Solo Mission: Deviant

[Lenz]

54th of Summer, 514 AV
Lenz's Tent

Leaves were falling outside, quickly turned to tendrils of hair. They flew through the air and chased the wind before they littered the ground with autumn colours. Red, orange and burnt brunette- they swam through the thick of the grass as snow suddenly decided to descend from the tumult of greying sky above.

A woman with stunning and vivid red hair repelled down from a tree, sliding herself upon the forest floor only to lose feeling in both her feet. Icy frigidness attacked her senses until she couldn’t breathe without experiencing a sharp pain in her nostrils.

She crouched before falling onto her knees, surveying her surroundings with half closed eyelids. She felt sleepy as if she were being hypnotized and tossed into a stupor she couldn’t control.

Before she knew it a raven was perched on her left shoulder. It pecked at the side of her neck until its beak shattered her skin and penetrated her choroid artery. Crimson spattered out of her throat until it marred the pure white ground with its bloody essence.

The woman with scarlet hair fell face first into the every falling snow where her body, now an empty vessel, quickly grew cold.



Lenz found herself waking from out of a deep sleep with s start. Her mouth was open and harsh shrieks were expelling from out of it. She was screaming incomprehensible words towards the pyramid shaped ceiling of the tent.

She had been unconscious, not dead. She was thankful for that, but what she wasn’t thankful for were the incessant, ever returning and never ceasing nightmares that haunted her when she slept. She simply wished to regain the normalcy others had when they dreamt.

She disliked having to fear sleep. This was why she often wandered the city in the late bells of the night to early bells of the next morning. She lingered near deteriorating buildings and kept her figure against the various disintegrating walls of the town. She had gone a total of four days without sleep before she fell in and out of reality to imaginative state of mind. She was dreaming as she was awake which in turn made those that were around her look at her with conspicuous and frightened expressions.

She finally had fallen in a heap in the middle of an abandoned alleyway; an unwise thing to do, but one she was completely unable to prevent. She had awoken to the sight of an inquisitive child’s face.

Lenz rolled over and stretched her back by lifting her abdomen to the sky. Several extremely loud pops and snaps erupted from her spine before quieting into a soft groan. She yawned skittishly as memories of last night came back to her.

She recalled finding a man naked in the middle of the wilderness. She could recollect picking him up and throwing him over her shoulders only to trek back to her tent and tend to his wounds. She remembered going into town to buy some food for him and once she had cooked it and returned inside the tent, she was faced with the chocolate eyes of a conscious male.

Lenz eyes adjusted to the morning light that was peering in from the flap of the tent. It was open, cracked slightly to let in the breeze of early bells. The woman sat up and threw off the blankets that shrouded her legs. She couldn’t call to mind the moment she had dressed herself with warmth. Then did the images crawl back into her skull.

The man she had brought back into the tent and the vow they had made to one another proved influential and true. Had he been the one to comfort her with the heat from the blankets? Was he still around someone or had he ditched her even after she had offered him so much?

To anyone else, they might have seen the events depicted the other day as hazardous and untrusting, but to Lenz everything she had experienced was enshrined in her temples. The man who she could recall was named Twig was different than those average Sunberthian folk.

He didn’t seem like he had come from the city or if he had he had been running away from it. His gentle and timid demeanour, the effortless way he came to trust Lenz was admirable to such an extent that it seemed foolish. No local would have done such a thing. In fact every other individual would have acted the part and left when the coast was clear.

This sprung an uncomfortable feeling in the base of her stomach. Just the thought of being played made her face contort into a rather repugnant and volatile expression.

Her eyebrows drew down so that there wasn’t any room for skin between her eyes which had darkened increasingly. Her lips were pressed so tightly together that they turned white and her cheeks were sucked in, creating the image of a ghost or abominable creature of horror.

She slapped both hands to the ground on either side of her before hoisting herself to her feet. She made it her right to storm out of the tent and into the luminance of the forest air. It surrounded her like a wave of stagnant air. Bugs buzzed around her head until she shook it clear of any possible invitation.

The first thing she did was scan those that were around her. Her eyes followed a trail of deer prints. They went up the trunk of a decaying tree and they slid down a note that had been impaled by a small branch.

Without warning a crackle in the woods was brought to her attention. She was tentative to investigate, but after encouragingly telling herself that she was dexterous to handle anything coerced upon her. She took a loitering but well planned step forward before stealthily dragging her back against a nearby tree. She was unarmed, but being without a weapon is no lessen on the outcome of a fight whether it be fair or not.

She continued to make herself hard to see by growing closer and closer to the camouflage of the trees and their leaves. She shrouded herself with a large branch and then crouched down. She slid through the forest one foot at a time before she sneakily arrived to where she assumed the noise came from.

Upon noticing nothing out of the ordinary, she stood up. Astonished and vaguely irritated, she dropped her shoulders and turned around to head back.

This was when she ran into a familiar but startling face.

[Lenz]

54th of Summer, 514 AV
Lenz's Tent

Tan, evenly toned skin surrounded two very large orbs of dark brown. Black hair was slicked back and framed a face that could have only been the man she had found and enslaved by vow. However, during the heat of the moment and the blink of an eye Lenz didn’t realise it was him before it was too late.

A fist slammed into his nose, causing the both of them to hurtle backwards; Lenz created space between the two of them where Twig recoiled, falling back first into a tree behind him.

He cried out in pain as he clutched his nose with both hands. His accent *In the real world this accent would be considered Irish. embellished the air with its whimsical sound. His voice was beautiful and positively dreamy, but for Lenz, during the state of mind she was in, could have cared less.

“Why did you sneak up on me like that?” she bellowed, causing a flock of birds to fly off and into the wind.

Still clutching his nose Twig retaliated with an, “I was curious!”

Anger dismissively suppressed the fear that had been bubbling up inside of her during the moment of attack. She had presented herself without thought and that was something she could not allow.

She was a thoughtful person if not a little pensive, therefore when she suddenly acted without reason or rationality, she felt churlish remorse for what she had done. However, she would under no circumstances apologise to him. It was his fault after all, for sneaking up behind her. Yet, she was still bewildered; he was so quiet. How had he done it?

Intrigued, Lenz went over to assist him with his nose.

A thin stream of crimson liquid came dribbling out of one nostril. It landed on his knuckles with a small splat before quickly rolling down his arm and dripping onto the forest floor. It was a sight that made the desperado squirm in her own skin.

She was weak when it came to seeing morbidity around her. She wasn’t weak in the way that the sight made her nauseous; in fact it was the exact opposite. She relished to see the pain and suffering of others and if it meant witnessing the exposition of internal fluids and entrails. Although, something deep inside the hollow profoundness of her body, she felt a small amount of empathy for Twig.

