I spread my wings wide and glided down onto a patch of broken earth. As I folded my wings, my eyes scouted around, looking for any sight of movement. There was none. The park felt as tranquil as it looked outside, despite looking like it got hit by a meteor shower. I would've thought the place abandoned, if not for my pair of overclocked* eyes. Despite not having Wedjat in my forehead, I could still see how fresh the two mana trails here were. Some of the mana trails retained their shape as they fought all over the place. There was a lili punching a large upright-standing wolf who evaded and the lili's fist punched a hole in the tree'd trunk, where the werewolf was leaning on just moments before. There was the werewolf biting off the lili's left wing. I couldn't see their faces, but I was pretty sure that the lili was Tell and the big, upright-standing wolf was the werewolf we were looking for. The Half Lilin By The Light Of The Moon (Chapter 11) By Shinieris

---

 

As I passed her and she started to fly away, the gravity of the situation (pardon the pun) hit me and I just had to say, "Fuck!"

"Fuck!" I repeated recognizing how screwed I was. I looked down and knew that I shouldn't.

Mother, if you really do love me, you'll save me now!

I looked down again and quickly closed my eyes as the ground came closes rapidly.

-----

It was awhile before I noticed that I hadn't had my guts splatter all over the ground. I opened my eyes and saw myself standing on solid ground. The color was all wrong, though. Instead of green and brown, the ground looked so... grey.

"If I really love you, then I'll save you?" came a very familiar voice, one that seemed to resonate with my very soul. "Now, don't you think that's rude, dear daughter?"

"Mother?" I said as I looked up. In front of me, several feet away, was Mother, sitting elegantly atop a jutting rock in her resplendent ceremonial robe... eh?

"Mother, what's with the akkadian gown?" I said, recalling that I had never saw her in a formal attire before. Heck, I've never even seen her wearing anything so... concealing before.

"Oh this?" she said, while lifting one of the laces attached to her robe, "You called me in the middle of an important meeting." Her voice then grew stern, "This better be important, daughter. The Guardians of Sheol are known for many things, but 'patience' is not one of it."

"Am I in Yenne Velt? Where's everyone?" I asked as I looked at the grey sky, which was totally different from the red sky that I remember from my time in Yenne Velt.

"You are in Yenne Velt, yet, you are also not in Yenne Velt. This Yenne Velt is a space that I created just for us to talk. It is neither here not there. As for your second question, since this is a space for just the two of us, naturally there would be nobody else here. So now... tell me what you want before my blood starts to boil and I start scalding your face with it."

"Umm, well, it's about Tell."

"Yes, what is it you wanted to tell me?"

"No, it's about my sister, Tell - Stella. She sprouted a crystal-tipped tail and a pair of wings and she called herself Illy-Lyri. What the hell was that about?"

"Illy-Lyri? That was quick. I wasn't expecting her so soon." Then Mother glared at me. "Well, obviously you didn't do a good job in the first place. Your weakness pushed her to finish things on her own!"

"What job!? Mother, I've been in the dark for so long, can somebody please tell me what's going on here?"

Seeing Mother remain silent, I pushed further, "How come it's my fault? How the heck can she become a lili in the first place? Don't you have to appear to the baby's parents in person before you can claim the baby? Mom said you never came for Tell. So how come Tell's a lili?"

Mother glared at me briefly and I suddenly regretted pushing my luck. "One parent," Mother said.

"Uhh, pardon, Mother?"

"One parent, not both parents. To claim the baby I only need to inform one of the parents. In you sister's case, Sarai never knew as I specifically claimed her the same night Sarai was away. I revealed myself to your father, whose memory I had discretely altered," Mother clarified as she looked to the side.

"You mean you lied to mom? And my dad?"

"Lying implies that I told a lie. I did not lie, I merely made them believe otherwise."

"That's cheating," I mumbled.

"I do not care what you call it. It was Sarai's fault in the first place. She was the one who forced my hand."

"What do you mean, Mother?"

"I seriously have no time to discuss this. What did you come here for, little girl?"

