Alrighty, I salvaged Hired to Kill thanks to my good friends Copy and Paste. Since most of my stories have been recovered after the violent mishap that was my USB being destroyed, I should be back up and running. Praise Mavis for having back up files all over the place.

Countdown

"The Poison Princess is leaving," Orga mentioned as he pulled a mug from his lips. The man's eyes followed her carefully. After their conversation on the cable car, his initial dislike of Katja was lessened, but he would be stupid to say that he wasn't wary of the woman who kept to the shadows.

Even as Katja left the lodge, she didn't approach anyone. She carefully stepped around some people who'd passed out drunk on the floor, and she made sure that her body was close to the wall at all times. Those weren't just the actions of a cautious assassin. Those were the actions of a girl with social anxiety. When someone got too close for comfort, she reared back away from their touch like they were more poisonous than she was.

Rogue glanced up from the crimson lacrima he was trying to hack into the Lancet government's database with, and he turned to the honey skinned woman creeping out the front door. All morning Rogue had been trying to hack into the government to see just what had happened with the pirates who'd disappeared before they could be captured.

He hadn't heard a single word about them, but Rogue was positive that Katja knew. He grabbed his mantle from the bar. Tying it around his neck, he was about to make his way after the girl.

"And, our dark prince chases after the Poison Princess once more?" Rufus intoned with a cocked brow. He cast out one of those charming grins.

Red eyes rolled. "I have to figure out what she knows about those pirates that snuck into Port Regale," he explained. He shoved his feet inside of his boots. As soon as he got both feet flat on the wooden floor, he heard Sting's voice. It didn't sound like the slayer was happy either.

Hastening his pace, Rogue completely side stepped away from Gajeel, someone he typically would have greeted, and made his way towards the door Katja had snuck out of. His eyes scanned the area behind the door.

The snow had at least stopped. Those big, heavy flakes rested quietly on the ground instead of tumbling towards the earth. A nice sized trench had been dug in the snow from Sting, Gray, and Natsu's tussling, but these details weren't the ones that Rogue was concerned with. The detail he had on the brain was Sting's crossed arms as the blue eyed slayer stared down the bundled up Poison Princess.

"Yukino told me about your skin," Sting explained with a cold, unfeeling voice. The somber tone was odd for someone as upbeat as Sting. There was no way he was actually upset that Katja had poisoned him. Right?

Katja pulled her purple scarf higher up on her face. It masked the fog coming from her lips with each exhaled breath. Her hazel eyes were measuring Sting up like he was an enemy blocking her escape route. Judging by the way that Gray and Natsu stood on either side of the blonde, it looked like he was doing just that. What was that guy up to?

Boots crunched in the snow as Rogue made his way towards the four. There was no way that Rogue was going to let Sting harass Katja. He needed to get some information out of her, and the only way to do that was to get Katja's trust.

Through the purple fabric of her scarf, Katja asked, "What about my skin?"

"She told me that it was poisonous. That you took me out without even trying," Sting growled out. He took a step towards Katja. "I want to see if you can do it again."

Katja's slanted eyes rounded. She hastily took a step back when Sting bared his ungloved hand to her. "N-no! Now, get out of my way. I have to make it to Thor's Field before the rest of the Royal Guard does." She darted off to the side of Sting when he made a grab for her.

"Come on! Get back here! I'm not going to stop until I beat you," Sting complained. Hastily, he ran after Katja.

Rogue felt like he was watching a dog chase a cat when Katja leaped smoothly into an evergreen tree. Even with those three inch heels, Katja paraded about the tree limb with ease. Sting quickly leaped onto the branch she'd jumped from. Rogue could just imagine him barking when Katja turned to hiss, "This isn't a game! Stop chasing me!"

"No! I'm not going to let you beat me without even trying and have you get away with that!" Sting howled. He charged after Katja, but when she leaped into a whole other tree, she pulled back a limb for him. As soon as he made it to the other tree, he was smacked in the face with prickly needles.

