Spark 4.1

I slammed the phone into its cradle and stalked away, uncaring of whatever odd looks I might be receiving. I'd been getting them for the entire half-hour I'd been walking around with my face on, on account of the unseasonably thin hoodie I was wearing.

"I am assuming that the conversation did not go well?" Melody asked more than said.

"Yeah," I ground out, then winced at my tone. "Sorry, sorry," I hurriedly said in a softer tone. "I didn't mean to snap at you."

"It is fine," Melody assured me. "More importantly, what went wrong?"

I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts. "Well,"I finally said, "first of all, Miss Militia was there with Dad."

"Oh," Rest piped up (literally; the sounds she was using to speak sounded like a combination of the tinkle of wind chimes with the deeper sound of water through plumbing). "Not good, is?"

"No," I sighed. "Well, at least now I know something about what they know about me. And now she and Dad know about the bullying, and Miss Militia said something about doing an investigation into what Sophia;s been doing. But even so, they know I'm Starfield, and thanks to Aria's desire to taste people they think I'm a budding cannibal, to boot."

"Hey!" Aria said indignantly, before pausing. "… What's a cannibal?"

I sighed fondly. "A cannibal is a creature who eats the flesh of others of its kind. So I'd be one if I ate other humans. The Protectorate thinks I am one because we've been taking little nibbles out of everyone we've fought with, and they don't like it."

"Oh…" Aria sounded rather unhappy about that. "I, I'm sorry..."

"It's okay," I replied soothingly. "I deserve at least half the blame, since I gave you the go-ahead to do so. I just..."

Something made me stop and look up, and I stepped back a little as I realized that I'd nearly walked into the man in front of me. The reason for this seemed to be that he had stopped and turned to stare at me. In fact, most everyone on the sidewalk had done so as well. A flash of light made my head whip to the side to look at its source, a young man with his cell phone's camera pointed at me. He suddenly flinched back, making me realize that my expression had morphed into a glare, and a heated one, at that. He dared take my picture without permission? Even if I was already outed, I didn't want my picture spread around if I could help it.

In a few swift strides I was standing in front of the guy, still glaring at him like I was trying to gouge out his eyes with mine. Quickly, I snatched his phone out of his hand and stuffed it in my mouth, letting Aria's teeth crush, pierce, slice, and grind it to bits, before spitting them back at him. He flinched back as the bits hit him, and when he opened his eyes, they were wide with shock.

I glanced around and saw that everyone's eyes were similarly wide and fixed on me. Had I been able to I might have flushed with embarrassment, but instead I just scowled. Since no one else seemed to have any recording devices pointed at me I just walked away, a little more briskly than I'd been walking previously. People who'd been watching quickly stepped out of my way when I drew near. I didn't look back as I strode off.

.o.o.o.

Eventually I stopped and sighed. I needed to blow off some steam, and stomping around here wasn't going to help. I stalked off into a nearby alley and, after looking around for any cameras, pulled out one of my knives. In a motion that I barely thought about anymore I ran the blade around my face and let it flop off into my waiting hand.

Soon my hoodie was off and through my face, and all the cuts were made. I gave Melody the go-ahead to pull herself through and turned to leave the alley, only to pause. At the mouth of the alley stood a young girl who was staring at me, mouth open, eyes wide. I stared back at her for a few seconds, noting that she wasn't getting that glazed look that so many people got when looking at my not-face. Hesitantly, I raised a hand to wave at her, a hand whose fingers sprouted black claws. I froze.

The girl turned and scampered away to hide behind a woman's leg, little hands fisted in her (I assumed) mother's pants leg and her face pressed against her thigh. "What's wrong, sweetie?" I heard the woman ask, looking down at the girl. She peeked shyly around her mother and pointed in my direction.

"The lady cut her face off."

After a moment of staring down at her daughter, the woman laughed and started to turn her head towards me. "I'm sure it's nothing darli-" she started to say only to go silent as her gaze fell on me. She seemed to be about to scream, only for her face to go slack and her eyes glaze over.

Not wanting to deal with this situation, I had Aria extend a tentacle out of my face, wrap it around my neck, and reach up to grab the roof of the building beside me. With that, it was a simple matter to toss my body high into the air and fly away.

I took a meandering course towards the Docks. Part of me just wanted to go poke around in that cave Newter had shown me, while another part wanted to look for trouble to resolve as a hero. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunate for most in actuality, I found no crime to fight. The only real thing of note I could see from on high was a surprising number of potted plants on the roofs below me. It was almost as if rooftop gardens were the latest fad. For all I knew, they might just be.

Mentally sighing over the mystery, I flapped silently onward.

Surprisingly, it wasn't much longer before the first signs of trouble were borne to me by the breeze. The screech of tortured, scraping metal almost drowned out the shouts and screams that followed. Anyone who paid any attention to the news about local gang activity knew that sound: Hookwolf, the murderous Nazi cape. He could take the form of a giant wolf made of blades, hooks, spikes, and barbs. There were rumors that he wasn't restricted to using a canine shape, of course, but they were unconfirmed.

I quickened my pace, telling Aria to put more of herself through my face in preparation for conflict. I knew that fighting a rampaging Hookwolf wasn't exactly the best way to avoid the PRT, but I also knew that with my friends at my side I was fairly powerful, and I'd be a pretty piss-poor hero if I didn't at least try to stop him.

With Aria covering much of my body and dozens of large eyes already forming, I crested the last building between myself and the conflict. The writhing, shifting mass of Hookwolf came into view, as well as…

Why the hell was Hookwolf fighting members of his own gang?