"Umm, well obviously you have to stop her, Mother. I mean Tell. She was plain freaky tonight. Oh! And you have to save me too. You see, I foolishly jumped after Tell and, well, seeing as I don't have my wings anymore, I'm simply seconds away from redecorating the ground with my own brain matter," I said, followed shortly by an embarrassed laugh.

"Save you and stop your sister? In that order?" she asked.

I nodded.

"Bah! I'm far too busy for something so menial. Save yourself and stop her on your own."

"If I could do that, I would've done that already, Mother. The standing issue here is that I don't have my powers and I was about to repaint the ground floor with the color of my blood. Assuming of course that I haven't already. I haven't died yet, right?"

"As I suspected, you missed your lilin form. And here I recall you asking me to 'free' you. Have you changed your mind, little one?"

"I haven't changed my mind! I just want a quiet, ordinary life. But now... now, I need help, Mother. Please, help me. Help me fight the werewolf. Help me stop my sister, she can't stop the werewolf on her own. You're the only one who can help me."

"Oh, don't look down on Lyrin. She's one of the earth. She's probably tougher than you. If you let her fight to the end, she will likely win, at the expense of her soul."

"What do you mean, Mother?"

"That is not good at all. If she continues fighting and ends up killing the werewolf, her heart will be filled with regret and sorrow. She will keep on blaming herself. She won't be of any use to me that way."

"What are you saying, Mother? Regret? Because she would be making her first kill?"

"No, not because it will be her first kill, but because the werewolf was someone you two used to know and love. Once the battle is over and she found out who it was, her heart will be broken and her soul will be dead. I have no need for such lili."

"Then help her," I felt tears fell down my face, "Help us. We need you, Mother!"

She was quiet for a little while, looking as if she was contemplating whether she should help us or not. In the end, she sighed and said, "Very well. It is after all, in my best interest that Lyrin does not kill that werewolf with her own hands. However, I cannot leave this place, not at the moment."

"Then, you'll send some of the lilim to help us?"

"What makes you think that will happen? This is your problem, handle it on your own."

"HOW!!!!!?" I cried in frustration.

"I'll unseal your powers for just this once. It is up to you how to use it. But remember," she raised a forefinger, "you only have until midnight. After that, the seal on your power returns."

"Midnight? But that's only an hour away. That won't be enough time!"

"This is NOT up for discussion!" she glared at me, "Don't forget that this is your punishment. Now go back!"

She made a swift dismissive wave and I found myself wrenched backward, farther and farther from Mother. Then through the fog which became increasingly thick, I saw three other forms materialized as Mother turned around and approached them. One was a beautiful woman in clothes of gold, silver and jewels, one was a half-naked angel, his body bound in chains and his wings the color of the soil, another was a humanoid creature with the tail of a wolf, the head of a lion and the horns of a bull. The next thing I knew, I was in a damned lot of pain.

I opened my arms and saw my severed arm lying on a pool of black blood. My black blood. Great Mother, I hope nobody saw me, I thought.

"Oh my god! Somebody jumped! Oy Eric, wake up! Somebody JUMPED!"

Great, there goes that wish, I thought again.

As lights came on from the building, I hastened my body to recover myself. It was pretty slow, trying to pull my life fluids back into my body. Just as I was about to crawl to my severed arm though, I sensed a bright flash in front of me.

Damned bastards must be taking pictures, I want to kill them... oh wait, I can.

So right after the next flash, I raised my head and made a sadistic grin. He took another picture and yelped in fear, before fleeing the scene.

Oh good, he dropped his camera. I grabbed it with my good hand and suddenly felt really kinky. So with my teeth biting on the skin of my severed arm and my face covered in blood, I took a picture of myself. Gosh, the bright light hurts my eyes. I wonder how I look like.

I turned the camera around and looked at the viewscreen. The first picture looked like a demon was lying dead on the ground. The second picture looked like Hell on Earth. The third looked utterly terrifying. The last picture looked like it's doomsday.

The picture showed a demon biting a severed arm, face dark with blood, with sinister yellow eyes glowing in the dark and one arm outstretched forward as if to grab the cameraman. Gosh, I looked so utterly terrifying any man would piss his pants.

