FORTY YEARS LATER

Magpie launched herself over the edge of the cliff. Her hands barely grazed the stone, catching tufts of grass and well-worn ridges. She knew the rock face better than she knew the surface of her own body, every slight undulation in carved by her own fingertips over decades until she could scale it without thought.

Which was just as well. Right now there wasn't time to think.

A stream of bullets peppered the rock. Her grasp slipped; she lunged furiously for a handhold but her fingers closed around smooth stone. The ground came up fast and she landed harder than she'd intended, stumbling into the undergrowth and throwing herself onto her front.

She was exhausted, she was starving, and it was showing.

She lay still, panting, as yells filtered down from the cliff. Anger exploded in her tired veins, flaring and dying like an exploding star. She couldn't even hunt these days without running into a pack of Guardians. They danced on her life the way they had danced on the remnants of her village, the bastards.

Her hand went unconsciously to the cloth knotted around her neck.

Keep it, kid. Remember we're not all monsters.

She had wanted to believe.

Help me help me

As quickly as it had arrived her anger ebbed away, leaving a vacant, empty space where she suspected her soul might have been. The bleak, washed-out aftermath of a tidal wave. She cycled through grief, resignation, the desire for vengeance, but none of them really touched her any more. Not after forty years.

Numb and hungry, she flipped onto her back with a heavy sigh and let her eyes drift closed.


The air was warm. She felt heavy, somewhere between sleep and consciousness. The breeze lifted her hair slightly, making her shiver as it hit the sweat on her neck. There was a loud explosion in the distance. Undergrowth crackled around her.

Voices.

In one movement she rolled into a crouch, completely awake, perfectly still in the undergrowth. She held her breath; attuned to every molecule of air, she could almost feel the movements of the forest on the surface of her tongue, racketing through her ears.

"...secure the perimeter. Kill any you see on sight."

"Yes, my lord."

Kill on sight.

Magpie's heart started to thump harder in her chest as she

they're killing us no please stop

crept forward with practised precision, testing her steps briefly to make sure they were sound. Her hand went to the knife at her belt, fingertips buzzing above it, ready to go when her adrenaline snapped.

help me

She knew Guardians couldn't die, but they could feel pain. She could be gone before they even knew she was there. She was a Nightcrawler, born with cold wind and colder sunrises in her veins. The Wilds were her home, her beast.

Fury and venom and fear fought for dominance in her chest. It was always kill on sight with them, the bastards.

help them they're killing them ger where are you

The leaves thrashed in front of her and something grabbed her wrist impossibly tightly; there was a terrific crack and pain shot up her arm, blinding her. She lashed out unthinkingly with her other hand, and her fist connected painfully something hard.

Whatever it was dropped her back into the mud, but before she could scramble to her feed she was hauled up unceremoniously by the scruff of her neck. She roared and lashed out with both legs, until she caught a look at her assailant and promptly dried up inside.

"Who the hell are you?" He demanded.

He was enormous, well over a full head taller than Magpie with arms the size of her abdomen and thick armour that made him look like a monster. His face was completely obscured by a colossal horned helmet, with one horn snapped off at the base. Bile and acid at the base of her gut as she dangled, helpless as a stuck fish.

They were surrounded by identical, gun-wielding soldiers. Entirely metal.

"Let me go," she rasped. To her surprise, he obliged. They stared at each other in silence.

"Why are you here?" He said suspiciously when she didn't volunteer any information "Only Guardians are to leave the City boundary."

Magpie swallowed painfully past her dry tongue.

"Go on, then." She said bitterly. "Put me out of my misery."

There was a long, tense pause. Magpie stared unflinchingly into the faceless helmet of the Guardian.

"Listen, whoever you are," he said. "I have authorisation to secure this area for arena use - "

"Kill me then." She was shouting now, thumping her chest. "Kill me like you did my parents, my people, you cowards, you bloody awful cowards - "

The Guardian promptly grabbed her by the front of her jacket so forcefully he knocked the breath out of her.

"What are you?" He snarled.

"I'm the last one." She said bluntly.

"The last one?"

"This is my home. You took everything away from me one night forty summers ago."

"I'm going to –"

"Oh, catch me and see if I care," Magpie snapped, and before he or his robot comrades could respond she launched back herself into the undergrowth. Shouts followed her and she swerved from side to side in case they started to shoot, but the voices faded in the wind.

The pain in her wrist eventually brought her to her knees, and she examined it gingerly. Bright purple, swollen, excruciating. She spat on the ground. How was she supposed to hunt with a broken wrist?

She couldn't be bothered to consider it. Slumped against a tree trunk, the heavy splatter of rain began on the leaves above her head. She was hungry, she was tired, she had nowhere to be.

Mama, are you there?

It's your Mag-Pag. I'm lost, Mama.