"Looks like this so called 'Immortal Thief' got away again." This was from one of Susan's fellow doctors at the hospital as he read over the paper in the break room. For months now this individual had been the talk of the town, unfortunately he was starting to make the national news as well. And those who were actually immortal were starting to get nervous. Centuries of trying to stay out of the public eye was a hard enough on the nerves as it was. This kind of attention... well there were times she was glad she couldn't develop ulsers. Well if she could her immortal abilities would have taken care of them almost as soon as they formed. That might be a interesting study, not that any immortal he knew would willingly volunteer
"Have the police have any idea about how he appraently doing these 'miraculas feats' yet?", she asked not taking her eyes off the tablet in her hands.
"If they do they're not saying anything so far." He put it down to look at here. "How do you think this guy is doing this? I mean I heard the experts they brought in on the news hem and haw trying to explain what they think is going on."
"I saw one of them them the other night," she told him, still not taking her eyes off the tablet. "I almost felt bad at laughing at him as he mixed himself up a couple of times."
"Yet you obviously did, for shame," he said in mock disaproval. Susan shrugged and kept on reading. "And you still haven't answered my question."
"And I can honestly say I have no idea how he's doing this." Although she hoped her suspisions about how where totally off the mark. "Best guess he does a lot of planning ahead of time, maybe even special builds some saftey equipment for his crashes so the police can't recognize them when they study the wreakage. I would say it was in the realm of possibilities that he might be a stunt man of some sort."
"I had that thought a few times myself," he admitted. "It make sense on a logical level but you think he'd be hurt somewhere along the line."
"Well they say God favors the fools." And she knows she seen the truth in that line more than once in her lifetime.
"What exactly are you looking at that's so interesting?", he finally asked getting up. Susan handed the tablet to him so he wouldn't be looking over her shoulder. She hated it when people did that, always had. That's way she always made sure she stayed near the back of any formation back in her warrior days. That and most of her enemies never saw her ahead of time. A woman on the battlefield was always easy to spot.
"It's a new experimental spinal fusion technique," she explained. "It's supposed to minimize on the actual cutting open and cut down on recovery time. It's still in the theory stage but it looks promising so far."
"I don't think I'll ever understand your facination with neck injuries," he told her as he handed her back the tablet. If you only knew she thought to herself. And if he only knew just how far back her 'facination' actually went. Back in her pre immortal days one of her favorite tactics was to sneak behind a person and try to twist their head around until it was facing the other direction. Perhaps not the most honorable of tactics but it got the job done on many ocassion.
And most people who knew her now, who really knew her, would probably be surprised how much she actually enjoyed hearing that snap when she was succesful.
As she kept telling them it was a different time back then. And she was a different woman.
"I had a cousin who became a parapaligic because of one," she told him, using a lie she's used before. "Guess I've been fascinated ever since. Still it doesn't hurt to keep up to date on things. You never know what's going to be useful in a few years."
"True, true," he agreed. "It still amazes me how far we've come in the past thirty years alone. I couldn't even begin to imagine a quarter of the stuff we're able to do now back then."
"Oh I know," she agreed. "Even when I'm on my rounds I can't even imagine how many lives we would have been able to save if we knew then what we know now." He nodded in agreement and sat back down. Of course when she started learning medicine amputating a leg in the middle of an active battlefield and not have it get infected was considered a good day.
Her colluege went back to his paper and looked at the headline that started this particular conversation. "I hope they cath this idiot soon. And if the poor bastard does die when one of his tricks backfire hopefully they'll give his brain to science. There would be a line wanting to study it."
She nodded but said nothing. In her secret world there was already a line looking for this particular indivdual's head. And with more and more coming in to have a particular word or two with this thief... well she started to grow a little uneasy at the thought. More than a few of those were considered head hunters by others she knew. And if she learned on thing about head hunters over the centuries it was eventually they won't care who's head it was when they came across another Immortal. And she'd already lost a friend or two thanks to people looking for this thief. She almost hoped the police did catch him first, the poor bastard would be safer behind bars at this point. Times like these she was glad, God forgive her, Dijkhuizen was no longer around. The jump in the death total would have been staggering.
