The Girl From The Middle Of Somewhere

Part 9: The Assassin

The sky was grey that day, which was quite fitting considering the mood. Hundreds of soldiers were swarming the clearing amidst the Capital's numerous roads. Everyone had abandoned their personal gear in favor of Magistrate's official white-black uniform. The commaders had donned every medal they could dig up from the depths of their drawers. The events requiring the use of the uniform were few and far between, but when some did come up, their usage was mandatory. This was one such event. To everyone's surprise and sorrow, the beloved General Stonebond had passed away in his sleep just three days earlier. He had been old, but lively and full of energy, and every doctor who examined him promised at least a few more years of active service if he so wished. And he did. No general before in the history of the Kingdom had shown such dedication and love to their troops. His departure was a huge loss to the whole army, and even caused every active operation to be called off, although it slightly irritated Stalker Squad, who had just spent three years infiltrating The Thousand Hand Guild. Still, every troop was wanted at the funeral, as if someone would have even dreamt of missing it. There was no recruit, no officer, not even a single chef in the entire army who wouldn't have given one of their own fingers for a chance to say their final goodbyes to the beloved General. And that included the Sentinels.

"Do I really need to wear this? I doubt old man would mind someone donning full tactical, just in case," Kinessa whined. "It's just too loose!"

"Well, you should have maybe considered ordering it right away, instead of leaving it for the last second," Tyra answered. "Bear with it, we'll get our turn just after the commanding officers, then you can leave and wear whatever you want."

Kinessa rolled her eyes. She too had liked the general, but she doubted he would have liked this formal ceremony as his funeral. When she thought of Stonebond's funeral, she thought of music, dancing, laughing, friendly fights, drinking contests and arm wrestling championships. Maybe a few veterans telling stories of the old man. That's what he would have liked. Instead, hundreds of troops were crammed into this clearing, waiting for the coffin to arrive. Thousands more were on their way and would arrive in a couple of days. They would visit the grave over the coming weeks, before resuming their duties and waiting for a new general to be elected. But that was ages away. As was the ceremony, or so it seemed. They had already been stading around for half an hour. The speeches would take twice that, and then an unkown amount of time would pass before it was the Special Ops team's turn to go greet the general. To Kinessa: It meant that she was already begging for the sweet release of death. But no matter how much she wished for it, the time only seemed to slow down, not speed up.

"Wait a minute…"

A thought had sprung to her mind. If she could use her innate ability to make time appear to move slower for herself, why couldn't it work the other way? It took a few seconds of deep concentration and pained faces, but eventually, she felt something. As she looked around, the birds were flying at super-speeds and the shuffling of the soldiers resembled the movement of hundreds of ants. As she looked at Strix, she could see his eyes blinking almost nonstop. Even the coulds in the sky seemed like they were racing each other.

She smiled to herself. Maybe this day won't be so boring after all.

Little did she know that it was about to turn a whole lot more exciting.

After about two hours (which seemed more like two minutes to a particular soldier) the Sentinels stepped forward and started walking towards the coffin that had been laid out in the middle of the clearing. A group of just twenty, split up to five units of four, they seemed unassuming but everyone in the army knew they were not guys to be messed with. Especially the new member, the mysterious dark-skinned woman. In her short service time, she had gained quite the reputation. Just three months back, she had taken part in two ops, one enemy base clearing and one hostage rescue, both of which were said to have been successes because of her. It was rumored that she had a kill count of hundreds, and that she possessed mysterious powers despite being assigned to a regular, non-magic unit. To most, these were just regular army myths. But everyone was still on guard whenever they happened to be around her.

The Sentinels took formation when they arrived by the coffin, going unit at a time. Unit C was waiting for their turn as their colleagues said their goodbyes. After 10 minutes of waiting, Tyra turned to Kinessa.

"I must say, I'm surprised you managed to stand so still for so long without complaints. Guess I underestimated you," she praised.

"Don't you always? But look, Evena is finished. Our turn."

Viktor shushed them as Squad C stepped forward. One by one, they bent over the coffin and whispered their farewells to the dead general. Kinessa couldn't make out much, but she thought she heard Strix say something about a "reanimated lawn gnome," and Tyra seemed to apologise about some boxing match they had apparently been together in that involved baby dragons. When she left, it was Kinessa's turn. She felt that every eye nearby had been locked to her, but didn't care. They had been that way for months now. She got closer and stared at the cold, unmoving features of her former general. It took a while until she managed to get words out.