Shaking off the blow, Sting went into hot pursuit. He charged right back up the tree. With half his body hanging off a limb, he barked, "Got ya!" A hand wrapped around Katja's ankle to drag her down into the snow with him.

Bark went flying as she was dropped into the white fluff. All of the snowflakes that the evergreen had been holding tumbled on top of the two, covering them in a thick, ivory blanket. There was a little bit of unseen scuffling that went on under that blanket.

Rogue could make out grunts and wails, even a little bit of hissing. When Katja broke free of her powdery shield, she was immediately tackled back to the ground by Sting. A hand went flat down on her chest, and the next thing anybody knew, the blonde slayer was groping the woman.

"I've got you now!" Sting roared in victory—completely oblivious to the fleshy bit in his grasp. He looked down with a grin of triumph until Katja achieved a feat of gymnastics.

Moving unlike anything Rogue had ever seen, a scarlet faced Katja thrust her booted leg backwards. Her knee slammed into Sting's side. The groping hand on her covered chest released, and she flipped Sting over onto his back. Hands that had once been gloved in black leather pressed cold, ebony metal against Sting's throat. Those poison wielding gauntlets had appeared clean out of thin air, and she used them to keep Sting pinioned between her muscular thighs.

"Touch my breasts again, and I'll kill you," she growled out with her beet red face. Her gauntlets glistened damp in the white powder around her. She looked every bit like a well-trained assassin. Well, if you took away the embarrassed scarlet her honey toned skin had turned.

"But it was a—" Katja cut Sting off by tightening her hold on his throat.

"You do not touch me without my permission. Do you understand me, Sting Eucliffe?"

Gray breathed, "Whoa! She brought out the last name on that one." He was shut up by the snake-like glare of Katja's color changing hazel eyes. They were golden at the moment.

Deciding that now would be the ideal time to intervene, Rogue spoke up. "Sting, is everything alright over there?" He stepped out from behind the wall he'd been watching from. Immediately, all eyes fell upon him. Of all the eyes, Katja's were the coldest.

She darted off of Sting. Using a simple form of Requip magic she rid herself of her gauntlet. Her athletic body dipped into a bow. "Master Eucliffe, I hope to see you on time to the games. Now, allow me to be on my way." Her shoulders shot back with the same false pride as her chin did, but when she stepped near Rogue, she whispered, "You followed me again." Her eyes narrowed on him, a challenge in those golden orbs.

"And, you attacked my master again," Rogue shot back. His body was already turning to follow her. Rogue had to speak with Katja, and he had to figure out whether the intruders last night had been captured. Last night had left him with so many questions.

Why did she freak out on him? Who were those intruders? Were they the murderers?

He could see a flash of her pearly whites underneath the veil of her scarf. Right as she stood shoulder to shoulder to him, Rogue extended his hand. Just that bit of contact made her whole body go a tight as an over tuned guitar string. "We need to talk about last night," he whispered in her ear.

"And, you people need to stop manhandling me." She shifted her glare in his direction, trying to scare him off.

Instead of lowering his gaze, he steadied his red eyes on hers. She burned gold. He burned crimson. Tension was nearly palpable between the two of them. Her dark caramel brows drew closer together, and for the briefest of moments Rogue could have sworn the Poison Princess had checked out his lips. Baring those viper fangs, Katja hissed, "The games start at ten. Don't be late."

Her arm jerked out of his grasp, and she stormed off the way she'd come. As Katja disappeared further and further into the wooded snow around them, Rogue could have sworn that her hiss had been more than that. Katja had just set him up with an appointment.

A smirk was on its way up to his face until Sting's hand clamped down on Rogue's shoulder. "Already picking up foreigners. Are ya?" he snickered.

Even though his eyes were steadied on the path Kat had taken, Rogue grumbled, "Just trying to figure out what happened to those pirates last night."

"That's a great question to ask, Rogue," called a voice from behind him.

Boots crunched in the snow, and when Rogue turned his head, he caught sight of King Isaac standing in the snow. The king casually strolled up to the two men. Before anyone could ask any questions, Isaac slung his arm atop Rogue's shoulders. "I'll be taking your friend if that's fine with you, Master Eucliffe," the king explained.

