[b]Four years ago[/b]


Usually no one managed to follow her when she decided it was time to move on. The way she could be in one place one hour and thousands of miles away the next made conventional tracking impossible, the ability to change everything from the shape of her eyes to her gender usually a death sentence for any would be hunter’s mission. The only times someone had managed to find her again was when she left behind clues so that someone could seek out advice from the wise sage or kill the warlord who had slaughtered their family or what have you. If it fit the character she was portraying she didn’t mind a human or two running into her.

But this was off-script. Everyone that had even the slightest chance of tracking Liberty, the Hermanreich based insurgent to Lynx the Iliad based mechanic and tinkerer, had been left burning, bleeding or straight up melting on the floor of a safehouse four years ago. So how the fuck had they found her? 

Leaks. There was a spy embedded in the cops somewhere, someone that had snitched on the refugee who had been forced to disclose her past as a rebel in the Reich. That was the most likely answer and it was better than the alternative. The rank and file Reichfolk looking for her would be one thing but their Custodian masters were of an entirely different magnitude. 

This assassin at the very least was human. Lynx knew he was slinking around in the trees behind her, the scent of sweat not entirely masked by the plain antiperspirant he wore. Lynx kept her eyes straight ahead, looking gormlessly out at the little hamlet below the hilltop as she waited for him to make his move. The faster they got this done the better. Each second spent waiting was a thousand times more agonizing than whatever damage he could possibly have inflicted, the woman out of time forcing herself to stand still and wait.

The sound of air being displaced was just as tortuously slow as the sound of the branch snapping, Custodian carefully counting the moments before impact. Judging by how far back he had been she had about three assuming he was jumping directly at her. Maybe he’d hit the ground first and tuck into some fancy roll, come up swinging his knife into her kidney or wrap a garrote around her throat and drag her down. The spec ops ninja types sometimes got too into their own mythos for their own good.

Two seconds now and it was still 50/50 which route he’d take. Lynx didn’t particularly care either way. Either he’d break his teeth slamming into the unbreakable mass of alien biology or he’d touch down on the grass and find his blood staining it. He’d been taken apart like a chicken on the chopping block, body dismantled the professional precision of a stone cold killer. 

One second left. It was a shame how boring fights were. Once upon a time when mankind had been nothing but primordial sludge on a backwater rock she had been weaving between asteroids and hurling her opponents into active stars. Custodians were essentially minor gods and fought like it, wielding incredible powers and wondrous technology that could have destroyed the universe if wielded incorrectly. Now she waited for two-bit thugs to get within arms reach so she could shatter their skulls.

Zero seconds. The spectral blade her attacker was summoning, cold as death and smelling just as foul, swung right over her head and was followed by his body as Lynx ducked the attack. To his credit the assassin managed to land on his feet and resume the offensive, lashing out with truly incredible speed.

Incredible for a human that was. For Lynx he may as well have been a slightly speedier snail, his being caught and tugged so that he was sent flailing back over her shoulder. The game was on now and Lynx felt no need to conceal her speed. She rotated her back to watch him tumble, flexible spine allow her hips to stay in place as she got a good look at the black-clad murderer. She could see the dim surprise giving way to shock and then pain as his body collided with tightly packed earth, watching the drops of blood spray from his mouth as the impact made him cut his tongue on his own teeth. 

One of those miniscule flecks was on a collision course with her duster until she intervened, the shock wave generated by a 500 mile per hour clap enough to dissipate it totally. A life spent cruising just below Mach 1 was mostly somewhere between “very unpleasant” and “outright unbearable” but it also had its uses.

His sleeve was sliding as he bounced, Lynx getting a good look at the black bird tattooed on his wrist as he staggered upright. A cowardly man would have ran, as would a smart one. This guy was neither apparently, slashing at Lynx’s face with his magic dagger in an attempt to earn his paycheck. 

She pulled her punch by a factor of maybe ninety percent, the jab putting a nasty gash on his forehead instead of turning it into mulch. It wasn’t sporting to just go all out. Humans were fragile and ungainly, prone to collapsing with hardly any pressure applied. Even when they were trying to kill her Lynx still felt bad for them and so gave them as much of a fair chance as she could.

His accuracy wasn’t improved by the heavy blow he had just taken, wild slice hitting nothing but empty air as she shifted slightly to her left.. He had tried and failed, letting him struggle any more would just be cruel. The Custodian flattened her fingers into a knifehand, twisting her heels and hip in a spin. For a fraction of a second she was moving at her full speed and it was glorious, body moving as fast as her mind could process. Her hand came round past his neck, nails slicing through skin and muscle as easily as an obsidian blade through paper.

