Chapter Text
Agnes hadn’t expected this.
She had known to stay alert in case some regulars stumbled upon her, or if the rulers noticed that she herself wasn’t a regular. She had even been paying attention to any traps hidden in the muddy terrain.
She hadn’t expected to have to look out for bears!
“Unlike humans, beasts are never needlessly violent. They always have a reason. Whether it be hunger, fear, provocation or breach of territory. As long as you follow the rules, Agnes, you will rarely have to fight any.”
She wondered distractedly what had triggered this beast as she slipped between the bear’s claws before he struck, swallowing when the bear turned to glare at her with a hunger turned craze.
“If I can help it, you will never have to fight any,” she remembered her father repeating with something heavy in his voice. “But life has ways that are unpredictable, and who knows when you would meet a hostile animal without me by your side.”
Thankfully, her father had taught her how to defend herself even against creatures far more powerful than her, even if her technique wasn’t so good as to hold up against regulars or adult shinsu users.
Still, the question was pressing her now. Could she handle it?
She clicked her tongue. Even if she could, she couldn’t afford to lose the sense of her surroundings or to be seen by anyone while in here.
She gave the forest a quick lookover, searching for the passage she needed to reach, and only narrowly escaped the waiting jaw of the immense creature in front of her.
“Whoa!” she yelped again, the bear’s claws lashing too close to her clothes.
She had to remember Mister Urek’s teachings, and remain focused.
But furious, hungry beasts were unpredictable, not the way Urek was.
Hold our knife steady, she remembered her father’s voice. Do not fear, it will only agitate them more.
“I know,” she gritted aloud. “I know, but I don’t think I can beat it.”
She knew to admit it now, the way she couldn’t have three years ago.
She didn’t want to renounce now, but she knew that she had to run.
But she could see it! She was so close, she found it, she just needed to…
Her back hit a trunk. She jolted, realizing she had cornered herself. The bear rose on its hind legs, too fast for her to regain her wits, and it growled terribly loudly.
Back then, she’d closed her eyes as the claws came slashing towards her frail figure. Today, she swore, and she almost did it again.
Never close your eyes in the face of danger, Hachuling had told her gravely.
It was like the wolves all over again.
Run, you imbecile!
But this time Father wasn’t there to save her.
She watched as the beast flashed forwards, fast and powerful and she didn’t close her eyes.
Then, she saw the light, and a loud explosion sounded in the forest, originating from right in front of her.
Her eyes widened, and she couldn’t hear anything. She stared at the bear, no, not the bear, as the light receded, had it been shinsu?
Yes, it was shinsu, it was…
She opened her eyes to see the familiar figure standing with her back to her, icy light reverberating like an explosion, the shrieks of pain from the canine creatures in front. Wolf blood stained the man’s clothes and his face as he turned, slowly, with a glare she had never seen on him before, as he looked down to her, crumpled on the floor.
“What did you think you were doing, you idiot?” he hissed, his saturated blue eyes boring into her, and she’d been so scared, so mad, so weak and so, so relieved to see him, even after what she’d said to him-
But it wasn’t him.
It was a man with long brown hair, broader, and with a horrible dressing style, and when he turned to look at her in concern, his golden eyes were soft and calm.
It wasn’t her father, Agnes realized, shaking herself out of her memories, trying to discard the emptiness in her chest, it was a regular.
She was found out.
“Are you alright, little one?” the man asked her.
He had blown the gigantic bear to smithereens. Like it was nothing.
That was the power of those who climbed the Tower.
*
“Are you alright, little one?” Bam inquired, worried.
The girl was unmoving still, now holding her knife with both hands, her back against a tree and her hood obscuring her features. From the hair he could glimpse under it, she seemed to be a Khun. He’d recognize that hair color amidst a thousand others.
She didn’t answer. She seemed frozen in place. He made a step towards her, intending to check in on her. Only then did she jolt into action. Her gaze shifted to somewhere behind Bam, but he couldn’t afford to look back to check, only extending his shinsu detection to be certain he wouldn’t be gutted in the back. No one. Good.
“Don’t come closer!”
He ceased his steps. Now, the girl’s grasp on her weapon was more assured, more skilled and more confident. She was gritting his teeth. The knife was an obvious threat. Bam could easily disarm her, or even kill her, but instead he respected her need for distance. He wasn’t in the habit of killing children.
He raised his hand slightly, scanning her all the while.
“Alright,” he attempted to appease her, smoothening his aura adequately.
She didn’t have the shinsu reinforcement of a regular. Not at this Floor of the Tower, far from it. Strange. What was she doing there then? Was it the intruder Shibisu had warned him of?
“I don’t know who you are,” he spoke slowly, even as the child stiffened, “I won’t say anything or ask any question for now,” he smiled at her reassuringly. “But it’s dangerous right now. You might get mauled by another beast if you stay here alone. Come with me, please?”
She shook her head.
“No way. I don’t follow strangers in gloomy forests.”
Ouch. Did she just compare him to a kidnapper? That hurt.
“I promise I’m a nice guy? But most importantly, the forest is infested by beasts just as dangerous as this one because of an anima, it’s really not a good idea for me to leave you here alone, I’ll have your death on my consciousness.”
