11am

Gusion snapped back awake, yawning widely as his latest dream slunk away from him.

It had been a nice dream, one with a lot of explosions. Shame that he couldn't recall the entirety of it.

Helcurt was still curled up in a ball, and Gusion stood up, stretching out, before ambling up the stairs.

He pushed past the football and basketball containers and stepped out onto the open pavement.

It was like a switch had been flipped in his brain-suddenly everything looked so much more beautiful.

For the first twelve years of his life, he'd been forced to stay inside the haunting stone walls of Castle Aberleen. The rest of his life had been an adrenaline fuelled absolutely wild ride, that had only gotten more intense in the last few days.

And yet, that morning, he felt peaceful, as a calming feeling settled in his muscles.

These mornings were hard to come by, he reflected as he turned around, noticing a poster with his picture on the door of the court.

In big black bold letters, above a picture of him two years ago juggling his knives, was the word 'WANTED'.

"Gusion Paxley, age 17, wields a knife, wanted dead or alive," Gusion read, ripping the poster off the door. "Wanted for treason. IS ARMED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. Do not approach."

Gusion looked around, fear rushing through his veins. He ran back into the court and leapt down the stairs, bursting into the door.

"Helcurt, wake up," he hurriedly urged, kicking the Shadowbringer, who simply murmured and growled softly in his sleep.

Gusion kicked harder and Helcurt shot awake with an enraged snarl, glaring up as Gusion as his white hair fell out the side.

"What d'you want?" he barked irritatedly, and Gusion threw the poster down at Helcurt's feet, who tilted his head to read it.

"Oh, look, someone actually wants you around," Helcurt snapped.

"Helcurt."

"It's literally a wanted poster, this just means that we're criminals. Nothing new."

"This is going to be all over the city, Helcurt. We need to get out as fast as possible."

Helcurt shook his head as he got to his feet. "You've ruined my sleep. Happy now?"

Gusion didn't bother dignifying it with a reply, instead turning around and running up the stairs, as Helcurt's footsteps joined his.

They made it to the first floor and froze.

"-had to check places the quarry frequented," one policeman was saying to the other one beside him, and stopped as soon as he saw Gusion and Helcurt.

"Freeze!" the other policeman roared, pointing the business end of the spear at them while the first one followed suit.

"It's just two people," Helcurt whispered to Gusion. "We can take them."

Several more police burst through the open door. There had to be at least more than ten in total.

"You had to say something," Gusion replied to Helcurt, who hissed.

"Freeze!" the man bellowed again.

"RUN!" Gusion shouted, turning around as he bolted down the stairs.

When Lesley regained consciousness, her head felt like it had been split open with an electric drill.

She stood up, picking up her gun, and wiped the sleep from her eyes.

"Where did you go?"

Lesley spun around. "Harley?"

Her little brother stood there, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed as he stared at her. "Where did you go?" he repeated in the same hauntingly hollow tone, as he gave her a dead-eyed stare.

Lesley stepped back. "What-what happened to you?" she asked, swallowing.

"You swore to protect me, Lesley," Harley stepped forward, and Lesley noticed that he was walking with some difficulty.

She looked at his feet and realised with a dawning horror that he had no toes.

Lesley looked up as Harley held up his hand-all the fingers were severed, and blood oozed from them.

She opened her mouth, but no words came out as Harley advanced.

"Why didn't you help me?" he asked, and Lesley had no reply.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU!"

The loud shout reverberated in Lesley's brain. WHY DIDN'T YOU!

"I thought I could trust you," an older version of Harley's voice spoke as Duke Vance stepped out from the shadows, an expression of disapproval on his face as he fixed Lesley with a cold stare, placing a hand on Harley's shoulder. "I entrusted my son's care to you. But you disappointed me."

"She disappoints everyone, don't worry," her father's voice hit her like a sack of bricks and Lesley whirled around, facing her father as she backed away from them all. "Dad-"

"Save it," he snapped, and something inside Lesley shattered. "You could have shot him. You have your rifle, and he was behind me, and you saw him. You saw him, and you were too afraid to shoot. A useless child, that's what you are. You ruin everything you touch. Maybe, if you weren't born, your mother would still be alive. She died giving birth to a waste of space."

