Match 19
#32 Nimia “The Shelled Tiger” Altamirano
Vs.
#31 Jiang “The Azure Dragon” Xinyue
And #30 Shao “The Golden Dragon” Tai
Inventory
Darling - A mystical saber imbued with the powers of fire and ice; Fire LV 2, Ice LV 1
Death & Debt - Two .44 Semi-Automatic Magnums, formerly named Sonya & Cleon; imbued with fiery bullets.
Lucky - A .357 Seven-Chambered Magnum Revolver with a ♣ symbol printed on the handle; [Passive Effect: Luck+; Active Effect: Bullets are more likely to hit targets, even by ricocheting]
32 -> 31
“Huh.” Nimia blinked, cut out of her reverie by the sudden burning at her neck.
“–here in your arms tonight~! Oh Love, I could be lovin’-Eh?” Greenie paused in her singing, turning the radio down as she glanced at Nimia. The two of them were dressed somewhat identically at the moment in black pantsuits–mainly to look professional–though Greenie had a dark green undershirt, while Nimia went for more of a maroon. “What’s up, boss?”
“...I think one of the higher ranked just died.”
“You can feel that?”
“Yup. My neck burns every time the number changes.”
“Huh. That’s a weird power. I thought psychic abilities were more like reading minds and telekinesis, not an instant sense of people dying?” She glanced to the side, pulling their rental car up the dusty street heading to the king’s palace.
“I don’t know if it’s psychic. Might be more...magic?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Uh...magic’s...y’know, woobly. And psychic’s...wibbly. They do different things.”
“...so which one lets you have a golden castle?”
“What? Uh...oh, wow.” Yeah, that was a golden palace. Actual gold, from the look of it, featuring on the tiles of its slanted roofs and the sprawling decorative dragons curling and spreading across every copper wall, all gleaming in the afternoon sun. Compared to the rest of the sunbaked town, it looked almost radiant. Aside from all the damage. “...yeah, that’s something.”
“What, you don’t usually see shit like this from the other ranked?”
“None of them have had golden palaces, no.” Nimia stepped out of the car, taking note of the closed doors at the front, the broken windows up at the top, and the shirtless man impaled on the spiked steel and stone fence blocking off passersby from the palace at the center of their city. “Looks like the party started without us.”
“Oh no, such a shame, no dozens of men trying to kill us...and uh, is that your dude, or no?”
“I don’t think so.” She walked up closer, taking note of the black-haired man’s open mouth and agonized expression as the fence speared through his back and out his chest. “This guy feels more like your type.”
“...and that means?”
“Disposable grunt.”
Greenie slumped, sighing. “Yeah, love you too, boss...alright, uh, so, this mean I should stay with the car, or-”
“Sure, if you don’t want any of the loot inside.”
“...” Greenie looked from the corpse to the huge building covered in gold. She didn’t take a second look. “Right, let’s get to it then. Just don’t let me die, please.”
“Eh, sure. Just make sure to take anything interesting looking. The Augrin could do with some decorating,” Nimia replied as she shoved the gates open and started walking up to the door, followed by her new henchwoman. Which was weird to think. She’d never been one for teaming up with people, but here she was, getting followed around by a lackey, a toady, a minion, a...helper.
It was fucking weird, basically, and as she kicked down the door, she resolved not to adopt too many of them, because damn there were a lot of corpses around here and she was in no way willing to become the type of person let others die for her sake. Annoying as it was, she’d already resolved to keep Greenie alive, if just because the weird merc was someone trying to help her instead of kill her. Call it sentimentality.
“Well damn, this brings back memories, good and bad,” Greenie muttered as she looked around the wrecked interior, nudging one horizontally bisected corpse’s head with her foot, “These dumbfucks should’ve run when they had the chance.”
Nimia glanced back at her as she made her way through the smashed stone and broken bodies, some crushed under boulders while others were carved into chunks. While the outside still managed to look almost pristine, the inside had been completely torn apart. About half of the support pillars were completely ripped apart, so it was a miracle the place even still stood. “Was that how you survived the first time?”
