One of the most difficult goals a person can have is to trick the Trickster.

Difficult does not mean impossible, the Trickster reflected as she took stock of her surroundings. Her unknown adversaries had come very close. She had been saved by her preternatural awareness.

The Trickster was a small woman of European extraction, though she began life as a Nepalese orphan. Her most recent Facade was still young and marked by mismatched brown and green eyes. Her hair was a flat, dull brown that was cut short above the shoulders. She wore a black long coat that covered her spindly figure. With the exception of her unusual eyes, she appeared throughly unremarkable. It was her habit to build her Facades in such a way.

She did not look forward to fighting unless she could choose and prepare the field. That is not to say that she might not survive, or even triumph in a direct confrontation. An unarmed woman against multiple male foes would have a poor chance of victory or escape. An outlier of exceptional physicality would have a better chance. With arms, the odds would increase. Add training and the odds of a favorable outcome increase exponentially. The Trickster had all these things in addition to the mighty trump of a shard of the Broken Gods. There were Aspects who could best her even when she fully utilized her talents of misdirection. Few groups of mortals would stand the slightest chance.

She had been walking out of her favorite donut shop when an insistent pulse at the edge of her senses alerted her that she was a target. A seemingly casual sweep of her head immediately revealed multiple tails. There, a man in an inexpensive blue suit, casually thumbing the screen of a smartphone. There, a bored Asian student consulting a bus schedule. There, a another man in a suit arguing with a young black woman in a pale green sun dress.

At least four adversaries…make that six. They were extremely professional. Without her boosted physiology, she would never have known they were watching. She cataloged the faces and demeanor of each person, quickly assessing. All were armed, except the woman in the sun dress. She likely kept a weapon in her oversized purse, but there was no way to be sure. She began to walk, admiring the skill of her trackers. They did not move as one, but followed organically. As long as one kept her in sight, they others could continue to follow. Often, one person or another would stop, stare into a window or look around as if to orient on a particular destination. It was all very natural.

Who were they? Her initial suspicion fell on Agency Nothing, but she quickly dismissed the thought. Their purpose was the suppression of a single Aspect and targeting anyone else was not only outside their purview, but could jeopardize the containment of the Politician. No one in the know, mortal or Aspect, wanted the Politician to get loose.

No, Agency Nothing might monitor her, but they would never be foolish enough to use a tail that she might spot. They would not want to give unwarranted offense. That eliminated the Mastermind as a suspect as well. He was well aware of her capabilities and would resort to immediate overwhelming force if he wanted her out of the picture. If he wanted to talk, he would be more likely to approach her directly and in the open. He was surely monitoring her as well, but he would be using electronic surveillance and predictive programs. She could be wrong, but she was highly skeptical of the notion that he would ever trust mortal agents against the Trickster. At the very least, he would not be using them in an attempt to follow her.

She mentally shelved the matter of who and considered possible goals. Did they want to contain or capture? Eliminate or simply watch? As she considered, she suddenly turned into the recessed doorway of a corner pharmacy and invoked one of her Gifts. Her nature ensured that every human eye looked elsewhere in that moment.

Invisible, the Trickster emerged from the doorway. She moved with care, avoiding physical contact with the surrounding people. She smiled to herself. Good as they were, they were up against an Aspect. That alone ensured their failure. The fact that the Aspect was the Trickster made their success impossible. She spared a backwards glance.

They were still following.

Now she was truly concerned. With the Gift of Unseen Passage active, detection should have been impossible without a device made by someone with the powers of the Engineer or the Programmer. Besides Agency Nothing, she knew of no mortal organization that could have obtained such an object. Could this really be them?

The Trickster activated a second Gift, the Endless Pocket. Of all the Aspects, she alone carried extra-dimensional spaces that drifted around her. The Polymath suspected that they were discarded bits and pieces of whatever the Traveler had used when he forged the old paths. Her shard had simply commandeered them for the Trickster’s use. Whatever their provenance, they had proven invaluable. She reached into one and pulled out a basket-hilted rapier, a sap and a long length of several handkerchiefs, all knotted together. She attached the rapier to her waist and settled the sap in her left hand. The retrieval of one of her beloved pistols was briefly considered and rejected. She doubted she would need any weapons but her selection should be enough for a confrontation with mortals. She activated a third Gift, the Fog of Confusion.

