"Yeah, I didn't go to prom. It didn't seem worth it. You gotta spend all that money just to end up packed in a gym or some shitty rented place pretending it matters. It's like clocking into a job. It's another shift. There's a goddamn uniform and everything. And you gotta take pictures! And you gotta be smilin' the whole night. I didn't have the words back then when I was a kid, but now that I'm turning twenty-one, I realize the whole thing was ridiculous. Like… you can lose at prom. It's like a game. You can do it incorrectly. You have this invisible checklist, and if you don't check them all, you spend the rest of your life tryin' to forget about that night. It's idiotic. Like… the way we do anything is goddamn idiotic. Why in the hell is there a sanctioned day, or date, or deadline for fun? Has anyone ever asked that before? And you can just say that I'm sayin' all this because I would have bombed at prom, but what makes you think I wanted to do well in the first place? The hell is the point? All these mothafuckas with their phones 'n shit, doin' these dances," and the way he described said dances sounded to her sleep-deprived mind as if he were describing some awful synchronized ritual, some kind of fertility dance or prayer for success, complete with religious dress. Writhing in time to some great established order that puppeted the youth to its own devices. Probably so it could sell ads.

"You ever watch the movie Climax?" She asked this without looking away from the campfire. "Directed by Gasper Noé?"

"What? No."

"You sound like you're describin' the end of that movie."

"...I dunno what to think of that."

"Neither do I." Neither of them had looked away from the flames while they talked, and neither did any of the others seated around in a circle. Their backs were to the dark, heads bowed from the stars in deference for the fire. None moved, looking almost as rocks while wrapped in their colorless blankets. The wind ran and tripped over the weathered stones of the sandy plain, yanking violently on the few bushes furiously sorry at the luck which had borne them there. It was a place of loose sand liberated from any water, kicked up into frequent dust devils that raged impotently across that flat and empty deadland.

The one talking went on, and she wondered when was the last time she'd gotten laid. After shaking her head, she looked up at the man talking, and wondered when the last time he'd gotten laid.

"They just try and trap ya with sex," he continued. "With thinkin' about sex. And we can do nothin' but sit there and take it. I can't change what I am. And they know that."

Someone asked who "they" was.

"Don't try and make me look crazy."

"I don't have to try to make you look fuckin' crazy."

"You come over here and say that."

"Do I really gotta beat your dumbass just to change the subject? I get it. You were a loser in highschool. You bein' a loser right now ain't anything new."

"Fuck you."

Another man put his hand up. "I actually agree with some of what he said. Prom is…," and he used a slur for learning disabilities.

None of them seemed perturbed by the use of that word; if anything, the man who was first talking pointed and said, "See!"

"Shut the fuck up, I said I only agree with some of what ya said. You whine like a little bitch. There ain't no conspiracy, it's just that most people don't give a shit enough to change anything. A few friends of mine went out to a dinner instead of the official prom, then got fucked up at some after-prom parties." He drank out of a canteen. "I ended up sleeping with this girl."

"Right on, I did the same shit," someone else said.

"Never saw her after that. We'd been friends for maybe six years. Since middle school. People kept sayin' we should be an item. We were trashed, we fucked, and I never spoke to her again."

There was a silence.

Someone cursed. "Jesus fuckin' Christ, I can't take this fuckin' emo shit, it's too fuckin' cold for this."

"Shut the fuck up, I'm not cryin' about it! I'm just sayin' what happened!"

Another person chimed in, "Who the fuck cares?!"

Someone else said, "How the fuck did we get to this?"

One of them pointed at the first speaker, blaming him, someone else called everyone a bundle of sticks, and she rubbed her temples. "Shut the fuck up. It's too cold, and we're in the desert. That's why."

"Great, and she's on her fuckin' period now."

"She can't get a period, dipshit."

Someone punched her on the shoulder. "Enlisted life. Any better way to make a livin' than this?"

She didn't answer that. She just calculated how many days were left in this tour.

===+++===

The next day, two of them were dead. Somewhere on the desert plain, there must have been a spotter. A lone mortar hit close, and shrapnel buried into the flanks of two men. The first had died about five minutes after the attack; the other had babbled nearly nonstop for three hours as the holes in his stomach pumped the life out of him. Now all about the man was slimy wet mud; it sucked onto your boots and threatened to pull them off. One of them found a trail, and a search party dispatched from the main group to track the ambushers. It only took them the better part of a night to find the amateur mortar team. They looked like kids, mostly; she told herself the youngest was eighteen. It didn't matter. In the night, they crept up on the mortar team's camp. Not wanting to dull knives or swords, or, even worse, waste ammunition from either the rifleman or archers, they used their pit shovels, trying to plunge the spades into their enemies' necks. They managed to make it quick work, and the shovels remained undamaged. The bodies were left where they were, though they did bury their fallen own comrades. They didn't bury the ambushers.

She couldn't waste her water canteen washing the blood off her shovel. She plunged the spade into the sand, again and again, hoping it would remove the blood. She forced her thoughts to count how many days were left on her tour.

===+++===

It'd been joked about countless times, but it finally happened. People were trapped in an MMO, Pilgrims of Anereta Online. Now, there's some kinda word for it, somethin' thrown about by people who watch those Chinese cartoons n' such, pertainin' to a genre this story would belong to, it would seem. Chances are most folk won't know it, let alone be able to pronounce it right, so the matter is gonna be dropped. Not that it really makes a difference. Shallow labels on things don't ever really tell a story. A picture is worth a thousand words, they say, so hingin' all your expectations on a single word is nothin' but stupidity. Assumin' and what it makes out of people is a tired enough truism; it's time to move on.

What does matter was that this act of violence and entrapment was enacted by what seemed to be a group of people obsessed with… well, probably themselves. Leavin' a mark of some kind. They probably thought they were makin' a point. Talkin' about a society of "tourists," they called it, playin' at understandin' sufferin' when all they knew was a game. They wanted to show the world what people really were, how unjust and uncivilized they could be. Now, the terrorists that perpetuated this act weren't actual fighters for social justice; in fact, when people eventually pulled up their past online history, there were a lot of hard R's dropped, and talk of how… well, talk itself was in danger. They'd be damned though if they'd let any other thoughts on the matter of danger and strife get around. It seemed by their figurin' they were the first to discover the white lies of society. They never figured out it was as much a truism as assumin'.

Actin' under these false pretenses, they trapped several thousands of people worldwide in that game. It was a shame. A marvel of modern engineerin', that vidya game. Expensive pods were set up in the dyin' malls of the world, becomin' their last savin' grace. More rich and particularly private folk could get their own installed at their mansions. Otherwise, you was rentin'. A full immersive experience that let you become whatever you want, and all dumbed down for the casual crowd, because there was no way in blue hell a complicated game was gonna make its money back. Shit, half the menus had to be scrolled down like an eternal list on a cell phone. And the R&D to make the thing… hell, like most things, it was yanked from the military. The internet you use is a product of the military. Hell, Nintendo was a gambling card company with ties to the Yakuza. Pinball machines and slot machines had so many similar parts that if you could fix those old times arcade machines from over a hundred years ago, you were expected to be able to fix the slot machines the Five Families had set up in basements all over New York City. It never should surprise you when somethin' dark and slimy crawls out of such an industry. When you're entire well bein' has been funded by underhanded trickery, children must look like mighty fine targets. Just think about that fella who first drew Joe Camel. Maybe he's friends with the marketin' team at Juul.

But that's off topic. What ya need to know is that this VR immersion technology was developed by a company who was tryin' to make simulator trainers for the military. They even had ways to probe your mind and make you feel pain, or even hungry. All by lyin' in that pod. No wires in your brain or nothin'. And it could fry your ass. Mainly because the pods were supposed to be so secret, that it was preferable to kill anyone tryin' to steal information.

Except fake gamin' can't replace real live fire war gamin'. So, now utterly (and there ain't no other word to describe this) fucked, they started changin' up the code to move to a civilian market. And, whaddya know, corporate crunch leads to security holes. Holes the bastards didn't even know were there. Oh, and they had simply built their little game over the existing secret military code; so now, if ya died in the game, you died in real insufferable agony as electrical impulses ripped apart the last of your life. And that was that.

If ya opened a pod, the person died at first. It took hours of negotiation before the pods were allowed to be opened, allowing IVs and other medical treatments to people trapped. So someone could feed those inside. But if you tried to hack the code, they'd flip a killswitch. The people trapped had to clear some kinda one hundred floor tower full of monsters if they wanted to get out. An army was organized. Governments formed in the game, and governments from outside used the spectator mode to talk with the people within. A plan was made. Militias formed. People, now struggling with the possibility of starvin' to death in game, began mass farmin'. Minin' for resources. Outside the game, it was negotiated that the people stuck inside could be hooked up to life support, but no funny stuff, otherwise, the Killswitch would be flipped. All this was enacted with careful calculation and negotiation. The world watched this. Twenty-four hour news kept updates. Different leaders from different countries made speeches of hope that were streamed to everyone inside and outside the game. Important people, leaders and heroes, now started to take a stand in the game, ready to fight for freedom. Hope began to spring.

This story don't feature none of that dungeon shit.

=== Part 1: Better by You, Better Than Me ===

She was walking in from the plains, coming in through the northeast; she now wanted to avoid the forests, unlike before. That was a much different route than most; anyone really connected with the border action would know that, and find it suspicious. But average people would ignore her, and anyone looking for an easy mark would probably fuck off, looking for better targets. One person couldn't carry much money. They wouldn't come after her, hopefully…

Well, actually, they had. They must have figured she was armored up under her brown traveling cloak; maybe they thought the armor would be worth something. Though now, when she thought about it, maybe they wanted to run a train on her.

Fuck, she'd been lucky. The only shit that had gone down was two weeks ago. Damn lucky.

At no point did she join up with a caravan. That was probably a stupid idea. She could have found some merchants, and offered them protection; she'd do it for just provisions, or even company. Common sense dictated that was the smart thing to do. She hadn't bothered looking, instead straying the path to keep away from others; or, if contact was made, she said she wasn't going the same way as them… even if she was. She hadn't joined up with any fellow GIs going the same way, either.

She'd wanted to be alone. Alone, and thinking.

Like, what the fuck was she gonna do now.

She had no job, no prospects, and while this wasn't completely south in the game world, it was still civilized. You had to have a residence and a hunter's permit if you wanted to live out here. It wasn't the wild country. You couldn't just set up a shack wherever. You needed a goddamn job. Especially since she was burning through her money. She groaned. There was no way in hell she was going to make anywhere near close as she used to.

Jesus fuck, that was pathetic. The service was paying her fifty thousand a year, which wasn't much, those days. However, it was better than the alternative; that insane time, over two years ago, when you couldn't find a damn job. When everyone was first trapped, and realized that they had no way to make money.

The panic that happened when the House passed a measure saying the government wasn't going to pay for keep Anereta online.

People won seats in the House saying they would fight for that measure. Something that would have essentially created a genocide.

It was only barely blocked in the Senate.

The President said he would support the measure. We have the economy to think of, after all. "Lazy gamers" might need to be sacrificed.

She had enlisted nearly immediately, thinking she was going to fight in the tower. But what she really wanted was the paycheck.

And now she didn't even have that, didn't even know if she could get steady work.

But she wasn't going back.

Ever.

The southern government barely sent anyone to the tower. Most of them, like her, had been sent to the borderlands. To fight that other war. Against the northern government. Most of which was clearing out proxy groups and insurgents. Both sides calling each other terror states, using the proxies where they could, so they could tell the outside world that there was no player-based war. Proxies that weren't beholden to any treaty or standards of warfare. Or justice. Or mercy. Or humanity.

She didn't want to think about it.

Well, at least she had her savings. Along with her ID and travel papers. Plus, veteran status.

She could only hope they let her into the town. Rumor was, the southern government was pushing its forces further and further up north. It would make sense. That's what she had been doing out in that north western desert six months back.

Christ, she'd been traveling for six months.

On occasion, it blew her mind how big the game world was, and how badly it needed mass transit. They apparently had trains running far south. That would make sense; that was the beginner's area. It wouldn't have high quality materials, but there were a lot of lower quality materials. Anyone who wanted to survive had fled down there as fast as possible; being stuck in the northern endgame area would mean a horrible death. Surviving up there was a nightmare. That government had an iron grip on its citizens, with strict rationing. It made sense for them to do; however, the game wasn't isolated from the outside world. People could spectate (if you were dumb enough to leave the "allow outsiders to spectate me" option on your character). But, both in-game governments were beholden to the country that hosted the servers, in this case, the US. And Americans didn't like the idea of a strict government at all.

So, when it came to which leadership would be given any pardons for homicides it performed (pending investigation in most, but not all circumstances), the liberal-looking southern government had gotten the nod. There were too many Soviet comparisons levied to the north.

That's why the SoCo (Southern Coalition) was pushing up north, to tame the wild borderlands between the two territories.

Every SoCo soldier knew it was bullshit; it weren't no peacekeeping operation. There was a ton of higher quality materials there. And the northern government was having issues maintaining control.