“What? No, I was on a job when you went after Tinley,” Greenie explained, following Nimia up the stairs, stepping around chunks of masonry and broken skull, “Came back to find out the higher-ups in the company were all dead or abandoned it outright, so it went to me as a default, which, by the way, fuck you for. Being a commander sucked, especially since those assholes kept chomping at the bit to go after you…”
“Ahh, so that’s why you went for Sawyer? He made an offer and all your mercs wanted to take it?”
“Basically. Called it honor, like you rolling up and gunning down Tinley was personal. Sure, I wouldn’t take it nearly as well if I’d been there and you’d killed me, but as it is, I just didn’t give a shit.”
“You gave a good attempt at trying to kill me though.”
“Well sure. A job’s a job, and you pissed me off. Professional and emotional, let’s call it.”
“Sure. Call it whatever you want.” The second floor was worse than the first. The first still had some semblance of structure, but here, there were massive, gaping holes in the floor, and the pieces still standing reeked with gore.
“Damn, there are a lot of heads around,” Greenie muttered, nudging another head with her foot, “So, either the boss of this place got bored and decided to trash his house and cut off all his guys’ heads, or his challenger did it.”
“Xinyue Jiang, the thirty-first, did this. Or maybe the thirtieth now,” Nimia replied, looking around the blood-soaked furniture. There were other bodies around, carved up or crushed, though there were a few she recognized, in a vague way. “Those four are the three eighty-seventh, three sixty-third, three fifty-fourth, and three twenty-sixth.”
“Oh, those are recent kills.” Greenie tiptoed around some splintered chunks of gore and a man’s severed lower half as she walked over to one with red hair and picked it up, examining the bullet hole erupting out the forehead. “You can tell from how the blood dried. No withering from the heat yet either. But those ones, those are older...your Xinyue wanted to send a message. Heh, I can appreciate that style.”
The carpet was so soaked through with blood and so caked with dust, it was hard to tell what color it was originally. Pieces of human bodies were strewn all over the room. It looked like the site of a massacre. It was the sight of a massacre.
But it wasn’t where the Ranked died.
“Look around here. I’m going back to the first floor.”
“Huh? Uh, sure. I get first dibs on anything I want here, right?”
“You get first dibs on body parts, sure.”
“...I don’t always...it’s a habit, fuck off…” Greenie grumbled, but Nimia was halfway convinced she’d start seeing a lot more skulls decorating her ship. Still, whatever. If her new minion had a weird thing going on, it wasn’t Nimia’s business. Hell, it wasn’t like she didn’t take trophies too.
So while Greenie got to her looting and collecting, Nimia headed back downstairs, following the flow of battle. From every indication, the boss of Xintong was a geokinetic of some description. The huge chunks and spikes of rock tearing up his own building were good indicators of it. It really was a miracle the place hadn’t fallen apart under his onslaught.
There were spikes of stone piercing through the walls, crags like miniature mountains shooting up through the floors, massive boulders crushing what was once priceless treasures, and still no hint at all that he’d even managed to hit his opponent.
The first piece of Tai Shao she found was his hand, severed at the wrist and glittering with five golden rings, each set with a different gemstone. Was it weird that her first thought was to hand it off to Greenie as a present?
Probably was. Didn’t stop her from picking it up and keeping it though.
Shao’s palace had a courtyard at the back. High walls cut it off from the rest of the city, and it wasn’t exactly impressive. Just a garden of sand and rock, stretching to a single-story building–similar in design and decoration to the main palace–at its other side. Though maybe there had been something else there, at once point. A garden of plants, or just a place to hangout.
As it was, all that was left was the bloody corpse of a naked man, strewn across a barren stretch of sand and craggy rocks. Nimia counted twenty-eight separate pieces of the former thirtieth Ranked, from where she was standing. Judging from the blood sprays and cuts, Jiang had been slicing into him over and over again throughout the chase their fight had turned into, wearing him down and bleeding him before cutting deep, up through his lower right, right above the hip, and up through his left collarbone. Though if that actually killed him, she wasn’t sure.
