The armor creaked as the visor pointed down at us. To my disbelieving eyes, the Knight raised both their hands, palms flat in the universal sign for “no harm.”

  "Hail!" the Knight boomed. They spoke so loudly that it felt like it was shaking my eardrums. "I come in peace, friends!"

  They sounded almost bubbly? Also, that voice was not as deep as it should've been.

  "Do you take me for the greatest of fools, Slayer? I can see the count of skulls beneath your title, the litany of bones in your wake. You have spent the last three days murdering every Raider you could get your gauntlets on, and I will not be another."

  The Knight--Slayer?--giggled. "All in honorable combat, I assure you, Brightson!" they said, still almost-shouting. "I have crossed blades with none that would not have it! They lost--but it was all very fair, you have my honor and word!"

  "I value neither," Cato said, sharp. "The only promise that has weight is action--will you move, as I demand it?"

  "Ah, no," the armored person shrugged. "I must bring you elsewhere--but not for harm, I promise you. My Exec Lord insists upon meeting you, and I must obey. Such is the fate of all who value honorable service!"

  "I refuse. Move, or I will remove you, you tittering moron," Cato snapped. "I have no patience for bootlickers. You may simper about higher callings, yet I know it for what it is: a mere pretense for slaughter."

  "Holy shit, White-hair," I said. "Do we really need to piss them off before we fight?"

  "I would much rather we not fight at all! Brightson, I see I am causing you offense--truly, I do not wish it." The Slayer moved their hands slowly, the limbs heading towards their helm. A few fiddling motions, and then the great helm was coming off, revealing the round, feminine face of a blonde-haired woman. She had a delicate nose and red lips, her shining curls pulled up into a bun.

  I gaped. Oh my God. The wall of muscle and steel was a woman. A really pretty woman to boot, because fuck me, I guess. Shit--how did I look like her when I grew up? Never mind I'd finished growing at, like, sixteen, and we were a decade past that.

  She smiled, all beaming warmth. "My Exec Lord demands it. I will bring you, Brightson and your....uh, companion?" She glanced at me, and her brow furrowed before she shrugged and grinned again. "It will be a meeting of a few hours at most, and you will be granted food and drink for your trouble! What say you?"

  Cato leaned forward on the balls of his feet. I hesitated, and then lightly tugged at the sleeve of his coat-robe. He glanced down at me, glowering at me through his glasses.

  "If you really think we gotta throw hands, I'll do it," I said. "But I don't have a chestplate, and my shovel is Cursed, White-hair."

  As if to emphasize my general state of not-great, my stomach growled.

  Cato's glare grew sharper, but after a moment, he looked back at the Slayer. She was still grinning. Her teeth were white enough to blind an oncoming trucker.

  "We will meet your Exec Lord, you glimmering sycophant."

  "Wonderful!" she gushed, and clapped her hands together. "What a pleasure. It is with my greatest appreciation and thanks--"

  "There is no pleasure in this. Do not pretend to polite behavior," Cato snapped. "Tell me, Slayer, how does your sire feel about having raised a bloodthirsty whore?"

  My jaw dropped, and I watched the smile on the Slayer's mouth turn brittle. Really, Cato? Of all the shit to say.

  I elbowed Cato hard. "Dude--"

  "Do not refer to me in such a manner, woman." Cato snapped, snapping his staff back to rap me on the arm. I yelped and withdrew my elbow. "Furthermore, do not touch me. Worst of all, do not demand I indulge social niceties when we are being kidnapped."

  "Yeah, but you went straight for the bloodthirsty whore. Shouldn't we like, work up to that?"

  "What part of kidnapping are you failing to understand, Paladin?"

  "This is an honorable invitation!" burst out the large Slayer. Her lower lip was extended in a pout. Despite her clear disgruntlement, she stepped behind us and began to usher us to the left, waving her arms in the direction she wanted us to go.

  We were cutting across the street, and all sorts of people and animals and carts stopped or went around us. If we'd been drawing stares before, it was tenfold now, though no one dared to complain at us abruptly cutting them off. I saw a woman with dark circles under her eyes grab a boy by the ear after he watched us for too long, mouth open. After herding us in the correct direction, I felt rather like a sad, fluffy sheep, being maneuvered by an over-enthusiastic sheepdog.

  Cato no doubt felt similarly, which would account for the truly fucked up expression he was dragging around. If his face twisted from rage any harder, it'd pop right off.

  "It is not an invitation if I am not allowed to decline without combat!" Cato spat. "If honor existed, there would be no honor in this. And you!" He turned his wrath on me.