This is so going into my facebook, I thought.

Looking at all the blood on my body, made me realize how hungry I was. It had a week since I last fed and if I wanted to fight both the werewolf and Tell, I'd have to be at my best.

Then a thought came to my head and I looked up, to where my apartment unit was. I couldn't help forming what must be a terrifying zombie-like grin. Food may be closer than I first thought.

So I stood up and flapped my wings with my severed arm still hanging from my mouth. My flight ended as soon as it started when the skin at my wings tore and and the sinew connecting my left with and my back became dislocated. When I landed on the ground, rather roughly, my left wing flopped down as if it was part of a defective Halloween costume.

Guess flying's not an option, I thought, then looked up at my apartment unit and decided, I'll just blink then. Blink however, proved to be almost as hard as flying, because the constant pain made me lose focus many times.

[Blink]

I appeared outside of my apartment unit after about a dozen tries. Immediately I noticed someone standing to my left. I turned my head to the left and saw a man, one of my neighbors, standing with mouth agape and feet rooted to the spot. I had been discovered.

Quickly I channeled a little bit of power to the forefinger of my left hand and aimed it at the man's heart. A burst of black aura appeared at my fingertips and launched straight to his heart. It was the same Corruption Line that Shaina once used on me, except for being more powerful as I was taught by the Mistress of Magic herself. At full power, it would make him do anything he considered bad or evil. At the level of power I was using, it would only make him lose his inhibition from doing what he would consider improper due to his own sense of morality.

I guess he was going to have some fun tonight. The side benefit of using Corruption Line on a mortal was that everything that happened from this point on to the time he went to sleep will be forgotten when he wakes up tomorrow. That was what would happen to humans hit by a Corruption Line. Which meant that it would save my skin from being flayed for breaking the Code of Concealment.

As he went back into his unit eager for a night of fun and debauchery, I opened my front door and walked in, wincing a little when my broken wing hit the doorframe. I held up my broken wing with my left hand before I started walking to Tell's room.

-----

"Mmm, you taste nice," I mumbled between kissing Chris. Truth was, that wasn't really meant to be romantic, I was actually sucking the life out of Chris's mouth. My wings had already popped itself back into its socket, while the skin on my wings had already regenerated to mend the tears, thanks to my skin's ability to absorb his lifeforce through his pores. My tail was dancing wildly behind mean indication of my eagerness to suck more delicious nutrients from this (almost) lifeless body.

Oh shucks! I can almost see his soul struggling to leave his body. Down boy, down, I thought as I stopped sucking on his lips. I wasn't at full power, likely because Chris was in a bad state to begin with, what with fighting Awakened Tell and all that. He is actually a good fighter when the opponent is human. Against even an infant lili though, he just gets beaten to pulp.

This will have to do though. With my training, beating a newly-born lili should be a piece of cake. Beating the werewolf may be a problem though. If she really is Vicky's mom back to life, this will be tough. Last time, mom used an angel's feather, and it didn't keep her dead for long. Perhaps it simply wasn't enough? I guess another tactic is necessary, I thought while licking my lips that still had Chris' taste on it.

A groan from below caught my attention and I only just realized that I may have sat on Chris' body for a tad too long. So I gently lifted myself off of Chris and strode to the door. When I reached the door, I turned around, blew a kiss to Chris' (almost) lifeless form and skipped along on my merry go way.

Halfway between the door and the living room, I saw Little Vicky came out of the living room. He was rubbing his eyes and he stopped short when he saw me. Okay, so I wasn't planning to show myself so soon, even if he may be a lili in the future. Since he's still not a lili, the Code of Concealment still applies, which means drastic measures must be taken.

[Corruption Line]

I watched as the black aura hit his chest, gets absorbed and bounced back, burning my fingers. So there I thought, okay, more drastic measure then.

It took only less than a couple of seconds for me to reach him, but by then, I had already placed my scorced forefinger at his temple and cast 'Oblivion'. I thought it was a pity that he would lose a week's work of memories, but I couldn't afford to be punished for breaking the Code of Concealment, even if he's really going to become a lili in the future. I guess I'll just ask Shaina to do selective memory reconstruction later.

