Ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant

Going through the vent shafts was too dangerous. A Yautja might have stood a chance against a kainde amedha in such a confined space, but her strongest defense against hard meat was her speed and agility, neither of which could she employ in the metal-walled shafts. That would mean having to run the gauntlet of the only route the mobsters had left open to reach the upper levels, which would most assuredly be swarming with heavily armed pyode amedha. She thought about the situation quickly, then made her decision.

"If nothing else, it will be one hell of a challenge" she thought wryly. The idea of warning the others about her discovery only briefly crossed her mind before she dismissed it. They were too spread out around the building for her to reach, and they were all blooded hunters, all but one highly experienced, all hunting. They would be alert for any threat, pyode- or kainde amedha, and could handle things on their own without her warning.

If they couldn't, then that was just the way of the hunt.

She backed through the shaft until she found a vent grille in the floor, and after checking to make sure the coast was clear removed the cover and dropped silently into the corridor below. She crouched and oriented herself with the holographic schematics of the building inside her computer, then engaged her cloak before moving purposefully towards one end of the corridor. She glanced in either direction as she reached the T junction at the end, and once she was sure there was no-one nearby, she unclipped a disc-shaped weapon from the arsenal at her waist.

She took two steps back, her fingers comfortably within the holes spaced through the center of the disc for just that purpose, then swung it at the wall in front of her. A high pitched whine came to her ears as the electronics inside the disc activated, causing the already wafer-sharp edge to vibrate just before it made contact with the concrete, and a stream of gray dust blew outwards as the disk started to cut its way through the surface, powdering along the line she drew.

Once she had completed a semi circle from floor to floor, she stepped back further, replacing the disc at her waist and bringing the plasma weapon on her shoulder online. The ominous muzzle raised until she could feel it drop into the ready position, as she adjusted the power level she needed and waited for the red triangle of a lock to appear in front of her eyes, three pencil thin beams of red laser light projecting from one side of her helmet against the center of the area she had scored in the wall. Holding her breath, she let loose with a ball of red plasma, the heat vaporising the wall into minute particles that had once been concrete and reinforcing steel bars.

"Dammit!" she cursed out loud, her mask's vision piercing the cloud the blast had raised to reveal she'd miscalculated, there was still some wall left intact. She adjusted the levels again before releasing another bolt, to be rewarded this time with the sight of the stairwell on the other side of the barrier. She was about to step through the gap she had made when a clattering announced the arrival of one, two men, on the other side. Seeing the hole in the wall, they started firing blindly, and she sidestepped to clear the stream of bullets.

She shook her head in disgust at the panicked and totally pointless actions of the two men, and during a lull in the firing as they both had to reload brought her arm around to rest against the door frame, triggering the weapon slung underneath it as she did so. A choking scream came from one of the prey on the other side, then a clatter as a gun fell to the cement steps. The firing tailed off from the other side, and after a pause there was a strangled cry in a different voice.

She looked around the door to see one of the prey pressed up against the wall, two of the pitons designed to anchor the net had penetrated into his body, the other four into the wall beside him, and as the strands were automatically retracting into the spikes, the effect was somewhat similar to a cheese grater. His companion hadn't fared much better, standing holding his hands up, staring in stunned shock at the blood pumping from the stumps on both where his fingers had been only moments ago. She could see them, pale sausages of flesh and bone, scattered around the prey impaled to the wall by the net where they had fallen – the prey had obviously tried to grab the net and pull on it as it slowly cut through his accomplice, the razor strands amputating the fingers off at the knuckles.

Feeling a brief flash of pity she uncloaked, but the fingerless prey was oblivious to her presence, sinking instead to his knees and looking wildly around the floor for his fingers. His move threw her aim off as she brought her wristblades up to finish him, and what would have been a clean strike into the man's side ended with the jagged blades crunching through the man's skull to emerge on the other side. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly, his eyes bulging as he still, inexplicably, tried to look for his fingers, and as she tried to withdraw the blades to strike once more, she cursed – the back-canted teeth lining the back of her blades had lodged in the bone of the man's head.

Grimly, she pulled, soft moans coming from the man as her tugging jerked his head sideways, before she raised one booted foot up, placing it against the side of the man's head next to the blades and pulling them free with a crack, blood bone and brains coming away to drop from the silvered metal in globs. The man's body twitched then was still, and she turned her attention to the prey against the wall, his eyes wide in terror as she stepped closer.

She watched without emotion as the strands finally cut through a major blood vessel in the pinned prey's torso, and he slumped as most of his remaining blood volume dumped onto the ground before running down the stairs in a series of crimson waterfalls. She pressed a control on her thigh-mounted computer and the pitons released from the wall, the body sagging to the ground. She replaced the net back in its mounting under her forearm before moving on, following the stairs upwards.

