Break II

Shanti continued struggling down the ventilation shaft. The cramped walls pressing down on her limbs didn't do her any favors. She just wanted to get out and back to her parents as fast as possible. She could occasionally hear the muffled voices of wardens and guards talking, but she crawled by with no interest - until she heard someone say her father's name.

Shanti changed route on instinct, trying to hide her presence by suppressing her urgency to escape. She quietly peeked through the grille, heart pounding and ready to duck away at the slightest hint of danger. Her urge to run intensified the moment she recognized one of the two men in the room was the person who had captured and jailed them. However, she dug her heels in and listened to see if she could glean any useful information.

"You know I want him gone, but I can't dismiss him due to political complications," said Sebastian. " But their little scamp is too valuable. She possesses blood magic amplitude magnitudes higher than most Vampires. Just imagine how useful she will be."

Sebastian continued, "Let's say, Rosette, the greatest blood mage of our era, was caught up in an experiment gone wrong, killing herself and her husband. A tragic accident. Then the Dassfolds graciously accepted the orphaned royal into their household. Wouldn't that help us in the upcoming election?"

"Royals helping one another in hardships is touching, and it makes for a great show," responded the other man. "However, I don't think we should eliminate him just yet. For now, let's just kill the mother and take away the child. Getting her the best treatment will buy us many votes. Then we put her to work..."

"I like your thinking brother, looks like you still have a brain in there!" Sebastian said while they laughed together. "It's a good plan, we must ensure the safety of the child to make the other parties believe and trust in us, and then the Dassfold shall rise again!"

The lurching in Shanti's stomach finally won out over her interest in understanding why this was happening. She began crawling away, and once she was out of hearing range, she sped up, not wanting to spend even one more second in the vents. It was simply too suffocating. So, the moment she found an empty room, she kicked the grille open and tumbled out.

The pain of the fall was nothing compared to the relief of being able to move freely. Shanti snapped out of her daze upon hearing approaching footsteps. She jumped at the door, eternally grateful that it could be locked from the inside, buying her a little time to come up with a plan.

Soon, the doorknob was being aggressively jerked around. "Hey, Ron!" said a voice from the other side. "I need some help here, the damn door's stuck again."

Shanti frantically looked around to find a hiding place or maybe even an escape route. But the room was almost empty. The only pieces of furniture were a bed and a small closet. The only other door opened to a bathroom.

A more distant voice replied, "Again? I told you we should report it. Let's hope the key works this time."

A second set of footsteps approached, accompanied by the jangling of keys. Shanti dove under the bed, praying that she wouldn't be found. As the door swung open without any resistance, she quickly clawed at the grille, pulling it to herself, as she had previously forgotten to hide it.

"Huh… That opened easily! I expected to have to push it a little."

The first man walked past the bed and into the bathroom while his coworker walked away with an audible grunt. Sensing a chance, Shanti deftly pulled herself out from under the bed, lifted it with caution, and tiptoed to the bathroom door. She then eased down the bed in front of the door, blocking it and trapping the poor man inside.

Shanti began to run. It was only a matter of time before someone stumbled upon the scene or heard the trapped warden cursing from inside the bathroom. Lucky for her, there weren't any other guards in the vicinity, as if they were all preoccupied with something else happening in the building.

Shanti ran recklessly looking for an exit, when she felt a slight cool breeze. Her heart jumped with hope as she recalled her mother's lessons. If there was an air current, there was an opening. Following it, she found a small panel over the wall, locked with a wooden beam squarely outside her reach.

Shanti successfully tried to dislodge the beam by jumping at it with full strength. But in her adrenaline rush, she forgot to catch the beam, leaving it to crash into the floor and alert anyone who was within earshot. 

It was too late to fix the problem, so Shanti quickly lifted the panel to look outside. She felt a dash of discomfort at seeing that she was well above the average building height. Her hesitation disappeared almost immediately once she heard the sound of jangling keys and footsteps approaching.

Just as a warden turned the corner, Shanti squeezed into the gap and jumped, barely giving the man time to process what he had witnessed. As she plummeted down, she quickly recited the falling spell her mother had taught her, just in case she ever slipped over one of the many crevices in the caves. She immediately felt the winds swirling around her slow down.

By the time Shanti hit the ground, her fall had slowed to a snail's pace, allowing her to run once more with no pause. She hadn't been around the city too much, and her house was definitely too dangerous of a place to go back to. So she just ran aimlessly, hoping to find someone familiar who could help her and her parents.

