Somewhere in California, under the light of a full moon, a dozen men and women worked to transfer the contents of an unmarked semi truck to several smaller vans in the parking lot of an old warehouse. The man in charge, wearing a business suit as opposed to the greasy overalls his subordinates were clad in, waved his phone while calling loudly, “Let's go! Get a move on, for fuck’s sake! We're supposed to have this shit on the road fifteen minutes ago!” He looked back at his phone, grumbling about not being able to find good help.
Watching that happen, two figures clad in black clothing crouched in the windowsill of the warehouse itself. The man who had been playing lookout there lay crumpled on the floor behind them. The smaller of the two female figures, sixteen-year-old Felicity Chambers, spoke quietly. “Well he's not a very good manager. I wouldn't be motivated to do my best work for him. You're much better at that.”
Beside her, Charmeine snorted softly before replying, “That's because I know how to get your ass moving. Now focus, before I decide to find new ways to motivate you. Like another couple days in the Grand Canyon. Your dad would absolutely let me take you for another weekend of camping. Or you could prove you've actually been paying attention.” With that, she reached out to put her hand over the girl’s eyes. “How many are there, what weapons do they have that can be made out, and what are the license plates on all four vans in order from our left to right?”
Shifting a bit with the woman's hand covering her eyes, Flick consulted her own memory (boosted as it was by her bond with the woman next to her) and with her little Seosten partner. Tabbris was about eight years old by that point, and the two of them had been training to work together for the past four and a half years, ever since Felicity had been bonded to Charmeine in the first place, when those men had tried to kill her. They had plenty of practice with this sort of thing, considering how often their tutor used it.
“Two guys with blond hair, one a few inches taller than the other, both a little overweight. They've got pistols on their left hips and a couple batons on their right. A woman with red hair in a ponytail, she's got a sawed-off shotgun. A black woman with green tips in her hair. She has this chain thing with a blade on it and a long knife. Three more guys, all Latino, with submachine guns over their shoulders, on straps. One big white guy, bald. He's got a full shotgun strapped over his back and a baton, probably electrified, on his leg. A blonde woman with a blue streak in her hair. She has a nice baseball bat she keeps flipping around, and another pistol on her waistband. A tall, thin black guy with dreadlocks. He's got two revolvers. And two more white guys. They look totally average. Brown hair, shoes, nothing to stand out. They might be brothers, but I'm not sure. We're not sure. They both have pistols and the taller one has a rifle too. The guy with the phone has a pistol under his suit jacket. And the guy directly below us on guard duty has dark red hair that’s pretty long, and a rifle slung over his shoulder.”
From there, she went on to list all the license plates in the order the woman had requested. Once that was done, she grinned. “Good enough?”
Removing her hand from the girl’s eyes so she and her Seosten partner could see again, Charmeine grunted noncommittally, though she couldn’t keep all the pride out of her voice. “I suppose it’ll work. Which means you’ve earned the right to move on to step two of tonight’s test. Lucky you.” She said those words with a familiar, dangerous smirk, making it clear that whatever was coming next, she would have a lot of fun with it.
Uh oh, Flick silently sent to the girl who had become a sister to her over the past few years, I think we might be in trouble. Aloud, she asked, “Um, the next part of the test? Isn't this the part where we go down and help you deal with those guys? You know, like every other time?” Her voice made it clear that she knew there was something else to this particular situation.
“Nah, we’ve done that already. Plenty of times, like you said,” Charmeine informed her casually. “I could take all those guys in my sleep. That wouldn't be much of a test. No, I think this time you can do it by yourselves.”
That made Flick do a double-take, blinking at her. “By ourselves? Like, fight all of them without you?”
“What’s the matter, scared?” Charmeine teased, before poking her in the shoulder. “Look, kid, you’ve got my power. You’ve got Tabbris in there playing copilot. I’ve been teaching and training you for years. You’ve got this. Those guys are a bunch of losers. They won’t know what hit them. And if something goes wrong, I’ll be watching. Just show me what you can do.” Belatedly, she reached into her pocket before producing what appeared to be an ordinary ski mask. “But do it with someone else’s face. I really don’t need to try to explain what happened if any camera footage gets out. And speaking of which, I’m docking points if you let one of those idiots get you on camera.”
“Is it your bosses or my dad you don’t want to explain things to?” Flick asked, taking the masker before pulling it over her head. As she did so and managed to get it into position, the ‘mask’ part seemed to vanish, transforming her face into that of a completely different person. Someone who wouldn’t be connected to a young girl living in Wyoming.
“Both,” Charmeine shot back. “I don’t want to deal with any of them. So don’t get yourself killed. Just show me what you can do. Tabbris, you too. Both of you are ready for this. Void, you’re ready for a lot more. Now get down there and prove it so we can move on to the next stage.”
Right, the next step. Flick was honestly more worried about that than she was about what she was going to do right now. Because the older woman was right. She and Tabbris had spent the past few years training to be able to handle themselves. They could take these guys. Staring down that way as the assembled people continued to transfer those boxes, she spoke inwardly. You ready for this, partner?
