(A/N: Well holy cheezus we had no idea the prologue was gonna be 7 pages.)

There were three pairs of guards in total patrolling the courtyard in front of the Ivory Tower; to the casual onlooker, it would seem as though only one pair kept circling around the hedges. Noelle, however, was no casual onlooker; she saw through their golden armor, beneath their visors and helmets. There were six armed guards in the courtyard, weaving through the tall hedges and the flowery bushes; this very fact could turn out to be crucial during her escape.

Using the shadows as cover, Noelle had sat in the corner of the courtyard, watching the entrance to the Ivory Tower for a good hour; if it had been daytime, the golden tower would have lit up like a beacon, its twisted exterior reflecting light in every corner of the city of Dawngold. A thief like Noelle would have absolutely nowhere to hide. At night, however, the Ivory Tower grew dark and dull; its jagged edges only filled the skyline with a menacing silhouette. Every radiant house and shining building did the exact opposite of what it did in the day; every street was engulfed in shadows.

Noelle tried not to get distracted by the sight of it. She visualized what she was about to do: once another pair of guards were to pass the marble steps that led into the tower, she had a five minute window to run up, pick the lock on the door and enter the tower.

No worries, Noelle comforted herself. By being methodical and patient, she had been able to find her way from the city outskirts to the tower’s vicinity without a hitch. As long as she did nothing reckless, Noelle believed that everything would be a smooth sail.

Two guards walked past the entrance. Noelle waited until she could not hear the clanking of their armor.

Now.

Noelle bolted out of her hiding spot, her padded boots making barely a noise as she went across the paved path and up the steps; the doors to the Ivory Tower were ginormous, and for a moment Noelle worried they were too huge to be opened with human hands.

Focus, girl. Noelle knelt down and produced an L-shaped tool along with a torsion wrench from a pouch clipped to her belt. She immediately got to work, furiously guiding the tool along the keyhole as she pressed her ear against the cool metal of the lock. Noelle was rather surprised at the simplicity of this lock; even her shabby town had better locks; all this lock did was to look good on the door, accompanying the intricate engravings and the patterns.

Giving her surroundings one last look, Noelle turned the torsion wrench and heard the satisfying click. The huge door groaned as she grasped the handle and pulled: it wasn’t as heavy as the thief had expected it to be.

Faint moonlight flooded into the tower and for the first time in her life, Noelle saw the interior of the renowned Ivory Tower. Glass and gold lined the sides and ascended around the interior like a double helix, and the marble floor was so clear, that she could see her reflection staring right back at her, wide-eyed. As she stared, Noelle felt like she was gazing into the depths of a cove with diamond chandeliers in place of marine life.

Shaking her head with a start, Noelle shut the door behind her and silently scolded herself for wasting time sightseeing. As she snuck around the ground floor, she kept muttering to herself: “Defiance, Defiance…” as if it were an animal and she was trying to coax it out of hiding.

Noelle didn’t even know what the Defiance potion looked like, except for the plain knowledge that it was a popular potion that prolonged the life of anyone that was to consume it. Each major city in Verador housed a structure that stored the Defiance, but it was right here in Dawngold city, in this towering structure that was the Ivory tower, that the potion was actually manufactured in. The source of ‘life’, some may utter in awed, hushed whispers.

Unfortunately, Dawngold, the capital city of Verador, was also nearest to her town. A sane being would think twice before infiltrating a stronghold such as this for something as priced as the Defiance. Alas, time was of the essence for Noelle. Drastic measures had to be taken.

Inside the dark tower, Noelle could just make out some array of counters at the other end, sandwiched between two stairwells: she could just imagine the snobbish rich nobles queueing up behind the very counters, speaking and laughing in irritatingly high voices to one another.

A nagging thought at the back of her head questioned the almost non-existent atmosphere one might expect to find for a place renowned as the core for production of the Defiance. The Ivory Tower seemed to be a mere structure used to house and distribute the Defiance, nothing more.

Much of the tower’s upper levels had yet to be explored, however.

On that thought, Noelle ran across and inspected the counters whilst keeping an eye on the upper levels, hoping to see a box of Defiance potions conveniently stashed underneath, but there were none.

