To Speckleflower: I wasn't sure how "touchy-feely" Alya and Nino should be, but I figured that after the night they'd had, they would be a lot more expressive toward each other! Writing their relationship in this story was pretty fun.
To The Keeper of Worlds: Not exactly "begins"… Remember Jagged Stone's necklace in "Tit for Tat"?
Anansi lay prone on a rooftop underneath a ratty old gray blanket, her "uniform" covered by nondescript track pants and a sweatshirt. She slowly lifted the binoculars to her eyes, carefully shading them against the last rays of the setting sun to her right. From this vantage point she could see three different drug corners run by – as far as she could tell – two different gangs. They seemed to have an uneasy truce at the moment, but a few weeks back she'd witnessed an ugly confrontation between two of the dealers that nearly turned violent. She'd almost been disappointed when a car pulled up, some words were said, and the dealers huffed off to their own corners. Despite her concern for the innocent people living on the block, less dealers and druggies in the neighborhood would have to be a good thing, right?
Tonight, however, she wasn't interested in the dealers themselves; she was interested in one car: the runner's car that had sent a strung-out druggie to rob and murder her sisters. Anansi slowly turned her head to follow a dark brown sedan as it approached the corner in front of her. As it passed her roof, she checked the license plate through her binoculars. Not the same car. The dealer's money guy walked up to the car and reached through the open window. Then the drug guy walked over and did the same. The car pulled away and drove off. Anansi let out a breath.
Another dark brown sedan pulled up and flashed its headlights in the dusky gloom. The dealer walked over to the car as Anansi checked the license plate. It matched. She slowly crawled backward away from the roof's edge, rolling the blanket into a ball and hiding it under a pile of trash with her binoculars before drawing herself up into a low crouch. She had placed the backpack holding her gloves and helmet right next to her left hand, and she grabbed it and slipped an arm through the strap while still keeping her eyes fixed on the car. Based on her previous observations, the car would continue along this street before turning right at the end of the block, so she started walking that direction, careful to stay away from the edge and low enough to avoid being seen from the ground. When she reached the end of that roof she risked another careful look down at the corner.
The sedan was just pulling away from the corner as the dealer returned to his stoop. Anansi stood still, watching the car drive to the corner where she stood before turning in her direction. The car slowly accelerated toward the end of the block, and she raced to keep pace with it. The roof she was standing on ended, and she leapt to the next one without slowing her pace. The car had reached the end of the block and continued on, and Anansi threw caution to the wind, racing along the rooftops to keep the car in view.
When she reached the end of the block, Anansi clambered down a fire escape on the side of the building and into the alley as quickly as she could. She slipped out of the alley and blended into the street traffic of locals returning home from work and shopping, pulling a baseball hat out of her backpack and lowering the brim to cover her eyes. The car turned left several blocks ahead, and Anansi ran across the street and raced down the next street that ran parallel to the one the car was on. She knew that a few streets up there was another drug corner where the car might stop for another pickup, which could give her a chance to catch up. Sure enough, when she finally drew parallel to that corner, she could see the sedan idling at the corner while the passenger talked to the dealer. Anansi calmly walked up the street toward the corner, still blending in with the foot traffic.
She'd cut the number of streets separating them in half when the car pulled away and turned directly toward her. Anansi kept her eyes pointing forward, avoiding looking directly at the car, until it reached the street in front of her and turned. She walked to the end of the block and looked down the street where the car had turned, to see the car stopping in front of a warehouse.
There wasn't any other traffic on that street, so Anansi continued past it, ducked into the next alley, and followed it to the warehouse yard. With a glance in either direction, she walked across the yard, toward the warehouse. She wasn't too worried they would shoot her if they saw her; if, as she suspected, they stored their drugs at this warehouse, they would be more likely to try to capture her and find out what she knew. And that would give her an advantage.
No one confronted her in the yard, and she was sure they hadn't spotted her yet when she reached the warehouse wall and carefully looked through one of the windows. Inside she could see a man in a white suit shaking his fist at a group of tough-looking men. She didn't recognize the man in the suit, but a couple of the men in the crowd looked like enforcers she had observed at the drug corners. Looks like they're not getting away this time.
Anansi dropped to a crouch and pulled off her disguise. The workout pants, sweatshirt, and hat went into her backpack to replace the gloves and helmet, which she put on. After a quick swig of water to calm her nerves, she hid the backpack behind a barrel. Then it was time.