Once she had reached where he sat slumped against the trunk of a tree, she crouched down and removed his hands from his face. The first thing she observed was the bloody mess that flawed his otherwise perfect face. A single freckle set a ways below his right eye was the only other sign of imperfection, but to Lenz she admired the mark of individuality.

And then she noticed the two large scars that ran down from his eyebrow towards the underside of his chin. She bit her lip upon seeing these marks.

Twig squirmed from the obnoxious pain that coated the interior and exterior of his nose. His eyes were held shut, but even the tiniest of tears could rain down his cheeks. The rogue pushed her fingertips on either side of his nose and felt for any breaks in the bone.

Upon finding nothing out of the ordinary and after listening to a cry of protest from her victim soon to be patient, she let go and dried her hands on the grass below her.

“Stop fidgeting,” she commanded before extending her hand, “and take my hand.”

Twig did as he was told, only opening his eyes for the briefest of moments to find her outstretched limb. After he grabbed it with his hand, she helped hoist him to his feet.

“I can’t see,” he croaked.

How hard had she hit him? The basic question forced the woman to look down at her own hand. What she saw wasn’t very pleasant, but it wasn’t abnormal to her either. Her first two knuckles were cut from the impact it had on Twig’s face. She would not only have to patch up Twig’s wounds but her own as well.

“Of course you can’t see,” she said. She tried to sound reassuring, but her voice came out in a commanding voice of hostile agitation instead. “It’s because your tears are blinding your sight.”

Trying to regain his pride, Twig protested to her observation. “I’m not crying.”

Lenz, bringing her more assertive, philosophical and logical side into the picture, correct her partner on his statement. “I never said you were crying. I said your eyes were tearing up because I attacked your nose.”

They both remained silent as the renegade and her Kelvic slave hobbled back towards the safety of the tent. Once they had arrived back to solitary familiarity, she sat him down next to the makeshift fire pit, now unlit from the night before, and told him she would return shortly.

She went into the tent with her mind already on target as to what she should do. She didn’t own very many medicinal tools or herbs to help dull the pain and fix his injury, but she had her wits about her and they would assist her in any nature she desired.

Sure of herself, she drifted towards the back of the tent. With her head held high, she rummaged around in her backpack until she came across her paintbrush, one glove and the piece of fabric she had torn from her dress from seasons ago. She went outside with her newfound materials and took a seat beside Twig.

She took the paintbrush in between her index and middle finger and brought it up to her mouth. She sucked on the brush portion of the utensil until it was soaking wet from her saliva. She then leant over Twig and began to brush away the blood that coated the top of his nose.

Red liquid was still gently flowing out of his nostril, but she would daintily make him seem more presentable for the time being. Once she had ‘painted’ away the crimson debris, she discarded the paintbrush and proceeded to hand Twig the glove.

“Use this,” she said as she stuffed the glove into his open hand, “to stop the bleeding.”

As she anticipated, he stuck the glove up into his nose and immediately did the bleeding stop. She picked up the paintbrush again, still wet, and decided to clean up under and around his nose.

She was so close to the Kelvic that she could smell his breath. It was surprisingly hygienic smelling as if he had recently been eating some sort of sour berry.

Her leadership was proving to be helpful after all.

Now it was time to help herself.

[Lenz]

54th of Summer, 514 AV
Lenz's Tent

Once she felt safe and satisfied with her work of her slave, she decided to help herself by taking the scrap piece of fabric and laying it flat on top of her scathed knuckles. Instantly did the partially white fabric (the part of it that wasn’t already marred with blood from the time she had soaked up Twig’s other wounds) start to absorb the liquid.

She then took one edge and began to wrap it around her hand until it was tight enough. With no more fabric to work with, she unfolded a portion of the already wrapped material and tucked in the remaining so that it wouldn’t’ undo itself when she went about doing other physical tasks and chores.

“Twig,” she said, turning toward him.

“Hmm?” he mumbled, opening his eyes for the first time in the countless amount of chimes.

“Don’t sneak up on me ever again,” she growled.

He nodded his head before smiling slightly. “Understandably noted.”

“I’m serious,” she spat, intimidatingly showing her dire seriousness. “If you ever sneak up on me again and cause me to react in the way I did, I will without hesitation thrust my hand into her stomach and rip out your liver.”

Twig’s smile strikingly didn’t falter. He remained with his gleeful expression until Lenz avoided eye contact. This man was strange indeed was what she was thinking. He reacted in ways no one else would and why? Was he a little slow as in mentally incapable of certain normal things? Was he socially impaired and unable to apprehend challenging situations? Whatever the issue, Lenz both craved it and also despised it.

It being both him and his personality and perception towards life.

The renegade stood up and shook her head from side to side all the while mumbling inaudible things. Finally she could be heard saying, “you must have a death wish,” before she turned on her heel to return the excess materials back into the tent.

It was then that she remembered what she had seen only chimes ago; before investigating he suddenness of a sound, before being startled by a mindful slave, before punching him in the face and having to tend to his and her own newly attained injuries.

She had found out of the corner of her eye a letter impaled by a small branch. She caught sight of it once again and convincingly pulled it off from the wooden stake.

Once her eyes adjusted to the small, yet distinguishable print, she began to read what it said. Her eyes flew from word to word, sometimes having to settle on a particular letter to figure out what it was. Her employer’s handwriting was indeed calligraphic coding that was sometime difficult to decipher.

It read,

There is a man who dresses all in blue and he wears a hooded shirt. Someone has already come across this man and has branded their first initial into the side of his face. However, because he always wears a hooded shirt, this branding is usually concealed.

The man I speak of is someone who has been secretly taking children from out of the orphanage and using them against their will for his own odious and regrettable pleasure. He is a volatile man of vile origin and because he not only harms but deprives those of their virginity, he must be sent away to not only purgatory but that which flays those alive. Do not hold back when you massacre this villain, for his intentions of impure and therefore deserve this cleansing.

He has been seen nearby the orphanage although his whereabouts are usually hidden fairly well. His tactics are aggressive but thoroughly planned before initiated. Please be cautious and careful.

His name is Ver Denzizon.

-A

She read it over and over again, one part of her bewildered, the other half completely in sync with the convictions her employer wished her to succeed with.

Now burn it, instructed the voice inside her head.

Acknowledging its presence by nodding her head, she began to fold it in half and then in half again. She repeated this procedure until it was fairly small and couldn’t be folded again. Once she had reached this level, she went inside the depths of her control, calling for the presence of djed.

It conjured up inside of her and flowed through her veins until it deposited itself in the form of res in the palm of her right hand; her left was in use, holding the letter in place.

