Five Months Ago

“Squirm around as much as you want, kid, you’re not getting out of those cuffs.” As he said those words, the purple-skinned man with red sunglasses (which he wore despite the fact that it was the middle of the night) glanced over his shoulder. Further back on the roof, next to the stairs leading down into the building, a young blonde girl lay trussed up with her ankles and wrists secured by chains and the cuffs he had mentioned. A gag filled her mouth, rendering her mostly silent save for a few muffled curses and pleas. “Like I said, I don’t know what you were doing up here, but I’ve got something to take care of. So stay there and when this is over, I’ll let you go. Whether that means taking off the cuffs and sending you down those stairs, or dropping you off the roof of this place so you can take the quick way down depends on how much you annoy me.”

With that, he reached down to pick up the scoped rifle that he had set aside. Mounting it on the nearby tripod, the purple man carefully began to sight in on his target far below. “Now, this should be just about…”

The man has stopped talking, his mouth remaining opened. Dark blue blood began to pour out of it as he coughed, choking in disbelief. His eyes slowly turned, to find the knife buried in his throat. Two hands grasped the hilt of the knife, attached to a pair of very long arms. Long enough to lead all the way back to the ‘secured’ young blonde girl who still lay a good fifteen feet away. She had extended her arms that far, taken the knife from the man’s own belt without him noticing, and then buried it in his throat.

As he collapsed while spitting blood all over himself, the girl shrank her wrists down and allowed the cuffs to simply fall off. She did the same with her legs and ankles to free her feet, then stepped out of them and rose. “Sorry,” she chirped after pulling the gag from her mouth, “I can’t let you kill Mr. Dottermeyer. He’s nice, and he just wants to help the people your boss is trying to make money off of.”

She moved by the rapidly dying man while he struggled to curse her, standing over him with a solemn expression. “I know you’re really mad right now, and maybe you should be. I mean, you’re an awesome assassin. You’ve got all those powers, like turning invisible, climbing up walls like Spider-Man, and that super-aim. And I’m just a stupid little kid. But maybe sometimes it’s the stupid little kids you need to worry about. You should consider that, next– err… right.”

After that, the man managed to make a few more choked gasps, his disbelief at his own death palpable. Then he shuddered, jerked a bit violently, and collapsed.

And just like that, the girl gave a sharp gasp as a rush of knowledge flooded her mind. She felt his power, his skills, everything he knew. It was all there. Everything he could do, she could do. Everything he had known, she knew. Including everything about his employer.

******

Four Months Ago

“Okay, what do we have in here?” The heavy-set Orc-like figure opened the heavy steel door to look in on the slumbering prisoners held deep in this underground prison. They had been knocked out ahead of time with a special gas to ensure easy transport to their new buyers.

Well, all but one of them. Even as the man’s dark-vision focused through the pitch-black room, he found himself staring into the eyes of a small, human girl who had been waiting right on the other side of the door. “Hey, you’re not supposed to–”

Those were the last words he managed, before her hands touched him. Immediately, his entire body was encased in ice, save for his eyes. Those snapped around wildly in a panic, the ice itself starting to crack under the pressure he was exerting in an attempt to break it and get free. But the girl was faster, her eyes meeting his just as two white-purple laser beams shot from them. In an instant, they burned through his eyes and into his brain. He was dead a moment later.

His name was Duegen, a member of the Mukeda species rather than an actual Orc. Still, he had been very strong, and loyal as a grunt to the same employer as the assassin a month earlier.

She was getting closer. Not close enough yet, but still. One step at a time.

Cracking her neck, she turned to wake up the prisoners she had put herself in with. It was time to get them out of here so she could get back to the motels where the Eden’s Garden rebels were staying.

After all, she didn’t want anyone to figure out her secret identity.

******

Present Day

That was how the past few months had gone. Casey Dunne found people who worked for the man known to them as Foxhunter. She managed to get close to them in one way or another, mostly through exploiting their assumptions that she was a helpless little girl. It shouldn’t have been that easy, of course. They should have been instantly warned about her being a Bosch Heretic. Well, she wasn’t actually one of those. She was a Natural Reaper Heretic. But it was close enough, and she still should have set off that alert. And she would have, had she not managed to track down an Aswang one night shortly before her ‘recruitment’ by Eden’s Garden, almost three years earlier. She had needed a way to ensure she didn’t set off that Reaper sense, and the Aswang had needed to die before he could add to the already-impressive list of people he had killed. The then-eleven-year-old girl had considered that a worthy trade.