You couldn't say it out loud, but those higher quality materials could make your life mighty comfortable.

She shook her head to free herself of these thoughts. That was over. She finished her tour, and was headed south. Just to the edge of the borderlands. She didn't feel like dealing with too much southern bureaucracy. She couldn't stomach it. They were using proxy troops, for fuck's sake. Both sides were. Wild mercenaries, goddamn murderers who they could deny they hired…

She shook her head again.

All that mattered was that they didn't think she was one of those greasy fucks.

Her SOF tattoo was going to make that hard. But what were the chances she'd take her shirt off at the checkpoint?

Or roll up her sleeves. The fucking thing was right on her forearm.

She shook her head again and kept on.

The town itself sat in the middle of several small hills. The forest had been cut away and pushed back as players expanded on the original structure, adding more and more to it. The town was the actual size of an American small town now, complete with cobblestone streets. Even up on the hill Anya was on, she couldn't see it all. This place might even have aspirations of becoming a small city. Some walls were up, making little gate checkpoints, but they didn't surround the entire town. That would be very hard to build, especially if the populace was looking to expand this place.

There weren't many people wandering the hills, only a few caravans moving towards the checkpoint closest to Anya. There were a few hunters out, probably stalking rabbits or groundhogs, but there were more merchants sitting by the side of the road, offering their wares. As she kept on the road, they increased in frequency, holding up all kinds of jerked meat, garbage jewelry, coarse clothes and the like. She tried her best to ignore them, even as they yelled louder, and held their wares almost right up to her face.

There were more guards appearing, and Anya tried her best not to lock eyes with them. She made sure to keep close to other groups of people, that way she could fake not being alone. Her traveling cloak was kept shut tight.

After about twenty minutes of this, she could finally catch sight of the processing station. Most of it was in tents outside, with little desks set up. There were one or two buildings a ways off, and she figured those were combination government buildings and guard halls. Fences started to pop up, and a few guard towers overlooked the road. There were some sandbags as barricades, but nothing more than that. Still, there were plenty of guards about, and some of them were wearing the blue and gold patches of SoCo; others had to be local militia, who would probably be swallowed into the SoCo forces anyway. Some had cammies–flecktarn soldier kit, by the looks of it–and some wore green shirts–police. Most of them had melee weapons, but there were a few riflemen. No archers, (who would be worthless anyway), but one or two mages, their staves having butt stocks so they could be aimed from the shoulder; only an idiot wouldn't want that accuracy. Those fuckers could probably nail a deer with a fireball from 300 meters out, if they were any good. People love a good showing of force. As long as it's not directed at them.

She kept her head low, but her eyes up, sweeping the guard towers. She couldn't help it. Operational habits. She wanted to see their setup. Overall, not bad, at least if you were dealing with a minor protest. Melee weapons were great at deterring someone who wouldn't think about breaking the rules. They were about as effective as signs on a bathroom. Someone abnormal wouldn't care less about the sign on the door, wouldn't even bother covering their face if they were that far gone. The same could be said of this checkpoint's setup; maybe some bandits would think twice, but a serious force would overrun this position in no time. With those hills, you could have a spotter radio in to a mortar team; if you make a basic tube, then fill it with some gunpowder, you could launch a volatile magic crystal from beyond line of sight–behind the hills, in short. Fire enough for effect (just tons and and tons of tubes and ordinance all at once, that way you can't miss) and this whole checkpoint setup would scatter. Even firing down from the hills with archers using AoE skills would send them packing. Either the checkpoint guards' real firepower was inside the town, or they didn't need it. They had to have it; they probably didn't want to front load it to visitors.

That worked for her. She didn't want to keep dreaming about mortar teams.

The process center was putting people through at a pretty even clip. It didn't look like these guys were too stringent. That was the hope, anyway. It was a good sign that there wasn't a tent city right outside the gate. She'd walked past a few of those. It seemed better to wander into the wild than chance the refugees. It wasn't so much the denizens you had to worry about, but the vultures that prayed on them. Easy pickings; no cops would walk out there, except the occasional raid to bash the heads of squatters. Usually something about clamping down on crime was given as an excuse for it. Election season is really fucking dangerous if you didn't own a home.

As she got closer to one of the desks, she let her cloak open more and more. When she pulled back her hood, her ears flicked back and forth, finally free. They itched from being cooped up, and she had no goddamn idea why she could feel that. Well, there was a reason, but knowing the reason didn't help at all. Three years in, it still bothered her.

The movement of her ears caught some people's attention.

Here we go.

After a moment, she sighed and started to scratch at them, meeting the eyes of anyone who was staring at her cat ears. Her death glare would scare one person off, but there were a few more still out in the crowd.

Why.

Every time, she asked herself why she'd taken up Doug's dare.

Why.

What the hell had she been thinking.

He'd said, "You straight up named your character after yourself?" She replied that it was a pretty name, and who cared. He said she was boring. She told him to fuck off. Leaning over, he read her character sheet and creator page off her phone, clicking his tongue. See? He was right. She was being boring.

Anya outside the game was six foot two, so she exaggerated that she needed to look down at Doug.

It hadn't fazed him. She was still boring. "You even gave yourself a name that starts with 'A.' So many girls pick a name that starts with 'A.'"

Well then, Anya asked what wouldn't be boring. Should she just be another annoying little bitch running around going, "Nya~! Nyaaaaaa~!"

Doug (who had somehow made his character look like Shrek, the Joker, and Jesus conceived after a three-way) said that Anya didn't have the guts or cuteness to pull that off. She simply wasn't even interesting enough to be a cliché.

"Oh really?! I'm too much of a goober…?!"

"Jesus fuck, you said goober…"

"...to be a little vtuber waifu?! Fuck it, Doug, you wanna waifu?! I'll give ya a fuckin' waifu! I'll follow you around bein' the most annoying little bitch in the game!"

"You wouldn't be able to last five minutes."

"How hard could it be? I'll just beg master for milk and keep licking my hands."

"You're way too full of yourself to even do it as a joke."

"Oh yeah?!"

"Yep. I'd honestly bet money you couldn't do it. You have too much respect for your own ego."

"What the fuck does that even mean?"

"I'll give you two fifty if you can do it for a month."

"...wait, what?"

"If you can do it for a whole month."

"...that's too little."

"Three hundred."

"Seriously? Just fifty bucks more?"

"I've been workin' OT, Anya, but not that much OT."

"...three fifty."

"The whole month. You don't get paid until after."

"Fine."

"But…

"...it's gotta be your main."

So now she was a cat girl.

And Doug hadn't even gotten stuck in the game.

That son of a bitch.

A lot of the people who'd gotten stuck as cat girls had cut off their own ears. Despite the fact that the pain of doing so was fucking unreal, it was much safer to blend in. She'd almost done it herself at one point, but you really needed someone to hold you down while it happened. The worst part was, you then had two open holes on the top of your head. Rainwater and god knew what else could easily slop right into them. She'd given up cutting them off after hearing about how many people got sick from infections. Quite a few people were shocked and perplexed by this; it turned out that this "video game" had the ability to simulate a whole bunch of sickness and disease. Even starving to death (which meant that now you not only had to have someone feed your "real" physical body, but you had to feed your avatar as well). A few years ago, a whistleblower dumped a whole bunch of documents on WikiLeaks. They'd done it because the president kept telling people that the program was safe, and there was nothing to worry about, the people trapped in the video game wouldn't feel so much pain and would be fine.

She shivered at that memory. What got exposed was that this VR tech ran a pilot program in Guantanamo. Plug in an inmate, and have them watch their family killed in VR, all while simulating freezing to death with splinters shoved under their fingernails. No marks left on the body, no proof to show the UN. Give them any disease you want. Pump them full of drugs so they don't know what's real anymore, and do your best to simulate leprosy. The military had dumped the VR tech, so the company optioned it out as a torture device. And then they'd slipped it out into the civilian market, probably with the idea that someday (maybe) they'd clean up all the fucked up code buried in there. Nobody would notice! Why bother quadruple checking your OPSEC? That'd mess with the bottomline! Screw that! Zero days, what are those? Oh, and, lest we forget, hopefully nobody would find out they'd leaped the field of torture forward a couple of hundred years.

Your tax dollars at work.

And now those evil little lines of code were unleashed on the gaming public to enjoy.

This made her shake again, and it caused her armor to rattle. Not only was she a cat girl, but she was decked out in medium kit. Most of the armor was leather, allowing for mobility and quietness, but there were still some metal plates on her shoulders, knees, back, and chest. It was her personal dress, with the cloth shirt and pants under the brown leather being a wine red. The metal plates were a dulled gray; not really the best for camouflage, but it wouldn't reflect light. The muted colors worked well enough in the dark, anyway. Plus, there was the crummy brown traveling cloak she had on. She had good solid boots on, a little worn out. There was some plating inside and around her toes and ankles as well; she was glad she had normal feet, and not paws.

Fuck that.

Those people couldn't get boots. And got smashed on their toes a lot. It's a very easy target.

The slight rattling of her armor was now drawing some more looks, and some from a few guards. She didn't want to hand over her kit, she wanted to go right by unnoticed. Fat chance in hell, though. She was armed, they definitely were going to have words about that. She needed to blend in. Except her vivid green eyes were constantly flitting about. And her hair was wavy and platinum pink, spilling over her shoulders in a tangle. It was the same color of her tail, which she only now noticed was twitching all over the place in anticipation.

Who in the fuck had coded that.

And could she get away with murdering them.

She wrapped the tail around her waist, mostly hoping nobody would notice it there. She ruffled her wavy mess of hair, trying get her ears covered. They didn't. And everyone, anywhere she went, always noticed the tail, whether she caught them staring or not.

It didn't help that this avatar stood at five foot two.

At least she hadn't given herself massive milkers.

About four centuries later she made it to one of the desks. The girl there looked her over once and then pointed to one of the tents.

"...but, why?" Anya asked.

The girl went back to her paperwork, ignoring Anya.

A rough hand grabbed her by the elbow and started to escort her to the tent. She shook the guard off, saying that she was a big girl, she could go to the bathroom by herself and everything, then hurried into the tent before the scene got ugly.

Inside was a man at a desk smoking a pipe. He sighed when Anya walked in, and called for one of the guards to shut the tent flaps. After that was done, the man held up his wrist in front of his face. Anya gulped. He was accessing his personal messaging system and menus, and had them on stealth. Great. He was a fucking professional.

His eyes went back and forth over some invisible words, then he lowered his arm and told Anya to take her cloak off. She did as he asked, slowly and with a sour look on her face. Her eyes kept darting about as she did so, and she was clearly standing on the balls of her feet.

The man at the desk looked her up and down before sighing again. He rubbed at his face. "This is what they bring me," he said softly.

Anya kept her fucking mouth shut. She kept an even look at the man, her eyes immediately focusing on whatever movement he made, no matter how minute.

The man at the desk leaned back, and even in the dim light of the tent, you could spot the badge pinned to his uniform. The chevrons on his shoulder said corporal, and the service stripes said three years. Christ, he'd been doing this since nearly the beginning. He was also obviously in the guard corps. Not some immigration and security bureaucrat. A straight up cop. Those chevrons were pinned to a green shirt.

"Papers." After she handed them over, he asked, "Name?"

Her eyes darted to the papers, but she cut it out when she saw he was staring daggers at her.

"Anya Vicars."

He checked the papers. Nodding, he pushed them back over to her. She bundled them up quickly.

His eyes lingered on her chest. She stood still. At least he wasn't looking at the sword.

"How thick's that plate?" he asked.

"Decent."

He looked in her eyes. "How thick?"

"2 point oh."

He cocked an eyebrow. "14 guage?"

She nodded.

"Bit heavy for a medium getup."

She didn't know if it was a question or not.

She kept quiet.

"Where'd ya get it?"

"It's mine."

He leaned on the desk. "Where'd ya get it."

She only now noticed that she was standing at attention. Thumbs going down the seams of her pants, back stiff and upright, feet at a forty five degree angle. Fuck, she was a regular trained seal. "The service, sir."

"Which part."

Her turn to sigh. Here we go.

"75th light infantry."

"Battalion."

Fuck. "STB."

"What's STB?"

Yay? Maybe?

She wondered what kind of bullshit answer she could give. She wondered if he would look it up after she gave it.

"High priority targets. Reconnaissance."

"What's the S, the T, and the B stand for?"

She tried not to swallow. "Special Troops. Battalion."

"What was so special?"

"We were sneaky bastards when we needed to be."

"What real life branch were you ripping off?"

She did gulp this time. "Just recon stuff."

"You're wearing stuff for an upfront fight."

"We took all kinds."

His eyes went to her ears. "It would appear so."

She was clenching her jaw. He hadn't heard about that action from a few weeks back, right? When she'd been traveling by night, thinking that someone was following her. If she ever looked at a hill she could swear she saw a silhouette duck down. If she ever looked into a wood she saw something disappear behind a tree. It had gotten to the point where she took to traveling at night, and sleeping during most of the day. "Some of us would spot the bad guys. The rest of us went after them."

He was looking at his wrist. "I heard they're dissolving all those special units. Mostly on account they are pretenders to the real thing. And they attracted… a certain kind of person to their ranks."

