[Can't Opt Out]

Arc F1.9 | Chapter 2: We Definitely Aren’t Worth All These Lives

Flames licked up the sides of the buildings—relatively squat things in this section of the city. It was one of the better areas, oddly enough, squished between two areas Fräthk controlled. They had tried to seize it before—killed the woman who used to run it, even. While Fräthk had managed to take over bits and pieces of that woman’s territory—had most notably taken over her office, which had seemingly been their main goal in snuffing her life out—this particular district had quickly been taken over by a group who existed…the teenager, who had yet to find a name for themself that they liked, said, pointing through the smoke in the direction opposite the one they were headed. The teenager tried to remember who controlled the territory in the direction they were headed, on their way towards the Baalphorian Embassy—which effectively meant towards the spire—but nothing came to mind.

As she had an eidetic memory, this meant that no one had ever mentioned to her who controlled that area. In her experience, that usually meant it was contested or controlled by no criminal; instead, it was either controlled by the Drinarna or one of the other not-so-criminal factions that existed within the city.

The teenager didn’t know much about that, but she had been intending to tell Olivier about it once they got into that area—Renton had been so tense while they were moving through Fräthk’s territory that she hadn’t wanted to push his temper by talking too much. Plus, the last thing she’d wanted was for anyone to get spooked and refuse to continue on to the Baalphorian embassy.

While she might not be able to read people as well as someone like Porsq or Cheska—not that the girl seemed aware that she was able to feel out the trustworthiness of a person through whatever she was feeling through the aether—the teenager had spent a long time hiding the person she was inside; then, she’d been confined with criminals. So, she both knew how to act and was able to see things in expressions, hear things in tones. Thousands of little twitches of muscles, those facial and vocal, those controlling fingers and the tilt of hip bones and chests and thigh gaps, all lived catalogued within her mind.

It was why she knew, if they got out of here, Cravena was going to give Renton a chance. There had been a flicker of interest there, when she’d told the older woman that Renton had a crush on her. Maybe it wouldn’t work out. Maybe hooking up with someone who had experienced the same harsh world wasn’t the best idea—the girl was a bit uncertain on that one—but maybe it would work for them. There was something to be said for getting together with someone who hadn’t been traumatized the way they had—someone happy and free in a way she doubted any of them would ever truly be. Yet, there was something to be said for having someone who knew exactly what they’d been through as… something.

A lover? A partner? A spouse? The teenager wasn’t even sure what sort of person she was interested in, mostly because she couldn’t even consider showing her body to someone else. It was a monstrous thing, flat in the wrong place. Hanging in places where it should have been smooth and plump in a way she didn’t really understand but still knew, her body incorrect but her soul bits and pieces of what it really be like.

No, no, no. There was no way she would want someone’s hands on her when her body was still that of . With any luck, they would get out of there and Olivier—who radiated kindness and love to all of them, even her, despite how little they had interacted—would be able to help her fix the things she hated about her body, or at least point her in the direction of someone who could.

Were these things she should be considering while flames swam around them, Cravena trying to keep the people who were attacking them far away while they ran? Probably not. At least she wasn’t babbling her thoughts aloud anymore? While Cravena hadn’t seemed to hate her babbling, the teenager didn’t think they’d be appreciated much at the moment—except the bit about which group controlled which area. That bit Cravena had actually asked about.

the teenager said, pointing to a specific part of a building they were about to run under and rattling off the timing information to the older woman. Cravena was extremely skilled with her abilities, being able to control her power to such an extent that the teenager was actually quite shocked they had never been teamed up before.

Between her own ability to recognize materials and analyze their exact composition from afar, as well as her knowledge of science and the building blocks of the material world, and Cravena’s ability to easily follow instructions on exactly how much flame to burn something with, how fast to allow the flame to spread, what sort of flames were needed—and who knew the woman could specifically call up not just normal flames, but flames that would normally be created through the consumption of one chemical or another?—they were creating a mess of the district. They’d already killed several of their attackers, not through burning them alive—no criminal or Drinarna in the city would be stupid enough to get within Cravena’s Expansion Zone unless they were a ‘zókräthk—but by burning the buildings that caged them in so perfectly that were taking them out.

Windows shattered perfectly, sending blades shooting through their pursuers as they passed buildings by. Balconies collapsed just as their perusers were moving under them. Once, they’d passed by a bakery and they had been able to set the place into a giant explosion of flour and shattering canisters. It had been quite messy, and the teenager had ushered their duo along into a sprint, lest they breathe in any of the dust. Some cooking products were not meant to be aerosolized, as proven by the coughing and hacking of several people still chasing them.

As they raced under the newly burning spot the teenager had directly Cravena towards, she had to wonder so many people were wasting their lives, chasing them. While both she and Cravena were moderately powerful, in no way did the teenager think herself or Cravena worth so many lives. With a few lives, perhaps—but over a dozen? More coming to join the chase every few minutes?