I thought it was a done deal, nobody could resist this technique without feeling winded, me included, and certainly not a mere child. So imagine how shocked I was that even Oblivion was reflected back. Thankfully, the spell has a very short range, so it dispersed harmlessly instead of giving me amnesia.

So I asked myself, did my blood gave him spell immunity?

I certainly wouldn't know. I've never heard of lilim with spell immunity before. Though to tell the truth, with more mutations appearing in the recent generations, this won't be much of a shocker. I mean, look at me, I have two 'me' inside me. Heck, I heard one of the newer girl, though a bit earlier than me, had claws instead of fingers, which made me wonder how she was going to hold a spoon.

He just looked at me with that curious childish gaze as I cast both spells at him. Then with an innocent face, he asked, "Are you daddy's friend?"

"Err..." I hesitated, wondering how it was possible that he didn't find it strange that a scantily clad demoness was walking around in his home.

"Yes," I finally said, "Call me Ilyse. I came here to visit your aunt, you see."

"Momma told me its disrespectful to call someone older than me by their name."

"Great, that blasted Lauren's been raising my son to be a southern belle.

"Well then, how about Aunt Ilyse?" I cringed inside as I suggested that.

"'kay! Are you going to a party, Aunt Ilyse?"

"Now, what makes you say that?"

"Because you're wearing the bat wings, the horns and a tail. So you must be going to a party."

What had Lauren been teaching my son?

"You're right, I'm almost late, so I'll be going now," I ruffled his hair, "You be a good boy and stay at home, okay?"

He combed his hair back with his fingers as I opened the front door and was about to step through when I heard him say, "Daddy?"

-----

I sat at the ledge of Hollywood mountain, looking down on the city below as I wondered how the heck was I supposed to find Tell in such a big city? Earlier, I had cast a Vision spell to see where she was. It didn't work. I assumed that it was either because she was in a sealed off realm or I wasn't any good at that spell yet.

Hm, I suppose I could instead use the things that Naamah taught me.

I blinked back to the corridor outside my apartment, directly beside the point where Tell jumped. Preparing my mind, body and my eyes, I concentrated to focus my ethereal power at my eyes, empowering it with the ability to see more clearly the shape and color of auras and other ethereal bonds. Although this technique was supposed to be used together with Wedjat, there was no reason it couldn't be used with normal lilin eyes.

"Well, here goes," I said to myself as I closed my eyes and cast Mana Trace, with all its incantations and runes. It was the same technique I used to identify ethereal bonds of ethereal objects when I still had Wedjat. This time, I didn't need to identify ethereal bonds, I just needed the ability to see Tell's mana trail.

Mana trail is something like footprints. Just as every human and animals have footprints, all demons leaves mana trails. Even those who are aware of it, like me. Some have learned over the years to mask their mana trails, much like how animals disguise their footsteps, but there was always a trail. Seeing as Tell wasn't awakened until recently, there was a very slim chance that she would know the existence of mana trail, let alone how to disguise them.

So I opened my eyes and was blinded by the huge array of bright colors.

Change the spectrum! I reminded myself.

A short while later, the colors dimmed, but it took me a long while later, probably 10 minutes or so to tune out all the ethereal trail until only 4 remained. Apparently, there were plenty of demons and minor spirits passing through here everyday. Out of the 4 trails left, I chose the one which trail headed the same way as Tell, and with a powerful flap of my wings, took off in Tell's direction.

The trail took me to just outside Griffith Park, which was only a few minutes away with my powerful wings. I noticed that along the way, things were very quiet. Actually, too quiet, which only the casual honking from faraway breaking the silence. The silence was even more pronounced as I reached Griffith Part, where the trail ended.

"That's weird," I said aloud, "A demon's ethereal trail doesn't simply end for no reason. Even if the demon blinked elsewhere, there would have been an obvious sign of scattered ethereal matter in the air. Tell didn't blink away, nor was she kidnapped. She simply disappeared.