It was, at the very least, the crippling blow that let her cut off Shao’s head, then split that in half. And cut his torso from his waist, his thighs from his knees, so on. She certainly hadn’t let him stay standing. It was messy and flashy and more than a little gratuitous, but that’s how some people could be, so she elected to ignore the gore as she strode across the bloodstained sand to the bronze door set within its copper walls. A pile of discarded clothes and nine silver rings sat in beside it.
A rush of steam hit her as she opened the door. She blinked away the sudden heat, then stepped inside the sauna.
“Yo, Altamirano!” came the voice of Jiang Xinyue, who was relaxing at the end opposite the door. The tall, lean, muscular woman was grinning, baring sharp white teeth as she eyed Nimia. Her cybernetic arms, resting on the back of the bench she sat on, were a mix of blue metal and golden circuitry, as was her left leg, while curling, serpentine tails snaked over her shoulders and coiled around her breasts. The tattoos mirrored each other perfectly, though one was azure and the other gold. “Come on in. Feel free to take a load off, it’s just us girls here now.”
Nimia grinned back, though she kept her eyes narrowed as she stared across the heater in the center. “Yeah, I noticed. I think I’ll keep my clothes on though. I saw what happened to the girls back in there.”
“Mmmh, not all of them. See, there were three tiger girls who sure were better at running than the rest of them. Sure, I could’ve sliced them if I wanted, but no need to piss off the twenty-third this early on, right? Though you’d disagree, wouldn’t you?” She kept up her grin as the steam weaved around them. Her black hair, tipped with blonde, was cropped short, though it looked messy. Like she just hacked off her locks recently.
“I might. You could’ve let them go.”
“I could’ve, but why would I spare anyone choosing to work for that bastard?”
Nimia shrugged out of her jacket. It was hot in the sauna. “It wouldn’t cost you anything to leave a fucking waitress alone.”
“It wouldn’t, but I don’t give a shit. Anyone working for Tai was fair game. If they didn’t want to die, they shouldn’t work for him, and don’t act like you don’t know how that goes. You killed a lot of people who took the best option they could in a shitty situation. Doesn’t mean the choice wasn’t shit on their part, and it doesn’t mean you oughta feel guilty for it.”
“...Sure, it doesn’t. I never said I wasn’t a hypocrite.”
Jiang blinked, then leaned forward, staring intently at Nimia. She had odd eyes. One was a bright blue, and the other was a sunny yellow. “...I know those eyes. You’re Yu’s.”
“Huh?”
“Qing and Yu. Our old names. There were others, sure, but we were both operatives under the Jie Ban Ren.” Jiang paused for a second, then chuckled, waving a hand. “Sorry, sorry, I got ahead of myself. I might even be wrong. But you knew Hupo, right? Amber?”
A vein in her temple throbbed as her green eyes widened. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Ah ah, temper! You shouldn’t curse your elders, young-”
Her revolver was up in a second. “Tell me what the fuck that means right now.”
And Jiang laughed, raising her hands. “Ah, definitely hers, yup. I wonder, would that make you a granddaughter? Or great granddaughter? Gods, the years get away from me...no, certainly a grandmother. The successors fell some time ago but not that long, all because the Huoxing can’t quite stand us rising too high...ah, but I’m rambling! Ha! Ah, sorry, my day’s just been a fantastic one, and now I’m not quite sure how to act!”
“...You could start by telling me what you meant about my...grandma.”
“Well, firstly, you should know I killed her.” The revolver, lowering for a second, snapped right back up. “Ha! Ah, just as testy! But there’s no need for that. She put up a good fight for someone pushing a hundred and ten. She didn’t want to, how do they say it, go gentle into the night, so she requested a chance. If she won, she would be immortal. One of the oldest, physically, but immortal regardless, and she wouldn’t fear death by age, sickness, or even starvation. But she lost, and received a death she could accept.”
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“...And you two were good enough friends for her to accept it?”