There was no blood. Just a desperate gurgle of a man trying to breathe and finding his air being sucked out through the neat slice in his windpipe. He stood and staggered helplessly as she dug her phone out of a pocket, number already dialed before his brain realized he was dead. His knees buckled before the call had gone out, lifeless eyes staring up at the sky when the operator picked up.

[color=cornflowerblue]“Hey, I’m gonna need the police and a coroner here. I was attacked and it didn’t turn out too well for them.”[/color]

Thankfully the police interview wasn’t as long as it could have been. They asked her side of the story and cross checked with their records, the detective on scene agreeing with her assessment that her past was trying to catch up with her. There wasn’t much else to do besides haul the body off to the meat locker and let her go.

This wasn’t going to be the last time she would have to handle an attack. If Hermanreich knew she was here then they weren't going to stop just because one hired blade got himself killed. They would try and try again, practicing the definition of insanity until they ran out of bodies or she suffocated under their weight. 

The next attempt was at least a little less wildly unbalanced. Instead of sending one woefully unprepared man they had sent six. Lynx could hear their footsteps while she napped in the tree she had claimed as her own, cat’s eye opening as they got closer. They were too in sync to be simple hikers, too much purpose in their steps for them to not be on a mission.

They broke apart as if they could hear her thoughts, the six spreading out to comb the area for their prey. Lynx was already creeping through the treetops with bow in hand, the natural stealth of her namesake coming easily to her. It was like stalking the loyalists of her homeworld or the wolves she had killed to prove her strength after first touching down on Historia: keep moving and keep quiet.

These were no wolves. The Reich had sent six deer to try and kill a wildcat and if she wanted to she could have all their necks broken in just under two seconds. But she was feeling vindictive after having both her nap and her hunting trip interrupted. They weren’t scared yet and she was going to change that. But patience was required. As against her nature as it was she would have to wait for the short lived and slow moving creatures to fan out a bit more if she wanted to do this properly. It would be no fair to just sprint through and kill them all in an instant. 

The first one to go down was the rival archer, an arrow punching through the base of his skull so that he was sent slumping to the forest floor. One of his friends would stumble onto him sooner or later. 

Bare feet dropped from branch to ground, the two seconds of travel more than enough to fire again. This time the wound wasn’t immediately lethal, a shriek echoing through the forest from the wretch with the punctured leg. If he was smart he’d leave the arrow in and if he wasn’t he’d bleed out in minutes. 

Each ragged scream stretched on for an eternity, drawing attention that would allow her to creep round and round. The remaining four had definitely heard, twigs crunching underfoot as they rushed back towards their comrade. Number three went down with a dagger to the heart, number was strangled from behind with her bow. By the time the fifth made it his final ally had already expired, a hand clutching the bloody barb he had tugged out of himself. 

Lynx couldn’t hear what the last man standing was saying if anything, her whole body submerged in the river a few feet behind him. But she could watch him stumble backwards in horror, body coiling like a spring and launching upwards. She broke the surface in a spray of water, teeth latching onto his arm before he could scream.

Kicking his legs out and dragging him back into the river was child’s play and executing the death roll almost more so, limb torn from its socket by the sudden violence. After that it was a simple matter of sitting on her victim until he drowned before clambering onto dry land and digging a phone out of a hunter’s pocket.

The second interview went pretty much the same as the first with the addition of an offer of protection. As kind as it was Lynx turned it down, valuing her privacy more than she did her safety. That might have been a mistake.

Technically she wasn’t supposed to be poking around the factory but it wasn’t like anyone was going to stop her. Judging by the state of the place it had been abandoned for decades, the great forges had long gone dormant and all its melted slag shipped out or left to rust. No guards to dodge, no cameras to fiddle with and hopefully a bit of circuitry or valuable metal to strip away for use in some side project or repair.

The plan fell by the wayside in under a minute. Only a few stolen cogs had been piled into her toolbox when she got bored, hands slipping to the revolvers at her sides. With hardly any conscious thought they were pulled free of their holsters. Wife and Mother were comforting just to hold, Lynx feeling every curve and bump of their molded grips through thick hide gloves.

