"I just wanted to let you know about something. Can you… listen in that direction?" Shaula asks, pointing in a certain direction away from the square.

"Hm? Uh, ok." Ajax points his hearing towards the distance in that direction. He combs the square in that direction for anything of note that he can pick up from the square through his ears.

"I don't hear anything in the square there, besides the normal chatter…"

"Try past the square." Shaula tells him.

"Oh…" Ajax adjusts his range to capture sounds further away. He hears the thinner crowds at one of the four Maz square entrances. He extends further, and hears…

"What's… whoa, there's another rally?"

"Yeah, you can hear it, right? What they're shouting out too, right?"

Ajax tunes out some of the noise in that region. The useless noise like the wind, the sounds of shaking windows, of footsteps…

"They're shouting about… oh." Ajax can hear a group of people, human supremacists, screaming racist insults and slurs. They’re wandering around and disrupting the area.

"What's going on over there, Shaula? Who are they yelling at, exactly?"

"That's what I wanted to check out. But, I really don't want to leave the square in case the pigs try to make a move against the draconid man. I'll have to check it out quickly. While I'm gone, could you keep an eye on that draconid man and Angelidis while also… helping Prisca?"

Shaula smiles while putting her hands together in prayer.

Ajax considers for a moment. Then he remembers the direction that the blonde man and brunette woman had run towards.

Wasn’t it towards that specific exit of the square where I hear the screaming? That can't be just a coincidence, can it? Those two were trying to bring people away from the square… to there? What kind of horror are they attempting over there? Well, if it’s like what those two tried to do, I guess I should expect some lynchings at least… Can’t leave that alone then.

Ajax looks over at Prisca. She looks between him and Shaula, slightly worried, slightly curious about what he had mentioned earlier about his special healing factor.

“Prisca… you’ll keep that a secret, won’t you?”

“...What? M-Me?” Prisca was so zoned out in her own mind that she didn't even notice when Ajax had started speaking to her.

“Yeah, you know, that?” Shaula looks between them curiously, but doesn’t push for Ajax to tell her what’s up. Prisca tries to recall what Ajax’s words were and…

“Oh… Oh, yeah! Sure, I’ll keep it a secret. Who would I tell, anyways?” She smiles awkwardly. Ajax notices her look towards Shaula. He wonders if she’s already realized that Shaula is like him. Though, she has a certain reaction towards Shaula that she doesn’t have looking towards him.

She sees Shaula with… fear? Is that ‘terror fear’ or fear like the ‘fear of God’? Well, it’s not like I don’t understand.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Ajax shakes away his errant thoughts. He looks directly at Shaula.

“Shaula… would you mind leaving that area to me?” Shaula is surprised by him wishing to take charge. He’s more of an ideas guy while she handles most of the fighting. She wonders to herself why he seems so confident. She’s about to agree but notices something.

“Uh… what happened to your pants…” She asks, looking at the long tear in Ajax’s pant leg that Prisca had expanded while trying to heal him.

Ajax looks down. He examines the tear. It looks somewhat odd if he’s being honest, but… Well, it’s no weirder than distressed clothing. He has seen clothing in Tritol stores with similar designs.

“Don’t mind it.” He could walk around just fine regardless.

***

After Ajax helps Dzan and Sigvor protect Willia and her mother, Pieroly. Several minutes before sundown.

Ajax walks through the crowded areas around the apartment complex. He keeps an eye out for the people with the rings. He can’t see any of them within the crowds of human supremacists.

They could have just taken their rings off to blend in. Ajax scoffs.

He has one of those rings in his pockets, as he had taken it off of someone when he entered that melee earlier. Dzan had escaped with Pieroly because of his efforts. He smiles at the thought of that caring mother living her life with her child instead of going to prison for killing someone who spit on her child.

He takes out the ring. He examines it for any engravings. It doesn’t have anything, quite a blank piece of jewelry. He tries to get any traces from it, but he cannot. It seems to be made of a metal that doesn’t have any associated smell. Certain metals like gold don’t smell like anything. He wouldn’t be able to track the “ringed” people through their rings.

He can only smell bits of the person who owned this particular ring.

The first thing he had decided to do was look for that man with the jacket that had the feathered hood. He really popped out and when Ajax saw him in the crowd, he had snatched one of his rings. He recognized his face too.

Though, Ajax realized quickly that he had knocked him out in the heat of a one v. twenty (plus) battle. The man probably has a concussion right now, he’d be of no use for any reliable information. Ajax just hopes that he didn’t kill him. Though, he’s not going to pretend he’d be too sad if that was the outcome.

They really tried to lynch a mother and spit on a child and thought things would be just fine, didn’t they… A bunch of fucking psychopaths.

What was it about this day that attracted so much anger? He wonders to himself. All Shaula, Dzan, Sigvor and Angelidis had wanted was to see the festival of Gwasila. All they wanted was to walk around, eat some food, and see some interesting kitsch. But then these raving scumbags showed up to ruin everyone’s day.

Well, not everyone’s I guess. They’re having one hell of a time… He grimaces thinking about the human supremacists who trickled into the square as well as the ones out here doing their own separate hate rally.

Hm?

Ajax notices someone walking through a nearby crowd standing in front of an apartment building. It is the same building where Pieroly and Willia had come from.

They seem to be fixated on it after Pieroly and Willia escaped them… What a bunch of pathetic losers.

There are about a hundred and fifty people hollering racial epithets, and there’s a woman right in the middle of them. He recognizes her. It’s the woman who stabbed him in the thigh. He should honestly thank her for giving him two interesting weapons. If he’s lucky, he could sell the dagger or even give it to one of his friends for their protection.

Doesn’t Olah love knives? Or was it Meixi?

Ajax walks through the crowd towards the woman. People don’t recognize him, but do notice his unique clothing style, including his distressed pants. If he wasn’t so powerful, he might have felt bad about being the center of attention.

Meanwhile, he keeps a close watch on Karise’s head. He’s approaching her from a direction where she can’t see him. He reaches her and moves in front of her face. He notices that her expression is stoic. Her eyes are closed. She looks… different from earlier, Ajax notes to himself.

It’s as if she’s waiting for something important, something inevitable. He can see her lips trembling as well, cutting against the stoicism.

“Hi, can we talk?” He asks.