"Well, old man. Here we are. You wanted to go out by surprise? Fine by me, you did always like to give us some scares. Like that one time in the trainee party. You showed up dressed as a chicken with no invitation. I'm pretty sure none of us had felt real fear before that, and that says something. You know about the cookie incident, so I don't have to tell you that it's not easy to frighten me. I still remember the first time we met. I was just a kid, rescued from the ruins of my village." For the first time in years, she could feel a couple of tears running down her cheeks. "I was overwhelmed with grief, I believed that the world would end without Mars and that these new people could never make me feel at home, like I was a part of a family again. But you weren't even slightly surprised when Strix took me to see you. You just promised to keep an eye out for any leads on the Decimators, and welcomed me to join the hunt if I wanted to. Me. A scrawny kid from a destroyed village being invited to the army, even though I couldn't even be considered a candidate for years. Guess you never got a chance to send me to seek for them, after all. But still, no one else would have ever done something like that. And that speaks a lot about you. So, General Stonebond, I just wanted to say that we'rE UNDER ATTACK!" She screamed the last words out loud as the first projectiles rose to the skies from the treeline. They were flaming balls of destruction, crashing down upon the city and causing massive damage from just the first few hits. In a flash, the security appeared and took off with key personnel, including Grand Magister Karne. The rest scattered, probably trying to reach the barracks to recover their weapons. As if on cue, the Sentinels ripped off their uniforms, revealing their own gear underneath. They reached out their hands and from the windows of the surrounding houses, aides threw various weapons to their owners. Kinessa caught her rifle, followed by Oppressor Mines and Transporter in a pouch. Tyra was already taking the safety off from her own gun and loading it with grenades.

"I've always wanted to do that," she said with a grin.

"Me too," Kinessa anwered.

"You can thank the guys later, we have a city to save!" Viktor shouted at the two. Strix had already dissappeared from sight, probably heading to one of his defensive sniping spots. Normally, Kinessa would have followed him, but in the last few months, she had been utilizing her teleportation and innate ability to swiftly swich sniping points and attack positions, giving her far more mobility than any other sniper in the army and allowing her to perform wild, aggressive strikes. She saw Viktor heading down the main street with two other Sentinels, while Tyra climbed up on top of a nearby house and began to jump from roof to roof, probably heading for northern gate. Kinessa herself activated her intercom before heading east. The first shots had come from there, and she wanted to see the enemy firsthand to know what they were dealing with.
"Sorry, general, we need to postpone this meeting," she said to the corpse before throwing her device and disappearing in a flash of energy.

The streets were swarming with panicked citizens and soldiers struggling to get to the battlements. The outer walls had minimum defence, since only a handful of personnel had been left to defend them due to the funeral. Kinessa dashed across the rooftops with a few more agile types, bypassing the chaos unfolding below them. The eastern part of the city was home to the shopkeepers, craftsmen and a few soldiers. Kinessa passed Strix's apartment on the way, and saw Fletch in front of her shop.

"Nessa, what's going on? Are we under attack?" she asked.

Kinessa let out a frustrated groan. "No, you idiot, we're not. They came to pay their respects to the general with fiery balls of destruction. Of course we're under attack!"

"Sorry, I'm just a bit shocked at the moment. Cass, how are we looking?"

"I'm counting at least two thousand hostiles outside the city walls. Heavily armed, and they have siege weapons," a new voice could be heard from the inside. Out stepped a woman with an impossibly long braid of bright-red hair. She was dressed in a huntress's garb, and wielded a crossbow. Kinessa could faintly remember seeing her a few times entering Fletch's shop.

"Oh, sorry, I forgot the introductions. This is Cassie, she's the daughter of one of my dad's best friends. I might have mentioned her to be my best customer. She's also a good shot, and has agreed to help," Fletch told her.

"Pleased to meet you," Kinessa said and brifly shook Cassie's hand. "How can you tell what's going on? Do you have friends at the wall or something?"