With this fresh res hovering in the form of a liquid substance, she reengaged her mentality so that it was forcibly exhausted by the fear of anger.

She cocked her wrist until the friction caused a spark of light to clatter onto the res. Fire ignited in the palm of her hand before she gently tilted her arm so that it was above the letter.

The piece of paper was soon ablaze as the flames licked it until it transformed into millions of particles of ash and fell to the ground.

Content with the fulfilled duties she had presently finished, she walked over the remnants of ever having an assignment and over towards Twig who was still sitting with his head tilted upwards.

“Get up,” she shouted sternly.

He was no longer wearing his stupid grin, for that mask had been replaced with a cringe. The pain in his nose was still fervent- glowing with unnecessary pride. For the reasons she still could not identify, this made Lenz feel better about herself and that which she had done regrettably only moments ago.

“Where are we going?” he asked skeptically before rising to his feet.

Lenz turned around and shot him a dirty look before saying, “You don’t ask me why I do the things I do; you merely follow my commands as we have discussed last night."

"Or have you forgotten our agreement?” she growled.

He shook his head briskly. “I haven’t forgotten.”

Although he did not apologise for his actions, the human could have cared less. Her mind was elsewhere for the time being and as she leant into the tent to retrieve her double bladed dagger, she knew she would never get it back.

[Lenz]

54th of Summer, 514 AV
The Tent City

The two of them traipsed through the forest as Lenz wacked at loose limbs and vines that were found scattered throughout their path.

Twig kept to himself, his eyes narrowed as if that would help dim the pain that was throbbing in his nose. Lenz’s face as just as stern appearing, but the pain she currently felt was not physical but mental, emotional, and no one would truly find out the severity of the level of intolerance it was she was dealing with.

The renegade was no longer agathokakological but composed only of the wicked and spiteful attributes that of a villain would have. She was like a dandelion, each of its individual fluffy seeds flailing in the wind. No one knows where the wind takes them, only that they reproduce in different areas during different times in the season.

That was how Lenz was; she was unpredictable and vengeful full of malicious intent with vindictive displays of affection. It was almost frightening how she went through life using her self-destructive exposés as façades to hide the true pain that is always writhing deep within her.

“Can I at least ask what it is we’re goin’ to do?” came a shallow voice from behind her.

It belonged to Twig.

Lenz turned to face him as she continued to walk through the brush that constantly wished to tickle her nose and forehead. His eyes were glinting with some sort of devious and dark brunette beam. It was as if they could read the future, but he just decided he wanted to ask politely instead of using his latent powers.

He didn’t grimace as he had been for a while now, but instead suppressed the hurt, sending it hurtling towards the darkest corners of his mind where he would neglect it until it became too powerful.

A small and slender strand of his stark black hair had been freed from its slicked down position and was now bouncing in rhythm with his stride. His cheeks glistened with sweat in the sunlight that was peering through the cracks in the canopy overhead.

Although he wasn’t smiling, Lenz couldn’t help but examine his face for any signs of held back laughter. He was a cheerful boy, but she couldn’t conclude on whether that was because he was just a wonderful actor or because he was simply naturally happy all the time.

She chose to accept the former, too held up in her own world of hurt to accept anything less.

“No,” she replied, hiding the simplest form of a growl in her throat.

It was short and simple but also delicately put. He didn’t need to know and with that, she turned to face forward again and continued to trek through the wilderness.

There was nothing he said in response to her previously announced reply, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t want to know why he wasn’t allowed backstage passes to her plots and plans.

She could have cared less, however, because it was then that the both of them emerged from the ruffles of feathery leaves and into the fully exposed sunlight of Tent City.

“Wow,” announced a voice thick with an impenetrable softness. “I don’t think I’ve ever been here before.”

Lenz tried to avoid the commotion of bustling bodies and sweating and smelling limbs. Everywhere she looked she caught sight of some man or woman with greasy hair and a dirty face, their teeth crooked or yellowed and their mouths crooked into the form of a straight line if not already in a frown.

It only took her a second before wondering whether she looked like that or not.

Lenz turned around to see if she could observe herself in the glassy eyes of her companion. She stared into his dark orbs, watching as the pitch of his irises displayed a savage appealing woman with ratty scarlet hair and a stern expression.

She blinked rapidly, trying to erase the image of how repulsive she had let herself become. She would have to clean herself or do something to rectify the disgust she had caused herself.

“What?” asked Twig, semi-concerned for whatever emotion she had conjured and projected onto her putrefying face.

“Stop talking,” she demanded, curling her hands into fists and gently beating them on the sides of her slacks.

“I apologise lordess, after all, ya saved my life. I am indebted and certainly beholden to ya, therefore I won’t speak,” he replied sorrowfully, but respectively.

“Then why are you still talking?” she spat without turning around.

She was too kept up in the ruckus that was rising from the dirty haven she waltzed through. She insisted Twig join her in dodging the grotesque bodies, but by the way they reacted to her, it almost made her feel like they assumed she was just another one of them.

This made her angry- so angry in fact that she turned around to face a middle aged woman with greying hair only to shout in her face with distaste with her gawking eyes.

“Stop staring! Do I look like I would be one of you? Do I appear as though I am a miserable peasant such as yourselves? Well, I am undoubtedly not like you and I never will be!”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Twig shrink back at her abrupt conundrum. He tentatively brought his arm into her line of sight and repelled away the woman she was shrieking at with his back.

He continued walking, however, because if he were to stop directly in front of his master, she would lash out and hurt him rather than the woman she sought revenge on.

What strange things emotions were, causing the human to want to exenterate a woman based solely on the fact that she happened to have glanced in her direction. It was daft how a simple action could stir such a tempest in the mind of such a mentally inept being.

“Lordess,” he finally said after clearing his throat several times. “We must get going.”

Lenz twisted her frame so that it was focused entirely on her slave. Her eyes were like lasers as they began to bore fiery holes into Twig’s scarred face. He didn’t cringe. There weren’t really any lasers. It was just something she could see with her own mind. She saw them coming from out of her eyes and carving into everyone she saw.

“You don’t tell me what to do,” she grumbled. “That’s my job.”

But she went anyway.

[Lenz]

54th of Summer, 514 AV
The Orphanage

Once they had vacated the premises of torturous, yet envious memories, the redheaded woman had finally settled down to a suitable normalcy. She felt the need to shake her head repeatedly to dislodge all feelings of rage, but after she had done this, she felt much better.

She didn’t speak of the spectacle she had caused back there and neither did Twig. It was thankful that he hadn’t, for if he did he would have been impaled by a branch only to join the rest of the tree family.

Many stray trees of brown tints and textures littered the pathway they lead as they continued through into the town. Once the first building sprung up, the trees vanished as if unwelcome to be in the presence of such prestigious racial invention. Once her stride had increased, it sent his through a loop before he had managed to catch up.

