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Rika's leg went numb. The crowd around her, pinned on the sculpture like a pinned butterfly, didn't get much more helpful. Most of them looked on either in disgust, sympathy or some sort of morbid curiosity.
After five minutes, Rika Reich gave up on having someone help her. So when another guard showed up to berate her, she decided to leave instead of staying. Shivering cold, she closed her eyes and 'ported again, albeit a shorter distance this time.
Plop!
"Omph!" Something crunched as Rika slammed down into a pile of old newspapers. Dark shadows greeted her. It stank. Rika felt darkness creep in, as she tried to focus. She fought off the black out, forcing her leg to seal up.
"I... wish I had the... whatever... to fix this yabai leg," Rika told herself. Another part of her chided her for starting to talk to herself, but she decided she needed someone to keep her from falling into a coma and it might as well be herself, if anyone.
The room she had 'ported into had no light and was filled with garbage. She managed to climb her way to a boarded up window. Rika peeked through a tiny slit of sunlight.
"Wait. I know this spot..." Rika reorientated herself, adjusting to the nearest landmarks she recognized. "Okay. That means..."
Getting up, Rika tried her horrible leg injury. She found she could walk on it... very slowly. It hurt like hell. But she could walk on it.
She got up and left her position. Rika felt her tail wave a bit, compensating for her nausea. It'd take her a bit of time, but the rat-tailed demon knew she was almost done with her delivery. The idea of getting to lay down... that was all the encouragement she needed.
* * * * *
Blake stared in disbelief at what he'd seen. The Demon just disappeared into thin fucking air, leaving a green spark of energy as she teleported away. He shook his head.
Both of his cohorts walked over to where he stood standing in the rain. "Hey Boss, what she do? Ain't nothin zuru she could pull-"
"She teleported." Blake shook his head again, not believing it. "The yabai demon used a dark gift to teleport away."
"What?"
Yaime slowly backed away, trying to get back to his hover car. He opened the door quietly and got into the seat. He gingerly tried the key, hoping against hope to get out of here before-
"You! Don't think you can escape the price for this treachery!" Blake shouted, his psychically enhanced voice boom so loud the hover car's windshield exploded. Blake's two redheaded assistants moved on the car, trying to get a hold of it.
Yaime turned the key as he felt glass pour onto him. The hover car started on, and in his panic, Yaime slammed a foot onto the accelerator pedal. The engine roared, and the hover car floated up and moved forward, as if on its own.
Blake screamed, his anger taking over.
"Blake, no!" One of his assistants, the woman, tried to stop Blake. But it was too late. Blake's scream echoed, turning into raw, green flame that erupted over the hover car.
Then the hover car exploded, spraying its parts as shrapnel all over Doghead market.
* * * * *
It took her a bit of time to get to the lab building. Rika had found rotten pieces of clothing in the old building she'd ported into. She remembered the building, it was an abandoned dormitory. The University of Noah had been turning over lower and lower numbers of students. This forced it to shut down various campus buildings, which had become derelict.
Rika never had wanted to go inside any of the old derelicts. She decided that the fear of being in there versus the disgust at the rotten rags cancelled one another out. Rika found a old jacket to cover it all.
"There better not be an exam." Rika giggled at her own joke, then wondered abstractly if the blood loss was starting to get to her or not. "Oh well. Crazy feels better anyway."
Rika passed a dirty window, getting a good glance at her self that made her blanch. Half of her hair was stuck up and matted. A dozen new scratches covered her face. And her collection of rat-eated clothes made her feel more like a Rat Demon Girl than any other day in her life.
"Ugh, lets get this over with."
Things got... strange when she managed to get to the drop point. The darkened lab looked more like a photographer's dark room than a place to drop a package.
"Hello?" Rika called, her voice echoing throughout the chamber.
"Hello?" A high-pitched voice mimicked. A tall willowy woman in a lab coat stepped out of the shadows. The woman had a long neck, and her skin looked almost ivory, considering how white it was.
"Package."
"Package?" The woman repeated.
Rika sighed. She thrust the package out. "Here. Rika's Delivery Service."
The woman turned her head. The creepy woman looked down at the package. She took it.
Rika waited expectantly.
The woman patted the package, and turned back. She stepped into the shadows, not saying a single word. Rika lept after her. "Hey! You need to sign-"
But the woman was gone. The package had been dropped.
"And no yabai tip for my trouble, either," Rika grumbled.
* * * * *
Rika stumbled into her apartment, hours later. Every inch of her was sore. She threw all the clothes away, not wanting to see or smell them again.
She drew a bath for herself, soaking in the water for ten minutes, her eyes closed. Rika savored the moment. No more Angels or problems to keep her down. No more yabai anything.
"All I need now is..." Rika's voice trailed off. She thought about the next words she was going to say. "Arn. All I need is Arn to talk to."
Rika shuddered as she remembered the smell of Arn's hairy corpse. The way he lifelessly laid there next to her on the cold dirt of the Blue Dome. She missed him, wanted him to be there to hold her.
Rika wanted to cry. But no tears came out at all. She couldn't cry, no matter how hard she tried.
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