There was a very brief pause as Tabbris clearly psyched herself up before confirming, Yeah, we've got this. Belatedly, she added, Do you think we can make Aunt Charming proud?
Snorting despite herself, Flick reflexively glanced toward the woman in question, who was still waiting for them to go. For her part, Charmeine blinked before interpreting the look. “What? Oh she called me Aunt Charming again, didn’t she? Damn it, kid, I told you not to--”
Without waiting for the woman to continue pretending to object to a nickname that they both knew she actually liked as long as it only came from the two of them, Flick threw herself through the open window, dropping all the way to the pavement below before landing smoothly and silently about five feet behind the guard who was standing lookout right at the base of the building.
Well, almost silently. She deliberately allowed her foot to kick a small bit of gravel nearby as she landed, just enough to make the man turn to his left while she sprang to the right. As his body turned ninety degrees that way, the teenage girl’s movement put her directly behind him. Her hands caught hold of the strap around his neck and shoulder that was attached to the gun, yanking hard on it as she threw herself backward. The strap went taut, hauling the gun it was attached to out of the man’s hands and upward along his chest until it hit an obstacle, his chin and throat. The man’s attempted cry was cut off, turned to a gurgle as he fell hard onto his back. He would have landed on top of Flick, but she had already rolled out of the way. As soon as he hit the ground, she was on top of him, pushing as hard as she could against the rifle on his throat. His body thrashed under her, the man’s choked noises growing frantic for a second until she braced herself and gave a hard shove and twist against the rifle. His neck broke under the motion, and the man went still, his body slumping lifelessly.
It was far from her first kill, and all of these people were incredibly deserving considering the things they had done. Still, seeing his dead eyes staring up at her made the girl shove herself off him and turn away.
Immediately, Flick pushed that out of her mind and took in the reactions from the rest of the people. There were none. They hadn’t noticed anything. Not yet, anyway. And he was safely out of sight here in the shadows.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Okay, Tabs, one down, thirteen to go. As she said that, the girl took a pair of what looked like sunglasses from her pocket and put them on. A touch against the rim allowed her to see the outlines of everyone in the area, even through walls. Let’s make Aunt Charming proud. You know, whether she admits it or not.
Straight ahead was the front of the semi truck. At the other end of that truck was an open area where most of those people were moving around. Three of them were inside the trailer itself, passing boxes out to the other nine, who were moving back and forth between the trailer and each of the four vans that were parked about forty feet away with their open rear doors facing the semi for easy loading. The man in charge, who was still consulting his phone, stood to the left of the trailer’s doors.
Some might have thought that managing to take every single one of those people by surprise when they were all in a relatively small area and almost constantly within the sightline of several others would be impossible. Those people hadn’t spent the past four and a half years being trained by Charmeine.
From her starting position, next to the warehouse doors, Flick ran toward the front of the truck. Just before she would have slammed into the hood, she instead leapt upward, using her own Natural Seosten-Heretic boost to completely clear the truck cab itself. While still in midair, Tabbris took control of her hand to produce a small red-bladed dart with white runes scrawled along the black shaft from a slot on her belt. A quick toss sent the tip of the dart into the metal of the trailer, activating the spell that muted any noise produced by the object it was attached to. Thus, as Flick landed smoothly on the trailer and ran along it, there was no sound.
On the way, she passed the spot where the man on the phone was still standing. Once again, Tabbris used her hand to produce and throw a small rock, which struck the ground behind the man and rolled away into the tall grass to make him turn that way to investigate the noise.
At that moment, as she reached the end of the semi trailer, two of the people inside it had just turned after handing boxes out to a couple of the men outside. The third was deeper in the trailer, stooping to pick up another box. The three who had just been handed boxes had taken several steps back toward the vans together, with their backs to the trailer. Two more were putting boxes in the back of one of the vans, and the final four were walking back toward the trailer to collect more, though they were split into pairs, with the first two several feet of the other pair.
Without conscious thought or effort, Flick carefully timed her movements to reach the end of the trailer right after the two men walking back to the trailer who were in front passed the three walking toward one of the vans. The trailing pair had just reached the three who were walking toward them, the trio effectively blocking their line of sight.
The pair nearing the trailer saw her as she leapt off the top of it, but even as their mouths opened to shout a warning, her hands snapped downward, sending a pair of those silencing darts that way. Each dart went straight through the throats of one of the men, simultaneously killing them and stopping any sound they would have made either by shouting or the sound of their bodies collapsing.
Flick was up and sprinting that way as soon as she landed in the exact spot where the bodies of the first two had briefly fallen. The three people just ahead of her, heading toward the vans, had just begun to move past the two still coming from the other way. So she put herself directly behind the one in the middle, pivoting on one foot to put her back close to his while continuing to move that way in quick backward shuffle-steps. Her proximity to that guy, without touching him and thus alerting him to her presence, briefly shielded her from the view of the two who had split up to step around those three. While moving, her hands found their way to her waist, coming out with a pair of wicked-looking knives with black handles and blue, gem-like blades.
