“Look! If we don’t feed the Master we’ll all die!” the only remaining woman screamed desperately, pointing to the sky.

That… was the master? It hadn’t been that big, had it?

“Then feed it yourself,” Brom said with a heavy breath. He hadn’t gotten hurt during the fight, but he definitely sounded winded. A stark contrast from Merit’s calm demeanor as she released the man she had just killed.

“They never think to sacrifice themselves, Brom. There’s no saving them,” Merit said calmly as she walked away from the charred corpse.

I blinked as I took in the scene in front of me. Almost a dozen bodies lay behind the two. It was interesting that Merit had killed more than Brom had.

It was… a little relieving to know that there were others, not just Vim, who were strong in the Society.

Or well, not just strong but reliable. I could rely on them to do what was needed.

“You idiots! You don’t understand… the Master!” the woman in front of them was hectic. She seemed to know she was about to die… yet she didn’t run. She stood in front of Merit and Brom defiantly, doing all she could to convince them that I should be fed to the master.

Why though? And why me? Why not just feed anyone? Although it was a cruel thought… why weren’t they trying to just feed humans to it? If it just needed to be fed to subdue its wrath then…

“I don’t like killing those who don’t fight back,” Brom whispered.

“Grow a spine, rodent,” Merit chastised him, but stepped forward.

I had long since stood from where I had been told to sit, simply out of shock and awe at watching Brom and Merit… but this moment was the first time I actually stepped forward towards them.

I didn’t say anything, nor did I try to stop her… but for some reason I had wanted to.

Keeping my mouth shut, I watched as Merit simply walked up to the woman. The woman stepped back only once, but no more. She stood defiantly, glaring at Merit.

“You’ll all die. You should have listened to us,” the woman scorned Merit.

“As you’ve said,” Merit said, and then wrapped her arms around the woman’s waist.

The woman oddly didn’t fight at all. She simply stood there… then she started to scream.

Finally fighting back, she tried to hit Merit in the head and pry her off… but like all the rest, the effort was fruitless. Merit held on, and begun to spark. It only took a few heavy heartbeats until the woman’s fighting increased to the point of frantic death throes, and then… with a blink of the eye… the woman went still and limp. The woman started to release smoke out of her mouth as she let loose one final groan… then she died.

Merit stepped away and released the woman before she fell all the way to the ground. Merit huffed, sounding exhausted.

How did she kill in such a way? Squeezing someone to death I understood… but she wasn’t squeezing. She was shocking them to the point it burnt them.

Merit brushed her hands on her shirt, as if they were dirty, and she turned to look at the carnage that she and Brom had just left behind.

“You all right Renn?” Merit asked me.

I nodded, even though I knew I wasn’t. My head was fuzzy, and I felt… light. Even though my limbs were heavy and hard to move, I still for some reason felt as if I was in water. About to float away.

“We should go now. I don’t know what that thing is but we should get away from it,” Brom said with a gesture to the sky.

Merit and I looked upward… at the thing looming in the sky.

It wasn’t too close, yet it sounded as if it was. It roared oddly, somehow sounding loud yet distant all the same.

“Is that what Vim’s fighting?” Merit asked.

“The one I saw him fighting was much smaller. Beneath us,” I said.

“What?” Brom didn’t like the sound of that based off the way he spun to look at me.

I nodded. “It… kind of looks like it though. Same colors and shape. How is such a thing so big?” I asked.

“It’s a Monarch isn’t it…?” Brom groaned and shivered.

“Shut up Brom, we don’t know that yet. Come on we need to get Renn home. She’s hurt,” Merit stepped past Brom, huffing at him as she did.

“Right…” Brom agreed, and honestly so did I.

I was exhausted. And…

Glancing at the bodies strewn throughout the alleyway…

Yes. I wanted to leave this place.

These people had fought to the death.

To get to me.

To feed me to their master.

Even when it had been made clear they could not defeat Brom and Merit… they still fought. They had still stood their ground.

Why? Why such devotion to something so…

Glancing up at the sky, I heard the sound of explosions again. Loud booms that shook the air, but not the earth.

No. That wasn’t for me to worry about. Not right now.

Right now… I needed to do something far more important.

Looking down at the two, I gave them as warm a smile as I could muster.

“Thank you two. Really,” I said as they approached.

