Touchstone finishes his bout with the big guy, Oliver. Shirtless and sweating, the stone man grabs his metal water bottle and takes a sip. Shrike comes striding over as she finishes her session with someone else. The two had been eyeing each other from across the grass just as much as they watched their opponents, and they both knew it.
“So, when you beat my ass that one time-”
“Let’s go.” She says, tossing him a pair of finger-less sparring gloves. She unbuckles her harness, wraps it around her swords, and sets the bundle aside. Touchstone’s heart jolts from a shock of adrenaline as Shrike starts taking off her shirt, giving him a good look at her six-pack glistening with sweat.
“You might want to keep your shirt on.” He says, throwing on his own shirt.
“Why?” she asks, poking her head back through her shirt. “You find something distracting?” She smiles, “Jessica and Rachel were half naked when you spared with ‘em.”
He holds up a fist. “Stone on skin won’t feel good. And we were using weapons, little chance for skin on skin contact.”
Shrike stares at the stone man with a childish grin on her face.
“…That’s not what I—just keep your damn shirt on, woman.”
Shrike and Touchstone circle each-other, padded fists up.
“So, how did you know to go for my gut when we first met?”
Touchstone jumps back and catches Shrike’s kick with his arm.
“I didn’t. It’s just standard operating procedure. Takes down most people.” Shrikes dodges a quick jab and a follow up from the stone man.
“And the concussion you tried to give me?”
“Thought you were someone else. Had to make sure you wouldn’t follow me.”
“Yeah, Thompson thought I was someone else, too. Is it someone I should look out for?”
“My hero. I can look out for myself!” Shrike strikes twice at his face and immediately follows with a knee. Touchstone knocks both blows to the side with one hand and brings his own leg up to intercept hers. They both step back to recover their stance.
“That’s evident. But if you aren’t good with them, then neither am I.”
“Not bad. Where’d you learn to fight?”
“Other than sparring with those swords? I just read it in a book. Never practiced hand to hand.”
“I don’t know who’s after me exactly. Had a run in with some dangerous guys a while ago. Trained, nice gear, lots of money. Mercs, if I had to guess.” Then she steps back and looks at him. “You’re not bad. You fight like someone who’s just a little rusty.”
Shrike smiles, cocks her heal back, and sinks down low, like a cat about to spring.
The stone man backs away and puts his guard up.
“Ah shi—”
Less than ten seconds later, Touchstone is thrown to the ground—still catching up from having the wind knocked out of him—as Shrike throws one leg over, straddling the stone man in place and pinning his arms above his head.
“I was wrong.” She says. “Your brain may know what it wants to do, but you body ain’t got the muscle memory.” Touchstone sucks in a breath as Shrike’s thighs squeeze tighter around his stomach and ribs, and she leans in closer.
“Don’t know what you were talking about,” she says softly as her hips move slightly from side to side. “your skin feels plenty soft to me.”
Touchstone has to remind himself about all the ways he could get killed if someone sees just a sliver of his skin change color under his shirt as he twists his wrists into Shrike’s thumbs, freeing his arms, then pulls Shrike in closer, rolls himself on top, and whispers into her ear.
“Looks like I’ll just have to keep practicing then.”
---
“Not bad.” Shrike says. She’s wearing a mesh fencing mask, thick gloves, and a padded jacket. The amazon is letting her slender side swords rest on her shoulders. “Not many people can take me in a sword fight. I don’t even need to hold back.”
“I fight Touch all the time.” Rachel says through her own mesh mask.
“Yeah, we were pretty even.” The two women raise their swords and circle each other.
“Y’all aren’t bad shots either. After everything your crew’s done, how would you like to work for me?”
“—I don’t know… No, gonna have to pass. We have too much we need to do on our own.” Finding Anea a home. Tracking down Rachel’s family. And who knows what Touch wants? He might be fine with staying. But she doesn’t want to keep doing this.
This, the sparing and the training and the traveling is fun. But she doesn’t want it to be her life. Rachel wants nothing more than to reconnect with her friends and family and find a safe, quiet place to settle down.
She was just getting good at gaming again when those damn mechs attacked. Rachel started thinking about ditching her videos for a while and entering some underground gaming tournaments.
But even that—the games and the animation—just seemed hollow.
