Of all the places to have a three-way standoff, a tiny bank was not one of them.

On one side, a terrorist who had killed a lot of people, an elongated woman with a more muscled build who looked like a lunatic but might not be. Dressed in her finery for the bank but still armed, a blade and shot hidden in the folds of her local clothes; both able and willing to use them because of my terminal actions against her and hers. If the last encounter was anything to go by, below her dress, the blade and pistol would probably be laser tech.

I didn’t see any power pack, so it probably wouldn’t punch straight through my plate like the stronger models, but it was open and visible. If she was worth the weight of the gun, she wouldn’t go for armour but my unarmored head and pelvis, which would do more damage. She also had a blade, though it was only knife length, maybe 10”.

On the other side, a man approached the two of us. He was dressed in black and a suit jacket that had a flair toward the local lunatic fashion. I had thought while next to him that he was different, but he was looking more and more like a lunatic, except he was short. He had lived his life in gravity, and stood only a few inches taller than me. He would have to be a Lunatic, though. He had a sword. That would peg him as a Noble. The hilt that peaked out of his jacket was… Odd, however.

It looked like a sword hilt that led into a sheath, a circular hand guard toping it. It was not the style of the sword that made it odd, however, it was that the sheath could only hold a kitchen knife. It was very much a sword in styling, but if it was, it was an odd sort of sword that was a foot long. Something wigged me out about it, something about both the sheath, the apparent length and the handle gnawing at the back of my head.

While the vitriolic woman was who I had first squared up with, hands ready to draw, her hands in her dress, it was the man I wanted to pay more attention to. He had mentioned my hair, and as I was now, the only other person I knew who had hair like mine was Pinky. I didn’t know if that was who he wanted, but I was not going to give him what he wanted. Pinky was not going to get stabbed in the back by me, and I wasn’t going to let the noble soldier boy bring me with him.

I didn’t care if he just wanted to swap beauty tips; he wasn’t getting anything from me.

And stuck in the middle, one Jacalyn Jaydin. Two Handguns, a duster and hat, a broken breastplate, one empty sheath, a partridge, a pear tree, several dust bunnies and gumption.

This was going to either be very messy, or it was going to be a total shit show, and I did not want any part in it.

I had been sitting because I wanted to know if I could get the lady at the front desk to tell me if she could help, and then I could have just bumbled in twenty minutes later as, ‘my friend.’ I doubted it would be that easy, but beggars can’t be choosers, and now I couldn’t be either because I would probably have to fuck off before anything else happened.

“Jacalyn, I believe the bank teller did something. It took me a moment, but there was a wire that carried a signal from the building. I can’t figure out what it did, but I can tell you it won't hamper you inside the building,” Lilly told me.

Scratch that. Silent alarm. I needed to get out of here before a swarm of probably well-meaning guards descended upon the bank to restrain us. I didn’t think my current form had a wanted poster, but I bet directly talking to guards might be a no-go because nondescript was not in my current vocabulary. If I was being honest, it was never in my vocabulary, but that was because I was a hideous milky chaos goblin, but that went double for me now, only I was tan... I was mostly still a chaos gremlin.

I was not feeling up to callously butchering my way through possibly half a dozen or more well-meaning guards who enjoyed arresting people I would normally put holes in. As part of the greater law enforcement community, the lads were often the ones posting bounties, and it was frowned upon to introduce oxygen to the blood via perforation. It resulted in a hostile work environment to have a few zeros under your name when rent came due.

I needed to talk to Lilly, and I needed to talk, and I needed to make sure I didn’t get shot or taken away, preferably without getting my hands covered in the blood off the undeserving. I thought quickly, using all three of my neurons used for thinking, and did the first thing my brain fed to me.

It was, as Pinky might put it, ‘cringe,’ but it would work.

I talked to myself like an enigmatic nutcase.

“The oracle predicts the coming of the guard,” I muttered more to Lilly to let her know in the future, “To let you live or die? Justice by gun or gavel,” I said aloud, wanting to get second opinions and hoping Lilly would pick up on it. Sliping my gun from the holster but not raising it.