Noelle did not give up: she flipped over the counter and saw that at each station, there was some sort of roster on a clipboard. The one closest to her read:

Alexander. B - Floor 6 Room 4 - 5 years

Josephina. H - Floor 6 Room 5 - 3 years

Alder. C - Floor 6 Room 7 - 9 years

Laura. F - Floor 6 Room 1 - 5 years

“Ah,” Noelle muttered to no one in particular, “so they are personally given the potion... why?”

Noelle tucked the question in the back of her head as she went to the stairs at the side and leaped two steps at a time to the second floor. For some reason, this worried her.

The second floor corridor circled around the circumference of the Ivory Tower and it was lined with glass doors that had room numbers written in gold on them. Noelle simply picked the closest door and was relieved to find it unlocked. Inside was a room only slightly bigger than her own bedroom. It was a simple whitewashed room that had a velvet couch, a small chair and a smooth, metal table.

Seeing that the table came with slim drawers underneath, Noelle did not hesitate to search them.

There was a huge syringe inside, with a needle the length of her middle finger. That was all though; there were still no signs of Defiance.

“No... where in the world…?” Noelle gnawed at her fingers as she paced the room: were all fifty storeys of this tower filled with rooms like this? Regardless, she felt that the scary looking syringe was vital, and she shoved it into the little leather satchel that she had slung over her back.

A noise suddenly caught her attention and Noelle instinctively crouched down. She crept through the glass door which she had left ajar and peeked over the railings: two guards were on the bottom floor.

Noelle held her breath: the guards had their lever action rifles raised. They were well aware that something was off.

“You think the shift before us forgot to lock the door?” one guard sniffed. Though he spoke softly, Noelle could hear him in the tranquility of the tower.

“Not sure," the other replied, “we better check the vault.”

Noelle’s eyes widened. The guard was, no doubt, referring to the Defiance. Or rather - precisely where it was stored.

The whole tower suddenly flared up with light and Noelle cringed as she was blinded by the sudden change in brightness. The guards had turned on the power, for the first few floors at least, and it was only then Ivory Tower lived up to its name. The interior was now simply gorgeous. Gorgeous, yes, but she was now in a precarious situation.  

Noelle shook her head and went back to glancing over the railing. The two guards, with their armor now gleaming in the golden light, were making their way to a medium sized hoist opposite her position, a contraption Noelle had completely missed when the tower was in darkness.

Biting back a frustrated groan for having foolishly missed it, Noelle quickly scrambled to her feet and ran all around the second floor, all the while keeping her head down. If she wanted to get to where the Defiance was being stored, she had to follow them.

Chains rolled and the mechanism that operated the hoist roared to life. Just as she passed the stairs leading up to the second floor, Noelle ran and leaped, clinging on to the base of the hoist, which actually had a few chains being strung about as support.

Oh boy… Noelle steeled herself not to look down as the hoist kept going up. Her arms trembled not from fatigue but from fear; fortunately for her, the hoist came to a stop at the tenth storey and not at the fiftieth.

Once Noelle was certain the guards had exited the platform, she curled her body inwards and hooked her legs onto the chains. Now that she had a proper foothold, Noelle could easily crawl into the hoist.

“Do you have the combination?”

“Yeah. Mikaelis told me.”

Noelle hid behind the safety barriers that enclosed the hoist and watched the two guards from there; they stood before a vault, just as one of them had said. Aside from the slightly out of place hoist contraption, the vault was probably the only other thing in Ivory Tower that looked bland. It was made steel and it was not even polished.

“Looks untouched.”

“Just check it.”

Noelle squinted but she could not see what the guard was up to; he stood before the vault and seemed to be fumbling with the weird controls that were on its surface. There were a few clinks and thumps before the vault doors rolled over to the sides; Noelle could just make out shelves upon shelves of vials that stretched down the room.

There they were. Defiance. The potion that was going to give her the time she needed to cure…

“Looks fine. Close it.”

Noelle snapped back to reality and saw that the guards were going to close the vault. Not happening.

Noelle slid out of her hiding place and ran straight for the guards. She went for the one on the left first, spinning and driving the side of her fist into his neck. She kicked him in the knee at the same time, effectively tripping him over and causing him to crash noisily onto the floor.