I didn't think she was dead, but without her mana trail, there was no way of knowing where she went off to. I beat my wings constantly, hovering there in the night sky until a lightbulb lighted up in my head.

Of course! I thought. The artifact I created to let Tell summon me back from nothingness should also be able to work the other way too. If it can find me, it should be able to find Tell too.

So I imagined in my mind the specific shape of the hairpin, what it could do and its form. Then I imagined its location. After I was sure there would be no mistake, I summoned it with only the most necessary amount of magic energy.

[Summon hairpin]

A black whirlpool appeared over my palms. It grew larger and larger before it burst and a pair of pants dropped onto my hand.

Great! Too little energy. Not enough to control what I summoned. Probably should use more power, I thought.

This hairpin was the one that flew to Sue's house, trying to look for a way to reach mom but attracted Sue's attention instead. I took out the hairpin from the pocket, sent back the pants to my own room and poured a bit of my power into the hairpin to wake it from its sleep. The hairpin then turned into a crimson-colored pigeon and flew forward, only to disappear into thin air when I blinked my eyes.

Ok-ay, so maybe the third time's the charm. So I summoned the other hairpin, putting more energy into it to give me better control over the spell. It was weird when the black whirlpool won't stop growing. It was freaky when it became larger than myself. It was painful when the thing burst upon reaching the size of a truck and something knocked my waiting hand down as it fell.

Shit, too much power! I thought as I dove at the falling Mercedez Benz CLS500. I wasn't able to reach it in time, at least not before it smashed itself onto the ground, turning what was once a stunning piece of german engineering into a pile of scrap metal. I wondered if his insurance would cover being totalled by falling from a great height. Got to admire the germans though, despite the car looking like a terrible shadow of its former glory, it could still let out that blaringly annoying alarm.

I landed next to the gasoline-smelling wreck and ignoring the loud car alarm, gingerly placed my hand where the piece of metal that used to be the front passenger's door and searched around for where that tiny hairpin might be. I didn't dare use 'summon' again. It was bad enough to smash Chris' car from great heights, but to make it explode would be overkill. It was a good thing that Chris' car wasn't moving, otherwise, I fairly believe that it will explode.

Through both visual and perception, I was finally able to locate the hairpin. It had fell to the floor of the passenger's seat and because of the wreck, was at the place where my hands alone won't be able to reach. Carefully, with great concentration, I was able to fish the hairpin out of the unreachable place with the aid of a perfectly executed telekinesis. I've learned my lesson, don't conjure anything without proper practice. Maybe I'd need to change Chris' memory. Make him think he was the one who wrecked it. Yeap, that will work.

Giggling inside at the thought, I gave a silent command to the hairping. It transformed into a pigeon in a burst of ethereal dust and flew off. It also disappeared not two seconds after it took off from my palms.

"Damned the devil," I muttered under my breath, "should've recognized a barrier when it's less than 5 feet in front of me."

So with a deep breath, I closed my eyes and flew straight into the barrier. It was pretty tough, especially once I found that my face was flattened by the seemingly solid barrier. Pushing through, I had to flap my wings hard, and used all kinds of spells known to me.

[Ice Shard] I conjured a number of sharp ice fragments from a single frost orb at the tip of my forefinger. Grabbing the ice shards with my mind, I launched it all at the barrier. It flared briefly as the ice shards smashed against the surface, but they didn't have enough penetration power.

[Ice Spear] I conjured a pair of long ice shards, one above each of my palms. Then I grabbed each with my hands and threw both simultaneously at the same point on the barrier. Due to the force of the throw, I found myself spinning in the air and had to correct myself by flapping my wings in varrying strength to get myself floating upright in the air again. In the meantime, I noticed the barrier flared again but still did not yield.

This is ridiculous, I thought as I initiated Void Call. The same technique that the other me used to defeat Dinah. I've never successfully used this technique on my own before, but I figured if the other me could use it perfectly, then there was no reason that I couldn't do the same. We do share the same body afterall.

