Harid's eyes slowly opened and he saw a large blade of grass right in front of his eyes. He was a bit stumped when he noticed an ant crawling down the green blade, he had an impression that every single living thing around him had to be a bloodthirsty monster. Unfortunately, his feeling of normalcy was interrupted far too soon.

"Finally awake? It is about time, the first watch is yours." He heard a familiar voice and felt as if a lightning struck him.

"Where? What?" He whispered while frantically looking for his gun, not finding it anywhere. He did not understand why he was still alive and Zach promptly provided his answer.

"I cannot afford to sleep in here just by myself, undefended for hours. We both live, or we both die. Your choice." His dust-covered savior laid onto the grass, effectively hidden in the patch of dense vegetation, a place that Zach had clearly chosen just for that purpose.

"Alright." Harid sat up, dumbfounded by the sudden situation. It was probably not the time for him to die yet.

  When he felt stickiness on his chest, he touched it and found out that it was sticky and painful as always. However, its stickiness was not being caused by his dried blood, but something else. He sniffed his fingers and his eyebrows shot up.

"Lemonade?" His eyes wandered to the lying Zach who had clearly used on him the green lemonade to wash his blood away. It was a good idea, the smell of blood was too dangerous and despite the glow of the lemonade persisted on him to some degree, it could be covered with clothes and was definitely better than being stained with blood.

"Why do you . . ?" Harid began to ask a question, immediately interrupted by a disdainful snort of his partner.

"Just keep watch and let me sleep." He told him like if he was a dog and did not pay any attention to him anymore.

  Harid stared at him without saying a word, thinking about playing Zach's game for a time. He could not understand why the man had not killed him and returned to the Moth's base camp, but considered it safer not to be too forceful for a while. It was an irony that he did not need to be afraid of Zach too much at the time, because he had just had the perfect opportunity to kill him and he had not used it.

  He looked around some more and arrived at the conclusion that they were in the part of the city ruin that was overgrown by vegetation. He remembered seeing it from above, but to be inside was completely different from the bird's eye view and he could not tell where exactly they were. It was getting dark, the elongated shadows making his surroundings of dilapidated buildings even more spooky than it was just moments ago.

  He heard a rustling of leaves nearby, as many trees had claimed their place sticking out of the cracks in old buildings, It was a calming and terrifying sound at the same time, the contradictory feelings battled inside of his head before he spotted an irregularity in the sound and abruptly, a wave of adrenaline rushed through his body. However, he kept his cool and simply suppressed his unease, lying still. The only result of searching for Lurkers would be revealing his position and he had long learned to react counterintuitively to their activity. Sometimes, he felt like a spider or other insects that played dead when faced with unknown danger.

"Are you even keeping watch? Why have I even left you alive?!" Harid had been disrupted from his stupor by an accusation. He had completely failed the assigned duty and slept through a considerable part of his supposed watch.

"Of course." He responded and Zach just glared at him for a moment before standing up.

"You should take this more seriously, how could you survive for all this time?" He muttered under his breath while grabbing Harid's bag he had been using as a pillow. The bag had already changed hands multiple times and Zach had made himself its current owner.

"Let's go." Zach added and Harid blinked in the direction they were going, when he hurried to follow Zach by his left side, as he obviously paid attention to not have Harid walking behind his back.

"Why are we going to the Azure Tower?" Harid voiced his doubts about his partner's competence.

"Do not worry, I have everything planned." Zach retorted while holding Harid's gun in his right hand, playing with its safety.

"Why are we not going back to the subway? What are we going to eat?" After a while of trudging forth, Harid asked with curiosity and after observing Zach's distorted expression for a while, he ended up answering his own question.

"You do not know where to go, right? You are a criminal." He stated in cold voice, provoking immediate reaction from his traveling companion who abruptly turned to face him with his gun threateningly pointing at his head.

"Shut it! I am in control here and you will not speak another word." He barked at Harid while trying to keep his voice down, but Harid only laughed dryly in response.

"It is obvious, There are only three landmarks clearly visible from this position and just one can be the destination of a scared criminal. The Black Tower is out of the question, the rumors of the dangers of that place must have reached the common fodder of the Moths. You cannot return to the subway as a criminal, meaning we should not go in the direction of these skyscrapers. The Azure Tower is the only unexplored location that may hold some hope for an amateur young criminal like you." Harid stated and had to suppress laughter when he realized he himself was not particularly old and a criminal as well.

"A little Moth playing a tough guy, it is just hilarious!" Harid let out a silly giggle, ridiculing his companion. Zach could not stand his behavior and hit the annoying captive with the barrel of his gun, effectively knocking him to the ground. He watched him holding the side of his head and repeated in a much more calm manner, his rage more or less vented by his violent action.

"I might be playing tough for now, but I sure as hell learn fast, so shut up and do as I say." Harid heard a calm, threatening voice from above while pressing his hand against his burning skin. In retrospect, he agreed that he should have behaved more moderately, not escalating the situation, but all his pent up anger had been pilling up for too long. He still felt vengeful after what he had experienced in the skyscraper in the middle of the city, not even mentioning all the hate accumulated during the fights between Moths and Ashes.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Harrid gritted his teeth and forced himself acting rationally, slowly standing up and following next to Zach's side while ignoring his snort. On second thought, he had conveniently left his teleportation mark at the place of their previous rest. Harid was able to leave any second he wanted, but he thought that it might be better to stick with Zach, they had the same destination anyway.

  They walked through the wild vegetation, avoiding clear, paved roads, as grass and overgrowth were good indicators of anything invisible trying to sneak up on them. Harid felt much safer in this part of ruins, but their new environment had its negatives too. The vegetation made the steps of the knights less audible and they had nearly stumbled into one when their awareness faltered. Immediately, they backpedaled and hid behind a corner. Holding their breath, they listened to the movements of the golden giant from inside the darkest of shadows they could find.