Anya had been right about being followed. One night, under a clear and full mooned sky, someone had tried to rush her out of a bush.

"And lots of those people are joining with those random private groups at the border," the cop said.

She'd sidestepped the rush, slashing at the idiot's back. The blood that sprayed took her by surprise; she hadn't realized how on edge she'd been, how it influenced the amount of force she put into the blow.

"And there's lots of talk about war crimes. A lot of talk about it. And they keep finding dead kids all over. Kids that may have been forced to fight."

It was a miracle the guy's blood hadn't gotten into her eyes. He screamed, his voice ripping its way out in a panic, bouncing off all the trees as it went. His partner, who was supposed to get Anya from behind, was simply standing there, bug eyed. She'd watched his face carefully. He'd either run or get pissed; after how badly she slashed the first guy, there wasn't going to be any peaceful talk. As soon as he began to bear his teeth, she plunged her blade into his heart. Now, he looked shocked. The guy hadn't even realized he was getting vengeful yet.

"A lot of the former 'soldiers,'" and he made finger quotes, "aren't too happy about how the SoCo is scaling back the military. And they really don't like the USG–especially the president, who was supposed to be their guy–talking about reducing pardons and leeway for homicides."

The man she slashed had stopped screaming in pain and now was screaming in terror, looking down at his friend as he grabbed at the bloody mess that used to be his heart. She took the opportunity to stab the slashed man in the throat, turning the blade before she wrenched it out. This ripped apart both carotids, as well as the guy's voice box. All he could do was make loud, wet coughing sounds as he fell onto his dead friend.

"Mostly because they'd gone kill-crazy out there." The cop drew on his pipe, snorting out the smoke. "The conflict was never supposed to get this serious. They're flattening whole forests, cities, towns out there. It's in the goddamn news all the time. And there's a lotta talk that the casualty counts aren't anything near accurate."

After she ripped out her blade from the slashed man, she'd noticed her hands were shaking. There was no fucking way that she took too much stim. Right? She needed to take enough to keep up her pace, and if these assholes were keeping up with her, that meant they were just as fucked up, right? So she hadn't taken too much. She'd made the right decision. No choice but to kill these two. And that's when she heard the rattle of plate mail right behind her.

"A lot of your former colleagues are comin' to towns like ours. A lot of them end up causin' trouble."

Turning around, she saw a man in full plate running at her with a battle-ax. He screamed through the slits in his helmet, "We just wanted your fucking gold!!!"

"Not just fights in bars. Lots of 'em think they can become good ol' fashioned sell-swords."

As the man in plate charged her, she swapped her grip on her sword, putting her fingers around the blade. She bent her knees, coiling up her body for action.

"I don't hold sanction with that kind of behavior," the cop said.

The man in plate had swung down, like an idiot. She side stepped him, and smashed his temple with her hilt guard. The man in plate stumbled back, and she pressed the attack; holding the sword by its blade, she beat him in the side of the head with her handle, like it was a pick-ax.

The cop leaned back. "And now I have some kind of 'special' soldier or whatever here, wearing armor and armed with a sword and a shield. And if she doesn't know how to use 'em, she gets herself and other people hurt. And if she does," and at this he spread his hands in the air while shrugging.

The man in plate fell onto his back, letting go of the ax. She kept beating in the side of his helmet. He was screaming at her to stop, to please stop. The inside of the helmet was now poking into the side of his head. So, she switched to the other side, beating it into the opposite temple. The man's hands came up to cover his head, and at this, holding the sword by the blade like it was a spear, she stabbed the tip into his neck. A little gap is always right between the helmet and the rest of the armor; if you keep your head down, you are usually fine. You can't connect the helmet to the armor, otherwise you wouldn't be able to turn your head. If you knew anything about wearing plate, and weren't panicking, you might be able to do something about this. Instead, blood flooded out of the face slits in the armor, and the man started choking while flapping his hands wildly, trying to breathe.

The cop leaned forward, putting his elbows on the desk. "We don't solve our problems with violence here.

"Have you been listening to a goddamn word I've said?"

Anya tried not to look too panicked as she pulled her mind back into the tent with the cop. She looked him in the eyes. "Uh… yes." He hadn't said anything about three dead bodies in the woods, right?

No… no he hadn't said shit.

"What'd I say?" he asked.

"That a lot of soldiers are causin' trouble, and you're worried about those private groups further into the borderlands. I'm not with any of them. I'm just headin' south enough to get away from that and…," she shouldn't have said and. Why had she done that?

The cop drummed his fingers on the desk. "'And?'"

"And not have to… um, be held down by… too much… by… well, I'd like to make my own livin'."

"Doin' what?"

"I've heard this town likes carpenters."

"We do have several businesses that hold some renown, yes. Are you here to start your own business? Because I say good luck to that."

"No! No, I want to get a job here for a while. Get some experience. Maybe go into business on my own in the future. Maybe back outside the game, when that happens, you know?"

"Have you secured a job?"

"...sorry?"

"Have you secured a job before traveling to our growing little city?"

"...no."

"Have you put in an application yet?"

"No, but…"

"So you've just shown up here, hopin' that it will work out. All while in full kit. Sword an' shield and 14 gauge plates."

"I've secured a place to live!"

"Well, lawdy, the feline has found a kennel. And what does that exactly mean to me? How am I supposed to tell if ya've come here to whittle wood or bones, girlie?"

"I have craftsman's tools! Here!" She started to open a small pack that had been slung over her shoulder. She kept pulling out different tools as the cop waved his hand and yelled, "Put that shit away! I don't wanna see it! Put it away!"

She clumsily scooped up her tools off the floor where she had dumped them out. He crooked a finger at her and said quietly, "C'mere." She took cautious steps towards him.

"Gimme the address of where you're stayin'."

She gave it.

He wrote it down on a piece of paper, and waved it softly in her face. "Now I know where you're gonna be. I might send somebody around to check on ya. Regardless, you hafta tell the main town office when you get employed. We keep strict records on that here ya understand?"

She did.

"If you so much as swat a fuckin' fly around here I'll have your kitten ass thrown outta here. The tiny and cute shit don't work on me. From what I've already seen of your record, what little of it isn't covered in goddamn black boxes, you're liable to be a pain in the ass. And don't go thinkin' those little black boxes in your record make you a bad ass. Every dipshit has them these days as SoCo tries to cover its fuckups. Even the dickhead who delivers toilet paper has 'em now. So don't go thinkin' I'm gonna be intimidated by you. You understand?"

She still did.

"Now get the fuck outta here."

And she did.

===

When she made it to the apartment house the sun was about to set. The landlady seemed annoyed. "You were supposed to be here an hour ago."

"I got held up at the city gate."

"...you have cat ears."

"...yes, I have cat ears."

"Are you a hooker?"

"...no, I'm not a hooker."

"This is a nice town, and I run a good complex. We don't have that kind of thing around here."

"Good, I'm glad."

"You have the deposit?"

She handed over the bag of gold.

The landlady seemed a bit impressed. "You hand it over that easily, eh?"

"I have more than I thought I would."

"...how did that happen?"

"...I found it. On the forest road."

"Won't someone come looking for this gold?"

"I don't think they are capable of doing that anymore."

"I'm sorry? What was that? it sounded like you mumbled something."

"I helped some people fight off a bear. They paid me."

"Well, aren't you helpful."

"I try."

"Well, here you go." The landlady thrust a key at her. "Second floor, you can find it. You don't look like you're carrying too much anyway. I have to go," and with that, the landlady walked off.

Anya looked at her walking away. "Well, aren't you helpful." She headed up the stairs.

===

Five days later and Anya was sitting in the offices of one of the woodworking shops in town. She wore a plain pair of brown pants and her usual wine red shirt. At least it was washed.

She had been sitting there for a good while, and wondered if she was ever going to get her interview. She arrived to this place fifteen minutes late, on account that she didn't wake up on time. It was the first time in… months, it must have been months, since she slept in a bed. A bed that didn't even have any sheets, or even a pillow. She had used her pack as a pillow, just like on the road, and wrapped herself under her travel blanket. At first, the soft surface seemed weird, the feeling of sinking deeper, and deeper into something, keeping her awake. It took a while for her to get used to it, and when she did, it hit her all at once. Her fatigue made her feel drunk, unable to create a decent thought, and suddenly, her body became very aware of the softness of the bed in a new way. She was enraptured by it. She flipped over onto her face to sleep for the first time in, again, months. At some point, she took her clothes off. A sudden urge to sleep nude hit her. Another "first time in a long time" event. She stripped off her clothes, and grabbed one of the bottles of beer in the ice box. She meant to sip at it, but she ended up standing in front of the ice box naked, draining the entire bottle. She felt sweat mix with the cool condescension of the bottle, running down her hand, arm, then her body. The chill felt good, even though it contrasted with the warmth of the bed. When she dropped back into the bed, ass in the air, she nuzzled the warmth, pushing her face into it. Pulling the blanket back over her, she tried to put what she felt into words, and found she couldn't. There wasn't a word for it. This made her smile, sincerely smile, the widest smile she had in a long, long time.

And then the next thing she knew was that the sun was stabbing at her through the window. She frantically held up her wrist, which displayed her personal player menu. Her alarm had been going off for thirty minutes.

Now sitting in the office, she knew it was lucky that she was only fifteen minutes late. But that wasn't going to fly with these people, probably. You're supposed to arrive early to a job interview. Instead, she'd been absolute fucking clown shoes. Her face reddened, almost matching the color of her shirt. Both her hands gripped at her pants, right around her knees, fingers pulling at the coarse fabric. If she'd arrived in time, she could have bought fucking bedsheets and a pillow. Now she might be screwed out of that. Because of a goddamn bed. A fucking bed.

She kneaded her fingers some more. Brought down by a fucking bed. It probably wasn't even a nice bed, it was just nice to her right now. She needed to look as professional as possible if there was any hope of salvaging this. It's why she was trying to not stare at the weird guy in purple dancing outside the window.

She ended up staring at the weird guy in purple dancing outside the window.

He was doing some kind of jig (she wondered if that word was offensive), like some kind of riverdance thing. Irish dancing, right? Or Scottish? She had no fucking idea, and it didn't matter, it wouldn't stop the guy from doing it. He was standing on a park bench, just dancing, and she figured it must have been one of the prefab/emote dances players could activate. How long has this guy been dancing? People didn't even really look at him as they passed. Was this just a thing here? Did the emote ever make him tired? It must. Maybe not as fast as real dancing? Did someone feed him as he did this? He'd been there when she sat down, a half hour ago. Jesus, what was he doing?

And what the fuck was he wearing? He had a purple hat on, like something a train conductor would wear, the ones that are really wide at the top, like a plate on your head. There was a white circle above the brim, with some kind of yellow letter in it, which might have been upside down. The hat was purple, which matched his long sleeve shirt. There were black overalls covering the rest of him, with brown shoes poking out the bottom. All the clothing was form-fitting (distressingly so) showing off his very lanky frame, accentuating his long and spindly limbs…

"No."

She looked harder at the dancing man.

"There's no fucking way."

"Yep. That's Waluigi."

Anya spun at the new voice. A smallish (though still taller than her by a few inches) Asian woman was standing right next to her. Anya hadn't even heard her approach, which meant she had failed and become entranced by the dancing Waluigi. Great.

Anya stood, looking up into the face of the woman. Proffering her hand, she introduced herself. The woman was wearing a nice white blouse, long sleeved, and well pressed. Wait, were her shoulders padded? Anya couldn't tell, but the blouse looked fancy enough. Maybe the woman just worked out. It'd make sense, her stockinged legs looked pretty thick, and strong. She had nice loafers on, too. The outfit looked decently anime character, though not stupidly so. Rationally dressed video game character. No stupid bow on her shirt, and her high-waisted black skirt ended just below her knees. Hm. Flared skirt. Round glasses perched lightly on her nose. A very professional woman, who Anya hoped was just a secretary or something, and not the person she was late to meeting.

The woman took Anya's hand, and she couldn't help but notice it was a little rough. Anya didn't get why that stuck out. The woman was clearly moisturizing her hands to hide that roughness, some coulisses even. Anya shook her head, trying to catch what the woman was saying.

The woman shook Anya's hand, and said, "Hello, I hope you didn't have to wait long. My name is 郭 羌."

"...um, I'm sorry?"

The woman smiled apologetically, letting go of Anya's hand. Speaking slower, she said, "My name is Guo… my name is Qiáng Guo."

"Oh, I'm Anya Vicars!"

"Yes, you said that."

Fuck.

Ms. Guo nodded out the window. "And that's the eternally dancing Waluigi."

"...'Eternally?'"

"Yeah, he's been at it for almost a year now."

"Seriously?"

"Yup. Nobody knows what he's doing. Someone comes by to feed him occasionally. He doesn't drop the emote."

"I thought it was an emote."

"Dance3 or something. I don't think anybody really notices him anymore." Ms. Guo motioned towards an open door, and both women walked through it. She motioned to Anya to sit at one of the chairs in front of her desk while shutting the door. "I guess that means you're not from around here. Or that you speak any form of Chinese. I'm used to getting questions about my name."

