Iron Maiden spun around in midair, threading the needle between two of the trees as she rocketed higher up into the air. Shifting her stabilizers, she turned into a lazy aileron roll, narrowly avoiding the branches of one of the trees as she brushed past it and out into the open air. Tilting upward, she shifted into a hover and ascended slowly until she crested above the tops of the trees. The countryside below them stretched out in all directions, small clearings visible interspersed among the trees. Off in the distance to the west the trees ended abruptly, the dark pavement of the road just barely visible, and beyond that the edge of the cliff bordering Miradouro da Lua and the refugee camp. In every other direction, the trees continued, clumped close together in some places; spread further apart in others. Iron Maiden let out a contented sigh, her suit automatically making tiny adjustments to her thrust vectors in order to keep her level. The bright noontime sun warmed her through her suit, though not as much as the comforting presence of the Hound hanging onto her back.
"Mind being a little more careful there, mon Fer?" the Hound yelped, placing a little more pressure on the hook on the back of her suit. "I'd rather not turn into a dog fly!"
"Oh, don't have a puppy, Pup," she retorted, rolling her eyes in amusement and turning her head slightly to catch sight of him in her peripheral vision. His grip on the back of her suit secure, he leaned slightly back, his feet braced on the backs of her knees. Iron Maiden shifted her weight forward, counterbalancing his weight. "As if I'd ever let you fall."
He hummed, and she hit the thrust, rocketing straight up into the sky. She could feel the pressure of his feet shift as he bent his knees, crouching closer to her back. The wind whipped past her, the drag diminishing as he lay almost flat against her back. "I know," he assured her, his mouth right next to her helmet. "But still. I just enjoy pounding on you."
She groaned, shaking her head. "That was bad, even for you."
"Not what you were saying this morning…" he answered in a singsong tone.
Iron Maiden rolled her eyes and abruptly spun around into a tight corkscrew. The Hound yelped, his grip on her suit tightening reflexively to no avail. After the second spiral, the momentum wrenched his grip free and pulled him off of her back, and he flew away from her wildly in the direction of a particularly dense copse of trees. With a shout, he threw out his leash and wrapped it tightly around Iron Maiden to pull himself back toward her before he could fall too far away. The force of her spin swung him around her to slam into her front, and he held onto her for dear life, his arms wrapped tightly around her neck and his eyes clenched shut. Iron Maiden immediately stopped spinning and reduced her power. One arm wrapped around him, she hugged him securely against her chest while slowly descending back to the ground, aiming for a small clearing surrounded on all sides by trees. Landing with a thud, she stumbled slightly and released her hold on him as his feet touched the ground. Finally he opened his eyes and glared at her halfheartedly. "Any more comments, Pup?" she taunted him, smirking under her helmet.
"You did that on purpose!" he accused, giving her an annoyed look, pushing her away, and folding his arms in a pout.
With a flick she opened her helmet and grinned impishly. "Yep," she confirmed, nodding. Her eyes flashed in amusement. "So what are you gonna do about it?"
He raised an eyebrow mischievously. "I can think of something…" Before she could react, he slammed his mouth into hers, angling his head slightly to avoid her raised helmet and pressing close against her suit. Returning the kiss with a moan, Iron Maiden hugged him tightly, running her gauntleted fingers through his hair. Slowly they sank down to sit together in the grass, the Hound on her lap. The Hound slid one of his hands inside her helmet to cup her cheek, and she leaned into the touch, sighing in contentment.
Finally they broke apart, panting, and Iron Maiden smiled up at him, heat rising in her cheeks. "Now you did it," she complained, still smiling. "You know this suit doesn't do things like stand up overly well…"
He scoffed, arching an eyebrow at her. "You designed a mechanized exo-suit that can fly and shoot energy blasts, but you didn't think about how to get back up from a seated position," he deadpanned.
She shrugged. "What can I say? Only the important things." Pushing him off of her lap, she unlatched one of the compartments on her leg and pulled out a packet with a few sandwiches and a couple fresh apples. "I guess we can worry about that later," she decided. "For now…" She passed him half the lunch along with a soda.
He stared at the can in shock. "Now where did you find these?" he asked in amazement.
"I helped Sabrina unload the latest shipment from Egypt, and there were a few sodas," she explained.
"Nice." Clinking their soda cans together, the Hound sat back, leaning on one arm while he sipped on his drink. Watching him out of the corner of her eye, Iron Maiden retracted one gauntlet and covered his hand with hers, reveling in their closeness. Looking down at their hands, he hummed. "Is this weird?" he wondered. Iron Maiden raised an eyebrow at him in a question. "We're here because we got beat. Bad. So many people were killed or hurt in Paris – including some of our friends. Even though they are starting to feel hope and confidence, the people down in the camp are still struggling with all of this, still suffering. I have no idea where my mother and aunt are, or if they are even okay. And yet, I feel… happy. Like this is where I belong. Like now that I have you, nothing else in the world matters."
She gave him a look. "You always had me," she pointed out.
He snorted. "You know what I mean."
"Yeah…" Iron Maiden smiled, leaning into his side. "I don't think it's weird," she told him. "With all of the bad things happening around us, I think it's important for us to find whatever measure of happiness we can. After all, we better than anyone else know that tomorrow isn't exactly a guarantee. So why should we put this off? Why shouldn't we enjoy the time we have together?"