Perhaps a little too late, the second guard had whirled around and aimed the muzzle of his rifle at Noelle. WIth a startled cry, he yelled, “H-Hey! Stop right there…!”

The guard had hesitated to open fire: who could shoot a seemingly young girl who was a little under twenty so easily?

Within the split second of hesitation, Noelle closed the gap between her and the remaining guard and hit him straight in the face with an open palm. She followed up with a blow straight into the side of the helmet and the guard stumbled back, ears slightly ringing after having his metal helmet smacked around. Noelle then grabbed the rifle muzzle as he fell back and pulled the guard towards her, kicking out at the same time to send him onto the floor. She now had the rifle by the barrel in her hand, and she promptly flipped it and caught it by its grip.

“No…!”

The guard closed his eyes, expecting a quick bullet through his skull, but Noelle simply delivered a blow to his head with the butt of the weapon. He dropped heavily on the floor with a muffled grunt.

“I’d be a fool to fire a weapon in the dead of the night,” Noelle muttered. She gave a quick backward glance at the semi-conscious guards, before going straight for the Defiance in the vault and skidding to a stop at the nearest shelf. It was crammed full with racks holding tiny crystal-clear vials, each containing to the brim heavy, colorless liquids of some odd, concocted solution.

The question of how many vials to swipe rendered Noelle’s mind blank for a few moments, before she hastily emptied a rack full of the vials into a small, secure compartment in her leather satchel. She had originally thought to steal one and be away with it, but it made no sense to leave behind the one clue that would lead them to the criminal - the one Defiance to prolong the life of a single person.

It was not everyday that a person from a common town was cured of the symptoms of the virus.

Unfortunately, the added weight of the vials in her satchel now meant that she had just broken one of the most important rules in the art of thieving: Thou shalt not be greedy.   

With a muffled groan, she shifted the leather satchel behind her back-

Crash!

Startled, Noelle brought her gaze down towards where the sharp, piercing sound of glass shattering resulted in the slick, coating of the vial’s colorless content on the metallic flooring of the vault.

A stray vial must have rolled off the shelf somehow. She did hastily place a few back when the small compartment of her leather satchel could hold no more.

“Drat,” Noelle cursed, and was about to leave the oozing liquid untouched on the floor, when there was the faint impression of a sizzling, spitting sound, before a movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention yet again.  

The colorless liquid, once an inconspicuous patch of slick liquid on the floor, was now growing, spreading out ever so slowly, its movement hindered by its sheer thickness and weight. Shivering and trembling, the contents of the shattered vial sprang to life and inched its way towards her. A ripple at the furthest end sent waves of black darkness rolling across the colorless solution. In mere seconds, what was as clear as water in a lake under starry skies was now thicker and darker than black.

“Wha-?!” Noelle stepped back quickly, eyes wide.

All of a sudden, however, it convulsed, the hissing like that of a dozen snakes increasing in volume… then, nothing. It had seemed to pause for a second, give a heavy shudder, then ceased to move at all. All that was left of the Defiance was a black stain.

Forget it. Noelle had one arm behind her, clutching the satchel which contained the vials of Defiance and the strange syringe. It bounced on her back annoyingly as she ran out of the vault, towards the hoist. That was when she almost ran straight into a person.

“Whaaaaaa!” Noelle had her fist halfway on its journey straight towards the newcomer’s face, until she realized...

“Ronan?!” Noelle was utterly surprised but his presence untensed her. Momentarily.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Noelle eyed the teenager from head to toe: he was a year younger than her, but just as good a thief. He wore similar garbs: dark brown clothes with black pants and padded boots. He had short brown hair and obvious dimples that were rumored to have resulted from all the laughing and smiling. Ronan also had an oblong, bulging backpack slung across one shoulder.

“Noelle… you need to understand your mom’s concern…” Ronan began.

“Mom?! Mom sent you? What does she know?” Noelle began to panic again. Her mother, the fearful leader of the ring of thieves Noelle was a part of, knew.

“Everyone knows, Noelle!” Ronan threw his hands into the air in frustration, “the moment Elric went down with that disease, your eyes said it all! Your mother has been very, very cautious. She knew this day would arrive. And she wasn’t wrong.”

“Then why didn’t she come here herself?” Noelle folded her arms and glanced around anxiously; things were definitely not going as expected.