She was free willing but determined and basically intrepid and with that intrepidness came the attribute of being dominant. She would walk through the city with her head held high. This sometimes led to an overabundance of confidence, but she tried not to dwell on any negative thoughts when it came to her death.

This wouldn’t have been true several days ago when the time was set near the beginning of the summer season. Then, she would have been open to all sorts of dismaying deaths and regrettable and disrespectful endings for her.

She had initially planned on reaching the bottom of the sea, ropes tied to her ankles and heavy weights tied to the bottom of the rope. She would descend into an ubiquitous blue and forget about the world as if it had never existed, and then she would think about herself and about how she had never even existed.

Another plan was to have taken her own dagger and with it act as though she were a doctor. She would perform an incision in both wrists and dig into the flesh as if it were a meal. She would then eradicate the largest of the veins that resided inside her wrists. Pulling the remnants of whatever is left of a circulatory system, she would lay her head back and await the end of a lifetime.

Watching the stars was something she craved of doing. It was a wish of hers- to see such beautiful imagery before she passed away and into the other realm of deep sleep.

Snapping out of her cycle of depressing memories and even morbid thoughts, she found herself walking in stride with her slave beside her. They were heading towards the ocean, but for what reason?

Recalling back to what the note said, she saw the words illuminating ideas in the pit of her brain. They were sent on a mission to take out a man who was using young woman and men as bait for his sexual daemon.

Lenz stopped suddenly and turned on her heel as she began to run in the opposite direction. This really threw the Kelvic off as her lack of warning scattered his brain.

Inwardly he was thinking about how crazy the woman who had saved his life was, but farther into his mind were decent thoughts about how considerate she was as well. He couldn’t fathom which he liked more: the danger of her insane persona, or the empathy she felt, almost too overwhelming but delightful.

He too began to run until his speed matched the same pace as hers and then the two of them ran together through the large streets and narrow alleyways. Sometimes the both of them needed to jump over an obstacle or two. Sometimes they needed to use the wall to push themselves through a mass of bodies, but only once did they need to stop to take a breather before they were off on a rampage through the streets again.

All the while Twig continued dwelling on the fact of the matter. He had been put into a terrible situation, tossed out into the middle of the woods after suffering a traumatic backstory, but one that would take a while before Lenz could figure out.

He might appear brave on the outside, but on the inside he was just as damaged as his caretaker and that was something worth showing empathy for.

But would she ever truly know that she wasn’t alone? Would she ever come to realise that Twig too struggled to bring himself to his knees each and every waking day? Did his past even come close to how severe hers was?

Finally Lenz’s legs stopped moving as the two arrived at the scene of the detestable and loathsome attacks a man did towards homeless and family-less children.

Upon looking up, the mage observed the building with eyes that were glazed over; Twig’s were as well, but they weren’t as dry and teary as hers were. The building was oddly large both in height and width. The siding was rotted through, but the overall architecture seemed much better when comparing to those establishments around the city.

Realising how openly public she had made herself, she decided to take several quickened steps backwards until she was safely hidden away behind a cluster of averagely sized barrels. Twig subtly followed behind her.

“Looks like a nice place to keep parentless kids,” stated the boy.

Lenz cocked her head to the side, but did nothing else in terms of correcting his fallible announcement. She disliked when someone used such barbaric language when trying to explain something such as an orphanage.

A ‘nice place’ was an understatement, but the tone of voice he used just grated on her nerves. It was like he was being sarcastic but trying to in an inconspicuous manner. It was almost as if he was trying to say he knew what it was like to be in an orphanage and this particular building was considered ‘nice’ by his standards.

Another thing that made her stomach twist and churn was how he referred to the family-less children as typical youths. This was not the case whatsoever, but she abstained from blurting out a sentimental lecture on his wrongdoings.

The silence continued on as Lenz hit Twig in the arm as a form of signal. She adhered her figure to the wall and sneakily followed it to the other side.

She peered over the edge of the building to check it the target had arrived yet. When he was nowhere in sight, she dropped back to a crouch and stealthily played it as thought everything was nonchalant, but valuable.

And then came an extremely irritating noise.

[Lenz]

54th of Summer, 514 AV
The Orphanage

“What’s it we’re waiting for?” whispered an accent tainted voice.

The woman tilted her head back before rotating it. She saw her companion crouching beside her, a goofy expression plastered on his face. She watched him bring his hand up to his forehead where he began brushing his stark black hair in a backwards motion. He then tugged the long strands that wouldn’t forcibly go back with the rest and tucked them behind both of his ears.

Lenz cringed, but only because she felt some strange sort of emotion, one she couldn’t place. Why did she feel this way? Was it because all her life she had ran away from slavery, often protesting against it only to turn herself into a slave master?

Was it because she felt like she was depriving him of his free will? But then again, he seemed overjoyed to be taken in her hands; he seemed fine with the agreement if not a little tentative. It was a strange thing she couldn’t put her finger on, but one she didn’t want to spend another moment thinking about either.

“We are waiting for our assigned target to show his dirty, little face,” Lenz said halfheartedly.

“Target?”

“You ask too many questions,” she replied, raising her finger to his mouth before clenching her nails into his upper lip.

The two locked eyes, her darkened hazel ones glinting with green flecks on light brown backgrounds. His raven black spheres were swimming in the vast medievalism of the windows to her soul and managed to hang on. They held their stare for a while as Twig squirmed.

She continued to dig her nails into both of his lips.

“And if you ask too many of those questions, well, let’s just say that you might just end up having a rather large hole here,” she continued before retracting her finger tips from out of his mouth.

He drew back once his mouth had been freed and grabbed at the wounded area with his right hand. Massaging it as best as he could to relieve himself of the pain, he showed his understanding by nodding his head.

Something stirred inside the woman’s mind, however. It caused her to think for a moment- outside the very real façade of ‘being fine’. She had to dig out with nothing but a trowel before she emerged from the wreckage of madness. There, she was barely deemed worthy of harnessing the simple aspect of clarity and self-healing. There, she found the truth of the matter and felt curiosity bubble up inside of her- a foul and deceiving emotion, but one she was sensing all the same.

She began to bring the same hand she used to pull Twig’s lips together upwards so that it was level with his cheekbone. Twig, not surprisingly, flinched at seeing the weapon, but Lenz gave him a stern look as if to say, ‘don’t move’. He stopped fidgeting and braced himself for another attack or form of punishment.

“I didn’t say anythin’,” he said quietly.

“I know.”

“Wh-what are ya doing then?”

“I want to feel these,” she replied as her fingertips went on to feel the rigid bumpiness of his scar tissue.