A side door slid open without more than a squeak, and Anansi slipped inside. Down the hallway she found a couple of guards leaning against the walls and not paying close enough attention. She grabbed one from behind, wrapping her arm around his head and covering his mouth, at the same moment that she struck the other in the throat with the edge of her palm. That one slumped against the wall, clutching his throat, as she punched the first in the head twice in quick succession, knocking him out cold. She carefully guided both guards' unconscious bodies to the ground and continued past them. At the end of the hallway she found herself standing in the shadow cast by the bright overhead lights in the main room and listening as the man in white harangued his men.
"–You're lucky that junkie didn't know anything! Considering the cops have him, we could have had a serious problem if he talked! As it is, it's only dumb luck you didn't blow it entirely! If you had… let's just say he wouldn't have been too happy – with any of us!"
White Suit muttered something under his breath that Anansi didn't catch before he turned and stomped off toward an SUV on the other side of the building.
Now or never.
Anansi glanced around for anything close at hand to create a distraction. She spotted a small piece of piping, no more than a few centimeters in length, lying on the floor where a workman must have cut a pipe down to size while repairing the plumbing. She grabbed the pipe segment and threw it as hard as she could across the room, where it clanged on the concrete floor and bounced into a stack of rebar that fell over and scattered like pick-up sticks. Everyone in the building stopped moving and turned to face the ruckus.
Anansi ran out from the hallway where she had been hiding, moving as silently as she could. She reached the closest group of thugs and punched the first one in the back of the head, knocking him to the floor, before they noticed her presence. Anansi was in the middle of the crowd before more than a handful had a chance to react. She ducked low to avoid a punch and lashed out with punches of her own, catching a couple thugs in the gut. One moved in close, and she put one hand on the floor to give herself leverage for a kick to his collarbone. That one fell backward and collapsed on top of a pair of his companions, to be replaced by another thug. Anansi returned to her feet and settled into her boxing stance. She had to get past the foot soldiers and reach their boss before he could escape.
Across the building she could just make out the SUV door opening and the man in white climbing into the back before she had to dodge a blow aimed at her chest. She spun around and kicked her attacker in the side, bowling him over into another thug, as the SUV's engine started. Anansi let out a frustrated groan when the SUV pulled out of the warehouse and disappeared into the night.
The thugs pressed together between her and the door through which the SUV had disappeared, and she fell back toward the rear of the building. Anansi felt arms grab her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. She used the pin as leverage, swung her legs up, and kicked the thugs standing closest to her. As her legs came down she bent forward into a crouch, pulling the man pinning her arms off balance with a yelp, and fell into a forward roll, flipping him over her head, landing on top of him, and rolling off him into a crouch less than a meter from the closest thug. She sprang up, ramming her helmet into his chin and knocking him backward off his feet and into the guy behind him. More pressed in, and Anansi was pushed backward into the wall. She felt a push bar against her back, leaned backward into it, and the door behind her opened, spilling her and the remaining thugs out into the small area behind the warehouse.
Anansi heard a noise to her left and ducked, barely avoiding a punch to her face. The guard who had been waiting outside that door tried to pull a handgun from his waistband, but Anansi grabbed his wrist and forced it back until he dropped the gun, and then punched him hard in the face. He fell to the ground, and she stumbled over him away from the doorway. She heard footsteps behind her and turned around to find a group of the thugs waiting.
"You losers just don't stop coming, do you?" she taunted, cracking her knuckles and grinning maniacally beneath her mask.
The thugs spread out around her before all charging at once. Anansi dodged the first one to reach her, putting her hand on his back and pushing him into the man behind her before using his momentum to spin around into a high kick to another thug's head. That thug dropped to the ground and she slipped though the opening and out of the circle. They turned to face her and attacked en masse again. Again she evaded, moving closer and closer to the corner of the building and the anonymity of the city beyond. A pair of thugs charged. Anansi dropped back a step, crouched, and threw the first one over her shoulder. She tripped the second and sent him sprawling to the ground. Both jumped to their feet again and retreated around the corner of the building. Anansi charged after them, only to skid to a stop when she reached the front of the warehouse and found a small army of thugs pointing rifles at her chest. The rifles all clicked as the thugs flicked the safeties off and prepared to fire.
AN: I am fully aware that France has pretty restrictive firearm laws. Unfortunately, criminals don't actually follow those laws…