Lilly Ohh’ed in acknowledgement but otherwise didn’t seem to understand my question.

To reinforce the energy I was trying to give off, I asked the man, “Perhaps time for a smoke? Do you partake?”

“Smoking is bad for your health; the heat it brings is inauspicious and feeds not but anxiety,” he told me, staring with a furrowed brow.

I had no idea what he meant by this, but he said it genuinely, so I fished out just one, one-handed, quickly lighting it with the snap of my lighter. I did it not only to spite him but to calm my nerves.

I used it like a fantastic prop, trying my best to come off as unconcerned.

Based on the man's expression, he seemed to be disbelieving my act, but the other woman was staring at me like I was a nutcase. I would take the 50/50 personally.

Channelling my best peacekeeping, I told the man with his comedy sword, “Your request is inauspicious, noble. I am not the one you seek, and you will not find answers with me.”

Immediately after, I whispered, “Oh, Oracle, bless the pink one with insight.”

Lilly, doing her best to follow along with my unhinged rambling, muttered to herself for a moment while she parsed what I meant before she simply said, “Done.”

“Devine,” I told her, taking a puff.

The furious woman, momentarily stupefied by my spontaneous insanity, furiously observed me, waiting for a slip-up.

Now... How to play the rest of this?

I needed to get out of here before the guard came, but that could take minutes, not seconds. I gave them a best time of 6 minutes, tops. But could I outrun these two if I just made my way out right now? Maybe, maybe not. I couldn’t outrun her gun, though; that was sure as shit.

That meant that I needed to deal with her and, if I could, him.

There was one teensy little problem with that.

Killing the two of them would be murder.

Which would get me a bounty.

And then I would be right back around to my current predicament, with no new form to hide in. The only way to get around that would be to leave no witnesses, which would mean I would need to kill not only her but a noble and, then, to top it off, gun down the hiding teller, and that was not something I would do.

That made it a bit awkward because if I did kill her, or if she ran off before they got here, she would either be decided as a murder with me holding the smoking gun, or come back to bite me in the ass.

Something I could do was leave at just the right time, though. And if I stayed until the guard started to close in and kind of sortied from the bank, slipped through the line, I could get out and leave her inside.

A close third would be knocking her out, but in melee, I had to assume she was probably a winner or I might get a big head and die from dramatic idiocy, so that was my last option.

And if I was going to stay for a few minutes… Why not try and get her talking?

Wasn’t that what the peacekeeper form was all about? Getting people talking? It wasn’t my first option normally, but I might as well try. Maybe she would slip up… And maybe I could get the noble to turn on her instead of me. Hell, maybe I could get this to turn into a proper three-way instead of a two-on-one. That would take a lot off my shoulders.

Talking it was.

“Little Miss Terrorist is a problem child. Can’t leave you alive, can’t leave you dead…” I told her while turning slightly toward the noble. Then I turned to her and said, “Can’t kill the young master either, tricky, tricky… Maim? Perhaps. A tasteful scar for the ladies? I think a short story is a small one for our short time together.”

“What, too afraid to fight me now? You didn’t seem too frightened by the way you killed all my buddies the other day. You and that sow cut us down like the rabid animals you are. What's different? Is your master not here to rub your belly after? Fucking appeaser,” She spat.

It was vitriolic enough to make me think there was something fucky with her. Something that smelled like, ideology. I leaned into the shard, letting it guide me more.

I let my mind wander toward the flash I had gotten. My body transformed into a tongue, and it spun free; its binds were so loose, but a nudge would let them free. I let it spin its own wheel of thought, so polite and soft and yet full of horror and fangs. It sook weak spots and cracks to worm its way into so it might better pierce the armour of their minds.

There was no accompanying aura. I had no way to pull forth the aura of sensuality pinky had, no spell to bewitch or enthral, but I didn’t need it to start chipping away.

Something to work with, my mind told me, something to twist.

“Fear plays no part, I fear not the chatter of some lesser mongrel,” I spoke like my shit didn’t stink, “I would just prefer a blade. A gun is so impersonal… Swordsman? May I?” I asked him, holding out one hand, cigarette held daintily between two fingers.

