“What do we do with it then?”

“I don’t know. It shouldn't be up to us.”

“Why not?”

“Well…we’re just kids! I mean, I understand if that makes me cowardly but we have no…authority, no…credibility—”

“But there’s plenty of people who believe us. Mrs Hardridge for starters, the Lieutenant-General too.”

“We can’t tell them.”

A resounding silence. Their hushed whispers had sounded, no, felt thunderous until a moment ago, the words’ magnitude spurring their nerves like rousing war drums.

Implications of crime, treachery, and all for what?

Two meagre beds, and between it a gaping ravine. So far away; the other side was so far away.

“We can’t tell them.”

For something greater than them; at least that was what Iris wanted to believe. Imbued into words, that belief born of pure moral instinct seemed to silence the beating drums in Alis’s ears and Crestana’s voice box.

“We can’t tell them,” Iris repeated. “You remember what my mum said.”

They won’t destroy it. I won’t destroy it. Too great of an advantage, one that could shatter the Aether's infallibility, just about the world’s only certainty left.

If Sidos, if Geverde could control it, imagine that.

Imagine that.

“I don’t even want to think it,” Iris spat, mind sinking into quicksand, ignoring her eyes and ears. She saw her mother, heard her speak in that scratchy, muffled telephone voice.

“Just because it’s possible…why can’t we even try to kill it?” she asked, and no answer came. Not from Elvera, not from Elliot, least of all from Evalyn.

You’ll understand one day.

It was one of those things, wasn’t it? A one day thing, with no further reasoning or explanation.

One day.

One day, when that progress you denied them comes back to haunt you. When it—packed in a bomb, dropped from a plane, sent to every mailbox on your street—tears your world asunder.

Can you take responsibility for that?

Add another load onto your shoulders and declare yourself patron saint, protector of the realm.

Silly titles. You’re not immortal.

1. Already. Tried. That.

A purple beam.

Flashing, blinding light.

Its shadow so black it turns day into night.

Thunder. Lightning. Dancing like a fool in the palm of your hand.

That is responsibility. Use it to take responsibility until the day you die.

Then you can croak peacefully, knowing the world burns the moment you do, and you’re all to blame.

‘Stuff of legend’. The title seemed all the more fitting the more she tried to escape it.

Being a weapon was written into every molecule of her amalgamated body, spelt out by her anatomy in a way not even those closest to her, those most like her could truly understand.

They weren’t treated like humans; she wasn’t one to begin with.

What was there to her besides that purple clap of lightning?

“Let’s go to Sidos.”

It was Alis’s voice. “Let’s just…go to Sidos and find this house, see what we can glean from it. Maybe it’s our ticket to the research, maybe not.”

“Then what, Alis?”

Crestana this time. “What do you suggest we do if we find it? That’s the question here, not if we can or if we can’t, it’s what we do if we end up finding it.”

She stood at her full height, pacing around the room.

“We would be left with a ticking time bomb in our hands. Either Mrs Hardridge asks us to hand it over or we get murdered by someone less than friendly. Just like the scientist!”

Their voices fell into silence, the small spur of adrenaline petering out as they exhausted their worries again. Over and over, with no conclusion.

So then they turned to her. Their eyes traced her face, their spotlight gazes singing and stinging her skin. But they were her friends, not ones to demand from her an answer they couldn’t come up with themselves. A next course of action, perhaps. That was about all Iris could stomach.

“Let’s visit,” she said. “If there’s…anything we can do….”

Her voice faltered, a small Evalyn on her shoulder silently yelling into her ear, paralysing her tongue.

“If there’s anything we can do…we’ll do it.”

Her arm was numb.

A static sensation from her calloused fingertips to her dry elbow. She’d grown aware of the sensation hours ago only to ignore it, figuring a little experiment would pass the time. Stuck in a tree above a minefield, albeit voluntarily, hadn’t exactly kept her rapt in the moment.

The final results were unfortunate, the prickling sting of a thousand harmless bees grew no greater with time beyond say…half an hour.

Evalyn figured she at least deserved a philosopher’s degree for such a discovery, but being the fruits of such a simple study, her results may have already been common knowledge.

Oh yes, any doctor worth their salt knows that. The pain derived from Pins and Needles does not increase in any meaningful fashion beyond half an hour—

Evalyn stopped herself; the train of thought, specifically its frivolity left a bad taste in her mouth. Colte had foretold the sensation years ago, coining it Trench Brain. Desensitisation to wartime dangers so complete that boredom would loom its benign head in even the most extreme situations. Say, entrenched under artillery fire, camping above an active minefield.

Trench Brain. The very word felt maggoty. It became more deprecating the older she got.

She’d first noticed it when she was twenty-one, three years into her career and the first in her armour. A slow decline in danger made her sympathise with her mentor in a way she’d never understood before. Smoking his pipe while bullets zipped over their cover; she had all of a sudden found herself taking lunch alongside him.

The night before, like underestimating the size of a rupturing pimple, she’d realised how deep Trench Brain had festered.

