TRANSCENDENCE 15

Meeting Dwalir was the last thing Savannah needed. The proletariats were nothing - small, miniscule pieces of a puzzle so overwhelmingly large that even if she killed a hundred, there would be no sizeable gap.

Even then, she didn't intend to kill. She just needed to see something. If Dwalir could play with fate, so could she. She could do anything she wanted to, because she was Savannah, and Savannah was invincible.

She slid the mask over her face and slid through the dark. She had memorized the patterns of commerse in Nostvale. It was the easiest, largest place to get things done in.

Especially with the recent civil unrest.
(Savannah)
Every day, once the sun set, the workers from the Lazy Chicken Cafe would leave and go home. At least one stood there to close, and they always left alone. Guards shifted in a quarter-hourly rotation around the area, and if Savannah could move quickly enough during the right period of time, she could get in and out without detection.

She stood stooped down, sheltering herself under the overbearing reach of a merchant's stall. The marketplace was vacant, and the Lazy Chicken was known to be the latest open cafe in the third district - merchants stopped there for dinner after closing their stalls, and only then would the cafe close.

The lights were still on, and the sihlouette of the man moved inside. Now she just had to wait.
(Savannah)
It felt like an eternity. But then the lights went out, and the door opened. The man emerged, and Savannah began to move.

She was stealthy, dressed in dark clothing compared to the dim of the dusk. She slid across the ground, her feet barely grazing the dirt, until she found herself behind the man.

Her hand moved forward and covered his mouth. A muffled shout erupted from his chest. He squirmed and struggled under her grip, but her hands were searing, strong.

"Shh," she began, "don't move, don't speak. This'll only hurt for a second."
(Savannah)
Get in, get it done, get out. Savannah needed to move fast before the next shift moved in. The man was still struggling, but he knew it was inevitable - he couldn't get away from the little squirt's iron grip.

And then something shifted. An agonizing scream was muffled by the palm of Savannah's gloved hand.

"Shh, shh," she cooed. The man writhed under her grip as he withered, as his skin wrinkled and twisted and his bones weakened. He shuddered and shrunk and writhed.

In ten seconds, he had aged thirty years. Savannah's clocks ticked in seconds but his ticked in years, and as the moments passed, he began to cling to her as if she were the only thing holding him up. He was weak and wrinkly and old and pitiful and it didn't stop - his skin stretched against jutting bones and his ragged, weak hands gripped up at her masked face, begging for mercy. He was going to die if she didn't do anything.

And that's just where she wanted him.
(Savannah)
She gripped him, tugging him up. The ravages that time caused on his body seemed to cease, and he stood in a stasis, in a coma-like limbo between life and death. One more second of her magic, and he would be done. And just like that, she could reverse it - this man's fate was in her hands.

But she needed him here for a moment longer.

"Stay," Savannah whispered, struggling to hold him up. Her hands wrapped around his torso, and she delved deep, struggling to see the temperment of his mana, the way it was functioning and surviving.

He was just barely there.

She could see it, his soul, moving in limbo between the stars and the earth. Savannah was the anchor holding him down, the knot that tied him to life. And she loved it.
(Savannah)
Savannah was drunk from the control. It bubbled up through her chest and she could feel it glowing through her cheeks. The power radiated from her like some aura, and it controlled her. It was a lust for power, a lust to move against the flow -

and surely enough, she would. The lifestream was tugging at this man. His time was up, expedited by Savannah's magic, but she wouldn't let him. She couldn't have a life on her hands. Not yet, not this early.

His bones began to revitalize and his baggy, fleshy skin grew plump under his flourishing muscles. The man moved backwards in time, growing lively and youthful under Savannah's work.

She dropped him, and she was gone.
(Savannah)