“At one point, yes. At another, I tried to kill her for attempting to abandon our commitments. Ironic, since I turned to mercenary work myself as things fell apart, but I digress. Our world is one of turmoil and death, and there’s always someone trying to hold onto power. People long for stability, and the powerful grant that, until they don’t. For us, we were the simple pawns of a great and powerful empire disguised as a united nation, raised to do as they willed, until the immortal leader was felled, the empire broke, and the logical things happened as stifled kingdoms rose up in territories they all called their own. Some even claimed the same land, which gave me a great deal of work! It was a long time coming, really, and I can’t say I didn’t expect it. Still, to be raised to murder from birth leaves you with very little options growing up. Not so little that you can’t leave it though, and your grandmother did.”
“...right. Huh.”
“You didn’t know her, did you?”
“No...if...she was my grandmother, how old was she when she had my father?”
Jiang shrugged. “No idea. How old was your father when he died?”
“...” Nimia sat on one of the benches. Nearby, but not within reach. “I don’t remember. I didn’t see him die.”
“Heh. I’m sure whoever she settled down with must’ve been worth it. It wasn’t anyone I knew, I know that. Speaking of people I know, is Amber still alive?”
“Yeah. Last I saw.”
“And you’re in the ranks. But you didn’t kill her.” She chuckled. “Well, I can’t say I mind that. Who says a mentor needs to die for their student to surpass them? Idiots who don’t value their own lives, that’s who.”
Nimia still cut off her hands. It was in the fight, but she did. And then she dropped her sword and didn’t pick another one until Magalhães. “...How did you know her?”
“We worked in the same circles. She wasn’t one of ours, if you’re wondering. She was more of an opposition, the type who even assassinated some of our officials on behalf of the kingdoms crying for independence. Granted, most of them were pieces of shit, but it still looked bad on me that they died. You sure you don’t want to undress? You’re looking heated there.”
“Pfft! Aw, what, you’re worried? I’m aiming for your spot, remember?”
“Oh I know, but that’s no reason to be a piece of shit. Tai was a piece of shit, and he died bad for it.”
“You really hated him, huh?”
“Yup. And now, after decades of trying to kill one piece of shit, just one damn asshole who held the rank above me, I’ve finally done it…And I’m fucking ecstatic!” She laughed, loud and happy. “Ah, you know, I’m glad you showed up right now. I genuinely am.”
“And why’s that?”
“Picture the ranks like a mountain. You can start wherever you like on it. Many climb from the bottom, maybe get up higher with a guide...no, that’s a bad analogy. Like a cable car, but you have to throw the driver out once you get there!
Nimia snorted, and that seemed to encourage Jiang. “But once you get to climbing, actually climbing, there’s someone ahead of you. And the only way to get past them is to yank them down. And now imagine, just picture, a guy, right ahead of you, who decides to stand there. No climbing, no going further, he just stands and waits, and as you climb, he kicks you in the teeth. And you try again, and he kicks you again. And you try again, and he fucking kicks you, again. And it goes on and on, and you get fucking sick of it.
“So you try other shit that doesn’t work. I don’t know the analogy here, you could say shit like he has a bunch of animal friends to back him up, like a toad, crane, snake, and monkey, and they make it harder, or whatever. Point is, you get pissed enough to shout past him to the bunch of birds and cats up ahead and they come down and eat the other animals, and as he’s freaked out by his friends getting eaten, you cut his fucking balls off and eat them!”
Nimia paused, then glanced at Jiang’s mouth. Was there meat stuck in her teeth…?
“ANYWAY! Point is, you kill him, and then there’s a whole other climb to get to, and you might also be in debt to the most influential mob in the world now, but my point is, it feels good. It feels really good. And you...you’re something interesting to me, because now I think I know what Jade felt.”
“Huh?”
Jiang stood and started to walk, inclining her head. On her back were two dragons, coiling around one another and glaring at Nimia with eyes of blue and gold. “C’mon. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Nimia’s shirt was soaked as she stood under the afternoon sun. Sweat was dripping from her face and soaking into the bloody sand beneath her feet, but she was a little more focused on the fact that flowers sprung up wherever Jiang walked.
Genuine flowers, sprouting in hues of green and blue with every step she took, before she turned and audibly cracked her neck, starting to stretch. “Told you you should’ve stripped. Wet underwear clings in the worst way, seriously.”
