Thanks to everyone and specially to 'Sleeping Moon', 'Allora22701',' Animefreak1145',' Sour-Mochi', 'Coy Serum' and everyone else .

Also I wish you have an awesome and productive year 2015 :D . Sorry for the wait but the chapter is here.

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CHAPTER 12: A ROUGH MORNING AND A RECALL ANALYSIS

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At the 'tick-tock' sound from a clock, Aria woke up …Well, not exactly.

Even if she wasn't really awake yet, at the closeness of the mechanical sound near her ear, she detected herself restrained by someone's arms; and as could be expected from a hardened mercenary used to living in constant danger and dealing automaticly with everything as a possible life treat, she reacted with immediate unrestrained violence.

Since she had her arms wrapped tightly around her, with as much strength as she could muster, she pushed her shoulders back to allow space for her arms to bend at the elbows and shot forward to hit directly the person's stomach with dual 'One-Inch' punches*, while her knee went up to hit into her opponent's crotch. By the person's deep toned yowl of agony at such rough wake up call, she knew that the ´person was a male; but more importantly, he released his grip.

The next second, she attacked further by trying to slam the base of her palm on the man's neck to break his windpipe, but more out of luck than skill due to the pain down in his male pride, he managed to move his head aside just enough to avoid the full blow that hit the mattress at the side of his neck. However it wasn't over. With that hand, she formed a claw and pulled it back, scratching deeply into his skin when trying to grab his trachea while her other hand neared his face with clear intentions of ripping out his eyes. Had Julius not pushed her by the waist, with enough force to throw her off him and towards the edge of the bed where she rolled and fell to the floor with a grunt and loud thud, she might have succeeded.

"Aria!" - Julius quickly got to the edge of the bed to check on her.

"Oh… it's just you"- She monotonically yawned now truly waking up.

She tried stretching and noticed a hard pain on her side where he had hit her; putting a hand in that place to apply pressure in case she had some extended damage, she tried standing up but ended up crawling back into the bed.

"Are you alright, Aria?"- He gulped down the obvious deep pain he was suffering in his nether regions while looking at her holding her side with a worried and guilty look.

Aria blatantly ignored him and leaned at her side on the bed to raised the shirt she was wearing to check her side. Right over the very big and not too old scar that she had gotten by being slashed at her second ball event in Heart Castle, there was red spot that would soon become purple.

"Damn… All the role holders pack quite a punch."- She grumbled while pressing her finger to corroborate that there wasn't internal damage, and out of the corner of her eyes she noticed the trickle of blood running down Julius's neck from where she had tried to claw his throat out. She looked and licked her lips. - "One more wound on me; but I guess we are even, huh?"- With a groan she tried to stand up again.

"Don't even think about it."- Julius quickly dragged her by the waist to force her to lie on her back on the bed, and got on of top of her kneeling with his knees at her sides and holding her hands down against the mattress.

"I'm not continuing the attack. So relax."- She yawned with a slight annoyed groan. – "Haven't you heard 'Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon', or 'Don't awaken the sleeping tiger'?" - The foreigner inspected his injured neck before averting her gaze. True, she had attacked out in instinctual self-defense and he was in his right mind to not trust her, but why was he looking at her so intently? Did he wanted more revenge?

His gaze was harsh on her-"I didn't mean that."

Aria turned her head back to look at him with a gaze just as harsh. – "What about 'Don't startle the paranoid mercenary'?- He was holding her too tightly, so she tensed her muscles preparing a counter attack. But why would he?, he had already many chances to do something but hadn't. -"Too bad you don't remember that it's a bad idea to wake me up."- She sported an annoyed expression at him but relaxed her muscles. She knew when fighting wasn't needed.-"Now let me go."

His expression softened, and a bit warily he let go of her hands and lied at her side while keeping a hold of her by the waist with his arms. -"I mean it. You aren't going anywhere until you are fine."

She closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath – "Yes, I am. "

"No, you aren't"- Julius kept firm in his hold.

"Yes, I am. So stop cuddling with the non cuddling mercenary. I need to go to the bathroom, check my wounds, take a bath, revise a bunch of data, inventorize my stuff…"– Aria rationally explained with baffling calmness.– "How long was I out this time?"

"Oh… "- His grip loosened a bit.-"Around 3 time changes."-He eyed her and blushed upon realizing the position they were in, with him on top and restraining her almost naked self -" But still, you are not going to leave the tower until you recover"

"Mmmhhh… "-Aria sighted and shifted under him. -(" Probably this is just the effects of my game on him") "Can you let go of me now so I can proceed to do all I mentioned previously?"

His eyes fixated on hers as he reluctantly released his grasp. –"I want your word as a mercenary that you won't be leaving the tower until you have healed."

With all the calm in the world she sat on the edge of the bed- "You dare interfere with a foreigner's decisions?- The soldier of fortune shrugged her shoulders and threw her head aside to loudly crack her neck -"It's against the rules to impede a foreigner's free roaming."

"That's why I want to use your promise as a mercenary that you will stay. You seem to at least respect that."

