Chapter 541: Rescue Party

"Who are you?"

The question hung in the air between them, like a line twisting in the wind, the line leading from Arc to the woman slackened before suddenly going taut, thickening as she received her response.

"I am the price of ridding this universe of its maddened creator. A parasite on the corpse of a dead machine... and the woman your father vowed to kill, Arcine Gale-Eros."

Arc tensed. She felt such gravity in the tired regret and sliver of happiness she felt from the stranger that she almost didn’t notice she’d spoken her name and the family names of her fathers.

She gulped. She waited, but there were no words until she worked up her courage and asked, "How do you know who I am? You said I’m dying... what happens to me now?"

The woman reached and wrapped her hand around the white string that led from her to Arc, causing Arc to gasp as she felt a tug on her whole being. "Now I wait. If you live, maybe we’ll meet again before my end. It is a wonderful thing... not knowing. Trusting the unknown..."

She sighed, then with a wrenching jerk and the sounds of bones popping saw the woman twisted forward, her whole body contorting with pain. Arc saw more of the unknown lines suddenly come into being behind the woman, arcing outward and lighting her unseen wings, one demonic and bat-like, and the other... fiery red, like her father’s wings. But beyond those wings and above them was the arc of a broken sphere, inside of which was a blackness unlike anything Arc had ever seen. And within that darkness, figures rose. Claws and sharp-angled faces. "I’m sorry..." the woman gasped. "If you wake up... please don’t..."

Whatever the woman wanted, Arc didn’t get to hear it as the whole of existence flashed from a blurry white to a rich brown with white hair and- Oh my stars, Owyn’s kissing me! Not just kissing though, he forced a lungfull of air into her and suddenly she remembered to breathe.

Rising, Arc sputtered and coughed, moving too fast and straining as she tried to slap Owyn, only for her hand to barely make a sound against his cheek. She couldn’t really hear him as he rose off of her and said something to someone Arc didn’t have the energy to try to see. She saw a fur-covered hand reach to touch her throat, then realized her throat felt entirely itchy with a sharp, residual burning pain. Her ribs felt like the lower part was broken. Every breath hurt.

Her hearing came back as she coughed some more.

"Thank the spirits," Owyn hugged her. He’d gone all blurry from the tears in her eyes.

"I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet," a black-clad youth Arc sort of remembered stepped to Owyn’s back as if to cower from the team of ratkin surrounding them with weapons. She was too busy looking at the wispy threads connecting her to them, yet not interfering with her vision. Like she was seeing the threads one way and the world another... and both of them glowed with threads.

Owyn’s lines seemed more colorful to her. More detailed, and she almost felt like she knew he was going to look up before he did.

A deep male voice from behind Arc said, "Leave, now. You are not welcome down here."

"She should not be moved!" a slightly squeaky female voice hissed.

This conversation was immediately lost to Arc as her sense of the lines around her expanded and suddenly-

PAIN!

There was so much pain all around. Everywhere. Inside.

From Owyn to the people around her, from the family of tiny creatures cowering behind the bend of a dry sewage pipe, to the surface of the sewer waters and in every line that streamed up from the ground in wispy strands.

All of it flowed into her. She could feel Owyn’s every cut and scrape. The arthritic throb of the mousekin female’s wrists...

It was in the soil above her, the strands reaching from Ayther to the sky... and in the two people running towards them from further ahead. But the pain was too much for her to communicate these things.

*

"It hurts... it hurts so much..." Arc whimpered on the edge of incoherence as Owyn clutched her to himself. Instinct and a shift of his arms put her in the fetal position, when suddenly from up the hall came a familiar voice...

"Owyn! You found Arc!" Raven’s face was bruised, and behind her was Rose, the woman from the tavern.

"What’s wrong with her?" the latter asked as soon as they finished arriving. Arc’s words had devolved into just saying "It hurts," over and over again.

"Oh, Lady Crow... a vampire nearly ripped her throat out," Steven answered breathlessly.

"Why the fuck is he here?" Raven snapped back.

"He’s helping us," Owyn replied. That got Raven to back off a bit and regard Owyn. He was covered in blood, though Arc’s uniform already showed signs of cleaning itself. She almost looked... jealous? Then, with a sudden pulling motion, Raven pulled all the loose blood off them both, magically, before tossing it into the sewer waters.