Sting gave a shrug. "Sure. Is this about the games?"

Isaac cast a grin that was wicked and almost malicious. "You could say that." A hand shifted Rogue's face to look dead straight into the eyes of King Isaac. Darkness enveloped his eyesight with just one command. That command was "Light Catcher".

When Katja settled herself down in the cable car, she was astounded to find King Isaac waiting for her. His tall frame was leaned up against the silver metal of the car. He was every bit the mysterious Angel and Demon Slayer that he had been trained to be as he steadied his one purple eye on Katja.

Unlike his half-brother, King Isaac's eye had been stolen by a demon when he was a child. That demon had put her eye inside of the king for him to hold a fallen angel of unimaginable wrath inside of his body. It was the reason he kept that reported blue eye covered up behind his stylish masquerade mask, a mask that only covered had his face.

From his dark locks to his hidden eye to his jet black trench coat, Isaac was the darkest king to ever rule Lancet, and he was one of the few people that Katja was comfortable around. At least, she was when he didn't appear out of nowhere.

His booted feet strolled her way, and Katja checked out the silver symbol of the Royal Guard on his attire. He had the symbol on the side of his boots. "Ready for the prelims?" Isaac wondered. He put his hand on the top of her hair, the only part of her body that could be touched.

"Are you going to tell me what they are now?" She narrowed her eyes on her king and guild master. If there was something Isaac liked doing, it was tricking people. He was just as mischievous as the shadows he controlled.

The hand on her head never lifted. With Isaac's cunning grin playing with his lips, the King explained, "I sure ain't, but you're about to find out."

Katja's lips were parted on a question, but when the floor of the cable car was sucked up in a shadow, she could only glower as Isaac commanded, "Light Catcher." With that little command all of the light that gave Katja's eyes vision was sucked away from her. In seconds Isaac had rendered Katja completely blind.

Stinging cold was what had Katja opening her eyes. Her hands fisted in snow, and she had to blink down just to gather her bearings. Snow? Cold? It took Kat a second to figure it all out, and when she did, she breathed, "I'm outside."

As soon as the admission left her pouty lips, she reared back to tumble on her haunches. "I'm outside!" she hissed. Her hands flew to her chest, and Katja gaped down to find that someone had changed her clothes.

Instead of wearing her civilian's clothes of a trench coat and gloves, Katja was in her assassin's attire. She was wearing a skin tight black, full body suit. On her hands were the ebony, claw tipped gauntlets she'd been given by her mother, and on her feet were knee high black boots with a much more practical heel than her stilettoes. Immediately, her hands flew to the mask that should have been covering the bottom half of her face. When she found it right where it was supposed to be, she loosed a breath she didn't realize she was holding.

Checking herself out for any damage done, she realized that she was completely unharmed. So, if Isaac had been the one to send her out in the snow then that must mean this was about the games. With that in mind Katja glanced at her surroundings.

Trees, trees, and more trees. Oh, and did Katja mention trees? No? Well, guess what, there were a ton of freaking trees!

She let loose an annoyed huff of breath behind her mask. Grabbing a fistful of snow, Katja threw it without a particular destination in mind. As soon as the makeshift snowball landed, she heard male grunting.

Cocking a brow, Katja got on all fours. Someone else was here? Curiosity got the better of her, and she crawled her way towards the impact of the snowball.

As soon as her gauntlet covered hands pressed down on a lump in the powder, a familiar voice hissed, "Cold! Holy hell, that is cold!" The sneer that crossed her face at Rogue Cheney's face was hidden when he erupted from the snow.

"Cheney," Katja greeted to the red eyed male staring her down.

"Katja?" he wondered. "If this is how you meet people for appointments, then you have serious scheduling issues." The male dusted white puffs from his jet black hair, and Katja grimaced at the snow flying into her face.

"I wasn't the one who took you here. King Isaac did. The games must have begun." Katja lifted herself up. Once she stood to her full stature, she glanced around for something. Anything to help explain what was going on.

