Part Two: From a Great Height

Izzah slammed into the rough dirt floor, sliding less than a meter before folding up against the stone wall that formed the fighting arena’s perimeter. The immensely muscled man that had knocked her there paced back and forth in the center of the circle as he awaited her return or surrender.

“Well that hurt.” Izzah noted, not particularly rushed to get up at this point. She could feel a slow trickle of blood seeping down the side of her chin and a dull pain erupting from her left shoulder.

“Third time I’ve taken you off your feet today, Izzy.” the fighter noted in a thick Geldish brogue. There was no particular malice or edge to his tone, he was merely making a professional if not sportsmanlike statement of fact.

“I didn’t bounce though.”

“Not this time.”

Izzy felt the comment was not without merit and signified so with a conciliatory nod. “Fair cop.” the raw of the crowd slowly returned to her attention as a warm tankard of beer was splashed across her thick black hair from above. Standing slowly, not out of pain nor reluctance but out of considered timing and patience, Izzy straightened her shoulders and returned to a fighting posture. “Care to try again?”

The Gelder nodded with no small degree of respect. “You can definitely take a beating, your fans don’t tell a lie.” he entered a boxer’s stance, springing with deceptive lightness from foot to foot.

With a wry smile, Izzy slowly closed the distance. She had been playing with the man for about half an hour now. Testing his limits and wearing him down, all the while studying his form and technique for gaps and weaknesses. This meant taking a few hits to the face but the crowd seemed pretty worked up now and was probably betting a fortune that she’d finally met her match. The Gelder definitely knew his stuff. Feinting to the right she quickly ducked under the guard he threw up and slammed a fist into his gut. Although it definitely connected the tensed muscle in the area suggested less of an impact than intended. Quickly dancing back out of reach to avoid the inevitable grapple attempt Izzy skidded back on her left heel, avoided the grab my mere centimeters and snapped her coiled right leg up in a kick to the jaw. Surprised by the speed and flexibility that she’d kept hidden until now the Gelder took the full force of the kick, having made no attempt to mitigate the attack. Taking advantage of the surprise, Izzy leaped off the ground and with both legs kicked into the man’s stomach as he teetered back, forcing him to snap back in on himself and drop to his knees. The crowd let out a unified cry of dismay and empathetic pain as it was plain to even the neophyte observer that it had to hurt.

Hardly one to believe the hype, Izzy had already placed a cautious distance between them. This opponent was tougher than he let on which was saying a lot considering his physique. Standing with more wobble than he may have intended, the Gelder let out a low chuckle whilst rubbing at his neck with a slight grimace. “Well there you are. Here I was thinking you’d never come out.”

“Takes me a bit to warm up.” Izzy responded in kind as she forced back the uncertainty this casual response provoked. She had definitely hit him hard and he should’ve stayed down longer than that. With alarming speed he pounced forward, dodging her hastily thrown counter-thust and appearing behind her to wrap his arms about her shoulders, clasping his hands behind her neck in a dangerous shoulder hold.

“Tap out.” he said calmly. It wasn’t a show, his breathing was slow and measured against her back, he grip unwavering and certain.

Slapping futilely against his neck and jaw, Izzy let out a mixture of gargles and grunts before words were able to be formed. “You’ve fallen into my trap though.” dizziness was beginning to set in as the blood flow to her brain began to ebb.

“Go to sleep.” the same infuriatingly calm Gelder voice whispered into her ear, somehow it was the only voice in a room of screaming gamblers she could hear, the stomping feet and slamming of fists on bannisters no longer blasting her senses. Consciousness began to slip away and she stood upon the precipice of oblivion...

...until a familiar presence stepped in to help. Boiling out of her chest and spreading throughout her limbs, her veins burning as though her blood turned to acid, an all consuming fury erupted from her palm and slammed the Gelder sideways in an oddly comedic cartwheel. To her opponent’s credit he recovered marvelously, regaining control with his hands as he flipped sideways and managed to land in a hastily configured crouch. As the fog was seared away from her mind by the unbridled power surging forth from what she had come to think of the Old Friend in her chest, Izzy clenched her fists focusing the power in a tight containment about them so as to avoid anything too obvious. The sight of the Old Friend made people nervous. She planted her feet with a downward surge of power and indicated that she was awaiting the Gelder’s next attack.

“One punch.” she growled through gritted teeth bared in a wolf-like predatory grin.

