“You fucking scum… What, you don’t have any balls to pick on someone your own size, someone who can fucking fight back? Do you even get pussy or do you just jack each other off to pictures of beastkin dying?”
Shaula scoffs.
“My sincerest wish is that you dickless pieces of shit leave the festival and go kill each other as quickly as humanly possible, and–”
Shaula’s face twitches in surprise as she realizes finally what she has been saying just now. She wonders to herself why she said all that… Is this what she wanted to say to her two brothers for so long? Why did she say it in those terms? Is that what she wanted to tell them the last time she saw them when she was a preteen?
It feels to her as if remembering her brothers caused the floodgates of her disgust towards them open. These two guys felt the worst of it.
What the fuck was that? Shit, I forgot where I am…
Shaula remembers something crucial about this nation and this city on this alien world. This society is about as old fashioned as Earth’s 1920s when it comes to language and obscenity. Saying things like this to men, as a woman…
“...Huh? The fuck did you just say?” The shorter one asks. Both of their faces are surprisingly, just as cold as earlier. The corner of her lip twitches.
Her words didn’t cause even the slightest rise in them. The least they could do was change their expressions. Do they really see her as that inconsequential? She feels both embarrassed at her inability to filter her words and pissed off with these two racist pricks. What can she do except pretend she never said any of it.
“...I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Shaula turns her face away. She doesn’t like meeting that stare of theirs.
“No, no, I’m pretty sure I heard something important there, didn’t you, Absal?” The shorter one asks.
“I did hear it, Abel. I did hear it right. No balls? You asked us when was the last time we bedded a woman?” Shaula looks at them with a grimace. Then all of a sudden…
Thwap!
Absal gives Shaula a slap with the back of his hand. She had seen it coming. She could have dodged it. However…
“Shit, what the fuck?” Absal holds his right hand in pain. Abel looks at it, and notices reddening skin. Shaula tries hard not to smile.
“Oh? What happened there?” The moment Absal’s hand had touched her face, she had expelled some heat from her right cheek. Absal looks at her with slight fear this time. That face of his does make her feel slightly better.
“Are you alright? Absal?”
“Ah, y-yeah. I’m fine.” Abel looks at his hand as well. He can see its redness clearly as well. It feels like far too much to come from a backhand slap. He doesn’t know exactly what to say. He is curious now who this woman is. His expression drops to a frown. Shaula enjoys that face of his as well.
“Now, what were you saying about that old man and his–”
“Hey!”
Angelidis calls to Shaula with a shout. What does she want? Shaula notices someone walking over to the three of them. He’s not here just yet. Shaula notices him looking over at Angelidis who had just yelled over here. He disregards the draconid for now.
“What’s going on here?” The two men turn to their right to see that the city guard still watching this area has appeared.
Fuck… Do I really have to deal with this prick now too?
Shaula grits her teeth for a moment. She tries to wear a bright smile however, and offers her own story of this situation.
“I was j-just telling these two that they didn’t need to–”
“Sir, this woman burned my hand!” Absal interrupts Shaula and shows the guard his hand.
“Wait! I-I didn’t do anything! H-He hit me in the face a-and hurt his hand!” Shaula tries to say. She casually reaches into a pocket for something to deliver to the guard. A little piece of lint or some dirt or sand… Something to make the guard lose focus.
She should have left before he made his way here. She should have expected that these two would snitch on her. They’re those kinds of people, just like her foster brothers were. They were always tattling to her parents, even about things they did.
Shaula decides not to think about them anymore, it didn’t do her any good so far. If she can just find something in her pocket while the guard is looking over this guy’s hand, she can put it in his eye and get away.
However, she can find nothing. Maybe she should learn to keep some pocket sand for important moments like this.
Like that guy on TV…
However, it looks like she won’t be able to hit his eyes properly. The guard is moving his head a bit too much for her to get a lock on his eyes. Her power doesn’t allow her to move objects to other objects. She can only move an object from one point in space to another point. His head has to be still for her to target his eyes properly.
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Why is he so mobile unlike the other guards? Shit, why did I stand here like a dumbass instead of walking away the moment I saw him coming over…
She scraps her idea to distract him. She looks over at Angelidis. She’s sitting and looking over at Shaula, unsure about whether she is needed for this. Shaula waves her hand towards Angelidis, signaling at her to head to the square. Angelidis seems to understand her hand signs and moves up the road.
If she were to stay, there is a chance that the guard will call her over here. He definitely heard her shout to Shaula so he must know that Angelidis is friends with Shaula. Best to have her out of harm’s way.
The guard finishes examining Absal’s hand. He looks over to Shaula, displeased. She tries to think of a way to get out of this situation. She understands that if she tries to escape, the guard might still look for her. She is still planning to head to the square, so she’d rather not be arrested on sight.