“...eh. I’ll deal with it.” She started to stretch too, watching Jiang all the while. The grass and flowers were spreading, turning the garden from sand to genuine greenery. “...what is that?”
“Heh. Something special, kid. Earth has different meanings, depending on who you ask. So does Wood. But if you add the two together...well, you’ll see. You’re aiming for the top if you win, right?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Nice. I cut myself off from the direct route. I still plan to climb, but I’ll have to take a roundabout way. Who knows? Maybe I’ll aim to kill the other three and become the dragon queen? I’m missing black, white, and red, in that case…”
“Ah...what’s that mean?”
“A separate thing from the guardians thing going on. You’ll see.” Jiang took a slow breath in, then breathed it out, before clenching her hands into fists and pulling them back at her sides, elbows bent. Her body glowed, and the light burned bright before settling in a full set of armor that seemed to blur between solid green-blue wood, and yellow stone set in interlocking plates across her body. The helm stretched forward into the rough visage of a snarling, scaled dragon. It lacked eyes and any real details beyond the horns and sharp scales, but as she threw her head back, her maw opened in a powerful roar, before she crouched low, a massive blade forming in her right hand that she leaned across her back as a long, serpentine tail brushed the ground behind her, blooming flowers where it touched.
“...I’m sure I will.” Nimia’s armor was less flashy. It was simple and white cybernetic armor, similar to the one she wore in the Hun Zhan, though with an opaque visor and silver highlights. She summoned her own sword, twirling her darling in her hand before settling into a stance of her own.
The two waited, watching for any twitch until finally, crow cawed, and the two surged forward.
Their blades clashed, searing heat meeting billowing wind in a clash that scorched the growing plants, burning them to ashes before new grass rose to take their place. The swords met over and over again, both holding firm in their masters’ grips. Their steel would not shatter, not in this moment.
The pieces of flesh strewn around boiled and cooked, before being eaten by the growing, burning plants. Half a skull stared at the sight of struggling blades, its empty eyesocket watching the conflagration before a bright blue flower filled it up.
Jiang struck fast and hard, and was delighted to see the young woman match her blow for blow. It was nice to know Tai would’ve died to her too; the old dragon let himself get too slow and careless.
She reached for what was once his, her Cleaver gleaming with yellow dust as she swung. The hard hit sent Nimia skidding backwards, and Jiang pressed the advantage, grass blooming at her feet as she leapt and swung. The balance was off though, heavier than she expected, and her blade sunk into the ground instead of Nimia’s collar as the younger woman twisted free and swung for her head.
She turned her Cleaver and yanked it up, spraying dust and grass into the air as Nimia jerked back, before grunting as the wind caught her shoulder, cleaving metal into the air. Her armor held firm–firmer than gilded flesh, at least–and Jiang moved with the motion and tossed her sword skyward before darting forward to jab at her opponent, shifting stances with ease, only for Nimia to surprise her.
Namely, by punching her in the face.
The girl was good at dismissal, sending her sword away quick enough to meet Jiang attack, and the swordfight turned to a fistfight for a moment as both women blocked and punched and kicked up before Jiang caught her with a leg sweep and raised her hand to catch her Cleaver just in time to bright it down and utterly miss the girl, who rolled right out of the way.
“Cheeky brat!”
“SWING QUICKER NEXT TIME!”
She’d missed having fun with her fights.
The instant Nimia was on her feet, Jiang rushed in again, swinging high to split her head from her shoulders, then pulling back fast to block a slice aimed at her gut. The girl could duck well too!
It was respect. That was the difference in this battle. Nimia respected her as a foe, and Jiang couldn’t help but do the same as their motions became faster and faster, both warriors nearly blurring as they cut and sliced and aimed high or low and swung hard and swung light.
Her fire was brilliant, though she could see the untapped potential there. The rage and joy stoking those flames were but one part of her. She would need to admit sorrow. That was an important piece.
It was almost astounding. She’d hunted the yellow dragon for ages, and yet here came a young serpent, seeking the heavens, and wielding what was unmistakably the red dragon inside her blade. Perhaps someone had trapped it, long ago...ah well. It was something to regard if she won. And she still tried her damndest to win. It wouldn’t be fair to Nimia if she didn’t give her best.