"I do. But what will you barter 'in the name of your role' for that?" – She munched her words and moved to grab a glass of water from the nightstand.

He tensed up and blinked at her with shock.–"Pardon?"

She drank the water and left the glass in place. She then stood up in front of him with a mechanically stiff expression – "My mercenary word is about deals. You want my time and my presence around only you and maybe Ace, that is a lot for a foreigner whose game is going on, ain't it?."- She tilted her head at a side and her neck cracked again - " So what do you bid for it? You have nothing I may want. But a promise equally important to you would present a proper offer, and the only promise that I would believe from a role holder is one that the rules of this world enforce."

"Last time I made such a deal with you, it ended with you controlling the repairs of clocks." He said with less steadiness in his voice than what he'd wanted to portray.

She chuckled with more disdain than humor-"Exactly. Even this world has made a deal with me"- She then stretched her arms up and headed to grab her stuff and take it with her to the bathroom. – "But the price for me is far too high for you it seems."

Julius was left agape as if struck and had nothing to respond.

The last she heard from him before closing the door to the bathroom was him grunting. She assumed it was from the genital pain he most likely still quite frankly she didn't give a damn.

Once in the privacy of the big master bathroom, the mercenary took off Julius's shirt, her nipple covers, the lacy dental floss thong, and whatever bandages were on her. She looked at her naked self over the tall mirror and tired green eyes returned her scrutiny.

Ignoring the blunt hit marks, her skin tone was still pale but not 'corpse pale' like before she arrived in Wonderland; even if her hair was longer than she expected, her multiple shades of blonde, caused by damage and radiation in her world, seemed to have become a permanent trait , and she now sported more scars than she remembered having, and many seemed fairly recent.

"At least I wasn't slashed open this time"- She sighed, somewhat glad that she didn't need to sue what was left of her Antiseptic cloths and cationized gelatin hydrogel for any epithelial wounds.

Aria looked in more detail at her flesh, and oddly enough, the metallic lines embed in her skin seemed brighter, newer and more defined. She turned around and looked at the reflection of her back on the mirror and her eyes widened in suspicion. The big tattoo that had embed all along her spine and across her back, had changed form. It was completely black, a mix between something tribal and something resembling circuitry complementing the original design. Now more intricate lines connected to the needle entrance inputs from her suit, and formed something that vaguely resembled an added dragon or dragon like wings… but not just any dragon, the form belonging to the very specific draconic creature known as the Jabberwocky.

This was something she didn't recall. Like all of Wonderland's special tattoos, done with special inks which channeled the energy of Wonderland to created effects, her's had a special function, but unlike tattoo's like Gray's, which would not work on her; hers had been created with spare components like ram memory from her gadgets and engraved in or below her skin as a conductor via the synaptic metallic lines she already had to create a signal enhancer to improve her secondary synchronization mode, which allowed her to expand her being and y will on nearby devices. To extend her consciousness to digital devices and whatever analog gadgets they controlled, effectively becoming wireless parts of her or rather her become all of it, which to keep all functioning; she had to concentrate individually on all functions by combinations of binary impulses.

The tattoo had allowed her to extend her secondary mode reach to farther than in an arm's length. And thus, the possible eroding of her persona by using the main mode had been lessened.

Knowing she needed to inspect further, she activated her eye optics to do a progressive scanning. Normally she avoided using them much because it was very easy to detect due to their digital glow and because they hurt and itched. However, the advantage of having zooming lenses, night vision via green shades, motion detection, target lock-on, object focus, data reports on real time transmitted from her suit's AI, spectroscopic, hyperspectral imaging analysis and such was well worth it.

"What the heck!?"

Under her progressive scanning her eyes widened when she saw that her connective lines, although thin as a gold thread, were vibrating with energy, and not just any type of energy, it was mana that seemed to come from her; but concentrated into the tattoo there was anti-mana, like the kind she had seen from the Jabberwocky but different, more like what composed the afterimages… it all traveled the flow down directly to her shadow, integrating everything into her own spectrum.

She received a small shock in her neural system and turned to look at the floor to her connective suit. It was glowing into the same spectrum as her shadow. -"Alright, Aegis. Let's use your processors for some traditional data modeling. I want you to do a progressive analysis of stratified possibilities of mana, in a correlation matrix of factor points regarding the time space comprehended since the battle in Diamond with all the statistical variations in a linear regression. "

The embed screens in the suit lit up and began processing while she returned her gaze to the tattoo. As a small initial test, Aria sent a small impulse directly to it and she saw her shadow flicker.

She remained in astonished silence for a whole minute.

"This is something worth exploring..."- Then, the crazy and mentally strained mercenary tried sending just the smallest intent wish and ended up panting and supporting herself on the counter's edge from the exertion.

Aria smiled wickedly. Her shadow had responded by condensing it's molecular structure and reducing space between molecules. It had somehow solidified for a second.

Her smile disappeared at the next implication. She had only seen something eerily similar in the shadows that the Jabberwocky had been able to manipulate, both in Diamond and in Spades. -" Aegis, I also want a full data schema and analysis of the Jabberwocky and all the observed interactions."

