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CHAPTER 7: FROM THE FRYING PAN AND INTO THE FIRE

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Aria reached the upper floor and went to the window closest to the next building that wasn't actually that close. She knew that trying to escape via the streets was a stupid idea. If the twins were there maybe Elliot was close along some of their men. So she planned to escape by the rooftop for a couple blocks before getting to street level and head back to the clock tower.

She reached the terrace and climbed to the roof. It wasn't easy because she was still hurt and very tired. She didn't even know how she was still moving around but rationalized that it was the adrenalin and paranoia from the moment. Looking at the nearby building she saw that her best bet was to jump towards the roof of the restaurant's parking place that was one floor below, and from there towards the next building, that no doubt had been evacuated when the shooting started at the restaurant.

The mercenary gritted her teeth. It was not an easy jump and she was not wearing her suit or even had the proper strength or coordination to manage it right. It would hurt. When more shooting and the clash of metallic weapons was heard, she ran towards the edge and jumped.

She didn't land well. Her foot twisted and she rolled in a bad position, hitting her shoulder in the process. The impact took away her breath and made her see nothing but black for a few seconds before she stood up with dizziness in order to drag herself away from there. Luckily for her the next building was right next and from there it was connected to a small alleyway below through a fire staircase.

Aria carefully looked down to check if there were moors on the coast and found that the way was clear. She checked her inventory and growled. For what weapons she it there was only the ones in her little weapon charms bracelet, which every little weapons was a real weapon that simply transformed into a small charm just like weapons in this world could transform into other objects. She come up with that one a little before the spiral of events that led to her being thrown, poisoned and hurt, in the time frozen country of Diamond. She had to praise herself for the idea. It had been far more than useful, however, this bracelet and backpack had been hidden by her right after a hard training session with her faction and she never had the time to go back and re-stock it properly. She may have the weapons there, but she didn't have ammunition. Right now she counted with very few bullets for the UZI thanks to Ace, a combat knife, three grenades, one stunning and two explosive, and little else that didn't require a setup. The faster she got to her new 'base' the better.

She went down and began limping away as fast as she could, but right at the corner of the back street she received a heavy kick to her side that made her fall to the floor.

"Look what we have here!"

Aria rolled on the floor to avoid a heavier impact and to get a bigger terrain against her attacker while barely dodging a sword coming down her way. She turned her head around to see that she was surrounded by four men.

"Looks like the executioner ain't as strong as it was rumored. Let's kill him"- One of the men said.

Aria knew that it would be useless to reveal her identity; in fact it would be worst is she revealed herself as the tired and hurt foreigner that she was. At least now that she was cosplaying as the executioner, her attackers were somewhat wary. At least basically no one knew what the real executioner looked like. People who saw him tended to die immediately after. It was only known that the executioner used a mask, a bloody ragged cloak and carried the clocks on the belt. Which were her exact looks at the moment. And anyone else that wanted to dress up like that would be basically committing suicide, either by the real executioner or by guys like this ones.

"It'll be fine. If we kill the executioner We'll be in better understanding with all our allies"

Aria made a quick observation of the situation and surroundings. She noticed that these men used swords. That gave her an edge if only she could get some distance to fight, because sure as hell she had no chance of getting away.

They didn't gave her time to plan more.

The first strike came from her right, but rather than jumping back to get impaled at her left, she jumped forward and got herself cut in the arm, and gaining a couple seconds of surprise and the opportunity to use whatever little strength she had to kick the man aside and into the next attacker. With the advantage of those precious seconds of time against three of her foes, she took her UZI submachine gun charm of her bracelet and transform it in time to shot a barrage that consumed her last bullets and hit 2 of the attackers, the men at her left and the one nearer her right. The other one had used the body of the right attacker that Aria had kicked as human shield, and the last one was behind the remaining man and thus saved himself.