Her outlook on herself, in its entirety, consumed by Trench Brain. Her outlook on being a Witch, also consumed by Trench Brain. That identity, and all its checks and shackles; bullets whizzing over her head while she ate her sandwich.

Laughing was easier than wanting children, waiting for her husband to come home for the weekend felt better than ruminating over the things she had done the week gone by.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Complacency, although she loathed to call it such.

An adult thing. A ‘you’ll understand one day’ thing. A thing that those older might have congratulated her for, clapping, telling her she’s finally shed her naivety, like a snail without its shell.

A thing a little girl like Iris couldn’t understand, and so could fight.

It was a dangerous thing to fight, but so was rolling with the punches. So was any outlook of their uniquely reprobate situation. Going against the world or simply flowing with it.

One had to choose: one or the other, or somewhere in between. One to one hundred.

The little men in the concrete bunker fifty metres from Evalyn’s tree had chosen the former and stuck to their guns, and in doing so had kicked up a storm. The backlash of an entire country; Evalyn shuddered just considering the response she'd evoke from a coalition of Middling Nations if one foot of hers strayed out of line.

And yet her daughter’s voice needled at her, the small, static, muffled voice shouting silently into her ear, tempting her with another way.

Another way to deal with the crisis, another way to be a Witch entirely.

Harsh rattling, a thousand tiny explosions tearing apart the scatheless landscape. Rude and immature, the sound of an engine whinier than the lumbering trucks that had come before. The runt of the pack, a four-seater.

She watched it pass underneath her, catching a glimpse of the lone driver—civilian clothes from top to bottom. Suit too, and a nice one at that. Someone she could glean information from, better yet with minimal effort if her stereotyping hadn’t yet failed her.

She gave chase, regrowing her armour. The thoughts were for later.

Any weaknesses, the technology’s true scale, for what purpose and against whom.

One at a time, Evalyn whispered to herself as she collected her luggage from the station’s locker wall, a ticket sandwiched between her lips. The train’s whistle blared behind her, faint whisps of burning diesel tugged on her nose hairs.

She turned around while her hands continued to work the latches on her briefcase, spotting her target step onto the third passenger car. Everything in order, she crossed the meagre platform and boarded, rubbing the diesel out of her nose while working her way down the aisle.

Booth by booth, she passed a fleeting yet measured eye across them, each livelier than the last. Country folk in worn tweed suits and flat caps filtered past her, women with billowing skirts and chequered frocks squeezed their fabrics down the narrow corridors. Dressed to the nines and then some, sporting drinks in one grip and poker hands in the other. All for such a dull city.

A dull city full of dull people dressed in dull clothing. Dull, but sharp from collar to hem. Succinct like a business report, pressed and ironed with mathematical equations. Country clothes, Evalyn could spot the tailor’s hand in the seams, for better or for worse. Handcrafted, and the artisans were proud of it, whereas city suits held none of the personality. Handcrafted in the sense they were simply too perfect to be machined.

Evalyn spotted a pair of cuffs resting on a small, cedar table, the sleeves of the dress shirt underneath so perfectly aligned they seemed stitched into the suit.

She scouted the adjacent booth. Empty—the party hadn’t spread so far up the carriage yet, and she doubted it would. A late morning train was for outings and day trips, nothing to do with the rush-hour bustle if such a thing existed so far into the boondocks.

She took a seat, indulging in the spot beside her to open her luggage, all the while stealing glances at her target.

Up close, fewer years weighed down his face than she expected, perhaps even less than her. Short, spiked brown hair and purple pocket square echoed current trends verbatim. Not someone she’d find calling the shots.

Maybe an investor, someone who only knew as much as was needed to sell. He would be a dud in that case, but the second blare of the train’s whistle told her it was too late to back out.

She slid a novel out of her briefcase and opened it, flipping to her bookmark and putting on her best show of reading.

Sidos Central station. As high-strung as ever. The injection of country folk into the city’s largest artery was like oil flowing into water. Evalyn slipped through the seams, eyes leashed to her target. Everything was dull in colour yet sharp in its corners, moving in numbers and speaking in angles.

Her suited target had lost his novelty, but she kept on him like a hawk through the station’s platform bridge. Fifteen paces behind, speeding up in corners and slowing down in the straightaways. Evalyn liked cities: nobody remembered even a peculiar face. Perhaps the most notable feature, but even then, a thousand other things in one’s day-to-day life took precedence. Nobody remembered, let alone talked.

The target led her into the shopping strip where his feet came to a halt outside a flower stand. The flora themselves or the young florist behind the stall, for whichever reason, Evalyn was made to watch him purchase two wreath bouquets before continuing on.

They exited the station at its main entrance, sunlight too eager to kiss her face and cook her skin. She shielded her eyes, tracking the subject as he continued his march forward.

No fences, no mud. No trucks or excavators or commuters shuffling through narrow walkways.

Just paved, grey cobblestone, and pop-up stalls surrounding a fountain station.

“They actually finished it,” Evalyn whispered under her breath, feet almost faltering.

An open space in the middle of Sidos City, people gathered under coloured canvas, buying food and dumb trinkets, trading time for smiles and laughter. Wasting five minutes on nurturing sentiments, spending time knowing that the place wouldn’t be back under construction in under a week.

