Eight hairy legs moved softly against the wood ceiling. This place was beautifully damp and dark, especially compared to the place from whence it came. A flying monstrosity ten times its size had attacked it and left a large scar on its back, its previous children had died in a flood, and once, it almost ended up as a paste beneath the shoe of one of the many giants that litter these parts. In spite of this, primal instincts told the creature that the corner up ahead would be a magnificent place to set up camp. A camp that would eventually evolve into a haven. A place where food would be plentiful and where its children would become marvellous creatures of their own. Best of all, there were no predators nearby. No pesky competition either. No giants. This was the perfect place to call home, and all was finally well.

Then its four large eyes popped and all of its limbs shattered into a thousand pieces. All that remained was a brown speck of ooze and a desecrated body pressed up against the cold wood.

“Disgusting.” Aethel muttered to himself. He had instinctively destroyed the spider using a simple version of the surge bolt technique, as he had done many times before.

Now that he was awake, he found that he was not snuggled up in his bed at home, but rather on a bathroom floor cuddling a stone brick that looked as if it had been ripped out of a wall.

"The fuck…?" He muttered to himself as he inspected the brick. It was slightly scorched. He looked around with groggy eyes, and familiarity started to set in. He was in Teddy’s bathroom. He let go of the brick and rose to a seated position. His head instantly disagreed with the decision, sending waves of ache through his skull and engulfing him in nausea. He felt a waft of vomit coming from the toilet as well, which didn’t help the situation in the slightest. In an effort of pure willpower, he managed to keep his stomach unturned.

“Thavion’s cock…” He managed to sputter out as he rubbed his eyes. He remembered something about a gang, and… ‘Agatha?’ He thought. ‘Was that her name?’. What little he could remember of yesterday was a series of blurred events, and so he got up to investigate. Teddy would surely know something.

The living room was modestly sized but largely empty. There were two large leather sofas placed around a wooden table, but other than that, there was only a dead plant in the corner. The table was currently home to an obscene amount of empty bottles, spilled drinks, and all sorts of garbage, which brought Aethel uncomfortable flashbacks of yesterday. Sticking out from underneath the table, however, was the body of a bear-like man, ironically spread out on his stomach like a rug. The sight of Teddy laying there made Aethel laugh quietly to himself, but before he had any time to wake him up and talk to him about what had happened, a firm knocking sounded from the door of the apartment. The sound made him jump, and he turned his head towards it. He then noticed two backpacks lying in front of the door, which made something within him click. The singed brick in the bathroom, the backpacks, and the hard knocking painted vibrant, horrible details between the blurry images of yesterday. It didn’t go long before another knock sounded.

“Enforcement! Open up!” Panic began to set in immediately and he practically leapt towards Teddy on the floor. He shook him violently.

“Teddy! Teddy!” He repeated in a whispered shout, but the man didn’t budge.

“Teddy!” He tried a little louder this time, and the large man suddenly jumped to life, smashing his head into the underside of the table.

“PISS!” He roared. Aethel's hands flew to the sides of his head as his skull ignited like a barrel of oil. Worse yet, the enforcers definitely heard that.

“Quiet! We. Got. To. GO!” Aethel whispered, punctuating every word. As if to drive home his point, the knocking resumed, aggressive as ever.

“We can hear you in there! Open up or we’ll break down the door!” A man shouted from the other side. Teddy’s jaw dropped and he looked at Aethel with a wide-eyed stare.

“Oh…” He said under his breath and quickly got out from under the table, making it shake violently, knocking cups and flasks everywhere.

“Just a moment!” Teddy yelled towards the door. He quickly grasped at his temples, eyes clenched, regretting his decision to yell.

“What's going on, why are they here? I don’t remember shit!” Teddy whispered painfully, still massaging at the sides of his head. Aethel looked at him seriously and pointed to the bags by the door.

“Remember how we made sure that we would accept Bael’s job offer?” Teddy's face contorted as he tried to recall the events that had transpired. Then his face turned to a slight smile.