#

Rosette Ampiere had figured she might as well humor her captors and remain in her cell while resting and conserving her strength, but her patience was at its limit. She stood in front of the door and effortlessly blasted it open with her blood magic.

She immediately set to work searching for her daughter, quickly dispatching a few guards with magic that sent spikes of ice piercing their sternums. But she was not the only one in the prison with powers of the supernatural, and Sebastian was soon alerted to her escape via his blood magic circle.

He smirked at this amusing development that barely warranted his involvement, which he then determined should entail his enlistment of his brother Reigh. Reigh quickly equipped his hand cannon and set out on his mission.

Rosette had just finished impaling a trio of wardens when a gunshot roared through the corridor. She quickly formed a barrier between her and the source with rock formation magic, which was swiftly taken down with the next shot.

Rosette knew that her daughter took priority over defeating her current attacker, so she attempted a retreat while he was still in the distance. She attempted to position herself so that she could only focus on one opponent at a time.

Reigh finally caught up with her when she was preoccupied with her ice magic.

"Hey there missy, heard you're pissed. Guards, I'll handle this, go and assist Leo." He spat out his cigar while cockily twirling his gun.

"I won't let you stop me."

"Perhaps not, but I'm not the only one set on doing so."

"Wh—"

She narrowly avoided a dagger quickly advancing toward her wielded by a pouncing Sebastian, while another of Reigh's bullets ricocheted off a prison bar and barely grazed her.

As the two brothers had her surrounded, she cast a cylinder of earthen shield around her with rock formation magic and prepared to use the wind to knock them back. But she saw Sebastian doing something out of the corner of her eye and the brothers were able to hold steadfast, The barrier dropped to the ground, shattering into the individual pebbles of which it had been comprised.

"How?" exclaimed Rosette confused

"Not bad," said Reigh, speaking as though appraising a child's painting. "But I'm afraid you'll need more to take us down."

They charged toward the now-defenseless Rosette, but suddenly there was a _BANG_ even louder than one of Reigh's gunshots. Before any of them knew what had happened, Reigh was keeling over, an empty glove sunk in his gut as if it had punched him without the need of a wearer.

From the distance came laughter, and the rattle of chains being dragged behind the one laughing.

"You thought you could catch my girl alone and get away with it?" yelled Jeffrey as he approached. "Well guess what bucko, that is not happening. You are going down with a fight. . .or you guys let us go."

"Now this is turning out to be something interesting," mused Reigh as Jeffrey reunited with his wife.

"Keep your position," spat Sebastian. "I'll handle this." He made a lightning-quick motion with his hands, and suddenly wardens started approaching from all directions.

Jeffrey quickly recalled his gloves back into his fists, which themselves were quickly deployed against the coming onslaught. His wife was once again making use of her ice magic.

The brothers came at them from both sides, flanked by an ever-increasing number of wardens. Seeing this, Rosette decided it was time to do away with subtlety and cast explosion magic, which accomplished precisely what one would expect something called "explosion magic" would.

Among the corpses of their minions, a dazed Reigh and Sebastian struggled to arise while a warden who managed to evade the blow sunk his dagger into Rosette's back. His cunning and temerity earned him another blast from a furious Jeffrey, who took his wife in his arms and headed to the exit.

Reigh then readied his hand cannon once more and fired a round that caught Jeffrey square in the torso.

Jeffrey immediately collapsed, reserving whatever strength he had left to collapse in such a way that would not cause any further harm to the woman in his arms. They were both defenseless now. It was over.

Sebastian ran up to them, not willing to wait any longer to attain and savor his victory. But a sudden explosion rocked the corridor, taking down the expanse of ceiling that separated him from his foes.

"Damn it!" shouted Reigh. "We almost got them."

"That explosion should have killed them," Sebastian replied calmly. "We'd better take off." He helped his brother to his feet and they walked away from the rubble.

#

The two men dragged the unconscious bodies of Jeffrey and Rosette into the tower.

"Now it's just that child we need to search for, right?" asked one of them to the other.

"Precisely, Sel," said the druid. "I want you to go and look for her."

"Understood."

#

Shanti was running haphazardly through an alley when she bumped into an ill-kempt man. She barely had time to apologize before the man (who was clearly well-versed in such an action) grabbed a knife from his pocket.

"Listen here, child. If you don't want to get hurt, give me your money"

"And. . why should I do that exactly?" Shanti asked calmly.

