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dove away as static burst over her flesh, another burst of electricity pulsing past her only breaths away.
    Julieth let her body free-fall, hoping the man would mistake her for dead and she could land in a portion of the city blocked from his vision. Blood rushed to her head and her mind pulsed. As soon as she was beyond his sight, she braced her wings in the wind and glided to a street below.
    I am only blocks from him, she thought, knowing he would come check where she fell. Julieth cocked another fire-powdered arrow in her bowstring and ducked in an ash-covered building close by. The air was dense as she stood in the darkness of the doorway, her arrow ready to fire. Will a fire-powdered arrow kill you? she wondered, knowing that it probably wouldn’t and shivering while anticipating her death.
    An instant later a beam of electricity struck across her vision, exploding the home across from her and sending fragments of its walls through the air.
    “You cannot hide from me,” a metallic voice spoke out, through the cloud of smoke rising from the toppled, scorched structure. Soon she could see him walking through the street. He stood taller than any man she’d seen before. Gears moved and adjusted in his cybernetic arm and leg.
    I have no chance, she thought, watching in awe as the cyborg turned toward her, a metallic eye shifting from orange to red while examining her structure.
    Her fingers loosed the bowstring as her arrow punched his chest and exploded, knocking him backwards and causing him to stumble before leveling his weapon at her building.
    Julieth ran full force, pulling an arrow from her quiver and loading it, ready to let it fly as she pumped her wings and took to the air. She took a breath, bracing for the death that would come when his weapon fired, but as she looked down she saw Ivanus charging across a rooftop close by and leaping through the air, crashing down on the cyborg with his shield on his back and sword held high.
    Clash! Ivanus’s blade beat the cyborg’s metallic arm, glancing off but taking one of the man’s metal fingers with the blow. Ivanus stammered. She saw a smirk on his face as the cyborg leveled his weapon at him.
    Julieth’s second arrow found the cyborg’s torso, exploding and sending him to the ground. As she loaded another arrow, the borg fired its electricity on her, punching through one of her wings and sending her toppling to a rooftop not far below.
    Her back and wings burned, but she could not stop. She cocked another arrow and ran across the rooftop, aiming at the borg while leaping from the rooftop to the street. Ivanus dealt blow after blow to the man’s metallic exterior, at the same time avoiding blasts from the man’s weapon. He has amazing reflexes, she thought. She would not be able to fire on the cyborg without injuring Ivanus.
    “Ivanus!” she called. “Escape so that I can fire!”
    The cyborg kicked Ivanus with his massive foot, sending him stumbling back, and then leveled his weapon on her.
    As the electric blast came, Julieth fired, her arrow exploding as it made contact with the electricity beam and sending a shockwave through the street before knocking them both back.
    The cyborg leveled his weapon again, luminescent blue radiating in the weapon’s barrel, and Julieth felt a sudden wave of darkness consume her.
    She fell limp to the cobble street below.
     

Chapter 2
Moments Before
     
    Darkness.
    Bayne could not see, could not think. Hollow nothing surrounded him. It rose and bloomed from the depths of his soul, its tendrils wrapping his limbs and pulling down his mind.
    Then, with a burst of light, the darkness was gone. Bayne awoke, his hands touching cloth he did not recognize. Dark surrounded him as beams of light shone down from above; illuminating the floor of the room where he lay.
    “Bayne, are you awake?” a familiar voice came from nearby. “Please, wait for me, I am coming.”
    The last he remembered, he held Julieth’s hand as the two