All of which meant she didn’t set off the alert that Alters got when they saw other Bosch Heretics, Reapers, or Reaper-Heretics. So she wouldn’t be instantly recognized as a threat the moment any of them saw her.

After all, ninjas were supposed to be subtle.

In any case, after months of managing to carry on her private war against the powerful bad guy known as Foxhunter at night, Casey had eventually found herself in a little bit of a pickle. It was time to confront the bad guy himself, but he was a very hard man to get to. Even with all her acquired power and knowledge, she couldn’t get through the security in his home. And she certainly couldn’t confront him there. He was only vulnerable in one place, and he would only be there during the daytime.

Unfortunately, the Boscher Heretic adults in charge of watching over the Eden’s Garden rebellion children didn’t seem likely to give her a day pass for that. They weren’t exactly keeping an eye on every single move their charges made, but they were still a bit too watchful for Casey’s liking. They tried to keep their training and schooling as much on schedule as possible, given the situation. For many, that meant attending the Fusion school, though even those who didn’t go up there had their own education down here with other Garden instructors.

She knew that was a good thing, of course. Even superheroes and ninja turtles had to learn things. But it was the fact that they tried to keep track of where Casey and the other students were and what they were doing even when they weren’t in classes that made the whole situation more complicated. Yes, yes, they were worried about the loyalists finding them. Or about the younger students wandering off and getting into trouble now that they were living here on Earth. She understood that, and for the past seven months, she had been working around it by going out only at night when she was supposed to be asleep. Thanks to several of the boosts she had taken in, Casey required less sleep than most of her teachers and peers assumed. She was down to requiring only about two hours per night, which gave her six or so to do what needed to be done. She simply bundled up extra pillows to look like herself sleeping in the bed, used a charm she’d learned from killing Camisade during the escape from Garden to make the bunched up pillows look like her from a distance, and included an alarm spell to let her know if anyone was paying too much attention to the magicked dummy. Then she made her way out the bathroom window and past the guards patrolling the perimeter. They weren’t expecting someone to sneak out from the inside like that, particularly one who could turn invisible now that she had killed that assassin guy. And for getting back in, she simply left herself a bit of enchanted wood with a one-use line of sight teleportation spell. When she wanted to return, Casey snuck close enough to see the wood where she had put it in some bushes under her window, waited for the coast to be relatively clear, and then teleported there. The wood was used up, and she would sneak back into her motel room to sleep for a couple hours.

That had been good enough for a while. But now she had this issue. She needed to be out and active, without someone babysitting her to watch over her shoulder, during the day. Of course she appreciated that they were trying to protect her and the other young students, but right now it was getting in the way.

The thought of telling them the truth about herself and that she wasn’t as fragile as they might have thought had crossed her mind. But no, that would only make things worse. If they knew she was a Natural Reaper Heretic, like the Gabriel Prosser guy, they would try to protect her even more. She’d never be able to go out on her own and do the things she needed to do. She was trying to help people, not sit in a locked room being protected. And they would definitely never understand when she told them she had to find the Reaper she had been bonded to.

No, if they found out what she was, they’d want to keep her in some nice, safe place to protect her or… or something. They would treat her differently, and she didn’t want that. Well, technically she wanted them to treat her differently in the sense of not coddling her and watching everything she did, but that would push things in the opposite direction. It would be incredibly unhelpful, so she kept her true nature a secret.

Which still left her with the problem of getting out without a minder during the daytime. Thankfully, after a bit of thinking, Casey had come up with a solution to that. Over the course of a week or so, she commented to several of her peers about how fun it would be to be able to get out on the weekends for trips to the mall, an amusement park, museums, and so on. Ways of stretching their legs and getting out on their own. They weren’t stuck in Eden’s Garden anymore, so they should be able to get out and experience the world.

It hadn’t taken that much to get the other students to start pushing their teachers and guardians, and eventually they had given in. The Eden’s Garden splinter (heh, Splinter) group would allow any students wished to attend weekend trips to various places. They would be given alarm spells to call for help if needed, and allowed to split up and enjoy themselves. After all, the point had been made, they couldn’t coddle their young teens forever. Not if they wanted them to grow up capable of defending themselves. Letting go of the leash enough to let them explore a space like an amusement park or mall without constant supervision was an important step to their independence. They needed that sense of freedom. Which, of course, was a point that Casey had made sure that a couple different students made to their teachers.