“Good thing I don’t plan on staying here then,” she snarled, and it was very, very strange because there was something in her voice that reminded him of some-
She froze, and Bam turned around, brushing the new group of creatures, coyotes, lunging towards the both of them, with a powerful gesture of the arm. The wave of shinsu repelled them, but he found himself with a thin but long cut running the length of his forearm. He grimaced a bit, preparing to take care of the beasts, which were larger than they should be.
“Stay here!” He instructed the child.
But Khun children were always too stubborn for their own good, he should have known.
“Dream on it!” she screamed at it, bypassing him with a speed only a trained child could possess. “Take care of your own stupid test and leave me alone!”
“Ah, wait!” He shot a baang at the first coyote attempting to jump to her throat, although she had hunched just right in case he hadn’t, to avoid the blow.
He ran after her, making sure to manage the coyotes at the same time, when his pocket started ringing. He declined the call, instead messaged Shibisu with a vocal note.
“I found the intruder you were talking about, it’s not a regular. I’ll try to get her out of here, be careful with the beasts.”
In the corner of his eyes, he saw the little one disappear in a hole in the ground. He cursed mildly, sending the note with an ‘I’ll call you later’ and blasting away three of the pack creatures at once, jumping right behind her.
“That’s a den, little one! Come back!”
There might still be beasts hiding in their home. He couldn’t afford for her to get hurt, not when he’d already extended so much effort to protect her.
And, admittedly, he was a bit curious. But that would come later. He didn’t feel like watching a kid die today.
As it happened, the hole led to an underground passage. Bam quickly caught up with the Khun girl, having to curb his own body somewhat for the passage was narrow in height. He was much more careful in using his shinsu in there. But thankfully, he didn’t need to.
His guess was right that the passage had been opened by the animals leaving their den, but the girl wasn’t completely untrained. She knew how to use her knife, and on his way, Bam found a few corpses of young wolves, foxes, and an unnaturally large badger. The rabbits, however mutants, were sleeping and had been spared in her wake.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he caught her wrist firmly but careful not to bruise her, even as she lashed out.
He caught her knife easily by the flat of the blade when she swung it towards him, and only then looked around them. The passage had widened, and it was more stony than earthy now, they’d run for a short while. He assessed the Khun child in front of him.
She couldn’t be more than thirteen, at most. There was no way a child like her had become regular and ascended so high without being at least fifty years older. Unless she was an Irregular, which he could feel she wasn’t.
He burned to ask her what she was doing here. With the way she had lunged for the den hole and had continued running in one precise direction despite at least two forking paths on the way meant that she had a clear objective in mind. She had known about the passage. She was looking for something.
And she was not supposed to be here.
“Alright,” he appeased her, still restraining her so that she wouldn’t hurt herself trying to attack him. “Look, I won’t report you. I also won’t force you to come back with me to the surface. If anything, you might be safer here,” especially now that all the beasts were out and the dens were far behind them. “But I can’t leave you all alone without supervision. No child should be there.”
She was obviously not a native either, not with her colorings. But most importantly, native or not, she’d be captured or killed by the administrators if she was found on the regulars’ test grounds illegally.
And above all, as Bam was starting to consciously realize, Bam thought he could recognize her shinsu.
It felt familiar.
“See it this way,” Bam smiled at her, as non-threateningly as possible. “I’ll be your personal bodyguard for a few hours, and it’ll help you accomplish your goal faster.”
His team was very strong, they could manage without him, he knew that. But this little chunk of a girl over there? He doubted it.
Technically, it wasn’t his responsibility to take care of any child he crossed paths with, but he had always had a soft spot for children. He remembered fondly, although with a hint of grief, the days when he would sneak candies to Prince and Miseng, during his early years in the Tower, and then his interactions with Louie and Deng Deng.
Ran had never liked him, though.
He guessed he must have picked the habit up from his old friend. Caring for the weak and the children.
“So? What do you say?”
The child looked at him from under her hood, he couldn’t quite discern the color of her eyes as she thought about it. She went lax in his grasp then. Bam knew enough not to lower his guard, his friend often had him with that trick a few times in the past, but she didn’t attempt anything. Only tugged at his sleeve, one she was free.
“Alright,” she said, sounding reluctant. “You did save me a lot of time.”
Her life, more like. But Bam was polite enough not to correct her.
“But let me take a look at this.”
He blinked, and she tugged at his sleeve again. Only then did he remember the cut he got from the coyotes, and he winced.
“It doesn’t hurt,” he reassured her, but she looked at him with something of a deadpan expression.
“I’m sure it doesn’t,” she drawled. “But you’ll draw in other beasts with the scent of blood if you don’t take care of it. Moreover, maybe those coyotes were rabid.”
Yeah, Bam had been thinking about that.
“Alright,” he sighed. “But don’t waste all your supplies on me. I heal very fast.”
“Right. Come sit over there.”
That was how Bam found himself sitting in a stony corridor underground the test he was supposed to be taking, his arm extended to his young companion who applied salve and bandages to the minor wound with a rather cute amount of focus.
“There!” She said, looking proud of herself under the attempted neutral expression. “I’ve repaid my debt now,” she declared.
Bam resisted the urge to raise a playful eyebrow at her.
“Absolutely. Now, where to?”