Nothing like when she was a kid, or an internet celebrity, or a div trainer. That work was demanding and never quite as much fun as when she did it for herself, not stuck generating content for money.
But she always had her family right beside her.
When she was in Nuever, she had complete free rein over everything she did. No bills to pay, no algorithms to feed, barely any censorship to adhere to. She had Tara and Lain and the rest of her online community, but not her children. Not her family.
Even if she found a place where people would finally stop trying to kill her, what would it all mean? What would be the point? She would just be wasting away and stalling for time like she was in Nuever, constantly worried about how her parents and her brother and her children were doing. What’s the point of doing anything without them?
She can’t give up on finding them. She can’t forget them. She can’t move on without them.
“You good?” Shrike asks.
“Yeah.”
Shrike lunges forward with her twin blades.
---
Touchstone watches the two women like a hawk from the sidelines. Ortega and Jason pump their fist and cheer a bit as Shrike pushes Rachel on the defensive. Dallas takes a step closer to the stone man.
“Who you betting on? Your girl or your girl?”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Touchstone cocks an eyebrow at the old man.
Then goes back to observing the bout. The clang of steel and the shouts and grunts of the ladies signaling their lack of reserve.
“Well?” Dallas insists.
“I’m thinking… They both seem evenly matched… I think Rachel can take her.”
“Oh really? You train her that good?”
“I didn’t train her. I taught her the fundamentals and showed her the ropes. The rest is all her.”
“I’ve been watching over Shrike since she was in school. I’ve seen her come into her own as the queen of this little bounty hunting team. She doesn’t let anyone beat her. I give your girl one or two good hits, but Shrike will take the match.”
“Do you want to know how Rachel and I met?”
“Hmm?”
“An army of mercenaries and bounty hunters were moving into town in waves to take us all down. But they had an ace up their sleeve for their most dangerous target. They sent two giant mechs to kill some girl all by herself on the edge of town.
“That girl came to me with a backpack full of what was left of those two mechs. The guys who sent them were so embarrassed, they covered the whole thing up and never spoke of it again.”
Dallas lets out a low whistle. “That one must be full of surprises.”
He sees the corner of the stone man’s lips pulled into a smirk.
“You have no idea.”
“Let’s make a bet.”
“We don’t gamble money. What else ya got?”
Dallas smiles.
“Your team’s well put together, too.” Shrike continues between parries and swings. “Wish we had divs to work with. Arch, Anea, Touch. It’s almost like you hand selected them.”
“Where are all your divs?” Rachel parries then steps out of reach of Shrikes’ shorter blades.
“Hiding. Some get sanctioned with corporate protection—for special jobs and such. Bounty hunter isn’t a job divs can get—too much freedom out here. Too many chances to turn back on the corpos. So they keep them all close, in the city. Only the really loyal ones can leave.” Shrike continues her advance of feints, sidesteps, and lunges.
“Do you ever turn in runaway divs?”
“Not unless they happen to do something too dangerous to keep out here. They don’t give us much information, but I do my homework.”
Rachel waits for the fatal slip-up. Shrike’s blade come close to each-other for a fraction of a second. In that moment, Rachel unleashes a powerful strike, knocking both blades to the side, pulling her follow-up blow at the last second to keep it from colliding with her neck too hard.
Rachel feels something poking into her side.
She looks down and finds a side sword pressing into the side of her chest. If this was a real fight, that could easily go to her heart. Shrike’s second blade paused, reaching up to intercept Rachel’s own blade, too slow to stop her.
Draw.
Shrike smiles. The two women lower their stances.
“I’ve been thinking, if we didn’t end up getting along—us butting heads would’ve been one hell of a fight. Who do you think would’ve won?”
“Us, easily. We could take you by surprise, but with Anea, you can’t do the same.”
“True, unless you were split up. Ideal conditions don’t exist in the field. We’ve been getting steady work for about a year. I think my guys just got the experience to adapt.”
“We can talk about it all day. How bout we put it to the test?”
Shrikes looks at the woman, concealing the startle Rachel’s tone gave her. Did she strike a nerve? Was it something she say step on some toes? Shrike thought the girl thicker skinned than that.
But when she looks up, she finds Rachel with a gleam in her eye and a savage smile on her face.