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“I think not,” he said, outdoing my act naturally in the way that only came with repetition. “I’ll say it once, cease this charade and yield. Yield, and you might not rot beneath the black tower.”

“Spooky, but I think not… Don’t you know who I work for?” I asked him, sowing doubt.

“I would say a carnival, but you appear to be the entire circus,” he said, not buying it.

“I take it back, you don’t need a scar with a silver tongue like that. I fear that your kitchen knife is… too little to bring me in however. I would say it’s a bit small, no? Size is important,” my mouth jabed back.

That got a reaction, but not the one I was thinking it would get. It didn’t get anything but a smirk. He had yet to draw his blade, despite the lack of gun pointed at him, but I was getting a feeling that something was fucky here.

“Lilly, if you have any way of telling me when the guard will be here, tell me. If you can, get a read on the sword he’s carrying. Something about it is… Off,” I whispered.

I tried to recalculate this.

Trying to play the two of them off one another was going to be a bit harder than my shard thought. He wasn’t saying what I needed him to say; he stuck too close to an aggressive tone to give something that could be intuited as working together.

I wouldn’t be able to play them that easily, unfortunately. If I had wanted her to think she was outnumbered and for him to take her as the priority, it would have been a bit harder than that, which was unfortunate.

I could see a twitch from the woman that I caught in the corner of my eye, and my gun went up, pointed generally at her hand and arm.

If the tougher of the two nuts wouldn’t crack, I would go for the weaker. If he wouldn’t make the connection, I would convince her.

“Uh, uh, sweet cheeks… not funny business, or you join your friends in a casket,” I told her, cocking the hammer to punctuate it. “You’re a killer, but beneath my notice right now. I would far rather hand you to the guard and let you rot,” I told her before taking a deep draw on my smoking cigarette.

“Pinky confirmed the response time of the local constabulary. You have between two and three minutes. Additionally, the sword appears to be an unregistered vapour blade, though, without a power source, it is rather harmless,” Lilly chimed in.

Whooo, boy, that may not have been good on both accounts.

I needed to hurry this up.

“The oracle tells me about your vapour blade. It will not be enough,” I told him.

“Cut the act. It grows old. I will give you one more chance to yield before-”

“Will you shut the fuck up?” I asked him the whole thing wearing on me, “You are obviously clueless, so how about I spell out a few things for you? First off, this woman was part of the attack on the voidrome. Second off, you have no beef with me. Third, I’m not going anywhere with someone, and I don’t care about whatever your black tower wants. Fourth, why? Why are you looking for someone, I’m sorry to say, but I don’t give two shits that you’re a noble, or your black tower, or your toy artifact. Mmk? As far as I see, you’re just as much a goon as her,” I told him, cutting the shtick that was not working and tipping my head to goonet.

He looked as if he had been slapped.

“You dare besmirch the honour of both myself and the Black Tower?” he asked, tension rising in his voice.

What was this black tower nonsense?

I turned to the peanut gallery and asked, “What is this black tower nonsense?”

Goonet was starting to look at the black-coated man like he had multiple heads. Every time the black tower was mentioned, she looked at him as if he were a monster hidden in the flesh of a man.

“The black tower at the high clan’s personal enforcers. They would kill their own family if the high clan ordered it. They’re worse than nobles, at least they have some standards,” She said in a growing sneer.

She looked like she wanted to try and spit on his shoes.

That worked better at drawing his ire than anything I had done. He turned to her, one of his hands trembling.

“I take offence-”

“You are an offence, you Kuro fuck. You look like a Blackbird. Are you angry that I’m right? You’re a bit young to remember, but I bet you learned secondhand about all the family your fucking 'honourable' family killed. How many was it? A few thousand? Butchered in cold blood because your master willed it. Word on the street is that you're bred heartless, so I doubt that bothers you, but it must eat you up that you have no honour to besmirch.”

Fuck me, that was some vitriol.