More annoyed than impressed by the girl's gall, he retorted, "Because if you don't, I'll do this."

He thrust the blade toward her chest, but it broke in two when she grabbed it with her bare hands.

"What the—" was all the bandit managed to get out before a punch to the stomach sent him flying backward.

But he wasn't alone.

The rest of his crew emerged from the shadows, brandishing weapons of their own. Shanti quickly sent two more flying before another came at her, with a straight razor accelerating towards her jugular. She didn't have time to react.

But just before the razor made contact, the mugger suddenly stopped, his eyes burst open in shock. He fell to the ground to reveal an axe buried in the back of his skull.

Shanti looked towards her savior but didn't recognize him.

"Hey, kiddo! you shouldn't be out here, it's dangerous," said Ron, once again impressed by the child's strength. The remaining bandits scattered upon seeing a warden.

"Thanks for saving me," said Shanti. "I need to find my mother, could you help?"

"You lost, kid? I'll help you find your family. Just Give me a name."

"My name is Shanti and my mother is Rosette Ampiere."

"What?" Ron asked, unable to hide his disbelief.

"What is it?" asked Shanti

"Nothing," he said, still in shock that the daughter of a royal, Rosette's in particular, could be found in this alley. "I've got an idea, maybe I could get you to stay at our factory facility if my boss allows me to."

"A factory? Sure sounds like fun. . ."

"Great, follow me."

#

Shanti soon found herself walking past rows of abandoned houses in disrepair.

"This place sure doesn't look good," she said. "What happened?"

Her companion didn't answer. She found him frozen in place, staring at the ground.

"Sir. . .?" called out Shanti innocently

"Sorry, you caught me off guard," replied Ron with a difficult look

"Why is that?" questioned Shanti worried.

"Royals usually. . don't care about normal vampire citizens and what happens to them. I know it is selfish to think, and I apologize." Answered Ron with a tough expression.

"Apologize about what? I'm not a royal, I'm just like you!" muffled Shanti with a pout facial expression

"Well, in that case, I apologize I must've mistaken you for someone else," he said, a bit too quickly.

"So what happened to the citizens of this town?" questioned Shanti in a worrisome way.

"A long time ago, this town was thriving under the leadership of the Reynold family, but ever since the Dassfolds had overtaken this town, they've been living in poverty. I'm lucky enough to live in Silvertown." He sighed.

"I don't understand why anyone would let the people suffer," Shanti replied to the cold sigh.

"It makes it easier to put together the puzzle pieces. It's for their sake, not the people's. They use the people of this town to cover something up. Something they don't want to surface in the elections." exclaimed Ron

"So they promise these people if they vote for them they'll save them from poverty, but all of that's empty promises and lies." Ron followed up

"Cover up something?" asked Shanti.

"We should go. If we stay out late the monster's going to get us. Follow me."

#

Shanti soon found herself guided through an ancient-looking tunnel.

"These tunnels were constructed by our leaders a thousand years ago," Ron explained, "in the Human-Vampires War. The humans couldn't bear handling our ancestors alone, so they asked for assistance from the demons and we were held back to the tunnels ever since then."

"We need to obey the rules of the human demands, to never show up in their kingdoms," told Ron

"Are humans really that bad?" Shanti asked.

"Of course, they are not bad—they're doing everything possible to enable their race to survive. Same as we or anyone else would," exclaimed Ron

"This whole construction of the world is about survival, there's no place for the mercy of other races, in the wild you need to be standing strong." Followed up Ron

"My dad taught me that humans are greedy and weak in natural strength," said Shanti, "but they are smart." 

"They are. When I was on the surface fighting alongside my best friend, on expedition year 6890 on the full moon—six hundred years ago—I lost my best buddy because of a human. I was in disbelief, I was angry, my wrath consumed me. . .I went after the human, eventually brutally murdering him. And I ended up captured and killed." exclaimed Ron with a harsh stinging pain inside his voice

"_Killed!?_"

"I sold my soul to a spirit in order to live on. And that spirit has a mission I must complete. The spirit was once human, and I've come to understand why war and endless suffering are the very reasons why bad people exist. I've come to understand the human mind and how they're not that different from us." said Ron while tearing up

"So, you're not a vampire?" asked Shanti curiously

"It's. . . complicated. Don't tell anyone." said Ron while wiping off the tears "Let's go."