Cassie smiled. "You could say so." She whistled, and a large bird with brilliant red feathers swooped down and landed on her outstrethed hand.
"This is Zigs. He's my best friend and companion, and due to a thing the background of which I'm not so fond of explaining at the moment, we have shared vision. I saw the enemy through his eyes," she explained.

"A useful skill to have," Kinessa admitted. She leaned in closer and whispered a question to Cassie's ear:

"Innate?"

Cassie seemed shocked.

"How did you know?" Then understanding settled in her mind. "You, too?"

Kinessa nodded. "We can talk about it later, but right now I believe we have an invasion to deal with."

"Right," the huntress agreed. "I'll send Zigs back up again. Then we'll help the civilians."

"You do that. And if anyone tries to get you to leave, just tell them you have my permission to fight. If they don't know me, tell them I'm a Sentinel," Kinessa instructed her.

"What about me?" Fletch cut in on the the conversation. She had been standing unusually quiet, but now she seemed to have gotten over the fact that her home was being invaded. But she was her father's daughter, and was having none of that.

"Well, you don't have any particular fighting skills I know of, so if you want to help, you could always deliver the Bolthead squad some trick arrows. They know what to do with them."

Fletch nodded. The said bow specialists were some of her customers, so the task shouldn't be too hard.

"Alright, let's go. For the Magistrate!" Kinessa yelled.

"Why for the Magistrate? Why not for the Realm?" Cassie asked suddenly. Kinessa was dumbfounded.

"Well, that's usually what we shout when we go to battle. How so?"

Cassie scoffed. "Magistrate hasn't been up to any good lately, believe me. That idiot Karne is trying to ban crystal magic from the working class! We should all follow Valera, she knows what's good for the people."

Kinessa sighed. She had no time for political dispute. It was true that Grand Magister Karne and Valera, the former leader of the legendary Paladins, had butted heads for the matter many times. Some even spoke of the possibility of a war. She didn't really care how it turned out, but didn't want to argue with her new ally.

"Whatever you say. For the Realm!"

the fight was in full strife by the time she arrived at the gate. The outside of the wall was swarming with enemy troops. Arrows and energy blasts were being traded between the defenders and the attackers. The enemy was trying to break down the gate with some sort of cannon.

"Wait, wait, wait, cease fire, CEASE FIRE!" Kinessa shouted down at the hostile force. Surprisingly, the firing stopped.

"Thanks. Why are you trying to break down the gate? We have controls here for operating it. I can get it open for you in no time. Would you appreciate that?

The enemy was stunned to silence by this new apparent ally. No one moved a muscle. Then, one important looking guy in armor nodded.

"That's the spirit," she told them. "Hold on a sec."

She turned around and pulled a lever next to her. Hidden compartments began opening all over the wall. From them, several impact explosives were launched against the unprepared enemies. Kinessa and the other defenders laughed with glee as the bombs decimated the front line of the attackers, earned them hundreds of angry shouts and resumed fire.

"They really believed that?" She asked aloud as she whipped out her rifle and teleported to a better vantage spots. Three seconds and three shots later, three enemy snipers who had been aiming at her were down, and she began to pick off random enemy commanders.
The fight went on for 10 minutes before the attackers managed to get another cannon at the gate. The soldiers had no more tricks left, and with a couple of blasts and a mighty crash, the weakened gate cracked and left a man-sized hole to go through, which was quickly expanded. Attackers flooded from the opening, and even as all fire was focused on it, they eventually managed to break through. On the frontline marched heavily armored troops, who quickly extended their energy shields and began to march forwards ignoring the constant firing. Their design was clearly copied from the Heavy Magistral Armor, used by the elite knights of the Magistrate. That meant that however invincible they seemed, the shields did have a limit to their durability. But before she could call in machine gun fire, the intercom cracked to life. Kinessa heard Viktor from the other side.

"Hey kid, we just got confirmation on the enemy identity. Now take a deep breath, and try not to do anything you might regret later. What I'm about to tell you is big, but we all trust your cool perfectly. Alright?"

"Alright," Kinessa answered. "Go on."

"They are the Decimators."

Long silence followed. Fight went on around her, but Kinessa's mind had shut it off. The army that had detroyed her life, killed her guardian, forced her to flee from her home, they were here. Trying to do it all over again.