Luckily, they had not been spotted and the monstrosity passed by slowly, like it was taking an afternoon walk in a park.

  However, their luck was not fated to last and the idle knight turned suddenly. heading in their direction. They moved slowly to a corner behind a pair of palm trees, but it was obvious that the golden giant was going to spot them as soon as he would pass by the trees.

  Most likely because of the location of his base, Haird habitually looked up and promptly decided to climb through a window that was roughly three meters above them. He had not even tried to jump directly to hold its frame, instead, he found two holds of undetermined origin that looked like giant snails glued to the wall's facade. Overlooking his bruised fingers and a broken nail, he quickly used the two supports to reach the window's frame and jumped through it. From his safe position, he watched as Zach tried to imitate him, only to fail when the second hold broke off and he fell pack into the dense vegetation.

  Harid hid his head behind the wall, thinking that the knight that was only dozens of steps away would notice, but the softened steps of metal boots remained trudging forward without any change. He peeked out of the window and his look met the eyes of Zach who had already managed to stand up and was looking at the now much smoother wall, stupefied. Their eyes locked and Zach moved, stepping on the last remaining hold, he launched himself up hoping that Haird would help him to climb up.

  Without much thinking, Harid caught Zach and helped him to get through the window before the knight passed the palm trees. Forcefully pulling him up, they had accidentally torn open the bag they carried and all sorts of supplies and trinkets spilled across the floor and some of it even fell out into the overgrowth. Both of them pressed their backs against the wall and waited for the knight to pass, hoping that nothing they had done alerted the monstrosity to their presence.

"It reminds me of when we hid in a garbage bin from cops." Zach mumbled, trying to slow down his breathing.

"We?" Harid asked, feigning interest.

"With Lucas, my brother. Engels brothers, the toughest in town bro! That monster should be gone now." Zach clenched his fist in the air enthusiastically, but immediately changed the topic afterwards.

"Ah." Harid looked uninterested in Zach's past adventures.

"Thanks Snake, you might not be that bad after all." They locked eyes and Zach smiled sincerely.

"Yeah, It's mostly rumors." Harid nodded in agreement while waving his arm.

"Jeez, I am all bruised over. Come, we should get out of here." Zach stood up and offered Harid a hand. He caught it and pulled himself off the floor as well.

"Sure, let's not waste time. Let's get to the tower." Harid nodded and quickly began to collect all the things that spilled out of the bag, starting with a sturdy knife with initials LE engraved into it, slipping it into a pocket of his pants.

"You sound hyped up for the trip, do you plan to use some special tattoo magic to overturn our situation?" Zach said with a smirk.

"I can summon lemonade, shirts, a toothbrush and yes, I can also clean stuff. Do you happen to summon spaceships or something actually useful?" Zach continued to list the extent of his abilities.

"Green lemonade? I have that one too." Harid added bitterly.

"Shiny like a rainbow." He rolled his eyes and both men looked at each other as their shared helplessness was disrupted by their burst of laughter.

  No one understood why the powers that tattoos granted were utterly useless except for those summoning drinks. The positive side was that everyone was more or less equal in their uselessness.

  They walked through the first floor of the building for some time, before they had to exit the building and cross the street. They moved for hours though the future jungle that was starting to form in that part of the city. Their next encounter was with a Lurker, but they had fortunately saw it soon enough due to their extreme vigilance and two pairs of eyes. When they finally saw a street that was not covered in vegetation, signifying the growing proximity of their target, Harid noticed that there lied an elongated insect body in the middle of the street, its two pairs of transparent wings lying flat against the road.

"A body?" Zach whispered in surprise as well, because Lurkers should have gotten rid of any bodies as per usual.

  Harid just lifted his finger closer to his lips to signal him to be silent and moved closer carefully to investigate the situation. Nearing the strange body in the middle of the street, the carcass reminded him of an overgrown dragonfly. Obviously, it could not be the case and upon closer look, the insect had indeed some odd features. Its body had signs of being chewed on, yet the gourmet eating it clearly did not like it much. Harid was not surprised, because beneath the skin of the creation, there could be seen wires and metallic protrusions sticking out of its wounds.

"Some kind of a machine." Harid mumbled and quickly looked around to make sure that he had not been targeted by any predator while observing the unusual casualty of the ruined city. Instead of any dangerous construct of the horror-like realm, Harid's eyes ended up staring at a smooth metallic object just at the border of the line of starting vegetation.

"Hey, what is one of the magic bins doing here?" Zach noticed it as well and walked to inspect the familiar object and placed his hand onto its surface with confidence. For a split second, a rune flashed on its surface only to fade again into nothingness.

"What? No voodoo magic?" Zach shook his head in surprise.

"Obviously, they lose their power when carried away from their dedicated spots." Harid said, he had seen it happen once and was familiar with the phenomenon.

"You think someone bothered to carry it this far?" Zach could not figure out the reason why would anyone undertake such a useless endeavor.

"Someone, or something." Harid's gaze returned to the motionless dragonfly.

"We won't know more without investigating further, we are close. Come!" Zach spoke with enthusiasm and walked with wide strides and a smirk on his face in the direction of the Azure Tower. At this point, it was nearly an obsession and their ability to pass through a whole section of the city like a breeze had made them a little careless.

"Sure." Harid answered with a smile, his hand slipping into his pocket when Zach turned away.

"The chance is small, but better be safe than sorry." He whispered while his eyes darted left and right, looking for a patch of thick vegetation.

He wanted to throw the knife he had pulled out far away into the distant vegetation, but then chuckled and simply inserted it into the readied garbage bin and followed his companion.

Why should he not use a garbage bin that had been made ready especially for him?