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That should stop the mortals in their tracks. The Fog was hardly a precision tool, so others were certain to be caught in its wake. She was unhappy that innocents may be affected, but ultimately they would come to no real harm. She looked back again.

Still, they followed, pushing there way through baffled bystanders.

Well, that was surprising. Concern began to become worry. She was old enough to be able to identify Aspects, sometimes even by name. Her every sense told her that these were mortals. How could they resist her Gifts? Such a thing was unprecedented.

Finally, she used the last option she could to both avoid confrontation and escape. Only the Traveler was her superior in detecting and using the old paths. Unlike most of her kind, she could enter even the discarded paths, dead ends and infinite loops. So great was her ability that she could even use them in combat, teleporting about the battlefield in a lethal ballet. The Trickster stepped sideways and entered a corridor that stood outside spacetime. It was a simple place cast into eternal dusk, with a rough concrete floor surrounded by brick walls that moved endlessly up into the sky.

They were waiting for her there. A dozen men in black armor, faces obscured by mirror visored helmets stood ready, nine millimeter pistols leveled in her direction. It was infuriating.

Throwing caution to the wind, the Trickster dove into battle. She leapt up onto the head of the leading trooper with the speed of the wind, and began to hop. Her feet found purchase on the shoulders and heads of her foes as she went. With a graceful leap, she flipped to the ground at the other end of the corridor and engaged the backs of her enemies. Three swift blows sent three armored men plummeting into unconsciousness. She disarmed and hamstrung a fourth before the rest could begin to turn.

The staggering combination of her unnatural speed and grace would have shocked the average person into practical immobility. Her rapid dispatch of numerous men in a matter seconds should have served as further deterrent. A debilitating fear and a crumbling of morale should have followed. None of those expectations were met.

Four shots rang out, but the Trickster was already moving. She slipped between two men, tripping them as she made her way into their midst, and then she was among them with the sap whirling around her head. Two more swift blows stunned yet another adversary and a kick catapulted him out of the fight. She abandoned the sap and drew her rapier with a ring of steel.

The Trickster disliked killing on general principles, and against mortal men and women it would practically be murder. Nevertheless, she could think of no better way to escape. She doubted the sap could carry the day and this was no tournament, where she could pink the men a few times and be declared the victor. In the old paths, she was robbed of her ability to teleport and that would make things harder. She decided to do her best not to kill everyone out of hand, but she would not fall.

Her careful positioning had deterred further gunfire, but her adversaries were becoming frustrated. Three more shots were fired, but she was no longer in the bullets’ path. Spinning, she swept an opponent’s legs out from under him and pierced his elbows at the joints. Six down, she thought. With a whoop, she flourished her bloodstained blade and faced the remainder.

Six more men appeared behind them.

She had no time to consider how mere humans were entering. Waving her blade in a widening circle, she used her other hand to reach into a pocket. Twirling, she flung a handful of marbles before her.

If the armored combatants found her actions amusing, they were soon disabused. A portion of the marbles exploded into smoke, obscuring vision. The closest of her foes fired blindly, but the Trickster was already in the air, repeating her first maneuver of the encounter.

She landed in a crouch, once again behind her opponents, and flung another object. Turning her head, she risked closing her eyes. A dazzling flash of light burst from her device, blinding and dazing.

The Trickster stood up and surveyed her work. In that instant, she could have slain them all. She discarded the idea. She had done enough, and it was time to escape. She would leave the path and use the Rope Trick. No one could follow her into her personal space.

In her contemplation, she overlooked the new vulnerability of the old paths. Freshly arriving troops seized her from behind. She yelped in startlement and struggled to throw off the offending hands. The fight devolved into a scrum of thrashing elbows, clumsy blows and tackles. There was no elegance here. Calculations based on swiftness and skill at arms could no longer apply. Weight of numbers was all that would tell. The Trickster was one. All around her, closing in with crushing force, were many. Gifts were activated and, impossibly, resisted in turn. A profusion of guns were aimed.

The Trickster was a Primary Aspect of an inconceivably ancient lineage. She was powerful among her kind, faster and stronger than the champions of the world. In another place, she might have defeated an army. Here, hobbled by the sacrifice of her mobility, she could not. Here, where she should have been safest she was at her weakest.

Overwhelmed by ever increasing numbers, trapped and exposed, the Trickster fell. The Trickster had been tricked.