They encircled Artemis's blade, pushing it away, put a hood over their head, and in that instant, entered cloaking, rushing away from them both. Beatrice blinked, "W-Wait a second... they're running!?"
Artemis stayed back, blocking Beatrice with her body. "We should head back to the hotel."
Beatrice nodded. "Y-Yeah..."
There was a brief bit of silence before they finally began to walk. Once they arrived, Beatrice threw herself onto the bed, reminiscent of their first night here at the hotel itself.
"What was that all about?"
"This is atypical..." Artemis muttered to herself.
"What do you mean?"
"There was no feasible way for them to have gotten a clear hit on you. It was inevitable that they'd have to run, yet they attempted it anyway... unless..." Artemis paused. "It was an introduction of sorts, like... playing with their food."
"What a... descriptor..."
Artemis searched for further answers, looking back over to Beatrice. "I... don't believe they'll attempt that again... not here at least, but I think we should remain cautious."
"Oh Gods. No, I don't want to hear it!"
"We'll have to stick together from here on out-- no separating from one another, okay?"
"Fuck..." Beatrice groaned. "Next thing you're going to say is that we'll have to stay in this fuckass room!"
"We can still go out, in fact, it's most likely better to keep ourselves moving once morning comes."
"Where the hell would we go?"
"I don't know... but... we should keep ourselves moving."
"Okay... better than staying here, I guess." Beatrice sat for a moment, thinking. "I have a suggestion on what we could do in the morning."
"Hm?"
"Have you ever gotten a massage before?"
Artemis stood there, confused for a moment, searching for an answer in Beatrice's gaze. "No...?"
Beatrice smiled. "Well... guess I know what we're doing tomorrow!"
"I am concerned about something."
"What?"
"I had slept alone in my bed, and had not woken up until the next morning, and I was not cognizant in the slightest. If something happens to you in your sleep, how will I know, especially with these confounded beds that somehow seem to possess magical qualities that disable me from responding in time?"
"W-Why are you asking me? Why would I know what to do?"
"I have a suggestion."
"Okay-- we're just... suggestion for suggestion, go ahead."
"May I sleep with you for the night?"
"S-Uh..." Beatrice's eye twitched. "I... is-is that necessary?"
"I believe I would be capable of reacting better if we were in closer proximity to one another."
"Fuck it... uh... sure... I don't give a shit." Beatrice rolled to the other end of the bed, Artemis lying down onto her, causing it to sink a bit in her direction, Beatrice rolling directly into Artemis's grasp. "AH!"
Artemis perked up, surprised as well. "O-Oh, sorry."
Silently, Beatice pulled herself away. "Yep..." She mumbled repeatedly.
Not too long after they both lay down, however, they quickly passed out beside each other, and the next morning, Beatrice found herself embracing Artemis, jumping off the instant her eyes pried themselves open.
The sudden movement of the bed woke Artemis in turn. She slowly rose from the sheets, looking to Beatrice, bleary-eyed. "Good morning..."
"Good morning, uh... wake yourself up, w-we'll get breakfast and uh... I dunno... w-- Oh! The massage parlor! We'll go to the massage parlor!"
Artemis stared at Beatrice for a solid minute. "Okay."
And so, they set off, walking a set distance over to the nearest massage parlor to the hotel they were staying at, using a map as a guide. When they entered, they were met by two androgynous employees clad in white, wearing helmets with black visors. On a quick cut, they both found themselves on tables, half-naked, only a thin piece of cloth covering their chests.
"So... like..." Beatrice sighed as one of the massage therapists kneaded out the muscles in their upper back. "You... uh... those guys never had you all like... get massages on the regular or something? Y'know like.... g-get the tension out of the muscles and stuff?"
"Woah!" The Therapist for Artemis exclaimed. "Very tough, but we can work with it! You must have a lot of tension-- plus... the muscle mass, goodness~!"
"No," Artemis answered. "It's... uh... not too bad." She smiled.
"See?" Beatrice scoffed. "It's pretty awesome, right?"
A small yelp exited Artemis's throat. "O-Oh! T-That's weird... I-it kinda hurts, but like... in a good way?"
"I know right...? One moment, you feel something move out of place awkwardly, and the next, a relief unfelt since... like... maybe a hot bath? H-Hey... whenever you weren't fighting and stuff... where did you sleep?"
"Deprivation chambers. If..." A light groan left Artemis's lips. "If we weren't on the field, we were put in deprivation chambers. Outside of that... we... uh... we sealed ourselves in the suits. We were trained to listen for any approaching entities that might try to ambush us whilst we were resting. The suit is great for resting, but... yeah." Artemis paused. "S-Sorry the... it's... You weren't lying, this is great..."
"So... you used to only just... like... sleep in the suit?"
"Yeah... either that or... y'know. It made it easier to recover and... cheaper, I think?"
"Well... you glad you aren't a soldier anymore?"
"Every day so far, I've appreciated the things given to me. I... I've never been more thankful in my life. It feels like a dream, that at any moment I'll find myself back on a battlefield..."
"You know... I have bad dreams sometimes too..."
"You dream that you're on battlefields?"
"No..." Beatrice scoffed. "Not at all. I... other dreams."
"What type of dream is it?"
"I... I dream about my brother. His name is Kalleck, Kalleck Holden. I often dream about him. A lot of the time, it's us just shooting the shit like we used to back when I was younger, making things together like the pair of engineers we were. I remember that... those times and... often I have memories that almost seem convincing... too convincing as if he had never died to begin with... that he is there with me, playing with me... talking to me. Acting as if he had never gone away to start with, and every time I think about it, I mention it in my own mind, the denial sneaks in, and it's almost as if my brain is convincing itself that it had never happened, and then I wake up... I wake up and he isn't there, and only a jar filled with his ashes remains."
