Normal

"Here is your residence. Welcome to the land of the unwanted!" Natasha, the goverment worker said.

"Um... I think there is a mistake here, I just came here for treatment and not for living." Karaza clarified, almost stumbling on her words.

"I see, however you're eligible to live here if you prefer, take your time to think." Natasha said with a comforting, non pressuring smile.

She went outside of the government office, walking in the strong sun and the breezy air. She looks at the coast, blue purplish sparkly water shines from a distance.

Sitting in a café, looking at the families and friends passing by. She wondered why government offices are open on a weekend.

Between the happy crowds she saw a black haired young man, standing as if he's waiting for someone, looking at strangers' faces, more precisely the point bar above each head. He notices the brunette woman sitting in the café, face behind the menu. He walked towards her anyway.

"Looking for your arch nemesis huh?" She said nonchalantly gaslight herself into believing she didn't attack the apex predator couple days prior.

They stared at each other awkwardly til he decided to speak. 

"How do you know if someone made a wish lately?" He deadpanned like any normal non human.

'Lowering my guard? Clever.' 

"Ask your friend." She told flatly.

"Five sculptures and paintings disappeared from two museums." He laid his head on the table.

"Someone surly used up all their points." She faintly laughed, sarcasm not landing looking by his discomfited expression.

"Seriously let your shady friend help you."

"She's too busy murmuring something about world domination to the ducks in the park."

An hours ago, In an office movement for agriculture affaires Roxy was talking to an officer.

"I recently graduated, only in two years, with honor! Here is a report of my project, where I managed to make an endangered herb reproduce. I would like a job please! Forgot to mention I'm very cute too!" The excited youth in the brown suit said.

"Sorry kid, no jobs available now, here is your letter, go fetch your unemployment salary." The adult told her.

Back in the café Karaza was looking at the pack of matches in her hand "I am surprised y'all didn't take this."

She puts the chroma blue pack of matches on the table. He looks at the weapon.

"I have no use for it anyway."

"You sure about that?" He shifts his look at her, he was in his human pupils, but he looked with sure eye that can not be deceived.

"Trust me on that one." She looked at the sky, not at the specific spot where demise is located, but at the free fluffy cloud in the good old sky.

'Whether everything end or not, now or later, I think I am good. That is what's normal for me.'

Downtown in the shopping streets, were all kind of makeup and clothing stores stood one next to another, the two of them stood on the side walk looking at strangers heads and their points bars.

"How could you force injured, old woman to do such physical labor?" She said, deadpan and eyes on the crowd.

"At least use a dramatic tone when saying that."

"The culprit could be anywhere in the human territory." She brushed off her failed funny joke.

"They're close, I can feel it." He pierces everyone and no one with his scanning gaze.

'A hunter's hunch is sure scary'

"You just gotta look who have---"

A hand over her mouth stopped her, filled with terror she stops breathing, even when the hand goes away.

"Let him figure it out on his own." Roxy explained, moving near them so she is not behind karaza anymore.

"Don't scare people like that." Ryu told her.

"Sorry, but you're hunting instincts finally kicked in! Can't ruin the opportunity." She said with fire in her eyes.

"You need this one to train your hunting instincts?" Karaza pointed at Roxy with a mocking tone. Pushing the terror of the previous prank with smugness.

'Never interacted with non humans inside human territory before. Technically they can't kill me inside the barrier, let's push it. It's all gonna end soon anyway.' 

He gives her a side eye, lightly smacking the empty cookie bag to her shin.

"..That was my healthy leg." 

"I know, I am not a jerk."

"And that is the problem." Roxy let a sad sigh.

He parted from the girls. Watching people on a rooftop in his blob form, thinking.

Meanwhile the girls were chatting at the empty hair dyes section of a beauty store.

"He doesn't have any bloodlust, Before this nothing really angered him, is that what happen when a bunch of grandmas raise somebody." Roxy murmured her thoughts.

'The selection here is terrific.' Karaza thought reading instructions of the dye box. She sweating, trying to distract herself, air heavy, not pleased to have her companion as company. Not only her danger, but even the lack of any warning signs near her was a problem of it's own considering she can knock her out in one swift motion.

'Maybe I don't want to push it after all. Not with this one, she scares me more than the apex predator somehow.'

"Well, the monsters that almost got me were the calm ones, you should know." She said, eyes on the product in her hand, not sure why she chose such words to reply with.

"I am sorryy!"

Outside on a bench Roxy give her a shawarma sandwich and sat next to her with Karaza's shopping bags between them. She dug into the sandwich.

'When I am in the wild I can forget this feeling, but here there is no denying it either of them could kill me dead and no one would notice it.'

"Me! troubled about death, that's funny. " She talked to herself out loud.

"That's normal. Roxy said, with a tone stripped of the usual cheerfulness.

'So that's how you sound like.'

Karaza looked at her, then continued her eating, letting the moment pass.

