While flying through the air, Gusion had a moment of reflection.

It was definitely not a very apt place to ponder over how his life had derailed from a state of pseudo-normality(there was a war going on) to this, but sometimes, you have to do what you have to do.

It was also very hard to believe that this had all started with him meeting Lesley and agreeing for babysitting duty.

And now, his oldest friend and the leader of the resistance movement were trying to kill him after he'd gotten heartbroken by his old best friend who was his crush telling him that she wanted him to die and his new best friend had turned out not to be dead after all while getting shot four times by his old best friend who was his crush and had been hiding under his bed.

Life, given how weird it was, had a way of screwing you over like nothing else in the world.

It was at this moment that Gusion resigned himself that his life would stay like this for an indefinitely long period of time.

He hurtled through the air and again felt the feeling of weightlessness. In the past few days, he had endured it way too many times and no longer found it out of the ordinary.

He landed hard on the shoulder rolling to his feet before another figure landed right on top of his back.

Helcurt leapt off, screeching, "RUN!" as he began crawling faster than before.

Gusion broke into a wild sprint as Tigreal tried to haul himself through the window, but found that he could not fit through the windowpane, growling as he struggled to pull himself back.

As he ran, Gusion looked around and saw Lesley peering out of her window, and for a second, they locked eyes.

And it hit Gusion that no one else other than him and Lesley had known about the Shadowbringer.

A cold fury settled in the pit of his stomach. Lesley had ratted him out.

Lesley diverted her gaze and Gusion continued running as Tigreal's enraged roar reached his ears.


"What?" Lesley exclaimed as she saw a few things she had not expected to see.

The first: the Shadowbringer alive and well, and having healed enough to keep running.

The second: Gusion running alongside it.

Shoot the Shadowbringer, a voice spoke in the back of her head. Kill it.

All Shadowbringers are evil.

Lesley snatched up the rifle and pushed the door open, just as Harley called out for her. "Lesley, Gusion's with the Shadowbringer-what's going on, where are you going with the gun?"

"Harley, move," Lesley muttered, shoving him aside and heading for the door and aiming the rifle again at the creature, locked in the crosshairs.

Press the trigger.

She pressed the trigger.

The bullet flew and this time, she aimed for the head. No more coming back now.

Then a blue spike hit the bullet, and Lesley saw the bullet's trajectory change, and it hit the ground which the Shadowbringer's leg had just left.

Lesley looked up and Gusion stared back at her, twirling his dagger between his fingers in that hypnotic motion she always found distracting.

What threw her off was the anger on his face. Lesley had known Gusion for close to four years, and she'd seen him happy, sad, afraid, determined.

But this was the first time she'd seen him this wrathful.

Gusion stopped for a second, and Lesley remembered how he'd indirectly almost killed Harley.

Before either of them could do anything, the Shadowbringer jabbed Gusion with his tail.

Gusion shot her one last withering glare and began running again.

Lesley took aim once more, and two hands pulled her rifle back.

"What the hell, Lesley?" Harley snapped at her, tugging her back into the house and swinging the door shut.

"The Shadowbringer was out there," Lesley snarled.

"You can't-you can't kill it! It did nothing to you!" Harley snapped.

"It tried to kill you."

"Yeah, and yet I'm not the one trying to end it!"

"Listen to me," Lesley hissed. "Shadowbringers are evil."

"It was running with Gusion. Gusion's a good judge of character."

"No, he isn't."

Harley frowned. "What, you don't trust your best friend now?"

"He isn't a friend. Not anymore."

Harley blinked.

And blinked again.

"I don't understand."

Lesley's shoulders sagged, and she set the rifle onto the floor. "He helped the Shadowbringer. He lied to me."

Harley couldn't believe his ears. "Do you realise how childish you're being?"

"It's because of what he did that the Shadowbringer came for us the other day," Lesley continued, her eyeball twitching. "If you had died, then what would have happened?"

"A funeral, probably."

"It's not funny."

"It sounds amazingly funny to me, and I would be laughing my head off if this was in a cheesy rom-com. Seriously, Lesley, what is wrong with you? You're ditching your best friend because of some stupid reason. So he didn't tell you he kept the Shadowbringer. What's the problem?"

