A/N: Many thanks to everyone who reviewed!! You guys really made me feel
guilty about not updating faster (please don't blame me - blame the evil,
evil exams!) I found it really amusing that everyone desperately (or so it
seems!) wants to know about "this Mavericks girl". Well I guess that's
what the fic is about but (probably because I'm used to her running around
in my fic ideas now.I have a fair chunk of this fic already written, it
just needs adjusting and editing before it can be posted! ^_^;) I never saw
her as "interesting" or "intriguing" at all I just see her as well.read
this chappie and a fair bit will be explained and hopefully a few more
questions raised ::crosses fingers and hopes::
Now on with a few special mentions I felt were necessary (If I have left
you out your reviews did not in any way mean less to me!! It's just these
three either had questions they needed answering or a comment I felt that
had to be made!!!)
Alexia: My sincere apologies! I looked back and I did indeed spell your name wrong!! I'm hoping that this isn't going to be ironic by way of me spelling it wrong again.!^_^ You've been great so far, please keep reviewing!
Kamui: You are fabulous (for want of a better word!) I opened my inbox and out of the blue there was a review sitting in there. Me - "Hang on, I haven't posted anything for a while.? What the?" And it was your review! I've read a few 'girls join Weiss/Schwarz fics as well, I'm going to make a valiant attempt to make this one as different and off the wall as I can manage without making the characters too OOC (it's a bad habit of mine!) I hope you keep R&Ring and enjoying my fic. You deserved a special mention for being one of main "guilt trips" for not posting sooner!
Akari Ryu: Schuldig left the room before Crawford dropped the fax machine.answer your question? By the way, you really don't think this needs upping on the rating?! I'll follow your advice on this one.for now!
Enough of my babble and on with the chappie!
Disclaimer: (Oh God I have to be witty now?!) Er, I don't own Schwarz.it's the property of 'Project Weiss' and some other people who have wild imaginations with the ability to dream up awesome bishies.(A/N: Well my humour's dried up for the moment hasn't it?!)
Warning/s: Mild swearing, some violence.not a lot really!
Flames Of Insanity - Chapter 6
Crawford gazed, steely eyed behind his glasses, over the steering wheel of his BMW, seemingly focusing on the road ahead, however his thoughts were elsewhere. He would swear on his mothers grave, if he knew where it was, that the call had been deliberately disrupted, how exactly the American wasn't sure. A tapped line was the most probable.
That disturbed him in more ways than one, if the call had been tapped, why? Why would a seventeen-year-old's phone call to a new employer cause that much suspicion? Surely the people who had informed Crawford of her existence would not be stupid enough to just leave the information lying around?! Another possibility was that this girl, Anna? Anne? Amelia? Whatever her name was, had enemies of her own, that was dangerous. Any enemy of a member of Schwarz was effectively an enemy of them all - and frankly, with Schuldig around, they didn't need any more.
Then again it could have been a trap, designed to lure him out on his own and to a little known location.Crawford felt the comforting weight of the Gloc in his pocket - but was it enough? The ebony haired leader was not without his own share of personal enemies, most of them powerful people with connections in all the right places, they were after all, the only people who were worth being his competitors.
Lost in his thoughts Crawford never saw the small, shadowy figure walking across the road barely three metres in front of him. The side street was dimly lit and the BMW's headlights barely seemed to touch the rolling gloom that surrounded the area, let alone move it. When he the headlights did catch it was far to close for the American to even contemplate stopping in time,
"Shit!"
As if they had heard him the figure looked over it's shoulder for the barest second before the car seemed to connect. Indeed Crawford saw the figure before him and heard the tumbling figure on the roof overhead and felt the brakes vainly squealing and trying to grasp the dampened road. They finally caught and the figure tumbled with a crunch onto the boot of the car before.
Lightly leaping off and glaring into the rearview mirror.
Crawford's eyes widened, as he took in the features, all too familiar even though he had only seen the picture for the barest moment. Short cropped midnight coloured hair, darker even than his own, seemed to emit it's own matt glow, like a ravens wing that was cut so straight it could have been sliced on the edge of a samurai sword. She had a pale, very pale face with the same pale lips, but the eyes. Crawford couldn't look at those eyes for very long, and he had glaring competitions with Schuldig almost daily. The colour was so weird that it shocked him, the iris's seemed to hold no highlights or shadows, just a matt vibrant electric blue that seemed so bright that Crawford felt sure they illuminated his very soul.
The next thing Crawford noted was that she was tiny - in every sense of the word. Crawford felt any hope of this girl becoming an assassin was dashed and secretly hoped that this petite thing had a twin sister, one who was a lot bigger. The girl barely cleared 5'1" and had the lightest frame Crawford could imagine without making the person anorexic. Slowly, still glaring in the rearview mirror the girl raised her middle finger defiantly at him, her ripped black shirt sleeve falling back to somewhere near her elbow. With that she turned and started to melt back into the gloom.