"You can get a normal job here, or go to school if you want to." Roxy brought up. The mentions of death dragged the mentions of life, naturally. 

"Why a creature like you care about such things?"

"I find human's systems lovely."

"Didn't imagine to hear this from an unemployed person."

"A temporary setback is a temporary setback as long as you view it as a temporary setback."

Karaza froze for seconds, thinking about the sentence.

"Repeat that five times."

In an ally way, the blob turned into a person, one prosthetic leg slightly wonky, he moves it until it's in place. Karaza comes to him and hands out the pack of matches. Roxy looks at the interaction.

"I will not offer again."

He looks at the pack hand reaching to it.

"I will give you the other one back-"

As soon as his finger touched it. The dark ally turned into a blue void. What looked like two old men in a big cloaks was observing them.

"You confirm giving it?" One man asked, the voice echoed into the void.

"Yes." 

"You confirm receiving it?" The other said.

"Yes."

"Bring the witness."

Roxanne appeared into the void.

"Oh man." The once mystical men whispered in distress. 

"Yello!" Roxy waved.

"Walking plant, do you witness this transaction?"

"I witness."

"Great, now get out."

The men faintly disappeared, and five doors appeared.

"What was that?" Ryu asked.

"Exchange ceremony, since this is a valuable weapon, you got sucked to this realm for the ceremony."

"It didn't feel like a ceremony." Ryu commented.

"They used to put more effort in the past." Karaza commented.

"I know right?" Roxy agreed.

"So how do we get out?" He asked.

"Well, each door corresponds to a zone." Karaza said.

"So we might end up in the red zone." He concluded.

"Yup." The girls said in union.

"Please, I have an anti-art bastard to look for, not the time to get fried by radioactivity."

"Actually radioactivity cause bodies to kinda melt not fried." Roxy corrected like a nerd.

"Don't have time for that either."

The door in the middle is the one. She says.

Ryu and Karaza looked at her, doubting.

"Does it take us home?" Ryu asked.

"It doesn't lead to the red zone." She smiles.

"Close enough." He opens the door.

"You're too comfortable with her bullshit." Karaza laughed in a strange rush of lightheartedness.

"If it's the orange zone so I can get you the another pack." He rationalizes.

"Don't worry about it, really I don't care." Karaza shrugged with her head.

They walk through the door, on the land of the yellow zone they landed. Roxy and Ryu stayed near each other, looking at Karaza cautiously.

"Sorry in advance if I go crazy again."

"At least try to deny it." They say.

They get startled when a sudden engine noises fill the sky, looking up they see couple aerostats there.

Roxy summoned her broom instantly.

"Key kids! I will run a quick errand, those aerostats are radioactive, don't touch them."

"You have way too much energy." Karaza sighed.

As Roxy flied away while Karaza looked at the other boy, eyeing the aerostats, head tilted.

"Don't do anything stupid."

"I can regenerate though." He reasoned.

"You might hit your friend."

"She regenerate better than me." He looked at her, round human eyes trying to read her.

"I can be a hypocrite sometimes." She felt a need for a defense, any defense.

She felt comfort when those eyes moved away from her, turned into vertical narrow pupils, looking at the aerostats in the sky.

' It's not like I can expand to there. I could wait until it's directly above me then I morph and impale it... then I will be a Dracula minion forever. '

He looked at the debris flying in the air.

'If I only can fly...'

He turned into a blob, smaller than usual. Jumped in the air, two small balls grew into what could be best described as deformed wings, wiggling in the air, directionless.

Karaza looked at the flying aerostats, nostalgic smile on her face.

'I used to take these down whenever I had a bad mood. Aimless weapons of decayed civilization, nothing left for them but to roam around.'

She takes her axe out, swinging it lazily. Looking at all the cracks and scratches in it.

Jumping from the broom into the roof of one aerostat, Roxy stabs a hole into the metal with a dagger, jumping inside she looks around. A room covered in smooth metal walls, air almost to heavy to breath with a smell of iron in it. A steering wheel in one corner and a lime green stone embedded in one of the walls. She stabs around it until it is in her hands. She puts the stone that is a side of a pot on the ground, heading toward the steering wheel. Nose starts bleeding, she puts her hand in the back of the wheel, pulling some wires off and cutting them, uprooting the wheel from its place. A small blue gem up there.

She puts the gem in her pocket, blood runs out from her ear and nailbeds. Lifting the big stone again looking up the hole, the broom was flying in circles near the entrance.

"Guess the radiation is too much for broomy." she contemplated looking at the big stone.

She threw the stone through the hole, it land on the roof, then jumped and got out as well.

Still looking at her axe Karaza snaps out of her inattentiveness as the lime green stone falls next to her.

"Keep an eye on that for me please!" Roxy says, on her broom.

She soon fly away toward the flying weapons again.