-

"Would someone like to explain what's going on?" Ito asked, his mild voice sending chills through his people gathered around the monitors in the surveillance room. When Ito became quiet and reasonable, people became dead very quickly, usually at the hands of the bald wiry man who was constantly at Ito's side, as he was now.

"I guess you might be needing all those goons up here after all, huh? Wonder how many will be left for you to use as 'replacements'", Kylie asked acidly, uncaring of the dead-eyes glance the bald enforcer gave her. She had been borderline insane when she had encountered Cally by chance at the mall, but the cold reality of the situation she was in right now was forcing her to return to sanity with a vengeance. She had watched the monitors as the aliens had systematically engaged in a bloodbath the extent of which she had never envisioned, and she knew that she had picked the wrong side.

"It's obvious what's going on, Ito. You bet humans against aliens, and the aliens are winning." Ito glared at her before turning to the bald man.

"Get your people together, see if you can't find Miss McCullough's friend in black and invite her here. Perhaps she can be persuaded to make her friends see sense and stop their attack", Ito instructed, but as the bald enforcer nodded and left the surveillance room, Kylie laughed and shook her head.

"You just sent him and his 'people' to their deaths, Ito. You can't 'persuade' her to do squat, except maybe to kill you quick." Her voice tailed off as Ito looked at her once more, a smile on his lips as he placed one finger against them, quietening her. He gestured towards her still bandaged hand, and she shrank in on herself, holding her other hand over the bandage protectively.

"I don't see why not, Miss McCullough. After all, we persuaded you."

-

She flinched as a line of red hot pain shot through her arm, a bullet from above had hit one of the shoulder pauldrons of her armor then creased the exposed skin just above her elbow. She dodged backwards, looking up and allowing her mask to backtrack the bullet's trajectory to where it had come from. As the red bars moved across her vision, she powered up the plasma weapon on her shoulder, feeling the whining vibration as it moved up and into position then tracked along the same path her visor was describing to her.

As the red bar slowed then was joined in the solid triangle of a target lock by the other two, she magnified her view bringing into sharp relief the barrel of what looked like a hunting rifle protruding over the stairs two floors up. The sandy hair of the shooter appeared briefly as he raised his head to try and sight the rifle on her again, and with calculated precision she released the hellish energies of the weapon on her shoulder.

The bolt of star-hot plasma gave the stairwell an eerie red glow as it shot upwards before connecting with the stairs just underneath the shooter, and in the strobe flash of impact, her mask's vision mode dampening to prevent her being blinded, she watched the concrete steps being pummeled into powder and the flash-fried remains of the shooter, still gripping the melted and bent remains of the rifle, falling to land one stairway below with a thud.

She checked her arm quickly, but it wasn't that bad, not enough to require she attend to it there and then, although it hurt like a bitch. Of more concern to her was how the shooter had even managed to know she was there, her cloak was active! She crouched to check the diagnostics with her thigh-mounted computer, but then slapped the forehead of her mask for her stupidity as she glanced down and saw the reason for her compromise – she had walked through the blood puddle of her previous kill, and her feet were leaving bloody footprints on the stairs. The shooter must have been looking down the stairwell through the scope of the rifle and seen the tracks, firing blind and getting in a lucky hit, explaining the glancing blow.

She cursed herself, she had become complacent, reliant on the abilities of her armor and its cloak as the Second had feared all those long days ago. She wiped the blood from her feet and shook herself, reminding herself of the warning she had given Asshole – Overconfidence is dangerous. Suitably self-chastised, she continued her climb of the stairs, quickly reaching the level the shooter had been and having to jump over the hole her bolt had made in the stairs, the edges still glowing hotly from the energy.

One more flight and she was at the doorway to the floor she wanted, but her mask amplified the sounds of many people on the other side of the door, talking in nervous voices. A corner of her mind noted that the voices were still maintaining a level of calmness, their owners must either be very professional, or be totally clueless to the situation. She smiled to herself as she unhooked two of the throwing stars from her armor, holding one in each hand as her thumbs pressed down on the middle of the devices, causing the thin kainde amedha-talon tipped spikes to extend outwards.

She paused, though, as a voice called out loud enough to be heard through the doorway.

"Hello? We know you're out there. Our employer would like to talk with you, to try and resolve the problem." She waited, trying to decide what game was being played, and the voice continued, calmly.

"We know you can probably reach your objective, but that would involve risk to you. There are too many of us here for you to take out easily, and this is the most defended part of the whole building. We will allow you to keep your weapons, you will not be attacked or harmed. He just wants to talk to you, we give you our word."

