, makes her way out of the forest. Leaving empty handed but a trail of destruction behind. He should've known what Crystalline does. Did he truly think he had enough Vita to contain the dose of concentrated Magia directly in his blood? Killian's taught her; Vita is the glass and Magia is the orange juice. When there's too much orange juice in a cup, it overflows.

It's rudimentary. Adults are so dumb.

She's still begrudging when she swats the final vine out of her face to get back onto the main path that leads back to Gildamore. The journey out of the forest took her half an hour, running. Longer than it would have, had she actually succeeded.

She gives one last glance towards the harbor. It's late, and the fire would take some time to spread far and wide enough to light the skies vermillion so the local townsmen will find it tomorrow.

Down the line of short stone houses, she squints in the distance of the giant clock tower. It's hard to see the metal hands with all the smoke still rising from chimneys, disappearing shortly before it reaches the height of the lion emblemed blimps floating above. But the lack of travelers and closed shops are enough to hint it should be past midnight. Winter is approaching, so most of the normal folks are probably coddled up in their beds before the fireplace at this timing. Either that or wasting away in pubs and brothels.

Then, she straightens her gaze to not walk into a lamp post as she turns the corner beneath the connecting bridge of two town houses.

The Felmane guild who runs these territories has a taste for steampunk architecture. But the previous owners, the Hollow Bow preferred a more Victorian look. So, Felmane's been slowly replacing the brick pillars with copper and installing florescent lights on every building. It's not like the Hollow Bow could complain. The entire guild disappeared off the map since the last guild wars. At least the pointy roofs got to stay. In her opinion, it just makes Gildamore look like a defective child of a vampire and a watchmaker.

She stops beneath the neon orange sign of Killian's tavern. The bulbs making the letters 'kill' stopped working. So now the wooden board just says, Ian's tavern. Judging from the chatters behind the doors, she reckons it's packed so she loops around the back. It always is during a weekend. Killian said it's bad manners to use the front entrance when she's filthy. She'll upset the customers, but she truly doesn't think they'll mind as one of them is passed out beside the dumpster.

Pushing the door open, she steps into the dimly lit kitchen and places her axe by the counter. Beside the creaking dishwasher that's overworked to heavens. In the sink, there're mountains of dirty glasses and plates that Killian would probably make her do when morning comes. He'll be at the bar at this hour, so she prepares to make her way upstairs to take a shower.

Just as she's about to ascend the steps, a young woman descends in her path. She's drying her hair with a towel over her head. The wavy blonde hair, blue eyes and yellow sundress tells her it's miss Saturday. The florist across the street. There's also miss Friday, Thursday, Wesnesday, Tuesday and Monday.

Miss Saturday startles at the sight of her, slapping a hand over her chest to suppress a gasp and panning the other one flat on the wall to stabilize herself from falling. Then she gives a sigh of relief when she realizes,

"Good gracious, Lilith. You almost gave me a heart attack." before she hollers at the opened door separating the kitchen and the bar,

"Killian, your daughter's home." at that, she tilts over her shoulders, just in time to see Killian peek his head through the frame with a deadpanned retort,

"For the last time, I told you, she's just a stray I picked up six years ago." before stepping through it to sit himself at the dining table and lights a cigarette. She often wonders what do the women see in him. His lank black hair, even though tied into a low pony tail to fall over his shoulders, still appears greasy. There are bags, dark as make up beneath his brown eyes. And his jagged teeth, sharp as a shark's, looks like a dentistry gone wrong. At a glance, she'd have confused him with a Mythical.

She supposes, the bartender vest, cute little bow, and white inner shirt are the only saving grace to deceive the women's eyes. And when Lilith asked miss Monday about Killian in the past, she went all starry eyed and whimsical about how he's young, handsome and powerful that Lilith had to hold back her laugh and fight the temptation to tell her, she should've seen how he looks in the mornings. Yawning with a bird's nest on his head and a hand down his pants to itch where the sun doesn't shine. Maybe that's why he never invites any of the girls to stay overnight.

Killian's just as unenthusiastic when he leans on a hand and asks,

"Since you're not jumping up and down all over the place like you usually do, I'm guessing, you failed the task this time?"

She puffs her cheeks at his remark and folds her arms,

"They were dumbasses. That last archer guy injected the Crystalline into himself and blew up." then she adds to deflect the conversation before he's able to tease her about it,

"But, but! I did the thing you taught me. Channeling Vita to my legs, I went like-" she raises both arms for dramatic effect,

"Boom! Whoosh! Through the air. And they were all like," she imitates, "what the fuck. What the fuckkkkk!" and finally gets to her point,

"You don't need to pay me this time. Just let me join your guild." clasping her hands together with her best pleading voice, "please, please, please, please!"

