Sleep was not really an option in a standing room only third-class car, not that Sunny would have slept so long as she was expecting more pursuers to attack. She seemed to relax a little once they got off the train, as she had said she did not expect another attack so long as they were in the Capital, but she was still rather tense.

She took hold of his arm and leaned into him.

Sunny tightened her hold on Marx's arm and closed her eyes. It took her a moment before she took her first step. She would take a few steps at a time before stopping, holding her leg almost like a dowsing rod before adjusting her course. It was a good thing it was so early so that they did not have to worry so much about any foot traffic in addition to the occasional lamppost.

It took them about an hour to reach their destination, an old Revival Period cathedral. Marx was pretty sure he had heard of this place before, but the name escaped him at the moment. Saint-Something, surely.

She tried opening the doors, but they barely budged.

Sunny did not let this deter her. Her hand hovered over the door until she seemed to find something. She then placed both hands on the door, stretched out her arms, lifted up and pushed off. Before Marx could ask what she was doing, there was a loud clattering sound on the other side of the door.

Sunny must have thought that seeing is believing, because rather than just telling him, she opened the doors to reveal a heavy wooden bar lying on the floor of the narthex. Apparently she used her Art to unbar the doors.

A plump, elderly lay brother was hurrying toward them, saying, "You, what have you done? How did you get in? You cannot be here."

Sunny waved her hand and the lay brother swooned. Marx had to scramble to catch him before he could hit the floor. If he had been any slower, the old lay brother might have cracked his head and not had to worry about getting up again.

Marx laid out the lay brother as gently as he could before following after Sunny. Unlike the uncertain steps she took as she was finding this place, she headed straight for the altar with clear determination.

A deacon making preparations for lauds saw Sunny coming and leaned in to squint as he did not seem to believe what he was seeing.

Sunny stopped dead in her tracks, but it was not on account of the deacon. The way her back straightened, Marx had seen this before. Someone was coming.

She whirled around, her face grim, and said, "Get out of here, Marx."

Marx turned and the air seemed to shimmer before a small cloaked figure appeared. The cloaked figure pulled back its hood to reveal a pink-haired woman whose eyes were sharp as a razor's edge and cool as hoarfrost.

The pink-haired woman spoke in a tongue Marx had never heard before. Sunny responded in kind, but while the pink-haired woman's tone was as cold as her gaze, Sunny's voice brimmed fire and gall, like she was speaking to a hated enemy.

The pink-haired woman started walking forward. Sunny shouted something in her unknown language before switching over to Clovais.

The pink-haired woman vanished just as Marx was about to run for Sunny. The sight surprised him and he misstepped, his legs tangling and causing him to trip and fall. Time slowed as he fell. What should have happened in an instant was stretched out over what felt like a full minute at least. With everything around him moving so slowly, it was that much more startling how the pink-haired woman suddenly appeared right in front of him.

Time started flowing normally again as she caught him by the shirt, yanking him up before he could hit the floor. Sunny shouted something again, but Marx could not even be sure who she was talking to. He remembered the shock of fear he felt when he saw Sunny tending to her mysterious business that night back in Meridot. That was like the pat of a baby's hand compared to the crushing weight of the pink-haired woman's sheer presence. He had gotten a taste for Sunny's power when they were ambushed the other day, but that power was dwarfed by what he was feeling in that moment.

He fully expected to be squished like a grape under a millstone. Of all the ways for him to have met his end, he never would have imagined this. Speaking of things he could not imagine, he would never have anticipated what the pink-haired woman would actually do.

She pulled him in close and kissed him on the lips. She held the kiss for a moment and Marx remembered when he first met Sunny, how she had done something similar. When the pink-haired woman was done, she let go of Marx and let him fall to the floor. She closed her eyes and licked her lips, as if she was savoring the moment.

When she opened her eyes, she began to speak in Clovais and like Sunny, she had the same East Artagnan accent as Marx.

Yang looked down at Marx as she said the last part. She showed all the warm regard you would have for a dead rat in a garbage heap.

"I will make this offer only once. Surrender now and we can avoid any unnecessary collateral damage."

Yang's eyes went back to Marx, making it clear who would be the first one to get caught up in the firestorm. This was the part where the conscientious hero would back down, yielding to the villain's threats rather than allow innocent people to come to harm. Sunny, however, was not that kind of hero, if she could even be called a hero at all.