Anya wondered if she should press the name thing, but decided not to. "I guess it's pretty obvious I speak no Chinese and am not from around here," she said while chuckling nervously. "It sounds like a pretty name, though." Shit, maybe that was a bit much, especially if it was a touchy subject.

Ms. (was it Ms.? There weren't any photographs on her desk) Guo sat down in her chair and began messing around with a folder's contents. Anya started to feel nervous. This Guo lady felt a bit cold. Maybe she'd really fucked up by being late. Wanting to break the silence (and maybe get a better read on Ms. Guo's current mood), Anya said, "I just moved into town."

"Yes, I know, you put in a call a few weeks ago while on the road."

Anya only just caught herself from saying, "I had?" She'd completely forgotten about calling a few of the businesses ahead of time. Christ, she'd called this place twice, hadn't she? Once on the road, and again when she moved in.

She called them the first time right before she killed those three guys. That's why she forgot. She must have sounded insane when she called again, setting up an appointment she'd already set up. This was going great. She decided to shut her mouth for a minute, to reset herself. Her eyes darted about the office.

The first thing she noticed was the cloak hanging on the rack. It was dark red, maybe some kind of dark… magenta? It looked a bit purple, and looked more than a bit really pretty. The stitching, even from where Anya stood, looked expert and well done. There wasn't a single loose thread or patch on the whole cloak. The damn thing was so perfect it probably cost money to just look at the damn thing. It struck Anya as weird; a cloak is a garment meant to be worn in shitty or cold weather, but this thing was way too nice to wear out ever. It looked like the best action to take would be to put this cloak in an airtight glass case. It was way beyond the pay of anyone in this district, even a nice district like this, and was undoubtedly the prize possession of whoever owned it.

Anya took another look at Guo. The light coming in the window behind her cast her features in darkness, but when Anya squinted she could make out the glasses sitting on her delicate nose. The woman sported a short bob of hair that was parted in the middle, with no bangs; instead, the hair closest to her face was longer than the hair at the back of her head. It was cut at an angle, points framing her face. It was like a few different haircuts merged together, but it worked. Her fingers looked slender enough to fit into keyholes. They were attached to very frail-looking wrists which poked out of that white blouse, which was immaculate and didn't look so much that it had been ironed, but more it had been flattened in a hydraulic press. When she stood (with a pang in her gut, Anya realized this "tiny" woman had three inches on her at least) the shirt wasn't stiff at all; the shirt hadn't been overdone. It had been fucking perfected. It was tucked in to her skirt just right; there were no bulges, no wrinkles, not a single thing wrong. Anya felt a twinge on her gut when she looked down at the woman's black stockings and immaculate shoes again. She wanted a pair… well, a pair of both those shoes and the damn stockings.

There's that awful rush, like a bucket of cold stagnant water to the face, when you run into someone who, without saying a word, makes you feel not just inadequate, but like a crude joke on womanhood. And there's no word for it, either; there's just the long string of curses in you head, all directed at yourself.

Anya often found herself not having a word for things. Ms. Guo looked like she barely had that problem, especially as she now did a slow pace behind her desk, reading from that file. Anya studied her face. She had pretty eyes, and they were a little big. It was accentuated by the fact her glasses were large and completely round, the thin black frames almost overlapping her arched eyebrows.

God fucking damnit, she's gorgeous too. She squirmed in her seat. The woman was gorgeous, and had a completely blank look on her face; she was betraying no emotion as she read from what was obviously Anya's file.

Ms. Guo closed the file, and smiled at Anya. "You were in the service? For the SoCo?"

"Um… yes."

"What did you do there?"

Anya took a deep breath, and hoped she didn't sound like she rehearsed this, "I worked with small groups in helping secure certain parts of the borderlands. We had to work together in stressful conditions and all get along, no matter what. The missi… the work was the top priority, and we needed to handle it as effectively as possible. I was able to take charge when I needed, as well as follow orders. And… uh, it wasn't all… killing… people. We built many structures, buildings and stuff. I got a lot of work with carpentry there, even some stonework. I worked with large construction equipment and machines. I got good enough that I could make chairs and cabinets. Smaller things, too. I made the bases for toothbrushes, as well."

"...toothbrushes."

"Well, yes. You gotta make sure that people won't get splinters in something like that. Making a good toothbrush is a pain in the… it's a pain. Sure, it doesn't use much resources, but you can mess it up. I made shelves and tables, too. Officers would ask for them."

"It says here you were in a combat unit." Guo looked at Anya over her glasses, furrowing her brow.

"It wasn't all combat. Just when we needed to. And we had downtime. Time in-between tours, too."

"What made you decide to leave?"

Anya swallowed something, looking grim. "I did my part. I'm not a career woman."

Guo nodded. "All right. Why this town?"

"Um… it was close."

Was Ms. Guo smirking? "Close? You left the service about six months ago. When you first called, you said you were traveling."

"I heard this town likes carpenters. It was also close to me at the time. I just wanted to get away from the borderland."

"And that's it?"

"Um… yeah?"

Ms. Guo shook her head, chuckling softly. "You didn't even come for Waluigi?"

"Um, no?" Anya was smiling a bit now too.

"Hm. I guess that's okay. But it is a little strange." Ms. Guo sat down, and crossed her legs. Leaning back in her chair, she seemed to be studying Anya. It was nothing intimidating, but she was making it very obvious she was watching Anya carefully. "You do seem a little odd, if you don't mind me saying."

"Well, I guess I don't."

"Not your first time being called that."

Anya sighed. "Nope."

"That's all right. I like odd."

There was a twinge in Anya's stomach. Christ, Anya thought, she's personable, too.

Oh fuck, she needed to calm down. Getting the hots for the boss lady was not going to help with the situation.

"Odd is interesting. We tend to collect a lot of odd ones out here. But most know at least some Chinese."

"They do, huh?"

"Do you?"

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Anya cocked her head. "No…?"

Guo leaned forward. "You really don't know any Chinese?"

"...um, no…?" Was she supposed to?

Guo eyed her carefully. "Hm. Okay."

Fuck it. "Should I? I didn't know that was going to be a thing."

Guo folded her hands on the desk. "I guess you don't know anything about this town, do you?"

Anya sighed and shook her head. No point hiding it, if this was even hiding anything. She had no idea.

Guo broke into a smile, though it looked a bit sad. "There's a lot of us Chinese here. Regardless if we're American or not." She put a hand on her chest. "I'm second generation myself."

Anya felt weird asking, but she knew it was expected of her, "Um, why's that?"

The smile got a bit bigger, but was obviously strained. "It's about as far south as people want us to go. On account they keep saying we're all hackers, and maybe even caused the incident."

"...Ah." The white cat girl swore in her head. Lots.

"Now, of course, nobody… well, some people are saying that out loud, but it's certainly implied. I thought I'd just let you know."

Wait, all the cops outside the gates were white. Wasn't that strange…? Fuck. Actually, that makes sense. Christ.

Shit, had those guards been trying to figure out if she was here to commit a goddamn hate crime?

She pushed the thoughts to the back of her head. "Have there been incide…"

"Yes."

"...ah."

Are minorities amused or annoyed when white people remember they're white?

How about murderers?

Guo picked up the folder again, opening it. "About your service."

"Yes?"

"Did that link up with the US Military at all?"

"Sort of. We got some training from spectating officers. A few vets were in-game as well. But it's a very loose association. I think we're generally considered stealing honor these days."

"Regardless of that, you would still look to apply here? After the war, and all the service people killed?"

Anya cracked a sardonic smile after a huff. "After which war? At this point, lady, I might have killed as many Americans in here as any Chinese soldier has outside." She immediately regretted getting so casual and speaking her mind.

Guo looked somewhat taken aback for a moment, but recollected herself. "I figured you saw more than just occasional action. Your hands are too rough for rear echelon stuff."

Anya's ears twitched. There was something about Guo saying that, but she instead of pursuing that, she said, "I could have been a siege mechanic."

Guo's smile was dark but genuine this time. "Not with the way you talk."

"You serve?"

"No."

"Neither in or out?"

Guo sat up straight and went back to the folder. "No."

Anya decided to not push anymore. Her eyes went back to the cloak for a second. She thought about Guo's reactions to what she said. Usually, when fucking with civvies, you get them goggled eyed. Some of them are freaked out, some of them are fighting the urge to nonstop salute or something else stupid. Some feel bad for you, you know, for you, someone who can run three miles in eighteen minutes, do close to two-hundred pushups in a row, and kill a person all by themselves. Plus, can tie their shoes and go to the bathroom alone and everything.

Guo had looked a little off center, then went right back to it, albeit a bit clipped.

It probably didn't mean anything.

Probably.

Guo shrugged. "All right. Let's drop it." They went on about more mundane things, healthcare coverage both inside and outside the game, pay, what was expected, the attendance point system, and on. Anya tried to stay as generic as possible, and it seemed to work. Guo seemed interested in her. Whether it was in a more good or bad way, she had no idea. But Guo did suggest they tour the factory floor, so something must have been going right.

Guo went over to the cloak, and Anya wondered if she was going to put it on, before she saw the woman grab a cane. She hadn't noticed the woman's limp before she picked up the cane. It was pretty slight; maybe something that only got bad after standing for a while. The cane itself was beautiful. The handle was shaped like a fully-bloomed rose, and long, leaved vines were snaked all down the shaft, made through wood burning. If you had to have a cane, you might as well make it really fucking nice. The treated wood was a dark brown, light enough so you could see the wood-burning, but not by much. It was an absolutely stunning piece of work, and Anya made a comment as such.

"Thank you. It took me quite some time to make it."

"Oh, wow! You made that?"

"Yes. I do suffer from some knee pain from time to time. I decided to make something nice for myself." Guo led the way to the shop floor.

It was as expected. Packed with material and finished goods, people running about, trying to finish their work, and goddamn dust everywhere. It didn't phase Anya much, but she was a little shocked that Guo just walked through all this like it was nothing. Apparently, Anya was more nervous about Guo's shoes that the woman herself was. Even the shirt would dirty easily. Jesus.

Guo introduced Anya to an Asian man named Michael. This was who Anya was going to report to, which made Anya blink. Was it that easy? She was in already?

Michael stepped forward and shook her hand, saying welcome aboard and asking what her experience was. Before she could answer, Guo jumped in and said Anya had much experience out in the wild making comfort objects, such as chairs, tables, cabinets, and even toothbrushes. Was that so? Yes, and Guo said that Anya was more than capable than working with professional tools and workers. She might need work, but Guo had a feeling Ms. Vicars would adapt quickly.

Anya kept an eye on Guo. Not one thing was mentioned about her military career. It was all, "She comes from the borderlands," and, "She's going to try her hand at joining civilization, hone her skills." Michael gave Anya a slap on the shoulder, saying that she'd fit right in.

Guo left her with Michael to finish the tour, and went back to her office. Shutting the door behind her quietly, she sat at her desk and looked down at Ms. Vicars' application.

This was a risk.

This was a huge risk.

It wasn't just what might happen if the workers found out that Qiáng was covering up Anya's service record. Hell, she might even brag about it herself. That wouldn't be surprising. The woman barely contained ogling her when they first met.

Everyone deserves a chance though, right?

The green shirts at the gate let her in, and probably would swing by to check on her employment status. Her face wrinkled into something ugly. The fucking greens. She didn't want them sniffing around here. Having this cat girl here gave them another excuse to come by.

Her eyes lingered on her cane. It still had fifty charges of lightning. But it was low-level. Something that pretty was made to be discreet. After doing some quick math, she knew there were still plenty of thirty to twenty-round wands, and heavier hitting staves all carved up and charged. Butt stocks and pistol grips, pro marksman stuff. None at the shop. She didn't want them found here. She had little cachés all over the city. The one trick she always used.

None of that was important. She didn't even know why her mind went to that.

It was because she was nervous.

And fidgety.

This… this wasn't where she expected to end up. Cut off from action, hiding out as a production supervisor.

If she was ever found out, it would undo all the work she put into this place. Qiáng had hired a lot of people other places wouldn't.

So, she'd gone through this before, right?

And had any of these people ever fucked up?

No.

No, every person here was just trying to get a new start. Everyone deserves one. And the other shops wouldn't hire them. Their loss.

Qiáng shrugged her shoulders to herself. This Vicars woman… she would probably be a pain in the ass, but she would work hard the entire time. She didn't seem like much of a complainer. Maybe that was wrong. The woman looked like she had a hard time keeping her inner thoughts buried.

And, Qiáng also thought that woman could handle herself in a fight. It was just a feeling, but there was something in the way she carried herself. She was obviously a soldier, but Qiáng saw Vicars as being able to handle a one-on-one fight. A lot of soldiers let the siege machines do most of the work. Others… got personal with their work. It's a different ballgame when you stare your opponent right in their eyes, even if it meant you might get beaten down, or possibly killed. There is a particular confidence you get after you're beaten hard enough; something about seeing your own teeth on the ground, floating in a puddle of your blood. Surviving that experience does one of two things to you.