"I know I want to enjoy this time as much as I can…" The Hound hummed contemplatively and adjusted his head to give her a kiss. "Even under the circumstances, I'm glad that this whole… misadventure… brought us together."
Iron Maiden smiled, leaning into the kiss, and fumbled for the front release on her suit.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?"
Iron Maiden froze, her eyes darting around the clearing to find the source of the voice. The clearing they had chosen was surrounded by thick trees, with dense vegetation between them. Partly hidden in the shadow of the trees, three Dark Acolytes stood close together, quarterstaffs poised; in the reflection from her open mask, Iron Maiden could see three more standing at the edge of the clearing behind them. Grabbing the Hound's hand, she jerked her head to shut her mask, simultaneously closing her gauntlet. The Hound rose into a crouch, placing himself between Iron Maiden and the Dark Acolytes in front of them, a low growl emanating from his throat.
"At a guess, I'd say it's a miraculous abuser and a… sympathizer," another Dark Acolyte observed, eyeing them with distaste.
"I guess we'll just have to take them both out," mused the first speaker, stepping forward out of the shadows and giving Iron Maiden a better look at her face. Iron Maiden examined the Dark Acolyte more closely, and her breathing hitched: she had seen this Dark Acolyte in Paris! She had watched the Prodigy help a family of civilians escape from their damaged car. What was she doing here? Her gauntleted fist clenched, the grappling hook launcher whirring to life. The Prodigy crossed half the distance between them, holding her staff in front of her. "I'll give you one chance to relinquish the miraculous peacefully, and then I will take it from you."
"You think so? You'll take it from my cold, dead corpse!" The Hound growled, his hand clenching into a tight fist around his leash.
The Prodigy smirked. "That was the second option."
The Hound sprang to his feet, launching himself at the Prodigy, who leapt out of the way, hurling a spray of chi-putty in his direction. The Hound spun around, ducked, and contorted his body to avoid all of the pellets, lashing out at her with his leash. The Prodigy spun her quarterstaff, batting the leash aside and spinning around to close the distance between them. He jumped over her head, twisting around in midair and tossing his leash around her torso, only for her to drop to the ground as it closed around air, kipping back to her feet before he could get close enough to capitalize on her vulnerable position. As she rose, she flicked a ball at the Hound, and he spun his leash into a shield. The ball struck his leash-shield and burst apart in a spray of powder, and the Hound turned his face away for a moment before springing backwards through a handstand, just before the Prodigy swiped at his feet with her staff.
As the other Dark Acolytes closed in around her, Iron Maiden activated her jetpack, hurtling herself up into the air and sending grass and soil spraying out in all directions. Flipping around, she landed on her feet and one hand in a crouch and rose up, deploying the energy cannon on one of her arms and pointing it at the larger group of Dark Acolytes that had been approaching from behind her. One hurled a bolas at her, and she fired, blowing the bolas balls apart and sending the Acolytes scattering to avoid the beam. The two Acolytes on her other side rushed in while she was distracted, and one of them whacked her arm with his quarterstaff, which splintered apart. Turning back to them, Iron Maiden raised one closed fist, driving it into the Acolyte's chest and sending him hurtling across the clearing to crash into a tree trunk. A second Acolyte followed the first moments later. The three remaining Acolytes fanned out around her, keeping low to the ground and moving constantly as she fired a constant spray of energy beams at them. On the far side of the clearing, she could sense the Hound and Prodigy circling around each other, probing each other's defenses. The Hound feinted with his leash, and the Prodigy dove aside, right into the Hound's punch. Grabbing his wrist as the punch landed, the Prodigy pushed off, propelling herself through the air and landing in a crouch a few meters from the edge of the clearing.
The Hound strode forward, twirling his leash to one side. "You people are absolutely insane!" he shouted, eyes flashing with fury. "We should be working together now, not fighting each other!"
"And you people should not be imperiling the world with your miraculous abuse!" the Prodigy retorted heatedly. The Hound flicked his leash out at her, and she threw her staff at him, tangling it up in the leash as she dove to his left and came up in a crouch. Dodging around his follow-up punch, her mouth set in a thin line and brows furrowed, she pressed her hand to the Hound's chest.
The Hound's eyes widened in shock, and he let out an involuntary gasp, scrabbling feebly at her hand with his own. "What–?"
Iron Maiden's eyes widened in horror as the Hound keeled over backward and the Prodigy grabbed for his throat. "Hound!" Throwing both arms out, Iron Maiden sent a wide arc of energy at the three Acolytes trying to surround her, one of whom didn't move fast enough to evade it. Her eyes still locked onto the Hound's unmoving form, she sent a quick blast of energy at the Prodigy, who nimbly evaded the beam and sprang away from the Hound. Iron Maiden shot one of her grappling hooks at the Hound, catching him around the waist, and reeled the wire in, pulling him straight toward her. As she did so, she shot up into the air, pulling him after her, dangling limply at the end of the cord. Grabbing the Hound out of the air, she held him to her chest and rocketed toward the refugee camp, all her attention focused exclusively on the body in her arms. His eyes were shut, his limbs splayed. "No, no, no, no, no…"