Merit smiled softly at me, and Brom actually grinned.

“Well, Vim wouldn’t have been happy if we hadn’t helped you,” Brom said.

“I’m really getting tired of your comments. Why’s it always have to be about Vim?” Merit turned to glare at the scarred man who smirked and shrugged his shoulders.

Maybe he was doing it to annoy her.

“Let’s go Renn, let’s leave this Vim fanatic here,” Merit said as she stepped up to me.

“Fanatic? Jeez, that’s an insult to these guys…” Brom didn’t seem to mind her comment as he glanced at the body nearest him. A man who he had stabbed in the heart with his spear.

“It was weird…” Even Merit seemed to agree.

“Would feeding me to it really calm that thing down?” I asked. I wasn’t going to do such a thing but it was an interesting thought.

How could just one person make such a difference?

“Who knows?” Merit said as she took my left hand. I noticed the way she eyeballed my hands before deciding which one to grab.

Yeah… my right was pretty…

“Not sure how any of us could be any kind of meal to that thing. It’d be like eating a single fish egg, would barely notice,” Brom said as we headed for the alley’s exit.

Merit glanced at Brom and I wondered if he had used fish eggs as an example on purpose.

“We’ll get those quills out of you shortly, Renn,” Merit said as we reached the street.

“They don’t hurt too badly actually,” I said.

“Hopefully you won’t get an infection…” Merit grumbled while staring at them.

“That place had been real nasty…” I admitted.

“Definitely. What is this you’re wearing? Looks like seal leather,” Brom asked as he came up to my right.

“Seal?” I asked. What was that?

“It actually does,” Merit agreed.

If they were saying so it likely was… but…

“I had to put something on to cover my ears. They tore off the hat and jacket I had been wearing,” I said as I moved my ears under the hood I wore.

“Figured,” Merit said softly.

Squeezing Merit’s hand, I wondered how to explain the feeling of relief that was pulsing through me. To think just a few moments ago I had been thinking about my death and…

Stepping out of the alleyway, I wondered which way to go. Merit already knew, and she gently guided me to the left.

The street was… strangely empty, yet not. There weren’t any people here, but the street was filthy. Littered. It seemed there were some collapsed buildings along the road. Parts of warehouses were crumbling into the street. Off in the distance down the road, was oddly an entire wall in the middle of the street. Not in pieces, but standing upright… door and windows and all. The only explanation for it being in one piece and upright as it were was that it had somehow slid out onto the road… but I wasn’t sure how such a thing could happen.

“This doesn’t sound good. Going to be a lot of funerals after this,” Brom said.

“Lots of charity work, too,” Merit complained.

I smirked at her. Yes. I should have known she’d be like Vim.

Who would think about such a thing during moments like this?

“We do charity work?” I asked, interested.

“It’s good for our public image… plus it’s mostly directed towards our employees,” Brom said.

“Not you though. You’ll need… rest… lots of it,” Merit said as she side-glanced me.

True… I wonder how long it’ll take to heal? The last time I had been hurt this bad was when the witch had found me. I had gotten a fever and couldn’t really remember how long I had spent in that bed…

“Think Vim would…” I started to make a lighthearted joke, to ease the dull pain in my body and heart… but then something landed in front of us.

I wasn’t sure where it came from, or what it was… but it hit the ground in front of us in the blink of an eye. Then before I could blink again, I was being pushed. By more than just a single pair of hands.

By the next blink… I was several feet to the right. Near the edge of the street. I was turned away, facing the building instead of facing down the road.

Huh?

I blinked wildly as I turned around to understand what had just happened.

Something huge had landed in front of us. Then… then…

They had pushed me. Out of the way.

Of what had looked like a giant rock. One that had burst through a building nearby. That building was still collapsing thanks to it.

Standing alone, I felt a cold chill as I stared at the weird hole not too far from me. Where I had just been standing, with Brom and Merit… was about a foot deep hole in the stone. A huge chunk of the earth was missing now, thanks to the impact as the thing barreled past me.

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My whole body began to spasm as I slowly turned to look behind me. Back down the alleyway we had just left.

There was new stuff within it. And with every heartbeat more fell into it. A part of the building on the right was collapsing into the alleyway, dropping stones, wooden pieces, and even glass.

For a few long seconds… I couldn’t breathe. My mind whirled, yet somehow wasn’t working as I doubted my eyes.