Crawford paused for a moment to collect his thoughts before flinging the car door opened and proceeding to get back swiftly. The person Crawford assumed was the Pyrokinetic had headed towards the entrance to a narrow alleyway. The Schwarz leader followed, hand to his pocket, checking his loaded Gloc was still there. If the girl noticed she failed to show signs of it.
The American entered the shadowy alleyway after the girl, the gloomy fog curling up around his knees. When his mahogany eyes adjusted to the changed light they widened for the briefest moment, it was the alleyway from his premonition, he was sure of it. Halfway down was a chain-link fence, around seven feet high, reasonably narrow, barely wide enough to fit two children side by side, the brick walls either side seemed to Crawford to be too close for comfort. He quickly scanned through his memory, trying to remember the fight with the kittens, it had been so long since that fight, did the alley widen out? It must have, it fitted two teams in there with enough room to move.
The American's expensive shoes crunched over what seemed like a decade's worth of alcohol bottles, but he seemed not to notice, so caught up in the moment at hand. Ahead the figure, clad in jeans and a black shirt that was ripped at the collar and sleeves, stopped abruptly and said, without turning around,
"If you're the bastard who almost ran me over - I'm fine so you can leave."
The voice was somewhat familiar but Crawford wasn't going to rely on that, seeing as he only caught a few words of the girl's voice on the phone. He paid close attention now - it was wary, cool and had a distinctly arrogant edge to it. It rang close enough for Crawford to remember it now though the polite tone was gone it was definitely her voice. Anyone other than Brad Crawford would have been intimidated or at least at a loss how to handle this situation, however the Schwarz assassin had lived with Schuldig for too long and coped with Nagi when he decided to be "sociable".
"Anna," Crawford said, his voice carrying an attitude of nonchalant boredom, while secretly he hoped he had the right name, "I suggest you speak more respectfully towards your new employer."
The girl known as Anna Mavericks slowly turned to set her odd coloured gaze squarely on the bigger man, looking him up and down with no apparent signs that she knew or cared she was being rude before she met Crawford's mahogany gaze squarely and slowly raised a raven coloured eyebrow into a perfect arch and replied with echoes of sarcasm and attitude ringing off every syllable,
"I think not. I'm not employed by anyone except myself. Now, if you'll just leave, unless you want to be caught up in a suicide mission, and leave me to do my real job."
Even Schuldig wasn't this blatantly insolent the German Telepath was teasing and manipulative but never this. Crawford was not swayed, he had been hoodwinked into hiring a Pyrokinetic and he was damn well going to hire one.
"That's not what I was told. I've hired you and by that you are bound by a contract to work for and alongside myself. If you don't like it feel free to complete your "suicide mission" and this will be the end of it."
Crawford inwardly gave a smug smirk, even Schu would have been happy with that reply. However the tiny girl barely batted an eye before replying in a tone filled with sarcasm and apparent boredom, before she chuckled, shook her head and replied,
"You're just like the rest of them - you underestimate me. Don't they teach you that where you work? 'Never underestimate the opponent'. I know you've got a Gloc in your pocket, but I'm not assuming anything about your shot until I see it. I'm also not going to attempt to disarm you because I don't know how good you are."
Crawford was thrown by what the girl had just said, but like the trained professional he was, he refused to let it show. Instead he bought himself time.
"Why are you telling me this?"
The girl shrugged and replied insolently,
"Because if you're going to try and take me by force then you know where I stand."
Crawford spied an opening in her quick attitude and replied,
"Isn't that putting you at a disadvantage?"
"Isn't what you're doing putting you at a disadvantage? Tying to buy time, it shows signs of weakness, you know."
'Jesus Christ!' Crawford's head screamed at him as the girl switched the tables around just as he thought he had them bolted to the floorboards. He wondered briefly if she was telepathic before dismissing the idea, Telepath's were curious buggers and she would have tried a probe by now, instead he said one of the stupidest lines he had ever heard himself say, and afterwards promptly kicked himself for it,
"I've hired you."
The girl shrugged again, her mouth twitching into a half smirk that made her pale lips look positively evil before she replied with dry, bitter sarcasm,
"For what?" She snorted and continued, her electric blue eyes mocking, "A secretary? A prostitute?"
The Schwarz leader's blood boiled at these accusations, he ignored Schuldig's teasing because it was only playful, something the Telepath did when he was bored. The American knew that under the teasing was respect, this girl had none. It was a blatant false accusation that infuriated him, checking his emotions as hard as he could, his training kicking in even without him thinking about it he hissed,
"No, as an assassin."
