Speeding up, Aurore rushed down the crowded street, leaving Valèrie in the dust behind her. Her jaw clenched, all her focus on the receding figure in front of her, just barely visible through the gaps in the press of pedestrians. M. Loubet continued walking straight at a steady pace, his large bodyguard sweeping the crowd apart with barely a pause in front of M. Loubet. The woman behind him turned in either direction, scanning the crowd carefully as M. Loubet passed. Her eyes lingers on the reflective window of a bank while they waited at a street corner for the walk signal to flash, but Aurore kept her focus on the billboard across the street, an advertisement for a play called "Butterfly Wings Fall." In her peripheral vision, she watched as M. Loubet took out his phone and made another phone call, only staying on the phone for a minute before hanging up. She frowned, eyeing him suspiciously. Who had he been calling? She gulped. If he knew that she was following him, then what might he do to her? And yet, she couldn't let herself lose him, not when he was the key to getting her back into the Heroes of Paris' good graces. If she could capture him, then maybe she could show the Heroes of Paris that she hadn't tried to betray them. Her mouth set in a thin line, her eyes narrowed, as the light changed and the flow of pedestrians proceeded across the street.
With a final glance behind him, M. Loubet's bodyguard led the way across the street, scanning the avenue in either direction as they went. Pulling her cap down as low as she could, looking down to hide her eyes with the brim, Aurore cautiously followed them, her stomach churning with anxiety and anticipation. A glance up at the street sign they were passing, and Aurore nodded pensively. The arrondissement's business district, one of the areas of the city that had mostly come through the Tarasque's rampage and its ensuing chaos relatively intact. A couple of buildings along this street sat vacant, abandoned by their previous owners, but a dozen new shops and cafés and restaurants had opened here in the past month alone ahead of her, M. Loubet paused in front of a department store, staring into the long glass window for a moment while straightening his tie. Swallowing anxiously, Aurore continued straight, passing him and walking down to the bus stop in front of the next building, leaning against it as casually as she could manage. Finally, M. Loubet proceeded past her, and she ducked away from the bus stop and resumed following him, leaving a little more space between them, enough that she almost lost track of him in the crowd.
After all of this trouble and pain and guilt and shame, this was the man. This was the man who had used her! Who had manipulated her and hurt her friends through her! This was the man who had taken her need to help and to be strong and to protect and had turned it to his own advantage! She had thought that last fall had been the worst of it, that Fernand's degrading and dehumanizing messages – all the demands that she send him the pictures that he wanted – that they were the worse that she could ever experience. And until recently, that had been correct: Fernand had demanded that she send him pictures of herself, but Loubet had taken her whole body and used it as his puppet.
Aurore let out a heavy sigh. Fernand had forced her to send him pictures, pressuring her with the fear of her parents' disappointment and disapproval. Every message she had received from him, every picture she had sent in return, had only served to push her further and further into his clutches, to the point that she couldn't imagine doing anything but what he told her, for fear of what he might do. She swallowed. Then he had shared the pictures on the internet – overnight it seemed as though everyone had seen her. Her face burned with embarrassment and shame at the memory. The looks in the hallways – the knowing grins on the boys' faces, the disgusted sneers from a few of the girls – at first she'd had no idea what was happening, not until she overheard two of boys talking in the locker room. During the trial, she had half-expected her name to be on everyone's lips – not just in the school but in the city! Then all the details had become public knowledge. No longer were the looks merely coming from a few people in school, but everyone had an opinion, which they shared boisterously everywhere in the school. She had thought then that she wanted nothing more than to crawl under a rock and hide. But that feeling of guilt and shame was nothing compared to the utter humiliation of discovering that she had been willingly feeding information to the bad guys. It was like the sextortion all over again. But at least Fernand had told her what he was doing and not hidden any of it. M. Loubet, however, had manipulated her completely without her knowledge or consent.
She frowned, momentarily torn. Should she take him out right now? Should she end his manipulation here and now? Or should she pause, continue to follow him, and only arrest him after he did something wrong? Now that she had found him, she could keep watching and make note of the people he saw and what interactions they had. A part of her was inclined to continue watching, to watch him go through his day and try to find anyone else he might be manipulating or using. But even just from having found her, he knew that would take a long time, that he might never see another of Loubet's victims. He might never lead her back to a significant location – Lynchpin's headquarters, the center of his drug smuggling operation, anything like that. Whereas if she took him in right now, she wouldn't find the Lynchpin's headquarters, or find any of the other Lynchpin-ions, but at least she would have him. She pursed her lips, staring at M. Loubet's back intently.
Every day that she drew this out was another day that she would have to stay with Valèrie.
Her eyes narrowed. M. Loubet was dead.