She drew on the powers she had learned, the wind that could rend any master, the plants that could entangle and bring close, and even the earth she could only now touch as dust. Her swings cleaved apart the walls of the palace, yet Nimia’s flames bent them away from her. Her grass lunges at her legs, yet Nimia darted out of their grasp and seared them into ash. Her dust made her blade heavier and she struck with both strength and speed, yet Nimia seemed up to the task nonetheless.
Jiang darted back, holding her own blade in one hand as though she aimed to sheathe it at her side, and rushed forward. Her eyes were narrowed in focus, looking for which direction her foe would take. Wherever she went, Jiang would cut, or else Nimia would face a guillotine carving through her chest–
Nimia darted forward. She didn’t wait, nor hesitate in the face of a charging dragon. She pushed straight forward and stabbed right into Jiang’s stomach before she could even swing.
The fire was agonizing, and she let out a harsh cackle as the heat surged through her body. “HA! And I thought the sauna was bad! No wonder you handled it so well! You live with this type of fire all the time, don’t you?”
“In a sense, yeah.” The visor was opaque, but Jiang could feel Nimia’s eyes on her, and the question in them. She couldn’t see her smile, but Jiang did anyway.
“You got me. Good work.” And her Cleaver dropped from hands too numb to hold it, her burning arms returning to her sides. “Thanks for giving me a good fight.”
“Same to you. I had fun.”
She snorted. It hurt with the blade in her gut, but that was fine. “I-I could tell, kid. You can always tell with this kind of thing. You’ve got a good heat to you. Try to get in touch with your colder side though. Balance is handy in our lifestyle.”
“...sure. Any more advice? Or a request?”
“Hm...well, I’d prefer it if you buried me away from Tai. I made his grave way too beautiful here, I’m sorry to say.” The bright red flowers looked good though. The sun made them light up, almost like tiny flames. “Oh, or cremate me. I’m fine with that too. If you do though, put my ashes in a nice vase. Then maybe bury the vase? Something like that, I think. I’ll be dead, so it doesn’t matter too much to me, but a little respect is always nice. Oh, and one more thing.
“Cut out my heart and eat it.”
Nimia paused, staring up at her. She was still crouched, still piercing her, still pushing flames inside her body to lick at her internal organs. “...what?”
“Consider it a tradition. You have no wings or horns, young serpent, but you’re aiming for the heavens regardless. You might not be a dragon, but I’m sure you can get something nice out of it.”
“...that’s...really weird to say, but...okay? I’ll...give it a try.” Nimia frowned to herself, muttering. “Nanomachines should cover blood poisoning, right?”
Jiang waited for a few seconds, willing herself to stay alive for the sake of her own sense of humor, before grinning. “Though I guess you could just stab it. That’s also an option, since you have your fancy magic sword.”
“...oh. Uh...right.”
She chuckled as the flames licked from her mouth. Her armor was finally starting to show signs of her damage, cracking and crackling with the heat. “Heh, you’re a good kid. Rise to the top.”
“I will.” She pulled her sword free, and in one swift motion, stabbed straight through Xinyue’s heart.
Flames burst in between the plates of Xinyue’s armor. “H-Ha...beautiful…”
There wasn’t anything to burn or bury. Just petals and ash, floating away in a spring breeze.
Greenie seemed happy when Nimia got back to the car, sweat still clinging to her clothes. It was probably because of the gold statues she’d strapped to its top and shoved in its trunk. “...is it even going to drive with that much weight?”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“...Sure, alright. Shao and Jiang are dead. Jiang killed Shao, I killed Jiang.”
“Oh no, really? And here I was, thinking I was speaking to your ghost.”
“Don’t get full of yourself. I have way better people to haunt than you.”
She sighed, putting a hand over her heart. “Your words hurt, boss. They really do.”
“Oh, that reminds me. I got you a present.” She tossed the hand to Greenie, then felt her face twitch when the freaky merc immediately beamed in genuine joy.
