Above and Beyond [Vanyel/Amelia]

"Ms. Brenner..."

"Yes, Jakob?"

"What's that?"

Amelia looked up toward where the child was pointing and was immediately accosted by a black aura. The elementary school teacher picked up the child and moved out of the way of a hollow's charge. The monster hit the brick wall behind them, stones crumbling to the ground. She gave it no time to recover before she tightened her arm around Jakob, kicked off her heels, and ran down the street.

"Is it trying to kill us?"

"Yes, but I won't let it."

Jakob began crying, looking over her shoulder back at the monster. The sound of a howl pierced Amelia's ears and she could tell it was chasing after them. On the next street, Amelia made a swift turn, the momentum of her speed sending her off the sidewalk and into the street, but she kept her balance and she kept running.

'Think, think, think...'

"You've got to be shitting me! Now, of all times?! I've got a situation here!"

Growling as he hung up, Vanyel had half a mind to throw the phone across the room. But, he knew better than that. Gripping his hair, he tried to breathe as he brought all of the available information in front of him. A distribution problem in Europe, specifically Germany, caused by an uptick in Hollows along a road that caused issues with the delivery time.

And, just a little while ago, Violet had disappeared. He didn't know how long she'd been out for, and he didn't have the time or opportunity to search the entire City of Lights for her. So, calming himself down, Vanyel went to work, writing notes for Violet to see if she came back, as well as sending her a similar message through text. He left them on her bedroom door, the living room's coffee table, in various places within the kitchen, and on the bathroom door, reading as follows:

"If you've come back, and I'm not here, I'm sorry. There was a situation involving Gracen Arms in Europe that I had to help out with. I shouldn't be away too long. I've left some meals in the fridge that you can reheat in the microwave. Please, eat them. I'll be back as soon as I can be. I'll keep you updated via text and location."

Having left plenty of TV dinner style meals -- as his note said -- Vanyel, despite all his worry and stress, packed a set of clothes and the essentials, then headed to the airport. The plane ride there wasn't any better. Being stuck there, alone, unable to move much, only made him more worried.


Eventually, however, he touched down, and he was quick to make his way off the plane, hail a cab, and make his way to the distribution road where the goods would pass through. But, he couldn't read German, and was just lucky enough that the cab driver knew English. So, as he got dropped off, he found himself wandering about, unsure of where he was supposed to go.

All the while, he was checking his phone for both directions, as well as keeping a watchful eye for any texts, or to see if she'd read them. Despite appearances, internally, he was panicking and worried -- and it took the howl of a Hollow to bring him back to reality. He didn't know if it was in the area he was needing to be in, but, facts were, a Hollow was there, and, judging from the distant sound of footsteps, it had prey in mind.

So, Vanyel was quick to start taking off toward the noise, stuffing his phone into his pocket. The footsteps of both what he assumed to be human, as well as monster, grew closer and closer, until he eventually rounded the corner to see a woman and child running down the street.

He didn't waste time in gawking, a charging step carried him forward as he leapt toward the Hollow and striking with an open palm strike to its mask, equal to the speed and force of a bullet. With any luck, it'd be the only thing he'd need to do, and, hopefully, it was the only one around.

Violet read the texts, but never replied…


At the end of the street, Amelia saw someone come into view. Desperate, she yelled out for help, but he moved surprisingly quick. ‘He’s one of them?’ Amelia thought as the wind moved around her and this blur of white and orange went with it. Startled, the woman fell down on her back, holding the child tightly in her arms.

Amelia did not have the skill to tell how powerful this hollow was, but to her this monster was swiftly defeated by this orange-aura’d man. She had assumed it would take so much more to deal with such a beast, but… it was done? Taking a deep breath, Amelia sat up, keeping her elegance about her as she curled her legs under her and set the boy on his feet. “Are you okay, Jakob?” she asked. The boy was crying and shaking from terror. Amelia noticed a small scrape on his elbow.

“Oh no… You’ll be okay, little man.”