“She said I had a better chance reasoning with you, but I fell behind when you…”

Noelle ignored whatever ensued from Ronan’s mouth. Admittedly, she trusted Ronan a dozen times more as her partner than she trusted her mom as, well, her mother. This fact actually pained her heart.

“Anyway, whatever. I can’t convince you to be a good girl and return those vials,” Ronan sighed and looked at her: “Let’s get out of here.”

“Don’t slow me down,” Noelle snapped at him, secretly grateful of his companionship. As her boots hit the metal platform of the hoist, she heard more noise down on the ground floor and peeked over the hoist.

“Up there! Freeze!”

Noelle ducked back as the guards simultaneously raised their rifles up at her.

“We will shoot!”

“Did you draw them here?” Noelle hissed at Ronan; the boy vigorously shook his head.

Noelle’s mind raced as she thought of a way out; the other guards in the courtyard must have noticed that their fellow colleagues were missing.To add on to that, the Ivory Tower was one fifth illuminated, more than enough to attract suspicion in the middle of the night.

“Come out! You have ten seconds…”

“Go up, to the roof,” Ronan suddenly grew serious, “trust me on this one.”

“You better know what you’re doing,’ Noelle grunted, hitting a switch at the side. The hoist started ascending.

“Hey! Stop!”

Noelle didn’t dare to look down; she didn’t intend to have a rifle round embedded anywhere in her skull. She could just picture the guards down below panicking, scuttling around like ants to find some kind of emergency switch for the hoist.

Crouching beside her, Ronan hastily opened his bag and pulled out a curiously complex contraption with much effort. Noelle saw the leather buckles and straps that dangled from it, the metal exoskeleton…

“Are those…?”

“Gliders,” Ronan nodded, laying one onto the floor of the platform. He tugged at the sides and Noelle saw its wings unfold; they were each the length of her arm span.

“Never thought I’d use these,” Noelle ran her hands over the glider’s metal frame, “we’ve only tried these three or four times at the hills near Blackfog. Ivory Tower is, er, well... three times the height.”

“Hopefully, the height is enough to carry us over the city walls.” Ronan pulled out yet another glider. “The city walls are just right beside-”

“Right beside the Ivory Tower. North west. Approximately a kilometre and a half. You didn’t think I’d study the city before I came sneaking in, did you?”

Ronan ignored her. “You remember how to prepare them, Noelle? You gotta loop those over your arms…”

The hoist jerked to a halt and Noelle realized they were out in the open, on the roof of Ivory Tower. A tall spike in the centre of the roof casted a pillar of shadow behind them, and from that shadow, a guard came rushing up with a rifle. He attempted to strike down with the bayonet attached to the barrel but Noelle was faster: her free hand reached for the throwing knife in her belt and she sent it flying for the guard’s knee.

The weapon hit its mark with an almost uncanny precision.

“Nicely done, as usual,” Ronan grinned.

“Ahhh!” The guard tripped over and his rifle clattered to the ground; there was a bang and Noelle and Ronan froze for a second. Gunfire was something the two of them had not heard in a long time nor wanted to hear.

“...come on,” Ronan went back to his own glider as Noelle fixed up hers onto her arms.

“There’s the wall,” Ronan went over the edge and called out to Noelle. Transfixed by the scenery before her however, the girl did not respond.

The sky was ever so slowly lighting up, streaks of honey-brown and gold blazing across the horizon; it was the dawn of a new day. Across the Ivory Tower below her, a large lake expanded and stretched far beyond, before meeting dry land where an immense, massive mirror of solid gold lay horizontally on the ground. It was the Prospero, the great golden mirror, the pride and wonder of Dawngold City. At the coming of dawn, the Prospero would spring to life, moved by the workings of giant machinery of colossal standards. Upon the first light of the morning sun, the great golden mirror would tilt upwards, endowing the city of Dawngold with sheer amounts of reflected sunlight.

This was Dawngold’s main energy source.

The section of the wall Ronan was referring to, however, was directly north-west of the tower. Noelle had to remind herself, again, that now was not the time for sightseeing. She snapped out of it.

“Ready?"

Noelle looked rather uneasily at Ronan: he stood precariously at the edge of the roof, seemingly unfazed by the drop below.