Lesley backed away as her father stared at her, his disapproving stare cutting through her heart.

"My wife died because of her too," Duke Vance told Lesley's father.

"I'm sorry for burdening you with her. She should have died instead of me. It would have been so much better."

"You didn't protect me," Harley said, emotionless, expressionless, as he stared up at her.

"I-" Lesley started, but another voice cut in, whispering into her ear from behind.

"You pushed me on the run."

Lesley's breath hitched in her throat. "Gusion."

"I'm officially a criminal," he continued. "Did you hear yesterday's announcement? That's what you did, Lesley. That's what you did."

She'd had a legitimate reason for that. She knew she did.

"Did you?" Gusion asked, and he didn't sound angry at all-this was worse.

He sounded betrayed.

"You would have killed me. Once Dyrroth told you to. You would have killed me, wouldn't you, Les?"

"Gusion, please-"

Suddenly, Dyrroth's slimy cackle erupted from all directions. "You're a worthless fool that couldn't protect your brother."

"Weak!"

"Pathetic!"

"Useless!"

"Traitor."

The words were coming from all directions now, and everyone was shouting at once.

"Stop! Just stop!" Lesley cried, but no one heard her.

"You should have died years ago."

"I wish you never existed."

"No one cares about you."

"Here's to hoping you die soon."

"I'll have your head, Lesley."

"Stop," Lesley begged, falling to her knees and clamping her hands over her ears. "Just stop. Please."

"She's actually begging."

"I can't believe I raised such a weakling."

"Oh my god."

"Look at the baby."

There was a clicking noise, coming from somewhere.

"Do it, end it already."

"Come on!"

Lesley looked up, and realised that the barrel of her father's rifle was pointed straight at her head, its wielder with a cold look in his eyes, as everyone else stood behind him, Harley's dead-eyed stare boring into her skull as the disappointed expression on Gusion's face burned itself into her brain.

Lesley closed her eyes, and her father's finger tightened around the trigger.

Bang.

Lancelot nervously stood as Carmilla looked down. "If this is a joke, it's not funny."

"It isn't, Carmilla," Alucard told her.

Carmilla went still as a statue, as Alucard traded an anxious glance with Lancelot.

Her body suddenly shook and her head fell into her hands, sobbing.

Lancelot was tempted to move forward and comfort her, but decided against it.

Suddenly, she leapt to her feet and flexed her fingers, and claws split the skin, curving out as two crimson wings exploded from her back in a shower of blood.

Alucard shoved his chair back, putting as much distance as he could in between him and Carmilla as Lancelot unsheathed his sword, just in case things got ugly.

"Who did it?" she asked, voice sharper than they'd ever heard it. Lancelot had only seen Carmilla working with Cecilion, and had assumed her to simply support her boyfriend.

But it appeared they'd all underestimated her.

"We don't know," Alucard stated, his hand going to the hilt of his sword. "The body was found at Gusion's place."

"Lesley-Lesley Vance-was the first person to discover the body," Lancelot spoke up, and their heads snapped to him.

"It definitely wasn't her," Alucard reassured. "There was almost nothing left of the body. Lesley uses a rifle. She couldn't have done that."

Carmilla hissed. "She would be the sniper, right? The one at the hospital attack."

"That was five years ago, but yeah, you're right," Lancelot admitted. The attack in question was when Hanzo led a small battalion to take the hospital, and Lesley and Gusion, the only people inside due to a coordinated misdirection by Alice, had to defend the hospital against a horde of demons, with both suffering grievous injuries.

That event had led to Tigreal recruiting both of them upon their continued insistence and Lancelot's recommendation.

He felt guilty about bringing in literal children, but they had fought through an attack and were now in danger.

Carmilla retracted her claws and pulled in her wings, but the homicidal expression on her face never changed. "What about the boy with her?"

"Gusion," Alucard filled in. "He's gone dark. Lesley confirmed that it wasn't him, and besides, I don't think this was the work of something human."

"So there's no suspects," Carmilla summed up.

"Yeah," Alucard stated grimly.

Carmilla closed her eyes, and inhaled. When she opened them again, they were bright red.

"When you find who it is," she said in an ethereal voice. "He's mine."