Of course, she hadn’t taken advantage of the opportunity during the very first trip. No, there was too much chance of their teachers paying more attention during that, and noticing if she slipped away. It was a test run. She made a point of getting out of sight, leaving her tracking charm somewhere she obviously wasn’t, and hiding herself for twenty or thirty minutes at a time where no one could find her, then reappearing to see if anyone noticed or paid more attention than she wanted. Thankfully, things seemed calm. The others were more intent on enjoying their day out than paying attention to where every single person was. As long as she was there when everyone was supposed to meet, and didn’t walk the tracking charm out of the place they were all supposed to be, she would be fine. Well, hopefully. In any case, it was the best chance she had, aside from abandoning the Garden people entirely to strike out on her own. And Casey didn’t want to do that. She had friends there, even if she couldn’t tell any of them the truth about herself. She cared about what happened to them. This was about taking care of others. It was about stopping bad guys while quietly, secretly gathering the power she needed to actually really help when the time came. If anyone knew the truth about her before she was ready, it could ruin things.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Ninjas were supposed to be a deadly secret. And she aimed to live up to both of those words.

Thus, here she was. The whole group had arrived at Disney World early in the morning for a Saturday full of fun and a total lack of responsibility.

Well, they could go ahead and enjoy that. Casey had far too much to do. As soon as they were given their last minute warnings about what to do in case of trouble, everyone split up and took off running in different directions, heading for the attractions they personally wanted to see. Casey ran with them, doing her best to look like she was planning on doing nothing more than spend the rest of the day standing in long lines, going on rides, and gorging herself on expensive treats.

And yet, as soon as she was out of sight from their guardians, and certain that no one was paying her extra attention, the young girl dropped her expression of innocent, cheerful delight. Her face went flat in an instant, the pure, childish joy of arriving at the amusement park vanishing. Not that she was unhappy. No, she was quite pleased that she would finally have the daytime freedom she needed to get things done. But this was a time to focus.

Stepping into the nearest restroom, Casey closed the stall door and locked it. Now she had some privacy, so she took off the enchanted medallion she had been given and told to wear at all times while out on this trip. The tracking charm. Working carefully with a ‘borrowed’ field-engraver, she altered the enchantment so the medallion wouldn’t report that she had left the park as it was supposed to in such a case. As far as anyone monitoring their locations would be concerned, she was wandering around the place just like everyone else.

That done, Casey opened up the backpack she had brought with her and changed clothes into something less likely to draw attention than the fake youth group shirt she and all the others had arrived with. She also took a pair of earrings and carefully put them in before activating the enchantment, which transformed her hair from its normal blonde to a darkish brown, and shifted her facial features just enough to avoid being recognized by her own group. Finally, she used the power she had picked up years earlier, from that Icklor guy behind the gas station, to stretch her legs somewhat. It boosted her height several inches. She didn’t want to go overboard and end up looking awkward, but just that small amount helped her appear to be slightly older, so people would pay less attention.

Stepping out of the stall, she checked herself in the mirror until she was satisfied that she looked sufficiently different and unmemorable. Then she simply headed for the exit, taking care to walk close enough to another group that the people at the gate thought she was with them. She could see one of the Garden people playing the role of a ticket taker and watching the people coming and going. But he paid no extra attention to her. Between the fact that she was leaving the park, and her disguise, he had no reason to suspect anything amiss.

And just like that, she was out in the massive parking lot and had hours ahead of her to get where she needed to go. The feeling of freedom was a bit overwhelming at first. And, she had to admit, it was more than a little exhilarating to have managed to create this entire situation and then escape supervision entirely. She felt like a real ninja.

Jumping up and down and cheering was probably a bad idea (for a few reasons), so she schooled her expression and kept walking as if she knew where she was going. The last thing she needed right now was for someone to come up and ask if she was lost. Attracting attention would be a really good way of making the entire endeavor she had just gone through completely pointless.

Watching the still fairly low sun, Casey silently thanked the fact that everyone wanted to get to Disney World as early as possible. It was barely nine in the morning, so she had plenty of time to get where she needed to be. One of the shuttle buses took her to a nearby hotel, then she walked a bit to a different bus and took that deeper into the main city of Orlando. Specifically, to the Florida Mall. That was where, two weeks earlier, she had arranged to meet her contact.