Merit. Her white hair was easy to spot amongst the dark stone and debris. She was lying face down in the alleyway, near the building on the left. She was tiny compared to the huge boulder that had broken into the building not far behind her and had come to a stop half way into it.

The damage from the boulder was making the building on the left start to crumble too. But it wasn’t coming apart as badly as the building on the right. Only some of the wall near where the boulder had impacted was falling apart, for now at least… but…

“Guys…?” I hesitated as I stepped forward.

Bricks continued to fall off the buildings… and for some reason most of them were landing together near the same pile.

A pile that had a body in it.

For a long few seconds… my eyes bounced around. To his mangled head, only recognizable because of his scars. To the silver gleaming spear poking out of the pile of debris. Then back to the body, or rather to the parts of it… where his torso was scattered in several different directions. One leg was to the right, away from the main pile of stones and debris, the other was sticking out of the pile at an impossible angle… telling me it wasn’t connected anymore.

Turning away, I barely made it two steps before I threw up.

Heaving, I puked what little remained in my stomach as my whole body began to shake even more violently. My eyes began to shiver as badly as my body as my vision blurred and my mind screamed at me.

Brom was dead! Mangled! Destroyed!

And Merit could be too!

Right… Merit…!

I forced myself back towards the alley, and nearly fell when I tripped over a large brick. Staying upright, somehow, I went deeper in until I was standing above Merit.

She was in one piece. And I didn’t see any blood… but she wasn’t moving.

Had Brom taken the brunt of the blow? They had both stepped closer to me, as to push me out of the way.

Maybe Brom had pushed Merit too.

Unable to resist, I looked back at the pile of stones… and Brom’s body.

Stepping deeper into the alleyway… I fell to my knees as suddenly I didn’t have the strength to keep myself upright.

The fall hurt… but my heart hurt far worse than my body. Which was a feat right now.

I groaned as I squeezed my arms around my stomach. A horrid gut wrenching pain was twisting within me. I felt as if I had suddenly been stabbed by something sharp. As if a huge quill had dug into my stomach near my naval, and was moving around.

“Reatti…” I groaned.

That poor, poor girl. She was going to break.

How was I going to tell her about this? How could I look her in the eyes ever again? She had loved her brother so dearly. They had been so close and…

I heaved a sob and bent over. I threw up again, but this time it wasn’t much. I heaved again and again as my body tried to throw up more, but there was nothing left to give.

What could I do…? What could I say…?

A loud crash shook the world above me. I knew instinctively that I needed to move. That it wasn’t safe yet. That more of the building was collapsing… but I couldn’t find it within myself to move. I simply stared at the pile of debris in front of me.

The pile of stones and the body within them.

I had to look away. I heaved again, but nothing came up. I turned away and hit the ground with a balled fist. It hurt.

A few moments passed as more stone and pieces of the buildings fell around me. I felt a few smaller rocks and debris hit me occasionally, but nothing too drastic. Then… something heavy landed behind me. It landed hard enough that I could feel it through my legs and knees.

Turning around to see how close I had just come to dying, again… my throat constricted and I wasn’t able to breathe for a few moments as I stared at the cluttering stones still falling from the impact.

Another chunk of the building had landed directly on Brom.

“Why…?” I groaned as I watched the dust settle, revealing… only the silver spear and the hand that still held it.

Why? Did the world hate him all of a sudden? Why was everything falling on him?

His mangled hand, scarred and contorted… was barely visible. I’d not have recognized it was his hand if not for the spear it still held.

“Renn…?”

Looking away from the silver gleam, stained by red, I shifted just enough to stare at the entrance of the alleyway.

Vim.

He was hurrying towards me, and I looked away in shame.

“Renn… jeez, look at you…” Vim reached me quickly, and I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.

I groaned as I stared at his feet. He was missing his shoes. Where had they gone?

“Vim…” I cried.

Something brushed my head, near my right ear… and I recognized the feeling of a hand. He was reaching down to check on me. His hand brushed against my ear, and then hesitated. His fingertips lightly touched my head, near my injury. Where I had gotten hit in the head down in the sewers.

His gentleness was… to be expected… but the fact he had gone still, and his hand hung above my head added with his silence was not.

Slowing looking up, I sobbed at the sight of Vim’s face.

He wasn’t looking at me.

