The City—Viviane it was called on maps, named for an ancient water-sorceress of the equally ancient House of Du Lac, but neither name was often spoken, and those outside it called it Southwall—was built around the Castle.
Capital-C, the girl thought, recalling a reluctantly learned lesson from school. Capitals for important things. C-a-s-t—was it e-l or l-e? It didn't matter; there was so much else she could do with the day.
It was deep black walls imprisoned above the South Quarter, crouched towards the centre of the city between the smokestacks of factories like a hibernating snail. Decaying, yet still commanding; a cursed remnant of the past best forgotten, so it was said, and it was not a place frequently visited or mentioned.
Sorcery had very little place in the City. It was regimented, organised by the pure power of machines and electricity; the nobleborn Knights protected it with their perfected control, and those few South Quarter dwellers with strange-coloured hair or eyes who dared show themselves in the more salubrious areas of the City were looked on with suspicion by their fellow citizens.
Mind you, sorcery wasn't exactly totally dead, the child considered, looking up at the walls; they gave off a sort of strange feeling, as though they were part of one of the old, exciting legends. Brave Zoar and the Magician's Talisman, Sir Silver-Blade and the Dragonstone, bold Wren Greencloak and her merry band. She liked the last especially, the female bandit battling corrupt aristocrats for the true king's sake, and imagined her fighting in a castle like this, driving the wicked lord to the walls where they'd fence standing on top of it, nearly falling as the stones shuddered beneath them and their swords flashed brighter than sunlight in the air…
A stone did shudder, perhaps due to a sudden gust of wind; a crow flew from the Castle with a loud croak. She looked around to make sure that the bird hadn't been scared by any other arrival, and then ran quickly forward to get to the stone steps that remained. She came here, to adventure; why she was the only one she knew of who was willing to spend time here she did not know, only that it was close enough to her home for the walk to be short and that she had no objection to the vague feeling of power that clung to the place still.
Sorcery, after all, was far from dead. Beyond the wall of shining blue guarding the human borderlands stood the Twilight, and the Carnival; there were rumours stirring, of a new—a returned, rather, they said—power rapidly gaining territory. But she had not heard such rumours as yet as she raced up the dark stairs, knowing the cracks and crevices that could cause a potential fall by heart and avoiding each one of them.
She stood on the wall, unafraid of falling as the wind whipped through her hair; she wished it was shorter as it blew into her eyes. Her mother was silly to tell her it looked prettier long; all the good fighters had it cut short, like the Lightning Knights Steel Acier or Titanium Glory in the posters she'd saved from the journals. She'd be an adventurer just like in stories, fighting monsters and freaks—
"Take that, Black Tauron!" she called, lunging forward as though truly wielding a sword, imagining the monster falling before her. "And that. Oppress the people no longer!"
She took a step to the side, and almost slipped on a loose stone beneath her feet. She sucked a sharp breath into her lungs almost involuntarily, suddenly afraid of falling. That stone hadn't been loose last time, had it?
But real heroes dealt with this and more all the time. She took a run up, and leaped to the next wall, swaying slightly on it before getting her balance. Heroes did this, and when she wasn't Amandine-of-West-Quarter she could be whatever she wanted out here.
She heard something that sounded almost like a growl, not like the crows' voices; she looked around, wondering what it had been.
Steps on this side of the wall led down, into the depths of the castle; just in case the growl had been someone coming, she went down them, trying not to be afraid of the dark. She was brave, she could be brave just like legend, she could reach the bottom and see what was there then tell stinky Allen Poznoby about it at class-break, as long as he didn't tattle to Miss Cunningham and get her into trouble…
Another growl. Coming from below her, this time.
She froze in place.
"Shut it, you lump of a rhinoceros," a more human-sounding voice said. "No loud noises until we break out."
"Anvil want hit things!"
The growly voice, again.