A hint of a smile crossed Yang's lips.

Yang wasted no time. She sprang at Marx, winding up a fist engulfed in swirling white flames, but before she could land the blow, she struck a shell of light about a meter from Marx's head. The faint grin that cracked Yang's usual stony facade made it clear that this turn was not only anticipated but that it was what she was aiming for. If Sunny was defending Marx, it meant she was not attacking Yang, which left her vulnerable.

As Yang recovered from her punch being deflected, she changed targets with scarcely a moment's pause and threw herself at Sunny. When the two of them collided, they struck with the force of a cannon blast, cracking the stones of the floor and splintering the wooden pews. Marx had to curl up into a ball to shield himself from the bits of wood and stone and gritted his teeth as those bits scraped and stuck him all over.

Ignoring the pain, he dared to sneak another peek at the two balls of energy locked in a struggle for dominance. Sunny was at a clear disadvantage and being pushed back when the energy around her flared up to match Yang's.

The two of them were evenly matched for a moment, but then Yang increased her power, prompting Sunny to respond with not one but two fresh surges of energy. It only took one more surge from Yang to take away the brief advantage. By this point, the whole cathedral was shaking and it would be no surprise if the whole thing collapsed on their heads any minute.

Yang multiplied her power for a third time, shattering all the windows as far up as the clerestory and sending anything that was not bolted down flying. Marx flattened himself to keep from being swept up as well and covered his head. All he could do was hope nothing heavy came his way to crush him.

Somehow he managed to avoid the several dozen ways of dying miserably long enough for the intense pressure to subside. When Marx dared to look at what was going on, he saw Sunny down on one knee with Yang standing over her. Blood was trickling down from Sunny's eyes, ears and nose, then her body convulsed and she coughed up even more blood. Though Yang was not nearly so bad off, she did not look all that steady on her feet, so the clash had clearly taken a toll on her as well.

Before she could deal the finishing blow, and this was as much a surprise to her as it was to Marx himself, she was dropped like a sack of potatoes by a solid right cross. Somehow Marx had managed to close the distance without even realizing what he was doing. For all her power, Yang's physical body was apparently no more durable than any other human. Normally Marx would have had more reservations about hitting a woman, but this was one situation where any misguided sense of chivalry would have gotten someone killed, first Sunny and then probably Marx as well.

Yang was certainly too dangerous to leave be, but now that the immediate threat had passed, he found himself hesitating.

Sunny coughed again. She was deathly pale. It looked like she was just hanging on by a thread. It was no time for Marx to be hesitating.

However, just as Marx was steeling his resolve, there was a foreboding groan from the vault of the cathedral. Again, Marx found himself acting before he even knew what he was doing. He snatched up Sunny and sprinted to the nearest window, jumping out just as the arches gave way and the whole vault came crashing down.

Although Marx made sure to bear the brunt of the landing, Sunny was seized by a fit of coughing, splattering Marx's shirt with her blood.

Unsure of what to do, all Marx could do was hold her and shout, "Hey! Hang in there!"

The simple task of breathing seemed to be a struggle for her, but she managed to rest her hand on her heart and as her lips moved wordlessly, her hand glowed with a greenish white light and after a few moments, her breathing became less labored.

She then moved to get up, saying, "We have to make sure..."

As soon as she tried standing up, her legs gave out on her and Marx had to catch her.

Marx wanted to object, but he let her use him as a crutch as they went back to the rubble of the sanctuary. You could have a hundred men working around the clock and it would take days to clear the debris. If Yang was still alive under all that, Marx doubted there was much they could do to kill her.

Abruptly, Sunny clutched at her chest and doubled over.

Before Marx could ask for further clarification, the ground began shaking and a shaft of blue light burst from the depths of the earth and shot straight up into the heavens, piercing a giant hole in the clouds above. The ground shook again and from the perfectly circular hole that the shaft of light burned through soil and stone emerged what looked like a giant metal egg.

Light shone through cracks in the egg's shell and the shell opened up like flower petals, falling heavily to the ground to reveal a large glass tube filled with murky water. The water was slowly leaking out the cracks lining the glass.