If I had known that all I had to do to send them against each other was get them to talk, I would have had a much easier time.

“Say, Lilly, what would happen if I slipped out through a corner?” I whispered.

“Would you suffocate in the vacuum of space? There’s nothing out there without the dome,” she said.

Of all the times I wish I had a helmet and suit, it would be outside my ship.

“Oh well. I figured it was worth asking, even if it was a weak idea. I doubt I would have the time to pry one open anyway,” I whispered back.

I put the half-burnt cigarette in my mouth and freed my second gun. If it was going to come to a scuffle, I was going to be armed, even if the worst I would do was shoot them in the foot in self-defence or club them.

Shit hit the fan about a tenth of a second before I got my firearm free. The swordsman, Blackbird or whatever, reached into a pocket and pulled out a glove. Pulling it over his hand, he quickly drew out his sword.

Its blade was a familiar crystalline colour, though it was a very different blade. It was a single-edged short sword, sleek with a curve that ended in a point. A blade that looked like it was good at thrusting and slashing but not cleaving; an agile sword. It had a simple black wrap around the handle.

As it hit the air, it began to oxidize into the familiar blue to-red of my sword, but what was not was the edge, which began to let off a light fog.

“Jacalyn, that is a power glove. He is powering that sword.”

And that explained the smirk.

“What does it do?” I whispered.

“Powered, the blade is extended in a visible vapour. I doubt he has a method of controlling it, but if he could, he could release a blade of condensed vapour in a slash,” she explained in simple Jaclyn-sized words, a vast departure from her attempted explanations of a week ago.

She was growing on me, or maybe I was growing on her. Hard to tell.

“Do you have any quick guides on how to fight him? How to deal with him?” I whispered while the two of them started making very violent nonsense noises, and little Miss Goonet started rattling, itching to pull her weapons out.

“If you can make a direct, skin-to-gem contact with the battery that’s on the glove, I can discharge it so long as he has no control. Heck, I can even cycle your transformation a few times to blind them so you can escape and leave you toped up after,” she explained.

That was far and above what I was hoping for; I could get the hell out and leave these two to be surrounded by the guard while blind—non-lethally incapacitating the both of them.

“Well,” I said at full volume, “It appears we are at an impasse. Mr black Tower, you can go fuck yourself, you are no better than a domestic terrorist. And Mrs… You know, I don’t actually know what group you’re a part of. Do you have a name I could go by? Calling you terrorist girl in my head is kind of getting old,” I told her, casually getting the glove off my hand and gesturing at her, my one free gun level between the two of them instead of just at her.

I stuck the glove in the pocket and got my gun back out before returning it to the holster in case I needed to grab something. There was no point in having one hand free.

Between putting the glove away, she withdrew a knife and a tiny, very obvious laser pistol, as I expected. The blade was wide but not too thick, meant to bite in like a cleaver but light enough not to break a bone.

Her equipment was mundane, but that didn’t make it less dangerous.

Blackbird took a stance, holding the blade out and gripping it with two hands. The fogy edge appeared to extend up until it was a respectable two and a bit feet, the fog doubling its length.

“One minute twenty on the guards,” Lilly whispered.

“I’m going to kill the both of you for the Lotus,” she sneered.

Noted, a name to work on. I doubted it was the name of whatever company she was tattooed for, but that was something.

Now I just needed to get the fuck out of here.

It kicked off fast, Blackbird struck out toward lotus and I moved forward to try and get him by the hand but stepped back a step when she shot out toward me.

Lotus’s blade caught the vapour blade before she deflected it away.

She snapped two quick shots off to the side before making her way toward me.

Blackbird flinched, his sword sliding into the wood floor, ripping it up like a shitty saw blade.

I levelled my gun towards her, and she brought her gun back toward me, and I fired, my shot casing and all thudding into the wall as I missed the gun.

I cocked it a second time, but she was too close, so I waited, and as she waited with the gun, I moved in front of her. Her blade came toward me, and I prepared for it; I reached out, grabbed her wrist, and twisted, loosening her grip and freeing the blade from her grasp.