Ignoring the businesses around him, M. Loubet made another quick phone call and turned down the next street. Glancing up at the traffic signal at the corner, Aurore's eye paused on a sign indicating that the arrondissement's city hall was three kilometers in that direction. Her mouth set in a thin line. Hustling, Aurore turned the corner moments after he did to find herself on a road with very few pedestrians and only three vehicles on the street, the closest one two blocks away. Immediately ahead of her were M. Loubet and his two companions, only separated from her by a handful of women in jogging suits; a few businessmen walked on the other side of the road, along with three women in professional dress, the group of whom abruptly turned aside and entered a tall office building. Just beyond that building, an alley separated it from the office building next to it. M. Loubet walked past the alleyway and turned toward the next building, pausing to look up at the entrance.
It was now or never.
Slipping into the alley, Aurore's pen was out of her purse and in her hand in a flash. She knelt and clenched her eyes shut, driving the pen down toward the pavement and whispering, "Atavis et Armis!" The white light seared her eyes through her eyelids. Even before the armor had formed around her arms, legs, and torso, the Lancer surged to her feet and sprinted out of the alley, already scanning for her target.
M. Loubet still stood at the building's front door, arms folded, in the middle of a heated conversation with someone in a business suit, a look of frustration on his face. The man shook his head jerkily and opened his mouth to speak, only for M. Loubet to cut him off, pointing angrily to the east before smacking his palm, glaring at the man. The man stepped back hesitantly, holding his hands up and placing his briefcase between himself and M. Loubet and clutching it tightly. M. Loubet gestured past him at the building, his eyes narrowed and mouth set in a thin line.
With a growl, the Lancer charged down the sidewalk toward them, raising her lance and pointing it straight ahead at him. "Loubet!" she bellowed. The small group of pedestrians between them spun around to stare at the Lancer, their eyes wide in shock. "You betrayed me!" Tensing, she lowered her lance's tip into the sidewalk and sprang into the air vaulting over the heads of the crowd and twirling the lance around in midair to point down at him. "You used me!" With a clatter, she landed less than two meters from him, dropping back into a fighting stance and pointing the lance tip directly at his face. "Your villainy is over!"
M. Loubet's eyes widened in shock at her sudden appearance, and he stumbled backward away from her, looking around himself in terror, searching for an avenue of escape. His eyes settled on the front door of the office building in front of him, just as the businessman backpedaled away from him, stumbling over the bottom step as he reached it. M. Loubet started to follow him, and the man's eyes shot wide open in fear. Nearly losing his balance while trying to back up the steps, the man flung his briefcase at M. Loubet, who reached for it and missed. The case landed on the ground at his feet and burst open, scattering euro notes and contract papers in the wind. As if that was a signal, a dozen of the civilians who had stood rooted in the spot while watching the Lancer's sudden arrival rushed forward, grabbing up handfuls of the cash. M. Loubet snagged a few hundred-euro bills fluttering in the breeze and stuffed them into an inner pocket of his suit coat, slipping deeper into the crowd and followed by his enormous, hulking bodyguard. The building's front door slammed shut with a crash, just before M. Loubet reached it. Growling in frustration, M. Loubet smacked the glass door, glaring at the man on the other side.
"Let me in, or it's your head!" M. Loubet snarled.
"Come in now, and you won't get hurt!" declared the Lancer, using her lance to push the civilians out of the way, stalking up the walkway, all her attention focused on M. Loubet. "
"Get behind me!" shouted the large man in the long coat, grabbing M. Loubet with one meaty hand and dragging him away from the building's front door, off to the side wall closest to the alleyway. The man twisted away, keeping a tight grip on M. Loubet with both hands, placing his own body between M. Loubet and the Lancer. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, the Lancer rushed forward, drawing back her lance to strike. But while she was still too far away, the man's coat and back shimmered, a wave of color sweeping down his back and up through his hair, originating from his neck. The cloth, along with what was visible of his skin, shifted in color several times before taking on muted browns and greens, interspersed with flashes of brickwork. The pattern rippled once and settled into place. The Lancer blinked, staring at the spot where he had been. But leaning in either direction, she could see nothing to indicate where the man was, or even whether he was still there!
M. Loubet was nowhere to be seen.
Drawing her lance back, she prepared to drive it into the wall in frustration. "No!"
The Lancer had no time to think about that however, as the woman who had been with M. Loubet turned to face her, drew in a deep breath, opened her mouth, and leaned forward, letting out a piercing scream straight into the Lancer's face. The Lancer jumped, her heart freezing up in her chest as the soundwaves struck her and reverberated through her. Her armor began to hum, vibrating in sympathy with the never-ending scream. The sound echoed in her ears, bouncing off of the buildings surrounding her. behind her, she sensed more than heart the shattering of glass as every window on that side of the building broke at once. People fell to their knees around the Lancer, covering their ears, their mouths open in pain. The Lancer's ears rang. She lifted her lance to stab it into the ground for balance, glaring at the woman through narrowed eyes. But as the woman's ear-piercing shriek continued, the force pulled the Lancer off her feet and launched her sailing through the air.
"Atavis!"