---
Rachel braces her machine gun up against a tree as Arch goes to scout the area ahead. He wore a tiny padded vest and a specially made helmet—one that was attached to his vest to transfer force off from his neck—to protect him from the training rounds they were using. Rachel wore the regular sized stuff, and thick gloves to match.
They were using high velocity sim-rounds. They didn’t fly nearly as far or as fast as live ammo, but they didn’t have to worry about breaking fingers or any serious injuries in training. Shrike likes to use the hardest hitting ones available, which is why they needed all the extra protective equipment.
Touch brings up the rear, scanning the woodland with his semi-automatic rifle with a weak scope. He wore only the goggles. Two pistols strapped to his sides.
“Who do you think she chose?” Touch asks. There was no way they would let Anea or Dill get hurt with training rounds, so Shrike would sacrifice two of her crew to make it even. Anea may not be a combatant, but her ability to sense people was a massive advantage.
“Herself, maybe Oliver. And then Jason or Slip.”
“I think it’ll be Shrike, Jason, and Slip. If it were close quarters, then I could see Oliver.”
“Right, so Slip pins us down or picks us off. Jason uses those bolas, and Shrike moves in to finish the job.”
“That’s what I’m—“
Gunshots explode off to their right. Touch grunts, falling back behind a tree.
“You good?” Rachel scans around, her heart thumping a little louder.
“Yeah, he got me once. I know exactly where he is.” Given Touch’s skin, he can get hit three times before he was considered ‘out’.
“He’s about right here.” Touch points, keeping his hand behind the tree. Rachel nods.
“On three, we light ‘im up.” She says.
She gives a quick and silent count and they both peek from behind their trees to lay down fire on Slip’s position. After a quick burst of fire, she sees Slip’s dark form laying in the brush, in a cluster of small mounds overlooking their position. He gets off one shot before being forced back behind the mound under their hail of fire.
Based on spots where wood and dirt exploded into the air, they got dangerously close to nailing him.
That was if he wasn’t retreating because he was, in fact, out.
“Think we got him?” Rachel says.
“No clue. Have to assume we didn’t. If we follow, it might be a trap, so we either send Arch to check it, or we get moving.”
Rachel looks around to find Arch has returned.
“The way ahead clear?” She asks. Arch nods.
“Lets move. Assume Slip is still in.”
“Well?” Shrike’s voice comes in over Slip’s earpiece.
“I’m sure I got the big guy once. On my way back now.
They’re fast, coordinated. I couldn’t get in a good follow-up shot. Couldn’t see their fox either.”
“Okay. Get back and we’ll try again.”
Rachel and Touch pick their way from cover to cover for a short time, Arch periodically running back and forth to report the all clear.
“Where’d you learn to shoot, if the military didn’t really teach you anything?” Rachel asks.
“I was a natural. BB guns, went to the range a few times. I played with bows and throwing knifes as a kid. I was good, so I kept doing it to get better. Airsoft taught me everything about combat shooting.
The range coach in basic training actually told everyone to shoot like I did when he saw. It was ridiculous what they were teaching us. No idea what they were doing, and they didn’t care. Just echoed bullshit from their outdated manuals.”
“My guys weren’t big on standardized training. I had a coach—and had to pass a bunch of tests. But it was more like a having a tutor or a college professor teaching small groups—
“—That’s how it should be done.” Touch murmurs.
“We weren’t trained in big units. They focused more on us working with our divs.”
Rachel looks ahead to see Arch pointing off to the right, his body straight and still as he leans forward, one paw up to his chest.
Rachel makes a signal with her hands and they all crouch low. They sneak around the brush and see a clearing poking through the trees.
So that’s how it would be? They fight on either side of this open ground, each team trying to advance along the tree covered flanks? Rachel didn’t like it. She wanted an ambush, not a drawn out fight. Especially with so few people to cover this ground.
She makes another signal and advances her team along a wide berth past the area. Rachel sees some dark figures moving among the trees on the other side of the clearing. She smiles as she ups the pace and they jog away.
“Arch, assume they’ll follow us. Find a good spot for an ambush.”
Shrike watches two shadows in the trees slip by on the other side of the clearing. “Ha! They didn’t go for it.” She speaks to her team’s channel so Slip could hear. “Let’s fan out and stay on them. Give them a lot of room and stay out of sight. Once they stop to rest, we’ll surround ‘em.”