"Nessa? You still there? Come on, speak to me. I know this is a shock, but you need to calm down and regroup with us. Then we can…" Kinessa shut the intercom. She couldn't help it. She was trying to follow his advice, but her body had stopped responding to commands an eternity ago. Or maybe several eternities. Or maybe time itself had ceased to exist. She could feel with a sense of dread the familiar feeling of murderous intent filling her mind. The same one that had turned her on killing autopilot during the exam and in the village. But this time it was different. She had lost control completely. This was not some trick to use for winning or personal gain. It was an unstoppable primordial force that couldn't be contained by a single woman. She quickly realized that she was loosing to her own power. Time was completely still as she stood up. She could see bullets frozen midair, still bodies in the air dropping from the wall. But her eyes had lost all life. She knew that this time, there was no coming back. When she would wake up, she would have completely burnt herself out and surely caused some long-term damage to her body. If she would wake up. Who knew? She had never been this deep in this unfamiliar zone before, this force that was raising her weapon and pumping her muscles so full of strength she felt like they would burst. How much suffering would she cause herself by doing this? Even worse, how many losses would she cause to her allies? No one was friend or a foe in her eyes anymore. They were moving sacks of worthless, filthy meat, waste of space that needed to be put out. She was not one of them. She was a queen, always meant to be above them, rule over them, hold their petty lives in her hand and snuff it out whenever she felt like it. Where had these foreign thoughts come from? Who was whispering them to her ears? Well, it was too late now. She could feel the last vestiges of her willpower fading.

"I'm so sorry, everyone."

Her last thought rang inside her weakened mind as she let the murderous darkness take control.

And then she lost her balance and fell over.

"Sorry, Kinessa. I might have overdone it a bit," said a familiar voice. Kinessa raised her head as she could feel the terrifying darkness withdrawing back deep into her mind. She felt back in control again, and turned to look at her saviour.

It was Cassie. As she looked behind her, she could see the armored knight groaning on the ground as focused fire finished them off. Considering the damage caused to the environment, a large blast had likely happened in the middle of the street right behind them.

"What happened?" she asked groggily. Her muscles felt still numb, and she could hardly stand upright.

"Oh, Zigs told me your group was struggling with those big guys, so I jumped off the rooftop and fired a Blast Shot that knocked them over. I just think I may have used a bit too much energy, because it also got a few of our guys, including you. No hard feelings?"

Kinessa realized that Cassie's shot had saved her. Her concentration had broke as she fell over, loosing the grip of her inner darkness. She shuddered when thinking of what might have happened without the red-haired huntress.

"Thank you. You have no idea how much you just helped. I gotta go now, don't die before we can chat in peace!" She told her and took off, leaving her colleagues to handle the remaining foes at the eastern gate.

The whole city was in chaos. Apparently other gates hadn't held as well as the eastern one, and now the streets were swarming with invaders. Fights were happening all around her as she was struggling to get to a rendervouz point. She got into an ambush more than once on seemingly abandoned roads, and dealing with the attackers slowed her down considerably. Eventually, she could see Tyra poking her head up from atop of a building.

"Up here! Quickly, before they spot us!" she called for her.

Kinessa swiftly climbed up. Her Transporter had overheated, which meant it was unusable for several minutes. Usually she wouldn't mind walking, but when any street could be enemy-controlled, the thought of not having a backdoor was worrying.

Her team had gathered at the roof. They seemed fine, but none were unharmed. Strix's camouflage was burnt badly. Viktor's face was all bruises. Tyra had added a few more to her already impressive collection of scars. Nothing life-threathening, but seeing her usually unscathed friends in this condition spoke that they were fighting a force far greater than those encountered before.

"Good to have you here," Viktor said. "You didn't do anything reckless, did you?"

Kinessa decided not to mention the fact that she had been about to slaughter an entire street's worth of people and probably herself.

"Nope, kept my cool, nothing to worry about. What's the situation here?" she asked with and exaggerated upbeat tone that raised a few eyebrows.

"Well, the Decimators have broke in from every gate except for West, but we have managed to stop them at the lower levels of the city. We've interrogated some of them, and they revealed that their commander is coming with more troops." Viktor told her.

"Well, then let's just take out the commander. That should solve the problem."