I shoved my doubts away as a miniature black orb the size of a peanut started to appear in my hand. I let it grow to the size of a golfball, thinking that such a small Void Sphere wouldn't be enough to break the barrier. I was wrong. I was too greedy. The Void Sphere started to lose containment almost as soon as I let it grow and became absolutely unstable before it even reached the size of a golfball. I threw it away the moment I deduced that attempting to control it would be impossible, but it was far too late. The Void Sphere imploded and sucked my left hand into the vortex, leaving my arm a stump below the elbow and rupturing the veins of my entire body. I screamed in pain as I coughed black blood.

Not working, I thought. Damned the other me for not telling me how to make it work. Now instead of being filled with power, my body was so damaged I needed to heal myself first.

I can't wait that long, I thought as I focused all of my energy on my good hand. A frost orb slowly formed above my right palms as it drew negative energy from my surrounding making the surrounding increasingly warmer as the coldness rushed to my palms. It was slow, because California never got any snow even at Christmas. Once the frost orb reached the size of a basketball, I grabbed it with the same hand and crushed it, causing the liquid ice to erupt, spread and cover my entire body. If anyone was watching, they would see a block of ice floating in the air 20 feet above the ground.

Normally, I wouldn't be doing this. Simply because it would be so damned cold in there my body would shiver and my teeth would chitter uncontrollably. But now, I need power. I need to heal and I need to do this quickly. As one alligned to water, I was able to harness the energy of the frigid molecules around my body, allowing my body to heal itself simultaneously at no cost to my own power. The coldness would even provide me a little energy, as I am alligned to water, like a rechargeable battery. And just like a rechargeable battery, the longer I was in here, the more energy I would accumulate.

But I couldn't stay here. Not for long. Somewhere in there, under the barrier, Tell's fighting alone. Despite what Mother said, a few hours old lili couldn't possibly defeat a decade-old werewolf. It was just not likely, and I would not gamble her life to find out who was right. So I focused my thoughts and shattered the ice block covering my body. Then I gathered the cold air around me and formed a huge ball of compressed frost air above me, larger than even myself.

I gripped the huge ball of frost with my right hand and my restored left hand and slammed it at the barrier, as hard as my muscles could manage, aided by a bit of telekinesis from my mind. It hit the barrier and exploded, freezing my arms in a single block of ice and spreading frost air in all directions. Despite not having enough power to break through the barrier, it now provided a clear boundary in the form of a floating ice platform which marked the surface of the barrier. Though only a small part of the barrier was made clear, it should be more than enough.

I looked at my frost-bitten arms and pushed the entire frost energy in my arms out. Steam appeared from my skin and the ice covering my arms started to melt. I shook the ice from my arms before it completely metled and focused my energy to reform the ice into a constantly twisting ice tendril. With both hands clasped, I combined the two ice tendrils into a drill of spinning ice and dove straight at the part of the barrier illuminated by the ice. A second before the ice drill hit the barrier, I strengthened it with more power and made it twist and spin at a higher frequency,

It took the drill only a few seconds to break, but it did its purpose. I found myself falling though the hole in the ice into a scene of complete disaster. What a few seconds ago looked like a tranquil park is now a mess of fallen trees, broken seats and cratered ground.

I spread my wings wide and glided down onto a patch of broken earth. As I folded my wings, my eyes scouted around, looking for any sight of movement. There was none. The park felt as tranquil as it looked outside, despite looking like it got hit by a meteor shower. I would've thought the place abandoned, if not for my pair of overclocked* eyes. Despite not having Wedjat in my forehead, I could still see how fresh the two mana trails here were. Some of the mana trails retained their shape as they fought all over the place. There was a lili punching a large upright-standing wolf who evaded and the lili's fist punched a hole in the tree'd trunk, where the werewolf was leaning on just moments before. There was the werewolf biting off the lili's left wing. I couldn't see their faces, but I was pretty sure that the lili was Tell and the big, upright-standing wolf was the werewolf we were looking for. Strange though, there was a mana trail in the form of a lili floating brightly high above, its mana trail looked brighter than any other mana trails. The form wasn't moving in the slightest, so I figured it must be Tell's afterimage.

Where are they, though? I wondered to myself.