In that second, even as the pair moved past her and came within sight of the two bodies on the ground, Flick brought her left hand up and backwards to drive one of those knives into the back of the head of the man behind her, whose body she had used to shield her presence. At the same time, her right hand snapped out, hurling the other knife through the neck of one of the pair who had just passed her, even as the woman in question spotted the two bodies that had been left on the ground. She kept her left hand with that knife driven through the man’s head right there, holding him upright so his body wouldn’t fall. Which meant his two companions kept walking, at least for another couple steps before they would notice that he wasn’t between them anymore.
Seeing the two bodies on the ground, the other person who had been walking that way was subsequently treated to the sight of her partner collapsing right next to her with a knife in the back of her neck. She reflexively spun, mouth opening to scream when she saw their attacker so close. But Flick was already using her grip on the knife of the man whose body she had been holding up to shove herself up and push off of him, foot lashing out in a kick. In mid-motion, a blade attached to her boot snapped into place, cutting through the woman’s jugular.
While that woman was collapsing forward, the man with the knife in the back of his head had fallen as well, once Flick pushed off him for that kick. He hit the ground directly between his two companions, immediately drawing their attention. As they reflexively looked down, minds taking a second to process what they were seeing, the blonde girl finished pivoting from the kick to face them. One tried to shout, but Tabbris took control of Flick’s hand, hurling a coin that way. In mid-air, the spell on the coin activated, transforming it into a ball of slime that covered the man’s mouth, muffling his cry as he staggered back a step in surprise.
The other man, meanwhile, snapped his gaze up from one fallen companion, only to see the other with a slime gag over his mouth. In the next instant, Flick collided with him, taking the man to the ground from the force of the impact. A third knife had found its way to her right hand by that point, as she drove it into the side of the man’s head. At the same time, her foot, with the blade still sticking out the front of it, was driven backwards into the knee of the gagged man.
While that man was collapsing, Flick threw herself into a sideways roll, plucking the knife out of the other one’s head in the process. There were still two people by one of the vans. One of them turned at minor commotion nearby, only to receive the knife Flick had yanked free of the man she had just rolled away from straight into his own forehead.
The man with the slime gagging him had managed to raise his gun by that point, after falling to one knee from the blade he’d taken to the other. But before he could aim and fire, Flick’s roll carried her directly in front of him, and she caught his arm in both hands to correct his aim. The weapon was already silenced to avoid drawing police attention, which worked for her purposes as well. He pulled the trigger reflexively just as she forced him to aim at the second person by the van, who had just begun to react to the sight of their companion dropping with a knife in his head. Anything they might have been about to do was cut short by three quick bullets in the back of the head.
The gagged man put all his strength into yanking his arm free, which Flick allowed him to do quite easily, releasing her grip on him before driving her elbow hard into his face. Between the impact and her unexpectedly releasing his arm, the man fell backward onto his rear. Flick was already pivoting and rising, her hand smoothly stripping the pistol from his grip and turning it around to shoot the man through the forehead. His body fully collapsed, sprawling out at her feet even as she stood.
All of that had taken place in the time that the man on the phone had been turning to look for the rock Tabbris had tossed near him. Now he was turning back the other way, toward the lot where his people were supposed to be working. His mouth was already opening to once again demand to know what the delay was, even as Flick put a single bullet through his right eye. He hit the ground, phone falling next to him.
Eleven people down. The guard directly below the warehouse window, nine who had been loading the vans, plus their leader. Which left the three in the trailer itself. Flick was already starting to move that way, even as a figure appeared at the trailer entrance. But it wasn’t any of the people who had been moving boxes around. It was Charmeine, who strolled out, hopping to the ground while whistling cheerfully. A trio of bodies lay scattered through the trailer behind her.
Seeing Flick standing there staring at her, Charmeine shrugged. “What? I got bored. Couldn’t really let you have all the fun.”
“Did we pass?” the blonde girl asked while stooping to set the pistol down.
A glowing figure appeared beside her, as Tabbris popped out excitedly, “Yeah, did we pass?! Can we move on to the next part of Project Saving Mama?”
“Oh yeah, you definitely passed,” Charmeine confirmed, glancing around at all the bodies around them before offering the pair a slow smile. “Now we get to move on to the next stage of the plan. Time to get you recruited by Crossroads. And to do that, we’re gonna need a little help.” With that, she gave a sharp whistle, and Flick’s sunglasses allowed her to see the outline of someone approaching from the far side of the trailer. Her gaze followed the figure until she came fully into view. It was another blonde girl, though this one was notably younger than Flick. She seemed to be somewhere between her and Tabbris in age, maybe twelve years old.
“Uh, hey,” the girl started. “I’m from Eden’s Garden. My name’s Casey.
“Charmeine’s gonna help me be a better ninja.”