"Zoar, I hate tunnels. Hit the wall here. We're nearly there," a second human-sounding voice said. "With me. On the count of three—"
Monsters, was all she could think. She had to get out of there, now, only her body didn't seem to be moving and she was stuck there frozen and it felt like she was going to faint like Dora Elpham on that really hot day—
And then the wall gave another shudder, and she could see sunlight flooding in through the other side of it and six of them, a huge grey thing with a metal hand and a big human with glowing fists and four others, weird-shaped and ugly, and they'd be able to see her and it wasn't a game any more—
She ran up the stairs as fast as she could, almost stumbling in her haste, looking down to see where she could go next and trying to remember how she'd come down. They'd see her, they'd hurt her...
"That's a mortal brat up there!" she heard the first human-sounding voice yell. "Blast her, Fist."
A sheet of scorched yellow flew past her, and she felt its heat at her heels as she kept running for the top. She felt a second hit the walls, shaking them, and this was the worst ever—
And then she was past it, flinging herself out onto the wall, safely under the sky, and she jumped to the factory roof rather than the wall they'd knocked down. They'd have to not see her, she'd have to hide, and she lay down in the gutter of it, pushing herself down so they couldn't see her any more. She stared into the green sunlit sky, hoping and praying the bad guys wouldn't find her and wishing she had the power to do something to them.
Black wings stained the green. They had a flyer, red-eyed and dark like spilled and glistening ink blaspheming a printed page, scanning the City for her.
She cringed uselessly against the mud that filled the gutter, seeing its bone-white claws tense and hearing screams start. Blood filled her mouth from where she bit her tongue to make sure she wouldn't do the same.
And then it swooped down, out of her vision. She relaxed, slightly, and then there was a louder scream and the beast was flying up again, something red and horrible and still screaming clutched within its claws.
Flames burst into the sky from the factory across from her. She ran across the roof as she saw the raptor swoop away from her, throwing herself to the hard concrete of the fire escape on the other side. Tears formed in her eyes as her hands and knees scraped across the ground; she wiped them away with the back of her hand as she ran down the steep stairs. She saw some of the workers running out below her, escaping the smell of smoke and the screams of pain.
She ran down the narrowing streets, not caring that she was lost as she searched for somewhere safe.
--
The City was being invaded from the outside, the Wall had been taken down from the inside by an attack on the generators, and he was posted here instead of where he could help. Novice he might have been, but his powers could have served the city far better elsewhere, and he had seen battle before.
"Don't panic," Random Virus assured his temporary charges, Knight-affiliated elites and factory owners and aristocrats, people with a claim on quick evacuation from a city that was, indeed, panicking. "The underground track should take you to Venture without incident."
"I've heard they got into the City by tunnelling underground," a fair-haired man with a muscular build interrupted. "Has that damaged the tracks?"
"Not from every report I've heard," Random said. "If there is trouble, there are breathing masks under each seat that should keep you safe until a rescue vehicle arrives. Instructions are on the side posters. The capsule itself will remain sealed to prevent attack."
A blond-haired child—a son?—sitting next to the man gulped at that, looking up at the poster next to him as though determined to memorize every word of it.
"Now. Do up your seatbelts and prepare for departure," Random said. Best to hurry these along as quickly as possible. Why couldn't they settle for the shelters like every other person in this city, many of whom worked for them?
A grim reminder of why they were leaving came in the form of an explosion blowing away half the wall.
They'd made it inside; there was no time to try to understand how. He activated the emergency security, blue electricity creating an almost-solid barrier around the area.
"Is this where you Knights hide your secrets?" a cold voice asked from behind the wall. "Dear me. So very fragile. And so many civilians, too."
The next blow caused the blue barrier to flash, weakening; Random pushed his own energy through it, but the green power of whatever was behind the wall grew stronger.
He took a quick look around. Most of the humans were still seated in the evacuation vehicle, some bleeding blue or red; he had no choice.