“Ladies first,” she smirked.

“Very funny.”

With a simple maneuver, Ronan threw himself off the tower and disappeared from view.

“May the lords watch over my flying body,” she muttered. A second later, her feet felt nothing but the rush of cold air below.

Noelle squinted through the winds and saw Ronan gliding swiftly above the houses of Dawngold, the metallic frame of the glider glinting in the light of the rising sun. She was not too far behind him and grew more confident as they approached the city wall. It was now a good kilometre away.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Startled by the sudden gunshots, Noelle’s glider took an abrupt forty-five degree dip before clambering shakily up again. A bullet had whizzed past her, and for a moment, she thought that she must have been hit somewhere. When her glider started wobbling, her fears were confirmed.

“Ronan!” Noelle yelled. She had no idea whether or not he could hear her with the roaring wind snatching away at her words.

“My wings’ hit! I’m...I’m!”

“Head for the water!” came the reply. In the heat of the moment, Noelle failed to comprehend his words, but then she remembered the lake and its azure-blue waters.

“I’ll meet you there!” Ronan continued.

“Don’t be stupid! Save yourself!” Noelle started turning her now shuddering glider towards the glistening waters.

Noelle held her breath. The cold water smacked hard against her skin, but it was certainly better than crashing into a wall or a pavement.

Noelle gasped for breath as she broke the surface and shivered in the cold. Adrenaline pumped through her limbs as she swam towards the nearest shoreline, batting away the mossy green algae that grew in vast, annoying clumps on the surface of the lake. To her relief, Ronan landed on the grass-covered shore and instantly moved to help her back onto terra firma.

“The Defiance. Check if they’re alright.” Noelle bent over and squeezed bits of her clothes dry. She also leaned against Ronan for support as she emptied water from her boots.

“They’re alright. The vials are unbroken.” Ronan confirmed, much to Noelle’s relief.

“Now what?”

“Huh?”

“How are we going to get out of here?” Noelle noticed that the sky was already a reddish hue. In a city like Dawngold, a pair of shabby thieves would stick out like coal in a basket of diamonds.

Ronan surveyed the area; for the gliders to work, they had to move to elevated ground… which was nowhere in sight.

“I...I don’t know. We can try the Ivory Tower again but we’d be seen in the light…”

The light.

“The Prospero,” Noelle grinned and gave him a solid thump on the shoulder. “That’s it! The Prospero tilts towards the city at dawn...it would be like a ramp that would lead us out of the city!”

“You are insane.” Noelle was frankly not surprised by his reaction.

“Noelle, you want to run across the great mirror?”

“Well, you were the one who brought the gliders.”

“Valid point.” Ronan frowned.

“We’ll have to make haste. The mirror’s yet to start tilting, but it will soon.” Noelle became aware that a few early birds in the park were taking notice of them.

Ronan saw no point in arguing with her. Following the concrete pavements, Noelle tried hard to ignore the wet clothes clinging to her skin that was limiting her movement. She still led the way, with Ronan following closely behind her, carrying the bulky glider over his head. The duo got more than a few stares whilst running down the streets of Dawngold, but they paid no mind, focusing on the mirror at the end of the city.

“It’s starting to tilt!” The tip of the Prospero glared at Noelle with the first rays of reflected sunlight. Up close, the great golden mirror was an intimidating, vast expanse of full solid gold. It was almost as if the mirror was out to flatten a good half of the city.

“There they are! Stop them!” Golden guards came pouring in from the side alleys. Fortunately, they wielded swords and spears, in fear that stray bullets from firearms would accidentally hit the citizens of Dawngold.

“Watch your step!” Ronan cautioned.

Noelle vaulted over the safety railing and landed awkwardly on the surface of the mirror. She felt a tad ashamed for soiling such a perfectly polished surface.

"No time to lose, Noelle. Up we go." Ronan yanked at her sleeve and dragged her along. Their boots made light, clunking noises as they ascended the metallic gold of the Prospero.

Not long after, the clanking of heavy armor and thick solid boots followed in rapid succession behind them.

"You think we're the first ones to step foot on the Prospero, eh?" Ronan chuckled between heavy breaths.

