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"And then you picked me up." Rika finished, just realizing how tired she was. She tried to keep her eyes from drooping closed. She let out a mild yawn, waiting for Yaime's response.
The Angel focused on driving for a moment. "That... wow. Arm is really dead?"
Rika looked out the window, watching the busy people walking around Doghead. A small rain had started to fall. She wondered about the weirdness of that. Noah sat at the bottom of the sea, yet they'd managed to make a big enough bubble of air under all that sea. Big enough that the bubble had its own weather patterns. Sure, everyone in the City of Kaiju called it the Blue Dome, but the bubble all those force fields kept at the bottom of the sea was just that, bubble.
"Bubbles pop." Rika muttered to herself.
"What was that?" Yaime asked.
"Nothing, I guess. I'm tired, Yaime. Lets get this job done so I can get a yabai bath in."
Yaime clicked his teeth. "Why didn't you use your powers?"
"I did, dumb angel. How else did you expect me to recover from a fall? All that biokinesis drained me. I'm lucky I didn't fall over when those angels attacked me."
"Wormtail, level with me, your other powers- the one that would've made this all thing really easy?"
Rika tried to ignore to him. "I didn't think about it."
"Really?" Yaime chuckled. "Its because of the side effects isn't it?"
"We're not going to talk about this, ok?"
"You sure you don't-"
"Yaime I really don't want to talk about, you know?"
"Ok, okay." Yaime took a deep breath. "Yeah, here we are."
Yaime stopped the hover car and took out his keys. He paused, then looked into the rear view mirror. He got out, as though waiting for something.
"Wait, what?" Rika looked around, confused. "This isn't- Yaime!"
Rika looked around at where he'd stopped. It was a part of where Doghead Market stretched onto a outcropping of rock, creating a cliff face that overlooked the Blue Dome's wilds below. The rain made the ground slick. A fog cusped around the cliff, looking like a massive claw holding the market in its grasp.
People ignored the rain, continuing about their business. Some ran for umbrellas. Others pulled out tarps. A proud few just walked in the rain, some Demons and Angels using powers to make the rain less of a problem for them.
"Yaime, what the hell?"
The place he parked on the outcropping was a cul de sac. Only the way in and out had to be the way Yaime came in. The blond Angel was looking up into the sky, expectantly. He looked over at Rika, pulling out a small golden cross.
"Gotta pick a side, Wormtail. Sorry."
"What?" Rika blinked. She'd spent years working with Yaime. "I'm your employer, Yaime. You picked a side, mine."
Yaime shook his head. "You don't get it, do you? The Golden Crown is willing to pay a mint for that package, Rika. I've told you for years, we should take deal from one of the big shots. You had a chance to get Jezebel to sponsor you, to join up with her. But you didn't take it."
"okay, this sounds like its coming out of nowhere, Yaime-"
"Take the deal, Rika, before Blake gets here. The Golden Crown will bend their rules for you, they accept any sinner like you, any demon that admits to what they really are."
Rika stared at him. The rain covered her. She enjoyed that, because it kept her tears hidden. That last part pissed her off. After all the time they'd worked together, this angel really had played the same racist game everyone else played?
"I was born this way, you yabai idiot! Those angels are going to kill me. Blake is going to roast my ass for being born with a rat's tail and a set of abilities I never asked for! Fuck all of you flying, good for nothing-"
Boom. A thunderclap parted the rain. Blake's voiced boomed, each syllable echoing in the thunder. "Demon, this is your last chance for salvation!"
The trio of Angels appeared at the entrance to the cul de sac. Fiery halos turned the falling rain into hot steam. They marched down toward them. Blake tossed a bag onto the ground next to Yaime. Her former dispatcher picked up the bag, silver glittering from it. Pieces of silver.
Rika didn't stop to reply to the Angel. Instead she bolted for the cliff face, deciding to try and make for climbing down it. A bolt of electricity flashed by her head, causing her to slip. That knocked the wind out of her.
She slipped down over the edge of the cliff, trying to start climbing, despite having the package under one arm. Blake stood over her position on the cliff. Rika's heart went into overdrive, beating so hard she wondered if it was trying to rip out of her rib cage. Blake shook his head.
"You fail, demon! Pay now for leaving the service of your one true creator and God!" Blake's eyes glowed bright white, shattering the sunglasses he wore. In his left hand fire burst. The fire coalesced into the shape of bright red sword. The word was long and curved, a scimitar of flame and fire.
Blake swung the burning scimitar down at her, hard. "From heaven I slash at thee!"
"Boy," Rika said on instinct, "compensating with the language and the flaming sword much? Or maybe you aren't such a raging-"
Rika screamed as Blake cleaved through her arm. He severed it at her shoulder. That arm had been the one she'd been using to cling to the cliff and try to climb down. No longer providing a use, the arm decided to vacate, falling down the cliff. A whiff of cooked meat came from her shoulder, making Rika shudder.
Worse yet, it didn't hurt. It didn't completely cauterize the word either, Rika realized, as her entire left side felt soaking wet. Or was that the rain? She couldn't tell.
Blake stood over the cliff, watching her fall through the air. Rika kicked away from the cliff, trying not to bounce off rocks. She glared at Blake, who paused to admire his work.
"Sicko," Rika muttered to herself.
Rika closed her eyes. She focused on her biokinesis, shifting muscles and organs around. Her real hidden talent involved being able to shift her own biology through space. She didn't understand how or why, but Rika did know that not that many Demons had the ability to teleport from one place to another in a instant.
It had limitations, however. And Rika spent most of her focus trying to make sure the package went with her. "Jeez, if this works, I'm going to pop somewhere naked, wet and one arm shorter... great..."
Rika decided to instead ignore her reservations. Even though tears blinded her eyes, she still managed to mouth a single phrase to Blake. The lead angel frowned when he read the words she mouthed: "Watch this dumbass."
Bam-hessssss!
Rika floated. She couldn't breath. She clung to the package, unable to see. Everything was dark. She felt like she was falling and...
Rika's stomach lurched in this space. She hated this part of teleporting. It took a instant to others, but from her perspective it took forever for her to get to the other side.
The sickening nightmare then stopped.
Plop!
Rika fell onto cold concrete, soaking wet. Her tail felt like it was broken. Her remaining arm stung, while the stump where her other arm had been itched so much. Rika couldn't get up. Her legs hurt. She looked down, her right was soaking wet, a puddle of red coming from it.
She looked down at horror, looking at a long piece of steel that pierced her right leg. Ornamental, the rat-tailed demon realized that she'd fallen down on a some sort of piece of... "Really? Of course. Why not?"
Rika cursed, as she looked around. She'd been pinned onto the long piece steel poking from a storm of iron and steel spikes. Concrete shapes surrounded her, colored glass hanging above her head. It wasn't raining, so she didn't have to worry about that.
A crowd of onlookers stared at the naked demon girl clutching to a package, pinned down by the enormous metal sculpture that served as the main exhibit in the Museum of Art. The same Museum of Art that was housed in the University of Noah campus. Rika had hit the right target, albeit stuck to a large metal deathtrap in public view.
"OK, this is a delivery. Anybody, anybody at all here good to sign for it? What? You never see a delivery demon before, eh?"
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