Rose moved to inspect Arc, before looking at the mousekin, impressed, "You sang the healing? This is a tough sort of wound."

"The boy helped," the mousekin gestured at Owyn, "Lady Lyre."

"Just Rose is fine, and you’re welcome to free drinks at my tavern anytime you like, Miss..."

"Freddi," Freddi replied. "He has-

"Potential, I know," Rose finished for her.

"They need to lea-"

""Shut it!"" Rose and Freddi snapped at the ratkin male simultaneously. Rose then turned to the Owyn and the rest, "Hunter’s still wrapping up the kidnappers. We need to-"

A sudden wave of reverberation silenced her. It silenced everything but Arc’s whimpers.

"What was that?" Owyn asked as soon as it cleared. Only a moment later, another one crashed through everything, and some of the sewer denizens turned to leave. The leader gestured for Freddi, scowling when she remained still, before disappearing around a corner.

The second toll seemed to be the last.

"That was the alarm," Steven said. "How do you not know what the kaiju alarm is?"

Owyn flinched, but then Rose took command of the situation. They needed to get aboveground to hear the announcement and retrieve Hunter, and Freddi wasn’t about to abandon Arc while she still needed healing.

As they walked towards an exit, Arc had stopped whimpering and was instead staring into nothing with a sad look in her eyes, shivering intermittently. They found an exit that wouldn’t require climbing, one that was already open from Rose and Raven’s entry. They were met by a female voice sternly filling the air.

"-and Fourth Wards. Repeat: An incursion event is occurring in Ward Three. For your safety, evacuate the Third Ward to a designated shelter or the Second and Fourth Wards."

The message played on and on, and Owyn saw that the streets around them were abandoned.

"Shit. Shit-shit-shit," Rose suddenly swore before taking a breath. "It’s okay. I’m not leaving Hunter."

"What’s wrong?" Owyn asked.

"We’re in the Third Ward."

Suddenly, something large and heavy landed on the cobblestones behind them, causing the whole group to turn.

It was some sort of eyeless, dome-headed beast the size of a deer with a fat pair of legs and no arms, balanced by a tail that extended back as far as its body was forward. Its white-pink hide was thick, wrinkled, and covered in sparse, bristly hairs. It opened a mouth full of glass-like teeth and let out a series of rapid clicks.

"Oh no... small ones. I have to get back to my people!" Freddi turned and ran. She reached the sewer entrance quickly, ready to pull the heavy iron door shut. The moment she moved, however, the monster turned and sprinted in her direction, only to suddenly stop as a spike of blood nailed its foot to the ground.

Owyn looked over to find a panting Raven with her hand bleeding, a thin line of blood connecting her to the spike that pinned the monster, which let out a distressed warble. Against Owyn’s chest, Arc flinched and curled just a bit deeper into herself. Raven’s attack gave Freddi the clearance to bolt the door before disappearing into the sewers.

But when Rose stepped forward, pulling a thin sword from the air and ending the thing’s life with a stab to the brain, Arc spasmed and screamed, holding her head.

"What is wrong with her?" Raven shouted, as Rose started cooing a soft song to Arc.

"I don’t know!" Owyn barked back. The sound of rapid steps approaching made everyone turn towards a nearby alley.

"Oh, Demon Lord, I hope that’s a rescue party," Steven clutched his own wrist.

From out of the alley, a group of people ran, and Owyn caught a glimpse of a familiar-looking giant lady before noticing that all their wrists were bound, and some of their ankles still had rope wrapped around them.

Bringing up the rear was Hunter, and she loosed arrow after arrow into whatever was following after.

One monster snapped forward, a spindly thing two stories tall with skin the color of melted wax and a head like a horse skull with pointed teeth amidst blue flesh.

She managed to take out an eye, and as the creature reared and roared, she turned and noticed them for the first time. "Come on. Run!" she shouted, gesturing for them to follow.

At that moment, wet screams erupted from the streets and alleys as the group of freed thugs met the next wave of monsters...

A pack of the same blind creatures as the one slain by Rose. A moment later, Hunter was running to them instead of the other way around.

"I think we are the rescue party," Raven intoned sardonically.

"You should not be fighting in your condition," Hunter scolded. As more monsters began to smash through houses, the fleeing civilians created their own sort of bedlam while city guards and mages did their best to hold them off. "But if we’re going to help out, we might as well do it properly armed."