  "What?" I said. "I've done jack-diddly-squat."

  "Are you so without presence of thought and mind that you insist on expressing politeness to your enemies?"

  "I think it doesn't hurt?" I said, scratching at my chin. "Like, getting into a brawl is one thing. The adrenaline rush from that can be great. I can't lie, picking up my shovel to go face that Herald for the first time was a rush. Best I've felt over the past three days. But being a mean bitch just doesn't feel great."

  "Oh? Do you intend to apologize to your murderer when he swings the blade?" he asked. "Politeness is a fool's game, and the only winners are those that recognize it as the slavery to social bonds it insists upon."

  Man, Cato was dramatic. I squinted at him. I had the terrible impulse to smile, which I knew would just piss him off. Considering he was already frothing, I restrained myself. I could rage-bait White-hair later, when I'd had enough food and sleep to make semi-reasonable decisions.

  "Not gonna lie, saying sorry to a guy who is either killing me or who I'm killing is kinda funny," I said, grinning. "And I would be sorry in, like, both cases?"

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Regretful of your death, I could understand, but why grant your killer the satisfaction?" Cato snapped. "I cannot grasp why you would apologize for slaying that which sought your demise."

  "Well, I'm definitely going to have to kill someone before this is all over," I said, "And I'll definitely be sorry to have done it."

  "What grief could you possibly retain for an enemy?" he said.

  We continued to be herded by the large, armored woman, heading off the main road and towards some narrow path. It was overhung by large trees, like the one that Cato and I had teleported into. Narrow paths to...okay, well, we'd been promised food and snacks, which probably had all sorts of fine print that I wasn't going to like. I nudged Cato in the side with my elbow again and flicked my eyes to the right.

  It was a good thing he didn't have laser eyes, or I would've been incinerated on the spot, but Cato seemed to follow my gist. Like, if she was walking right behind us, but our arms and legs were free, how kidnapped were we, really?

  "Not grief that I'm still alive," I said back, perhaps a little too loudly, and Cato narrowed his eyes. "Just, y'know, regret that I had to kill a guy to stay alive. Shit may be necessary, but I don't enjoy killing people, White-hair. Do you?"

  It was a dumb question, because the moment it left my lips, the image of Cato prying open our stalker's ribcage for funsies and popping out his heart like the first chip from a fresh bag immediately resurfaced. I cringed.

  "I, uh...don't answer that, actually," I said, hasty, before Cato could bother with a response. He looked actually miffed, his brows arching and then furrowing. I shrugged at him, and he clicked his tongue.

  Look, I couldn't unsee that. Whenever I fell asleep, I was pretty sure it was going to show up in my nightmares, because why not, I guess. My luck hadn't been great so far--actually, that wasn't true. I'd had a lot of luck, both very good and very bad. I was still alive after burning to death? Very good. I managed to get infected by a people-eating shadow monster? Very bad. I’d killed that shadow monster when I wasn't supposed to? Very good. It fucking gutted me like I was a pumpkin on halloween? Very bad. I'd been saved by a god-like being? Very good. It was an AI that had tied me up in one hell of a devil's bargain I'd be regretting for the rest of this Raid, I was pretty sure? Very bad.

  I was pulled, abruptly. Cato had wrapped his hand around my upper arm and dragged me to the right, just as a large cart passed in front of us. We lurched forward and around it.

  The giant Lady-knight behind us exclaimed. "What are you doing, Brightson?"

  Right, we were supposed to be escaping. I quickly began sprinting, and holy shit did I need it. Long-legs remained an accurate nickname, because Cato was dragging me at full speed, and I was struggling to keep up. Curse my tiny legs! I wasn’t even that short! We wove between two carts, came out behind a horse who reared, and dove through a crowd of women holding laundry baskets. Several dropped, and oaths and liberal shaking of fists followed us.

  “Sorry!” I called out, gasping.

  “Do not waste your breath!” Cato snapped.

  I blinked. A shadow fell over me, and I had only a half moment to process it was coming my way before Cato’s staff swung upwards and the tip of it collided with the largest fucking axe I’d ever seen.

  Both the staff and axe glitched out. They passed through me, looking like they were made of that pixellated magenta light. They swung downwards, passing through the earth, before both pulled back, passing through me again.

  Oh, fuck. I should be dead. Again.

  I looked over my shoulder long enough to see that somehow, the tank herself, literal pile of steel on two legs, was right on our heels. She had an axe head that was as large as my torso attached to a long stick. Poleaxe. She had a poleaxe, and we just weren't going fast enough.

