"After them!" the mob shouted from far behind. "The elf is using some sort of teleportation magic!"

"They could be anywhere!" Another pined.

A more experienced woman piped up, "These kind of magic takes a lot of energy. She can't be far."

Andreas walked out of the church, nursing a headache. "Get the authorities. They must be hiding in an alley nearby."

The mob wasn't far off on their deductions. Adelle and Luce were hiding close, but not in an alleyway. They stood on a roof directly opposite the church, behind a giant neon sign that read "APOTHECARY", the light from the signage blinding those that looked up and hiding them in the shadow it casted on itself.

As the adrenaline of the fight subsided, Adelle found frustration. By the time the mob had spread far enough in search of them in other places, that frustration boiled into anger. She was always the one being warned for being hasty. Don't be rash. Have a plan. Think things through. But when someone else does madness, it's fine, apparently. She turned to Luce who stood behind the neon sign, the roller golem hugged in her arms.

"What were you thinking!" Adelle seethed at her, careful not to have her voice be too loud. "You could have gotten us caught!"

"I couldn't very well let it die!" Luce snapped back, gesturing to the golem.

"You're the pacifist! You're the one who kept saying we're not heroes. We can't go around saving everyone we see!"

"You're one to talk! You saved everyone back at Harvestfall!"

"I killed them!"

"You freed them."

"How did you come up with that?" Adelle spiked sarcastically.

"They got to choose."

"I chose for them!"

They fell silent. The roller golem's eye shifted between Adelle and Luce. Adelle took a deep breath and looked back out over the parapet at the streets. The mob had mostly dispersed though a few law enforcements dressed in uniforms of white and silver started arriving outside the church.

"Come on," Adelle said. "Let's go before more comes."

Adelle took off her scarf and threw it over the golem. After finding an empty alleyway far down the street, she took Luce's hand and teleported them there.

The streets were now bustling, but most of the attention was drawn to the growing scene at the church. They took the commotion to slip away in a crowd. Carting with the flow of pedestrians, they meandered their way through the city till they reached a spot they were familiar with as close as possible to where they had stopped their elecyle.

But the elevator down to the parking lot had been staffed with two officers checking identification at the door. Slipping into a dark alley opposite, the two leaned against the wall in an angle that allowed them to watch the proceedings.

"What now?" Adelle asked spitefully, deferring to her local companion while making it clear that she was still mad at her.

"They won't stand guard for long," Luce replied. "Let's just wait it out. Citidale is a closed city. They won't expect anyone to actually try to make an escape into the Taint storm.

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Adelle nodded. She hug as close to the darkness as possible. Somehow, when she left her forest to join up with Luce and the Titan Rangers, she had not thought that she would be going to back to the shadier part of life, literally. The Titan Rangers were supposed to be non-combative, only out to preserve the lives of Titans. But it seemed her life had gotten a thousand times more dangerous since joining.

"I'm not a pacifist," Luce murmured.

"What?" Adelle had heard her. But the statement carried such an unbelievable message that she just had to make sure.

"I'm not a pacifist," Luce confirmed. "You said I was one earlier, but I'm not. I don't know why everyone says that."

"You don't kill people," Adelle stated matter-of-factly. "You hate it."

"Sure, I hate it, but I'm not against killing. I'm against... it's hard to explain." She stroke the roller golem in her arms as if trying to calm a pet.

Adelle noted, "We have time."

They stayed quiet for a moment. Not long ago, the uncomfortable silence between people at awkward relation stages would have killed her, or caused her to kill someone else. Now, she just let the discomfort sink into her bones and grind her teeth maddeningly.

Then, Luce spoke. "I'll hunt for food. I'll breed kows for slaughter. I'll commit murder to defend my loves. Those things are just part and parcel of survival and life. But you do it knowing what you're doing. You choose, and to a certain extent, so do those you kill, like those at Harvestfall. You choose to live, and accept all the things that comes with that, even if you die not wanting it. But the Titans don't get that choice. They're alive, but they don't know it yet. They're just confused creatures hiding behind their shells, killing everything that comes because that's what someone else told them they should do." Luce looked to Adelle as in implication. "It's like teaching babies to becomes murderers, to grow up know nothing but to fight. That's why I save them. They need to know that they are not meant just for what they are told. Andreas is wrong. We didn't create destruction. The Titans are just life. No one is born a tool of death. We made them that way. Someone else chose for them. Who in their right mind would want to live as a weapon without reason? Everyone should be given a chance to see the errors of their ways." She turned to Adelle and the elf wondered how could eyes that did not see sky for most of their lives be that blue. "Everyone. Then, if you still want to fight and die, we do. Though I'll still try not to. You should get the choice to change, even then. But your choices ends when mine begin."

"I'm... not sure I understood that." Adelle trembled her head. "I don't understand you."

"Yeah. I know."

The officers standing at the elevator reached out to their radio and listened as a new report came in. They then nodded to each other and walked away from their station, heading out further into the city centre. It was their chance. The two women took a moment when foot traffic was high and hid in the crowd as they crossed the streets to the elevator.

As the metal box lowered into the ground, Adelle waited with bated breath for when the doors reopened. She was expecting resistance on the other side and in her mind she quickly devised a quick line of attack. As she could not see above the doorway, she could not get a drop from above. She would instead teleport to the side and disarm her enemy. If they had weapons, she would use those to fight.

The doors opened.

No one stood in their way.

Adelle was both relief and disappointed. The adrenaline of the chase had been pumping through her with nowhere to go. She also wanted to get her mind off Luce. But with no battle to fight, she just clicked her tongue and snatched her scarf away from the golem.

"Come on," Luce said, cutting past Adelle out of the elevator.

They reached their elecycle and Luce passed her the golem. The little ball was dropped into Adelles arms and she let out an unwitting oomph. The thing weight as much as a large ball of dirt does, a tonne.

Adelle muttered to herself, "You're like a giant marble."

"Marble," Luce claimed as she climbed onto the elecyle. "That's a good name."

"We're not naming it now," Adelle got on behind her, Marble in hand.

"Well, I already did."

Scarves up, Luce turned the throttle and the elecycle rolled out of its lot and they exited the parking area onto the highway. Following the same road they came in from in reverse, they exited off the main route onto the offramp.

They passed a patrolling guard who yelled out, "Hey!"

Of course, Luce did not slow down, let alone stop. The tires screeched as she took the long curve ramp at speed. Behind them, Adelle heard a click. A second later, the concrete wall next to them splintered as a bullet slammed into it.

Without even blinking, they raced on. By the time they had reached the gate, a squad of four soldiers were armed at them with rifles. A megaphone shouted, "It's a dead-end! Surrender yourself or be shot!"

Adelle glanced the slit of the gate from behind. With a blink and a dissipating cloud of rust, she teleported them to the other side before another shot was even fired, leaving the guards shouting in bewilderment at the disappearance.