Lesley gripped the rifle. "He put us in danger, that's what I'm mad about."

"You're pissed about the Shadowbringer too," Harley straightened. "You would have been fine had it been anything else, but it's the Shadowbringer you're angry about. What's your problem with it?"

"The fact that it's-"

"Oh, stop it with the 'Shadowbringers are evil' thing. You've been harping on and on about it for as long as I remember. What's it with you and them?"

"If it wasn't for them, our parents would still be alive!"

Harley was stunned into silence, and Lesley breathed heavily, her face contorted in anger.

"W-what do you mean?"

"How do you think the assassins got past the wards that night? What do you think caused the death of your father?"

"He was suffering for a long time-"

"Slow acting Shadowbringer venom," Lesley hissed, her eyes wet and her voice tight with emotion.

The wind was knocked out of Harley's sails as he struggled to process the information given to him. "And my mother?"

"Stabbed. By the creature." Lesley's voice had lost its hard edge, and Harley saw that his sister was no longer angry.

Lesley dropped the rifle and it fell to the floor with a loud clatter, and Harley found his voice. "That doesn't justify pigeonholing an entire species."

"Why not?" Lesley asked. "Shadowbringers were literal psychos-they killed anything and everything. There's an old story about the hunter that used a Shadowbringer as a hunting dog. When he went for the next hunt, the creature went ahead and killed every animal in the forest in three days. On the fourth day, the creature found that there were no more animals and killed the hunter."

"Don't you trust Gusion?" Harley asked. "If the creature was as vicious as you said, would he still befriend it?"

"I don't know," Lesley replied. "I thought he wouldn't, but you saw it for yourself."

"Then maybe the creature isn't as bad as you're making it out to be!"

A shattered look entered Lesley's eyes as her jaw worked and she remained silent for a moment.

"What did you do?" Harley asked.

Lesley visibly tensed. "I told Tigreal about Gusion having kept a Shadowbringer. I didn't think they'd find it-"

"Oh, wow," Harley sighed. "Great going, Lesley. Now everyone's going to think your best friend's gone dark."

"I don't have to stand here and take this," Lesley snapped, snatching up her rifle.

For one bizarre moment, Harley wondered if she was going to shoot him, but she simply stalked past him towards the stairs.

Harley turned around and called out to her retreating back. "You can run from me, but you can't run from your actions."

Lesley didn't reply, instead walking up to the room and slamming the door shut behind her.


Gusion collapsed when he felt that he was out of sight.

He'd escaped to the badminton court he and Lesley previously frequented on a biweekly basis.

Until Dyrroth entered their lives and wrought havoc.

Behind him, Helcurt crept up the stairs to check if anyone was around.

"Coast is clear," he announced, crawling back down. "No one's coming for us."

Gusion didn't reply, his head spinning. "Lesley told Tigreal," he said out loud, unable to believe it. "Lesley told Tigreal about you staying in my house."

Helcurt hissed. "How did she know?"

"Dyrroth said something to her," Gusion replied as he recalled Lesley's words-I didn't want to believe Dyrroth-and his head felt like it was dunked into a bucket of ice cold water.

"And Tigreal and the other fellow-"

"Lancelot."

"-found me."

"That reminds me," Gusion swung his head around to look at the Shadowbringer. "Lesley said she killed you."

Helcurt winced. "That girl is not to be messed with," he said. "I nearly died, and if she'd chased me you'd have seen my dead body."

Go off and coddle his dead-

Gusion closed his eyes, trying to shut out the memories.

"When did she meet you?" Helcurt asked.

"You injured her brother," Gusion muttered. "When I went to console her, she confronted me."

"There's no way that could have gone well."

"She told me she'd be happy if I died and that meeting me wasn't a good thing."

Helcurt whistled. "Well, meeting you isn't a good thing. I met you and I've gotten in more fights than I have in the last year."

"Not funny," Gusion snapped. He stood up, twirling his dagger. "We're now criminals."

"What now?"

