Hidden: Change

Part the second.
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"Herod."

"Yes mom?"

"Honey, could you run this down to the bank later today? I'm running late and this can't wait until tomorrow."

"Sure, I'll get to it on my way back from school."



Sensation

Hurt

Pain

Danger

Anger


A flash of dark.

A cocoon blackness.

A shattering of glass that echoed within the mind.

With a roar that announced that something unearthly had arrived, the fallen one lost no time surveying his immediate surroundings. That he had be dragged out of his stasis early meant that the life of his vassal was ebbing. That meant he was in danger once more.

Only he wasn't.

A score pair of eyes stared in terror at him, all of them human, none immortal. And a pair that was almost unseeing. At his feet his vassal, crumpled against the wall. Blood pooled around his feet from a small hole in his chest. The blood streaks on the wall showed that the hole went through him and that he had fallen against the wall before falling.

Anger that had ebbed now once again filled the fallen one. His healing was incomplete and his forced return had announced his presence to all creation. He would be noticed and would be hunted again.

But before he fled again, vengeance.

The screams started as soon as he flexed his wings.



"So what happened here?"

"Eyewitness reports state that four men hurried into the bank at about three p.m., shortly followed by the kid a minute later."

"The kid who was shot?"

"Yes sir. Shortly after there was a gunshot, an 'animal roar that echoed around town' and then a whole lot of screaming and multiple gunshots. Correlating data showed that almost immediately after, we received a call for an ambulance. The first car arrived soon after."

"What did they see?"

"A car pulling out of the parking lot and the bank manager hurrying out, asking them to come inside. He was detained until after backup arrived. We identified the car as the suspects getaway vehicle and hve units in pursuit. After it was determined that there were no hostages, the SWAT team went inside. What they found was confusing."

"The place was trashed, the four men had multiple lacerations and broken bones and were unconscious. The boy was bleeding on the ground with a gunshot wound and with half the wall painted in his blood. Some of the bank employees were clustered around him and did what they could with a first aid kit. Bullets and shell casings were all over the floor but all the bank employees were shaken but fine. No one had any recollection of what happened between the time the boy was shot and when the first car arrived. The boy is in critical condition and his mother has been notified."

"That's it?!"

"Yes sir... the only other odd thing is that had the paramedic puzzled was that although the kid was shot in the chest, his lung appeared to be fine. Sir... well the bullet went right through him. Forensics found it embedded in the wall amongst the blood."

"... ...alright, let me chew on this a bit. Dismissed."



The fallen one was once more in healing. But before he had vanished, he wondered at the changed he had undergone and of 'mercy'.