With a scream, Brilliance dodged out of the line of fire and reflexively threw a hardlight punch at the flier. She didn't know if she actually hit, or if there had been a cry of pain if she did, since she had spun away from the gun's trajectory on instinct, and gone behind cover.

A moment later, a bright flash lanced through where she had been and vaporised the leafless branches, leaving ashes and dust behind. She yelped and sent finger-width beams back, not even sure if she hit anything, then swerved out of the way. Nothing returned immediate fire after a moment, but she didn't stop zigzagging. She wanted to fly to the clouds; she wanted to hide, but her flight power made her too obvious a target.

She could negate a bullet hit or two at a time, but those farkers had assault rifles and the power-armoured flier had a big hand cannon thing. Greenwood trees were big, good for cover, but not so much for hiding.

The next couple of moments were peppered with the zipping of their noiseless bullets, followed by lines of light from another weapon. Ericka…Brilliance countered with finger-width beams then juked out of her current flight path after every shot, but the return fire inched closer and closer to her position. They were predicting her evasive patterns…

Gritting her teeth, she dove closer to the ground, then sought to put as many Greenwood trunks between her and her pursuers.

Bullets rained down on her position after she flew about two hundred paces in a straight line. She went back to juking left, right, up, and down. She went from cover to cover, and if she didn't evade for longer than a couple of seconds, she felt harsh impacts against the back of her legs and hips. The intervals were long enough that her barrier protected her, but they still stung! Other times, she was sure that the light beams from the fliers had struck true, but it must have been a delusion since she didn't actually feel anything.

She risked a glance back, but none of her attackers were luminescent…oh, there's one. Their gossamer wings weren't that bright, but they still stood out against a canvas of black.

There's another one, up above her. No…

She dove towards the ground. Greenwood trees had thick, straight trunks, but sometimes, their roots emerged above ground too, and they were spread several dozen paces wide, thick enough to weather lasers and bullets, probably. The root systems interconnected, too, and they formed ridges taller than a man. She could hide in one such ravine, then extinguish her light form to hide. But she needed to get out of sight first!

Oh, gods, help her! Anyone! Arthur? Regalia…?

_________

Lieutenant Phillip Keisinger cursed as the lasers the glowing woman threw out bypassed his ORB—Occult Resonance Barrier—as if it didn't exist. The beams slammed into his Azure Dragonfly's armour plating.

"Oof!"

He grunted as the force threw off his aim. The railgun dart missed by several inches while he struggled to regain his orientation. A mistake since a second blast hit him directly over his breastplate, once again completely bypassing his ORB. This time, he allowed the kinetic charge to knock him down, away from retaliation. After all, he wasn't the only one in pursuit.

Lieutenant Schiff's position was above his by fifty paces, just above the canopy. But the Season meant that the giant trees weren't exactly covered in leaves just yet, and the target was glowing. It was practically impossible to lose sight of them, even if they hid behind the trunks. It was harder to determine their exact position, true, but impossible to hide that they were behind the trunk. And with luck, it wouldn't need more than the two of them to hunt the target down. He and Schiff were the only ones agile enough in flight to keep up. The glowing flier was fast, and the way they manoeuvred in the air obviously outclassed even the Azaure Dragonflies, arguably the best scout flier class powered armour suits of the Imperium.

"Keisinger, report!" His earpiece buzzed with the commander's voice.

"In pursuit of the powered interloper. Requesting use of homing munitions."

"Negative. Too high a chance for the locals to notice. Keep to noiseless munitions."

"Yessir."

Wait. Where did she go? He toggled his transceiver to his buddy's frequency. "You have eyes, S?"

"Glow disappeared. Hundred P, One o'clock."

"Close in." His HUD had easily adjusted to the sudden darkness, but it was seamless enough that in his distraction, he didn't notice the shift.

He dove towards the vector he thought the woman headed in, well aware that she might have shifted out of sight. He deployed his Resonance Sensor and scanned his surroundings. The reticle covered a three pace wide circle, but moved fast enough to cover his entire point of view in ten seconds. The reticle flashed green for clear, and he moved to the next zone.

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But the going was either too slow and any residue had faded away, or the glowing woman wasn't leaking Occult Resonance, something that was quite possible—unlikely, but possible—considering he hadn't detected any overflow during the brief battle…

He switched the HUD for thermal scanning and said, "Enhanced Sight." He didn't have a powerful Occult Resonance reading—none of the soldiers really did—but they had enough to use the Azure Dragonfly's systems.

The view was overlaid by swatches of colour ranging from blues and greens to reds. He scanned the surroundings, but the lingering heat of the afternoon had not faded from the gigantic tree's exposed root systems, which was where he guessed the woman had taken to hiding. Nearly an hour of scanning revealed little to no trace, and his commanding officer hadn't stopped yelling in his ear before he found something.

