Kayda had experienced her fair share of running: away from cops, away from monsters, men, and one particularly shabby weeping willow who was mourning a spouse getting axed. She was used to it; after spending a good amount of your past life as a demigod it just happens.

Torch was used to it also, but for an entirely different set of reasons.

They were presented with two options, dart through the back alley or take the roof tops. Kayda did not like either of those options; both of them involved getting shot at and it was just a matter of picking the range.

"Rooftops," Torch insisted. "They have snipers on every building. We'll never clear it if we stay on the ground."

"They have snipers on every building," Kayda repeated back insistently. "We'll never clear them if they're shooting from 20 yards." Kayda was a had been a sniper for about 10 minutes in a past life, she was definitely qualified to make major judgement calls on this sort of thing. In truth, she was panicking.

"Rooftops," Torch insisted and then headed off into the kitchen before Kayda could get another word in. She closed her eyes and followed the loose cannon. Whether her pride would admit it or not, they were in Torch's home turf now. She would probably know the in's and outs of the place better than she did.

The kitchen was dark almost to a fault. Never mind the fact that it was two in the morning on the night of a blood moon; it was really dark in there. Outside the battle raged; gunshots and yells rang like traffic on a busy interstate. Kayda walked into the counter.

"Ow."

"Forgot to mention there's a counter there."

"Yes, I noticed, thank you." She grumbled under her breath and rubbed the side of her hip resentfully. A couple steps before her she heard metal sliding against metal followed by a loud clang. "What was that?" She was in the middle of asking when suddenly a dim column of light shone down from the ceiling. A breath of cold rushed in through the opening as she beheld the site of open sky. Torch at the top of a retractable ladder, her body half leaning out onto the roof.

"C'mon," she hissed and disappeared through the hatch.

Kayda was quick to follow behind. Torch's face poked out from the side of the hole as she climbed, her hair falling into her face like a curtain of grey dust. She brought a finger to her lips and motioned generically in front of her before reaching down and helping Kayda onto the roof.

"Why is your roof hatch in the middle of the kitchen?" Kayda hissed.

"Fire safety," Torch murmured and gestured forward again. Kayda followed her hand to see a tall man hunched over a gun perched on the edge. It was dark, unbearably so. The only light that shone came down from the streetlights in gentle orange pools that flooded the walkways at the front of the stores. Behind them grew a short expanse of woods that stretched a couple miles before reaching an ocean. This ocean was saltier than the ones Kayda had known in her past lives. One could smell it for miles into the inner city, it was tragically salty like a jealous ex-girlfriend and the sea spray could be felt all the way across the woods. In Neo Neo Neo, the wind was always howling.

And that was probably the only reason the sniper didn't notice the hatch opening behind him. It was like watching a silent movie. Suddenly she realized why Torch needed the cover of the rooftops – or lack there of it. With her white jacket and even whiter hair, she would have been a signal flare to anyone they would have tried to sneak past on the ground. Even in the mostly darkness, with the cover of the sea wind by their side, Kayda could still very easily see just about everything about her.

She would have made a horrible edition to Phoenix's dark god revolution, that was for sure. She very seldom held the advantage of surprise.

Torch reached into her jacket and pulled out the gun again. The weapon was invisible in her dark gloves, but the rest of her a still a fairly visible anomaly in the dim light. She flipped her safety off and pointed the weapon away from them. She was already hunched over and several steps forward before Kayda realized what she was up to.

"Nice." Kayda nodded sarcastically at Torch's back. "But just like you, I think that's a little too loud for this situation."

Before Torch could protest Kayda was on her feet. She had been in this situation before, maybe not recently, but in a past life. If one shot went off wrong, the whole strip would go blazing. Kayda scooped up the nearest thing she could find off the ground and started moving.

With one hand she released the clasp that held her cape in place. It flew off silently in the harsh breeze and left her arms free to wield her – broom. The thing she had picked up off the ground was a broom. At that moment it didn't matter if it was a blade or a frozen pizza, she was moving in with whatever she had. Torch let out a yelp behind her. Kayda allowed herself a quick glance back and for a split second wondered where her friend had disappeared to.

Sneakers had their advantages, walking on gravel did not. It didn't matter though. The mobster stood up from his crouch upon hearing her approach, but it was too late at that point. Kayda was nearly on top of him. Gravel sprayed as she sprung into the air with the broom hefted over her shoulder like a baseball bat.

CRACK!

Kayda's aim was off; she could tell the moment she swung, but once again it didn't matter. Aim for the head, get the neck instead ... whichever it was; have you ever been hit by a broom before? That shit hurts. The wooden handle clicked his jaw, his head snapped to one side, and his body went limp immediately.

Kayda threw the broom aside and made a couple wild grabs as the man teetered toward the edge of the building. There were no walls or guardrails at the top of Monty's pub, just the cold flat cement and a whole group of Groundhogs waiting below ready to shoot at a moment's notice. Her fingers looped through the belt of his tactical suit – and with only a medium sized yell from her – she managed to drag him back onto the roof before they blew their position.

The guy fell in an unmoving lump at her feet, his arm flailing to the side and bumping the rifle stand he had sitting on a pile of crates. The gun toppled off the crates; Kayda lunged for it but it was already too late to catch it.

Suddenly a blur of light flitted by and before Kayda's brain could even process what was going on, Torch was there. Her feet were perched precariously on the edge of the roof and the gun was in her hands, hovering about a hair's breath above the ground. She stood up silently, her heals leaning off the edge of the roof as she tilted her head to one side. "Alright," she said quietly. "I'll take that."

She stepped away from the edge and pulled the magazine of the rifle before scattering the bullets all over the roof. "You play a game of stealth and macromanagement." The ocean breeze caught her white hair making it reflect the orange streetlights below which illuminated her features like a campfire. The breeze stopped after a moment and everything went dark again.

"Where did you disappear to back there?" Kayda asked as she went to retrieve her cape from the ground.

"I didn't disappear," Torch jabbed back. "The cape hit me in the face."

Kayda snickered as realization washed over her. "You know between your hair and the jacket, you're a walking light show. I could see you for miles."

Torch shrugged and turned away. "Let's get out of here, we should put a lot of distance between us and this place."

Kayda nodded in agreement and swept her cape back over her shoulders. Like how she jabbed Torch for her bright appearance, her companion had often complained on her insistence on wearing the heavy piece of dark fabric. It got caught in places and she always took it off to fight; it was highly impractical for a half dozen reasons, yet she never left it behind. Never even considered it. That cape had kept the rain off her back and the wind out of her ears when she had slept under pallets behind the window side deli.

Torch took a couple steps back to get a running start, but Kayda threw her arm out to block her path. "Hold up."

Her companion looked exasperated. "What?"

She held the cape out and took a step back so that this time she was the one teetering near the edge. A low flap of fabric broke the silence as she fanned her cape over Torch's shoulders, made a few quick folds, and fastened the clip over her heart. "If you run with me, it's best we stop attracting unwanted attention from here on out. At least until we can show our faces in daylight again."

Torch stared at her for a long hard second before nodding. "You're still the same person who ran with that revolution. That dark demigod still lives inside you. Moody. Hates attention. Expects girls to swoon for you."

Kayda pressed her lips into a thin line. "Mya's is long gone. Her fate was sealed with the revolution."

Her companion's eyes were dark as she turned and walked toward the back of the building. Torch took one step off the roof before glancing at Kayda over her shoulder. "We both know that's wrong. Immortals never die."