At her remark, miss Saturday laughs, weaving past her to make her way to the sink to pour herself a glass of water,

"Sounds like she may have more talent than you, Killian. Didn't you only taught her how to use Magia a month ago?" and Lilith instantly chimes in,

"Yeah! Killian is mad stingy. He's been making me do all the chores, sending me on timed errands around town and made me chop logs for a good few years." and stretches her arms to emphasize,

"Logs I tell you. They were this big. We don't even need that many logs." in fact, they still have left overs piled in the basement.

Killian sighs, flicking ashes into a tray,

"For one, Maverick's guild leader has exiled me indefinitely, so I can't help you with that. And two, you don't even have an adventurer's ring to join a guild." he lifts his right hand to show her the ox horn engraved selenite ring to make a point before he dismisses towards miss Saturday,

"And three, she's not that great. You didn't see the number of times she's failed and face planted in the dirt."

The ox horn is Maverick's guild banner, but Killian's been using it to get bounties for her, despite it's against the laws.

It's unfair adventurers get to have all the cool things. So, she asks,

"Then how do I get one? The adventurer's ring." that's when miss Saturday hums,

"Come to think of it. Isn't the entrance exam commencing right now?" and Killian immediately scoffs,

"Hah." he comments noncommittedly,

"At her skill level, I doubt she even has enough knowledge about Vita to survive the first test. Besides, they only let a few people pass every year."

Miss Saturday giggles,

"Oh my, Killian. I didn't know you had such a fatherly side to you. It almost sounds to me, you're worried." leaning onto the wash sink, she adds,

"Didn't you pass the test when you were her age? The only adventurer in Gildamore. You were the pride of our town!" and Lilith sees the chance to taunt,

"What are you afraid of, old man? That I'll overshadow you?"

At that, Killian flicks his cigarette butt at her. She tilts her head out of its trajectory, letting it anchor into the wall behind her. Protruding midpoint in like a nail, smoking from the circular hole it's made. It agitates her enough to stick her tongue out at him,

"Stingy. Stingy old man with greasy hair and bad morning breath." to which, Killian gets up and approaches her to drill his knuckles into the sides of her temples. He's deadpanning as he reprimands,

"Who are you calling old, you shitty brat, I'm only thirty. Don't forget who feeds you around here."

She hates it when he does this. One of these days, he's going to make a hole in her skull the same way he's made holes in the wall. It hurts, so she struggles against his grip and protests with a fist to his forearm,

"Stingy! Stingy! Stingy!" but he's not relenting, instead, he's applying more force until she finally yields,

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry." to make him stop. He waves her away, clicking his tongue at her,

"Go take a shower and go to bed. You stink of blood." and approaches the basin beside a giggling miss Saturday to wash his hands. Lilith tries for a final time with her best puppy eyes,

"So, you won't let me take the test?" but he isn't looking when he makes for the bar counter,

"Not this year, Lilith." there's a more authoritative note when he concludes,

"My decision's final." and doesn't give her time to rebut by closing the door behind him.

She's still mid sulk, holding her head and cursing at him internally when miss Saturday approaches her after Killian's gone. Lilith raises her a curious brow as miss Saturday bends down, whispering in a quiet smile,

"How about I drive you there?" it captures her attention to immediately snap,

"Really?" she asks a little too enthusiastically, completely forgetting that her temples still hurt,

"Wait, you mean, you'll take me to the entra-" only to see miss Saturday putting a finger to her lips as an indication that she should lower her voice, so Lilith adds in a softer murmur,

"entrance exam?"

She smiles,

"Yeah. I'll pick you up tomorrow, five in the morning, before Killian wakes up. You can't let him know you're gone."

Lilith whispers,

"Oh easy! It's Sunday tomorrow, Killian wouldn't be up until noon! You're awesome, miss Saturday!" before Lilith slaps her hands over her lips. She isn't supposed to call her that. But miss Saturday merely giggles again, straightening herself to head for the exit,

"Rosemary." she says, waving her goodbye,

"My name is Rosemary." as Lilith excitedly returns the gesture,

"You're awesome, miss Rosemary!"

Once Rosemary departed, Lilith bolts upstairs, into the bathroom and shrugs her sullied clothes off. Kicking them in a pile beside Killian's at the hamper. She wants to get in bed soon as possible, because she knows she'll be too excited to fall asleep.