“Oh yeah, Bael. We…” He began, and his look shifted to that of horror. In an instant, Teddy ran for the bags, and Aethel followed suit. As they grabbed their respective backpacks, the thundering knocks continued from the door right beside them.

“This is your final warning!” They both fumbled a bit at the sound, not quite sure what to do until Aethel spoke up.

“Window!” He whisper-yelled and pointed towards the one sitting on the other side of the room. They bolted towards it. In their hurry, Teddy slammed his toe into the table in the middle of the room, sending more empty bottles flying.

“AHHHHHH, WHY!?” Teddy roared in agony and began to limp. Had it not been for the reverberation of pain that followed Teddy’s yelling, Aethel probably would’ve laughed a lot at that, but as it were, his head shook like a gong at the noise. In a world of hurt, they reached the window.

Teddy’s apartment was situated on the second floor of a large apartment complex. The window before them faced the street simply called “Main Street”, sometimes referred to as “The Road” or “Bertha”. The latter being an ode to a state official often described as wide. It was bustling with people, caravans, and shops, and looming in the distance, marking the gate between the city and the outside world, was a giant watchtower. It was something of a hallmark in Elysian architecture, as most Elysian cities had a road like this, cutting the city in half and spanning from one end of the city walls to a massive tower. The founders of Elysia on the continent used this to streamline operations, and as these settlements evolved into cities, it stuck.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

In the middle of the bustling street, Aethel spotted two enforcers chatting with an investigator below. Aethel nudged Teddy slightly and pointed in that direction. Teddy paled at the sight of the investigator.

“Why??” He exclaimed. Aethel’s mouth made a flat line.

“I don’t know…” Aethel began. “Or, I mean, we did kind of fuck up yesterday…” He continued. Teddy’s eyes grew dark.

“What if the fire spread, Aethel?” He let out in a singular monotone breath, and shivers travelled down Aethel’s spine. That would definitely account for the investigator.

“We can figure out the details later, right now we need to go.” Aethel shook his head as if to clear it.

“No one ever looks up. We’ll just sneak on down and blend…” He began, but before they had any time to plan, the apartment door boomed as the enforcers finally tried to break it down. Without a moment's hesitation, the two hung-over men opened the window briskly and began to make their way out onto the small roofing. Aethel stepped out first, being very careful with the placement of his feet. The midday sun burned in his eyes, and the slanted roof consisted mostly of clay tiling. He did not want to slip and attract the attention of the investigator, or worse yet, knock a tile loose and kill an innocent bystander below. That would definitely attract the attention of the investigator.

“Today, Aethel!?” Teddy blurted out, panicked eyes darting between Aethel, the investigator and the door on the other side of the apartment. The door creaked and cracked as the enforcers battered at it.

“You have to make sure you don’t…” Aethel began as he made it wholly out the window, but before he could continue, Teddy practically leapt through the opening with great speed, and when his foot landed on the roofing, his momentum didn’t stop at all. The massive man was sent slipping backwards, as a loose tile slid along his foot. The weight of the big man cannoned the clay tile forward, sending it flying off the roof and hissing through the air. It obliterated a window on the other side of the street as Teddy’s back slammed down on the roof. Surprised exclamations instantly murdered the sounds of shoptalk and chatter, leaving a tense silence. For a moment Aethel simply gaped at Teddy in complete disbelief, before he deigned to turn around. Absolutely everyone was looking at them. Like ice cracking under pressure, came the sound of a door shattering from within the apartment.

“Hey!” Shouted the investigator down below, realisation suddenly spread across his face. Teddy rose hastily to his feet, and before they had any time to agree on anything, Teddy jumped over a small chasm that separated the roofing outside his window and the roof on their right. Aethel looked at Teddy dumbstruck.