"Just keep running you idiot," Noelle snapped. She was beginning to tire. The added weight of her damp clothes was not helping. Plus, with the Prospero tilting higher every second, each step took more effort than the last, and the reflected sunlight shone glaringly in her eyes.

The giant golden mirror was becoming increasingly difficult to scale... Not that it seemed to matter to their pursuers. If anything, they appeared to be gaining distance on them - or was it the sun's reflected rays confusing her? As she arched her neck backwards to gain sight of their pursuers, a sharp, glinting speck of light amidst bouncing rays sent alarm signals jolting her senses alive.

"Ronan!" Noelle shrieked. "Duck!"

As they both fell flat on the ground beneath them, a spear flew overhead with an alarming whoosh, embedded itself momentarily onto the metallic surface before cluttering down the Prospero.

"Well, that was close."

"Less talking. More running," Noelle muttered. She was already back up on her feet, throwing cautionary glances backward every now and then. Several times, more spearheads came rushing towards them, but the girl deflected the projectiles' direction with a simple flick of her wrist. Most rolled down the Prospero away from the guards’ reaches, but some were retrieved only to be sent whizzing past their heads once again.

Throwing knives were certainly useful - she had took a moment to savor that fact. If anything at this very moment, only the element of the sun rendered her fearful of the prospect of a missed target.

Apparently soon after, the guards seemed to have ran out of spears to send flying at the duo. Seeing as there was hardly any point in attempting to destroy the running criminals, the guards decided to wise up and resorted to shooting grappling hooks at their feet. With the increasing elevation, both parties failed to find their marks.

The slope of the Prospero now resembled something like that of an almost unbearable, steep hill climb. It was almost impossible to scale its surface without keeping their bodies bent low, lest they should slide right down into the waiting arms of the guards. The only thing keeping them from propelling straight off was the rough soles of their leather boots.

Thankfully, what was otherwise a seemingly endless sea of gold, the edge of the great golden mirror could now be seen. The guards, weighted down by their armor and weaponry had halted below them, bodies pressed low on the Prospero.

“The hooks! Do not cease fire!” The captain of the guards ordered his men.

Noelle and Ronan reached the top, fingers grasping tightly at the edge of the Prospero as a sudden jolt signalled the end of the mirror’s journey skywards. Now all they had to do was to get out the gliders and be on their merry way to freedom…

“Noelle,” Ronan murmured quietly. “We’ve only one glider left.”

A jolt of fear shot through her stomach. Her fingers clenched.

“What do you m-” Noelle’s eyes widened as she remembered how she had abandoned her broken glider back at the lake, the contraption rendered useless due to its punctured wings…

“Can it not carry both of us? I’m sure it-”

“Don’t be silly, Noelle,” Ronan managed a soft laugh. “You know how well that went back at the hills of Blackfog.”

“Here,” Ronan pressed the glider into Noelle’s hands. He gave a furtive glance at the guards below.

“Nuh uh. Not a chance, Ronan Finhinder.” Noelle snapped, glaring at her companion. She was about to shove the metal contraption back at him, but a sudden grimace of pain overcame his features before the boy disappeared from her sight.

“Ronan!”

Noelle almost lost her grip on the edge of the Prospero as she attempted to halt Ronan’s fall with her flailing legs; her partner was sliding down the Prospero, dragged along his feet by a grappling hook, its wicked, curved claws embedded in his ankle.

“RONAN!”

“Go, moron!” Ronan’s voice was lost in the wind as he slid down the mirror at record speed, right into the formation of guards. They pounced on him in an aggressive, almost frenzied delight. Muffled groans of pain reached Noelle’s ears as the guards attempted to suppress the thrashing captive.

“The girl! Get her!”

“Yes, sir!” Guards took up their weapons and prepared to fire more grappling hooks at the last trespasser.

Noelle looked over the edge of the great mirror; she could see the northernmost section of the city wall right beneath it. She had more than enough height to sail over it.

But Ronan…

“Go!” Ronan managed to yell once more, before he was silenced by a fist thrown into his face.

His last desperate cry fired up her numb senses. She planted her feet on the thick edge of the Prospero and leaped, arms stretched out with Ronan’s glider. It was almost as if the girl was flying straight into the sun, vanishing into its fiery embrace.