They felt wrought with pain among other terrible emotions. There was fear linked to sadness and a vague sense of anger pulsed through the raised flesh. She continued to draw her fingers across his wounds and down to his chin where she finally stopped and retracted her hand.

Embarrassment suddenly filled her mind as if she were feeling empathy for all this man had been through. But, why should she? She didn’t care anymore about anything.

She made sure to severe the nerve and tie the endings so that she wouldn’t have to feel anything anymore. She despised feeling sadness or happiness or any emotion at all, but no matter how hard she had tried to shut down her feelings, one emotion always seemed to slip through. That emotion was anger.

She was vengeful and someday she would track down the man who killed her best friend and only child and she would beat him to a pulp so that if anyone saw her disposing the carcass in the waters, they wouldn’t be able to recognize his face.

Lenz looked up and saw a disappointed look on Twig’s face. He lowered his head so that she wouldn’t have to see his eyes and brought up his own hand to feel the poorly healed wounds that marred his skin. He frowned slightly and his eyes grew darker if that was even possible.

She witnessed pain flowing through his veins and flourishing his body as his hand began to tremble. However, when he looked up, his expression looked as if nothing had ever bothered him.

Finally, the question that had been haunting her for the past couple of days had been answered. He wasn’t genuinely happy. He was just an exquisite actor. He was much better than Lenz and that made her agitated, but didn’t everything now a days?

“I’m not asking,” she said softly but with aggression hinted throughout her tone of voice, “yet.”

Twig didn’t meet her gaze, but he knew exactly what she meant. Someday he would have to tell her what had happened to his face and some day that wouldn’t be the only scar that would blemish his flesh.

In the back of her mind and possibly his, she knew that she would hurt him whether it was physically or mentally. Her aggressive and maleficent side would win over the more relaxed and easily persuasive side and she would lash out whether it was voluntarily or subconsciously.

She would hurt him and she would tear his skin apart to reveal the liquid that pulsed through his arteries. She would heal all his injuries, but they wouldn’t just disappear. They would leave marks, the marks of a fighter and a survivor such as herself.

The sound of a cough caught the attention of a girl with heightened hearing. Her visual skills were being deprived of her by a slave, but that didn’t mean she could listen carefully.

She knew then that her prey had arrived and she was more than ready to find a little action.

The mage stood up then and drifted across the alleyway. She stayed low, keeping her presence unknown by all others that may be around her. She blended in with the shadows and disappeared into the darkness of the unknown.

With all the stealth she could muster, she slipped into the street, keeping to the walls.

Because the sun was hovering at a strange angle, what it couldn’t reach and crafted into shadows were the perfect shroud she needed to remain unseen. She knew Twig was following, but couldn’t be certain. All her attention was drawn from anything and pin pointed on the individual who had made the noise.

Once she had reached another building, she hid behind it and lowered her body to the ground so that her rear touched the stony floor of a devastated city. Twig came right up behind her and joined her stealthy status with his own ‘nonexistent’ being.

In another life, Lenz would have said she could have been compatible with this here boy of mystery and ominousness, but because she didn’t have another self, she dismissed ever thinking of such an illogical idea. Her fantastical desires tampered with her sanity which had already been exhausted if not completely desolated by death in disguise.

Lenz peered over her shoulder and behind the wall she crouched behind. Sadly, she couldn’t spot anything besides a few empty crates. Frustrated, she sighed loudly before turning to look at her slave.

“What animal is it that you can shift into?” she asked nonchalantly.

She didn’t want to seem desperate for other alternatives, but she definitely didn’t want to be caught by the man she had been sent to slaughter.

Twig only smiled.

[Lenz]

54th of Summer, 514 AV
The Orphanage

At first the smile he possessed felt a little threatening if not a bit intimidating. Lenz inwardly scoffed at his attempt to impress her. Was he mischievous? He was indeed, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t be scolded for his actions if they were stupid.

“Why are you smiling?” she asked skeptically.

She narrowed his eyes and stared into his as if trying to figure out the secrets of his past. They were locked behind solid gates and without a key she could not intervene to unearth them. She didn’t have the key and this made her frown. She would have to further investigate in an inconspicuous manner or if it came to torture, her curiosity could never go unanswered.

Instead of answering, Twig took off his shirt. Lenz reeled back, confused as to what he was doing. But she stopped feigning surprise. His abdominal muscles were obvious, but not intense as some men had theirs. He was still a boy and therefore hadn’t grown into his muscular self, but to many woman, they could have cared less. However, this is not what took the mage’s breath away.

A thick line of skin previously ripped apart and stitched back together again spread in a straight line from his collarbone. It curved slightly before meeting another noticeably large scar near the lower centre of his sternum. That scar made the same route upwards and to his other collarbone, perfectly what appeared to be the shape of a wishbone.

She could also see another thick line on either side of his neck. This made her cringe inwardly before she was able to stop herself. Empathy was starting to boil up inside of her, but she forced it down before it got the chance to strengthen.

Lenz was stunned upon first sight, for she couldn’t recall ever seeing such a tremendous wound. Why had she neglected to see it before? She had picked him up from the middle of the woods and she had taken him back to her tent where she laid him on his back, yet she was inept to examine his body for any signs of prior injuries?

Was she so held up in trying to prevent new ones from happening by cleaning up the bloody cuts she had seen him with the day she found him? Why was any of this such an important aspect for her right now? Why did she even care?

All these questions were raving inside her mind, daring to exploit her ear canals before oozing down the side of her neck. She inhaled sharply as she continued to observe his scars. They were even more rigid that the ones on his face, but you wouldn’t have noticed had he been wearing a shirt without a neck that swooped downwards.

Reveling back from the ubiquitous questions that tainted her concentration, she saw Twig throw his shirt a few feet to his right. Then, he stripped himself of his slacks and threw those to the side as well. Now he was nude and now Lenz was even more confused.

“What are you doing?” she asked, bewildered.

“This is why ya found me without clothin' on in the middle of the woods,” he replied.

Suddenly a bright light of vivid white consumed the entirety of her vision. She was blinded for several seconds before the man she had seen before her vanished and was replaced by a flying creature of some sort.

Upon closer examination, she saw wings of thin, leather looking material. They seemed to be about two to three meters in diameter and they fluttered quickly to keep the flying animal from falling into the ground. She saw the creatures face with genuine interest.

Her pupils dilated in desire at learning more about this particular species. Short black hair and contrasting reddish-brown accents were what covered its face. Its eyes were set far apart and were an enticing chocolate brown, much lighter than those of Twig when he was in his human form.

“Twig?” she asked.