The man that had been behind the one Aria kicked pushed the dead body of his comrade towards Aria. She wasn't able to dodge and ended up in the floor with the UZI falling out of her hands and the body of the dead man over her. She knew that unless she took out both of her enemies she'd be more than dead. So she took another charm from her bracelet and transformed it quickly to throw it in the air at the men's head level as she took cover below the corpse over her, without the energy to focus and activate her cochlear implants.

3 seconds later the grenade exploded and killed the men while Aria ended up covered in the blood of the shielding corpse that had been struck by the shrapnel before it transformed into a clock.

She was breathing hard and had some cuts herself from the shrapnel. Nothing too serious but still she wasn't fine at all to begin with. The explosion had left her temporarily deaf from the closeness and as she tried to stand up she found that the shockwave was affecting her balance and equilibrium. Still she couldn't stay there. The explosion would have attracted attention already.

With difficulty she took the damaged clocks and hanged them from her belt. Then she reclaimed her UZI from the floor and transformed it back into a charm. Then, using a hand along the walls to support herself, she made her way back to the clock tower.

It had been quite the first day as junior clock collector.

Once she reached the tower 's plaza, she did her best to made her way unnoticed inside the building, and once inside she almost collapsed right there on the door. Almost. She growled in the back of her throat. The truth was that she needed help, but she wasn't getting it if she just stayed at the entrance of the tower. She made the effort to get to the stairs and then practically dragged herself to Julius office, leaving just the slightest trace of blood in her way.

("Why can't Julius install a ******* elevator!?")

She finally reached the floor that held Julius' office, the place where he would most likely be.

"Julius!"- She called out.

No one answered.

She cussed and used her annoyance and anger at her own need to force herself to reach his office by the sheer power of stubbornness but the office was empty.

("Dammit!")- One time she actually needed someone and once again she found herself alone and on her own resources. No changes there. She could only depend on herself. It had been a mistake to get near anyone again and now her best and probably only chance was to reach her suit and try to patch herself up the best she could and leave this place to see if she could last enough to get medical attention. This time she wasn't coming back.

She leaved her backpack on the floor for a moment to be able to take off the clocks and Ace's cloak and in that moment someone who she really wasn't expecting came in.

"Lord Nightmare! Don't hide in here to avoid your duties."- Gray Ringmarc, ex-assassin and the person that managed all the work in the country of clover burst in to look for his lazy boss and drag him back to work. His slitted yellow eyes fell on the masked stranger holding the clocks and the cloak inside the mortician's office. He threw a knife at the stranger while jumping in front to kill the intruder.

Aria's instinct barely managed to make her move from the surprise attack and that saved her from a certain dead that would have come had the flying knife pierced her at the neck. Instead, the knife struck the mask and split it in two making it fall to the ground. Yet, a second afterwards she saw the cold and merciless yellow eyes of the lizard. The last thing she saw were those yellow eyes widening in surprised when they crossed her own olive orbs. She was completely unable to avoid Gray's kick at her torso that sent her crashing onto Julius's desk with such force that she ended up rolling over it to while all the clocks and parts that were over were thrown and scattered away on the ground. Even before she finally hit the ground, everything went black.

Gray jumped behind the desk and looked at the fallen female. The cloak had fallen from her hands and he could see her precarious attire, yet, it was the fact that she had eyes what called his attention. Not even a moment after, the smell of blood caught his attention as much as the multiple wounds, hits and cuts that were clear on her flesh. He didn't waste time and grabbed the unconscious and bleeding stranger as gently as he could in his haste to take her back to the clock tower where there was always a medic in the infirmary ready to attend Nightmare.

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Told you there was going to be more action :D , and it's not over yet. What kind of trouble awaits!? And what will happen to Julius and Ace. Now Gray is in the picture and Nightmare will too ;)

I know that the story stated somewhat slow, but I hope the pace is getting better :)

5 reviews for next update.

Oh, and the Mature one-shots are here in ffnet. You can find them on my author page or in the main hnkna category, they are just under M rating, so beware because they are explicit (dud, M rated).