Knowing she would shoot, I let her get a lesser shot for a firm headbutt, and her shot clipped me below my ribs, burning through my shirt and burning a blistering pockmark into my abdomen. It managed to draw a hiss of pain, but I would honestly say I got the better trade as she fell back, her nose starting to bleed as she stumbled back with a crisp break of cartilage.

Blackbird recovered, boiling anger kept in check by focus. He made his way over to us, unsure as to who to swing at, his eyes turning to me as I turned gun in hand.

Sidestepping, I caught the fallen knife with the lip of my shoe before kicking it up, grabbing the blade in the air, and then adjusting it with a one-handed flourish that gave me the hilt. I awkwardly brought it to bare on him.

Steadying himself, he struck toward my gun arm.

It was surprisingly weak. I was surprised at how straightforward it was. I sidestepped, and he stopped, righted himself, turned and caught a footstrike to the groin, staggered back and stood still for a good kick to the chest.

“Wow, your… Totally inexperienced… What a letdown,” I muttered to him.

A footfall sounded behind me, and a white-hot smash hit me over the head, my knees falling out from under me and rolling to the side.

Gritting my teeth, I cracked open my eye just in time for Lotus to drop on me, clubbing my face and going for the knife.

I took two smacks on the face, and my gums were bleeding; I brought Lefty up next to her head and cracked off a shot. This close, the shot was painfully loud but next to your head?

Concused she dropped the gun and brought her hand up to her ear, shrieking in pain right alongside me.

I shifted my center of mass and rolled, cracking my head a second time and loosing my hat for a moment as my head slaped into the arm of a chair. I gave her a good punch to the gut to get her to release her leg grip and removed myself from the grapple.

I got my hat on my head and managed to stand, kicking the gun under a chair and away from her while she curled, fighting it well, but not fast enough to recover before the guard came.

I turned only to catch a gloved hand around my throat, the cut off of air and my lack of breath putting stars in my vision.

Blackbird, sword held in his off-hand, he hefted me up by the neck, lifting me until I was on tip toe.

And he started to monologue as I scrabbled at his hand.

“I would have shown you mercy, but you're too far gone. I think… You’ll rot in the black tower, perhaps without a few limbs. Don’t worry, you won’t need them where-”

I let him monologue, scrambling at him while my face reddened, my lungs shouting for air, staring down in a fury. I gave him an obvious strike that I let him land, knocking the blade from my hand so my open hand could grab at the glove.

Inching over it while he basked in what his people would do, I focused on the glove, focused on finding the gem, finding embroidered fabric, little hexagons and then cool fabricless material.

“Nagh,” I muttered.

His words were cut off as I lit up like a flashbulb, my body shifting into my default, my neck freeing with the bone armour before flashing back to peacekeeper. He shouted in fear and reeling from the fight, his lack of experience and sheer animal fear he had not mastered; his grip went slack as I continued to flash over and over, repeatedly blinding him in a flickering light that shone as bright as the sun.

He stumbled back, and I sucked down air and held onto his hand until Lilly said, “Empty, get out of there, twenty seconds.”

Stumbling back as my body returned to peacekeeper, mouth stinging with iron and through store from a growing bruise, lungs sucking air down like the room was venting atmosphere, I put out my dropped cigarette with a clap and limped back before turning to run.

I slammed out of the door and could see a few guards down the road. I turned and made my way into the first alley.

The second I broke line of sight, I changed back to normal. Dropping my peacekeeper form, I started changing my look. Taking my hat off and shucking out of my coat. The alley is blissfully empty; I rolled them up. I started looking around, moving around. I found a wood-framed backpack and dumped it, stuffing first my coat and then a few minutes later my armour. I spit to clear my mouth and it came out mostly red. I could feel my gums bleeding.

I kept sucking in deep breaths and managed to pull a cheap local set of clothes off a nearby clothesline. My disguise complete, I waddled my way with a bag and robe like a drunkard and did my best to disappear into the city, bruised, and not necessarily better off... It was something.

I needed to be more fucking careful or one of these days something was going to fucking kill me.

Far more careful.