One is that you look over your shoulder for the rest of your life, about every five minutes.

The other is you realize nobody is ever going to hit you any harder than your father did. So there's nothing to fear anymore.

Qiáng leaned back in her chair, wiggling one of her fake molars with her tongue.

===

Anya lay on her bed, wrapped up in her new bedsheets, her face nuzzling deep into her new pillow, enjoying her new life.

There was the feeling, for the first time in a long time, that she didn't have to be mad. That she didn't have to tap into that extra store of adrenaline to make it out okay. And that she didn't need to hide anything. Okay, maybe she was super rough around the edges, and if she let all that out, it would scare people away. But there was good chance she didn't even need to hide that she was fucking trans. Hell, maybe she could even forget that she was trans. Or find a connection that could hook her up with medicine cheaper (she called it "taking her medicine").

Shit, maybe this could work out. As long as she didn't run into any assholes. And kept herself in check.

So, anyway.

A few months passed.

===

"Kid, you owe us a lot of money for passage to this dump. If you don't have money, you gotta pay some other way."

"We were just walking on the same road together!"

"And no one fucked with you because we were there! Don't treat me like an asshole, kid!" The man was leaning close to him. You could tell that he wanted to lean over Kevin, but this guy wasn't six-foot eight. That would've given him at least an inch. As it was, his eyes were about even with Kevin's neck, but that clearly wasn't going to stop him.

None of the three guy's accosting him had their weapons drawn, but he didn't know when that would change. Kevin had hoped like hell that the cops would take them away from these guys, that somebody would frisk them, but one of the green shirts seemed to know the man currently pushing him up against this wall.

No one had frisked them.

Now, here Kevin was, three to one, and they knew he was just a kid in a big body.

He swallowed hard. They were going to hurt him.

Jesus Christ, they were going to hurt him.

"What makes you think I have any money?!"

The three men looked at each other, then back at Kevin.

"You serious?" they asked in unison.

"...yes…?"

All three began talking at once, mostly about how nice and laundered Kevin's white mage robes were, they had royal blue trim, which went nice with his white turban, and that staff he used looked well-made, probably bought with real world money before they were trapped, and his boots, holy shit, his fucking boots! no holes in the sole or toe, nice polished dark brown leather, his face was nice and clean shaven, which meant he had a great razor, and enough money to buy shaving butter or some shit, and could always afford a hotel room which would facilitate nice shaving and a good night's rest, and a real good sleeping bag and tent kit, most people didn't even have a tent these days, it made you a target for thugs, plus really good flint and steel, fucking steel! that's worth a ton of money! so he could always make a fucking fire and the rations! tha muthafuckin' rations he had! not beans and rice, but good bread and meat! fuckin' meat! and this kid didn't hunt at

Kevin kneed the thug holding him in the crotch, which was really easy because of how much taller he was than the thug, then pushed the guy back into the other two. They all tangled up together and fell over, giving Kevin a moment to get the hell out of there.

Unfortunately, this had been going down amongst a bunch of hangar/warehouse looking buildings at dusk, which meant every door he tried was locked, and no lights were on in any of the windows. The warehouses were also crammed up against each other, meaning everything between them was tight alleys which opened into wide roads for delivery vehicles; there was nowhere to hide. Any boxes were tucked and locked away, and with no shifts running, Kevin was all alone with these three, getting lost in this new city.

He needed to find a way back to the city proper. He might be able to hide then. He broke out into the road and ducked into a new alley. He was sucking wind, but he might be okay for now. He didn't know how in shape these guys were.

He barely knew anything about them. While he was traveling the road north, these guys put their camp just down the road from him. One morning, they were close enough to call to him, and by that night, the three of them came out of the darkness and sat around his fire, eyes glowing like embers in the dark. It was bad to travel alone, they said. He hadn't slept that night, only pretended to, and he got the feeling they had done the same. He slept with a small knife hidden under his sleeve, and woke up to find his arm cut up. He cast a heal to stop the bleeding, but ever since they were all trapped in the game, healing people via spells worked weird. In most cases, it made more sense to disinfect and bind the wound in a more traditional way, but a spell could work in a pinch. His salves would have worked better, plus the bandages, but he didn't want them to know what happened. He was glad he didn't bleed on his white robes. Not matter what, whenever he woke up, they were already up. He couldn't get away from them.

And now they were demanding money from him, chasing him through these alleys. He heard them shouting.

Why here? Why not…? damnit, it's because they knew one of the cops. Maybe more than one of them.

Oh shit.

What the fuck was he going to do, then?

He crouched down, trying to catch his breath while pulling up a map from his wrist. The in-game player map was useless; it was drawn before this city was built and expanded, so it was showing this area as a forest. He needed a new map, one drawn by another player and wrapped in a scrolll. His eyes darted all over the digital display, trying to find anything useful.

Water! There was some kind of stream! The city proper had to sit either on top of that or near it. North, he needed to run north.

An arrow glanced off one of the walls, ricocheting down the alley. He was up and running again before he realized he was doing so. Another arrow smacked off a wall. Idiot! He needed to do something! He was running in a straight line and this guy was shooting at him!

Kevin started to shuffle left and right, and all this did was elicit a belly laugh from behind him. "You guys!" the archer cried. "You guys gotta see this!

"Dance kid, dance!"

Another arrow smacked into the ground around his feet. He jumped then tripped. More arrows plinked off the walls around him.

"Dance, muthafucka! Dance, bitch, dance!"

Kevin was back up, hopping and skipping, as more and more arrows bounced down the alleyway. More than a few shot between his legs, shredding the bottom of his robes. He was making a sound close to hiccuping, and that was because he was trying to not cry and scream.

They weren't above killing a kid they weren't above killing a kid holy shit they didn't care he was fifteen they were going to fucking kill him and take his shit he needed to run he needed to run god fucking damnit he needed to move!

Haste you idiot! Why are you still holding your goddamn staff if you aren't going to cast fucking haste!

The other two were laughing now behind Kevin, throwing taunts down the alley at him. He tried his best to ignore it, and instead grasped his staff with both hands. An arrow flew past his right foot. He ignored it.

There was no chance in fighting them, even if he cast damage spells at them. Haste. He needed to cast haste.

There was a sudden electric feeling in his limbs. He suddenly felt lighter, more energized. As legs began to pump faster and faster, there was yelling coming from behind him. He knew it must be working, that he was becoming blurry to them as his speed went beyond human. The kid was surging forward like a meteor, and despite running in a straight line, he would be not only out of range, but around a corner in a few seconds.

One of the thugs smacked at the archer's arm. "Your agility buff gives you more speed, right?!"

"Already on it." The archer was sprinting after the kid, the walls of the alley now flying past him, the wind whipping his hair back. Every step he took was more like a stomp, each throwing him forward like he was making a series of tiny jumps.

The sound of it was heard by Kevin. He didn't even spare the breath to curse. He focused on making the right turn up ahead. The stream has to be right there.

It could have been. But there was a wall there, too.

He nearly ran right into it. He couldn't see any way to climb it, and he heard the leaps of the archer getting closer. In a panic, he looked around, hoping for anything.

Window.

Screw it.

He smashed it with his staff until it broke, climbing through it despite some kind of bell was now ringing.

Back outside, the archer skidded to a halt. A red flare shot out the roof of the warehouse Kevin broke into. "You gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me!"

Kevin slammed into the floor, only then realizing it was a miracle he hadn't gored himself in the broken window. One of the thugs had the sense to smash out the glass still in the bottom frame, screaming, "Who gives a shit?! We can grab him and run! We can't let that little fucker go!"

Kevin couldn't see a goddamn thing; only so much light was coming from the very few windows. The grayish dusklight of a cloudy day only let him see vague shapes; were all these wooden chairs? Yeah, carved chairs, a few cabinets… fuck it, there was more than one window! He kept banging into furniture, heading for a window on the opposite side. He was right by the stream. Maybe there was a way into the city. Maybe there was a way.

He picked up a chair and smashed it into the window. This time, he used his staff to break the glass completely before he climbed through, even though he heard all three of his pursuers stumbling into furniture behind him.

Falling out the window, he looked to his left and saw a fence topped with barbed wire. He ripped open his travel pack, dropping his tightly rolled tent on the ground. Without thinking, he chucked the poles down as well. It was too much to carry now, but he didn't want to waste his concentration on what he should have done. Instead, he pulled out a thick blanket and tossed it onto the barb wire. He threw his pack over the fence next, and began climbing himself as he heard one of his pursuers climbing in the window.

The blanket didn't stop all the barbs from poking through. Blood was running down his hands as he heaved his bulk over the blanket. Why had he made his avatar so big? Why? He was such an idiot.

He made himself focus on getting over the fence. The best he was able to do was flip himself over the top and fall. He clawed at the blanket as he toppled over, and barely managed to tear it down with him.

He landed on his side, nearly breaking his staff. He didn't even bother checking if he was all right, and he sprinted forward.

This is what the woodshop workers saw out the window, a bloodied man running while holding a pack by the sling and a staff in the other hand. Anya sidled up to the gawkers. "The fuck is going on, Lin De?"

"Alarm went off. It looks like someone broke into the storage unit."

"Jesus Christ, how long are they going to take building that wall?!"

"They got one part done."

"Clearly that didn't stop that guy from climbing the fence, Lin De!

"Fuck it."

Anya started running, pulling her leather apron off as she went out a side door and after the fleeing man. A few of the other workers watched Anya, before pulling off their aprons and joining her. They all grabbed two-by-fours out of a barrel next to the side door. Lin De just shook his head while watching the mob chase the man. It had been a ten hour day. Even two hours of overtime was a bit much for him. Lin De shrugged and began to pack up for the day, while the three thugs watched the mob burst out the door to give chase after Kevin, completely dumbfounded.

"Was that a cat girl?"

"Yeah, I think it was."

"A cat girl with a two-by-four?"

"I think it has nails in it."

The one who pinned Kevin to the wall earlier broke his gaze from the mob disappearing into the city streets. He ran his eyes along the wood shop building, noticing something on the second floor. "Some chick up there is lookin' at us!" It was some Asian bitch in round glasses, staring right at them. At him.

…Through him.

One of the others asked, "Fucking what?"

"C'mon, let's go. Now!" He pulled them away from the fence and back down the alley. He turned back to look over his shoulder.

The window the woman had been standing at was open now, and she was gone.

Right then, he said the smartest thing he had ever said in his life. "Guys… we need to hide.

"Don't ask questions, just fucking do it."

As they split up and slid into the shadows, Anya and the mob were both perplexed by how fast this man was running. They would have made comments to each other if they hadn't been so out of breath. There seemed to be no catching this man.

"速!" someone yelled.

"What?!" she yelled back.

"Haste!"

"Fuck!"

The woodworkers pushed harder, but some of them were tiring out. A few stopped, and one vomited. One by one, they were faltering. Anya was soon left with a group of five or six, and was nearly passing out as her heart beat a death metal rhythm against her ribcage.

Kevin heard footsteps behind him, but he didn't care. He saw a fountain ahead of him. A fountain, and people walking around it! And some purple guy dancing, but that didn't matter, there were people there!

He put his head down and sprinted as hard as he could to the fountain. He nearly fell to his knees when his hands touched the smooth stone of the pool surrounding the fountain statue. Now suddenly bold, he turned to face his pursuers, ready to face them. They couldn't do anything to him in public, no matter what their connections were.

What approached him was not what he was expecting, which was those three thugs. Instead, there were a group of dirty workers jogging towards him, one of them a pink haired cat girl. All of them were breathing frighteningly heavy, and one of them had their tongue shamelessly hanging out their mouth. They allowed to a sluggish walk, dragging their feet, eyes have closed from fatigue. One of them pointed at Kevin and said something in a language he didn't understand.

The cat girl pointed at him next. "Got… you…"

Kevin fidgeted nervously. "Um… who're you?"

"Work… for place… you broke into…," one of the workers said.

"Um…," Kevin knew he had to think. This was a severe complication. If he didn't handle right, he was fucked.

"I didn't do it," he said.

The workers stared at him.

"I swear I didn't," Kevin said.

Drool was pouring out of the corner of the cat girl's mouth. She dropped her two-by-four by accident, but all she could do was stare at it sadly and disappointedly.

There was a light hand on his shoulder all of a sudden, and a very cold voice in his ear. "Then who did," it whispered.

He went to turn around, but the fingers on his shoulder dug in hard enough to make him yelp. This person must have been taller than him; she was right in his ear. He could feel her breath on his neck.

"I… I saw three guys!" Kevin yammered. "I was walking around and saw three shady guys breaking the window! I was going to call the guards, but… but they saw me! They started to climb the fence, so I ran!"

"What were you doing there?" The way the voice whispered put tingles not just up and down his spine, but all the way to his fingertips. He didn't like that he almost liked it; that made it worse. And this woman had to know that she was doing this to him. Every syllable was pronounced slowly, deliberately. Every word a weapon. Every breath a calculation.

He was now more scared than he had been before.

He was almost sobbing, "I was just walking around!"

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to!"

The fingers became tighter.