'A squadron of seven, one of them must be a central control unit.'  She flew between them looking around, still bleeding.

"Eeny, meeny, miny. Just kidding, It's the one at the far left corner."

The control aerostat had a different layout, has an open area, almost like a deck of smooth metal, the whole thing didn't have anything resembling a crease or a line of any kind, it was one big slap of metal. Roxy walked in the deck, jumped to the smooth roof to find nothing.

'I didn't encounter this module before. I could make a hole, but I might break the control panel with it. Maybe the entrance isn't here.' She jumps in the air for her broom to catch her. She flew beneath the aerostat, investigating the bottom of it. Her bleeding decrease. The disjointed pupils switch colors rapidly, signifying the healing.

'The radiation is way less here.' She thought suspiciously.

Stabbing a hole with a soft swing of the dagger, she entered.

'Quite unusual, aerostats are made to have strong radiation all over them, since they're controlled remotely. So some of them made to be driven from inside.'

She coughs some blood. Looking around she tilted her head in confusion, pillows on the floor, Two toothbrushes on a shelf, near a dusty vase. She had to tiptoe over a slimy spot to get to book over the steering wheel. She takes the pen attached to the book and write. 'head over to the red zone.'

She stumbled as the air wagon stops for a moment, then moved again, clearly in the opposite direction. She uproot and search behind the panel again, finding an eraser. Staring at the slimy spot, she puts the prize in her blazer pocket. The usual smile missing from her face. She took the pillow covers out, got on her knees next to the spot and start wiping it.

Far from the sky, she was digging the rocky soil with her dagger. Putting the soil and burying it, focusing on the task while six aerostats faded into the horizon. The last one however, was a lost cause. Chose the ground as its final destination.

The view wasn't different from where Karaza stood.

"This will collide into the ground in couple hours, if I ran now I should be fine"

She looked behind her, the direction of the blue zone, nothing in sight but dark half rocky ground. Wind blew her hair and slammed dust into her eyes.

'Will I be fine?'

"Even though I can hear now it is weirdly quite now." She said to the axe.

Shifting the gaze to the big stone, then to the future disaster above.

"Those two were a delightful distraction, I must admit."

Her hand fumbled in her pocket. Took out what looks like earplugs and placed them in her ears.

True silence swallowed the muffled sounds. Axe started shaking in her grip, and she faced the aerostat.

"This is a delightful distraction too..."

'Or perhaps all I had so I distracted myself with it.'

'I chose it myself either way.'

A blast of vehement sound waves teared the air, aftershock pushing the aerostat away, metal crushing. Explosion colors the sky like a lilac fireworks.

Sound came back to her ears, taking the earplugs while a shield of soundwaves is around her. Sitting down in exhaustion. The broom and its owner landed next to her, brown suit covered in mud and blood, Roxy looked at what's left of purple smoke in the sky. Oddly silent.

"Your friend flew to god knows where."

"Really?" She was genuinely surprised.

"You good?" Karaza asked, looking directly at her.

"How can I be good? Look at my suit?! The uncle at the dry cleaning will kill me! " She said dramatically.

"And I crave a shower two, come hop on! I need you holding this rock while I fly. Oh and this is for you." Roxy added in a semi serious tone before giving her the blue gem.

Karaza tried to look stoic to mask the confusing feelings.

"You will not cash out your good deeds with me."

"That's fine too."

At night, in the boarders of the blue zone, near an enormous mansion the gray blob was flying with a more defined wings, they still look funky for wings nonetheless.

'This is the first time I have been to another human country, this must be the dukedom.'

Like a chameleon he went invisible, flying past some Knights camping.

'I must be careful, they chase any creature trying to get inside the human territory.' He thought, eyes careful. He spots an empty route full of bushes, closer to the mansion.

'That route seems empty!'

He changed direction with pitiful skill, passing them. Flying peacefully, enjoying the night sky until he heard clashing of swords. Alert but not really bothered he gets closer to the sound. One knight training with his mentor.

"You're progressing quickly. Let's end the training for today." The older man said.

"O.. one more time please." He said panting, voice raspy and almost gone.

"No we are done for today." He stated. Voice patient but firm.

"I must get stronger, please master one more time." He retied his messy blond hair in a ponytail, holding the sword again, ready.

"You are plenty strong... To be honest I don't think anyone can get any stronger."

"Then I shall wish to get stronger."

"Don't say such dangerous words young man!" His patience running out.

"Many people have done it, nothing happened to them! They only got what they wished for! Remember that servant woman? She used to blow swarms alone."

The old man took a deep breath.

"You are a knight, the future duke's knight to be precise. You don't follow the steps of a mercenary, a mercenary who refused a title!"

"I am not following anyone's steps!"

"Enough! Do not make any foolish attempts. If you make a wish and I see dark circles around your eyes consider your knighthood ended."

'So that's how to tell if someone made a wish...' Ryu flew home, knowing his next step.