Tearha: Titan War

Chapter Twenty-Two: Reality Marble

"After them!" the mob shouted from far behind. "The elf is using some sort of teleportation magic!"

"They could be anywhere!" Another pined.

A more experienced woman piped up, "These kind of magic takes a lot of energy. She can't be far."

Andreas walked out of the church, nursing a headache. "Get the authorities. They must be hiding in an alley nearby."

The mob wasn't far off on their deductions. Adelle and Luce were hiding close, but not in an alleyway. They stood on a roof directly opposite the church, behind a giant neon sign that read "APOTHECARY", the light from the signage blinding those that looked up and hiding them in the shadow it casted on itself.

As the adrenaline of the fight subsided, Adelle found frustration. By the time the mob had spread far enough in search of them in other places, that frustration boiled into anger. She was always the one being warned for being hasty. Don't be rash. Have a plan. Think things through. But when someone else does madness, it's fine, apparently. She turned to Luce who stood behind the neon sign, the roller golem hugged in her arms.

"What were you thinking!" Adelle seethed at her, careful not to have her voice be too loud. "You could have gotten us caught!"

"I couldn't very well let it die!" Luce snapped back, gesturing to the golem.

"You're the pacifist! You're the one who kept saying we're not heroes. We can't go around saving everyone we see!"

"You're one to talk! You saved everyone back at Harvestfall!"

"I killed them!"

"You freed them."

"How did you come up with that?" Adelle spiked sarcastically.

"They got to choose."

"I chose for them!"

They fell silent. The roller golem's eye shifted between Adelle and Luce. Adelle took a deep breath and looked back out over the parapet at the streets. The mob had mostly dispersed though a few law enforcements dressed in uniforms of white and silver started arriving outside the church.

"Come on," Adelle said. "Let's go before more comes."

Adelle took off her scarf and threw it over the golem. After finding an empty alleyway far down the street, she took Luce's hand and teleported them there.

The streets were now bustling, but most of the attention was drawn to the growing scene at the church. They took the commotion to slip away in a crowd. Carting with the flow of pedestrians, they meandered their way through the city till they reached a spot they were familiar with as close as possible to where they had stopped their elecyle.

But the elevator down to the parking lot had been staffed with two officers checking identification at the door. Slipping into a dark alley opposite, the two leaned against the wall in an angle that allowed them to watch the proceedings.

"What now?" Adelle asked spitefully, deferring to her local companion while making it clear that she was still mad at her.

"They won't stand guard for long," Luce replied. "Let's just wait it out. Citidale is a closed city. They won't expect anyone to actually try to make an escape into the Taint storm.

Adelle nodded. She hug as close to the darkness as possible. Somehow, when she left her forest to join up with Luce and the Titan Rangers, she had not thought that she would be going to back to the shadier part of life, literally. The Titan Rangers were supposed to be non-combative, only out to preserve the lives of Titans. But it seemed her life had gotten a thousand times more dangerous since joining.