"I swear! Lady, I'm just a kid! I'm just a kid! Look!"

"I don't care." She drew out that last word for a long time.

He did feel stinging in his eyes now. "Please! Look!" He held up his wrist, displaying his player card. He scrolled down and unprivated his real life info, arm shaking uncontrollably now.

Slight, steely fingers slowly wrapped around his wrist, holding it steady. The other hand kept a firm grip on his opposite shoulder. Kevin remained there, shaking, for he didn't know how long.

"Kevin Clemmons, aged fifteen," the voice finally whispered.

"Y-yeah!"

"You're a very tall boy, Kevin Clemmons."

"I picked mountain folk!"

"I see that, Kevin Clemmons. A large, wide body, gray skin like slate… I'm beginning to know you well, Kevin Clemmons."

He did not know what in the fuck to say to that.

"But why were you breaking my window, Kevin Clemmons."

"I… I didn't." His voice wasn't shaking anymore. He felt calm, now. Not a good calm. He remembered watching a video of an alligator eating an antelope once. It burst out of the water the antelope was drinking from, jaws grabbing it by the neck. It had struggled at first, but after some time… it seemed to relax. To become calm. It wasn't dead yet. It had accepted its fate.

He felt a weird stillness overcome him. A kind of lightness, but different from the haste. This was a lightness in his chest, and a cool temperature spread through his limbs.

He wanted to pee.

Waluigi kept on dancing.

"I didn't break your window. They did." Kevin's mouth was dry

"I couldn't find them."

"B…but did you see them?"

"Who are they, Kevin Clemmons?"

"I don't know their names."

"Are you sure?"

The cat lady stood up as straight as she could, and walked over to them. "Jesus Christ, Ms. Guo, he's only a kid."

"I don't think you have any idea what kids are capable of."

The cat lady narrowed her eyes. "Don't say that to me." Pit shovels and blood. Mages dropping fire spells like napalm from the sky. A parapet hit with siege weaponry. A sniper had been in there. When they checked the remains, some teen with a rifle. Picked a gunman class, fancied himself a sniper. They only found the top half. Anya glowered. "Don't ever say that to me."

Kevin started to shake again. His feeling was coming back.

The cat lady was looking over his shoulder at something, and he felt that something staring right back at the cat girl.

"Let him go, boss lady." The pink haired lady softened her face, and spread her arms, palms out; a gesture of harmlessness. Civility. Surrender.

Kevin saw a tattoo on her forearm. A black cobra wrapped around a sword.

Holy shit. She's one of the good guys. That tattoo had been pointed out to him before. She's one of the good guys.

Anya couldn't see Ms. Guo's eyes through the glare on her glasses. It was like two setting suns were burning where eyes should be. She didn't look away.

Guo suddenly pushed the kid away, and he fell to his knees. As that happened, Anya saw she was wearing that dark magenta cloak, and she was hurriedly snapping it shut. She couldn't see Guo's arms; only her stockinged legs were poking out. What, was she topless under there?

Guo spoke. "The guards are going to talk with this kid."

"You really gonna sic the guards on him?"

Guo shrugged. "He committed no crime. He's a witness. He'll talk to them, and that will be that."

An arm poked out of Guo's cloak. "I suggest all of you go. None of you saw anything of consequence. They shouldn't bother you. Lin De is still at the shop. He'll let you. Go get your stuff and lock up, don't talk to the green shirts. I'll… I'll deal with them. Have a good weekend."

Kevin kept staring at the cat girl as she turned and walked away with the others. Then, the woman behind him coughed, and he finally set eyes on her.

She had been standing on the lip of the fountain. That's why he thought she was taller than him.

She'd fucked with him. Bad.

Qiáng hopped down, and grabbed Kevin by his ear. "Let's go flag down a constable, shall we?"

"Ow! Okay! Okay!"

"And I want you to tell me who your three friends were." She dragged him away by the ear, which doubled him over as he walked.

===+++===

Despite this boss lady dragging him around by his ear, Kevin just kept repeating his story. To the green shirts. But, one very simple thought string burned bright in his head.

That cat lady backed me up.

I can trust her.

So, feeling confident, he stuck to his bullshit story.

Qiáng pulled him over to a green shirt, who then in turn brought them both back to the wood shop, where other greens were responding to the break-in. As they talked to the cops, Kevin saw the cat girl leave the wood shop, chatting with a few of the others. They were talking about… going to… Treehouse. It had to be the name of a bar, or restaurant, they kept talking about drinks and food. It was Friday, go to the Treehouse…

One of the cops snapped his fingers in front of Kevin's face. "You don't have time to check out girls, kid. Start again. Who were these three guys, and what did they look like?"

They weren't satisfied with his answers. They said they wanted him at the station for a while, which was awful but at least he was away from that scary boss lady.

The same thing happened at the detective's desk. The burglary detective kept putting photos in front of him, screen grabs of thieves, but Kevin didn't recognize any of them. They didn't believe him, but he was actually telling the truth there.

After hours of this, they finally let him go, tired, hungry, and scared out of his wits. What were the chances one of those cops knew those thugs? He'd told them where he was staying, and they said he couldn't leave town yet.

As he walked through the streets, looking for a map vendor, he became less scared, and more sad, even a little angry. He couldn't stay here.

Gracie was out there.

He needed to find her.

He was mechanically walking now, staring down at his feet, not paying attention to what was going on around him. What good was it that he left the home to come out here? Fuck, could the cops check and see he was a runaway? He had lied, said his aunt was coming to meet him here. How long would that last? Would he at least get one night here?

What if he got put in jail for breaking that window?

He had a funny feeling in his chest all of a sudden, and he leaned against a bench. The sun had long rolled behind the meridian, and the moon was barely peeking through the clouds. He was alone under a street lamp, a literal oil lamp swinging in the night air, putting up a pitiful fight against the darkness. He felt his pulse in his ears, in his jaw.

She was out there. And if he got stuck here, she would be all alone out there. Out there, past the borderlands, in the north.

The north.

He'd heard stories. Awful stories. It's why the SoCo army was fighting.

That pink haired girl.

He needed to find her.

He was borderline delirious. He found a map stall just about to close, but he showed his gold to the owner and managed to grab all kinds of maps. He asked the man where the Treehouse was, and began to follow the instructions given.

He couldn't stop now. He needed to find Gracie. All the other kids in the home had given him their money, caused that distraction so he could run away. They were rooting for him.

He wiped tears out of his eyes.

He needed to save his big sister.

He didn't notice someone in a cloak watching him.

===+++===

She felt like it had taken her forever to get used to eating like this. But that couldn't be right, could it? Maybe she still wasn't used to it.

The whole wood shop pretty much ran the Treehouse Friday nights. They'd break up into groups around big tables, and every worker would pitch in their share for the bill. That's when the food would come out; the staff already had it made for them. This tradition went back a ways, an automatic routine which swept up Anya right into it.

You got your own (empty) plate, but all the food was on these… well, buffet? plates? What was this? She'd already forgotten the word. She forgot it every Friday. Whatever, there was piles of food on these plates, and you grabbed what you wanted communally. This was allegedly a bit of a bastardization of a tradition, but nobody cared here. It was close enough.

It seemed weird to jostle and fight with the people next to you for food, but there was something about eating like this. She thought she knew how to use chopsticks well enough, but this was much different; you could fake it when eating your own plate, only half-assed grab your food and shove it into your mouth. Here, you needed to grab what you wanted and bring it back over to you. Yep, she had no idea what the fuck she was doing. And, of course, her stupid pig-headed ass refused to use a fork, much to the amusement of the rest of the shop. Actually, a decent amount of the workers used forks, but, nope, Anya couldn't back down from a challenge. At least they'd stopped mock cheering her any time she was mildly successful.

It all added to the jovial atmosphere. She'd never seen anything like it before. During her service, she thought she knew what joining a group was. It was only now that she understood how way wrong she was. It seemed nuts at first, especially since everyone bonded so tightly, but also weren't very direct with how they talked, or subjects discussed. But they were all still close. Somehow.

It was cool. She liked it. A lot. After the first one, she couldn't wait for the next. This was only her fifth, and she couldn't imagine not doing this. Even if the discussion tonight wasn't to her liking.

All anyone was talking about in the Treehouse was that fucking break-in. Anya moaned loudly, and asked for someone, fuckin' anyone, to change the damn subject. She was completely ignored.

The workers, after every round of drinks, seemed to "remember" more and more of the story. After about an hour, the tale being told was how all the workers chased the turban man for over a mile, just ignore the fact that the fountain (and Waluigi) were maybe two-hundred feet down the road.

The turban man could move, though. For a moment, it was said there was a trail of fire in his wake, but it eventually was brought back down to a trail of smoke in his wake. The workers had charged valiantly after him, where the boss lady was waiting, as opposed to all of them stopping for a few minutes, allowing for Ms. Guo to easily catch up to them. No! They had valiantly defended their jobs!

"Ms. Guo was pretty fuckin' scary though," Anya said.

Everyone fell silent.

After a sigh, Anya asked, "I know I'm still new, but, what is it with her?"

Nobody said anything for a while.

Then, one person said, "She hired me."

"Me too," said another.

Actually, one by one, they all admitted that Ms. Guo had gone to bat for them. Even Michael. Even fucking old Feng.

Anya looked down into her mug. "Yeah. Me too." She shook her head. "I mean… I don't have anything against her, but that 'man' was a kid."

"Oh, she just scared him a bit."

"He looked like he was about to pee," Anya said. "Like… I've seen people scared, and that kid was fuckin' scared."

"Well, serves him right!"

"Oh come on," said another worker.

A small disagreement began, with some of the workers saying that Ms. Guo had indeed terrified a young boy, and others showing no remorse for the little delinquent.

Anya started to feel bad for bringing it up. They'd all come in here so high, and now they were bickering. She looked up, and saw old man Lin De smiling at her. He then turned to everyone, and said, "Well, at least Anya didn't vomit. Unlike someone."

"Screw you, old man! I ran after the little bastard!"

"Mmmm, for a little while." They were starting to laugh now, even the infamous puker, who pointed at Lin De and said, "I sacrificed a very nice lunch for the honor of our shop!"

"Oh? And what was it?"

"It was very nice, and I don't need to have you judge it."

Someone yelled that he'd seen the puker eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, causing a lot of laughs, as well as the puker standing and pointing, "And I like peanut butter and jelly!"

Anya was snorting into her mug. "That's a goddamn kid's meal!"

"It's a goddamn good meal! And I demand vengeance! Retribution!"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

The puker shushed everyone. "What I'm saying is… I'm gonna make that little shit make me another sandwich."

Everyone broke out in noise again. "That's your retribution?!"

The puker stuck his chin up proudly. "I shall have my revenge!"

"Oh, what the fuck," Anya chuckled into her mug. She caught Lin De eyeing her again. "Thanks," she mouthed. He just nodded, and went back to his food.

Things continued on like that for another hour. One by one, they paid their bills and left, until it was just Anya alone. The cute waiter who always seemed to hover around her came by, clearing plates and glasses. "Stickin' around tonight? Usually you leave early.'

Crap, what was his name? Ken. His name was Ken. She played around with her fingers. "I dunno, Ken. Guess I'm still recuperating."

"Sounds like you had an adventure today."

She gave a sardonic chuckle. "A little, yeah. Say, Ken. Doesn't our plant manager ever come in here?"

"Describe him."

"She's a petite woman with glasses. Has a nice-looking cloak."

He shook his head. "Can't say I have. The shop's owner has come in before, bought all you guys dinner. Well, not you yet, I guess."

"No, I was here for one of those." She was looking back down at her fingers again.

Ken asked, "I'm not bothering you, am I?"

"No, I'm… I'm just a bit lost right now. Spaced out." She looked up at him. "Sorry."

He smiled. He had a nice smile. It was a smile you got to really like, especially when it was pointed at you. "It's all right. I'll let you sit. Lemme know if that guy bugs you."

"What? What guy?"

"Try not to be obvious but… past my shoulder. Behind me. Big guy in the turban."

"Oh, what the fuck…," she muttered.

"Want me to get rid of him?"

"...no. Not yet."

"Holler if you need me."

She smiled at him. "You're sweet, Ken."

He nodded, and walked away.

Oooh, trying to leave her wanting more. Did she want it? Who the fuck knew. Felt nice to be have someone be nice, though.

Kevin sat down at the table immediately.

Anya stared at him, now exasperated.

Kevin squirmed in his seat.

She took a long sip from her mug. "Waste no time, dontcha."

"I, uh, need your help." He babbled the name of the hotel he was staying at. "We can meet up there, and, um, I can fill you in more."

Anya blinked slowly at him. "You're too young to be in here."

"No I'm not!"

"Yes, you are. This is a bar."

"It's a restaurant and grill!"

"That… that doesn't exist. Bar and grills exist."

"They do exist!"

"Are you sure you're fifteen and not five?"

"The guy at the door said it was a restaurant!"

"...point him out to me."

He did.

"Fuck, that's Mao Ye. He really said that?"

Kevin shook his head enthusiastically.

Anya covered her face. "This conversation is fuckin' stupid."

