Ji-hu ran through the alien streets with Yuna close behind him, both of them chasing a shadow that seemed to know exactly where it was going.
The figure moved like she owned this place. She slipped through gaps that looked too small, climbed walls that should have been impossible, and never once looked back to see if they were following. She didn't need to. She knew they would.
Yuna: She's too fast. We're going to lose her.
Ji-hu: We already lost her. She's choosing where we go now.
He was right. Every time they thought she'd disappeared for good, she would appear again at the next corner, waiting just long enough for them to spot her before moving on. She was leading them somewhere.
They passed through a collapsed apartment building where the walls were covered in pulsing symbols. They crossed a street that had become a shallow river of something that wasn't water. They ducked through an alley where the shadows seemed to reach for them as they passed.
Then she was gone.
Yuna: Where did she go?
Girl: Right behind you.
They spun around. She stood three meters away with her arms crossed, watching them with an expression that wasn't quite amusement and wasn't quite curiosity. Young. Early twenties maybe. Dark hair pulled back from a face that might have been pretty if it didn't look so tired. Her clothes were stitched together from different sources—a jacket that didn't match the pants, boots that had seen better years, gloves with the fingers cut out.
She looked at them like they were the strange ones.
Yuna: Who are you?
Girl: No one.
Yuna: That's not an answer.
Girl: It's the only one you're getting.
She stepped closer, circling Ji-hu slowly. He felt like a specimen under a microscope.
Girl: You're different. I felt it from across the Zone.
Ji-hu: Felt what?
Girl: I don't know yet. That's why I came closer.
Yuna: You came closer to us because you felt something?
Girl: I've been alone in places like this for a long time. You learn to trust your gut. My gut said you were worth the risk.
Ji-hu: Alone? How long?
She didn't answer that.
Girl: The holding pen is this way. There are maybe fifty people trapped there. Dark Elves guard them. Dozens of them. You can follow me or you can wait for your guild to get here. I don't care either way.
She turned and walked into the shadows.
Ji-hu looked at Yuna. Yuna shrugged.
Yuna: She's insane.
Ji-hu: She knows the Zone. That's enough for now.
He followed. Yuna cursed and followed too.
---
She moved through the alien streets like she'd lived here her whole life.
Shortcuts through buildings that looked condemned. Paths that avoided every patrol they encountered. Routes that shouldn't exist but somehow did. She never hesitated. Never second-guessed. She just moved.
Yuna: How do you know all this?
Girl: You learn or you die. I learned.
Ji-hu: You've done this before? Survived Zones alone?
Girl: Something like that.
She didn't elaborate. Didn't look back. Just kept moving.
Ji-hu studied her as they ran. The way she moved was strange—efficient but also cautious, like she expected an attack from any direction at any moment. Her eyes never stopped scanning. Her hands never left her weapons.
She moved like someone who had been hunted.
---
The holding pen came into view from a broken window on the third floor of a collapsed building.
It was worse up close. A structure of metal and bone and something that looked like petrified wood, built in the middle of a cleared plaza. Inside, humans pressed against each other for warmth and comfort. Dozens of them. Maybe more than fifty.
Dark Elves surrounded it. Dozens of them too. Armed with curved blades. Watching with yellow eyes. Moving in patrols that overlapped perfectly.
The girl studied them with the focus of a predator.
Girl: Rotation every twenty minutes. Gap of about thirty seconds when the east patrol passes behind that collapsed truck. That's our window.
Yuna: Thirty seconds isn't enough to free everyone.
Girl: It's enough to cause chaos. While they're reacting to the chaos, you free who you can.
Ji-hu: What about you?
Girl: I'll handle the guards.
Yuna: Alone? That's suicide.
Girl: I've done worse alone.
Ji-hu: You don't have to. We're here.
She looked at him. Confused. Like the words didn't make sense.
Girl: What?
Ji-hu: You're not alone right now. None of us are.
She stared at him for a long moment. Something flickered behind her eyes. Confusion. Doubt. Something else he couldn't name.
Girl: You don't know me.
Ji-hu: I know you came to find us. I know you're helping. I know you could have walked away and didn't. That's enough.
Girl: That's stupid.
Ji-hu: Probably.
She almost smiled. Almost.
Girl: Fine. We do this together. But if you die, I'm not carrying your body out.
Ji-hu: Deal.
Yuna: I hate both of you right now.
Girl: Welcome to the club.
---
They waited in the shadows, watching the patrols move through their patterns.
The girl checked her weapons with practiced efficiency. A short blade. A longer one. Nothing fancy. Just tools that had kept her alive.
Ji-hu: What's your name?
She hesitated. Like it had been so long since anyone asked that she almost forgot the answer.
Girl: Ara.
Ji-hu: Ji-hu.
Ara: I know. You're the one who feels different.
Ji-hu: You keep saying that. What does it mean?
Ara: I don't know yet. But I will.
She turned back to the window.
Ara: Thirty seconds. Get ready.
---
The patrol passed behind the collapsed truck.
Ara moved.
She dropped from the third floor like she weighed nothing, hit the ground rolling, and was among the Dark Elves before they could react. Her blades moved in patterns that looked like dance. Two fell. Then three. Then four.
Yuna: Move!
They dropped down after her, hitting the plaza running.
Ji-hu drew the twin blades and met the first wave of responding guards. Fire and water surged together. He wasn't as fast as Ara, wasn't as graceful, but he didn't need to be. He just needed to survive long enough.
Yuna's telekinesis shoved guards off balance, buying seconds, creating openings.
Ara carved through them like they were made of paper.
Ji-hu: The pen! Go!
Yuna ran for the structure, tearing at the bindings with her telekinesis and her hands. People spilled out, confused, terrified, alive.
Ara killed another guard. Then another.
Ji-hu caught a blade on his left sword, blocked a strike with his right, and kicked a third guard away. Fire flared. Water surged. He kept fighting.
Thirty seconds became a minute. A minute became two.
Valiant's main force would arrive eventually. They just had to survive until then.
Ara appeared beside him, blood on her face that wasn't hers.
Ara: You're still alive.
Ji-hu: You sound disappointed.
Ara: Surprised. Not disappointed.
She almost smiled again.
Then the real fight began.
---
END OF CHAPTER 15