"That's the plan," Tyra said. "But we still need to figure out where they are coming from. Squads A and B are protecting high-value targets, while D and E are assisting in bigger battles across the city. We can't watch all the entrances across the city with just the four of us."

Kinessa smiled. "Leave it to me. I found a new friend that can help with just that." She stood up.

"We have to go to the eastern gate, and there we'll look for-" she was was cut off by a sharp pain coming from her arm. As she looked down, she saw a tiny needle poking out.

"What the…" she managed to say, before she blacked out and collapsed.

"Come on, wake up now, we don't have time for your afternoon naps." The words were coming from behind a thick, unpenetrable fog. But she decided to ignore them. It was so nice here, so relaxing. She could finally just forget about everything that had happened before and…

SPLASH!

A bucket full of ice-cold water was poured on Kinessa's head, jolting her awake. She coughed, trying to get the liquid out of her lungs. As she looked around, she saw her teammates looking down on her.

"Did you have to? There are more ways to wake someone up!"

Tyra grinned. "But this is always the most entertaining one. And we couldn't go and brew you fresh coffee, we have a target coming up."

"The stuff they used to put you to sleep was quite potent. Even with anti-knockdown pills, it took us fifteen minutes to wake you up," Strix told her. As she looked around, she saw the bodies of two enemy snipers nearby. Apparently, they had shot her with tranquilizer darts.

"But why would they knock me out? The ones at the gate and the streets were more than happy to kill me."

Viktor shrugged. "No idea. Maybe the job of the snipers is to neuralize high-value targets for kidnapping. Why they though you were one, we will probably never know. Tyra got a bit rough on them after she thought they killed you."

"It wasn't my fault! I've seen Cloudgliders more durabe than those two!" Tyra exclaimed.

"Well, whatever the case, we have go move. Our position is likely compromised. Who did we have to find again?" Viktor asked.

"Oh yeah!" Kinessa remembered. "Let's go to the eastern gate. Look for a chick with crazy red hair, a crossbow and a bird. You'll know when you see her."

"Yeah, I see them. A big group, coming from the north. In the frontlines there's someone in a silver armor, I think that's the guy you're looking for."

The team was standing around Cassie, who was sitting on the ground with her eyes closed. They could see Zigs flying high, scouting out the approaching enemy force. Kinessa's teammates were impressed. The bird was better than any drone the army had. Even if they had deployed them all, they couldn't have gotten this much intel in an hour. Cassie could practically seeing the entire city and the surrounding area with one glance.

"Thank you miss. We'll be on our way now." Strix said to her.

"No problem. By the way, Zigs likes you!"

"Well, he's always been a bit of a bird-brain," Tyra laughed as they bolted out of the ruined gate. The surrounding area had been secured, and almost half of the troops had been assigned somewhere else. The rest had been left for defense, but it didn't seem like the enemy would attack this gate again. The Army had suffered al least 250 losses from the 800 or so troops situated in the city at the time of the attack, but the enemy was down closer to a thousand. However, the oncoming reinforcements could turn the tide of battle if the commander wasn't eliminated on time.

"Ok, listen up people! We should reach them before they get out of the woods. So we flank them on four different sides, strike the commander down and dissappear before they know what hit them. Tyra takes northeast, Strix southeast. I'll go shouthwest, Kinessa northwest. Got that?" Viktor told them as they ran across the plains.

"Got it!" Three voices rang out.
"Then let's move out, people, we have an assassination coming up!"

The thick woods hid her from sight as she dashed towards the enemy force. Cassie had noticed them by the old road that had been used as a trading route in the distant past, but was nowaday usually only populated by travelers and adventurers. Kinessa was making her way up a hill she knew had a good sightline to watch the road. If they were lucky, the strike would be over in under two minutes. When she arrived at the top, she laid down and took aim. She steadied her breathing. The sway of the scope lessened as her heart rate went down.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Breathe in, breathe out.

"I'm in position, ready to fire."

No answer. That made her concerned. Military-grade communication didn't usually malfunction. All gear spent years in testing, so malfunctions were extremely rare. The clearest possibility was that there was a jammer in the area. But why would there be? The enemies certainly couldn't carry it with them, all models were too heavy to be lifted. Unless it had been set here before. Unless they were expecting them.

