Location: Streets of London
Time: 11:01
I.D: Dolores Morela
Condition: Stable
Magic Circuits: Numb
Day 0 - Prologue 3
Throwing caution to the wind, Dolores dashed towards the alley, hair whipping back as a violent blast of wind washed over her. Crippled as her circuits were, the young woman would need to rely on brute force alone to push her way through the tempest.
Thunder roared once again, or perhaps it was the man’s voice.
Followed by the clash of lightning and wind for what much have been the upteenth time.
Trying to follow the duo’s movements was an exercise in futility. They were far too swift for her to see without magecraft. Not to mention that the wide, dark clouds which seemed to blanket the skies, making it even more difficult to see them without the brute’s lightning blasts.
The fact they were too busy fighting one another was her only saving grace.
Bellefronte was out there, right this moment, and an attack like this didn’t happen without support. Quite frankly, using two angry gods for cover was nearly suicidal. At best. But she was also painfully aware of what it meant if she was caught. Her only refuge was in the absurd and so, as glass shard cut into her feet, she moved.
Rain pricked her body like thousands of cold needles as she ran, heels having been long discarded. Her dress, once a particularly modest yet formal attire, clung to her body like a second skin. Restrictive. Uncomfortable. At least where it wasn’t torn to shreds or stained with gore.
Turning down the alley, she thanked whatever gods were listening that it wasn’t a dead end and dashed across the damp pavement. Her veins pulsed with adrenaline, small feet carrying her as far as they could. Dolores ran as fast as she could and didn’t dare look back., the sounds of battle growing more frantic the further she moved away from it.
It was then that she felt it. A familiar chill of her spine, the static running through her body.
A familiar sensation of pure dread.
She looked upwards, heart stopping as lightning seemed to spread over the dark clouds in a spiderweb pattern; lines of wrathful energy coalescing at the eye of the storm,
Right over her, that is.
‘Not again!’
This close, the wind was even more intense. Debris, thankfully mostly only garbage and leaves, was kicked up and thrown at her. Perhaps it was the nearby trees, who were already starting to show roots, that had acted as a makeshift windbreak. Perhaps it was just good luck she wasn’t picked up and thrown about like a common whore at a noble’s party.
Either way, she was hurting, the filth smeared across her body was being stripped away by the water in the wind, and things could be worse.
Morello was going to light a candle for both of her parents and another for her guardian angel if she got through this. Not having her torso atomized and flash fried was, without a doubt, a miracle. And not one she’d take for granted, despite appearances to the contrary.
And then, a particularly violent gust of wind swept the streets clean. Falling to her hands and knees, the young woman had to shut her eye as water and raw air pressure stung them. Things had just gotten worse because, even with her own circuits still numb, Dolores could feel an unimaginable amount of magical pressure gathering in the sky.
As in, several orders of magnitude greater than any other attack so far.
Despite herself, despite the iron will she had depended on to save her from death and worse, despite the horror of her situation… she laughed.
A full bellied, high pitched, almost insane laugh.
“Oh my God! T-t-that is a Servant?!”
Dolores was hysterical.
The power peaked and her eyes went wide.
Racing towards the nearest sign of shelter, that being a seemingly empty pub, she didn’t bother with the door. Instead, she grabbed a public trash can, a few, mild enhancements and terror giving her the needed strength, and put it through the large, plate glass window. Without bothering to be careful, she tore off the outer layer of her dress and threw it over the broken glass; punching out the shards in the window and covering most of what she’d knocked on the floor.
Just as she stepped into the room, it hit her.
With the howls of something truly monstrous dying, the world exploded. Her last thoughts were of a sudden pain in her back and everything went black.
The world was dark.
Silent.
Numb.
She didn’t feel hurt anymore. Didn’t feel fear or anger, surprise or awe at the revelation of what her attacker and accidental savior had been. No. It was hard to work up any sort of feeling. Her head felt thick, filled with cotton, thoughts slowing down as she felt herself cease to be.
Engulfed by something else entirely.
Images, unbidden, filtered through her mind’s eye.
A circle of light, shining over empty streets.
The roar of a thunderclap as it drove through a great tower, a roar of triumph as lightning engulfed the sky.
A man, standing before a helpless crowd, a monolith of pale flesh rising behind him.
A handsome man, with timeless features and a trenchcoat, watching from afar as the city burnt.
He turned back.
Her eyes met his, and he spoke.
She woke up with a start.
Pulling herself out of the wreckage, many things were going by Dolores’ head.
The first thought was, predictably, oww.
The second one, less restrained, would be, what the Hell is going on? Bleeding, battered, toasty, but still alive, the diminutive teenager somehow managed to pull herself out of the smoking remains of the pub’s storefront, the lightning blast having turned most of it into charcoal.
She couldn’t stay here.
But where to go?
Her home? Likely stripped bare of any and all valuables by that bastard Rosenberg and his merry band of bootlickers. That meant nearly two hundred years worth of research and collecting gone, something that would have likely killed her father twice over had he been alive to begin with.
Even if there was nothing there, however, it's unlikely that her captors had the time to take down all of the manor’s defenses. It would be a prime location to hide at and wait out until this insanity was over and done with.
Failing that, it was far enough that she would be able to stage a quick getaway.
But that meant not having any other resources than what she managed to pilfer from the bodies. Not that it would matter much once she had control over her circuits again. But that meant waiting even longer before acting, even if some of her hidden assets weren’t located.
Feasibly, she might be able to contact an ally, perhaps even the one person she’d trust to actually explain the kidnapping to her in detail.
The other option was to try and sneak into the Clocktower without being noticed.
A laughably terrible idea.
There was no way she would be able to get past security, not with the city thrown into chaos as it was. The Association was likely throwing a fit over this, which meant that the majority of London’s magi population was most likely hunkered down beneath the Clocktower. Just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Not to mention the Department of Policies and Bellefronte.
The man was still at large and there was a chance that he had returned to report her escape. While she took solace in the fact that they wouldn’t kill her amidst this madness, she would rather not spend what little time she had left locked inside a cell.
But on the other side her teacher would help her. He was like a father and they were close enough that he’d actually set aside one of his sub-crests for her. The man’s heir was a pompous douche and if it wasn’t for their blood relation, and particularly picky crest, he’d have probably adopted her despite there being only the most minimal of relation. In the end, if Dolores could get to him first, she’d be safe.
But if not….
It was perhaps the riskier idea of the two.
Neither one would help her regain access to her resources, however.
Which lead to her... less solid plan.
A Workshop.
Well, more of a storage facility, really.
Her mother’s original home, which had been later converted into a fully functional workshop, wasn’t something her family liked to advertise. Magi had their secrets, after all, and her family took secrets as seriously as they took life and death.
If she were to buy enough time for the chain’s curse to fade, as well as obtain some resources she might be able to cook up something. Might, because she’d only been there three or four times, but it did hold a good deal of the Morello family’s work. Lesser versions, of course. It would also give her… further options.
One thing was for certain, if Dolores didn’t choose fast, she might get caught again by the fighting.
Now, where to go?
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