  The Slayer roared, like she was a fucking lion, and barreled towards us. Oh my God, she was the bulldozer and I was about to get my ass plastered into little meaty chunks.

  "Can you not run faster?" Cato yelled.

  "Do you see me growing longer legs?" I screeched.

  "Then we shall divide!" Cato said, before abruptly releasing me and taking a sharp left. Shit. I dove right, bouncing off someone's shoulder.

  I wove, still sprinting, gasping for breath. My HUD popped up to warn me that my Exhaustion stacks were back. Fucking hell, what's a gal gotta do to get rid of those completely?

  There was a scream, and something wet splattered across the back of my head and hair. I turned and stumbled. The poleaxe had just split someone in half.

  A girl still held the arm that had been attached to a person, and was now attached to wet muscle and divided bone. She was wailing, and the whole road erupted. Everyone went every which way, a stampede of panicking animals. The Slayer had just split someone in half--I had to repeat it, because I simply couldn't believe it. The victim was a man, by the looks of it, and the man's sister, or daughter, or whatever, howled like an injured animal. That deep mourning song that came from a place of pain that was hard to conceive for those who hadn't experienced it. I had. For a moment, I just stared, still running, every thought suspended in shock.

  The bulldozer was still running after me--didn't know why, to be honest, she'd seemed mostly interested in Cato. The Slayer had been trying to kill me, and she'd murdered another person instead.

  A Non-Playable Soul. The NPSes are the Countless Dead...and their descendants. Yeah, only a handful out of the billions were people I knew, people who might've been my family, but how many was that? Thousands? Millions? If my siblings had children, the amount of people related to me might’ve risen exponentially with each generation. Had the person who’d just been split in half been a long-lost nephew? Anger burst in me, an emotional grenade going off in my grey matter.

  I skidded to a stop. Turned.

  "White-hair was right to call you a bloodthirsty whore!" I yelled, and began to run back towards her. "You murderous bitch!"

  The giant woman cocked her head at me. "Now you intend to meet me in honorable combat?" she asked. "Very well!"

  "Honorable!" I shouted. "You split an innocent man in half!"

  "You ran," The Slayer said. "The crime is on your head--"

  "Oh, bullshit!" I sprinted towards her. So, that poleaxe gave the Slayer reach, but she couldn't swing it if I was inside it. I wove back and forth wildly. Everyone had given us a wide berth. I could see the swing, see the windup, the glint of the axehead in the sunlight--

  It came down, and I dropped, slamming onto my stomach with a smack.

  Death's breeze ruffled my hair as it passed over me. I was scrambling, dragging myself forward and stumbling onto my feet again, lurching towards the Slayer. The backswing was coming. I reached out a hand to the right to catch it. The pole slammed into my ribs. I grabbed the fuck on, tucking my arm around it. It lifted, and I hung from the pole, like it was the most dangerous monkey bar at the playground. I swung--to do what, I hadn't actually figured out yet. I was running entirely on blinding rage.

  It didn't matter. She caught me by the throat with one of her great, big mitts. I choked, dropping my hold on her pole and grasping at the large sausage fingers that were now restricting my airway.

  I met the woman's eyes. They were a bright, poisonous green. She laughed at me. "You have gall, Companion of the Brightson, even if you've no sense."

  I spat in her face.

  The glob landed right in her eye, and she yelped, raising a gauntleted hand towards her face to wipe it off. "You insolent cur!" She shook me hard, and my vision blurred before refocusing.

  I yanked harder at her fingers, trying to kick her plated thighs. "You're a cowardly cunt, and I hope someone plants a spear in your ass and rips you from tailbone to skull."

  "Coward?" shrieked the bitch. "How dare you--"

  "You slay the harmless, stalk the unarmed, murder the unsuspecting!" I gasped out, still writhing in her grasp. "That's brave to you? You could've gone after Cato, who might've kicked your ass, but instead you picked me."

  Her chokehold tightened down, and the edges of my vision began to darken. I struggled--and then, abruptly, I was dropped.

  I hit the stone-paved road so hard it knocked all my remaining air out of me. I looked up to see that we were surrounded. Twenty men on horseback, all--both man and horse--in perfect, shining plate. Each had a long spear, and all of them were pointed at us.

  "You are under arrest, Raiders!" barked one of the men--the one with a glorious golden trim on his armor. The guy in charge. "For disturbing the peace, engaging in combat on the main road, and the murder of an innocent!"

  I let my head fall back and closed my eye. Yeah, that sounded about right.

  Where had White-hair ended up?