“Oh damn! Thanks-Ah, wait, this was a joke thing, you were trying to scare me...I-I’m not excited about the hand, I was-It’s the rings that were-Shut up.”
“I said nothing.”
“You were thinking things.”
“I think a lot of things. Like how we should head back to the ship before you start rubbing your face with it or something.”
“Fuck you!”
“Eh, later.”
Greenie scowled, then paused as Nimia got in the car. “Wait, actually? Hold on, boss, really? Was that-Did you actually mean that legit, or...h-hey, don’t start the car, don’t leave me here!”
----------------------------------------
“I had a shot,” Crow murmured from rooftops away, watching the gold-laden car struggle under the weight of its new cargo through the scope of her rifle. It was moving slowly. She’d shot faster moving targets before.
“And we weren’t told to take it,” Owl replied, pushing herself to her feet and adjusting the lenses on her mask to reduce magnification.
The two women, the 29th and the 28th, were dressed similarly, but not identically. Crow, the smaller of the two, wore all black; a black cloak with a hood over a black ballistics vest, black pants with black kneepads, and black combat boots. The bird mask she wore had a long, black beak, and black lenses. It should’ve been sweltering under the sun, but she didn’t feel the heat. Not for any magic reason; she just had decent thermal regulators.
Owl, the taller of the two, wore a mix of white and brown in contrast. Her mask, modeled after a barn owl, was white with a far shorter beak, while her hood was brown. She wore a waistcoat studded with bronze buttons, a long skirt with tights underneath, and knee-high boots. She felt warm. It was a good heat.
“I could still kill her from here,” Crow insisted, still laying flat. Her finger wasn’t on the trigger, she was smarter than that, but it itched to move there.
“You could. Are you going to?”
“...Give me the order, and I will.”
Owl pressed a gloved finger to her ear. “Jaguar. The Azure Dragon is dead. Recruitment failed. Requesting order regarding the elimination of Altamirano.”
“Sorry girls, orders are the same,” the 25th replied, her voice in good humor as it sounded out in both their ears, “Altamirano doesn’t die yet. Crow, are you worried about her coming after you?”
“...I just don’t see why we aren’t killing her now. We have the means and opportunity.”
“So you think, but she dodged a sniper shot before. If you two get into a running battle with her, things could get complicated, and you know how bad complications can be.”
“I do. I still want to shoot her.”
“She’s coming for you first, so you might have a good chance at it. Ah, hold on, no, don’t let that shake you. Deep breaths.” Crow’s breath had barely hitched. Still, she took those breaths. “Good girl. Believe me, we’re not throwing you to her. She’s bound to catch up at some point, but we have plans we want to put in place first. We’re operatives of the Scorava Family, and that means we have duties. It also means we take care of our own. I promise, you won’t die to her.”
“...Understood. When do we kill her?”
“Soon. We have some jobs before then. The Family will handle Xintong. I want you two moving out, meeting at Alpha Zulu, copy?”
“Copy.”
“Copy, though I have a request,” Owl said, earning a glance from Crow.
“Say it.”
“There’s a nice looking restaurant I wanted to try while we’re in the area. May we?”
There was a huff of amusement. “Request granted. Just try to leave the country by today. We don’t want Altamirano wandering into you two by accident.”
Owl huffed in turn, though hers was markedly more annoyed. “It happened once.”
“You drowned a woman in a bowl of soup.”
“She was screaming too much.”
“I know, I know. Enjoy yourselves.”
The comms cut, and Crow grumbled as she pushed herself to her feet. “We should still kill her. We’ve killed people without orders before.”
“Yes. We call that collateral. The Scoravas don’t like it. Come along. You’ll feel better once you eat.”
Crow grumbled again, but she followed along with Owl, willing to drop the subject. Still, she did mutter a curse under her breath in hopes Altamirano’s luck would go bad. It probably wouldn’t, but it made her feel less irritated.
----------------------------------------
“...”
“...”
Nimia and Greenie stared at the waters of Hengwei Harbor. They were shiny under the sunshine; not clear, by any means, but pretty enough to look at. Still, that wasn’t exactly the issue here.
“...WHERE THE FUCK IS MY BOAT!?”