He really should have asked what he would be letting out by breaking the glass, but he simply did what he was told without thinking. Leaving Sunny, he picked up a sizable piece of stone from the rubble and a few good hits was all it took for the tube to shatter and the remaining water to pour out.

What was inside the tube was a young woman, naked and hairless, with all manner of tubes connected to her body. Her mouth quietly opened and closed like a fish out water and her eyes had an empty, glassy look to them. For some reason, Marx thought the woman vaguely resembled Sunny.

Speaking of Sunny, she limped over to the glass tube and glanced at Marx before reaching out and holding the young woman's hand. The woman's body started to glow faintly and so did Sunny. The two of them shone brighter and brighter until Marx had to shield his eyes.

When the light faded, Marx found Sunny's clothes lying in a pile where she stood. Only the woman in the tube remained, but now she had Sunny's long bluish-black hair, the narrow curve of Sunny's hips, and when she looked up at him, she had Sunny's face.

She spoke in Sunny's voice, saying, "Marx, help me with these tubes."

This was no time for Marx to be bashful. He went over to her and started with one of the tubes in her arm, steadying her forearm with one hand while he gingerly pulled out the tube.

Sunny gritted her teeth as he did it and once the tube was out, she told him, "I appreciate you trying to be careful with me, but we've got about five minutes until a rapid reaction team shows up here. Also, this isn't the sort of experience a person wants to savor. Do it quickly."

Marx wanted to ask what a rapid reaction team was, but he could reasonably infer based on the name and Sunny was likely to get annoyed at him if he wasted time with questions. He took off his belt and offered it to her saying, "You might want to bite down on this."

She did not hesitate to take him up on the offer, clamping down on the well-worn leather in anticipation of what was coming next. Casting any sense of delicacy aside, Marx began pulling the tubes much more quickly. He still tried to do it in smooth motions that would not cause greater injury, but the process was still far from painless. It was not easy closing his ears to Sunny's muffled cries, but he had to believe there was far greater pain in store for them if that rapid reaction team got to them.

Marx did not even bother to keep count of the tubes as he was pulling them. All he knew was that when he was done, Sunny was left with dozens of bleeding holes all over her body. It was a little much to take in.

Sunny dropped the belt from her mouth and said weakly, "It looks worse than it is. Now, come on. Let's go. I don't think my legs are working yet. You'll have to carry me."

He would be the one with few dozen holes in him if the Gendarmes were alerted to the sight of a strange man carrying around a bloody naked woman. The best compromise he could manage was taking off his jacket and wrapping her up in it before hoisting her up and getting clear of the ruins of the cathedral.

Beyond simply getting away from the cathedral, Marx had no idea what to do. This was his first time in the Capital, so he didn't have the first clue about what was what and where was where. With Sunny in no state to guide him as she had when they first arrived, he was going to have to figure something out on his own. For now, the first goal was simply to put as much distance between them and the scene of the crime as he could. The second was to be seen by as few people as possible. The main roads were right out, so he stuck to the back alleys, but he found himself running into a lot of dead ends this way. He had heard stories of the Hessian New Planned Cities with their strictly uniform grid-based layout. They could not be any farther from Aix-Clovin, an old city turned into a labyrinth over hundreds of years of building and rebuilding. This may have afforded them some measure of security from ordinary pursuers, but Marx did not imagine it would do much to stop the sort of people who were after Sunny.

Just as he was doubling back after yet another dead end, he saw Sunny's hand peeking out of his jacket. Her finger was waving back and forth, but mostly in a particular direction. Was she guiding him?

She didn't respond. Either she was deep in concentration or she had passed out. Did her powers still work when she was unconscious?

With no better alternative, he tried turning in the direction she was pointing and her hand reoriented to the new bearing. This seemed to be what she was wanting, so he kept going as her hand directed.

After going some distance, Marx started to wonder when they would actually get to a place where they could lay low for a while. As he was thinking that, he rounded a corner and his right side opened up, as the building there was in the process of being demolished, and waiting for them among the piles of debris was an old man with a long grey beard clad in a crude robe along with about a dozen others similarly dressed and nearly as many more men in elaborate military uniforms with glaive-muskets pointed right at him.

Marx looked down to the still seemingly unconscious Sunny. Was this what she wanted?