Two cylinders containing six blasts of pure plasma, the ultra hot essence of the universe weaponized and contained by a pound each of ultralight metal forged in the stars and designed to withstand anything anyone could throw at it. Each time they fired it spat out forty thousand degrees worth of destruction and were always ready to do it again save for the occasional few seconds needed to cool off.

They were works of art as much as they were weapons, products of engineering and science that put to shame anything in Iliad and likely the rest of Historia. And this was their damaged state! 

Wife’s hammer was half-cocked, the click of its rotating cylinder a simple pleasure that Lynx would never get tired of. Her thumb backed off so that it could spin back to its usual place, cylinder turning one way while the rest of it went the other. The twins each twirled around a trigger finger backwards and then forwards, stuck in states of reversal and counter-reversal as their owner amused herself. Mother was tossed up and out of her hand, Lynx watching enthralled as the solid circle slowed to a crawl. For each rotation it made Wife completed ten, Lynx watching each circle move at its own.

The sound of engines and the accompanying smells of hot rubber and old coolant leaked in through broken windows just as her guns switched hands. The Custodian took count without missing a beat, watching her rotations as she sized up the newcomers. Two cars disgorging fifteen people in total, the heavy thuds of their boots and the way that the loose gravel under them was turned to dust telling her that they came loaded to bear. 

Yep, she could really smell it now. Gunpowder and small amounts of TNT, standard stuff for an assault team. They had magic of course but for the moment she couldn’t pick up any specifics, just aware of its presence due to the chlorine-like scent.

Voices now, droning whispers that she couldn’t have missed if she tried. They were stacking up against the bay doors in preparation to storm the place under the assumption that she would be caught off guard and thus easy to kill. Their assumption was of course based on the idea that she was human and that ‘s where it fell apart.


This was the third attempt on her life in about as many months and Lynx was getting tired of it. Each time they tried she had played nice, giving the assassins a fighting chance and how did they repay her? They sent more into the meat grinder. Neither side really won, she was still bored and they just ended up dead. The well of charitability had just about run dry and Lynx was done trying to dredge up the last drops.

The sound of the doors being blown open synched up with Mother’s final toss upward, Lynx turning around with Wife lodged in its holster to watch the individual shards of burning wood float lazily towards her face. The fifteen casualties streamed in guns blazing, the first blast of buckshot ricocheting off her skull the instant before some high powered rifle round deformed against the seemingly solid jelly of her eye.

The only reaction the slow motion shower of lead got was her drawing her own weapon. Wife was pulled right back out faster than any of the goons could have realized, two shots of pure plasma connecting with two chests. Lynx could track the balls of pale green power, watch as they turned skin and bone to sludge and sent sprays of rapidly evaporating blood outwards. 

The hammer was fanned and four more targets were turned partly to paste before Wife needed a break. Too overheated to fire but still ready to dish out more damaged Lynx lightly tossed it at gunman number seven’s throat. One pound of metal moving at an easy ninety miles an hour resulted in a satisfying crack and both the corpse and the gun bounced when they hit the ground.

The remaining eight were just now catching up to how outmatched they were, their expressions changing from grim determination to varying degrees of shock and confusion. Lynx let them keep wasting their ammo and energy trying to lay suppressing fire or dive for cover. She had planned on getting her clothes ruined today anyway, it didn't matter to her whether it was due to oil stains or bullet holes.

Mother had just hit the floor judging by the echo from behind her, Custodian waiting for it to bounce before kicking her heel up. Sure enough her gun was sent back up over her head, coming down into ready hands. Another cylinder’s worth of energy emptied in a second flat, another six brought down. That left her with two. 

The right neurons finally fired in the right sequences to trigger their realization that whatever guns they had had brought would not be enough. One was pulling the pin on a grenade to blow her to bits while the other was tapping into their well of mana to shred her with spells.

Well, points for trying anyway.

The grenade was slapped out of the air to explode somewhere off to the left, its thrower turning to run. He was on his first and a half step before when his comrade tried to succeed where he failed, Lynx catching the foot long ice spike and lobbing it back in a one handed hammer toss. The runner was two steps away when the mage’s skull cracked and three when Lynx looked back at him.

And that was as far as he made it before she got to him, close fist being rammed up through his back and into his heart at six hundred miles per hour. She could hear bone shattering and flesh being ripped apart with slow squelches, felt the blood pumping muscle compact and then shred under her knuckles. 
 