A fading heat signature of a handprint on an exposed root about a longstride away from the camp.

____________

Soothing disturbed minds, Yuriko found, was far from simple. Her initial command had calmed the victims down well enough that they weren't panicking. She supposed being in the dark while gunfire and explosions happened around them was far from calming, and by the time she managed to reach them, most of them were in a bad enough state to be amidst a mental breakdown.

What she Commanded inadvertently forged connections with each of them, wider than she expected and more fragile than one made naturally. Well, if she could describe a passive process of her Mien as natural anyway.

The consequences of that hasty and forced connection were that the victims latched onto her. Hard. In her presence, they were calm. She led them out of the basement, towards the ground floor. The police and the ambulances should arrive in a few minutes, and she only had to wait that long. She moved to secure her captives by extending tendrils of her Animakinesis to bring every last RuiNation member to the floor above, since she didn't want to distress the victims with the sight of their captors.

The problem began when she tried to leave the victims on the ground floor to better secure the captives. They, as one, prostrated, begged, and cried for her not to leave them behind. She hadn't the heart to leave them at that point, and at the same time, she had the dawning realisation that she'd made a mistake with her Mien.

She spent the next ten minutes layering commands in an effort to undo her original effort, as she couldn't negate the first one. Not without ripping their minds apart, at least. She wasn't sure of that, having never done anything of the sort to anyone she wanted to remain unharmed, and certainly not to mortals, but her Mien pushed back against the notion.

Instinct borne from her heritage always felt a bit odd when she examined it with a little bit more attention than she normally did, and since Damien didn't possess the Mishala Mien, his memories did little to help. There was some knowledge there, as the memory palace held some instances when he interacted with the Progenitor, but all of it was an outsider's perspective.

Abilities, powers, techniques, and especially Truths and Ennoias, may have similar outward expressions, but the inner workings were always distinct enough from each other that one person's path would never truly fit another's. It was a lesson learned early, and she wasn't fool enough to ignore it with these matters.

That meant that she only had her instincts, as well as the memories from her World Trial incarnations to reference with, and forcing a negation on the initial thread attachment was more likely to destroy a mind than save it.

"You don't need to be close to me."

The effects weren't quite what she expected. They were compelled to give her space, about ten paces or so, but they didn't stop prostrating and praying.

A command to stop their current actions had to be rescinded almost immediately when their bodies and faces twisted with agony over trying to obey her command and following the underlying compulsions.

It took an annoyingly long time and numerous commands to get them to stop displaying their worship of her. And by that time, the trauma of being abducted and abused had been thoroughly overwritten by forced devotion. It left a bitter taste in her mouth.

By the time backup arrived, police and medical technicians, Yuriko had managed to disentangle herself from the group. But it wasn't only the mundane authorities who arrived, but also the Altered Human law enforcement officers from the Protectorate. Thankfully, it wasn't anyone she recognised, though the relatively older costumed man eyed her with more than a little suspicion, especially after he'd observed the victims. Still, he didn't put up much of a fuss after Yuriko gave her statement.

In truth, she shouldn't have stayed at all. Lilibeth's grandfather's request had been for her to leave before encountering the law, but she couldn't just leave the victims in a worse state than what she found them in.

She left soon after by flying directly up. She only moved towards home after she was in the clouds.

The connecting threads had stabilised, at least, and hopefully, were in no danger of snapping. And all she had to do now was wait for the information she paid for to arrive.

Of which, she was uncertain she would actually receive, considering how the Unfettered were able to evade all means of capture. She arrived at home a few minutes later. She noted that Desire wasn't on the prime material plane, but was In-between. Scarlett was pacing fitfully in her room, with clear signs of disquiet in her face and demeanour. She wasn't sure what to do with the girl now, and she was quietly wondering if her Mien was more harmful than helpful in that regard.

Her expression of the Mishala Mien had been different enough from the clan that the typical training and practices had not been useful, and she suspected that it had been Damien's shard's presence that was the cause. It was certainly a bit more domineering than other examples.

Still, she wondered if leaving Scarlett alone would be better or if they needed to talk a bit more. She'd done the former when her friend asked for some space, though it wasn't in so many words, but it's been weeks, and with the complication of the brain parasite…

The night was a suitable veil, so she simply entered through her bedroom window. She quickly shed her costume and headed to the bathroom to shower. Her Anima prevented dust, dirt, and blood from clinging to her body, but the Pain Explosion had caused her to sweat profusely.

Once she was done, she resolved to talk to Scarlett about her issues, though her friend had sunk into a meditative trance, so she was now reluctant to interrupt. Sighing to herself, Yuriko prodded her phone to bug Alexis about the Unfettered's location.

Mid-evening, she frowned as she felt a light pulse of distress that came from the dreamscape.

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