Yeah, like your word means squat even when you're not facing being wiped out, jerk, she thought. The silence went on for a few minutes as she tried to decide what to do. Most of the mobsters she would be fighting weren't the prey she wanted, their skulls would be unlikely to adorn her trophy wall. She really only wanted the three crime bosses, not the underlings. If she could trust the offer, which she doubted, it would make it easier for her to reach the real prey of her hunt. Once she had taken those three down, she could then come back through the building, fighting if she needed to, but she questioned how willing the criminals would be to fight her knowing their bosses were dead.

She came to a decision.

"Tell your people to disarm themselves, and I'll consider it." She could hear a laugh from the other side.

"And what guarantees do we have that you won't turn around and use the weaponry you have against us while we're defenseless?" She growled inside her mask, how dare he insult her with such a suggestion! She fumed before an idea came to her.

"Have all your people throw their guns out here. If I see a gun, I'll just blow the building, and solve everyone's problems that way. One gun, you're all dead."

The sensors in her mask could detect the sound of quiet conversation on the other side of the door, but she couldn't make out the words. Eventually, after some obvious argument, the stranger's voice could be heard again.

"We have a deal."

-

She entered the softly lit room Ito had selected for his own, flanked by the black-garbed killers, the bald headed one leading the way. She noted that the soft carpeting covering the floor deadened the sound of footfalls, while she adjusted her mask's vision mode back to the visible light spectrum to better see those waiting for her.

She wasn't really that surprised that one of the two people there was the reporter. She had figured the woman had gotten herself in too deep before realizing who she was playing with, but she was gratified to see that the reporters eyes, unlike their previous encounter, showed fear. The other waiting for her, however, showed no sign of emotion, standing instead impassively beside Kylie, his immaculate suit and tie an oddly incongruous vision compared to the bloodbath being created on the floors below. It was a testament to the soundproofing of the room that, once the doors were closed by one of the men in black, the sounds of the fighting were muted even from the sensors in her mask.

As she came up to in front of the pair, the mobsters that had escorted her there spreading out to form a loose semi-circle, the man bowed, his eyes never leaving her eye shields. "It's a pleasure to meet you finally, Miss ..." She let the unspoken question hang there, and turned her head towards Kylie instead. The reporter took half a step back nervously, but held her ground otherwise, her eyes tracking up and down Cally's armor as she tried to catalog all the things she had only seen once before through a camera monitor.

"I had hoped that you would have more sense after our last encounter" she said, the mask amplifying and distorting her words. Kylie shook her head in mute denial, then glared at Ito.

"I didn't have much of a choice in the matter. This has all gotten out of hand, I didn't want any part of any of it, or letting that other alien loose, but it's not like anyone ..." Cally interrupted her, the steel in her voice obvious.

"What other alien? You mean the kainde amedha?".

"Is that what they're called? How curious. We must be sure to talk more about these 'kainde amedha' later. But we have more pressing issues to discuss at the moment." Ito motioned her towards the table to one side, a handful of chairs surrounding it, but she remained where she was. He shrugged, and moved towards the table without her, making her pivot in place to keep her eyes on him.

"What makes you think we have anything to discuss, Mister Ito?" Two can play at the surprise game, kiddo, she thought to herself, but he gave no visible reaction to her revealing she knew his name.

"Why, how to put an end to this senseless killing that you and your friends have brought on myself and my colleagues, of course." he poured himself a glass of water from the carafe on the tabletop and turned to face her, leaning against one of the chairs. "We are, after all, sensible rational human beings here, I'm sure we can come to some arrangement, although", he took a sip before continuing, "I am curious as to why you have embarked on such a ... widespread disruption of our business dealings."

"There is no need to discuss how to end the hunt, Mister Ito, it will end when all of your people are dead. Including", she added, "Mister Wen, Mister Issoti, and yourself, of course." The figures around them in black shifted hearing her words, and she could sense weapons being loosened in their sheaths, but she gave no outward sign she had detected their preparations. Ito looked at her for a moment, cold eyes trying to penetrate the opaque darkness of her eyeshields without success. He looked down at the tumbler of water in his hands, swirling the contents around thoughtfully.

"I really do wish you would reconsider your position. I know that money is not your goal, you have not taken any from the places you've hit before, likewise with drugs. I can only assume therefore that this is personal on your part somehow?" Her lack of response seemed to fluster him for the first time. "What is it that you want?"

She laughed, then, sounding hollow and eerie projected by her mask.

"Why it is quite simple Mister Ito. I want your head, and those of your 'colleagues'." Ito blinked, trying to understand. He placed the tumbler back on the tabletop, a slight tremor sending a shiver across the surface of the water remaining betraying his unease.