Her arm tugged itself free of the wound and Lynx let the body slump to the ground in a heap. The other was still alive for the time being, trying to drag himself away before she could get to him. There was not a chance of that happening. Her lightest jog outpaced his desperate crawling, bloody hand entangling itself in his hair. [color=olive]“Just let me go, I’ll tell them you died! I’ll do anything, please just don’t hurt me!”[/color]

Desperate blubbering didn’t do anything to affect her now. If she wanted someone dead then no amount of begging was going to change that and this poor wreck had really pissed her off. So she just let him whimper and whine all he liked while she got a good grip, free hand pressing under his chin. A sudden twist and he was silenced, neck broken at the speed of sound. 

This time she had to sit through a warning when the police brought her to the station, she had been trespassing after all. But a few dollars in fines wasn’t that bad of a punishment under the circumstances. She was still a free citizen with all the rights and protections that entailed.

Not much apparently. It was hardly three days after the factory fiasco when she came home to find her flat broken into and her charge kidnapped. Lilith had at least put up a fight if the puddle of cooking oil and the smell of boiled human flesh was anything to go by. 

On the adjacent wall to the puddle written in black paint that still seemed fresh were a series of coordinates. It was easy for Lynx to make sense of the series of numbers, and follow them to their source. She traveled for an hour through the city before she could use her speed, the assassins no doubt had a flair for the dramatic making her go out of her way like this. She skidded to a stop when she neared her destination, slowing back down to the tortuous pace the rest of the world moved in the name of keeping some secrets at least. Whoever this was knew where she lived, and who she cared about (in theory) while she knew nothing about them. If they forced her hand they’d be getting a good look at her speed but until then it was going to be kept under wraps.

she found herself walking up to a cliffside overlooking the ocean. She would have expected more men, but instead there was one. He stood toward the end of the cliff in what seemed to be his Sunday's best. He wore a finely tailored black suit that seemed recently pressed, black gloves covering his hands, and an intricate looking ravens mask covering his face.What to do about him? Under normal circumstances she would have simply drilled a hole straight through his skull,but something was off here. The sheer amount of magic emanating off him almost made her gag, his form practically reeking his peculiarly rancid brand of it. And where are his vitals? She smelled no sweat on his brow and heard no beat of his pulse, her eyes narrowed as she sized up the hostage taker. 

On her knees in front of him was Lilith, her hands bound and her mouth gagged. She was alive for the time, one eye bruised black and the other unable to see anything through the curtain of blood that dripped down from the cuts on her forehead. Lynx could smell her fear and hear the rapid pounding of her heart, but was mildly impressed that the kid was able to hide all that behind a mask of hatred. Even now she was staring daggers at the birdbrain with his hand on her neck. 

[color=brown]“You’re the one who’s caused me all this trouble… I know right about now you might be thinking of making a move, I'd advise against it. If you care about the girl.”[/color] His grip on Lilith’s neck tightened as he mentioned her. 

[color=brown]“What are you Liberty? No normal person could survive one Blackbird... Let alone twenty two.”[/color]

[color=cornflowerblue]“I’m pissed, that’s what I am.”[/color] Her voice hung on the edge between open rage and cold calmness, an act to hide her true feelings of apathy and annoyance. [color=cornflowerblue]“Maybe your “Blackbirds” just aren’t as good as you thought.”[/color]

[color=brown]“Oh I disagree, Some of the men I sent have been training since childhood, my best of the best, not easily replaced.”[/color] The man said, no hint of emotion in his voice as he regarded the woman, he seemed to chew on her words for a while before continuing. 

[color=brown]“I’m quite.. “Pissed” as well Liberty. Seems the Reich has played us both for easy marks, and now we’re both in.. precarious situations.We could keep this dance we’re doing going forever…”[/color] 

He paused for a moment before continuing.

[color=brown]“My attacks will get more aggressive, and sure you’ll kill more of my men, but I’ll blow up your home.. Kill the kid, make you a nuisance to the government here on iliad. If for no other reason than.. Death seems to follow your every step… That’s costly, a war between you and I. And one I don’t think I'd win… Even if I could run you out of the city. It’d destroy my organization as well.”[/color]  

He paused for a long moment.. Letting her chew on what he was saying.

[color=cornflowerblue]“Sorry about that. Chalk it up to luck or just natural skill.”[/color] In truth it was hard to tell the difference between a novice conscript and an elite assassin. Humans just moved too slow for her to care. Whether it was a rival warband, a Hermanreich patrol, or a dozen trained hitmen she would tear them apart without a scratch. The Crow was obviously unaware of this, still acting like they were on the same plane. Whatever criminal organization he was running she had built and toppled bigger dozens of times.