"I really need your help."

"With what, kid?!"

"I need to go north." He looked away from her shocked gaze.

"What the hell do you mean, you need to go up north?!"

"I need to get there."

"Where up there?!"

"Just north!"

There was a long moment of silence.

"Kid, that's idiotic."

"I can pay."

"No, you can't."

"I can pay!"

"Not nearly enough!" She leaned over the table. "What the hell do you think this is? Who do you think you are?! Who do you think I am?!"

"...I saw your STB tattoo."

"Oh, fuck!" She flopped her head on the table.

"...that means you're a Ranger, right?"

"Kid, it don't mean shit! We're in a fuckin' video game! The actual 75th wants nothing to do with us!"

"...you're special forces. You fight the bad guys…"

"Fought, kiddo, I fought out in the borderlands. For two goddamned years I walked through the jungle, tundra, then desert. And I fought all kinds of people. Did all kinds of shit. Did what exactly?! I don't know. Some asshole with stars might know. I don't. And there won't be a ticker-tape parade for me when I get out, kid. And my tours are done. Done. I'm done. I work in a woodshop. Okay? I work in a woodshop.

"I'm not takin' a kid up through the borderlands up north of all places! They'd nail me at the border because of this goddamn tattoo! Don't you know that?"

"...they got Gracie. My sister."

She flopped back in her chair, muttering, "Oh, what the fuck," to herself.

"They took her, miss. They took her away."

"Yeah, well, one cat girl ain't gonna be able to help ya with that. What are you expectin' I do? Ask for her back? Or, you want me to be a bag woman for an exchange? You gotta be crazy to think I can do that myself."

"The news back home says the 75th can do anything."

"Oh, Jesus Christ…"

"There's even comic books. Like, kids stuff, but the recruiter that came by…"

"Stay the fuck away from recruiters, kid. Just… just stay away from those blue falcon pieces of shit."

"I need…"

"They work on commission, kid. Trust me, don't trust them."

"I need help."

Anya stared up at the ceiling.

"We can be sneaky and quiet if there's just two of us."

"And if we get into a fight?! What then?! Hell, kid, I get the feeling you're in trouble right now! You want me to fight them, those guys, for you? No. Go to the cops."

"They know cops."

Nothing from Anya.

"They got past the guards with their weapons. I met them on the road…"

"Why didn't they do anything on the road."

"I don't know! They keep saying they were protecting me, but they were just following me! I've been traveling alone, selling aloes and casting heals for extra money, and they appeared from nowhere and started following me!

"And then they got in town, dragged me to that place and tried to take my stuff!" He was really trying not to cry, now. He was a crier, though. Always was. And now, there was nobody here, neither of his parents, or Gracie, or Tim. He was all alone. "I broke the window to get away! And now the cops are saying I can't leave town, and I'm scared they're gonna send me back south!"

"...kid?"

He nodded.

"Maybe that's for the best."

"No!"

"People around here will kill you, even if they know you're a kid. Or they'll take you away someplace bad. You don't wanna try this."

"No one's gonna save Gracie! I have to do it!"

"Kid… Kevin, right? Do you even know where your sister is?"

"I'm gonna find her. You're a Ranger, one of the good guys. You can help me track her…"

"Kid, I'm not going up north. Sorry."

"Please…!"

"Listen!" She brought her first down onto the table. She felt bad as the kid winced, but she still gave it to him anyway, "Kiddo, do you know what my story is? Lemme tell ya. I'm twenty seven years old, and only a few years ago I realized why I always played as girls in video games. Shit, I don't even fucking like video games. Okay?

"I joined the military for a salary, and when it was a shit salary, I moved up to get a better one. I took whatever training was offered, volunteered for all the crazy shit no one else wanted to do, and took all the goddamn pay I could get."

She took a few deep breaths. "...Because I need to pay a guy to walk up to my six foot two dumbass sleeping in a VR pod and stick a needle in my leg, you get me?"

He didn't.

She sighed. "I figured out I wasn't a guy. Why do you think my voice is like this? Fuck, this body," and she motioned at herself, "was a mothafuckin' joke. A goddamn dare. And I half took it up because, for fuckin' once, I wanted to feel tiny and cute. Okay? Why tiny? Because my feet hang off some beds, and I feel like a fuckin' monster, and I'm too scared to put goddamned heels on. But I'm stuck with this body now, plus my other body. This body keeps gettin' fucked with, so I gotta try six times harder than anyone else. Always. And… my… other… body, it… it needs some guy who I pay to stick me in the leg. And ya know what?

"I pay him to shave my face."

She leaned back in her chair, exasperated. Looking down at her mug, "I actually pay him to shave my face, too. Because I don't want to see… that when I wake up and get outta here.

"I… I can't."

She looked up at Kevin. "I feel for ya kid, I really do, but…," she took a drink, and then motioned at the tattoo. Looking at it, "They don't give these to good people. I was desperate. Okay? I was desperate. I needed the goddamn money. When we got trapped… there was no other way to make money. I took the preem gold and converted it to crypto so I could get my… so I could stay me, okay? That's it. That's why I have this tattoo.

"I can't help you. You just need to go back to your guardian, guardians or whatever, and wait. You can't make it up there." She raised the mug, and half spoke into it. "There's nothin' up there except madness and blood."

Kevin watched her for a long minute. He then snaked his hands across the table, and held onto hers. "Please. I can pay. I'm a healer. I can find work. I'll pay for your drink…"

He bowed his head in shame when she spoke next, "Kid, this is water. Hot water, at that," she said with a grimace. "I'm on a budget, too.

"I'm sorry. Go home. Your mother and father have to be worried about you."

After a minute, Kevin let go of her, and disappeared into the crowd, looking dejected.

If that was the right thing to do, why did she feel like fuckin' shit? She sighed into her mug, before finishing it off.

Leaving the Treehouse, something blurry caught the corner of her vision, and she turned to look. But it was too late, there was nothing there now; had that been someone in a cloak? She only saw it for a second… no. No, that was crazy. Nobody could pull that off. It must have been a coat rack or something. She owned the night. Not anyone else. She walked out of the restaurant and towards her home.

===+++===

Kevin did end up crying. He didn't know how long. He just sat on his bed in the dark and cried.

When he did finally lay down, he couldn't sleep. He lay there, still clothed, feeling that awful feeling in his chest again.

He needed to get up there.

The other kids believed in him. They knew he could make it up there and get her back. It was all he talked about. He studied how to make salves, wrap wounds, cast better heals, even how to travel light. Sure, he bought that tent, but that's when he had money to burn. And it was a nice change for a while.

Back at the home, he kept following the news of the battles, of the war. He read up on as much as he could. He needed to know everything that was going on, so when he finally made the journey, he'd be extra prepared.

But that lady had shot him down.

He kept thinking about what she said, and in his mind, he told her to go fuck herself. In the morning, he would go after Gracie alone. Bermuda, he needed to get to Bermuda.

Kevinfinally fell asleep, though he didn't know how long. The sun was thinking about crawling into the sky when he woke up. There was some kind of sound.

His doorknob was rattling.

"...no…"

It started to rattle harder.

Okay, okay, fuck, what did he do? Go out the window?

No.

No, one of them would be expecting that.

He looked up at the crossbeams above him.

He could still do pullups.

He quietly got up, and put his pack near the door, to his left of it. He put his room key in his teeth, then pulled himself up to the crossbeams, suspending himself above the door. He found a place to lay his feet, that way he was horizontal, and waited.

This always worked in movies and video games, right?

The doorknob rattled louder and louder, and then there was a click.

===+++===

Anya lay in her bed, half-asleep, thinking about her little brother.

Her parents were always out working, so she was supposed to take care of him. Little Mikey. Whenever anything happened, big brother had to come to the rescue.

She remembered doing her homework one day, when out of nowhere, she heard Mikey screaming for help. She jumped up from the table and ran to the window, to see a petrified Mikey on the fire escape. He looked at her and said, "Big… wasp…"

Confused, she squeezed out the window and onto the fire escape, where Mikey yelled, "Don't make it angry!"

"Make what angry, Mikey?"

He pointed, and there, on the railing, was a light blue dragonfly.

She didn't even know how it got there, or why. Didn't they live by water? What was it doing all the way up here? She discarded these thoughts, and moved her finger towards the insect.

"Don't!" Mikey said.

She shushed him, and put her finger in front of the bug. After waiting a few seconds, it crawled onto her finger. Slowly, she lifted it to her face to get a better look.

It looked so deadly, but so frail. These little guys caught bugs and ate 'em whole, but, damn, they looked so frail. She smiled, and gently blew on the bug. It cocked its head a bit.

"It's a dragonfly," she explained. "Not a wasp. They only look scary."

"They sound scary." But he was coming closer.

"They eat flies," she said. "They don't care about people."

"...really?"

She smiled at him. "Don't be a baby. Put your hand out."

Before he could protest, she picked up his hand with her free one and held it up to the bug. After a moment, it crawled onto him.

His eyes were wide, but then he smiled. "It tickles."

"Yup." She put an arm around his shoulder.

Anya sat up in her bed suddenly. Her tiny shoulders were locked up and tense. She punched her pillow. After a moment, she hit it again. Then again.

And again and again and again. Then, she hit it with both hands. She picked it up, and started smashing it into the wall, the headboard, the bed itself. Something split in the pillow, and feathers flew into the air, falling like snowflakes.

She sat there, holding the ruined pillow in her hands.

"...Fuck."

===+++===

The door opened, and two of the thugs walked in. Kevin waited for them to reach the bed; he had stuck his pillow under the covers lamely, but it only needed to work for a second. One of them was close enough to poke the bed, going, "You gotta be shittin' me," when Kevin dropped down and grabbed his pack while rushing out the door.

He slammed the door shut. Taking the room key out of his mouth, he jammed it in the lock, and broke it off. It worked; the two thugs banged on the door, trying to get it open, but couldn't. After a second, he heard someone run across the room and open the window. "He got past us!"

Time to run. It was a one floor drop from the window, and maybe they had spells or something to make it easier. He needed to run, right now.

He had no idea where he was going to go. Maybe that industrial zone? It was Saturday; maybe he could run past the warehouses to the tree cutting area. He remembered where it was on the local map.

He almost fell down the stairs, which caught the attention of the night clerk, who screamed after him as he slammed out the doors.

The sound they made caused Anya to jump. She was just down the street, trying to figure out if she wanted to go up to the kid's room or tell the cops what he'd told her. Neither felt right. It certainly didn't look right to watch the little… well, big fucker in-game, run his ass off down the street. A few seconds later, three guys came tearing out an alley after him, one of them moving much faster than the others.

She kept her brown cloak shut, and, adjusting her pack, tried to make sure nothing rattled as she followed them. It was going to be hard; the kid looked like he activated haste on himself again.

The archer was flying after Kevin. They couldn't let the little shit get away. If he told anyone about how they got into town it could screw up so much. They hadn't even let any of their handlers know about this. They could lose their status as informants; that would fuck up everything. As long as they dropped dimes on the little Chinese rackets, they could do whatever they wanted. The cops didn't care about anyone else, and why should they? Those sneaky fucks needed to be watched.

But all that would go to shit if the kid talked. The archer pushed himself harder. Where was this kid going, anyway?

Wait, those were those warehouses again. What the hell was this kid doing?

He was starting to feel tired, and he figured it out. The kid's haste spell lasted longer than his agility buff. Hell, he could hear the other two starting to catch up. The kid wanted to make it to the treecutter's forest, didn't he? Try to lose them in the woods?

The archer would have laughed, if he wasn't pushing himself so hard. There was a lot of open range out there, and a good spot to nail this kid.

Kevin didn't notice the archer slowing down and veering off behind him. His plan relied on the fact that the archer couldn't move at that speed and shoot well simultaneously. And coming up ahead should be a dusty patch where he could really hit a good speed.

It was right up there, not far now. They were leaving the warehouses behind. If you knew what you were doing, you could weave in and out of all the private forests and dodge the gate guards. He just needed to make it through this dusty clearing. The sun was almost all the way up, but that didn't matter. He just had to make it through the clearing.

Something went wrong. Something was very wrong.

Kevin collapsed on the ground, and it was only then that he felt the pain in his leg. In a panic, he turned and grabbed at it, and started rubbing a salve on the wound before he even had a chance to really look at it. How had he even gotten the jar open?

He looked to his left, and saw that he had smashed one of his jars on a rock, and now was rubbing the salve through his pants and into the wound. He also noticed he was sitting on his ass with his bad leg splayed before him. And, only then, did he notice that there was an arrow sticking out of the ground, and not in his leg.

The arrow must have only just missed, slicing his leg. If he'd just started rubbing the salve into the arrow shaft, that would have been awful. He then pulled his hand back, now realizing he could be rubbing broken glass into his leg. He pried apart the wound with his fingers, prodding, squeezing, seeing if he could see any little shiny shards.

He had to stop himself. If he didn't, he would keep at it for hours. He needed to run. Right now.

Get up, stupid!

He checked his fingers for glass splinters. He couldn't tell. They were quaking wildly, like he was freezing cold. He stared at them, his eyes getting wide, and they started to shake even more.