"You're a dark creature that pretty much everyone believes to be the enemy, and I've just attacked the king to save you."

Helcurt pondered the situation. "Is there any way we can get ourselves exonerated?"

"We're going to have to explain ourselves to Tigreal and convince him. Which is pretty difficult, considering the fact that again, you're a dark creature and I stabbed him."

Helcurt cocked his head, seemingly lost in thought. "Or we could carry on like this."

"What do you mean?" Gusion asked, his brow furrowed.

"We fight Alice, just the two of us. A vigilante force. Let everyone else believe we're on the dark side."

Gusion mulled it over. "How are we going to fight them? The Resistance has researchers to counter Alice. We've got nothing."

"What about that little ghostly echo in your head?" Helcurt asked.

"It's gone," Gusion realised. He hadn't felt the cold presence after escaping Vexana.

"Well, I could help. I'm a dark creature."

"We're going to be attacked by both sides!"

"We'll figure something out. Maybe we can get out of the Moniyan Empire."

Gusion looked strangely at him. "Tigreal's been trying to break through the barrier for years. You think the two of us can do what he can't?"

"Tigreal's trying to break the barrier. I'm saying we sneak past. If we can disguise you as one of those pseudo-vampires Alice has, we should be fine."

The idea did hold a certain appeal to it. But yet…"What happens when this ends?"

"When what ends?"

"The war."

"I doubt we'll be around by the time Alice wins the war."

"What do you mean?"

Helcurt snorted. "Do you seriously think your Resistance is going to beat Alice's army? She conquered a quarter of the Land of Dawn with just Vexana and Zhask by her side. Then she opened the Abyss and brought an army. She's got the might of monsters, magic and mankind. So you tell me, Gusion, who's going to win? The Queen of the Abyss and her army of creatures, or a small bunch of fighters and a meagre army?"

"We've held out for 6 years," Gusion replied, taken aback.

"And how much longer?" Helcurt demanded. "You'll eventually fall. You know you're not immortal, right? You're already dying out."

"You think I don't know that?" Gusion snarled, anger taking over. "I've been fighting since I came here five years ago, and I saw people die in front of me. You don't know the casualties." He blinked back hot tears that threatened to rise. "There were so many of us when I came here. Yin, Julian, Claude, Ling, Hanabi-Lancelot lost his damn sister, did you know that?"

Helcurt cocked his head. "Lancelot would be the one who I threw out of your room, yes?"

Gusion clenched his fists. "There's less than half remaining. Ruby, Roger, Gatotkaca, Freya, they're all dead. Brody died trying to save me from Zhask when I was twelve. So to answer your question, Helcurt, yes, I do know we're mortal. I know we can die."

Helcurt smiled. "Then you know I'm right. You know you can't win-"

"No," Gusion snapped. "We can win. We will win."

"And what makes you believe that?"

"Because that's what we fight for." He flicked his blade and it spun in his hand, creating a circle of blue light. "We fight not to delay Alice's progress, but to win. And one day, our victory will come."

"Your optimism is foolish."

"And your pessimism undeserved."

Helcurt yawned.

"What do you fight for, then? If you believe Alice will win, why do you not join them?"

"I don't want to live in a world ruled by her," Helcurt spoke. "Everyone else is going to become crushed like bugs. When she wins, she'll be the ultimate ruler." He flicked back his cloak and pointed to a bulge in his left hind leg. "I stuffed a vial of lethal poison in there. Once she wins, I'll cut open the leg, and drink the poison because there's no point in life after that."

"You won't need the venom," Gusion replied.

"Why? Because we'll die in battle?"

"No, because we'll win this war."

Helcurt sneered. "I have yet to believe it."

Gusion was about to fire off another reply when an announcement came over the speakers. "Attention. If anyone has seen Gusion Paxley or a Shadowbringer in the last one hour, please come to the Imperial Palace now. If they are in your immediate vicinity, do not engage."

The duo remained silent for a few seconds.

"Officially criminals," Gusion breathed as he staggered back, slumping against the wall.

"Well then," Helcurt muttered. "Vigilante duo it is."