"Well, well, well, look what we have here." She heard a new voice.

She felt a strong hit on her lower back, as if someone had stepped on it. Her rifle was kicked off from her grip. She slowly turned to look.

A woman in skintight purple suit was standing beside her, her heels digging into Kinessa's back. She was an elf, her pointed ears pointing out from her purple hair. Various throwing knives were attached to her person, and she had some kind of launcher strapped to her wrist. The said weapon was pointed a her victim's neck.

"Just who I was looking for!" She said with a playful, seductive voice.

Suddenly, memories sparked in Kinessa's mind. Years ago, she had seen the same colored-suit, heard the same voice. The same voice that had ordered the attack on her home village.

"YOU!" she cried out. The woman laughed.
"Oh look, she remembers me!"

"And I'll soon show you how much I appreciate your work," Kinessa told her through gritted teeth.

"Ooh, sorry dear, but I cannot allow that. Someone is expecting you, and I have no time to play around. We haven't been intruduced, right? Skye, master assassin and a liutenant of the Decimators, at your service."

Suddenly, several shots could be heard from below them, as well as shouting and panic. Then, it ceased. Skye didn't seem surprised.

"Seems like your friends got my second in command. No matter, now that I have you we're finished here. Just come quietly and I'll call off the attack. Your friends will get to live! How does that sound?"

Kinessa tried to struggle, but Skye was keeping her in place with surprising strength. "How about this, crazy lady: You tell me what you want from me, then I kick you teeth in, cut off your pretty head and send it to your troops as a farewell gift as we blast them away from here."

Skye let out a dissappointed sigh.

"Well, I had to try. Sleep well, now, I'll take it from here," she said and loaded the same kind of tranquilizer dart into her launcher that had knocked her out before.

Kinessa tried to struggle again, tried to use her ability, but her thoughts were in disarray.

"Help!" She cried out, even when she knew nobody would come.

Skye chuckled. "Don't worry, you'll get help, just not the kind you'd expect. We'll free your from your burden," she told her and took aim. Kinessa prepared for the inevitable darkness.

Suddenly, she heard a cry of pain. The pressure the attacker was putting to her on her lower back eased, and she managed to stand upright. She saw that Skye was holding her hand in pain, and noticed that a throwing dagger was sticking from her ruined launcher. Before either of them could react, a pink flash collided with Kinessa and pushed her away from the attacker. They were both knocked down, but the figure swiftly jumped to their feet and pulled out more daggers from their coat.

"Maeve?" Kinessa asked in surprise. Indeed, the half-tigron had just appeared out of nowhere and saved her.

"Hello, kitty. I juzt thought you needed help."

As they watched, Skye took off her wrist launcher. Her hand was streaked with blood, but Kinessa knew that the weapon had blocked most of the damage, so the wound couldn't be deep. She threw the broken weapon on the ground and slid off one of the throwing knives from her thigh holster. She turned to face them and adopted a fighting position. Maeve did the same.

"Can't you just throw your knife and kill her?" Kinessa asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"She'z challenging me. My honor az a knife-fighter won't allow me to turn it down," Maeve explained.

"You street kids are weird," Kinessa muttered.

"Oh, she'z challenging you too. Look at her elbowz. She wantz to take us both at once."

"What?"

Maeve threw one of her knives for her. Kinessa caught it and stood up. Her knife-fighting experience was limited to training and one bet behind a bar three weeks ago. She tried to freeze time, but she was still distraught by the appearance of Skye and couldn't muster up enough concentration.

"Well, looks like we're doing this the old-fashioned way."

Skye stood waiting expectantly, and Maeve rushed to attack. Kinessa followed behind.

