Shadow silently slipped by the advancing line of her attempted captors. She… would try not to kill them. If she could help it. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure how exactly to prevent a lethal wound. Her options were pretty limited if she wanted to hurt them badly enough to stop them. She could avoid bites to the neck, but… she’d still be taking chunks out of them.

That had the potential to end badly, regardless of how she went about it.

“Come on, kid. I’m not sure how long you can keep this up, but you’re starting to piss me off. Give up now, or you may find yourself going back to your uncle down a few toes.” The beastkin threatened again.

She suppressed another hiss. Perhaps these men deserved what they got. Still, she would make the attempt.

They had almost reached the other wall.

It was time to start.

“Kid. We’re not jo—” the liar’s sentence cut off as he went down, screaming, clutching at his leg. He recoiled a moment later, screaming even louder as his hand started smoking too.

Shadow backed off, letting the sizzling mouthful of his calf fall to the ground. She could have swallowed it, but her family had made their position on eating people pretty clear. She had to admit he tasted pretty good.

There were shouts and cursing all around. All the kidnappers faced the sound, looking significantly more tense than they had a moment before.

“Jace? Jace! Stop screaming!

What the hells happened!?” The beastkin roared.

“M... My—”

Shadow finished maneuvering herself behind the rope-man. He was next. She snapped forward, coring out everything behind his right knee, spitting the mess on the ground as she darted back again. He went down in a screaming heap as well.

The badger-kind swung at her, but was a good foot off of her location. He must have keyed in on the sizzling. Good ears.

“What’s happening? Shit! Shit!” said the man by the door, seeming half-panicked as he jerked his knife back and forth, desperately searching for something to aim at.

The badger-kind, for his part, slammed himself up against a wall as soon as he realized he had missed with his swing. He looked scared.

“I... It burns! Hells! She's go—” the liar (well, she knew his name was Jace now, but liar seemed more... descriptive) broke off into more screaming as Shadow took another chunk out of his shoulder.

He’d been starting to recover, crawling his way toward a wall with his knife still in hand. This was a bit of a dilemma. How was she supposed to keep them down without killing them? She needed… she needed them to surrender, but how to demand it if she couldn’t talk? It was impossible to write for them if she had to keep them blind. It was too dangerous to drop the darkness, even for a moment, now that they knew what she was capable of.

Well… maybe words weren’t necessary.

It was a bit of a risk, but she thought it’d get the point across. Taking note of the positions of the two standing people, she figured she’d have plenty of time to dodge if they tried anything.

She planted a paw on the liar’s throat. It was in easy reach since he'd fallen to the ground again. She extended her claws just enough to prick the skin. The man froze.

She leaned down and released her most quiet hiss directly in his ear, long enough to make the threat clear, and then slowly removed her claws and paw. He didn’t start moving again. She realized her hiss was a little louder than she’d intended, because both the standing kidnappers started staring blindly in her direction, although neither of them seemed willing to approach.

A quick check on rope-man saw him doing little more than breathing in shallow gasps. He wasn't trying to move at all, and... he was bleeding quite a lot. That looked pretty bad, but she had other things to worry about.

Door-man broke the relative silence, flipping around and desperately fumbling at the door, attempting to undo the bindings and get it open.

Shadow stared at him for a second. He was… trying to run?

She considered it for a second. She’d be one step closer to rescuing everyone if she let him go.

Shadow narrowed her eyes. He’d also get away, free to kidnap more kids the next time he felt like it.

She would rather he didn’t.

As he struggled with the door, Shadow moved forward and tore into his thigh. He dropped immediately, joining his floor-bound companions with more screaming. His thigh sizzled, and her ear sight caught the beastkin moving as he leaped forward and cleaved down with his sword.

He moved fast, clearly having been prepared for the action. Not fast enough though. Shadow was surprised he'd try anything with her right on top of his companion, but still had plenty of time to dodge. She jumped back, letting the sword swing by her, and watched in muted horror as his sword caught his companion full on in the stomach. He gurgled a few times and lay still.

She looked at the dead man with wide eyes. She… she really hadn’t thought his companion would try something like that.

“Shit.” He growled, seeming plenty nervous at this point, quickly backing up to a wall again.

Shadow narrowed her eyes at the man. Maybe that had been an accident, but he must have known hitting his friend was a possibility there.

“Alright kid, let's just calm down,” he said, his voice quavering a bit. “Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot?” he bargained, as he slowly slid himself along the wall.

Shadow started stalking after him. There was no wrong foot. Shadow was quite sure she’d be plenty mad at the man regardless of the foot involved.

“Just, how about you drop this darkness, and I’ll throw down my sword and surrender? That’s what you want right?” he asked placatingly, trying to keep his voice calm.

Shadow would have laughed, if that wouldn’t have given away her position. As if she’d believe that. He’d just—

The beastkin dove to the side, and Shadow froze, startled, what was he—

Her stomach dropped as he fumbled for a second before seizing the tied up little human girl, eliciting a muffled screech.

