Chapter 5: Her

Gilgamesh turned around before I did. I couldn't look first, but I had no doubt it was Rikki. Her voice was impish, quiet but precise. I had thought all this time that she was dead. But I didn't want to look at her, see her face now that she had grown.

"Aren't you excited to see me big sister? It's been so long." All this time and I didn't search for her. I never found her after the fire, and didn't want to believe this was her. Face the reality that the Mages Association would use her against me if she was actually there. They were good at exploiting weaknesses.

"Hazel don't tell me you're afraid of these mongrels?" I had to put on my arrogant face. I was still a rogue mage to them. And Gilgamesh would not expect me to break now. I had to play the part until I knew who she was fighting for. If Rikki was still herself, she wouldn't want to take me on.

"You're boyfriend doesn't know you too well." She said it. That was my cue. I laughed and turned around.

"You have no idea who you just insulted." I looked, she hadn't changed. She still wore the short, flowing black dress with a turtle neck collar. The black cardigan sleeves covered her arms all the way to her knuckles. Her hair was black at the roots and tips, but the rest was dyed fuchsia to match her eyes. She had three other mages with her, all experienced. I would not worry about them, I could take them down easily. Besides, Gilgamesh needed something to do if I fought Rikki.

"I'm curious to see why someone like him would be with you?" Rikki asked.

"We're not together. But I forgot, they locked you up like a monster, so you don't read social cues well." She scowled and the remark. It was better to ask now what her plans were.

"So what, you've come to kill me like the other group?" I asked it politely, but she only chuckled.

"No actually. We thought you would have left by now, but we got a tip." A tip? Did that elder mage send out a signal before I left the scene of the crime? I was very careful to cover my tracks.

"Well, aren't you lucky?" That was all I could say. I didn't have time to question who lead them to me. They were here now, it was too late, and I needed to fight like always.

"I'll give you a choice Hazel. Either come with us and we bring you back, or we kill you here." I knew that would be the options. My heart wanted to go with her, she was my only family left. Even if it meant facing the consequences, at least we'd be together. Though I'd leave Gilgamesh behind, I could prevent him from getting involved. He didn't need to waste his time in my affairs.

"Take guess which one I'll chose." I said. Even if they were going to take me away, I had a feeling I would not be fighting with my sister again. I'd be in for at least a year of torture to reinstate me, then I would be doing the same thing, killing innocents and beasts until they found their new weapon.

"Hazel, you've done nothing productive in five years but kill your own. If you come back, we can be a family again." That wasn't true. I made it clear from the beginning of my escape that I just wanted to be left alone. But no one listened, so to stay alive I had to kill them.

"Our kind isn't exactly innocent, Rikki. I will not go back having to follow the orders of someone who has no care for civilians, and valued us as weapons." The other mages smirked at what I said. They wanted to go into battle. But I still had questions that needed to be answered.

"You seem to forget our parents abandoned us." She had been lied to. Those words never came from my lips.

"Who told you that, Augustus? That man killed our parents to get what he wanted. Test rats. That's all we are to him."

"No." She paused. "He freed us." She had it all wrong. I clenched my fists. They had sucked her into their world, she wouldn't believe a word I'd say.

"Rikki, you don't remember?" It was my final plea. But she had been told this lie for too long. It was ingrained in her memory.

"No, your life as a rouge mage must come to an end. But if you still have some humanity left then come with us." Part of me wanted to do it. But the look in her eyes was fake. She was not like this before, willing to obey every command. She wasn't hesitating anymore, and I doubted it was from growing up.

I didn't want to use Gilgamesh's name, but I stepped in front of him. He could tell that a fight was about to begin.

"I'll take Rikki, you kill the rest." Gilgamesh smiled.

"Shame. She looks to be exciting." He stepped in front of me and I stared into Rikki's fuchsia eyes.

"I will not go back. Unless you drag my dead body all the way there." I started to charge my amplifiers. My right and left arms began to glow yellow and soon I had two lightning bolts at my control. They were like scythes that covered both my arms. Rikki charged hers as well. Being that the amplifiers were in her back she would use them to fly. But I had to be careful, though I hit harder, she was faster.

"Fine then. We'll fight." Rikki said. I couldn't try away from this.

She flew into my chest and I was flung back. Gilgamesh stood, confident that the others wouldn't be an issue. Though I wanted to see how he fought, I figured I needed to focus on beating my sister. Out of the four, she would be the most difficult. We were sparing each other. She liked to us the tops of her wings like knifes to slash. I kept blocking her, and from the corner of my eye I saw the golden portals open. But the parking lot would be too public. We had to transition the fight somewhere else. I had to do something risky.

I grabbed Rikki by her cardigan and threw ourselves off the parking ramp.

She opened up her wings and I made a dome below my feet to break my fall to the pavement. The shield cracked but my legs were fine besides being a little numb. I began to skate backwards on the golden dome as Rikki shot volleys at me. She had gotten stronger, but I couldn't be proud now.

We began to head through a tunnel. No cars for the moment, but it would hopefully empty somewhere that would be easier to fight in. She kept flying quickly past, trying to slash open my shield. She knew that the thicker I made it the faster my mana would drain. Though this fight was feeling short, I think it was because of the adrenaline. We both wanted to finish this quickly, which meant we didn't want to prolong the battle with strategy.

At the end of the tunnel, I saw another ramp for parking which was underground. It would help if she couldn't fly. Her blows were becoming more frequent and I had to strengthen my shield to its limits. I had to use a lot of mana to keep my shield from cracking, and my power was running out. I had let down my shield so I could run into the parking garage. This would have to be where she would die. Unless…

"Rikki. Stop this." She charged at me. I put up my shield and she tried to break it. Once she realized she wasn't going to break through, she paused.

