Chapter 4

"Bet those kids are your school treat you like that cause they got parents who care." Samantha scowled listening to Vince explain how his week went.

"Care about how they look in the eyes of the public you mean," Vince muttered sardonically.

"Let's stop here," she grinned picking up a container of chocolate and a few other boxes.

"What's that other box?" He asked curiously.

"Everlasting gobstoppers." She replied shaking the box to be sure it was completely filled up and adding it to the stack.

"The Caretaker will insist that you eat some real food you know," Vince commented casually.

"I'm not buying these snacks with my money for me. I'm buying it for you," she smirked poking him sharply. He blinked as he placed the colorful box holding no doubt equally colorful candy in to his pocket.

He thought long and hard about what he intended to get and told Samantha his choice. She always went to the Marketplace so she knew where the appropriate stalls for his three chosen items were.

After he had his purchases mailed off, he and Samantha wandered the marketplace before stopping again to get something to eat before going home. He carried a bag that he'd bought with the leftover money.

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"Don't you wanna go in there? Knowing you're breaking the rules of the district?" Samantha asked, eating a piece of chocolate. She was referring to the stairway that led to the greenhouse. The same from when he was seven. They had went through the effort of distracting the guard, telling him a surface animal, a small cat had wandered in and was making it's way to food shops.

"No... Something... Something's off..." He muttered. He veered away just in time for the doors to blast open. Along with the black fence that blocked off the stairway.

A woman with deathly pale pallor featuring multiple layers of green eyeshadow that make her eyes look sunken in, and vines coming out of her left eye. She also has bright pink lips with many fangs facing multiple directions. In her mouth was a tulip and what appeared to be mint and strawberry leaves.

She wore a black bodysuit with green Venus flytrap patterns. Her shoes are bright pink invert heels with fangs molded onto them.

Vince yelled as he stumbled backwards, startling the guard who was returning.

"Alright very funny. You kids need to find another source of g-- oh God!" He yelled and fumbled for his radio.

Vince stumbled to his feet and ran, Samantha a few feet ahead of him.

"We can't lead it back to the orphanage! It's got the telltale signs of a Virus!" She yelled.

"What do we do?"

"Quickly! We'll split up!" Vince told Samantha gently pushing her in the direction of the city. Hopefully she'd find the police.

"Are you mental?" She yelled as they turned hiding behind a garbage dumpster..

"Find the police. Say you specifically want the help of Inspe- Detective Mandarin! He knows my situation they should take him seriously!" Vince told her.

"But what could they do against a Virus?" Samantha blinked. "Don't only the Virus Resistance have the real power to fight this?"

"Worry about that after?" He tried.

Vines with Venus flytraps for heads lunged out and impaled themselves in the wall. Both Vince and Samantha ducked. But a vine seemed to have slashed her arm. Samantha yelped in pain.

"I'm okay it just grazed me! I'll be fine with some medical attention." She assured, panting heavily.

"I'll lure it to the old factory ward beyond the district, you remember what I said."

"Wha-" she started.

"It's okay," he said determinedly. "I have already been attacked before. I think I'll survive this," he said pulling on the vine knowing the attention that would earn him. Then he flinched at the screech and took off running.

'Not again!' His mind spluttered, flashing back to the time he was seven. Green and brown eyes wide with panic.

"Am I a magnet for these monsters?" He blurted as he begin to make a mad dash for the factory. No people should be there so he hopefully wouldn't be breaching his agreement of causing casualties.

He focused on heading towards the district limits, another tempting set of stairs leading to the surface in sight.

In a lavender crystal prison was a young woman possibly Vince's age sitting on a stone, her expression bored looking as she rested her head in the enormous sword in the ground. The weapon likely held in place by her hand, while her free arm rested in her lap.

"Andromeda! Your chance is slipping!" A voice echoed in her heart.