Heh, contact. That made it sound more like a spy mission than a ninja. But ninjas were basically spies too, right? She could be a ninja spy. A superpowered ninja spy, who helped people. Sometimes by doing bad things, but… but for good reasons, right?

Thinking about that as she made her way through the mall, blending in with the crowd, Casey passed the hall leading down to the hotel and conference center, heading instead for the dining pavilion.

There it was, a small Chinese restaurant on the far east side of the food court. It was still early enough that there weren’t many people around. Still, she did her best to look as nonchalant (hah, that was a fun word) as possible while approaching the Asian clerk who was wiping down the counter. “See?” she announced while putting several coins on the counter, “I told you I’d pay for the extra spicy egg roll.”

The man gave her a brief look, his eyes darting from the coins to her face. She had told him, back when she had arranged this a couple weeks earlier, that she would be sending someone to give him that pass phrase and the magical energy-containing coins as payment for what he was about to do. He had no idea that she was actually the same person who had arranged it in the first place. Which was just the way she wanted it. The less other people knew about what she was doing and what she was capable of, the better off she’d be. Reaper Heretic or not, being underestimated was her best weapon. When people looked at her in her natural form, they saw a helpless little girl, not a threat. It made them let their guards down. It played into their arrogance. Which she could (and did) use for all it was worth.

Clearly having expected to see someone else, perhaps someone older than her disguised apparent fifteen-year-old (if only he knew), the Asian man hesitated before clearing his throat as he swept up the coins. “Yes well, you should head on back and let your mother know that you’re off the hook.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Though she said that casually, inside Casey was bouncing. The counter-sign he had just offered meant the back area was safe and empty. This was going to work. The enner coins she had just paid for this whole thing with were a very small part of a briefcase full of the same that she had liberated from a den full of evil monsters one night a couple months earlier. She’d spent some of them arranging a few other things, but still had plenty left over even after this little payment. They were in a safe, small container in her backpack, along with the other things she had to have for this whole plan to work. The plan she had been working on for the past few months, ever since finding out just how dangerous this Foxhunter guy was.

Now, she stepped around through the employee entrance, passed the man she had just paid, and walked into the back. Behind her, she felt him look around as well to make sure no one was paying attention. As far as anyone who might have overheard was concerned, the girl was going back to talk to her mother, another employee. Only once he felt safe did the man set his rag down and follow her. “You are certain this is what you want? You know it is very dangerous.”

“Yup,” Casey chirped, trying to keep the lingering doubts and uncertainty out of her voice. This was no time to give the guy any reason to back out. “You’ve got the target locked on, right?”

The man paused before grunting, “Yes, I have the… target. Here.” They were in the kitchen area by that point, and he reached down to grab a rug from the floor before yanking it away to reveal an intricate series of runes arranged in a circle. “This will take you where the other girl said you wanted to go. And then it will bring you back as soon as you say the phrase. She told you what it was?”

Casey nodded. Of course she had told herself. The thought almost made her giggle, but she bit her cheek to stop it. She had to be professional right now. “Yes,” she assured him. “Wandering done, stop wandering.”

“Correct,” he confirmed. “Okay, fine. Just don’t take too long. This is very dangerous. It makes me nervous.”

“Don’t worry,” she promised, “this won’t take long.”

With that, Casey stepped into the middle of the transportation spell. The man spoke the activation code, and she felt power rush up around her. The energy enveloped the girl, whisking her away from the mall.

An instant later, Casey appeared hundreds of miles away, at a building in Miami. She was abruptly dropped out of midair to land in the middle of a plush carpeted floor in a fancy office. Checking the clock on the nearby wall confirmed that her target would still be at his traditional Saturday brunch. Among the many things she had learned about him over the past several months of her campaign against the man was his schedule.

Going by the clock, she had twenty minutes before he would be here. That thought had just entered her mind, before the door leading into the office abruptly opened. Yet Casey stayed where she was, barely glancing that way as a woman with pale green skin and mousey white hair poked her head in. “Um…”

“Here.” Casey unzipped her bag, taking the small box with the fortune-worth of Enner coins before tossing it to the woman. “You better hurry, before he comes back.”

