Cat, Mouse, and Owner - Part 2

A minute later, Alan coughed, and it sounded muffled.

**Am I still alive? But… how?**

He tried to stand up, but his head bumped into something sturdy and metallic. Unable to see anything, he reached out his hands, finding the same metallic structure. **I'm inside some sort of one-person-sized dome. Wait, don't tell me that…**

Having fulfilled its purpose, the dome quickly disintegrated, letting light get through and revealing Amelia's body still lying on the ground close to Alan. Her long hair hid her face.

"Did you do this?" he asked quietly, biting his lower lip. "Your body hasn't vanished yet, so I'll assume I can still save you. I'll take you to a healer, okay?"

Before he could lean down to take her in his arms, he heard someone else coughing.

"That was—cough—close—cough—Talk about friendly fire…" the enemy muttered while getting rid of her ripped hooded jacket.

After what seemed like an entire day, Alan finally met his pursuer. A young woman with pale skin and hair as white as the moon, who grinned ear to ear once she locked eyes with him.

**Someone I've never met, definitely,** Alan thought and quickly searched the surroundings. The black blob or something similar to a living shadow was nowhere to be found. Only a leveled terrain full of debris and desolation. **Wait, I sense something nearby. No… Not something. Someone…**

"There's nowhere to run or hide, Little Mouse," the girl said, strolling to him. "It's over."

"You said I wasn't your main target, but I think you're lying," Alan said, glaring at her. "What do you want from me?"

"The only thing I'd want from someone as insignificant as you," she said, stopping three steps away from him. "Information. That's your only value."

"Insignificant?" he sneered. "I don't think so. You could have ambushed me and read my mind with that creepy 'Dreammare' spell from the start, but you opted to talk with me. You WANTED me to see what you did to this city." Alan slowly rose and smirked, which made the girl narrow his eyes. "Even if you only did it to mess with my head, you value my opinion regardless. As if you see me as your equal…"

The girl snickered, before full-on laughing. "What are you talking about?!" she began speaking in a childish tone. "Are you blind or something? Look at what I did to this place, and I was just messing around! Imagine if I was serious about destroying this entire city. And you?! You're a measly crappy level five!"

"I'm not talking about power," Alan said, taking one step forward. "Why bother meeting me here, then? It's almost as if you see me as a threat."

The girl's eyes lose their shine. "So, you know."

"That's damn right. And as I was saying…" Alan paused, as his green eyes turned golden again. "I won't let you ruin this generation's peace."

The girl heard someone approaching her, but it was too late. The café's NPC sucker-punched her in the face. As she fell on the ground, Alan saw a fraction of her HP bar disappearing.

"What the hell is wrong with you?! Why are you interfering?!" the white-haired girl cried to the servant.

The NPC said nothing, jumped over her and began strangling her, all while maintaining a neutral expression in his face.

"The—hell?" she managed to say, before looking in Alan's direction.

His eyes still glowed goldenly, extremely focused in the action, as if he could not let himself be distracted for a second. The girl then observed the NPC's eyes, having a similar color and shine.

"Are—you—duin—this?" she asked, turning purple.

"I won't let you get away with this," Alan said, while he inadvertently bled from his nose. "Surrender now so I can bring you to the authorities."

Black stakes sprouted out of the girl's chest, impaling the NPC. When that did not manage to kill him, the girl's black leggings liquified and transformed into a serpent with a blade for a head, that automatically targeted the NPC's neck and beheaded him.

The girl's face changed to red as she violently coughed. "What did—cough—you do?"

"I have no idea…" Alan replied faintly, shutting his eyes, as a sudden dizziness hit him. He fell on his knees, while droplets of blood fell from his nose to the ground.

**I ask the same… What did I do? Wait, was I really the one that forced that NPC to…**

With narrowed eyes, he looked up, finding the woman standing next to him. Four tentacles were coming out of her shirt and seemingly ripped leggings.

Her silver eyes looked cold and absent. **As those of a killer with no remorse. She finally looks annoyed,** Alan thought, chuckling. **It's like staring at something inhuman.**

Without a threatening remark or a single word, the girl just stretched out her hand to grab his head.

**My mission it's over before it even started… Isabella, you were wrong about choosing me.**

"Don't touch him," a voice said behind him. "I'm the only one that can make him suffer."

"You're still--!" The white-haired girl tried to finish her sentence, but a burst of fire hit her face.

**Was that Amelia?!** Before checking the estate of his temporary ally, he checked the enemy's HP bar, which barely dropped. **That won't do. I'm glad that Amelia it's okay, but she's surely too weak to finish off the… Eh?**

Alan lost his train of thought, witnessing the flame around the enemy's head transform into something solid. **Red, shiny metal. Like the weapons she was wielding and the many shields with which she has protected me today. Is this her power?**

In a blink of an eye, the enemy was forced to wear what seemed like a red round helmet.

The unknown girl did not have the time to react, dodge or shout. Unable to see, talk or even breathe, she desperately tried to get rid of the thing with no avail.

"You should be glad that I didn't do this to you," Amelia quietly said in his ear.

Alan reserved his comments while watching the enemy try to cut the helmet with her remote-controlled tentacles, but after a while, she stopped moving.

Just by looking at her contorted body, Alan understood the agony she had gone through.

**Whoever that was, her body is disintegrating. This didn't happen to Amelia's body, even though I SAW her HP go all the way down. I think something similar happened the other night, when Astrid punished her and the others that left the guild.**

Alan glanced in Amelia's direction. She was giving him the back, observing the result of the dragon's explosion.

He sighed. This nightmare is over…

**No. I correct myself. It's just getting started.**

"Thanks, Amelia."

"I don't want your gratitude, I want answers." She turned to him, arms folded. "What the hell was all this? What are you hiding?"

"Not now," he said softly, standing up. Once he stood by her side, he could not avert his eyes from the devastation in miles in front of them. "Please?"

"Hum," she uttered, pouting lips. "That bitch knows my face, you know. So! I'm kind of involved with this now. Whether you want it or not."

"I… I'd rather not… Trust me."

*******NEXT ONE IS THE FINAL REWRITE