Shadow started to leap forward, but froze when he pushed his sword up against the little girl’s throat, pulling her to his chest.

Crap!

She hadn’t been paying attention to the kids!

Shadow had flashbacks to when Kirrik had threatened Annie with his bow. Clearly, this was something similar.

“Alright. You want this brat to live?” The beastkin started, his voice a little manic. Desperate.

Shadow’s mind was racing. She thought she had a general idea where he was going with this. He’d want her to let him go... or surrender, or something. But how could she possibly trust whatever this man offered?

“You better start talking or drop this damned darkness before I cut her gods damned throat!” he demanded.

Shadow stared at him, stunned.

He didn’t know she couldn’t talk! That was bad!

But if she dropped the darkness… she wouldn’t be able to do anything. It would remove all of her options. If she tried to re-cast it or attack him after it was gone, he’d have more than enough time to react and kill the girl.

It was only with the darkness cast that she had a chance.

She realized she’d have to take a risk.

It was too dangerous to approach quickly with his sharp hearing, and she had no idea how long she had before he hurt the girl, so she decided to go with the option that’d put her there instantly.

She’d never tried to shadow-port while maintaining a spell before.

Dark mana flowed out of her, and she was struck again by how strange it was that this… did anything. The more she practiced using her darkness spell, the less sense her shadow-port made. Clearly, some part of her was doing something with the mana unconsciously. It was the only thing that made any sense.

She was never more grateful that that was the case, because it meant that all she had to do was push.

That wasn’t so hard, even while she was maintaining a different spell.

She felt the shift take hold, that strange sense that let her know she could just… be in the place she was paying attention to. That let her move herself in the strange non-physical way that would accomplish the task.

He wasn’t right up against the wall anymore, and she wasn’t willing to take a chance.

“This is your last fu—”

She appeared on his back and tore a chunk out of his spine all at once, leaving a gaping, sizzling pit where the back of his neck used to be.

He collapsed without a twitch.

The girl fell to the ground, letting out another muffled scream. Shadow quickly removed herself from the beastkin and ran over to look at the girl. She couldn’t see any blood, but the girl had curled herself up, making it hard to see her neck. Still, Shadow was pretty sure she was fine.

She looked around the room and felt some... complicated emotions. Out of the four kidnappers here, only the liar was still alive. The rope-man had stopped moving. She walked over to check him and found him no longer breathing. She must have bit something that bled a lot. He had a big pool of blood around him.

Door-man had been killed by the beastkin and she’d had to take the beastkin down fast to prevent him from hurting the girl he'd had a knife to. The only way she knew how to do that was a bite to the back of the neck, and those were lethal.

Three of the four were dead and she had been trying not to kill them.

The fact that she felt worse about having failed to keep them alive, than the fact that they were actually dead, also added to her complicated mess of feelings. She knew she was supposed to find their deaths upsetting but... she was just so angry at them. How could she feel bad for people that wanted to dissect kids?

What will Annie think? she worried.

Shadow shook her head, clearing her thoughts. Her feelings were something she could worry about later. For now, she should free the kids and get everyone out of here. She needed to… find a guard? Find Jonas or Annie? Someone needed to come and arrest the liar and… do whatever they did with dead people? Bury them like Jonas did with the trapper, probably. She was a little worried she’d broken some law here, but you were supposed to be able to defend yourself.

She glanced back over at the kids and realized they were still looking around, blind and terrified.

Right. They were probably scared of being trapped in darkness like this. With everyone... dealt with, she didn’t need to keep the room cloaked anymore. It should be safe to remove the darkness. She was pretty certain she could deal with the liar if he tried anything.

She removed the darkness and used the spell to instead form words where both of the kids should be able to read them. At the last second, she also remembered to turn off her mana sight, remembering that the black eyes might be scary.

‘It’s okay! You’re safe now! I’m rescuing you!’ she wrote, hoping these kids could read, as she got back up on two legs. She walked toward them, trying for a friendly smile as she attempted to wipe the blood off her face.

Their muffled screaming started up again, their eyes flicking from her to the scene around her before settling on her again in fear and horror. They did their best to wiggle away from her, but they were thoroughly bound and not moving very fast. Shadow wasn't sure they'd even looked at the text. She really hoped they could read.

“Oh shit. Holy shit. They’re dead. You killed them.” The liar added in shallow breaths, fixing her with a stare that was all too similar to those of the children. He, however, did not move an inch.

She looked around in confusion before realizing that they were all terrified… of her. They were all terrified of her.

Shadow wilted a little. Right. She’d just killed people and was covered in blood.

Everything was covered in blood. People’s blood.

It was scaring them. She was scaring them.

But… I'm not...

Well, the liar had a reason to be scared, but she’d never hurt the kids! They didn’t need to be scared at all!

She… she had to reassure them somehow.

She looked up at the kids again and saw them flinch as they tried to wiggle into a corner.

This rescue might be a little more complicated than she’d thought.