The Gelder cocked his head to one side. “Really?” eloquence was beyond Izzy however, her only response being a feral, rasping snarl as the Old Friend got impatient. Accepting the bet with what appeared to be a good natured professional curiosity the Gelder slowly circled her, studying her new stance. Izzah did not move. Izzah did not even turn her head. His desire to test what he thought a bluff eventually getting the better of him the muscled fighter danced forward in an attempt to throw her off balance as he had beforehand, throwing a punch with all his strength directly at her unprotected face. Ducking under the strike with inhuman speed Izzah slammed both fists directly in his rippling stomach, unleashing all restraint she had imposed on her Old Friend. The result was spectacular. Rocketing backwards across the entire width of the arena her opponent slammed into the wooden barrier, breaking it with the small of his back as his torso and legs folded inwards to protrude out from the newly formed crater.

The crowd fell silent as Izzy gently guided the Old Friend home, the burning sensation retreating from her body to its source before disappearing entirely. Straightening to look about the crowd, she caught the eye of the pit’s majordomo who as of two seconds ago owed her a lot of money. She pointed one unerring finger at the boggle-eyed bookie. “Big money. No whammies.”

Several hours later, having cashed out her winnings with the seven bookkeepers with whom she had bet on herself, Izzy sat in the tavern located above the arena attempting to drink away some of the stiffness that had settled into her limbs. The Old Friend was helpful but he left her body an absolute wreck after visiting. As she finished her fourth glass of whiskey whilst simultaneously ordering another two, her hand absently guarded the secluded pouch sewn into the interior of her belt that contained the night’s winnings. Pit fighting was fun enough a distraction but it was difficult to keep a low profile and win at the same time. The only things she had on her side where that everybody relevant thought her dead and that none of the same people knew she’d found them. The only thing that held her back was money but tonight had solved that problem.

Her musings were cut short by a stool being pulled up next to hers. Much to Izzy’s surprise her recent opponent settled down next to her with little more than a casual wince. “Well damn if that’s the best thrashing I’ve gotten since I was a pup.” the easy Gelder brogue rolled of his tongue without the slightest hint of animosity.

“Yes, I’d think so.” Izzy replied blandly as she finished her fifth drink, but slightly reconsidered her approach the drink burned away at the cold knot of tension in her stomach. “You fought well. Better than most.”

The Gelder laughed and placed a hand upon his chest. “Oh she deigns to compliment a lowly country boy. Please, restrain yourself, such open displays of affection are bound to make people talk.”

Izzy couldn’t help but crack a smile despite her sincere efforts to the contrary. “I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine.”

That one seemed to take him by surprise. “What secret would that be then?” he asked, raising his recently served drink to his lips.

Izzy leaned in close, tapping her shot against his glass. “You weren’t fighting half as hard as you could have and could have tried to finish that in the first ten seconds.” his eyes widened slightly as she leaned back onto her stool. “I don’t yet know why you didn’t, but I think there’s plenty of people who wouldn’t necessarily care why.”

The young man’s face wrinkled into a casual expression of anguish. “I’m still learning. There’s someone I need to prove something to and I’m not there yet.” he finished his drink and looked up at her, as even sitting she was still half a head taller than him. “I think I learned a great deal tonight.”

Izzy was not expecting a genuine conversation out what she had first concluded to be a bundle of muscle built to break people and little else. The drink had firmly settled in for the night and her more giddy tendencies had taken control over what society would deem sensible emotions and priorities. “You learned a lot from me?”

The blonde placed his elbows upon the bar and rested his head upon his interlaced hands. “I’m still figuring out how you put that much force behind an uppercut with so little warning.”

Sliding off her stool and swallowing her final shot quicker than even she was expecting, Izzy leaned in close and whispered into his ear. “Care to learn a little more?”

He sat noticeably straighter at the suggestion.[1] “I’m always looking for my next lesson.”

“Good.” she straightened her jacket and forcefully pushed him off the stool which to his credit he managed to recover from with little effort. “Your shirt stays on, absolutely no talking and I’m leaving the moment I’m done.”

Izzy decided she was not impressed by the township of Aldrin. The climate was unreasonable and prone to rash decisions, hovering between a humid swelter just hot enough to become uncomfortable and biting chill when the Everfrost whipped up a surplus of snow. The roads were poorly maintained, there was no variety of entertainment and despite her being far from a blooming rose of social etiquette and refinement Izzy found the people crude and annoying. Everyone smiled and tipped their cap, asked her how her morning was and carried on their overly chipper way without so much as a grumble. Such contentment and cheer was unwholesome.