It had taken more than a decade of toe-dipping and procrastinating, fussing over what colour to paint the storefront and stressing over what a ‘local market’ was supposed to be. More than a decade before someone had bit the bullet and pushed everyone into the deep end.

The water was warm, enough to bring a smile to Evalyn’s face.

The scar was still healing by the day. Suck it, dad.

“Better keep it that way then,” she muttered, resuming the chase.

The target veered east, through the concrete barricades before crossing the street, ignoring the taxis and buses lining the town square’s periphery.

Fifteen paces down a narrow straightaway. Evalyn kept close to the left gutter, directly behind his line of sight. He turned a corner; ten paces. The streets could no longer fit vehicles much larger than a bicycle—the fringes of a budding nightlife district. Bars, clubs, and restaurants carved their place in the world out of old businesses and office buildings. Not a place where someone would live, especially considering the suit.

Another appointment was a likely answer, although she dreaded the idea of a stakeout.

But her target had been considerate, robbing her of the opportunity for one entirely.

Ten paces wasn’t enough. The target had scrammed.

Evalyn began to run, following the empty straightaway. The place was a maze, perfect for a cat-and-mouse game. Safe to say she'd been led by the nose. Where she’d been marked, she couldn’t be sure.

Didn’t matter. All the more reason to find him and shut him up.

She took the first left, boots glancing past two discarded flower bouquets. Disappearing in ten paces meant he’d taken the nearest turn.

The buildings climbed, swelling until the streets were barely two shoulders’ width wide and steeped in shadow. Massage parlours, cocktail bars down dingy staircases, all nocturnal. No ears, no eyes. Evalyn’s markings showered the shade with golden light.

She ripped around the next right, propelling herself up to a wall pipe with a stream of gold from her soles, grabbed it, and angled the Jetstream against the wall. Twice, three times she hopped from one building to the other, emerging onto the rooftops. Flat in these parts. Easy to traverse.

She kept an eye on the alleyway—nothing, and the next junction presented three choices. Forward, left, right.

She leapt over the branch veering left and glanced both ways as though crossing a road. Bingo, down to the right was a man sprinting for dear life. She wished he’d slow down, his suit would tear.

Trench Brain. Again. She shut herself up.

Evalyn crossed the junction, keeping to the buildings’ edges as her target’s back got wider and wider. No turn this time, cutting across their original straightaway and into the next block over. Evalyn followed, bending her knees as an explosion of gold launched her into the air.

Three seconds of airtime, four, five. Enough to give her a prophetic view of the path up ahead. Greenery, albeit small. Two or three blocks reserved for parkland. Open and well-travelled, the definition of ‘plain sight’. Terrible for losing a chasing cat, great for keeping that cat from sinking its claws into you.

He was smarter than she’d pegged him for—a rare compliment. If only he could be happy about it.

Evalyn bound across the final few buildings, leaping off the rooftops with a golden rope trailing behind her, fastened around her waist. Taut immediately, brusque in the way it made her stomach lurch as it caught her fall, but it worked.

Evalyn massaged the new bruise as she ran onto the street, sidestepping a startled businessman. Left, right, nothing of note. Park it was.

She crossed the road, fiddling with the latches on her briefcase until the gap widened, barely enough to fit her hand through. Feeling around unfolded clothes and toiletries, her fingers found the handgun stowed away at its base. Empty, but a gun pressed into one’s back didn’t feel all too different loaded or not.

She entered the park, glancing past joggers and dog walkers, parents with children and stretching retirees. Pigeons scattered, cooing in protest as she stormed on, trampling their breadcrumbs. Flat from one end to the other, small outcrops of boscage dotted the green canvas like spatters of paint. She wasn’t in the mood for rummaging through leaves and branches, nor would it be very effective.

Iron fences barred the verdure oasis from the encircling concrete, four exits all in view of where she stood. She turned to one, then the other, north, east, south, west, north.

East, and not very far, masking himself amongst a slow, disjointed procession filtering out of the parklands. His eyes moved over each shoulder like he was seizing—he hadn’t caught sight of her just yet.

Evalyn followed, hiding herself between anyone who’d hide her profile, skipping from shelter to shelter until she’d regained her precious fifteen paces. Her target was still looking, the long shadows and orange sky seemed to sap out the saturation, washing everything in a muted orange.

Her markings whispered their golden glow, and a spindle of entwined maple leaves fell from the hem of her pants. It crawled along the dirt, evading feet and ducking under footsteps.

Snatch. Digging attenuated claws into his heels, she toppled him like a house of cards. Thump, and the sound echoed through his chest.

Fifteen paces, down to ten in half a second and down to five in less.

“Oh my god, sir!” she said, the hero amongst a growing pack of bystanders. “Are you all right?”

Evalyn helped him to his feet, wrapping a hand under his arm and over his shoulder, placing the other over his heart. The nub of a spike sprung from her palm, kissing the man’s chest like a thorn.

“You feel that?” she whispered, getting out of him a meek nod. “Mm. You get the gist. Get a move on.”