Gusion was halfway down the stairs when he turned back.

"HELCURT!" he bellowed, but it was of no use-the Shadowbringer had gone up the stairs.

He turned around to follow Helcurt but a big policeman kicked him in the chest and Gusion was lifted off his feet as he tumbled gracelessly down the stairs, landing clumsily on the floor.

He scrambled to his feet and sprinted into the room, pulling the door shut right before it was smashed open, knocking Gusion flat on his rear just as the policemen streamed into the room.

Gusion counted six of them before rolling over and pushing himself up. One of the policemen slammed the butt of the spear into Gusion's heel, sending him spinning to the floor again. Gusion's head was pressed against the floor as the handle of a spear pinned his wrists behind his back.

"Let-me-go-" Gusion struggled, thrashing about as a cuff was looped around his left wrist.

"Take his knife!" a voice shouted, and the policeman let go of the right end of the spear to remove Gusion's knife from his belt, without securing the cuff.

Big mistake.

Gusion's right side was now free and he landed a kick to the officer's kneecap, who grunted and his grip slackened. Gusion used his free hand to grab the spear and yanked it out of the policeman's hands, leaping to his feet as he held the spear tightly, the unsecured cuff falling limply at his feet.

A blonde policewomen behind the now disarmed guard snorted. "Nice going, Carl."

Carl's face turned as red as a tomato as he roared, before wildly lunging.

Gusion swung the spear, catching Carl under the chin with the blunt end and sending him crashing to the floor, out cold.

There were some snickers among the other five.

"He doesn't seem very good," Gusion remarked, and the first policewoman laughed. "He's an idiot."

"I'm assuming the rest of you aren't going to be as easy to take down?"

"You got spunk, kid, I'll give you that. But you aren't getting out of here without your hands in cuffs."

Gusion beamed.

Then he teleported behind all of them and struck the big policeman on the head with the flat of the spear blade, dropping him with one blow before stabbing the policeman next to him in the foot before any of them had time to react.

He yelled and Gusion grabbed a fistful of his hair before slamming his head into the handle of the spear which was sticking up.

Only the blonde policewoman and another two policemen were still standing.

Both the policemen lunged at him, and Gusion deftly rolled below the first policeman at light speed and leapt up, slamming an elbow into the thin one's throat, who hadn't expected him to move that fast.

The short but stumpy one turned around as Gusion grabbed the trolley containing the badminton rackets and rolled it at him. The man caught and Gusion snatched up a racket and hit in the face twice in quick succession, causing him to howl and Gusion kicked the trolley, leading to one of the corners hitting him quite sharply between the legs. He fell down, curling up into the foetal position.

A spear dug slightly in the centre of the back. "Hands in the air."

"Weren't you guys instructed to bring me alive?"

"Why on earth does everyone equate 'alive' to 'completely unscathed'? I can bring you in on the brink of death and still get paid."

"Fair enough."

The blonde policewoman carried on talking. "What was the roll? I haven't seen anyone move that fast."

Gusion raised an eyebrow. "Magic, of course."

"They said you were an assassin, not a mage."

"It's a bit of a mix, honestly."

"Amazing. Now, hands in the air."

Gusion raised his hand, and closed his eyes, calling upon his magic. His dagger whistled through the air, hitting the policewoman with its hilt before landing perfectly in his hand. He turned around, twisting away from the spear and stabbed her in the bicep, before slicing through the arm.

She yelped and dropped the spear and Gusion pulled out the knife, kicking her to the floor. "I've tangled with Hanzo himself. You're going to need more than that to take me down."

"How long have you been waiting to use that line?"

"Since I was twelve," Gusion admitted guiltily, before walking in Carl's direction.

He picked up the handcuffs and kicked Carl in the side. "Next time, secure the cuffs first, moron."

Carl's only reply was a pained groan.

Gusion walked out the door, and slammed it shut, before using the cuffs to lock the door from the outside.

"Oh my god, I just took down six policemen while looking cool as hell," he said to himself, as he slumped against a wall, wiping sweat off his brow.

Helcurt appeared at the top of the staircase. "Oi, dagger boy, what the hell did you go downstairs for-"

"Shut up," Gusion snapped. "Where's everyone that chased you?"