If they lived, he would send another emergency vehicle; if they did not, then at least some civilians would survive the night.
The capsule had been knocked off the tracks; ruthlessly mustering his powers over machinery, Random sealed it despite the cries of some of the inhabitants, reconfigured the line to accommodate it, and set it off down the tunnel at the fastest speed possible.
And then he saw the boy amongst those who had been thrown out and left behind, getting to his feet with an almost determined expression to stand beside him.
"I have powers too, Knight," he said in a high voice. "Let me—"
"No," Random began to say, but then the kid fired into the generator powering the barriers, and they burned with new energy as the presence outside tried to break through.
And, mercifully, at last he heard voices of rescue.
"Who do you think you are, freak?" Harper Bolt's voice.
A laugh, high and reedy and chilling. "They call me Lord Fear, Knight. Who do you think you are to defy me?"
Another blast, and the barrier was finally broken through. The child was pale, taking a step towards Random as though expecting his bulk could protect him; Random pushed him behind his back for whatever protection that could offer. He summoned up the stray wires binding the track, manipulating them together to form a smaller shield, perhaps just enough to block.
"Together, Bolt," he heard a second voice say, Static DuPlessix, and then the boy jumped from behind him, his face grimly set as he projected his powers into Random's shield.
Random reconfigured the wires to send out a strong signal, the four of them aiming together at their enemy, blue standing against green; and then he was finally thrown back, and Random caught his first real glimpse of the evil.
A skeleton, tall, his face stretched into something almost unrecognisable as human, wielding a staff with a wicked green glow.
"Farewell, Knights," he said, sweeping a mocking bow as they recovered from the energy loss. "For now."
Green tendrils shot through the air, creeping past Random's shield and wrapping around his feet; by the time he and his fellow Knights had managed to pick himself up from the ground, the evil had disappeared.
He looked around at the departure point. He himself had done too much to the system for it to be easily repaired; the only solution for the remaining evacuees would be the shelters.
"Go down the corridor to the west," he told them, three men and a middle-aged woman besides the boy, two of the men leaning on each other with nasty-looking cuts on their faces and shoulders. "You'll find the nearest shelter by walking through the fifth door on the right. I have to fight elsewhere."
"And me?" the boy asked. "I've been trained to fight. I have the powers. Will I go with you?"
"No…" Random started to say again, but the aristocrat's son stood strong, and he remembered that his own first battle had been when he was almost this ridiculously young, and that the humans would need all who could to protect them. "Fine," he said. "Stay behind me and follow my orders."
--
It was South Quarter, Amandine realised, finally slowing her pace. The slum districts. She didn't know precisely where she was; the factory-collectives tended to supply their workers with their basic needs, and it wasn't often they needed to venture down to the cheap south markets. And even then her parents kept her close to them, fearing what could lurk in the shadows of the most disreputable part of the City.
The markets had been on today, she thought, seeing brightly painted stall-cloth burning in the distance, whipped across the sky by the wind like some strange kite. If only…
If only she'd been able to get out of the castle in time and put on the alarm, some voice inside her whispered. In a way this was all her fault, and she didn't even know if her parents were still somewhere searching for her, worried and angry.
She'd been useless. No heroine, just a stupid girl waiting for something to jump out at her and scare her, like…
…like that, a green-skinned woman, clutching a basket inside a tattered cloak and running across the street.
One of them. You didn't see any like her showing their faces in the City, even in South Quarter. She ducked into an alleyway, quickly, and then screamed.
"A little mortal." The giant minion held her struggling, her foot lashing out into thin air as she attempted to fight back. He—it—was built like a wild boar, squat and hairy and well-muscled, and had her swinging helplessly. "Do you want the skin, Knives?" it asked the minion next to him, a square creature with blades off every inch of it.
It brought a spinning sawblade on its tail closer to her, and she couldn't help screaming again.