"So be it," She stubbornly remained in her glass 'prison'. Yes she would lose her chance to leave her pseudo Arcadia, a result of her pact with the Deities of the Law of Cycles. But the boy being pursued now, he was not the one she was searching for. Nor could she see a path where he would bring her to the one she was searching for.

She would have to accept that she may never find **him**. Her gaze became downcast, her heart understanding this disappointment.

"That person I am looking for...." She murmured softly. Her sword reflected the silhouette of herself with a man and woman about her height.

Several feet above her, Vince was dodging obstacles of broken equipment and trash as he ran. Until he tripped over some broken machinery.

'I... I command it! I call forth the power, the power that sets me apart from others

The power I've hated til now--' Vince thought determinedly as he stretched his hand outwards. His chest hearing up with a unfamiliar energy.

"-- To save me!!" He yelled.

In the process it destroyed the doorway of the warehouse. But he felt relieved that the armored snake like creatures had momentarily pinned down the entity chasing him.

Behind him a magic circle, barely hidden away by the ground and rocks, began to shine as if following some unknown signal. Vince shouts, a cry for aid that echoes through time and space.

Normally, a dark mage would answer it, dying as she was on a hill of swords and corpses, bound as she was to protect the rising heroes. She's made a pact of her own with the Deities of the Law of Cycles for such occasions. If the call reached her she would jump at it, and her life would be better for it eight times out of ten. Usually.

But this time, this cry misses her.

A blinding light floods the less empty factory ward. Followed by the shattering of something made of crystal.

The rustle of flowing cloth, the sound of something heavy, but powerful hitting the ground, followed by a person landing. The ground in a circle turned purple and resembled broken rubble.

Vince opened his eyes. Before him was a brilliant shining lavender light. Light that shifted to the silhouette of a person wearing a dress.

Before him appeared a beautiful girl clad in dark purple armored clothes with a deep purple skirt cut in a diamond trim and translucent near the ends. Her hair a darker purple than her attire, part of it set in a ponytail and her eyes uncannily golden. She wasn't looking at him exactly but if she had been he could imagine her eyes piercing through his flesh and bone, down to his very essence.

What made him equally nervous was the enormous zanbato sword that he swore was larger than herself. It was wedged in the ground her hand resting on the tip of the handle.

"I'm sorry, sister," she chuckles, sending a shiver down Shirou's spine as the woman brandishes her enormous longsword, easily forcing the Virus to take a few steps back. Her obsidian S shaped horns glinting against the light.

"This time, I'm playing the hero." with that cryptic statement she kept into the air. Her stature as she flew was graceful and almost artistic. A sign she'd done it thousands of times.

"A Flying gir..!" he gasped, tripping over his gift bag. The box of chocolates falling out along with the almost empty two boxes of other candy.

"Fuck! I forgot that was there," he cursed. He looked up again and immediately noticed her deep purple hair, cold expression and really large sword.

Seeing the sword made him gulp. It almost took away from the fact that her skirt was partially see through, which respectfully he avoided looking at.

"This may be worse than my previous problem." He breathed and hoped Samantha was getting in touch with Detective Mandarin.

'The source of calamity and destruction.' The TV and radio warnings that were broadcast went off in his mind. 'To be avoided at all costs.' With the Virus attacks increasing for some reason over the last five years the government seemed to have no choice but to tell the public about the severity of the threat.

'But she seems different than a Virus somehow.' he noted watching her raise the enormous sword and from it a shadowy purple replica larger than it destroyed the presumably plant based Virus.

"But Why?! why is she here now?!" he blurted stupidly.

He stayed on the ground and watched as the Violet clad girl had no difficulty picking the Virus apart. She seemed to scan the area as though looking for something then abruptly decided whatever it was wasn't there.

Her head lowered in disappointment briefly.

As a consequence for not having what she wanted she swung her sword and immediately everything to Vince's right a few feet away was reduced to a pile of rubble with an ear shattering explosion. Following this a hole in space opened up and much to Vince's terror he fell through it, screaming the entire time.