Sipping from a flask she kept tucked under her combat jacket, Izzy took one last sour glance about the street before stepping into a cobbler’s. The merry jingle of a storeman’s bell trickled across her ears as the door closed behind her and the smell of treated leather rushed forward the greet her. It was soon followed by an immaculately dressed woman in a finely tailored suit and short strawberry-blonde hair sporting a professional welcoming smile that dropped immediately upon recognising her guest.

“Ah. You.” a prim Ossanic accent that suited Aldrin like an echidna in a shoe was anything but warm. “You’re here for agreement.”

Izzy patted at her concealed wallet. “Payment in full upon delivery in full, Cinder.” it wasn’t her name, nor was the one advertised on the shop window, but a certain level of professional courtesy was required for meetings such as these. Using the name not only showed respect but also made it abundantly clear what sort of meeting this was.

“Come out back then.” Cinder pivoted tightly on her right heel and lead the way to a secluded room to the store’s rear. Izzy had been in here before when she had first negotiated this deal, confirming her suspicions that Cinder liked to keep her professional worlds distinctly separate. Large filing cabinets occupied both sides of the narrow room with a heavy dark wood desk bisecting the space in the exact centre. Stepping around it, but not before clearly indicating with a stern glance that Izzy was to stay on the opposite side, Cinder removed a silver key from her waistcoat and knelt down to open a set of drawers. “If you wouldn’t mind placing payment on the desk in groups of one hundred.”

Izzy mumbled something about a lack of trust but complied all the same, laying down seven hundred jots in bank notes on the table. It was more money than she’d ever had at once and made up the majority of her winnings from the past eight months, the physical reluctance with she parted with it was surprising even to her. That this moment was the purpose of these funds from day one was of utter intellectual comfort but did nothing to assuage the irrational sense of safety she had felt with it in her possession. Cinder placed a file on her desk and sat upon a large leatherbound chair behind it made of similar material to the table, a pair of semi-circle spectacles now resting delicately upon her nose. Said nose wrinkled slightly as a disparaging glance was cast over the bank notes. “Couldn’t have kept them... flatter?”

“You’re free to iron them out as much as you like.” Izzy shrugged. “Stick them under a heavy boot or something, pretty sure I saw something substantial out front.”

This answer was not satisfactory. “It’s not compulsory but it is rather messy.”

Izzy lifted her jacket slightly on one side to display the hidden wallet. “I’m a lady of lesser means. If you’ve a better way to carry close to a thousand jots about without getting noticed I’ll gladly listen.”

Cinder sighed with a level of acceptance but with no lessening of disapproval. “I suppose you did manage to get together to agreed sum. This is not nothing for one of-” she paused as one eyebrow shot up slightly. “-lesser means.”

Izzy returned the jibe with a sarcastic smile. “Proper fun. You have what I need?”

The woman huffed as though the question were of the greatest impertinence. “Of course I do.” she picked up the folder and handed it to Izzy, who immediately held out a refusing hand.

“It’s got words in it doesn’t it?” she guessed.

“Yes?” Cinder was visibly perturbed by the question as she had genuinely not expected to be asked that today, or at all.

“You’ll have to give the highlights.” Izzy tapped the side of her head. “Words aren’t exactly my thing, not the written kind anyway.”

The information broker slowly placed the folder back on the desk as she adapted to the new situation. “Very well.” the folder was opened with a practiced movement so fluid that Izzy figured she spent more time handling files than making shoes. “I spoke to a few of my regulars who in turn directed me to more than a few of my irregulars. The crates you’re tracking were removed from a freight ship in Lordsfall two months ago just as you suspected.” as she settled in to providing her report, Cinder nodded to a fairly well upholstered chair that rested in the corner. Not nearly so opulent as the one occupied by the pseudo-cobbler but no wilting flower in itself. “This may take some time, you should sit.” Izzy gratefully sunk into the armchair and beckoned for Cinder to continue, who promptly cleared her throat and did so. “They were loaded onto caravan that made several stops on it way to Aldrin but none were unloaded until they stopped at the post exchange in the centre of town. From there they were claimed by a man by the name of Thrace who had them moved to a warehouse on the outskirts of town.”

“Thrace?” Izzy committed the name to memory immediately. “I have no idea who that is.”