Amelia looked up to the man that saved them and then picked the child back into her arms as she fully stood up. “Thank you so much for the save… If you hadn’t shown up…” Amelia hesitated, glancing to the boy with a smile. “Well, you know…”

As the palm strike connected, he felt the mask shatter under the weight of his attack, and the creature itself was sent flying several feet backward. Despite it not moving, Vanyel remained in a simple, unassuming stance, his eyes boring a hole into the creature's limp body, an his feet spread out just enough to reinforce his lower body and keep himself stable, should an attack come.

But, as the Hollow eventually dissipated, Vanyel finally relaxed, sighed softly, and turned back to Amelia.

"You two okay?"

He crouched down to try and look the kid over, breathing a quiet sigh of relief at seeing the scrape. It'd sting for a while, but it was far better than what could have happened. Rising to his full height again, Vanyel quickly dug through his pocket to grab his phone and check the messages. The orange aura that the school teacher saw would grow in intensity as he did, were she looking, but would eventually ease up as he gave a shaky sigh of relief.

She read them. She turned the phone on, at least briefly, and he managed to glimpse the location before she went offline. Unfortunately, it wasn't an area in the City of Lights that he recognized, so, it ultimately wasn't much help. He lifted the phone, gently pressing the top of it to his forehead as he clenched his teeth, whispering obscenities under his breath.

Linking her GPS to his phone was the right idea, but now that she knew, she was doing everything she could to make sure he didn't know where she was. At first, he wasn't sure what else he could do that could track her without notice, as well as give a better idea of where she was beyond just a phone app's user interface. But, then, an idea came to mind.

It was something to try and test out later, but, for now, he pulled out a small notebook and pencil to write it down, before stuffing it back in his pocket. Just as he did, he noticed the woman had picked up the kid and stood up. Despite the anxieties, Vanyel managed to smile a little, giving a light nod in response.

"No problem. I'm...surprised to find someone that speaks English."

Amelia nodded to the man as he checked on them, and soon the boy stopped crying. He mainly stopped crying because the obscenities that were said under his breath were conveniently heard by both of them. “Ohhh, Ms. Brenner, he said a bad woooord,” the child pointed at their savior and tattled on him, laughing a moment later. Amelia just gave Vanyel a dull expression. Clearly, he wasn’t around kids much. “Yes, Jakob, he did… But he is an adult and can say those things. When you get bigger, you’ll get that right too, but until then, we speak politely, don’t we?”

Amelia gave the young man an interesting look, mixed with curiosity and worry. That orange flare up that he just had was something to take note of, at least after she got Jakob home. “Most in Germany do speak English, actually,” Amelia said. “It’s too common of a language to not make it the norm… May I ask a favor? A lot of those have been popping up lately, and I need to get this young man home. Would you mind escorting us about a block up the road? I’m not a fighter.”

...If there was one thing he wasn't expecting to happen on this impromptu trip, it was to get called out by a kid, and get looked at like a mother would their child. Embarrassed, Vanyel reached up to the rub the side of his neck as he turned around, his cheeks swiftly turning a bright red.

But, he was quick to turn back and face her as she commented on English being more common than he thought. Well, that didn't really help the embarrassment at all. His experience so far in Germany had been finding barely anyone that could help him out in the airport, since everyone around him spoke German, even the cab that he hailed, and he wasn't going to just keep going with a trial-and-error format until he got something.

"Uh...right. Guess I just got...really unlucky."

Then, she asked a favor, to escort them up the road. He turned in the direction she was talking about. Well, that was some good news, it seemed to be in the direction he needed to go. Plus, Hollows were having a pretty big uptick in this area, so, letting them go alone probably would end up having another situation like this happening. Maybe he'd be able to find the source of the problem.

"Yeah, sure, it's actually in the direction of where I'm needin' to go, so, that works out perfect. Um, are those your shoes over there, miss...Brenner? I can go grab 'em if you'd like."

Amelia set the child back down. He was little, but not so little that she could carry him all the way home. “Oh, thank god. If another one of those monsters attacked, I doubt we would be lucky enough for another hero to show up,” Amelia said with a kind smile. She then looked down the street toward her shoes.