"No." She said. "You're a traitor." She used the talon from her wing to break through and sliced my left thigh. I kneeled until she grabbed me and pushed me into a pillar. My shield took most of the blow, but the pillar crumbled on top of me. I would have bruises in the morning for sure.

"I just wanted to explore on my own." I said as I got out from the rubble.

"Well your exploring killed too many." She punched me in the face and I grabbed her waist and through her into another pillar. I heard a snap, and it was her right arm. She could no longer move it. I could only give her one more chance, but if she wasn't going to back off, I would have to kill her.

"You should have stopped looking." I said.

"I need to kill you, Hazel." This wasn't my sister. She was confused.

"What would our parents think?" I asked. I could feel blood running out of my leg. But it was slow enough that I would live.

"They didn't want to care for us." She said. "Dad didn't care for me because I wasn't the prodigy, and mom only wanted us gone. We were only meant to breed more mages." What had Augustus done to make her believe that lie?

"Please stop." It was preposterous that she would think that was true.

"No." That was her final chance, and she gave the wrong answer.

"If you want to kill me that badly, then I'll do the same." Rikki charged at me, I stood my ground. She ran into my lightning blade. I had a pierced her through the stomach. I could feel blood begin to drip from her mouth, and onto my hand.

"Why did you leave me?" Rikki whispered as she rested her head on my shoulder.

"I thought you were dead." It was true. All this time since the fire I thought she was gone. I wanted to be alone because I thought that was all I had.

"But you could have looked. I waited, but you were never going to come back. I was already free, why couldn't you stay?" I could tell she was lost. They never told me she was alive. The Mages Association kept the secret from me but not from her.

"Rikki…"

"Don't say it if you don't mean it!" She was mad. But I couldn't control what happened. They were controlling her. Her breaths grew shallow and slow. I could only say this once before she left.

"Rikki. You never knew the world that exists. Only what they taught you. I'm sorry."

"That was him wasn't it?" I had to guess she meant Gilgamesh, but it could also be gibberish. "I saw him on the bridge that night. In golden armor." Why would she mention this now?

"I don't remember." That night was still blurry. I wanted to forget it, because that was the night that I thought I lost everything.

"I told you we should run, but you wanted to save them. I guess you're blind to danger. That never changed." I felt her let out her last breath, the blood had splattered onto my striped shirt. At that moment I felt a tear against my shoulder. I laid the corpse down gently, and shut her eyelids. She looked like she was sleeping, and my only hope was that she was happy now. She didn't deserve this life, but she embraced it because that was all she knew.

"So you are sentimental?" I had a feeling he would follow. Gilgamesh probably finished off the three mages before I reached the tunnel. He walked over to me, but he was wrong about my emotion.

"No, you mistake that." I was angered, the Mages Association had just made me commit an unspeakable crime, all to prove a point. Make me out to be a monster. But the corpse I saw was someone who was lost, and only obeyed orders to avoid punishment. "She wasn't my sister anymore. Just a pawn."

"For a pawn, she tore you apart." He didn't have to rub it in that I was wounded.

"I'll be fine." I looked at him. I figured if I had to take her and the three mages at once, there was a chance I would have been killed. "Thanks for the assistance."

"They were quite simple to eliminate." He laughed and I read the time in the parking lot. It was just after midnight. But a thought occurred to me, that I had someone to fight with, even if it was temporary. Maybe this duo thing could work.

"Hey, I may not be Enkidu, but we make a good pair." Out of nowhere, his hand slapped me across the face. It was a hard one, but being he wasn't one for hands on combat, it meant he was more enraged than normal.

"Don't ever compare yourself to her!" There was silence. I rubbed my face before I spoke.

"Her?" I asked, and he let out a slight gasp. I didn't care at this point, if he was going to hit me then I was out. There was no point for me to stay and be abused. "Look, I'll go."

"You don't have to…"

"Do you see what I just did?!" I pointed to Rikki's corpse. "No, of course not. I forgot a king only cares for himself and his possessions. And if all I am to you is just a memory of her, then I don't need to keep trying to entertain you."

I charged out of the parking garage. I had some bruises and cuts on my arms, plus a red spot from the slap. The major wound was the laceration on my left leg. Not enough to kill me but it still hurt to walk. I collected power from the street lamps as I walked but it wasn't enough. I began to cough blood. Rikki had caused some kind of internal bleeding. Probably when she threw me into the pillar. I ran into the city to the nearest power plant.

After a few minutes of searching I found one with a low security entrance. I could feel the blood loss, and crimson liquid oozed from my mouth. I had to do this quick or I would die. I found a transformer and attempted something I hadn't done before. I was going to electrocute myself.

I took off my gloves and grabbed the power source, then began to feel the electricity surge through my body. I focused a healing spell on my insides. I could feel it working, though the rest of my body felt like it was burning. The wound was almost sealed on the inside, but I couldn't hold on. I let go and was flung back.

Amazingly, I was still breathing. I could feel the bleeding had stopped, and the gash on my leg was no longer there, except for a slim scar. The power I felt from my second source of mana was stronger than what my body could provide. This was good to know for the future, but I was still exhausted. I could have easily killed myself.

As I found the tunnel where I was originally camped out, it appeared someone stole the mattress. I knew I would have to sleep on the ground eventually. I sat down rested my arms on my knees. I was upset and didn't need anyone to hear my whining. Being so focused on staying alive I had ignored what I had just done. And now that I was alone and not bleeding to death, it began to sink in. I had just killed my sister.