“Yes, I noticed he did not appear on the list of suspect individuals you provided me with.” Cinder replied in a measured tone. “It took no small amount of effort to determine who Thrace is and to whom he owes allegiance.” her eyes darted up and met Izzy’s. "Are you sure you want me to continue? I only ask because the knowledge beyond this point brings you into a very different world that you’ll never be able to step back from.”

Given what was at risk Izzy failed to blink before responding. “I’m sure.”

“Very well.” came the resigned yet still non-committal response. “Thrace is what we in the trade call a fixer. Fixers have no specific role in an organisation and are dispatched to handle specialised situations, problems with a broad number of factors that require an all-purpose approach, understand?”

Izzy nodded. “Bastard of all trades.”

“Spot on.” a thin smile reached Cinder’s lips as she turned the page. “Thrace is a man with little in the way of patience and no ethical qualms about killing anyone that gets in his way. He was sent by a similarly ruthless man that I’ve not been able to identify in any meaningful way save to say his underlings call him the Raptor.”

“Scary.”

“You don’t know the half of it, I’ve connected no less than fifty-five murders in the past two months to Raptor and his subordinates. What’s worse is Thrace is the most prolific killer of the lot who has an uncanny knowledge of the arcane arts, often vaporising his victims to prevent identification and eliminate any leads.” she looked over the rim of her glasses during a pause in the reading. “You’ve picked your fight well.”

“So he like... does magic and shit?” Izzy asked as she absently picked at something stuck in her teeth.

“And shit.” Cinder confirmed. “The last gentleman to cross his path ended up well... here.” she pushed a photograph across the table that displayed a pair of Lawkeepers looking at a pile of ash near a heavily scorched wall.

“Poof.” Izzy commented.

“Poof indeed.” Cinder confirmed yet again. “If you pursue this matter further I highly recommend investing in some form of arcane defence. Or simply avoid Thrace altogether if possible.”

“Gotcha.”

“The warehouse containing the crates is under twenty-four hour heavy guard and although none of my people were able to enter said facility one particularly canny fellow did some calculations and estimates they were placed against the southern wall.” Cinder continued in a clipped and detached tone. “Now we get to something that I and none of my considerable resources were able to find out.”

“Yes?” Izzy asked, guessing by now that the inevitable question heard time and time again from information brokers for over a year had finally decided to arrive.

Cinder locked her eyes with Izzy’s in an extremely direct manner. “What is inside those crates that would prompt an otherwise uninvolved and generally unremarkable person to abandon their entire life and spend thousands obtaining information and hiring trackers to obtain them?”

“Passion project.” Izzy replied blithely. “We all have hobbies.”

“Tell me.” there was an almost hungry nature to her gaze now.

Izzy stood lazily and made for the door. “No I don’t think so. You’re the one who sells information.”

Cinder pressed half the payment she had just received onto the table. “I’ll halve my fee. What are you chasing?” her desire to know was utterly undisguised now as it slowly began to morph into aggression.

Izzy leaned on the opened door and gave the broker a crooked smile. “Trust me blue-eyes,” she said with a wicked wink. “The knowledge beyond this point brings you into a very different world that you’ll never be able to step back from.”

The process of figuring out which particular warehouse on the outskirts of town Cinder was talking about took somewhat longer than expected. Her information had indicated she should look to the north which also happened to be where the grain exchange kept its inventory, not something Izzy considered to be the coincidence. A few hours of wandering about eventually yielded results as although all the storage facilities were more or less identical to one with a passing knowledge of architecture it was very hard to miss the armed guards. People took grain seriously around here but bolt action rifles were an order of magnitude above the norm.

With a casual movement Izzy plucked a clipboard from an open and unattended travel bag. Making a show of being busy and thoroughly business like she took several turns about the structure, tisking and muttering to herself all the while to give what she assumed to be the appearance of a storage worker. The first lap pretty much confirmed what she had expected: no less than ten armed and aggressive looking individuals guarded all obvious entrances and made patrols along the length of the building. Her second turn revealed four marksmen than she could spot without blowing her cover on the second floor, semi-concealed by darkened windows and carefully placed furniture. It was strange to see so many firearms in one place on the continent, it was actually Izzy’s first time getting a close look at them. Although they were doubtlessly effective weapons there was a cultural resistance to their widespread use as many considered them ’cheating’. That these people had no qualms about their use or even publicly displaying them suggested they were either Colonials or had little to no fucks to give about social niceties. Those two were no mutually exclusive either.