"Might I ask what we have done to warrant such a desire?" She could feel those around her tensing, obviously reacting to some unseen signal from their boss. She grinned behind her mask and flexed her fingers imperceptibly then relaxed her arms, bringing her fingertips close to the disks mounted on her thighs. In response to some unknown warning, she sidestepped and pivoted on one foot, a knife thrown from behind her narrowly missing embedding itself in the small of her back, and she brought her arms up and out, catching the finger holes of the disks on the way up before she pushed them out and away to begin their deadly circuit of the room, arcing around either side and cutting through the black cloth, body armor, and flesh of the guards.

She pushed to one side, as the silvery flash of a sword blade came daggering down where she had been standing, and closed her fists extending her wrist blades before sweeping one arm around to deflect the return swing of the sword. The bald man wielding it, in response to his own reflexes, twisted out of the way as one of the returning disks cut through the air beside him, and as she caught both of the disks the two stepped backwards, widening the gap between them.

She gaged the man's stance, his confidence, and smiles inwardly, bending into a crouch slowly before rising once more with two long blades, drawn from her calf armor. She relaxed her fists, allowing the wristblades to retract into their housings once more, then reversed the blades in her hands until they rested against her forearms. Crossing her arms over her chest, she inclined her head imperceptibly to her opponent, who nodded in return once, his stance relaxed and informal.

For long moments they stood there, watching each other, until almost simultaneously moving into the attack, Ito and the reporter unable to do anything but watch in amazement as silver shimmered through the air, the clang of alien metal against human steel ringing in their ears as pyode amedha forged blade struck Yautja-crafted blade and back. She wasn't thinking, simply reacting, allowing decades of training at the hands of a Yautja Elder to control her body, her reflexes. She couldn't feel the weight of her armor, didn't see the electronic display in front of her eyes, she simply allowed her nature to take over, allowing the hunter within her, that she had become, to finally be unleashed against a human – a pyode amedha, with all the brutal yet beautiful savagery and skill she gave it.

She parried every thrust of her opponent's blade, waiting for the moment to strike. When he tried to bind with her blades, she gave him a practical reminder that they were not her only weapons, bringing one knee up and catching him on the thigh, the impact jarring through his bone. He disengaged and she allowed him to, watching him limp slightly favoring the leg.

After a moment for them to catch their breath, they engaged once more, a blur of limbs and weapons. She had no doubts about the outcome, she had fought kainde amedha and survived, faced a kainde amedha queen, taken her revenge on a Yautja bad blood in single combat, been blooded by a Yautja Elder. No matter how good this human, he was still simply a human, but in the corner of her mind her own warning kept her on her guard – Overconfidence is dangerous.

She was grateful for the warning when out of the corner of her eye she noticed a movement, and without looking threw one of the blades in her hands towards the source, to be rewarded with a choked off gurgle and a clatter as one of the dark clothed guards, only wounded by the disks she had sent in their deadly parade around the room at the start of the fight, slumped to the ground, the blade embedded through his throat, the silver of the gun he had been drawing on the floor.

Her opponent took advantage of her momentary distraction and pressed forwards, the tip of his sword blade stabbing into her to one side above her hip, and she let out a scream of pain and anger, pulling back before the sword could penetrate too deeply while bringing her remaining blade around so quickly the bald man had to let go and draw his hand away or loose it. The sword fell to the ground, not having entered her flesh deep enough to stay there, and she pressed her hand against her side, wincing as she did so. Ito cleared his throat as the two combatants watched each other warily, the bald man holding his empty hands by his sides.

"You are very talented. But as I am sure you are aware, your chances of winning against my colleague here are nonexistent." Ito stepped towards her, his hands outstretched in a gesture of placation, slightly blocking her line of sight to her opponent. Without thinking, she triggered a burst of plasma, vaporizing one of Ito's arms and punching a hole through the torso of the man beyond, who crumpled to the floor without realizing how he had died, the thin bladed throwing knife hidden in his hand that Ito's movement had concealed dropping from fingers no longer having a spine to receive signals from. Ito fell to his knees, looking at the ruined cauterized stump where his arm had once been, as Kylie let out a muted whimper.

She stepped towards Ito, one hand pressed against the wound in her side, and looked down on him without emotion.

"You didn't even know what the game was to be betting on who would be the winner, Mister Ito." he looked up at her with pain and hatred in his eyes, his impassive mask now gone with the cloud of blood and flesh that had once been his arm.

"Why did you do this? What did we do to you? I've got to know." For a brief moment, she considered telling him to get used to disappointment, but with sudden clarity realized that the truth would destroy him even more completely. She moved her free arm out to one side, reversing the blade in her hand to point forwards as she did so.

"You want to know why I attacked you? Why I hunted down your kind in the city? Why I want your heads?" Ito nodded, mutely.

She paused.

"You made adequate prey."