And the green-skinned woman she'd seen before looked into the alley entrance—not woman, quite, skinny in the somewhat ragged dress she wore—and Amandine managed a faint cry in her direction.
"Lady," one of the minions called out, and the stranger raised her head to see the girl in the monster's grip.
She laughed, wildly. "Then if I'm a lady, unhand the little brat," she said. "Stop wasting time and do something useful."
The minion holding her, surprisingly, dropped her, and then they shambled away.
"You—you're not—" Amandine managed through her bruised throat.
"I'm no lady, brat," she said, and she certainly wasn't dressed like some grand aristo. But for the Carnival, where up was down and left right half the time…
"Why'd you help me? And what's in the basket?" Severed heads was the first thing that came to mind, quickly followed by writhing eels with sharpened teeth and a whirling black hole.
"Food. Mostly," she said calmly. "Assuming they didn't kill the rest of us—I had to spend seventy-eight, and that isn't earned easily."
"They served you at the Markets?" Amandine followed along beside her as they kept to the edges of the narrowing street, along a dark wall.
"Don't be stupid. I change shape," she said, "and I never thought this version would help me until now."
"Then you're…not one of them? Really?" She could hardly credit that someone who looked so much like an enemy was acting like this.
She turned on her. "I was born here, you little idiot," she said. "Though I'm tempted to leave for the Carnival if they mistake me for an aristo all the time."
"They're evil. Did you see what they did?" Amandine rushed to keep up with her even so; it was at least a chance of safety.
"The Knights have done their own purges, from time to time." She shrugged.
"They're only minions." It wouldn't matter if a thousand evils like the ones who'd tried to hurt her got killed by the Knights, Amandine was sure.
"You're only humans," she said. "And this isn't even very well planned, at that."
"You think you could've done better?" Amandine glared at her.
"Maybe," she said thoughtfully. "The basic strategy worked. But now they've just split off into small groups. Easy to take down. They should've sent more through the tunnel, and known the city plan so that they could catch up with each other. And they shouldn't just kill straight out. It's stupid, because you still need civilians to do their jobs and be good conquer-ees once you've taken over."
Amandine had felt gradually more horrified as the speech continued. "You shouldn't say that!" She almost yelled before realising that they had to keep quiet in case they were heard, and settled for a fierce whisper. "They're the enemy, don't you get it?"
"Clearly not my enemy." She sniffed complacently. "My father was one of them," she said, "and maybe my mother was right when she told me he was a great aristocrat."
"If he was so great, you'd probably know for yourself," Amandine hissed back. Her father had at least managed to stick around.
That didn't seem to discomfit her. "They say the weaknesses of great men are easily excused—and I've seen one or two in my time. Moderately great, anyway," she added.
"What about great women?"
"Not so easily. Way of the world."
"That's stupid too," Amandine said.
She sighed. "Have you got anywhere to go, brat?"
"I don't know where my home is from here," she answered, trying to sound courageous. "And quit calling me brat."
"I'll call you whatever I want. Now be quiet."
--
His father had told him that he was required to learn how to use his powers for the sake of the family honour.
This, Ace Granger thought, was not quite what had been expected.
It was...awful, beyond anything he'd ever read in the journals or holovids. Strange and repulsive minions in so many different shapes, attacking humans and Knights with tooth and tentacle and claw and leaving them bleeding red or blue.
Random Virus was a…a hero, he decided. Strong and resolute and the one he was depending on, the person he needed to follow.
The shambling thing lurched towards them, black flesh flowing like tar and sharp blades whirring from its depths, and he faced it with all the energy he had.
He hoped he wouldn't see another civilian die.
He hoped the transport had got his parents safely out.
He hoped this was the last evil they'd have to fight.
--
The fight seemed to be dying down at last, no more fumes of smoke spilling into the air and few minions still left. Both humans and minions had kept away from them, the one scared and the other—recognizing a relation.