He needed to run.

They weren't kidding around. They were going to kill him.

He needed to get to Gracie.

Kevin tired to stand up, but his knees buckled, and he fell right back on his ass. He wanted to throw up. He'd fucked up. He tried to be brave and he'd fucked it all up. Now he was sitting on his ass in the dirt underneath a scorching sun.

The three of them were laughing at him, maybe fifty feet away. Something about the shot missing, but the little shit fell down, so that counted. They were shoving at each other, laughing, and walking towards him. They called Kevin a few things. A gay slur was the only thing that stuck out to him.

And then the sun was gone. Confused, he looked around, and saw it was the cat lady. Even at her tiny height, with the sun at this angle, her head blocked it, the glow highlighting her hair. She looked down at him. He didn't know what the look was. He looked away.

He winced at the sound of metal scraping on something. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a sharp point. He winced and leaned away, now seeing that this girl had taken off her brown cloak… and drawn her sword. The other three began jeering, "What the fuck, lady! You tryin' to get in on our mark?" They still sounded jovial, but they had stopped moving, now thirty feet from Kevin.

The sword kept poking at Kevin, getting closer and closer. He went cross-eyed watching it, and barely flinched when it finally stabbed at him. He was too dazed.

It went at his arm, and under a strap there. The cat lady pulled her sword up, which now was holding up the strap. He looked at his arm, and saw she hadn't cut him.

She tugged on the strap with her sword, which made him lift his arm. He nearly fell on his back now that it wasn't supporting him. She continued to lift the strap with her sword until it was free from him.

His canteen was dangling from the blade. She held it up in the sunlight, watching it swing back and forth. Then, without a word, she grabbed it, unscrewed the cap, and began to drink from the canteen after sheathing her sword.

The other three were still laughing and such, but there was a different and more uncertain tone to it. They had no idea what was going on. The cat lady just kept drinking, eyes closed, seemingly oblivious to everyone else.

As she started to tilt the canteen back more and more, Kevin's head lowered. He did still fix her with a glare that managed to be rueful.

She ignored it. After a moment, she kicked her head back, draining the last few drips from the canteen. When she pulled it from her lips, she let out a satisfied sigh. After rubbing her mouth the back of her hand, she looked down at Kevin, who still fixed her with the same look. A small smirk began to play at her face.

There was something about that look. He didn't like it.

She tossed the canteen at him, where it bounced off his chest with a hollow thunk and clattered to the ground. The three thugs were laughing quite a bit at this.

She turned to look at them, the little smirk growing a bit. They were still laughing, but looked a little confused. Nobody said a word. Especially the girl.

Kevin looked up at her back. He didn't understand this person. His mind went back to their conversation in the tavern. He kept playing it over and over again in his head. What was this? Had she said something that would make sense of this? His eyebrows were screwed up in confusion. He felt like he might start crying. What was this?

And then, Anya started walking towards the thugs.

The ground was dry, so it crunched beneath her feet, little plumes of dust getting kicked up and swirling about in the wind. Her armor clanked as she took every step, everyone suddenly becoming very aware she was wearing it, as well as a shield strapped to her back. Her kit rattled, and it became the only sound any of them were aware of.

The three thugs had stopped laughing, but were still smiling, albeit, they looked just as confused as Kevin was. One of them called out to her meekly, and she ignored him. She just kept taking slow and measured steps, keeping in the balls of her feet, and looking very relaxed. No, Kevin thought to himself, she didn't look relaxed. She looked ready. Like a jungle snake draped on a tree branch. He remembered seeing a python at a zoo back on a school trip. The thing was draped on a branch, looking nonplussed, and he remembered not being impressed by it. They weren't even poisonous, those snakes. But then the guide had talked about how they will just drop on their prey, and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze. All that snake he saw draped was pure reptilian muscle, just waiting. A cobra they saw later had looked the same, curled up on the ground. It just sits there, and then…

Anya stopped walking. She was perfectly in between the wounded Kevin and the thugs. She stood still, looking calm, a hand at her hip. The three thugs looked at each other, and then back at her. She said nothing.

Kevin's eyes went wide. His breath hitched.

Gracie.

He got up, ignoring the pain in his leg, and started to half-stumble, half-run to Anya.

She didn't turn around to Kevin, but she did notice the thugs peering around her. A few seconds later Kevin was having breaths right behind her. Pretty much into her ear, actually.

She couldn't ignore this. She half turned to Kevin, a look that was boredom mixed with annoyance on her face. Kevin was gripping his staff with both his hands, the tendons on them sticking out like steel cabling. After a second, he noticed Anya was staring at him. He looked down at her, briefly confused that yes, he indeed had over a foot in height over her.

Anya's eyes narrowed, and she flicked her head towards the town. "Tsst." She now looked entirely annoyed.

Kevin nearly took a step back, but he swallowed and looked at the three thugs. He turned his gaze back towards Anya, a look of determination there. He shook his head.

Anya slowly raised her eyebrows and cocked her head.

He locked eyes with her, and once again, slowly shook his head.

Her face relaxed, and a one-sided smile showed. She huffed a quiet but amused chuckle, and her right arm moved to her hip.

The fingers wrapped around the hilt. She began to slowly pull. The sound of the sword drawing out of the scabbard was louder than any hurricane.

The three thugs weren't smiling anymore. They looked at each other, and then drew their weapons. Two short swords and an archer.

Anya's left arm went to her back, and she touched the handle on her shield. The small spell deactivated, and the shield's handle dropped into her left hand. She brought the shield in front of her, flexing her bicep as she did so. Her right arm went up over head, the sword pointed at the thugs like a scorpion's stinger. She bared her teeth as she smiled.

Kevin widened the grip on his staff, and concentrated. He picked which buffs he would cast in his mind. But could they fight three?

The three thugs began to spread out, and Anya made a stutter step forward, which made them suddenly stand still and square up. The archer didn't fire though. Thank god. But even though she kept making small fake outs, the three of them kept moving into a semicircle, the archer on their left, the tall one in the middle, and the thick one on the right.

Suddenly, the archer looked up with very surprised eyes. He shouted at the tall one, and pointed into the trees. The other thugs, and Kevin, followed his finger.

Qiáng figured the sun had caught her glasses. She was right. As she knelt on that tree branch, the sun had come through the leaves at just the right angle, making her eyes look like unfeeling glowing disks. She held no expression as she aimed her cane, the handle pressed into her shoulder like a rifle butt, right at the three thugs. Let them see her. Let them know how fucked they are.

Kevin turned back, his face jubilant. Anya hadn't turned back, but instead had angled her sword so she could see Qiáng's reflection. A good thirty feet out. Could she make shots from there? Or make it to them quick enough? Something told her the answer to both those was yes. The sinister grin never left her face.

The tall one, the leader, now looked scared. Then, he made the biggest mistake of his life.

He locked eyes with Anya.

It did something to her.

Before he realized it, the crazy bitch was sprinting at him.

She was nearly in his face when Ritchie ran over and swung down at her. Anya must have expected it, because she caught the attack with her shield, and swung at Ritchie's stomach. He leaped back, and then Benny ran at her. As he did, he wondered what the fuck had happened to Mark.

Mark had been planning on filling the cat bitch with arrows, but the woman in the trees was firing some kind of spells at him. He activated his agility buff, thinking he could dodge her until she ran out of charges, but this chick was nearly getting him. He'd never seen this before; he was only just dodging her shots. And it was making him scared. He'd heard over and over again that relying on game skills was suicide, that people could adapt; they trained themselves more than they trained their character, studied tactics, came up with their own flourishes. They weren't locked in the game's systems anymore, a mother fucker could just throw dirt in your eyes and kick you in the groin now.

But, still… holy shit, this bitch was crazy good!

Something red hot went right by his face, and he panicked. He ran towards the other two, who were trying to stab Anya. She kept swinging her sword about, and it looked random, except it kept fucking working. Her sword constantly slapped theirs away, but it wasn't deterring either Benny or Ritchie. They were getting more frantic, not knowing what to do, and it made them swing more furiously.

Anya looked like she was about to drop to one knee, so the other two intensified what they were doing. Mark drew his daggers, ready to help.

That's when Anya brought the bottom of her shield down into Ritchie's right foot. He looked up at the sky and screamed. The pain eradicated what little waking and conscious mind he had left. He didn't even know she had just shattered all the bones in his foot. His boot leaking blood, he reared up to attack, both hands holding his sword up.

Benny had been struck dumb by the horrible scream from Ritchie. He'd… he'd never heard a sound like that. Ever. Not from Ritchie. It rattled him.

So, Anya backhanded him in the face with her shield.

There was an outline in blood of Benny's face on her shield, now. Ritchie saw it when his blow bounced off it. And then, the cat bitch was back up, and he readied himself…

His arm had been up with the sword. He should have been ready to parry.

She struck at his sword arm, and the blade went in between his pinky and ring finger moving down diagonally. It scraped against the bones in his forearm, and that's when she ripped her sword out of his flesh.

His arm split vertically, a long strip of flesh separating like a V from the rest of his arm. There was a burst of arterial spray, and then blood burbling out all over the ground. Ritchie looked at his arm in horror, and belched like he was going to throw up. He ended up choking on his screams while being unable to look away from his ruined hand.

Mark sped up, yelling now as he ran, daggers out. That's when a other one of those bolts whipped past his face.

That crazy bitch would shoot at him while was this close to her friends?!

He turned his head back over his shoulder and was confused. She wasn't in the tree anymore. That had been about thirty feet away. Now, she was on the ground and looked fifteen feet away.

Qiáng was quite surprised by this as well, though only at first. When she had dropped out of the tree, being that she no longer had any good shots, a feeling of lightness had suddenly come up on her. As she ran, she noticed that she was blazing towards the fight. It was then that she noticed that kid, Kevin, pointing his staff at her.

Heh, he'd hit her with a haste spell.

Kevin himself was shocked by how fast Qiáng was moving. Her legs were literally a blur, and a massive cloud of dust was left in her wake. As she ran, she threw her arms out, which flung open her cloak. Both Kevin and Mark were captivated by what they saw.

Qiáng had some kind of vest on, covered in holsters. The inside of her cloak was lined with all kinds of holsters and straps.

They held wands. Many, many wands. It looked like she had a hundred of them.

It looked like she had a million of them.

The last thing Mark ever saw was her pointing one of the wands at him. The next thing he knew, he wanted to scream from all the burning, but he couldn't. His scalp was on fire, he could tell his scalp was on fire. But he couldn't see anything.

He fell onto his back, but there was no blood. There was only a small orb, glowing like a miniature sun, sizzling through the now concave cavity that was his face towards the back of his skull, his hair completely in flames.

Benny saw Mark fall; Ritchie was stumbling back, useless, so Benny, blinking through his own blood, turned back towards Anya. He only saw the follow through of her swing, and a few seconds later his neck started to hurt.

She hadn't completely decapitated him, but there was only so much flesh still connected to his neck. His head flopped back like the hood on a jacket, and he fell. In the same motion, Anya redirected her follow through and plunged her sword into Ritchie's heart. He hiccuped when she stabbed him, and that was it. She kicked him in the gut as she pulled out her sword, causing him to slam into the ground.

Done.

So it goes.

The adrenaline still pumped in her body, and she felt like icy water was slowly dripping down her. Her breathing was heavy, and she could hear her own pulse in her ears.

Here she was again.

Here.

She pulled a cloth from inside her armor, and wiped the blood first off her face, then her sword. Once it was clean, she sheathed it.

That's when she finally heard Kevin violently vomiting.

She spun towards him with a start, and jogged over to the kid, who was doubled over while that Qiáng woman rubbed his back, cooing something to him. It didn't sound English. Fuck it, who cares if it wasn't English, why had she noticed that anyway.

"Cops," she panted. "I know this sucks, but we gotta go before… cops show."

Qiáng looked at her. "The boy needs a moment."

"I know. We all did the first time. And none of us got it." She nodded towards the forest. "Come on kid, can you walk?"

Kevin was trying to ignore the gasping sounds coming from Benny's neckhole. All three of them had been standing there, a few minutes ago… his stomach convulsed again, but it was mostly dry heaves, save for the long dribble of clear phlegm that dangled out his mouth. Was that bile? It might be bile.

Qiáng held his shoulders gently and guided him towards the forest. Anya went through the thugs' pockets, finding a few pouches of gold, some jerky, and their canteens. She would have liked to take their boots, but there probably wasn't any time. She jogged over to Qiáng, "This way. I made a stash of stuff, but it's only for two."

"I don't have any blood on my clothes. I will head to town at dusk and make some purchases. Will you wait for me?"

"You're coming too?"

"You're not the only one with a guilty conscience." Qiáng had meant to think that, not say it. She felt Anya give her a look. "Just… just help me with the boy. He's going to go into shock."

"...yeah, okay. Follow me. I have blankets."

Qiáng didn't even ask why Anya had a stash in the forest. She might have been planning to leave… but with the boy? Whatever, don't think on it. Later. Questions later. There was no time to bury the corpses. That only left fleeing.

Later, then.

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