Of course the bat couldn’t reply because animals couldn’t speak to humans, but it was worth a shot. But was Twig’s animal form really a bat? Its face didn’t appear to be that of a bats, but its wings were definitely attributes of one.

It confounded her, but she would have to wait to have her questions answered later, when her companion was turned back into his humanoid state.

Coming back into present time and out of her imaginary world of comforting silence, she placed her body back into the role of the master.

“Find him,” she commanded before crouching lower to the ground.

Twig did as he was told and beat his wings harder as he propelled himself higher into the air. He was ascending into the forever abyss of blue and soon the woman couldn’t see him at all.

Twig glided through the air, hovering over buildings and gradually swooping downwards until he landed upside down on a horizontal pole that must have been used many seasons ago for displaying flags.

Because he was not a normal bat, he wasn’t blind. He focused his trained eyes on the target he was searching for as soon as he found him. He observed him for a while and found that he was standing strangely alone right in front of the orphanage.

Suddenly he disappeared, but not more than a few chimes later he reappeared with a young girl held securely under his arm. She was squirming faintly, but the sight was only vague enough to give the creature a basic idea.

He let his clawed paws let go of the pole before he fell to the ground. Before hitting head first into the hard pavement, he flapped his wings again and arched his body so that it was no longer vertical. He flew with strength and pride after finding out what both he and his master needed to know.

After locking eyes with the human, he slowly dropped his elevation until he was a few feet from the ground. Hovering for only a few moments, his shape shifting abilities took their toll. The blinding white light with glittering flecks of magic spread throughout Lenz’s eyesight and before she knew it the bat-like creature had transformed into a man again.

The man had stark black hair, slicked back and pulled behind both ears. His face was fair and his nose, average if not a little small. Two large scars littered the left side of his face and his eyes were just as pitch as his hair. He was Twig and he was officially Lenz’s slave if not something better.

“What did you find?” she asked him once he had a tongue that spoke common.

He began to collect his pants and hopped into both of the leg holes. He was grabbing his shirt and had stuck one arm into one sleeve before pushing his head through the largest hole in the fabric. He stuck his other arm in the other hole before brushing his hair back with the palms of both hands. Finally, he told her what she wished to here.

“He is with some girl. By the looks of it, he doesn’t seem like a very nice guy. Who is he?”

Lenz rocked back on her heels, debating on whether or not she should tell Twig something if not anything at all. She settled for what she felt right. If Twig was going to accompany her on more than this one mission, he would need to be filled in on what they were doing. His job was to be her eye in the sky, her wings to fly high and nothing more. He knew that and so did she, but did her mind?

“I am sent letters that give me assignments. I am requested to carry out these assignments whether they include the need for interrogation or violent torture. Now that you are here, you can be my eye in the sky or my wings to see things of which I cannot.”

As if understanding the true meaning behind the choice of her profession and why it was they were hunting this man down, Twig nodded his head harshly. “Alright,” he said softly before taking a step forward.

Lenz quickly stuck out her forearm, preventing him from continuing any further.

“Wha-“

“Do you not remember?” she said sternly. “Ladies first.”

[Lenz]

54th of Summer, 514 AV
The Orphanage

Twig held back, removing his chest from her forearm. Planting his back foot, he dropped his head and arched his back so that he seemed to be bowing. Then, he extended his arm as if requesting permission for something before losing eye contact with the woman who was now his master.

“After you,” he whispered politely without moving a muscle.

Lenz rolled her eyes like she had seen the silliest act of all time, but deep down inside of her, where her mind couldn’t seem to reach and pull out, she was feeling remorse for the time when she would play with her child. It made her stomach lurch, but she refrained from gagging.

With her knees bent, the woman began to sneak around the twists and turns that it took before she could physically see the orphanage. She melted her back into the walls and traipsed without so much as a noise. She only hoped Twig would do the same.

She looked over her shoulder and saw his face, as stern as it was, focusing on his footing as well. They both didn’t know where their prey was at a moment like this, and taking so much as a breath could stir up trouble they didn’t want.

She looked into his cavernous eyes as if wanting to know a question, but couldn’t say it. Twig’s eyebrows drew down in confusion. He bit his lip before tilting his head. He mouthed the word, ‘what’ before coming right up on the woman.

Lenz leant close to his ear and brushed away his dark hair so that her lips were mere centimeters from his flesh. Then she asked him, “where was he?”

His voice was course, harshly spoken as if someone had tossed in a mound of sand and packed it into his throat. Like he had been smoking for a while, his voice came out deep and dark. It was mesmerizing and it made the human’s skin wriggle with ultimate emotion.

“He was a few feet from the pole,” he answered before peeking his head round the corner of the wall.

He urged his master to join him and she did. Then, he pointed upwards to where a pole was stuck into the side of a nearby building. Instantly did her eyes find what she had been looking for.

He was tall, but rather rotund as if he had drunk too many alcoholic beverages and had received an extended belly full of ale. A young woman with blond hair so light it looked blond was held under his arm as he extended a knife from his opposite breast pocket. He discreetly held it against her back as he began to take several steps forwards.

The girl had vibrant blue eyes that could have pierced the sun with their radiance. Her skin looked fragile and pale as if a rock could penetrate it had it been glass. The expression she held was one of fright but also remorse. She was sad, but Lenz couldn’t make out why she was sad instead of fully fearful.

“Wonderful,” she said with the lack of sarcasm. “You go around the building and I will head straight for him. Block him from behind, but do not come too close. The child is being threatened. Have you noticed the knife?”

Twig narrowed his eyes and observed until he saw the glint of a blade pressing into the child’s back. He bit his lip harder, but not hard enough to draw blood and nodded his head vehemently.

“Then go!” she practically yelled, startling the slave into rushing ahead round the back.

Lenz took this moment to think up a better strategy, but when none came, she pursued the first one and came from out of the shadows with an insidious smile painted onto her lips. Her cheeks looked like they had been cut out and then stitched back up again to create the illusion that she was always smiling. It wasn’t to say that she was happy, however, for that wasn’t the case at all.

he man hadn’t a clue what was to become of him if he pushed his luck too far. He had a weapon, but Lenz had an assistant and logic always dictates that with more force comes a higher probability of a successful outcome.

She replayed that thought in her mind as she continued to walk towards the brute. She took one quick glance at the child under his arm before adjusting her gaze into the thug’s sinister and uncaring eyes.

“Who’re you?” the man asked skeptically upon noticing the lady with stunning red hair. “Get back if you know what’s good for you!”

She didn’t let up. Instead, she quickened her step until she was only a few feet from where he stood. They both stopped walking only to stare into each other’s eyes. Hazel eyes disintegrated the mere fact of sanity in the timid orbs of the opposition.