"Well, brat," she said, still in that same sneering tone she'd used all along, like she was better than everyone else in the world. "Where do you live? Or are you too much of a fool to know that?"
"Factory district. Granger octant, flat forty-four," she answered. "I guess that's way far away from South Quarter."
"Close enough. I think I know where the octant is," her companion said. "Let's go."
She had pulled her cloak up to cover her head, though she hadn't changed into some other form; if they came across any other minions they'd be well prepared. People were starting to come back to the streets, though, from the shelters, and Amadine stared defiantly at the various curious glances directed towards the cloaked figure.
They walked into a narrow street—a shortcut, her companion explained—deserted, bar spilled minions' ichor on the pavingstones and a single Knight leaning against the wall.
Amandine looked up at the older girl, and saw her face shimmer for an instant under the hood, replaced by the image of a round-featured blonde woman; a pretty handy ability, she thought. You could go anywhere with that…
"Hey!" the Knight called to them. "You there, in the cloak!"
Amandine felt her stiffen at her side. "What do you want?"
He strode up to them, looking somewhat suspiciously at her. "My power sensors just got an active reading. What's in the basket?"
"Shopping," she retorted, but made no move to hand it to him to allow him to search it. "Just that."
"Hand it over," he said, snatching it from her hands. "You're a Zoar-damned idiot if you think any of us want to stand the chance of some other invasion."
He looked tired from the fighting, red-faced and still panting slightly; Amandine almost envied him his heroism. He rummaged through the basket roughly as it clinked.
"Be careful," she said to him. "Don't break anything."
He looked up at her, clearly annoyed, now. "Shut up," he said. "Who the hell do you think just helped you keep your neck?"
She shrugged, minisculely, and Amandine only felt angry at her for irritating the Knight. "You've searched now," she said then, in a tone finally starting to sound conciliatory. "Please, can you give it back?"
He shoved it back into her hands.
"Thank you," she said, and turned to leave.
And then, Amandine saw a flicker cross her hands as the Knight reached out and shoved her into the wall. Her hood fell back; the back of her head still looked human, though green had crept across her hands for the instant she'd been surprised.
"You're not human, are you?" he said as he held her pinned to the stone with just his right hand. "Human all over?" His other hand reached under her cloak, as though to find that out himself. "I can feel it in my bones."
"You haven't bothered to check the kid." Her voice was muffled against the wall.
Amandine gasped. She wasn't a dangerous Twilight mutate. How could she just stick the blame on her like that?
The Knight looked down at her, searchingly, as though considering whether he was going to take her prisoner next.
"I'm not!" she said indignantly. "I'm Amandine Kyregis. My dad works in the Granger octant here. I'm just…walking here."
The line, most definitely including the name, sounded stupid, she thought, but the Knight seemed to believe her, turning back to his prisoner.
"What are you doing?" He continued to search under the cloak, keeping his right hand firmly between her shoulderblades. "Tell me and I might ask them to go easy on you."
"I've done nothing wrong," she said.
"Then what's this?" He removed a flask from underneath the folds of her cloak. "Is it what I think it is?"
She nodded, desperately. "I—I work for Missus Rosado. The Night Rose, Selene Street. You can't get me for just one, can you? Not even for me, for—"
"I've heard of the place," he said thoughtfully. "And that it had one or two—exotics—"
The hand holding her to the wall flashed blue for a second, and then she was back to the green-skinned form, struggling to get away as the basket fell to the ground. "She's friendly enough with you people!" she cried as he stood over her, pressing her more closely to the stone. "I'm not any kind of enemy. Let me go!"
Knights weren't supposed to…do this.
Amandine felt angry, a little afraid, and something else on top of that. Like…butterflies, jumping and wriggling about inside her.
"Do you know what we go through?" The Knight was speaking quite loudly now, although the other people around didn't seem to be listening, moving away. "Have you spent the last three demicycles wading through blood and data? Fought like oblivion itself to save your city, because there's nobody else willing to do their duties?"