But, it’s probably too late to think in those terms. If she needs to, she can get by in the crowds to remain out of the guard’s vantage. She can always wear a mask as well, or if need be, run home and change her clothes and head wrap.
“What kind of magic did you use?” The guard asks.
“Pardon?” Shaula tries to affect a confused expression.
“I saw him hit you and then clutch his hand. How were you able to burn it?”
“...Wait, s-so, you should be able to tell, right? He was the one who started it!”
“I can’t say for sure… Did you say anything to provoke him?” The guard asks.
“Does that matter–”
“Yes, she did! She insulted us both, telling us we had no balls and then said we couldn’t attract women. She even told us to kill ourselves!” Absal claims, with simmering anger in his voice.
The guard laughs. Abel and Absal lower their heads in embarrassment.
“Do you think you’re allowed to speak to men like that?” The guard asks, sneering at Shaula.
Shaula wonders what her options are. Should she cry? Would that let her off with just a warning? The way the guard is looking at her makes her think that she would need to cry real tears at least to be taken seriously.
Would she be arrested? The cop looks at her. He is examining her body quite closely. She doesn’t like his gaze. She recognizes it.
“Do you have any weapons on you?” He asks, feigning concern.
“What?”
“Any magical tools that could have burned him without you needing to chant anything. You don’t expect me to believe that you’re capable of chantless casting, do you?” The guard smiles.
“I don’t have any.” Shaula says, still pretending to be frightened. If she were to show her true cold expression, the cop would not treat her better. However, his current perverse gaze doesn't seem good either.
“I’m afraid your words aren’t good enough. I’ll need to search you.” He starts taking off his gauntlets, as well as the gloves underneath them.
“You don’t need to do that, do you? Where could I hide it?”
“Well, I’d very much like to find out.” The guard says with a bright smile.
“Oh, I see, well then, I’ll–”
Nope.
Shaula interrupts her own words and dashes away. She’s fast enough that the guard who expected her to run couldn’t grab her with his hands. He runs after her while holding his gauntlets and gloves in his right arm under his shoulder. She runs just fast enough to not cause him to question her abilities.
She runs up the sidewalk and takes a left turn into the side street between two apartment buildings.
The guard runs after her, unperturbed. It’s good she ran. He can arrest her without worry now even if she has no magic tools or illegal weapons. When the both of them reach the guard’s station, he can have some fun in private with her. However, as soon as he enters the alleyway…
“...Huh?”
He cannot see any trace of her. Absal and Abel follow after him, and are quite surprised themselves.
“Where…” Abel surveys the street. There are doors along the sides of the two buildings on each side of the street.
“Where is she? Did she go into one of these buildings?” Absal asks in confusion.
“Fuck. That’s annoying, I was hoping to have some fun…” The guard says under his breath. Shaula can hear his words. She was not going to stick around to be groped by that shithead. It would have been difficult not to kill him right then and there. She wouldn’t want this demihuman community to suffer after she kills a cop and gets away.
The entire force would be combing the city for her, wouldn’t they?
Shaula is not inside either of the two buildings. All she did was jump up towards a balcony on the third floor of the building to her left. She had thought about walking up along the side of the apartment building’s walls, but she would have left obvious footprints.
I wonder if I can learn how to fly using my heat powers? Like how a hot air balloon does? I should look into that…
She waits there on the balcony for a few minutes, while the guard and the two fools keep searching the street. The balcony window is covered with indoor curtains, so nobody living here can tell she’s on their balcony all of a sudden.
Eventually they get tired of searching and leave the side street.
Shaula hops off the balcony and sprints towards Maz square. She takes the long way by using the sidestreet to reach one of the other three roads rather than the one she was at earlier. It was possible that the guard would be watching the entrance for her specifically.
That might actually be better than him accompanying the other marchers towards the effigy where she would be.
She enters the square quietly and soon meets back up with Ajax, Angelidis, Dzan and Sigvor. They’re within the crowd among the counter protesters near the effigy. There are hundreds of counter protesters here. Over a hundred marchers gathered near Gwasila, their whole group. A lot of guards also accompany them.
“Are you alright, Shaula?” Angelidis asks, concerned about having left her friend behind with a city guard.
“Yeah, how’d you get away?” Ajax asked. He had heard about the guard from Angelidis. Angelidis is surprised that he’s merely curious rather than worried about Shaula’s health and safety. She has to wonder about the implications of that. Why is he never worried about Shaula’s safety?
“I had to do some running.”
“You had to run from them?” Ajax asks her, surprised.
“Yeah, that fucker was so annoying. By the way, unless I’m in the crowd, I’ll be masked up.” Shaula says. “What’s happening right now?”
Angelidis, Dzan and Sigvor grimace. They had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but it was inevitable the moment the marchers appeared at the festival. Angelidis opens her mouth.
“They’re going to tear down Gwasila.”