“That does not seem to be the right question to ask me,” she countered, her grin never faltering. “The question you should be asking yourself right now would be who are you and what are you doing with this child?”

Where are you peasant of a slave? she growled inside her mind.

She didn’t feel like chasing anyone today. She had already ran and her heartbeat was still pounding in her chest from the rise of body temperature. Her legs ached and her head throbbed with the possibility of waging into yet another war.

“Why don’t you petch off! This doesn’t concern you,” he spat before pressing the knife deeper into the child’s side. She cried out in response to the pressure that was igniting pain fibres in her abdomen.

“Oh, but it is quite the opposite really,” she announced. “This concerns me greatly seeing as how you are threatening the life of someone so young. I find that very concerning.”

Suddenly Twig came from out of the shadows, his mouth open as he panted. Where had he gone? He simply had to go around the building and come out the other side to corner the victim. How hard was that to accomplish?

As if reading her mind, he looked up and glared slightly in her direction. He seemed to contemplate something, his facial features contorting into something that represented deep thought or troubled ideals.

Finally, he opened his mouth wider and said, “Just let her go, man,” in his sweet but ominous accent. It was unlike anything she had heard before and by the looks of the man, he too was bewildered by the sound.

“Back off,” he crowed before taking a hasty step to the side.

He was attempting to escape the two of them by widening his spectrum of escape routes. It wouldn’t work, though. Lenz had this area down to a science and with a man in front and in back of him, there would only be two ways about it.

This situation could end with the death of a predatory man with a blade or with a chase that would take longer, but still have the same outcome. Lenz really hoped that the former would take place instead of the latter. She despised the option of running at the moment, and if things became as worse as she assumed, she would send her slave off to track him down.

“We don’t want to hurt you,” said Lenz through grit teeth.

It pained her to lie so terribly. She was severely dacnomanic and with this disease, she needed to release the malicious energy within her only to expel it onto those she felt were fit for the result of death.

This man definitely fit the bill.

“I suggest you let the girl go and we both walk away from this without any bloodshed,” she continued.

She was trying to talk him down, or distract him from the prize he held under his arm. If she succeeded, her negotiation would prove in saving the life of an innocent, someone she approved of not killing in cold blood.

She lifted her eyes from the man to the Kelvic only to find him cautiously stepping closer and closer to the brute with the blade. What was he doing?

Finally the clogs in her mechanical mind clicked into place as she realised his intentions. Fretting, she shook her head, driving her gaze into his head, but he wouldn’t look at her.

This wasn’t going to turn out well and that much she knew was the truth.

[Lenz]

54th of Summer, 514 AV
The Orphanage

Twig, you petching idiot, she spat inwardly. You will not only murder the child, but yourself as well.

She tried to dig deep inside of her, forcing the remnants of sanity away as she pried the dusty walls back to reveal djed stored in the back. Encouraging it to come forth, she assigned it a place to be. It flew through the channels in her body until it arrived in her brain.

There, she summoned her energy and cast it out into the world. It swam through the air currents as if that was its natural habitat before it connected with Twig’s thought pattern. There, she began to work her hypnotism by asking him to abstain from making any hasty movements.

Stand down, she ordered. Stand down. However, he would not give up. He was adamant about what he was doing and although her suggestive techniques were constantly growing in strength, they simply wouldn’t get through to him. Although he shook his head from side to side, as if trying to drive the voices away, he was persistent.

Lenz tried to distract the man as Twig continued to come closer. He had his hand outstretched, as he readied himself to grab the knife from out of the man’s hand. She tried her best, she really did, but her voice wasn’t strong enough to deter the brute’s ambitions.

He noticed shallow motion from behind him and the ticking time bomb within him exploded. He lashed out, turning around and waving his knife in the air. Twig cried out and clutched his hand to his chest before falling on his back. The man had severed his hand with the blade and was now running for his life.

Now that the barrier had been breached, he now had all the freedom in the world to run in the direction behind him. He grasped the girl under his arm tightly as he forced her to sprint alongside him. They made it for the centre of the city where they planned to lose Lenz and her slave.

In her mind, she calculated the percentage they had of winning this fight. It was a fifty-fifty chance that she wouldn’t catch them, but something inside her snapped as she picked to worry over Twig rather than the child. She didn’t know what came over her, just that her priorities were to make sure her companion was alright.

Rushing over to him, she noticed him rolling on the ground as if trying to distract himself from the pain. He clutched his right hand to his stomach and gritted his teeth. His eyes were closed, so the black orbs couldn’t be seen.

“You imbecile,” she growled once she had arrived by his side. “Why didn’t you listen to me?”

He didn’t answer. The pain was the only thing on his mind at the time. With partial understanding of his current condition, but abstaining from paying any attention to it, Lenz snatched the wounded hand away from his chest. As expected, he cried out from the stinging sensation that erupted up his wrist and into his shoulder.

“Let go!” he shouted at her as he opened his eyes. His grimace was strong, but the mage glared at him with an even more dominant expression.

“No, that is what you should have done. You should have let go of your adamancy and halted yourself from grabbing at that weapon! Don’t you know any better you stupid fool?”

Her insults were starting to penetrate his unbreakable wall. His focus was now lessening on the pain of his hand and was reverting back over to her. This was an advantage she took to heart as she turned his hand over and examined the damage that had been done.

Two flaps of skin, positioned opposite one another, were held open by a bulging red laceration across his palm. It was grotesque, but nothing the woman couldn’t handle. She could see strange, round bulbs of skin from underneath the mass of scarlet liquid. Layers of skin broken and slashed across until it almost revealed bone from the other side.

She bit her tongue as she reached up and grabbed a handful of her sleeve. She ripped it off and began to wrap the fabric around the injury to try to cease the bleeding.

“Hold it like that,” she ordered before glaring at him yet again. “I am going to catch the blight that did this.”

When there was no response from the wounded, Lenz leapt up and turned to chase the man in the direction he had fled. She latched her shoe to the gravel below her and sprung into a sprint, her mind racing with ways to torture this prick in ways only a god could survive.

She wasn’t sure any of her torturing techniques would work to keep him alive long enough to interrogate him. Frankly, she didn’t care.

Right now, her mind was a train, its wheels spiraling as the chugging sound drowned out all other thoughts. Soon, the tracks splint, creating a fork in the route, but the trainmaster, the one operating the large machine, didn’t know what to do. His mind had grown blank as panic quickly swept in to disintegrate all reasonable and rational thought. He was lost and couldn’t figure out what he should do next.

The train went straight, one side taking the route of the left and the other going right. The train, stuck by the sudden loss of tracks, split into two. Metal grated against metal as all the passengers screamed for the mercy of their lives. Bolts flew up from their positions ground into the steel. They flew in all angles as some sprung into people’s eyes leaving a bloody mess and lack of vision.