Helcurt shrugged. "Hell if I know, I just hid inside the first cupboard I saw until the coast was clear."

"Okay, here's the rules. We don't kill anyone."

"Anything else?"

"We'll make them up as we go on."

"Fun idea."

A slamming noise came from the bottom of the stairs and the door which Gusion had used the cuffs to lock began the shudder.

"Start running," Gusion told Helcurt before sprinting out of the door.

Helcurt followed him out. "Where do we go?"

"If we're going after Carmilla next, we need to have something of Cecilion's," Gusion replied. "Otherwise, she'll become suspicious, given that the body was at my house. It'll help us to convince her that Cecilion trusted me. Moreover, we'll have to check if Cecilion left any evidence. Like a diary, where he could have written that he intended on meeting me."

"Cecilion's house?" Helcurt frowned. "Where was that?"

"On Avenue 18," Gusion replied. "It'll take us a minimum of two hours by foot."

"What about by car?" Helcurt asked, and Gusion followed his gaze, where a somewhat pot-bellied man was struggling to start his car.

Lancelot closed his eyes and reclined in the shotgun seat while Alucard revved the engine.

"That went as well as it could have," the demon hunter offhandedly mentioned, but Lancelot barely heard him, deep in thought.

Suddenly, whatever had been nagging at Lancelot hit him. "Could it have been the Shadowbringer that killed Cecilion?"

Alucard stiffened in his seat as he digested what Lancelot had said. Then he slowly turned to Lancelot. "We make sure Carmilla never finds out about this, do you understand? She'll go absolutely feral."

"Right," Lancelot nodded. "Understood. Do we tell Silvanna?"

Alucard mulled it over for a second. "Yeah, sure."

Lesley sat up, breathing heavily.

Just a dream, she told herself, just a dream.

Where did you go?

Lesley clamped her hands around her head, trying to shut the lines out, curling up into a ball and shutting her eyes tight.

After a few deep breaths, she opened them again.

She walked to the bathroom, and splashed water on her face. She looked up and glared into the eyes of her reflection.

"Come on, Lesley," she said, trying to give herself a pep talk. "This is for Harley. You swore to protect him. After this is over, we'll track down Dyrroth and pump him full of lead."

She sucked in a deep breath, and grabbed off a hairband from the sink before braiding her hair.

"Where would Gusion have gone?" she thought to herself.

Gusion had absolutely no allies except for the Shadowbringer. Only Lesley herself knew that he was innocent.

Where would he go?

Lesley recalled something the assassin had once previously said.

If I killed someone, and wanted to escape, I'd have checked their house, to see if there's any records left. Destroy the evidence.

She pulled the braid to check whether she'd done it properly, before letting it fall. Lesley walked out and picked up her rifle before stalking down the staircase, loading her rifle, and packing extra ammo in her pockets while snatching a satchel and filling it with ammo too. She then filled her belt pockets with ammo too, before yanking two keys off the coat hanger and strapping the rifle to her back. She wore her combat boots and secured the laces, before walking out the house.

Lesley locked the front door and the wards sprang up, before placing the door key into the second zip of the satchel.

She went around to the parking space behind both hers and Gusion's houses, noting the absence of Gusion's bright yellow car. Undoing the bike lock, she pulled the Harley-Davidson Sportster 1000 out of the lot.

Climbing onto it, she started the bike, and took off in a puff of smoke.

Gusion walked over to the car, and knocked on the window next to the driver's seat.

"Could you please come out for a second?" he mouthed, and the fat man got out of the car, an annoyed expression on his face.

Before he could open his mouth, Gusion fired off a surprisingly accurate punch to the temple and followed it up with a shot to the side of the lower jaw.

The man swayed slightly before Gusion pushed him to the ground.

Helcurt looked at the unconscious man. "Impressive," he admitted. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"I read widely," Gusion ambiguously stated, knowing that Helcurt would never let him hear the end of it if he told him that he'd studied up on different ways to knock someone out to initiate conversations with Lesley at the age of fourteen, when his crush had first taken root in his head.

He climbed in the car and Helcurt leapt over him into the shotgun seat.

Gusion fired up the engine before it went out with a hiss.