[color=cornflowerblue]“Blow up my house and I’ll find every stockpile of weapons, every safehouse and hiding spot for your dirty money, and torch them. If you make me a nuisance for the government you’re just going to bring the hammer down on yourself. And if you kill the kid? I’m going to find you, the real you mind, not this body double or hologram or whatever it is, and I’m going to gut you.”[/color] 

Her face was totally deadpan, devoid of any bluster or bullshitting. [color=cornflowerblue]“It’s going to be slow and you’re definitely going to be resuscitated a few times but by the end of it you’ll learn why the Reich doesn’t waste its own agents sending them after me. You don’t have enough bodies to run me out, no one does.”[/color]

Her position on the matter was made clear, Lynx retrieving a cigar from a pocket. Lilith was looking at her, the hitch in her breathing making clear her shock. The girl knew that her mentor had a checkered past but they had never gone into specifics. This was a side she had never witnessed before. Ah well, there was time for therapy later.

Her knife was retrieved from its belt sheath, butt end of the cigar sliced open and lit with a match struck on her boot heel. [color=cornflowerblue]“Counteroffer: You let go of the girl and head home to your kids or your mistress or whatever and next time someone comes to you with a contract for Liberty or Lynx you tell them where to stick it.”[/color] She paused to look over the besuited specter, a long drag pulling smoke into her mouth before ejecting it through her nose.

[color=cornflowerblue]“In return you won’t have to wonder if I’m looking at you through a sniper scope or currently rigging a bomb in your basement. Because believe me, you turn this deal down and I’m going to be on the warpath.”[/color] 

The man paused for a long moment, saying nothing, only looking at the woman smoking a cigar nonchalantly in front of him. Before long, he betrayed his emotionless candor by chuckling despite himself.

[color=brown]“It seems.. You and I are of one mind. Twenty two bodies are quite enough. And the person who put the contract on Liberty? I’m going to be paying them a visit, to.. Thank them for their patronage.. And for thinking that Blackbird can be their cannon fodder. How did you put it? ‘It’s going to be slow.’ and any future contracts? I’ll give them the same treatment. Call it.. Professional courtesy.”[/color] 

He continued to chuckle, as he grabbed Lilith by the arm and pulled her to her feet, he’d pat the girl on the head and adjust her hair before cutting her loose with a spectral knife that seemed to manifest directly from his palm. With one light pat forward he’d send the girl, still gagged toward Lynx. 

[color=brown]“As far as i’m concerned we’re square. I'd really rather never see your face again, so your deal suits me just fine.”[/color]  

He paused for another long moment as Lilith ran toward the woman. 

[color=brown]“You should try and check that ego of yours Lynx.. One day you’re going to meet someone you can’t defeat.. Pride goes before the fall.. Our business is concluded. Be seeing you.”[/color] 

As quick as he said the words, the man who was once dressed in a fine suit turned into a black blob, living shadow. The only thing that retained its shape being his Ravens mask. In another moment he was gone, the only thing left behind being the mask. 

Lynx wrapped her arms around Lilith in a tight hug, rocking with the poor girl as she sniffled. [color=navajowhite]“I thought they were going to kill me.”[/color] She whispered, voice hollow and dry. What had been pretty much mundane to her guardian had been terrifying for her. She had been through a truly awful experience and Lynx wasn’t cruel enough to show her true feelings on the matter.

[color=cornflowerblue]“I know, I know. They’re not coming back, I promise. Let’s get you something to eat.”[/color]

Walking at Lilith’s pace meant the trip back into town took a few hours, Lynx spending a good part of that time turning the mask she had picked up in her hands. Time would tell if the Crow would keep up his end of the deal but she couldn’t worry about that right now. Lilith was tugging at her arm, looking at her through the eye she had managed to clear of its dried blood.

[color=navajowhite]“Lynx, can we stop for ice cream?”[/color]


A reasonable request under the circumstances. [color=cornflowerblue]“Yeah kid, I got you covered.”[/color]

Already she was trying to get back into the swing of things, abusing her status as a wounded hero to try and wring treats of Lynx’s wallet. Humans were physically delicate but some of them were emotional tanks.

It was always interesting to see who rose up and who backed down when presented with danger.