It was likely that they had been unconscious during Isaac's introduction of the preliminary event. If that was the case, Katja was totally screwed. She couldn't let anyone get ahead of her. She had to prove that the Royal Guard was fit to defend King Isaac and Lancet. If they didn't make number one, it would be the greatest embarrassment the kingdom was to know.

Rogue stood beside her, and she tried not to flinch at the contact. The fact that she flinched at people's presences was embarrassing enough. She couldn't let people know that she did it.

"You don't think that they would have started before we could get woke up. Do you?" He stepped around her, checking to see if he could find a set of instructions or anything to explain what was going on.

Katja's eyes caught sight of something flickering overhead. She grabbed Rogue by the shoulder. Pointed a claw tipped finger in the sky, she explained, "Not if that giant clock in the sky just hit ten in the morning."

As soon as her admission left her lips, Kings Isaac and Toma, in his Mato persona, appeared via massive hologram in the sky. The stark contrast between a pumpkin headed… thing… and King Isaac was enough to cause a grin to slip behind Katja's mask. "Gotta do things differently. Do you, King Isaac?"

King Isaac stood with his arms crossed against his broad chest. A dark grin was stretched against his face as he looked down upon Katja, Rogue, and whoever else was in the Glacian Forest at the moment. "Guten Morgen, citizens of Lancet and Fiore," King Isaac greeted. "It is with great pleasure that I, King Isaac Grigori von Kaiser, and the Grand Magic Games meister, Mato, announce the preliminary events of the very first Winter Grand Magic Games. It has been brought to my attention that with the mass of guilds we have that an elimination round is required, so of the 209 guilds that have entered into the games, only ten of you will survive. Unlike the last games where we introduced the Sky Labyrinth, these games are going to be different." King Isaac leaned into the hologram to flash his fangs. "Since you are all playing in the kingdom Lancet, you're going to have to work like a Lancet mage. When in Lancet, do as the Lance do. In other words, it's survival of the fittest." He leaned back from the hologram to reveal a 3D map of Mt. Glacia. "We're not going to summon a labyrinth for you, we're going to have a race in Capital Lance's natural labyrinth. All around Mt. Glacia, 209 representatives of the guilds have been sporadically placed. You will race to the top of Mt. Glacia, snowboard back down, and swim to Thor's Field while fighting the entire time. First ten guilds to get there will continue to the main events. To reduce potential deaths we only chose one representative per guild. Of course, any deaths that may happen during the games cannot be put back on the Kingdoms Lancet or Fiore." Isaac flashed his fangs one last time before gesturing towards Mato.

"As soon as the clock strikes zero, all mages are permitted to take off-kabo. Good luck to you all!" Mato raised his gloved hand to point to the giant clock in the sky. Immediately, ten seconds appeared.

Katja could feel every muscle in her body tensing. Mt. Glacia. Snowboards. Those were going to be a piece of cake. Taking down Rogue before he could get to the top of Mt. Glacia? Easy as pie. Even if he wound up making it to the top, his motion sickness would take him down on the snowboards. Oh, yeah. Kat would have this in the bag until she got to the swimming round. There was no way that King Isaac expected them to swim in below zero and frosted over water. No, the king had something up his sleeve for that one.

Getting ready to cut loose, Katja shifted her eyes in the direction of Rogue. The male was ready to go. He was staring her down with a wild ferocity. They were both thinking of taking each other out right here and now.

"Once this is over, you will tell me about the pirates in the docks. I have to know if someone was captured," Rogue explained, looking away from the clock for the briefest of moments.

Katja frowned beneath her mask. They had captured one of the pirates that night, and they had almost gotten a female pirate as well. For some reason Princess Adamine hadn't been able to bring that one in for questioning. Those pirates were still running loose. As soon as this was over, Katja was going down to question the man they had behind bars. Also, she had to keep an eye out for any mages that might get taken out during the games.

As she watched the clock count down, Katja acknowledged that there would be very little time to play during these games. Her teeth gritted as she stared down the holographic clock. Three... Two... One!