More Than Imagined

Chapter 21

For some odd reason, the Techromancers had called Jazara in to pick up another mission slip. Which was fine because she was always up to knock some Mare heads. What was not fine was that her loser teammate was here too.

Must be because her dad was a Tech, Jazara thought. Now that she's finally able to manifest, they think she's good enough to go out on a mission with me? Please.

Jazara tried to put her foot down. She tried to have Rhoawyn replaced with literally anyone else, but the Techs were convinced that their manifestations were best suited for the job. So Jazara accepted the assignment hatefully, so the Techs wouldn't have any reason to starve her out.

They handed Rhoawyn the mission card and the two of them were on their way.

Rhoawyn tried to start up a conversation on more than one occasion, but gods only listened to peasants when they begged. So Rhoawyn wouldn't be getting any chatter out of Jazara any time soon. She was glad Winfrey wasn't here, else he would force her to "get along."

When they got within walking distance of the place they had to scope out, Jazara turned down the irritation and turned up the stealth—just to make sure she focused on the task at hand. Near the western flank of the building, they found a door. Some nitwit left it open, but it wouldn't be a lie to say Jazara was glad they did. It was probably some worthless newbie that did it. But whoever it was would probably bond immediately with Rhoawyn over their gross incompetence.

Jazara shoved Rhoawyn aside and walked in first, not trusting her enough to check if the coast is clear. When she found no one guarding the area, she roughly signaled for Rhoawyn to come in behind her. She ignored Rhoawyn's stupid little huff of annoyance and crouched on duck legs behind a low-lying wall.

They waddled their way through two virtually empty rooms connected by a skinny corridor and wound up on the wrong side of an incredibly high wall. It topped their individual heights by at least two feet and seemed to stand between them and a perfect view of the base. As the shuffle of items being moved and muffled voices drifted through the thick concrete, Jazara got an idea that she hoped she didn't end up regretting.

"Stand on my shoulders so you can see what's going on," Jazara demanded.

Rhoawyn gave her a look that bordered on protest, but she quickly wiped it away when she saw Jazara's jaw clenching in irritation.

"Alright, but are you sure you can hold me up?" Rhoawyn asked.

"More sure than I am about you holding me up, which is why I volunteered you."

Rhoawyn rolled her eyes but positioned herself on Jazara's back. There still wasn't enough height to see over the wall, so Rhoawyn brought her knees to either side of Jazara's shoulders, the bone biting painfully into the meat of Jazara's shoulder blade, but she endured.

"What do you see?" Jazara asked impatiently.

"Nothing really, just a few Mares manning some door. Don't know if this is important, but I think I just saw one pick his nose."

Jazara pinched the meat of Rhoawyn's calf at that.

"Focus, idiot!"

"Ok. Ok. Wait," Rhoawyn said as she spotted a girl seemingly around her age appear from out of nowhere with a glass cube in her hand. Rhoawyn had to squint to make it out, but the object inside the box looked an awful lot like the dreamcatcher the Techromancers had shown them.

"I think that's it. They're taking it inside the facility," Rhoawyn said, words coming out in an exhilarated rush.

Bingo. "Alright now get off of me you're heavy."

Jazara wiggled her shoulders to help Rhoawyn down faster, but the motion made Rhoawyn's grip on the wall unsteady and her feet kicked against the metal as she tried to prevent herself from falling on instinct.

"Keep it down," Jazara hissed, pushing Rhoawyn into a squat behind a couple of barrels and out of the scouting Mare's line of sight. But the sound had already summoned some guarding Mares in search of the intruders.

Jazara always hated the clumsy, those who lacked stealth and refinement in their movements. To Jazara, these traits were all the marks of someone who shouldn't exist in the same space as her because she had only ever existed in a world that required secrecy and covertness. When she was born a Two in The Apex, it doomed her to a life of privately despising those she served and silently undermining them at any chance she got. It didn't always benefit her, but most of the time was better than none of the time.

It was why she couldn't stomach Rhoawyn's existence, she knew—on some intellectual level—that Rhoawyn hadn't lived in any real privilege either. But she couldn't shake the feeling of disgust when someone with more opportunity than her, with more potential, was useless when it mattered.

A group of Mares surrounded them, poised to kill. Jazara swung her bat from the meat of her leg in an instant, prepared to knock as many heads as she needed to in order to make it out of here unscathed. Rhoawyn, on the other hand, was struggling to pull out her good for nothing manifestation as always. The Mares did not hesitate for more than a second before they lunged at the girls.

Jazara ducked a steel claw that was aimed right at her face and swung her bat up into it, causing it to shatter on impact. The Mare clutched his hand and fell to his knees as another Mare took this chance to hack her down with an axe. The blade nicked the skin of her cheek, but the damage was minimal. Jazara whirled back around, preparing to land the blunt edge of her bat right into the Mare's gut when she noticed Rhoawyn jumping on his back, the puny version of her manifestation in hand. She jabbed in tiny strokes at the muscles of the Mare's neck long enough for Jazara to land a clean blow to his gut, but he only faltered slightly—throwing Rhoawyn off of him.

She rolled into an enclosed corner to dodge the sharp edge of the Mare's axe. With a heaving chest and skin buzzing with adrenaline, her eyes darted to every inch of her surrounding in search of a way out. Rhoawyn placed the fragment of her zipper back to the base of her gravemark in an attempt to manifest the full thing, but its glow only extended a quarter of the way down her spine. She ended up with another tiny fragment of her zipper in hand, as the behemoth of a Mare barreled toward her. As the Mare stomped in closer to her, raising his axe high in the air to ensure a clean cut, Rhoawyn squeezed her eyes shut. The skin-lancing slice didn't come.

Rhoawyn forced her eyes open to the sight of the sharp spikes of Jazara's bat impaled through various points of the Mare's face. Blood and dislodged innards oozed from the wounds, and the Mare plummeted into a lifeless heap in front of Rhoawyn.

Rhoawyn scrambled to her feet, body still on high alert.

"Thanks, I was almost a goner."

"I know. It's too bad I need you alive," Jazara sighs.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means now that we know where the real dreamcatcher is, we can report back to the IOB and finally get rid of these Mares once and for all."