A beat.
"Do you think he's proud of me?"
"I don't know... I can't say. I... I've never experienced anything like this before, but... Was he a kind brother?"
"The kindest... He was a great guy-- he had actually visited Batthia multiple times to assist the people there. To provide them some semblance of assistance during y'know... that... horrible, endless war. It sucks... He helped a lot. He's... he's helped so many people—such a genuine person who cared more about those around him than himself."
"If..." Artemis's words were almost in a methodical, faint whisper. "If he was as you say he was then... I... I think that he's just proud that you're still alive, and that you have kept his memory so ingrained within yourself that... even till this day... You hold his ideals... You hold his face... You hold his sound... yeah... I think he's proud." Artemis paused. "Even... even if there isn't anything else... I think that alone means... so much... but that's my opinion. I don't know what he would feel like, or what the right answer is. Just..." Artemis nodded, losing her train of thought.
"I like your way of thinking, Artemis... For someone who doesn't understand these things, you sure have some great words to say about it." Beatrice chuckled, voice cracking a bit mid-sentence, tears clearly welling up in her eyes, batting the wetness away with her palm before lying herself flat on her stomach, back down onto the massage table.
"Do you... think I'm doing well? Am I... normal?"
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know... I... I've been trying to... Brienhen has been encouraging--"
"Breinhen!? You know Breinhen?"
"Y-yes... I met up with him not even three days ago, I believe?"
"What has he been saying?"
"He's... He told me that I'm making my own decisions... something like that. Opinions... becoming my own person. Do you think I'm becoming my own person?"
"Okay... so that's what you're trying to ask me." Beatrice sighed, grimacing, bothered now that she's found herself at the other end of a question that she's actually starting to warm up to what she thought was some walking war criminal. "Yeah... you are. You're having a shockingly easy time at it, actually, and you should be... uh... in your words, I suppose, 'proud of yourself'."
"I... see."
Beatrice, after a moment had passed, felt herself dozing off, her eyes almost forcefully closing themselves. "I didn't even have a bad sleep... w-why am I dozing off? Sh-Shit..." Beatrice chuckled. "Man... this massage is godly."
Artemis's eyes narrowed. From Beatrice's perspective, it felt as if she were dozing off naturally, as if the massage itself were slowly causing her to drift off to sleep. Artemis, however, noticed something artificial in the effect. Sangilo, unlike the average person, was not as affected by the gaseous effects, holding her breath as she lifted herself from the table.
"Um! Ma'am! We're not--"
"I think we're done here," Artemis growled, "Unless you want to provide a proper explanation on why you've begun to pump this room full of gas." It's definitely carbonmonoxide. Artemis thought to herself. Odorless, tasteless, and invisible to the average eye.
One of the massage therapists grabbed a pistol from within their coat, pointing it at the massive warrior who shot across the room, kicking their comrade into the wall, this shortly being followed up with two shots from the Therapist on Artemis's side of the table, each bullet being halted by her built-in Flux Shields.
"We're leaving!"
Beatrice whined in Artemis's arms. "Why... why couldn't it just have been normal...?"
The table Artemis stood on bent as she shot off it as well, crashing the therapist through a wall, slamming them into a glass table. What seemed to be two other employees were rummaging through their bags, heads whipping up at the sight of a large woman crashing through their walls.
"What is happening!?" Beatrice demanded an answer, struggling against Artemis's grasp.
"Scalpers, I believe."
The two employees, rummaging through their things, put their hands in the air and surrendered due to their lack of gear, which, in comparison, was just a simple white shirt and slacks, whilst the others seemed to be geared up in what looked to be a homemade armored vest.
There was a pause, Artemis crossing over to them and grabbing Beatrice and her own bag, throwing them both over a single shoulder as she carried Beatrice in a single arm. "It's time for us to go, Beatrice. I apologize if this vacation hadn't gone as you expected it to."
"I didn't want to go on vacation to begin with."
Artemis noticed a twitch within the unarmed scalpers' stances, prompting her to throw Beatrice up to her chest, pressing her head into the crook of her neck, the two scalpers immediately jumping behind cover. Artemis took a deep breath, and for her, time slowed as, from an outside perspective, she had sped up significantly, almost leaving an afterimage in her wake.
Behind the front desk, a scalper grabbed a shotgun hooked up to the roof of the counter, whilst the other scalper booked it down a nearby hall.
Against their best interests, Artemis hopped over the counter, smashing through a small wooden panel set on the roof of the room they were in before smashing down with a single foot onto the scalper below, smashing the shotgun with it. "W-What the hell was that!?" Beatrice exclaimed, but before she could get her answer, Artemis rushed down the hall after the remaining scalper, grabbing them by the collar just as they were about to round the next corner, and she proceeded to smash them into the wall nearest to her.
"Targets rendered non-responsive." Artemis recited before letting out an audible sigh. "Okay..." She hesitated for a moment, looking at the next room over that she had just broken into.
"W-What?" Beatrice turned around as well. The sight of corpses set out on massage tables greeted her, Spinal Pauldrons ripped out from their backs, leaving only a gaping, bleeding hole in their wake. "F-Fuck... that's..." She covered her nose as the putrid scent of iron permeated the room.
"Let's leave," Artemis said solemnly. "I'll... I'll contact Jackal to let him know."
"Why not... just... call the local authorities?" Beatrice paused, thinking about her question for a moment, knowing it was the least desirable result after further consideration. "Actually, no..."
Artemis nodded, and they left, making sure to dress themselves before then.
In a world like this, getting dragged into an incident like this would never end as a simple matter. It'd be dragged out, and they would most likely find themselves in a worse situation than now. Faces shown to the entire public for all scalpers to see, and to hunt.
It was time for them to return to Lumanbell.