“Come on, man!” Teddy panicked. Aethel heard footsteps approaching the window behind him, and so he jumped over the chasm as well. It was then he noticed that down below, between these buildings, was a ladder which was currently occupied by the investigator. He also noticed a glass bottle, among other things, that lay in a corner where three roofs met. So as they turned to run over the city canopy, Aethel reached into the surge within the bottle, hurled it towards the investigator and followed suit after Teddy. No time to gawk.

“Nice!” Teddy exclaimed, but something didn’t feel quite right to Aethel. He peeked behind him to check and ducked immediately as the glass bottle came flying back at him. Following it was a very angry investigator, escorted by multiple augmentor enforcers. Small claps of thunder sounded from the enforcers, as they all activated their personal surge enhancement techniques, growing stronger and faster. Teddy, being an augmentor as well, did the same.

“They’ll catch you!” Teddy yelled. He was right. Manipulators are practically immobile compared to augmentors.

“Look!” Aethel blurted out between breaths. He reached into the surge of multiple roof tiles as they ran, ripped them out, and started flinging them towards their pursuers. The first tile hit one of the augmentors in the jaw, knocking him unconscious immediately.

“WOOOO!” Teddy roared in success.

The second, third and fourth tile, however, were taken over by the investigator rather quickly, stopping midair before they could hit anyone. They followed him like ammunition, and one by one the tiles started flying their way, faster than when Aethel had flung them. Teddy smashed one of them to pieces, and Aethel managed to deflect the next, but the third came too fast for him to fully redirect and so part of it struck him in his side.

He yelped as pain spread through the right side of his body, and turned around in horror to see that the investigator had ripped more tiles out of the nearby roofing. If the officers didn’t just outright kill them here, they would surely face death in a court of law. Panic set in and Aethel began to search frantically for any hope of escape. As if answering his prayers with mockery, he noticed that a larger building blocked the roof they were running on up ahead, making the only option to jump down to broken legs, possibly death, or fight. Aethel looked towards Teddy, and Teddy nodded in silent agreement.

Aethel stopped abruptly and began shaping the surge into a spear of force, moulding it with his hands. The surge bolt technique he had used for the spider was made to incapacitate people, but the surge lance was made to impale, and kill. Teddy cancelled his stride as well, slamming his foot on the ground and began charging the surge in his leg muscles, ready to leap towards the incoming enforcement at an incredible speed. Then suddenly, without warning, the ground beneath the officers exploded into a coal-black smoke. Teddy broke off his assault instantly and took a few steps back.

“What in the void fucking…” Aethel murmured as he let the shaking pillar of force between his hands dissipate. Shadowy tentacles wisped in and out of existence within the smoke, and no matter the angle, its edges always seemed to be tinged with purplish light. Only a moment later, the policemen emerged from the smoke, as if they had never entered it in the first place. The only difference was that they were running towards the left, off of the roof. The men screamed as they flew through the air and a series of thuds followed. Aethel paled. The howling voices being cut short by their bodies flattening against the ground made his hung-over stomach churn. Shortly after, the smoke cleared, and in the distance, they could see more augmentors running towards them.

“Here!” A voice sounded from behind them, which made Aethel jump.

“Agatha?” Aethel asked, confused. She was standing behind them holding a door open. Aethel was sure it hadn’t been there before. If he focused, it was almost as if he could look through it.

“What is that…” He muttered as he squinted at the door.

“Stop doing that!” Agatha yelled at him. “Get inside, fast!” Aethel turned around and saw that the enforcers were approaching steadily. He looked at Teddy, who shrugged, unsure and panicked around the eyes. The opening of the door didn’t seem to lead anywhere. There was only a slightly purplish darkness, which currently, was a worrisome spectacle for both of the young men. Agatha could see that on their faces.

“Prison! Execution!?” She said, waving her hand, dumbstruck at them actually considering not entering the door. A thin line forced itself onto Aethel’s face and he nodded.

“Let’s go!” He waved at Teddy. He didn’t look too eager to enter the door either, but he followed nonetheless, into the darkness.