He tried again and it worked, and the car drove on.

"You know the way?"

"Lesley, Harley and I used to play Hide-and-seek before Cecilion came there."

Helcurt waggled his eyebrows. "I wonder what you and Lesley were doing when you were hiding alone-"

"We were twelve, you utter moron."

Dyrroth was fiddling with a stack of cards when the boy began to wake.

Harley twitched at first, before bolting upright, coughing his guts out.

Dyrroth waved his hand at him. "Welcome to my world."

Harley looked around, and then his nose scrunched up. "This is your realm?"

Dyrroth's eye twitched as he suppressed the feelings of anger rising in him. "And just what do you mean by that, you pint-sized card magician?"

"It's disgusting," Harley said, his revulsion overriding his fear. "You seriously live like this?"

"What's wrong with the place?"

"You painted your room so black that the only way I'm even seeing you is by the orange gem you're wearing, it feels like the damn Sahara in this hellhole, and it is really stinky in here." Harley sniffed the air. "It smells like someone died in here."

Dyrroth winced. Maybe he should have cleared out Anthony's body last weekend.

Harley coughed. "Let me go!"

"Not a chance," Dyrroth smiled. "Your sister's under my control now. She'll do anything I tell her just to get you back alive."

Harley shot to his feet. "Don't you dare harm her!"

Dyrroth cracked his knuckles. "And what are you going to do about it, midget?"

Harley opened his mouth before collapsing face-first onto the floor.

"Seriously?" Dyrroth asked with a wry grin. "I can come up with more ingenious escape plans in my sleep."

The grin evaporated when the boy didn't react.

Dyrroth hooked a foot under him and flipped him over.

Blood was trickling from Harley's mouth.

Dyrroth grabbed the boy by the scruff of his neck and lifted him off effortlessly.

"FARAMIS!" he bellowed, walking out of his bedroom and into the throne room.

Gusion pulled up outside the derelict cluster of apartments.

It had been Tigreal's subtle revenge to make Cecilion stay in such unhygienic conditions after he'd once broken Fanny's legs and left her for dead.

Tigreal nearly went out to kill the mage himself, and it had taken a coordinated effort from Alucard, Harith, Nana, Claude and Natalia to stop him.

Once they surrendered, Tigreal couldn't legally kill him, but he decided that this was good enough revenge.

Gusion had been disappointed, as this meant that he wouldn't be playing hide-and-seek with Lesley.

After five years, he'd returned back to the place.

Helcurt clambered out of the car behind him. "Doesn't seem too impressive to me. Is there anyone else living here?"

"Nope, Cecilion was in total isolation."

"Perfect."

They took the lift up to the fourth floor and Gusion stepped out, checking if there was anyone around.

"All good."

Helcurt moved out. "Which house is it?"

"The one with the padlock." Gusion pointed to the third door from their side in the row of seven. "You can pick locks."

"Not a clue how to," Helcurt proudly stated. "But hey, there's a first time for everything."

Helcurt crawled over and shoved his tail into the lock, and Gusion watched as he tried to pull his tail out.

"It's stuck," Helcurt mused.

"I can see that. But hey, there's a first time for everything."

"Shut up."

Helcurt yanked his tail out, hissing angrily, before shaking it furiously. "Oh, wow."

Gusion flipped his dagger. "My turn."

He stepped at the door and stabbed it through the eyehole, the blade shattering the glass.

He then tried to drag it down, but apparently his knife wasn't strong enough for that.

Gusion pulled out his knife. "Helcurt, can you climb walls?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"We can go down the staircase, then you climb out through the opening and open the window from the outside, then you let me in."

"Fair enough, I'm in."

Gusion and Helcurt walked to the staircase beside the lifts when a lift came up to their level.

When Gusion spotted the passenger, his eyes widened.

Inside the lift stood Lesley Vance.

Her gaze locked with his, and she swung her rifle up and pointed straight at his heart just as the lift doors opened.

I'm normally not one for author's notes, but here we go.

Thank you to all those who are reading this story. If you liked this story, you might want to read thelittletaco's Sniper Ready, Give Me A Target. That story inspired me to write this one.

If you liked this, you'd like that one too.

Thank you as always.

Please review.