From the start, it was clear they had underestimated their opponent. She may have been alone, but she might as well have been a whirling vorex of death, as she blocked, sliced, parried, stabbed and slashed her knife with lethal skill. Kinessa had to focus all of her energy on staying alive, attacking was a faraway dream for her against this foe. Maeve fared a little better. She made daring dashes and lunges, and sometimes Skye even seemed a bit concerned about a stab that almost hit her waist. No matter how much she tried to fend her off, the cat burglar was too quick on her feet. She seemed to flow like a liquid during the battle, miraculously curving away from stabs that would have been fatal. Kinessa smiled. Seemed like this cat knew a few more tricks than she was aware of. The smile was short-lived, however, as one of Skye's stabs almost took her eye out. She felt the blade draw blood, as a straight slice suddenly appeared under her left eye. She quickly jumped back. Then Maeve pounced against her prey, forcing her to block and throwing her off balance. Kinessa saw an opening and flanked from behind, stabbing Skye in the back. Or she would have, if her enemy wouldn't have noticed it and pulled out another knife with elven grace and blocked the strike at the last second. As Maeve noticed this, she too conjured a second dagger from her sleeves. Skye scoffed at them and took on a dual-wielding stance.

Kinessa knew that the rules of the game had changed. Both fighter's auras had turned cold, dead serious. The battle before had been just playing around, a bit of warm-up. Dual knives meant that both women were out for blood, and that there would be only one survivor. She shivered. Combat situations and dangerous feats were her bread and butter, but this style of fighting was like a foreign culture to her. She raised her own dagger, but knew that she had been left out. Army training only included fighting with a single melee weapon. Dual wielding had to be learnt from the streets or underground teachers. As she watched, both fighters made an immensily fast dash against one another. The encounter was two seconds of mad clinking and flashing as four knives struck together dozens of times. Then they both jumped off, unharmed. The trio began to circle the area. Kinessa and Maeve on one side while Skye on the other. The assassin had lost all of her previous playfulness. Now she was obviously here to emerge victorious from whatever they would throw at her. If the fact made Maeve worry in the slightest, she was good at hiding it.

"Your skill is impressive, kittycat. Who's your teacher?" Skye asked Maeve.

"The streetz," she answered. "Yourz?"

Skye smiled. "Monks of the Silver Moon, with my own adjustements."

Maeve's expression didn't change, but Kinessa could see her gritting her teeth. The pink-haired girl glanced at her. She understood immediately.
"Oh gods, she's going to do something stupid again," Kinessa thought to herself. What it would be, she wasn't sure, but that meant she would have to play along. She nodded at her. Maeve nodded back.

Suddenly, she dashed from across the arena to the other end with her knives held high. The strike would have likely decapitated a normal opponent, but Skye moved at the last second with unbelievable swiftness and timing. Maeve's dash missed her, and as she flew by, Skye turned around and roundhouse kicked her straight into a tree. The half-tigron slid to the ground with a trail of blood coming from her head.

Kinessa was shaken. The best knife fighter she knew, knocked out by a single move. Skye had seemingly only been toying with them all along, and just now unleashed the full potency of her skills. Before she could comprehend the fact, Skye dissappeared and appeared from behind her. Kinessa couldn't speak. Now she knew what the victims of her innate ability felt like. She hadn't even seen her moving, but here she now was.

"Allright, now that that annoying animal is out of the way, let's go. It was fun messing with you two, but I've wasted enough time already," Skye said to her. She struck her swiftly in the forehead, sparking a burst of pain and forcing her to her knees. She felt tight ropes being tied around her hands.

"This would have been so much easier if you had just gone to sleep. Well, I guess we can't always get what we want. Now come along, Or I'll have to hurt you. I can't kill you, but I'm sure sure she won't mind a few sliceEEEEESSSS!" She cried out and fell down. As Kinessa looked at her, she saw two daggers poking out from her. The other had struck her shoulder, but the other was tightly wedged in her back. Kinessa knew from Tactical First Care that the dagger had slid in from between Skye's sixth and seventh rib, and likely punctured her lung. Not an injury she would be walking away from quickly, without proper healers. As she looked back, she saw Maeve on her knees, hands stretched out. She had obviously threwn the daggers. She seemed a little dizzy and her face was streaked with blood, but her smile was victorious. Skye managed to turn her head to look at her.

"W-What happened to your knife-fighting honor?"

Maeve shrugged. "I'm a cat. Everyone knowz that catz don't play by the rulez."

Kinessa laughed. They had won. The culprit of the attack was immobilized and on their mercy. They had done it.

But to her surprise, Skye managed to stand weakly upright.

"Whoa there, assassin lady, where do you think you're going? You have a death sentence waiting for you!"