“Oh, right…” Amelia looked down to her stocking-covered feet. “It’s a little more than difficult to run in heels, so they had to go. I’d appreciate not having to walk all the way over there again.” She didn’t say anything, but she was sure sometime during the attack that she stepped on a rock. Her foot was hurting.

Once he brought her shoes back, the two began walking down the block toward the child’s home. Amelia did her best to keep up normal chat that a child could be a part of, talking about movies and homework and games to play. Soon, they were in front of his house and Amelia let him run home. Once his parents waved to her, she waved back and was ready to go. During their walk, however, Amelia had not noticed small droplets of blood following her trail. Her foot was clearly bleeding.

“Again, thank you for your help, but before you go… Are you doing okay?”

Vanyel gave a nod, walking over to retrieve Amelia's discarded shoes, though his expression turned sour as he went to get them. He didn't like being called a hero. But, nevertheless, he picked them up and handed them back once he made his way back to the schoolteacher and student. Despite the lingering worry about Violet, something not helped at all by the constant checking of his phone to see if she had turned hers back on, it was...nice to just have a quiet moment like this.

Yet, all the while, Vanyel kept an eye out for things that might answer the questions he had about the Hollow uptick. Looking for posters of people missing, seeing if there were any shady individuals nearby that might have Hollow bait, if there happened to be a cemetery in the vicinity, just in general keeping an eye out for any possible ideas as to why Hollow activity might have been increasing. He'd have to ask her before he left.

He tried to keep the kid part of the conversation, talking about some C-dramas he'd seen, as well as various other ones he'd seen in his down time. It was awkward -- he wasn't around kids very often, but he tried his best.

As they reached the house, however, Vanyel lingered behind a bit. He didn't want to run the risk of the parents wondering about why a random foreigner was accompanying Amelia and the kid on their way home.

As his hand went back to his pocket to check his phone for the umpteenth time, he stopped as Amelia asked if he was okay. That was...random. He didn't think he'd been doing anything that might have suggested otherwise. She said she wasn't a fighter, but, that didn't completely rule out the possibility of her having powers. Maybe she had something that she had created, or even had manifested as a result of her profession.

Those kinds of things were usually pretty personal. Nevertheless, his hand slowly stopped at the cuff of his pants pocket, thumb hooking around it as his mouth opened for a moment, searching for how to respond.

"Uh...why do you ask?"

On their way to Jakob’s house, Amelia took note of his choice of topic. C-drama, huh? She also notably did not put her shoes back on and carried them instead.

Amelia noticed the constant checking of his phone, how his aura would flare when he did. That act alone, without the aura, was a sign of anxiety for most people, so it was easy to use. Amelia smiled softly again, pointing to his phone. “You checked that about a hundred times. I know it’s none of my business, but I’m curious.”

Amelia looked over at Jakob's house. She couldn't see her student or his parents, but she was still wary. She motioned Vanyel to follow and continued walking, until they turned a corner. Down the street was a small park where a lot of kids were already playing. Amelia still hadn't noticed the small bleed and was ignoring the pain in her foot, assuming it was just remainder from running. "Now, spill it."

It was odd that she was carrying her shoes, rather than putting them back on. But, there was also the possibility that she was keeping herself ready on the off-chance that she needed to get to safety again. Never knew when this Hollow uptick would prove to be too much for him. At the very least, he could provide enough of a distraction for her to get away if it came to that.

As she pointed to his phone, Vanyel quietly shuffled in place, fingers coiling around the object in his pocket as he looked toward the ground, before back at Amelia. This whole thing had been bothering him for hours, days now. Maybe it would do him good to talk about it. So, as she gestured for him to follow her, he complied. She led him down the street near a small park, and, as she demanded him to spill, Vanyel sighed, reaching to rub the side of his neck.

"I've got...a bit of a situation where I'm stayin' currently. I didn't really want to come out here while I was still workin' that out, but, here I am. A friend of mine's in a bit of trouble, and...I've been trying to keep in touch with them. I've got their GPS linked to my phone, but, since she knows that, she's been turning her phone off to keep me from knowing where she is."