He was looking at the pile of stones behind me.

“Vim…!” I cried again.

His look of shock quickly morphed into a knowing look, and then Vim looked away from Brom’s body. He looked down at me, and I quickly looked away again in shame.

I felt his hand leave my head, and it slowly fell to my shoulder. Vim’s hand gripped my shoulder… and although he squeezed a little hard, it wasn’t hard enough to hurt me. He was gentle as he knelt down next to me, and suddenly… I broke.

I was safe now.

Vim was next to me.

Nothing could hurt me anymore.

Yet…

“Vim…!” I sobbed as I turned to look at Brom.

What little could be seen of him anymore.

How had it happened so fast? Just a few moments ago he had been right next to me… and…

“Get up Renn. You need to help me. You have to take yourself and Merit back to the Society,” Vim spoke evenly, and even through my hectic thoughts and sobs I could hear his beseeching tone.

He was nearly begging me.

“Merit…” I heaved a sob as I turned my head just enough to see her. Yes. She was there. Lying nearby. She wasn’t buried like Brom was, but she wasn’t moving. Her thick white hair was blocking her face so I wasn’t able to see her expression or…

“Get up Renn. You told me you wanted to be like me. You promised you’d try. Now’s the time to fulfill that promise. Stand up. Stand, Renn. Stand tall,” Vim squeezed my shoulder, and I nodded.

Yes.

He was right.

Even if…

The world rumbled again, and I flinched down. To cover my head again, just in case another building fell on top of us.

The world was falling apart!

Not just literally, but figuratively too…! The buildings were collapsing. The ground beneath my very feet was shifting… and…

And…

I heaved a dry sob, and tried to pull my eyes away from Brom’s hand. I couldn’t.

Couldn’t.

He died protecting me. He had been next to me. Both Merit and Brom had reacted fine to the boulders appearance and approach. They weren’t injured and exhausted like me. Both of them could have dodged it.

Merit was hurt.

Vim was…

“Renn, please. I need to stop that thing and I can’t do that until you take Merit back to the Society,” Vim’s voice was gentle… but firm. Hard. Yet not cold.

How was he so strong?

His friends. My friends. People he’s known for hundreds of years… gone and hurt.

“Brom…” I groaned.

“Is dead. Get up Renn, before Merit dies too,” Vim said.

A cold shiver ran down my back and through my tail. It hurt, but it made me realize he was right.

Merit was hurt.

I sniffed and nodded, and let Vim help me to my feet.

“I’m going to pull those out, so you can carry her. Steel yourself,” Vim said as he grabbed my right forearm, near my wrist.

“Wait what?” I barely was able to ask what he meant, and then I let loose a yelp as he grabbed a bundle of them and pulled.

They tore out easily, yet it felt horrible. I tried to pull my arm away from him, but his grip was undeniable… and he was swift. Before I could even gather the breath needed to shout out in pain he had already finished pulling the rest out of my right arm.

I whimpered as I stared down at my now quill-free right arm. It wasn’t bleeding anywhere near as bad as I would have thought it would have with such a violent method, but it sure did hurt. It stung, as if I was continuously being pricked by the barbs.

“Vim!” I shouted out in pain as he tossed aside the last few quills and went to grab my left arm.

“A little flesh. Endure it Renn, for Merit,” Vim said.

Oh.

Right.

I nodded as I tightened my stomach and watched as he went to grab the few quills on my left arm. There weren’t as many on this one as my right.

He was right. I’d not be able to carry Merit with them stuck in me. It’d just hurt her and me even more than needed.

Watching, I flinched as Vim pulled the quills out one by one. They were too spread apart for him to rip out all at once as he had done with the other arm. He hadn’t lied. It seemed all they pulled out with them was a little bit of flesh. They left little ridge like cuts in their wake.

Once he got the last out of my arm, I took an unsteady breath as he tossed the quills aside and went over to Merit.

“How is she?” I asked as I rubbed my arms.

“Her head was hit when that boulder came through. She’s strong Renn, but she’s still…” Vim went quiet as he knelt down next to her and moved her hair out of the way.

Hurrying over to him, I did my best to ignore the huge gashes running up and down his back.

How was he walking? I could see bone. Was that what a spine looked like? Why did it seem to branch out oddly...