"I'm not going to die here," she wheezed. "I'll return, and next time you won't be so lucky!"

Kinessa rolled her eyes. "Do you realize how cliché that sounds? A defeated villain vows revenge on the heroes, and then escapes with some magical plot twist. I mean, who really does that?"

Skye grinned. "I do," she said, and dissappeared in a puff of smoke. Kinessa was left coughing on the ground, while Maeve ran out of the smoke to try to spot the enemy. But she had dissappeared into the woods. As she was told this, Kinessa used her wide repertoire of curse words, banged trees, kicked bushes and generally yelled at the world for letting the person she hated the most escape.

Maeve watched the outburst for several minutes. Finally she took the distraught soldier's hand and recovered her rifle.

"Let'z go, we need to get back to the city."

Several minutes later, they were walking down the road. Enemy reinforcements had scattered, dissappeared like their commander. Silence ensued for a long time, until Kinessa finally broke it.

"I guess I haven't thanked you for saving me yet. What are you even doing here?"

Maeve looked embarrassed. "Well, the zity got too hot for me, and so I decided to use the attack as a good cover for my ezcape to quieter waterz. But when I got into the woodz, I saw you running up he hill, and dezided to say goodbye, for old time'z sake. Then I saw that woman standing over you, and you know the rezt."

The story reminded Kinessa of the fact that this was the second time during the day she had only been saved by a lucky turn of fate and an unexpected helper. But that only raised a bigger question: Who wanted her so bad they sent an entire army to capture her? Against one of the mightiest armies in the Realm? Who was she? Nobody knew where she came from and who she was. Were the answers in her past? These questions circled in her head. Her pondering was however cut off by familiar figures appearing.

"Hey kid, over here!"

She looked up. Viktor, Strix and Tyra had all gathered in the middle of the road, standing on top of a huge corpse. She recognised it as their target, whom they had mistaken for the enemy commander.

Tyra came to ruffle her hair. "You had us worried there for a second. We must've called you a hundred times, and when you didn't take part in the strike, we feared the worst. But here you are now! What happened, did you fall asleep again? And why is this thief here"

"It takes some explaining," Kinessa said. Then she began to tell them what had happened after her communications were cut. She told them who Skye was and how she had ambushed her. How she had wanted to take her somewhere, and the entire objective of the attack seemed to have been her capture. How Maeve had saved her at the last second, and how they had fought against the assassin, and in the end emerged victorious. And how she had then slipped from them. The entire story took twenty minutes. In the end, her teammates didn't say anything for a good while. They exhanged looks, some worried, some confused, some angry as if they were communicating telepathically. Then they turned to look at the two.

"We need to report this. We got confirmation that the attack has been repelled. Apparently, the enemy force retreated around the same time as Skye did. This is the chance of a century. The Decimators are scattered, their commander is badly wounded, and their leader is wide open. If we commence a large-scale search, we can probably end them for good," Viktor told her. Kinessa's eyes lit up.

"So Mars will finally get some justice? Count me in!"

Viktor smiled. "Of course, kiddo. You're our team member, we'll go after them together. And speaking of justice…" he said as he pulled out a pair of handcuffs and stuck them to Maeve's hands.

"Hey! What does thiz mean?" Maeve exclaimed angrily.

"It means that you're under arrest. Any more obvious answers for stupid questions you want to hear?"

"But I saved Kinessa! Doez that count for nothing?"

Viktor laughed. "Nice work on that, but one life doesn't pay off the 173 burglaries you're wanted for. And remember that woman you stole the crystal hairpin from? She's Lian, Scion of House Aico, Heir of the Ruby Throne. She has demanded you to be handed out to her when you're caught. Her bodyguard wants to have a word with you. And we're keeping the jacket," Viktor told her as he ripped the garment off from Maeve. All color drained from her face.

"Don't worry, they don't really mean it. You'll get out in no time," Kinessa whispered to her.

"No, we do mean it! And she won't get out atleast until she's old enough to drink, if she survives from Khan," Viktor said back.

"Ok, it might be a bit more complicated, but it'll work out," she promised.

The day had been full of losses and victories, but Kinessa was feeling truly positive for the first time in a long while. She would go after Mars's killers with her best friends. At the moment, it was hard to think of anything that could ruin the moment.