Hers was the only voice that dared speak in the dead night, as though disturbing the peace was her duty.

“Hello? Is this thing on? I worked really hard to get those encryption keys, so I’d appreciate a sign of life or two.”

Bold words from somebody who just left six corpses in their wake.

I backed up further in the mechanical drone body, attempting to discern the location of the person attacking us.

—Nothing.

There wasn’t a single creature with Ether in the five city blocks around us. I swapped to my normal senses and kept looking, hoping to find them before they got tired of talking to us.

“You have two,” Tapio said. “Go on.”

He braced against his cane and gave a slight nod to Owl, who immediately ducked behind a marble pillar and readied with her rifle. As for me, I stood by the old bastard’s leg and maintained my shields.

I don’t know why he left himself so open; it wasn’t exactly a diplomatically impressive move. If it were me attacking, I’d take the opportunity to crush his head like a can..

“Good. Good! I was worried you were the unreasonable types that would spout off an entire monologue when prompted, but we may be able to have a proper dialogue. A conversation. Back and forth, like ping-pong. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Against my expectations, the woman behind the white screens seemed to appreciate the gesture.

“Oh — about the people around you, don’t worry. They’ll be out of commission for the night, but the most they’ll deal with tomorrow is some memory loss and one hell of a hangover.”

“How gracious,” Tapio commented. “It seems like you have even kinder plans for us.”

“That depends entirely on how reasonable you are.”

As per her explanation, the coordination operators on the ground weren’t corpses yet. The Ether rose stifled their blood flow, leaving them with just enough blood and air to stay alive.

“I despise fighting,” the woman continued. “That’s why I manage information. Because I manage information, it’s my problem that you and your compatriots saw something you shouldn’t have. And that’s not even counting the bodies, but don’t worry about that either. Most of those guys were delusional assholes. Irredeemably, really.”

Did the woman mean the scene Jaxl and I stumbled upon a few days ago? No wonder Owl was so twitchy when we first met her — she must have been fighting nonstop since.

“Whitelight. Ring a bell? You lot don’t seem the sort that’ll give up if I ask nicely, so we have three solutions: allow me to pluck through your memories and scatter what I don’t like, or you come with me back to HQ and some less-than-nice people can decide what to do with you.”

“And the third option?”

“...I’d rather not resort to it.”

That was the end of their conversation.

The winds picked up outside, blowing fresh droves of snow into the lobby. Tapio’s grip on his cane tightened.

Nobody had any intention of backing down. The notion of a false surrender came over the old man’s face, but he kept his gaze on the front entrance.

“Coffee,” he said. “How do you take it?”

“My brew?” The woman’s tone smiled faintly. “Pour-over, personally ground and roasted beans. Outsource my mix from the North Republics, but it’s hard to get ‘em this time of year. Robinsan Instant ain’t half bad for the winters.”

“I prefer to press myself, coarse filter. The additional grain is extra texture and flavour — helps you savour your current cup more.”

“A slow burn, eh? I’ll have to give it a try when I get back.” She paused. “If I get back.”

The situation was developing in the exact opposite of a peaceful resolution. Me and Owl waited for the worst-case scenario, pointing our weapons into the snowstorm outside.

“You're a decent lass with a sense of taste,” Tapio said, bitterness clear in his voice. “I can’t imagine why you’d be working for the Rings.”

When he said that, it became clear to me that he never intended to stand down.

There was a long silence from the other end of the line. The computer screens flickered, as if blinking for the woman. “So you knew. That complicates things a little. You’re one of the splinter groups from the White Wings, huh? Can’t say I’m surprised.”

Out in the snow, a phone dropped to the ground. Owl took a token shot at the emerging figure, but her bullet glanced off a translucent red shield.

The woman approaching us held a black thermos and wore a thick white coat speckled with blood. Claws of liquid red sat on her shoulders, two dripping streams that formed a mass of writhing crimson feathers behind her.

“As for your question,” the woman said, stopping just short of the entrance, “I’ve got a debt to repay. If it matters at all, I don’t hold anything against you.”

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Tapio straightened his shoulders. “Nothing else remains to be said, then.”

The woman took a small sip from her thermos, then placed it in the snow by the doorway.

“Nothing else.”

I stared at the unfolding situation, completely baffled by how the negotiations turned out. With only a few words exchanged, all three individuals were ready to fight to the death. To kill and be killed for ideals and conflicts far beyond them.

I only had a mere inkling of the scenario. I didn’t really comprehend the stakes or rewards at hand, other than the vague idea that some group was planning on doing something nefarious — but perhaps that was exactly what was needed to see the absurdity before me.

These were living, breathing people ready to slaughter each other on a whim. If they met in any other scenario, they could’ve easily become friends.

How did things come to this?

Was the world always like this?

They moved. All at once, they closed the distance and played their hands.

Lances of blood tested their defenses, faster than I could reply to. There were so many — I kept up my blessings and shields, hoping they would hold up in this sudden dance and push Owl and Tapio to victory.

A cane that opened black portals. A shroud of mist that teleported between shots. The woman parried some of their strikes with claw-covered hands and deflected the rest with her barrier.

Wielding his cane like a lance, Tapio charged straight at her. He caught her out of position. The cane went into her barrier and caused it to violently shatter.

The price of this strike was three blood spears through the heart, lungs, and neck.

My wind song couldn’t protect him.