#

When the two finally arrived at the factory, Ron thrust his arm in front of Shanti to stop her from proceeding.

"Something is off..." he said. "We should exercise caution when going further. There may be bandits lurking in the ruins."

"I don't see anything," Shanti replied confused opening her eyes bigger and looking around carelessly.

"Of course not, they're hiding." dumbfoundedly answered Ron

"That's not what I meant. I can see people through walls like my mom taught me, but. . ." replied Shanti while rubbing her eyes.

"_You what?! You can see through walls and just saw fit to tell me this now?_" shouted Ron

"Well. . .I mean. . . I can't count on it too much, it doesn't work as well when my head's all fuzzy. . ." muffled Shanti while she was touching her head.

"Let's proceed then," Ron coughed. "Tell me if you see someone or something."

Ron led the way further until a masked man darted from behind one of the factory's pillars. He swiftly aimed a revolver at Shanti's head only for it to jam.

"Seriously?" asked Ron dumbfoundedly.

The gunman was still dumbfoundedly looking back and forth between his gun and his targets when Shanti sent him back towards the pillar with a punch.

Their respite proved to be short-lived, however, as two more men appeared from beyond a further pillar wielding automatic rifles, and they did not seem at all concerned with stealth. "Prepare to die, y'all wastes!" one of them yelled.

They started firing in Ron's and Shanti's general direction while laughing maniacally, clearly trusting their firepower to compensate for their disregard for marksmanship.

Ron and Shanti quickly split up, with Shanti ducking between a pile of discarded boxes. Amidst the mayhem, she noticed the first man attempting to crawl away and evade her notice. She smirked and dragged him back to her hiding place.

His comrades couldn't hear his screams over their gunfire and were in fact taking so much joy at firing indiscriminately that they didn't notice Ron approaching them from behind, either. Ron grabbed one of them by the neck and the other started firing at Ron despite his human shield. Ron tossed the now-injured attacker towards the other and dove at them.

#

Later, Ron and Shanti had made full use of ropes that formerly held banners on the factory's wall, and the gunmen all found themselves neatly bound when they regained consciousness. Ron and Shanti were so preoccupied with interrogating them that neither of them noticed a figure running off in the distance.

"Out with it," Ron barked. "What were you guys planning, engaging on a warden? Or was it the child?"

"Why would we tell you?" gasped one of the riflemen. "You made a mistake. You made yourself our enemy." while reaching out to the back

"If you aren't willing to answer our questions," said Shanti while she cracked her knuckles, "you'd better be able to handle a bit of pain." And she wound up for a brutal-looking punch towards the first attacker.

"WAIT!" he yelled, causing Shanti to pause with her fist inches from her face. "I'll tell you everything, just spare me!"

He was allowed to regain his composure, and after a moment he wasn't breathing as heavily. He opened his mouth to speak.

No words ever came out of it. A burst of energy had made its way to his temple.

Ron and Shanti both whipped around to find the particle beam's origin.

Reigh's Handcannon.

Ron and Shanti quickly retreated away from the factory, with Reigh calmly in pursuit.

"Running, are we?" Reigh clicked his tongue. "That's no fun. . ." Reigh laughed viciously afterward

Shanti and Ron, both running, heard Reigh charge up his beam gun and leaped away from each other as the ray sliced between them.

"Incredible!" Reigh chuckled. He couldn't help but give them some light applause. Then he resumed trying to kill them.

The two reunited over a hill and past Reigh's horizon, exhausted. They were finally glad to be out of imminent danger when Sebastian appeared, wielding a sword.

He was quickly advancing on Shanti when Ron grabbed both of them, pulling Shanti towards him and throwing Sebastian to the ground.

They resumed running.

#

"Fucking. . .traitor," grumbled Sebastian.

"What's the matter, brother?" laughed Reigh. "Did Ron clean you up badly?" Reigh mocked Sebastian

"Shut your mouth." he clicked, though he couldn't help but laugh as well, being aware of something the traitor and his cohort were not.

"Did you set the trap?" Reigh asked, helping his brother to his feet."

"Yes, it's right up ahead, no chance of them dodging it."

"Perfect," Reigh replied, and the two walked off into the distance.

#

Later, while maneuvering through the ruins of the factory, Shanti tripped on a wire. She screamed as she hit the ground, which immediately gave way into a pit.

"Kid!" Ron the royal guard yelled as he reached out to her, but the trapdoor had already snapped shut.