No… something was strange. It wasn’t the first time the teenager had felt this way in regards to several of their circumstances. Having met Fräthk a number of time, all in order to listen to them spout so that she could be a little library of knowledge for them, the girl was fully aware that they weren’t all there in the head. Some of the things that came out of them were brilliant. Other things were such drivel that Fräthk seemed to lack a single working brain cell. Yet, they managed to run a moderately successful criminal enterprise.

The teenager thought she could do it better, and while she prided herself on not being one of those teenagers who seemed completely oblivious to their own shortcomings—there really wasn’t anything worse than a young person who claimed they could do anything, never accepting aid or advice—and knew she would inevitably mess some things up…

No, she was quite sure that even without any experience, she could do better. For one thing, she would have made friends with Porsq, that kid a complete monster who would have one day risen to crack Fräthk’s brain to bits. Sometimes, the teenager thought that the point, though: to torture Porsq until he became a monster, capable of doing anything he wished not just in ability but in his mental state as well—having the power to do terrible things didn’t equate to having the mentality required to actually use such power.

In no world did the teenager want to see a world where Porsq would become the sort of soul capable of using his abilities for such terrible things. Porsq was a scary kid, but she would make sure they had a friend to ground them… if they managed to meet up again.

Behind them, the balcony Cravena had lit up snapped away from the building, several people screaming. Really, how little attention were their pursuers paying to have run under yet another burning balcony? Or… had there been any crossover between this group and the last one they’d killed with a crumbling balcony?

Twisting around a corner, the teenager took the chance to look back at the group who was left chasing them. One had stopped to see if they could save any of their now-smushed companions—she doubted it. The stonework used in this area of town was meant to last forever—and really, had Cravena not been capable of burning things at such insane temperatures, it might have—and weighed enough that she doubted anything was left of the bodies trapped under the rumble but mush.

Indeed, as she slipped down the alleyway, the teenager caught the person who had stopped tugging an arm loose of the rubble, nothing but tendons and raw meat attached to the end. The guy screamed and hucked the arm away. That was probably fair.

she noted as she and Cravena took the chance to sprint full out down the alleyway. When they were more out in the open, they didn’t want to move too quickly, lest they find themselves inside the Expansion Zone of someone they hadn’t known was there. Unfortunately, Cravena’s range was relatively small, while the teenager using her own abilities to was tiring, and as the teenager began to explain what she’d seen of their current pursuers as they slipped out of the alleyway and onto another main raid, she brushed a glob of blood from under her nose.

It wasn’t yet too much for her body to sustain, but there were a lot of people lingering within the buildings—and really, they were quite stupid for not even trying to evacuate when half the district was sizzling with recently extinguished flames. As a result, not only was she left to feel many organic life forms constantly, but the teenager also needed to reach into the aether to feel the composition of around each of those life forms.

wasn’t something she had ever let Fräthk know she could do. Being able to feel out the compositions of objects in the real world was one thing—was the default of the irregular deviation she had been born with, the result of a genetic spasm rather than something hereditary, as Cravena’s flames were—but being able to taste the different ways the aether itself was moving? To be able to differentiate between a defensive and offensive ability through the composition of the aether? To be able to tell when someone was pulling some bit of information held within the aether towards themself with some irregular deviation or another?

No, these were things the teenager normally kept close her chest, but it wasn’t like she was about to let them die or be captured again through denying her abilities to Cravena. Still, the teenager hadn’t told the woman the whole of her abilities—hadn’t mentioned her ability to see the spirals of tugging at Fräthk several of the times they had met. Not always, but sometimes.

They pulled at others, as well. At Porsq, who seemed to have some natural inclination to bop that away without ever noticing it was there to begin with. Vtraní seemed to actively disrupt its presence, sending it fleeing—the same had been true for Olivier, she thought.

Really, the girl thought she should have mentioned her abilities to everyone—should have trusted them, rather than locking up her mind so completely that she wasn’t even sure if Porsq knew the true extent of her abilities. Maybe the boy did. Generally, he was pretty good at keeping whatever he learned with his abilities to himself, and she had never heard even a whisper of him having shared details of anyone else’s secrets. That boy was just too good—too kind—and he needed to stay that way.

Cravena asked, incredulous. As the woman wasn’t exactly known for being hot-heated and spontaneous, always acting before getting all the information, the fact that even she was horrified at how disorganized the group chasing them were was a clear sign that they were being pursued by some mixture of dumbasses and people being driven to die for a reason.

The teenager didn’t think they would like the reasons.

the teenager noted, glancing back at the group and… nope. They didn’t seem nearly as afraid of the potentially bombs as they should be.

Cravena, after a short instruction of which can to hit and how hard, blew one of them up, leaving them with only two pursuers. More were coming—the teenager could feel them racing through the streets as she rubbed another dribble of blood from her nose. They couldn’t run and kill forever, and realistically, they couldn’t bring this chaos too close to where the others might be.

Hopefully, the other groups were far away from this place.