A/N: Ta da! Everyone this is Anna, Anna this is everyone! I want feedback! Please people I want to know comments, improvements, likes/dislikes - gimme them all. I'm not the only one who has to be happy with this character! There are some rock solid things that cannot be changed but I like constructive criticism.and compliments! Please review and gimme this feedback! I'm hanging on tenterhooks here! ^_^;;
Alexia: My sincere apologies! I looked back and I did indeed spell your name wrong!! I'm hoping that this isn't going to be ironic by way of me spelling it wrong again.!^_^ You've been great so far, please keep reviewing!
Kamui: You are fabulous (for want of a better word!) I opened my inbox and out of the blue there was a review sitting in there. Me - "Hang on, I haven't posted anything for a while.? What the?" And it was your review! I've read a few 'girls join Weiss/Schwarz fics as well, I'm going to make a valiant attempt to make this one as different and off the wall as I can manage without making the characters too OOC (it's a bad habit of mine!) I hope you keep R&Ring and enjoying my fic. You deserved a special mention for being one of main "guilt trips" for not posting sooner!
Akari Ryu: Schuldig left the room before Crawford dropped the fax machine.answer your question? By the way, you really don't think this needs upping on the rating?! I'll follow your advice on this one.for now!
Enough of my babble and on with the chappie!
Disclaimer: (Oh God I have to be witty now?!) Er, I don't own Schwarz.it's the property of 'Project Weiss' and some other people who have wild imaginations with the ability to dream up awesome bishies.(A/N: Well my humour's dried up for the moment hasn't it?!)
Warning/s: Mild swearing, some violence.not a lot really!
Flames Of Insanity - Chapter 6
Crawford gazed, steely eyed behind his glasses, over the steering wheel of his BMW, seemingly focusing on the road ahead, however his thoughts were elsewhere. He would swear on his mothers grave, if he knew where it was, that the call had been deliberately disrupted, how exactly the American wasn't sure. A tapped line was the most probable.
That disturbed him in more ways than one, if the call had been tapped, why? Why would a seventeen-year-old's phone call to a new employer cause that much suspicion? Surely the people who had informed Crawford of her existence would not be stupid enough to just leave the information lying around?! Another possibility was that this girl, Anna? Anne? Amelia? Whatever her name was, had enemies of her own, that was dangerous. Any enemy of a member of Schwarz was effectively an enemy of them all - and frankly, with Schuldig around, they didn't need any more.
Then again it could have been a trap, designed to lure him out on his own and to a little known location.Crawford felt the comforting weight of the Gloc in his pocket - but was it enough? The ebony haired leader was not without his own share of personal enemies, most of them powerful people with connections in all the right places, they were after all, the only people who were worth being his competitors.
Lost in his thoughts Crawford never saw the small, shadowy figure walking across the road barely three metres in front of him. The side street was dimly lit and the BMW's headlights barely seemed to touch the rolling gloom that surrounded the area, let alone move it. When he the headlights did catch it was far to close for the American to even contemplate stopping in time,
"Shit!"
As if they had heard him the figure looked over it's shoulder for the barest second before the car seemed to connect. Indeed Crawford saw the figure before him and heard the tumbling figure on the roof overhead and felt the brakes vainly squealing and trying to grasp the dampened road. They finally caught and the figure tumbled with a crunch onto the boot of the car before.
Lightly leaping off and glaring into the rearview mirror.
Crawford's eyes widened, as he took in the features, all too familiar even though he had only seen the picture for the barest moment. Short cropped midnight coloured hair, darker even than his own, seemed to emit it's own matt glow, like a ravens wing that was cut so straight it could have been sliced on the edge of a samurai sword. She had a pale, very pale face with the same pale lips, but the eyes. Crawford couldn't look at those eyes for very long, and he had glaring competitions with Schuldig almost daily. The colour was so weird that it shocked him, the iris's seemed to hold no highlights or shadows, just a matt vibrant electric blue that seemed so bright that Crawford felt sure they illuminated his very soul.
The next thing Crawford noted was that she was tiny - in every sense of the word. Crawford felt any hope of this girl becoming an assassin was dashed and secretly hoped that this petite thing had a twin sister, one who was a lot bigger. The girl barely cleared 5'1" and had the lightest frame Crawford could imagine without making the person anorexic. Slowly, still glaring in the rearview mirror the girl raised her middle finger defiantly at him, her ripped black shirt sleeve falling back to somewhere near her elbow. With that she turned and started to melt back into the gloom.
Crawford paused for a moment to collect his thoughts before flinging the car door opened and proceeding to get back swiftly. The person Crawford assumed was the Pyrokinetic had headed towards the entrance to a narrow alleyway. The Schwarz leader followed, hand to his pocket, checking his loaded Gloc was still there. If the girl noticed she failed to show signs of it.