She kicked over the shopping as she struggled; Amandine saw a bottle of wine roll across the cobbles before shattering, and bread and cheese scattered around their feet.
Sparks flew around his hands and her body as he gripped her tightly. The mutate cried out; power coursed through both of them, and it didn't look benevolent. Blue and red sparks sprung up like bleeding fairies around them, and she cried out with a voice like a hoarse bird.
Knights didn't do this. Amandine felt something move inside her, and then there was an explosion between them like a laser shot, and when she looked back at them the Twilight girl held a dagger in her left hand.
"Damned Knight," she spat out, and he slammed his hand into her wrist, pinning her to the wall.
"No!" Amandine heard her say, struggling between the sparks. "You'll kill me if—"
The power built between them; she could almost taste the charge on the air as she watched, paused in some dimension between shock and action.
Do something.
--
He heard a cry from the alleyway—another minion? The boy had already started towards it, as though keen to weed out the last of the freaks, and Random followed, easily catching up.
There was a Knight there, Charger Navarre. A stream of data escaping too quickly from his throat, and a mutate with the weapon, a step back from him as though attempting to escape from what she had done.
A blue blast. Fast reflexes, kid, was all he allowed himself to think. The knife fell from her hand as Random rushed towards their comrade.
--
There were sparks around her hand. Amandine looked up at the Knights and didn't say anything, almost exultant at what was within her and yet horrified at the energy falling before her, blue fading away.
The Knight on the ground convulsed one final time, and faded, a hand hopelessly clutched to his throat. The older Knight—the Knight, she told herself, the other one was gone, gone forever and the boy there was just a kid not much older than her.
She had…
Red energy danced around her palm. She hadn't…meant to.
The Knight closed in on the mutate next to the boy, both their faces horribly grim.
"You killed him," the boy said.
A Lightning Knight dead. It happened, sometimes, but they were powerful and strong, and Amandine couldn't have imagined this.
"It was an accident. I—he was—"
The Knight seized her roughly by the arm. "Don't move. You—"
"You're going to send me to prison," she said slowly.
"You murdered a Knight!" the boy said, staring at her as though she was an alien creature. "What are you?"
"I have powers. You should let me go. I'm not—" She wrenched herself from the Knight's grip, flinching from them.
He raised a laser, pointing it at her heart. "Your last warning. Come quietly."
"No," she said, and she looked deathly afraid, her green face pale. "I'll be the evil you want, I'll—"
Amandine saw the laser fire, and then—or was it just before?—a burst of coloured light, and she was gone as though she had never existed, shock written on her face in that last instant before disappearance.
The Knight's shoulders slumped. "Navarre was a brave man," he said, and spoke into his comlink. "Random Virus. Reporting Knight wipeout. Slag Alley, East Quarter. Sending sensor depiction of mutant culprit. Teleportation powers. I'd guess she returned to the others."
"I'm going to avenge this," the boy said, and though his voice hadn't broken yet he still sounded as worth listening to as any Knight. "I'll be a Lightning Knight like you. To fight these battles."
"Kid…" the Knight began, but let it trail away. He turned to Amandine. "I'm sorry you saw that," he said to her. "What's your—"
His eyes widened as he looked at her, and then he knelt and reached out for her arm. Pink-tinged energy danced around their hands.
"I'm sorry he's dead," Amandine said.
"Powers," he muttered, and she looked at the flare between them.
She could be...a hero like him. A Knight. There was only one meaning for what she felt inside her.
"You'll be okay," the Knight said. "We'll take you home."
"But I didn't...do something," she said. "I didn't stop it."
"It wasn't your fault," he said, looking at her like she was an adult, not a kid people didn't need to pay attention to. "Powers often appear like that. We'll look after you."
She nodded. "But I am sorry."
He stood, still holding her hand. "Let's take you home," he said.