Owl’s eyes hardened. She teleported directly over the woman, aiming her rifle downwards. The remaining red lances pierced through the cloak and broke through the mist concealing her.

—She wasn’t there.

The woman realized the feint too late. Owl closed in from behind with a silver knife aimed at her neck; Owl sacrificed the gun, cloak, and even Tapio to take down an overwhelming enemy, somebody who could massacre an entire company of Hunters without any real effort.

The knife bit flesh. At the same time, a swipe tore through my shield of wind and opened Owl’s chest.

Torn bits of organs and stringy pieces of flesh that weren’t fully severed flew through the air.

Confetti for a late night festival.

The woman was still standing. She blocked the knife by twisting at the last second and sacrificing her left arm. Fragments of broken bone and pink meat stuck out from the serrated blade like a grotesque flower, ending in a trickle of blood leaking from the pale skin of her neck.

In that crimson rain, my mind went completely blank.

The woman stepped away from the corpses and finally responded to the buzzing noise in her ear.

“Targets eliminated,” she said, grunting through the stinging pain in her arm. “I’m hit. Bad.”

They nearly got her. She heard of Sects and Academies that would train its disciples to launch suicide attacks to bring down a great enemy, but this was something else. These were trained fighters with established styles and weapons relying on such tactics; something practically unheard of in an era in which one’s own life was more important than anything else.

That old man and young girl were desperate, she reasoned. The old man gave up his life to allow the girl to deliver a finishing blow and escape alive. The girl gave up her own life for a move that could’ve only ended in a mutual kill or a single debilitating wound in the worst.

Seriously, the worst of the worst. Where has all the sense in the world gone?

“They knew about us,” chided her partner through her ear-piece. “This hunch was worth it. I’ll get the paramedic team ready — get back here before you bleed out.”

“Wait,” she said. “Job’s not done.”

She didn’t get this far by not being observant. There was one more active factor, a quadruped drone capable of utilizing either Arts or Sorceries — she couldn’t tell at the moment.

It cowered by the bodies of its masters, looking like a kicked dog that was unsure whether it should be frightened or foaming at the mouth.

In the fresh quiet of the night, she heard it speaking words draped in static.

Hurt. SparE. DON’T. Peace. Why? FrieREFSnd. AWEI-PlEASE. merCY—

The words devolved into random scratches and beeps, the sound of a processor breaking down.

This was the first time she heard a machine cry. She didn’t even think that was possible; artificial intelligence only existed in science fiction and movies. There were sentient artificial beings like Golems and Elementals, but this was a drone speaking. No magic involved, supposedly. She peered closer.

Aha.

There was a potent core inside of the tiny drone, maybe a Relic of some kind. She could sense it. Destroying it would take a powerful strike that would probably exacerbate her own condition, but she could definitely take it out.

But it was begging for its life. And now that she was focusing on the flow of Qi and Solar Ether, it seemed to be begging for its comrades' lives as well.

She found it strange how her initial target was in perfect health after she tracked them down through the Blood Corrosion trap. If there was a potent Relic in the mix, that would explain everything — especially how the drone was magically sustaining both individual’s brains in lieu of their destroyed organs.

It would be troublesome if she let this go now. These people wouldn’t give up — she saw the resolve in their eyes. The resolve in their actions. But they’d be out of commission for a while; her blood claws tore up their Meridians in a way that couldn’t be easily fixed. She didn’t envy the doctor or spiritualist that had to patch those holes back up.

It would be so easy.

“—Dhampir, come in. What’s going on?”

But the ones who came before her never took the easy road. Neither would she.

Though she was quite slothful compared to her peers, she kept the ideals of the Nameless Saint close to her heart. Why else did she abandon the bloody path of a Relic Hunter?

Life was sacred. That’s why everyone was working so hard to save it — to minimize the casualties of chasing a thousand year mission.

“Nothing. I’m closing the comms — doing some quick cleanup before I get back.”

These two would be out of the way for the rest of the campaign. Maybe after all was said and done, they could clear up the misunderstandings and share a nice cup of bold coffee.

“You aren’t one to jump at shadows.”

Immediately, her partner grew suspicious. What a pain in the ass.

“You try thinking straight with a knife in your arm. Five minutes, I’ll be right over.”

She cut the line with a gesture and turned back to the last survivor.

The drone was silent and still. It probably wasn’t a good idea to overstay her welcome, so she took a moment to suppress the pain and steady her voice.

“My name is Cassandra. For the sake of everybody around you, don’t get involved. It’s not worth it.”

Cassandra turned and walked towards the entrance, clutching her arm. She hadn’t been hurt this bad in a long time — it was a refreshing experience, in the same way spending a night in a blizzard reminds you how good the fireplace is. Not the most pleasant, but it was a good reminder of how careless she was as of late.

Better an injury than her life.

A few steps into her retreat, she felt a sudden urge to say one more thing. It seemed like a perfect time to pass on a life lesson she learned from her teacher; hopefully that drone would thank her later for it. If they ever met again, that was.

“Think of me as a demon, if you want something to hate. Somebody who’s broken free of the rules of this world. Try to catch up — if you can’t slay me, then you won’t have a chance against anything else ahead.”

Not verbatim, but close enough.

Picking up her thermos and wishing she’d brought painkillers instead of coffee, she walked the loneliest road into the winter night with a little extra spring in her step.