I was walking around, trying to determine where the mana trail ended, when I started feeling a slight tremor under my feet, which grew stronger with each passing second. It finally stopped, then suddenly the ground in front of me erupted, and something flew out from the hole in the ground.

It was the werewolf. The one with the crescent tattoo on its right cheek. The one mom defeated about ten years ago. The one we're looking for. The one werewolf that Tell must not kill.

A hand appeared out of the same hole that the werewolf came out of, pushing out dirt and dust along with it. Then the other hand came out and it grabbed the edges of the hole. A moment later, Tell appeared, pulling herself out of the hole in the ground.

She looked terrible. The membrane of her wings were torn in many places, her nightgown were in tatters and there were deep wounds all over her body. Either her natural lilin healing potential hadn't kicked in yet, or it had been exhausted.

"Why can't I kill you!!! You're just a damned werewolf!" she yelled at the still airborne werewolf, before she spread her wings and leapt to the sky in chase of the werewolf.

Just as she was about to throw a punch at the werewolf, the werewolf turned its body in the air and its right leg lashed at Tell as if it was an oversized, muscular and furry whip. The force of the kick caused what few aerofoil properties that Tell's wings still provided to fail and caused her to plummet to the ground like an over-riped fruit. I kicked the ground and flapped my wings towards my falling sister. I almost didn't reach her in time, but a timely kick of my legs and a strong flap of my wings pushed me forward to cross the necessary five feet. As it was, Tell fell safely into my arms, though there was so much force at work that it felt like my arms were about to be ripped out of its sockets.

"Sis?" Tell groaned weakly. I noticed now that her left eye was swollen shut, probably from the werewolf's fist. Then a sudden crashing sound made me look up and I saw the werewolf was already on the ground, landing safely unlike Tell.

"Shh, relax Tell. I'll handle this," I said reassuringly.

She must've not felt reassured, because she countered with a one-eyed glare, "Huh? You couldn't handle it before, why should I let you handle it now?"

"Because you must not kill her, Tell," I said, as it becomes clear to me now that we're dealing with Mrs. Sanchez, Vicky's mom. "Mother said it will be bad. She doesn't want you to fight the werewolf, said you will regret it deeply," I explained.

"Mother?" she said, her body started shaking in my arms. "My name is Illy-lyri, AND I DO NOT KNOW THIS 'MOTHER'!" she cried as she fired a burst of ethereal stream at my face and rolled away.

It burns! I silently cried in my mind as my hands cupped my face. It felt like that time in my childhood that I was scalded with hot oil. It was when I was only 9, mom was deep-frying some fish that dad brought home from his fishing trip. I was helping mom in the kitchen when I accidentally knocked over the frying pan, causing it to tip over and scald my right arm. Mom healed me back then but she told me not to say anything to dad. I remembered that pain, this pain was exactly like that.

I calmed myself down and tried ignore the pain. It was terribly hard, but I managed to tune it out eventually as I moved some of my pinkish healing aura on my palms and cast Minor Banish, which would disperse the ethereal particles on my face and Regenerate, which would help increasing the regeneration of my dissolved face. I knew from experience, back in Ashmedan that casting Heal will only make things worse, judging from the high concentration of ethereal particles on my face. Casting Heal now would be like throwing a lit cigarette into spilled gasoline at noon in the middle of summer.

Then through the corrosive ether, I heard Tell's voice saying,

"I call upon you, Libertate. You who called me to awaken from my deepest slumber. You who dragged me out, out of your own selfish desire, to see the world bleed for denying you your wish.
Hear me now, Libertate. Join me, and I shall show you a world charred by their own desires.
Join me! And you, who has lost your body, can live again.
Be my wings, be my hands, be my spears, Libertate!"

*IT term, referring to the overclocking of a computer's CPU to make it faster. Something like overcharging a battery.

*Hi everyone. Sorry about the slow progress. Truth is, nowadays I've gotten lazy when it comes to transferring the story from paper to digital. The entire story has been written, it just hasn't been rewritten in my computer. I know what would help. An Ipad2! Anyone kind enough to donate me one? :P