We'll be getting back to Knives in a bit, don't worry.

*******************************************************************************

Effie could hardly believe her eyes. First, Anne had just died. Just like that, just that quick, so fast that her mind could barely encompass the horror. Ah, screw that. Barely? She couldn't even get her mind around enough to qualify for barely. Maybe it was easier for Mark, and for Knives. They knew violence, knew death. She didn't.

What was she doing there? She was a desk jockey, practiced only at riding her group of engineers and trying to get them to all think in the same direction. She wasn't a hero, wasn't a person who ran off and tried to make the world right. But it had seemed so easy, Anne had seemed so sure of herself and she had been caught up in the feeling that it would take almost nothing to make everything perfect.

But nothing was ever perfect on this world.

Instead, she found herself almost all alone in an old warehouse, her closest living friend getting shot by his own bullets, and she couldn't do anything. She couldn't breathe, couldn't feel her heart beat, could barely feel her own body. Between the retort of the shots and shock she couldn't hear anything at all. She could just watch.

The bloodspray that arched out as the bullets entered his body. The small twitch from the bullet's passage, followed so quickly by his body's convulsion from the pain. Watching him fall as first one and then the other knee was shot out. The sweat that dripped from his face. The horrid look of unconcern on Ace's face as she watched.

Even with both shoulders shot out and both knees ruined, still Mark managed to raise his gun and squeeze the trigger.

And still Ace caught it.

And she sent it back.

Effie couldn't hear anything, but her throat was raw with the anger of her scream. Her vision hazed, a combination of red and black threatening to overwhelm her. Dimly, she felt herself falling to her knees.

As her sight came back she looked for Mark, afraid of what she was going to see but too morbidly curious to look anywhere else. Did this last shot puncture his heart? Was he staining the ground with the last drops of his life, just as Anne had so few minutes prior? Was she to be next?

But no. Mark still lived, and look as she might she could find no new wounds. His head tried to turn her direction but as soon as his eyes left Ace he began to tumble, whatever force that had lent him the strength to keep firing finally deserting him.

Effie launched herself towards him, scarcely believing that Ace hadn't sent that last bullet winging back to him. Getting to her feet would have taken too long so she scrambled towards him as much on her hands as on her feet. Once there she ran her fingers over his face and chest, feeling for the wound that she was sure had to be there, that she feared to find.

His eyes met hers, his gaze clearing enough to ask her a question but his eyes closing before he found the strength to voice it. Effie began to panic, nearly losing what composure she had left before she caught sight of his pulse, still fluttering weakly in the veins of his neck.

Effie frantically pulled at his shirt, trying to tear it to make bandages, trying to do something before she watched him die on her, but she still saw Ace begin to walk over. Whirling, she jumped into a crouch, hands raised before her with fingers clenched into claws, a snarl forcing its way on her face.

"You will not take him too," she growled as Ace paused. The small plant girl merely shrugged in response and stepped forward the last couple paces to close the distance between them. She dropped onto one knee, reaching between Effie's arms and ineffectual swings to grab her chin.

"You aren't a plant," the girl said in an almost calm voice. "How did you do that?"

Do what? she thought, and although she didn't voice the words Ace heard her and laughed. It was a bark of honest surprise, completely different from her laughter of just a few minutes before.

"You don't know?" Ace lifted up a misshapen bit of metal and showed it to her. Still uncomprehending, but knowing that she didn't like that Ace assumed that she had any right to touch her, Effie yanked her chin out of Ace's hand, pulling back just enough for her eyes to be able to focus on Ace's face. A glare is so much more effective when you can see to direct your rage, after all. "No, you don't know," the girl said, unperturbed by Effie's show of defiance. She settled back on her heels and bounced the bit of metal on her palm reflectively.

Effie's eyes were drawn to it, just a quick glance before returning to glare at Ace. The girl caught the look all the same and mirrored it, looking at what now lay still in her palm. "This was the last bullet," she said musingly. "You stopped it from hitting your boyfriend." Ace looked at Effie again. "So what sort of freak does that make you? One of Vash's by-blows?" She shook her head, dispelling the notion. "No. Not likely. So what are you?"

"Nothing that's a friend to you," Effie found herself saying. With an almost physical effort she broke Ace's gaze and returned to trying to stop Mark's bleeding. She gave up on trying to rip his shirt, instead divesting herself of socks and anything else that might possibly work as a tourniquet long enough for her to get him to a hospital.

Ace stood and wandered off to pace the room, and aside from keeping an eye on her to make sure that she stayed far enough away, Effie concentrated on helping Mark.