“She’ll be okay, but she might not wake up any time soon,” Vim finally said after examining her head. It looked like she was bleeding, and had a large gash on the side of her head but… I really didn’t want to look too close.

Vim picked Merit up gently, and I stood up straighter as he turned to me.

“Take her home, Renn,” Vim said to me.

I sniffed and nodded as I held my arms out to take her from him.

Vim handed her over, and as I wrapped my arms around her… I realized something terribly strange.

She was light. Even me, who was hurt and exhausted, barely noticed her weight.

I had let such a small thing protect me.

About to say something, a loud boom made me flinch and step closer to Vim for protection. The world shook again, followed by a roar and a weird screeching sound in the sky.

A few moments later another avalanche sounding explosion erupted nearby.

Another building had just been destroyed.

“Vim…!” I looked up at the man who was staring past me, down the alley and out it.

He blinked, and I realized he was hurt on his face too. It was covered in a weird black gunk looking stuff… so it had hid it a little, but up close it was obvious. A part of his chin was split. The huge cut ran up to his mouth. His lower lip looked like it was split in two.

I groaned at the sight of such damage. Had the Master done this?

“Cry later Renn. I’ll hold you close after this is done, but right now stay strong and stand tall for me,” Vim said as he looked down at me.

I sniffed and nodded. “Promise?”

He nodded. “Until you can’t cry anymore,” he promised.

Good. He probably had no idea how much I could cry, but I planned to teach him.

Looking down at Merit in my arms, I shifted her a little to get a better hold of her.

Vim patted me on the shoulder and then stepped away… at first I thought he was going to leave, but instead he went over to the pile of stones.

I felt my mouth tremble as I watched Vim kneel down in front of Brom’s body. Or at least, where it was.

With a gentle but firm hand… Vim grabbed the spear that Brom’s hand still clung to. He pulled the spear free, and through watery eyes I watched as Vim pulled the spear out of the stone. I didn’t like the oddly wet sound that accompanied Brom’s hand falling from the spear and to the stone.

Vim stood up, and then with a small movement he thumped the butt of the spear against the ground. As if to free it of all the dirt upon it.

He stared at the spear in his hand for a moment, then took a deep breath… and then nodded. His eyes told me he had just made a pact with it. As if the spear itself had asked him to get revenge.

Hopefully Vim would grant it.

Vim turned and nodded at me. “Go Renn. Get home. When you get back you and the rest should prepare to leave the city. Head for the Clothed Woman,” he said.

“Okay,” I nodded. Yes. That made sense. This place was falling apart.

“If they… already left, then… just stay in the building with Merit. I’ll come get you after I’m done,” Vim said.

“Okay,” I nodded again as he stepped towards me.

I wanted to hug him, but knew it was foolish to do so. Not just because I held Merit… but because he looked horribly hurt. I’d hate to cause him pain. Was that part of his side really as bad as it looked? It looked like a head sized chunk was missing from his left torso…

And why was he stained as if he had swum in paint?

“Get out of the city. Kill anyone who tries to stop you,” Vim said to me, drawing my eyes away from his injuries.

I nodded.

Another roar rumbled throughout the world, and my heartbeat increased as I waited for the expectant sound of explosions and collapsed buildings that seemed to always follow the roars.

A nearby building was the victim. I flinched as once again pebbles and stones flew into the air above us. Luckily it must have been far enough that none really seemed to be landing nearby…

Then I was hit in the head.

I yelped as a stone a little smaller than Merit’s balled up fist rolled off my head and to the ground. I glared at the thing, but was glad it had just been something small. It had hurt, but hadn’t killed me.

Vim sighed as he reached over and grabbed my cloak’s hood. He pulled it up and over my head. “Hurry and go Renn. Before I abandon my duties,” Vim ordered.

Staring up at him, from under my hood… I realized this look was something new.

I had never… wait, no. I have seen it.

I did recognize that look on his face.

I had seen it before.

The reason I didn’t recognize it… was because I hadn’t seen it on the person himself. I’d never seen Vim give me such a look before, at least not in person.

The look I recognized… was the one I had seen in a painting.

He stood now before me as he had in that painting. The one in the Cathedral. The one that Hands had shown me.

Vim was even holding the spear the same way as that painting too.

“Stay safe, Vim,” I said to the protector of the Society.

“Stand tall, Renn,” Vim said.

“Stand tall.”