The end of the day was the usual business. You're relief came in, if you were lucky. If both of you had a few spare moments you would personally update them on a patient to keep an eye on or two. Then you went home. Unless your relief didn't show up then you were stuck, more than likely until the next shift came in and tried to catch a quick nap were you could. Over the years Susan learned to keep an extra set of clothes in her office for such an occassion. And she changed into them now. Oh her relief showed up but she wanted to get out of the working clothes and ito something different.
She walked home as always, despite the fact she had a car readily broke it out only if she had a particularly long trip or the weather was too bad to travel by foot. Most of her co-workers thought was crazy considering she lived a couple of miles away from the hospital. She told them she needed the exercise. Truth be told if she zoned out just enough she could almost imagine she was back on the battlefield. The various sound, honks, screeches and yelling of mid day going home traffic in a weird way it sounded just like a battle to her. Most of the people she knew would comment that she was in some very strange battles. Looking around and listening to the sounds she was hearing she was hard pressed to disagree. Still it helped her stay alert and aware of her surroundings, nobody stayed alive as long as she has without being alert. At a very young age she learned that a warrior that wasn't alert soon found something forcibly rammed through them.
And not in the good way as Natalya would say. And that thought made her grin a little bit.
Thinking about her made her check her phone. Both Natalya and Owen had left messages in the past few hours. More than likely updating her on the various details of their new lives. In Natalya's case talking about her new student. Susan was never a vindictive person, but seeing how many times she checked herself for gray hairs whle she was trying to train her, she hoped she had an almost as, shall we say, interesting student as she was.
She realized that wasn't really fair. Natalya was alive for two hundred years before she even found out there were rules to their lives now. Both her and Owen had tried to convince her that her father was just trying to do his best to protect her, granted on Owen's part this was after he was forced to kill him a couple of years ago. Susan still wished she had the oppertunity to tell him exactly what she thought of how he was doing it. Natalya was damn lucky to still be alive at that point in her opinion, especally the way she was playing the game. And she was more than glad the two of them finally decided to give it a second go. She didn't want to judge them being a person of God now but Susan was personally getting tired of their on again of again way of doing things before then. Then again she and Owen had spent a week long "cold night" together more or less after they first met so she really couldn't say anything.
Her thoughts were interrupted by by the feeling of the buzz. Stopping where she was she looked around, patially to locate the other immortal, partially to check her surroundings. This part of the city was sparcely populated at this time of day so any chance of her just continuing walking and avoiding a potential confrontaion were slowing getting slimmer by the moment. Pushing down hard won warrior instincts for the moment she quickly located the other immortal, and it wasn't one she recognized. And at first galnce he didn;t look like a very pleasant individual.
He sized her up before heading toward an alley. She did the same before he did so. He was taller than her by at least six inches by her estimation, more than likely had the reach advantage too. It wouldn't have been the first time she found herself in that situation. If she was smart she would ignore this individual and kept on walking, but she had seen the look in his dark eyes more times than she cared to remember. Those were hunter's eyes. And they got a good look at her. If she kept walking she would see him again before she knew it, quite possibly at the hospital. Looking around for any prying eyes she headed into the alley. When she found him deep in those alley's he already had a sword in hand. "This is usually where we make proper indrotuctions," she reminded him when he said nothing for several moments.
"I don't care what you name is bitch," he told her. Well this one may be rather new then, or had a lousy teacher. Probably both.
"Well then," she said as she drew her rapier, "let's get to the busy part then."
"A woman of God that eager to do combat," he snickered. "Oh that's a good one. I'll give you credit for not shaking yourself out of your oh so holy drawers."
"Really now?", she said arching an eyebrow.
