Olivia's Strange Week

Emily

Emily runs parallel to the highway, along the expanse of forest that surrounds Forhill. Her legs are stiff like a statue's, her lungs burn, and she feels her heart about to explode. The gloom of night is emboldened by the trees around her. To any possible onlooker, she'd be a blur in the darkness, a burst of wind rattling the branches of the tress. She moves faster than the slowest-moving vehicles, though most cars and motorcycles easily speed past her. What she wouldn't give to be driving one of those vehicles. That thought distracts her long enough to hit a branch with her foot.

"Fuck!"

She stumbles forward, hitting the ground face-first at a speed that would kill any normal person. For her, though, it's little more than a scratch on the forehead. A scratch that is already starting to heal.

But it feels more than that. It feels like she's been tied to a pillar and thrown rocks at for days. Everything feels like that, everything since she returned to Olivia's apartment a few hours ago and found her missing. She'd called and called, but her calls went unanswered, deepening her worry tenfold. And then Olivia had called back, not only to confirm her deepest concerns, but also to tell her that bitch Adelle was taking her off the city.

Not knowing for how much she'd need to run, not knowing if it was even worth to start pursuing, Emily grabbed all her spare bottles of mana and set out to chase them. She cursed herself for the first hour of the trip. Why did she leave Olivia alone? When she knew about the possibility of Adelle retaliating? Stupid, she had been so stupid.

In her desperation, she even called HQ, begging for the White Maidens to send reinforcements, help, anything, to intercept the van and save Olivia. But she knew the answer she would receive even before typing the number.

"No."

Of course. Emily paid no attention to the excuses the voice on the other end gave her. They are too thinly spread, take one maiden away from her post and whatever threat she is fighting would be free to do as it wants. Emily understands it, she knows that everyone has her duties, she wouldn't leave Forhill to help in another mission while Adelle still roamed free, after all. Still, she hates it, she hates that she has to do this alone, she hates that she failed, she hates the fact that she let a girl like Olivia fall into the hands of a monster like Adelle.

Five hours have passed. Emily received the call during the afternoon, and now it is night. What hope is there that she will reach them? What hope is there that Olivia will be safe?

None, she realizes. It is done. Emily had accepted this mission last year, reading about the repeated failures of her sisters, she'd thought she would be the exception, the one to finally capture this monster that none had before. But now she will be another name on the list of flops, read by the next maiden to be assigned this task, who will dismiss all of them as incompetent idiots, same as Emily had done.

Defeated, she doesn't even bother to push herself up. Her muscles start deflating, returning her body to that lanky, original self. Face still buried in the dirt, she screams. She slams her tiny fist on the grass-covered ground, doing no damage to the terrain.

She keeps slamming and slamming her fist, shouting curses to Adelle and herself. In her heart, there is no space for sadness, only anger. Without the privilege of her muscle form, however, exhaustion catches up with her, and the toll of running for five hours without a rest knocks her down.

"No..." she whimpers, as darkness swallows her whole.

Emily wakes up to the sun hitting her in the eye through the dense foliage. It takes her a second to realize where she is, to remember her situation.

"Oh no. No, no, no, no, no," she pushes herself up. How long has she been asleep? How many hours? She checks on her phone. It's a quarter past seven. Last time she checked, it wasn't even midnight. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

More than seven hours where she'd not been running, more than seven hours where Adelle got further away.

If there had been any hope of rescuing Olivia before, it is gone now.

Emily scrunches up her face, fighting back tears. "Shit!" she barks, as she feels the moisture falling down her cheeks. Strong chains bind her heart, squeezing it tightly and making it hurt like hell. She cannot breathe, she cannot swallow her own saliva. She is left reduced to a choking and coughing mess in the middle of the woods, the only consolation being that nobody can see her in this state.

It takes her a minute to recompose herself, and by then, her eyeballs sting, so does her throat and the inside of her chest. But the pain is the least of her concerns. Pain can be ignored, it's healed by mana, but the regret she feels for her mistake... that's harder to solve.

Her phone vibrates in her pocket. It is not a call, because it stops immediately. Emily picks it up.

A message. By an unknown number.

She bursts in laugher. Of all the times in the world to receive a spam call. She wipes new tears from her face, but they keep coming.

Her phone vibrates again. Emily turns it on. The same unknown number messaged her again.

It vibrates once more as she's holding it up. It is that what convinces Emily to check the messages.

Emily

Is Olivia

Were still

And then no more messages. Emily's legs push her up, her eyes go wide. Olivia obtained a phone? Under Belinda's watch? How?

She looks at the last message. 'Were still'. Did that mean still as in unmoving? In that case, had the van stopped?

No...

What if the last message is incomplete? What if what she actually wanted to write was 'we are still in Forhill' and for some reason, she couldn't complete it?

It's a possibility, a possibility that she can't ignore. A possibility that she prefers over the vagueness of the first option. What does it help her to know Adelle has stopped the van, after all? It could be for perfectly mundane reasons, like needing gas. And even if they have stopped moving for good, Emily has no idea where to find them. All that leaves her with only one viable option.

She reaches into her pocket, getting her canteen out. She downs all her mana in one go. Swallowing is easy, she's been trained for it, and when it hits her stomach, Emily feels it. Lightning running through her veins, making her body lighter. Every pain, every ache, they become distant recollections of the past. Her muscles grow back, making her already nimble body far more capable of running.

With the mana the White Maidens provided, she can only keep this form for twenty minutes, and less if she pushes for greater strengths. But with Olivia's she can keep running and running for hours on end, and that is only with what she keeps on the canteen.

If it is this effective for Emily's power, she fears what Adelle would be doing with it.

One thing is clear, though. Olivia is not under that monster's control. Because why would Adelle try to bait her when she already had Olivia? It doesn't make sense. The only logical explanation is that she messaged her out of her own free will.

Which means, there is still time. Time to save Olivia. Time to fix everything.

And Emily would not waste a second.