Aria stopped short before continuing her research. This was very interesting and she needed to experiment on this… But she would have to be in better shape for it. Right now she just could not handle it. Turning off her optics, she had a moment of 'fridge logic'- ("Since when do I refer to my suit by it's model name 'Aegis'? ") - Perhaps she was just too drained to even send the commands by impulses. Why else would she be voicing her orders to the AI?

She'd have to check her files and recording of Spades later but… but just thinking of the Jabberwocky and Spades made her recall the pair of funny and nice idiots that were Biggs and Wedge; respectively her right and left hands in the 'Lullaby', the faction she had more than helped being established. How could she not?

Her grip on the counter's edge tightened and she looked down, but it didn't matter anymore. Biggs and Wedge were dead, Biggs by the Bandersnatch and Wedge by the Jabberwocky. They had been a great loss, but just one more in a long list. How was it? 'One dead is a tragedy and a million is only a statistic?'... Another chapter of her life that had passed and which details she would forget even if the knowledge of it remained; just like Andrick.

The tired merc sighted and closed her eyes while biting her lower lip. Just like she'd always been, she was on her own again. Even if she was now back it was useless. The lullaby didn't remember her either. No one did.

She swallowed the weird empty sensation in the pitch of her stomach and went to the shower to turn on the water. She'd have time to recount her losses later if she ever did. For now she needed a bath, after that, she would estimate scenarios and project some possible plans. She also needed to check her inventory…

Yes, her inventory!

She went to her suit and opened a compartment on the outer layer; from it she took a couple earrings that looked like a scowling and a smiling face each. They were relics related to the role of Joker and allowed her to be ignored by Joker's duties.

Aria face-palmed at the new possibilities dawning on her that she had overlooked before.

Other relics existed, she in fact had another one in the bag she had retrieved. That had been why she had gone to that far safe-house first and risked Ace finding out the place. This relic was some sort of gun and she needed to check it out and re-activate. She had no clue what it did, but it would be undoubtedly useful like all relics were supposed to be.

She held the item in her hand and looked at it before putting it down with a somber face. Was there any point in it? In anything any more?

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*The "One-Inch Punch " is that first punch you saw in Kill Bill where the girl is inside a coffin with little to no space to hit with her first. Turns out it is very real, just ask Bruce Lee.

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Quite the rough morning for Julius, ne? XD

But now we finally got Aria's POV. What do you think about it ?

What do you think Julius will do? And what could Ace possibly be doing?

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Oh yeah, and to answer the question of'how I write (including the M-shots)' , my method is working on layers, that way I can keep progressing and don't need to wait for inspiration to strike, I of course I can change things if an idea comes, but at least I know where I want to go .

I do this chapter by chapter. Sometimes I have ideas or readers give me awesome ideas for 1 or two chapters or even an idea further up in the story, then I can add those ideas to a general line and then if they serve in the story I use them . (This is how I explained it to someone):

Layer 1- Main line (believe it or not all I write starts as chunky as this. I don't go writing on the flow. I make a line to know where I want to get. Things can change along the way but at least that gives me an idea so I don't get that many mental blockades)

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-Aria tries to get away

- Julius stops her

- They kiss

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Layer 2 - A bit of detail (If I already have a bit more on mind I can skip layer 1 start at layer 2)

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-Aria dramatically turns around and tries to leave the place

-Julius grabs her by the wrist before doing what he is doing

-She stops and turns to look at him a bit angry and shakes her arm to get her wrist free - " What is it Julius!? "

- He doesn't even know what to say

-"Fine." - She turns around once again and is ready to go but he grabs her by the shoulders to twist her around and before she can say anything he kisses her

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Layer 3 - Create the paragraphs. 1 character per paragraph. And in order. Actions before reactions. (Of course this is a short example. I normally add more as you've seen)

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Aria's eyes narrowed and her lips turned into a tight line, then she turned around so fast that her long braid made an arch in the air and hit Julius in the face. She then took the first step forward towards the exit with clear intentions of leaving and never come back again.

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Julius quickly moved to grab her wrist and stop her. He had felt a painful crush on his clock and hadn't even though on what he was doing. He simply didn't want her to go.

She stopped and turned again in his direction to forcefully shake her arm to get her wrist free. Her eyes shone with confusion, annoyance and anger -"What is it Julius!?"

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He swallowed and opened his mouth just to close it again while receiving her harsh gaze. He didn't knew what to say, much less how to say it.

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A dark shadow fell over the mercenary foreigner's face as she closed her eyes for a second with a stern expression. -"Fine."- She quietly growled and turned around once but in a more quietly hurt and less dramatic way.

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She hadn't take a step away when Julius grabbed her by the shoulders and twisted her around. Her surprised and annoyed eyes met his decisive gaze and before she could say or do anything, his lips collided with hers. If he couldn't say it, then he would show her what he felt.

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Layer 4 : Read everything and add or take stuff. Preferably take away anything that is not needed. And pass on the orthographic corrector.

Layer 5 : Read aloud and made final adjustments.

Hope that helps someone.

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5 reviews for the next chapter.