-- Aster --

My muscles kept licking up as the net periodically pulsed electricity and renewed the paralysis. At first, I thought that they were going to use this chance to turn me into meat paste. But after a minute or two of just being electrocuted, I started to wonder if they were trying to catch me alive.

Do they get a better reward if I'm still alive? I shivered at the thought. If that was the case I don't like what that implied. Would explain why all the guards had so many nets. I had run through and destroyed a lot of them.

Despite not really being able to control my body I could still look up and see who had caught me. I was surprised to find it was the big guard who had launched me away with his club earlier, and right on his hand was the tag just floating there. I didn't like his sinister smile. It did not bode well.

I would have tried to fight back against the electricity, but when I went to circulate power to fight it off, I found nothing. I knew I was low I guess I didn't realize I had used it all or was this the backlash from using the salve as I did. That wasn't my real problem. The real problem was that in a few moments I would be pulled up by the officer and they would do, who knows what, to me. With perfect dramatic timing, the net began to be pulled up.

Flailing around the net every time there was a lull between shocks I fought desperately. I wasn't going to stop just because I was caught. I didn't need to think past just getting free right now.

Another tug and my mind began to race with horrible images of being tortured or paraded around the city, showing off their prize. A shadow who dared to challenge a city and lost. The people took off my mask and revealed who I was.

My mind sped to my friends. What would they do when they found out I was a shadow? Would they care? Would they be disgusted? I just didn't know. Some people seemed to have an irrational hatred of my guild and others didn't appear to care either way. Just see it as another class. I was terrified to find out where my team stood. I always took care not to mention them at all.

Tug.

The next tug shook me out of my fears as I looked up to see other guards crowding over the edge to get a better look. It appeared the man with the club was bragging about how he caught me and pushing the other guards away. I was still too far away to hear him but it looked like he was declaring me his catch. I would have laughed if I wasn't the fish on the line.

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That's when I noticed the tag on his hand. Just a simple little arrow floating right above his hand, floating around with every movement. My eyes were locked onto it as something tickled the back of my mind. That feeling grew with every tug of the line, when I was close to the top I could finally make out the voices.

"Gotcha no you little shit." The man grunted as he pulled the rope, "This will teach you to come up in our house and challenge us!"

It looked like the guard really took my attack outside their guardhouse personally. I focused back on that idea that I was just on the cusp of when I finally remembered. I know how to absorb external energy. How could I forget I could do that? I nearly died gaining that knowledge.

I began to open myself up readying my body for the next jolt except for this time I would take it for myself. The next jolt came and instead of trying to resist I opened myself up letting the power soak into the cells of my body. I could feel my reserves filling rapidly. I would have laughed but that would have given it away. I let the jolts keep powering me up all the way to the top.

The man pulled me over the wall, and I hit the stone ground, "Now let's see what we have."

I did laugh then, all the guards froze at my laugh as they noticed the knife in my hand as I split the net.

The pieces of the net were still falling around me when the guard was already bringing down his club. How could he possibly move that massive thing so fast, I wondered, as I jumped over the man's swing. I prepared myself to run the second my foot touched the ground, but before I could even find solid ground I found a rapier pierce my side.

I guess they're still helping each other.

The guard must have been close as he ran me through all the way up to the hilt. There was no way I would be able to get away with the sword inside me. No, it was the man holding it that would stop me. My foot hit the ground, "FASTER" my renewed power flowed out into the word as I brought down my dagger severing the man's hand, as I jumped away, back into the city.

I had failed to remember that even on the inside of the city I was still twenty stories up. During the fall I pulled the sword from my side throwing it and the hand attached to it back the way I came from.

I looked out over the city not seeing any tall building anywhere near me. Why couldn't one of the skyscrapers be right next to me I whined in my head. The solution to my fall suddenly became obvious, I knew exactly how I was going to land, without resorting to falling away again. Even with some of my power restored I didn't think I had enough to do it again. I was getting close to the ground when I focused on a safe landing when I spoke, "FALLING Safely" suddenly it was like a ten-foot bubble of air appeared below me cushioning my fall. I hit the bubble and rolled to remove the remaining momentum. I couldn't help but laugh as I ran through the city, having just escaped.