The American entered the shadowy alleyway after the girl, the gloomy fog curling up around his knees. When his mahogany eyes adjusted to the changed light they widened for the briefest moment, it was the alleyway from his premonition, he was sure of it. Halfway down was a chain-link fence, around seven feet high, reasonably narrow, barely wide enough to fit two children side by side, the brick walls either side seemed to Crawford to be too close for comfort. He quickly scanned through his memory, trying to remember the fight with the kittens, it had been so long since that fight, did the alley widen out? It must have, it fitted two teams in there with enough room to move.
The American's expensive shoes crunched over what seemed like a decade's worth of alcohol bottles, but he seemed not to notice, so caught up in the moment at hand. Ahead the figure, clad in jeans and a black shirt that was ripped at the collar and sleeves, stopped abruptly and said, without turning around,
"If you're the bastard who almost ran me over - I'm fine so you can leave."
The voice was somewhat familiar but Crawford wasn't going to rely on that, seeing as he only caught a few words of the girl's voice on the phone. He paid close attention now - it was wary, cool and had a distinctly arrogant edge to it. It rang close enough for Crawford to remember it now though the polite tone was gone it was definitely her voice. Anyone other than Brad Crawford would have been intimidated or at least at a loss how to handle this situation, however the Schwarz assassin had lived with Schuldig for too long and coped with Nagi when he decided to be "sociable".
"Anna," Crawford said, his voice carrying an attitude of nonchalant boredom, while secretly he hoped he had the right name, "I suggest you speak more respectfully towards your new employer."
The girl known as Anna Mavericks slowly turned to set her odd coloured gaze squarely on the bigger man, looking him up and down with no apparent signs that she knew or cared she was being rude before she met Crawford's mahogany gaze squarely and slowly raised a raven coloured eyebrow into a perfect arch and replied with echoes of sarcasm and attitude ringing off every syllable,
"I think not. I'm not employed by anyone except myself. Now, if you'll just leave, unless you want to be caught up in a suicide mission, and leave me to do my real job."
Even Schuldig wasn't this blatantly insolent the German Telepath was teasing and manipulative but never this. Crawford was not swayed, he had been hoodwinked into hiring a Pyrokinetic and he was damn well going to hire one.
"That's not what I was told. I've hired you and by that you are bound by a contract to work for and alongside myself. If you don't like it feel free to complete your "suicide mission" and this will be the end of it."
Crawford inwardly gave a smug smirk, even Schu would have been happy with that reply. However the tiny girl barely batted an eye before replying in a tone filled with sarcasm and apparent boredom, before she chuckled, shook her head and replied,
"You're just like the rest of them - you underestimate me. Don't they teach you that where you work? 'Never underestimate the opponent'. I know you've got a Gloc in your pocket, but I'm not assuming anything about your shot until I see it. I'm also not going to attempt to disarm you because I don't know how good you are."
Crawford was thrown by what the girl had just said, but like the trained professional he was, he refused to let it show. Instead he bought himself time.
"Why are you telling me this?"
The girl shrugged and replied insolently,
"Because if you're going to try and take me by force then you know where I stand."
Crawford spied an opening in her quick attitude and replied,
"Isn't that putting you at a disadvantage?"
"Isn't what you're doing putting you at a disadvantage? Tying to buy time, it shows signs of weakness, you know."
'Jesus Christ!' Crawford's head screamed at him as the girl switched the tables around just as he thought he had them bolted to the floorboards. He wondered briefly if she was telepathic before dismissing the idea, Telepath's were curious buggers and she would have tried a probe by now, instead he said one of the stupidest lines he had ever heard himself say, and afterwards promptly kicked himself for it,
"I've hired you."
The girl shrugged again, her mouth twitching into a half smirk that made her pale lips look positively evil before she replied with dry, bitter sarcasm,
"For what?" She snorted and continued, her electric blue eyes mocking, "A secretary? A prostitute?"
The Schwarz leader's blood boiled at these accusations, he ignored Schuldig's teasing because it was only playful, something the Telepath did when he was bored. The American knew that under the teasing was respect, this girl had none. It was a blatant false accusation that infuriated him, checking his emotions as hard as he could, his training kicking in even without him thinking about it he hissed,
"No, as an assassin."
A/N: Ta da! Everyone this is Anna, Anna this is everyone! I want feedback! Please people I want to know comments, improvements, likes/dislikes - gimme them all. I'm not the only one who has to be happy with this character! There are some rock solid things that cannot be changed but I like constructive criticism.and compliments! Please review and gimme this feedback! I'm hanging on tenterhooks here! ^_^;;