Catching the box, the woman checked the contents briefly, then stammered thanks before closing the door. Casey could hear her footsteps as she retreated. Up until just now, she had been the Foxhunter’s personal secretary. It was thanks to her that Casey hadn’t set off every alert in this place as soon as she arrived. The man in the Chinese restaurant had teleported her past the main security and into his office, while his secretary disabled the alarms inside the room itself.

Now she had twenty–no, eighteen minutes. With a small smile, Casey set her bag on the desk and finished unzipping it.

Time to get to work.

***********

The Foxhunter’s real name was Silbert Kreun. He was a member of a species known as the Uormne (Oorm-nay), humanoid figures with metallic blue skin, four arms, and sharp blades that could extend from their wrists. They were incredibly deadly warriors, and Silbert was no exception. He was very rich, in both the human and Alter worlds, and more than capable of holding his own in a one-on-one fight against most threats. He was one of the most dangerous men in the Alter criminal underworld, particularly in the south-east United States. He’d earned his nickname from his habit of abducting innocent people, taking them to a secluded area, and letting them loose so he could run them down and kill them. Like a fox hunter.

His reflexes and senses were incredibly honed. Thus it was unsurprising that Casey had barely taken a step out of the corner of the room where she had watched him enter and sit down at his desk before he abruptly had a gun pointed at her. “I know you’re there,” the man announced. “Show yourself.”

She obliged, turning off her invisibility so he would see her standing there with a closed umbrella in one hand. “You’re a bad guy.”

“And you’re a… kid.” Silbert squinted at her, looking the girl up and down. “What’re you, a Heretic? Don’t seem like one from here, but… not sure what else you could be. Seosten? They’re arrogant enough. Either way, let me guess, you killed Fayna. Must be why she wasn’t in the office.” He considered that before offering a shrug. “Congratulations, but you’re in a little over your head now.” While talking, he kept pointing that gun, clearly wondering if he should just shoot her or not.

“Me?” Casey offered him an innocent smile. “I’m a ninja.”

“That right?” Silbert kept the gun where it was, his other hand moving to touch a button on his desk.

“I disconnected the alarm,” she informed him when nothing happened. “Security isn’t coming.”

“Is that right?” Silbert’s voice was a grunt, before he pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

“I found the gun under your desk and emptied that too,” Casey noted.

Eyes narrowing, Silbert slowly set the gun down. “What is it you want?”

“I told you,” she replied, “I’m a ninja. I kill bad guys. I’m going to kill you.”

Her words prompted a snort of disbelief and amusement. “If it’s a fight you want, kid, you’ve got it.” He began to rise from his chair. “But I promise, you’re gonna regret–”

BOOM

The deafening explosion filled the room, along with a flash of fire and rush of concussive force. Standing on the far side of the room, Casey opened the umbrella and held it out in front of herself. The enchantment triggered, creating a forcefield. Between that and her own (un)natural protections, she was safe from the mostly-centralized explosion.

Silbert, on the other hand, was not so lucky or prepared. When Casey lowered the umbrella, he was lying on his side on the floor. His desk and everything it contained had been essentially vaporized, and the wall behind him was gone. The windows had been blown out, the door was in splinters in the hallway, and several alarms were screaming.

Silbert had been maimed, burned, and was bleeding out through half a dozen deep wounds. Three of his four arms were scattered across the room, while the last one was trying in vain to hold his stomach in. He was blinded from the explosion melting his eyes out, and was struggling to take a full breath. His deep, harshly desperate wheezes filled the air.

Standing over him, Casey spoke quietly. “Did I forget to mention the pressure-sensitive bomb on your chair? Remember your assassin, the guy you sent to kill Mr. Dottermeyer? I learned how to make it from him. I thought… it would be appropriate now.

“Cuz I didn’t say I was going to fight you. I said I was going to kill you.”

With those words, Casey hit a button on the umbrella, extending a blade through the man’s throat to put him out of his misery. And in that moment, a flood of all the power and knowledge that one of the most dangerous crime lords in the United States had acquired over his long career (including everything about his hidden vaults, stashed treasure, account passwords, and more) filled her mind. The so-called Foxhunter was dead. And Casey would soon have access to enough of his treasure to really fuel her search for Jones.

As the sound of his extensive, heavily armed security team running toward the room filled the air, she spoke the phrase. “Wandering done, stop wandering.”

The first hired goon bursting through the open doorway with his weapon raised. But it was too late. His boss was dead, and as for Casey?

She was gone.