Squeals could be heard from all directions as many fell dead, in a heap of lifeless flesh. Emotions were exchanged as confusion replaced fear and fear replaced solitude as the warmth of breathing, flowing blood ceased into a cold cavernous nightmare.

The train was quickly dissected, leaving no survivors to mourn for their lost relatives or friends.

Lenz blinked out of the morbid thought. She found herself still running after the crook who had harmed her slave and had kidnapped the young girl from the orphanage.

Her torturous techniques would be like the train wreck. They would leave nothing but bloodshed. No life would be left and if anyone cared about the monster, they wouldn’t be able to recognize him; his face would be eviscerated by her own fingernails.

She would free the kid and she would return to Twig to help stitch up his severe injury.

She rounded a corner and appeared out in front of a large crowd. Her eyes scanned the bustling individuals as she tried to find who she was looking for.

Her line of sight wavered over a scrawny kid with tousled hair, then they traced over an elderly woman with wrinkles flawing her otherwise perfectly paled face.

Finally, they locked onto the one she had been tracking. He was quickly pushing through the mass of people, still holding the knife to the back of the girl.

Lenz made a run for it, trampling through the people and not stopping to apologise. A commotion arose from behind her as a man cried out. Several vulgar terms were expressed her way as she continued to dodge the obstacles that were in front of her.

Abruptly did a woman step in her path. She was tall, with a long stride, her legs extensive and willing to give the mage a way out. Taking only a second of hesitation, she dropped to her knees and slid on the ground. She went right under the woman’s legs, her eyes scanning the thin lingerie that covered her genitalia under that skinny dress she wore.

Once she had passed the obscene scene, she quickly stood up, her momentum still crashing through her veins. She continued to run before spinning past another obstacle. Never stopping, never having to halt, her stride never faltered.

[Lenz]

54th of Summer, 514 AV
The Orphanage

Another woman sprung up from out of nowhere. Her hand was outstretched, her fingers interlacing with another’s. This took Lenz some more time to think through.

Planning the outcome of several different ideas, she opted to check each and every one thoroughly. She could change her course at the last minute and avoid the obstacle, she could bust right through the barrier which would pain not only her but the two woman (and this would end in a tumult of savage words and possible physical altercations) or she could sink to the ground and summersault underneath it such as she had done the last one.

She decided to do the latter. Preparing herself, she lunged forward, curling her head so that her eyes were looking at her breasts. Her fingertips were straight as they connected with the ground first. Her shoulders were the next thing to touch the ground before her arched back and then rear finished off the acrobat trick. Once she was on her feet again, and past the hindrance, she continued to run.

Her feet clambered against the cold stony floor. She pumped her fists as they matched the rhythm of her rapid breathing. Her heart beat quickly joined in as she emerged from the situation unharmed. She took a moment to again search for her prey. Her eyes outlined a nearby building, taking in its appearance before shifting at a downwards angle.

There, she thought, before regaining her sprint.

Between two buildings was a very tight space, and through that space was the man glaring through. His eyes were dark and full of malice. His plague wasn’t benign as it spread throughout her body, magnifying all the tumors that littered her internal organs. She squirmed as she jogged toward the problem.

Upon seeing the issue, she took no time in organising a strategy. She had never attempted to cartwheel before, but after having dwelt on the topic, she found that this would be the perfect time to test out the movement. Raising her hands as she ran, she twisted her body so that it was parallel with the two sides of the building. This was done at the last minute as the edge of on building scraped against her side.

She continued this trick by planting her front foot on the ground and raising her back. She tilted her body at a strange angle and let her front hand touch the ground. She switched her balance until her head was close to the ground.

She finished this trick as her feet were now where her head was supposed to be before gravity quickly stepped in. Her head was now where it has always been meant to be and she was no longer in between the claustrophobic area. Glancing up, her cat-like eyes saw bewilderment on the brute’s face.

“Don’t move,” he said after recuperating from the stunning ability she had just shown. “Or else she gets it!”

Lenz was sick of this entire day. What was supposed to be a simple operation of tracking down a man, rescuing a girl after beating him senseless had turned into something of much more difficulty.

When she didn’t want to run, she was forced to and when she wanted no one to get hurt besides the kidnapper, she ended up with a minor scrape on her ribcage and Twig ended up with a deep laceration on his palm.

Who knows what the girl would receive if she didn’t pull herself together and end this day once and for all?

“Stop duping me with your ignorant play. I am no longer in the mood for this foolery, do you understand?” she growled.

“What? You think I’ll just stop ‘cause you tell me to? You’re out of your mind lady,” came his reply.

Sighing, Lenz took a few steps forward. Instinctively, the man commanded for her to stay back. It was expected, but she knew what she had to do. She took a few more steps closer and earned another distinct warning. She wouldn’t listen and she would let up. Instead, she took another few steps forward so that she was only an arm’s length away from the man.

Serving the situation, Lenz saw that the child was standing with her legs far apart as if trying to maintain balance with a man’s thick arm around her neck. She was pressed to his gut, but the man wasn’t as balanced as the thought he was. His legs were held close together behind the girls and the way he held the knife wasn’t appropriate.

She continued to observe the scene, taking in all measures of safety for the child she was sent to protect. After she had enough time to think, she planned for a fight.

Suddenly, however, a figure appeared from out of one of the alleyways. He was holding his hand to his chest and a grimace was bestowed upon his scarred face. He was frowning and just that frown alone, mixed with his charcoal eyes was enough to give Lenz some kind of understanding as to what that man was trying to do.

“Hey, petcher,” he shouted from the side.

The man turned his head, giving Lenz the perfect distraction to proceed with her inventive attack. Dismantling the man’s stance, she threw a low kick to his legs from between the child’s. Groaning, the woman only gave half a second before throwing her fist into his horrid face.

He would be even more unappealing now. He fell back, hitting his head on the ground, the knife soaring from out of his grasp.

What are you playing at? came the atrocious voice.

“I’m playing the cruel hero,” she said.

Reaching out her arms, she grabbed ahold of the child and drew her into her chest. She rested a hand on her head and another on her back as she mentally made sure that nothing was wrong with her. Sobs erupted from the girl’s voice, but other than a bit of trauma, she was overall perfectly without harm.

“You belligerent coward,” she scoffed, disposing of the girl by setting her to her side.

She leant over the man who was now clutching at his nose. “Did you really think I would simply give up because you were armed?”

She rolled her eyes, but something from the right caught her attention. Blood was running down Twig’s wrist at a very quick pace. He was still pressing the cloth to his wound, but it still wouldn’t stop bleeding. His eyes were dropping before they finally closed.

He fell to the ground.