"I see the the cross hanging around your neck," he justured with with the point of his sword. "I know your religious types from a mile away. Oh holier than thou and all that bullshit. And just to get your panties in a bunch because I want a bit more of fight than you type usually give, because you are really easy to beat because you're not willing to kill."
"Becareful what you wish for," she told him. In an instant she dropped the facade, first in the eyes than with her demeanor. Going back to who she was all those many centuries ago, a warrior, a survivor of a countless amount of battles. Who ever this was he seemed taken aback by the sudden change. But not enough that he didn't attack her first. Susan's first teacher Finlay, bastard that he ended up being, forced her to learn to pay attention to how her opponent fought. Right now she was reassessing how old this one was since he seemed to be doing the same with her, he was just plain rude then. But she could still see a hint of superority in his eyes as they fought. Being a immortal woman she learned to ignore that look before she even became immortal. Besides she's had proven them wrong before but there was no point in getting cocky.
Swords clashing neither of them had drawn first blood yet. Not an easy feat when she was trying to stay close enough to negate his reach advantage. Then she thought she saw it, an opening. She tried to test what she saw without looking like she was doing so. Not an easy task no matter who you were fighting. But there it was an opening to exploit, or what seemed like it. There had been stories of Immortals who would create a false opening in their defense to lure in their opponent. She hadn't come across that type of lure yet, but there was always a first time. But his sword dipped slightly each time he went for a lunge, just enough for her to do something. Waiting a bit just to be caustous she quickly got her sword on top of his as he went for another lunge and forced it down until the point hit the ground. In that moment she quickly drew her sword back and stabbed him in the chest. He made a small noise in pain as he stood there looking at the steel violating his body.
Her medical training took over in that instant as she studied the wound. It might have been her imagination but the slight vibration in the bade told her she was close to the heart. Placement put it the top right arorta, deffinately severed. There was a slight chance he might be bleeding into his left lung but more than likely not. Still he had a few moments before he totally lost consousness. "I am going to tell you one thing," she said darkly as she backed him up into garbage by the wall. "Somethng I learned a very long time ago. Everybody, from the deadliest of sinners to the holiest of saints, everyone has a bit of darkness in them." Pulling the sword out as his eyes started to roll in back into his head Susan watched him drop and slump against a garbage can. Studying him for a second she added, "And all of them have a bit of light in them too." Something she hoped she was able to get through to Serenity before she went off with Scott. But it was probably why Susan never really gave up on the boy.
She did give the breifest of thoughts about walking way right now. Then she remembered those hunter's eyes. You never gave a hunter a second chance to come at you. In one movement she raised her sword over her head and brought it down taking his head cleanly. In seconds his Quickening was upon her as she screamed at the top of her lungs as it ravaged her. After what seemed like an eternity it was over and she dropped to her knees trying to recover as quickly as possible. Even if she couldn't sense them another immortal had to have felt that, with all of the ones looking for the thief it was almost a certainty. Getting back to the streets she took around and didn't see anybody, not relaxing until she was a couple of blocks away. "I would be saying I'm getting to old for this if it wasn't so cliche." She was definately calling Natalya when she got home. After checking her sword, she was pretty sure the tip scrapped against the wall as she beheaded the poor bastard, and she didn't want anything to mess up the balance. And after she checked her home phone for any messages from the hospital, she could get called back at any moment.
"The hell with it," she muttered. Pulling out her phone and calculating the time zone differances, and adding in Natalya's usual sleeping habits, she dailed a number and waited for the "leave a message" message to beep. "Hello Natalya it's me, I saw your message so feel free to call me back when you get this one. I'm going to be up for awhile so don't be afraid that you're going to wake up. Talk to you then." It was decided than, tonight she was going to just relax. And talking and laughing with her former studant was the perfect way to do that. Maybe even get some food from that Chinese resturant Owen is always talking about.
After she checked the tip of her sword.