Having stashed the clipboard back in its wagon of origin before the absence was noticed, a degree of luck and general smoothness in itself that Izzy rarely if ever managed, the young woman quickly left the area to reflect on her next course of action. With noon having just passed most of the town’s establishments were open for business and Izzy soon found herself sitting atop a three story tavern that by chance happened to be one of the taller buildings in town. With some clever positioning she was now able to view the warehouse district from above as she mulled over her options. Option the First: all out assault. Charge in and take down a patrol before she could be hit by the marksmen, hopefully the walls wouldn’t be too fortified and she could break through. This left her bulling face first into the utter unknown as there could be dozens more inside that she had no way of scouting beforehand. This plan also lacked an exit strategy. Option the Second: stealth. Sneak in, no trifling task considering the snipers, and verify that her quarry was stored inside. Once again this plan provided no clear means of getting her objective out of the warehouse quickly or quietly. Based on the description of the crate a Lordsfall pickpocket had managed to obtain through sheer dumb luck there was no simple way to open a steel box with silver-sealed bolts. Although she was confident that she could sneak by the defences and that her Old Friend could make short work of the crate the process was not going to be subtle from there on out. Fighting three or four guards at once would be tricky with nothing to carry and Izzy expected to have a heavy load on her shoulders. Were she honest with herself this whole thing wouldn’t quite so hard were some help at hand. Even one person could make the whole business endlessly simpler.

As she drunk herself into a pleasant stupor and retired for the evening, that simple thought began to twist and turn in the back of her mind, connecting loose threads and unrelated partially forgotten information from a varied and colourful youth. Come dawn, Izzah Al-Ahdal had a plan.

Izzy shuffled down one of Aldrin’s main streets with an imposed aura of “don’t talk to me, don’t look at me, don’t even think of me” polluting the air about her like fumes about an active volcano. People made room for her on the ample walkways, some even crossing the street to pass her on the opposite side with wary and quite often nakedly frightened expressions. Slung about her back was a rough hessian sack filled with an assortment of supplies that to the untrained eye would appear to have no common components or productive connections. This is not to say that Izzy’s eye was trained in any measurable way but she made up for it with an uncommonly creative brand of sadism. Her hungover single-track mind was focused entirely on weaving small pellets of gunpowder into a long series of fisherman’s ropes, taking each completed section and placing them in another bag at her waist. This process was barely within the limits of her mental faculties for a regular morning let alone tucked painfully between a night of heavy drinking and the opportunity to obtain more alcohol. Her Old Friend tensed and pressed against her senses, pushing for release whilst simultaneously compressing her into a strange question mark shaped posture. Altogether a regular morning for Izzah.

Her plan relied upon equal measures of luck and planning, with the hope being that an abundance of the latter would increase the odds of the former. The seemingly random paths she took about Aldrin’s streets were designed to make her appear to be nothing more than a hungover lunatic, not too much of a stretch given her actual state of mind, which successfully provided her a means of checking whether or not she was being followed. Although confident that she had not engaged in any untoward behaviour near the target warehouse the day before Izzah had learned quite early on not to underestimate this particular enemy. Although by no means lacking in terms of sheer brutality or willingness to engage in it, the true strength of this gang was found in their apparently boundless capacity to gather intelligence. Whenever she had drawn close to them in the past they had up and disappeared before she could strike – an experience shared by individuals of similar pursuits she had met along the way, one of whom was a Lawkeeper that talked in her sleep. Izzah allowed a gratuitous smile to spread across her dark lips as she remembered that particular week. Never in her life would she have thought a week in bed would have provided more information than a month on the road.

So deep was her shameless reverie that she walked head first into a man stepping out from a corner store. With no warning or anything resembling her wits about her Izzy managed to bear both of them to the ground in an uncoordinated mess of limbs and vile language. “The fuck is wrong with you!?” she snarled, kicking the man away as she hurriedly began shoving her creations back into the bag from whence they came.

The man groaned slightly and rubbed at his head with had born the brunt of his fall. “The list grows every day.” he mumbled as he ran a hand through his uneven brown hair.

“Well fuck off before I add a broken arm to to it.” the words were very nearly spat out and she unsteadily regained her footing and took a quick inventory of her being.

Her stranger also got back to his feet by sliding up the lamp post he had very nearly missed in the fall by pressing back with his legs, apparently quite eager to avoid bending his back in any way. She noticed a long and at first glance plain blade strapped to his back that became more compelling the longer she looked at it. While Izzy would eventually dismiss this feeling as a side effect of her hangover it at the time put her in an uneven state of mind, disturbing her more than she was ready for so early in the day. The stranger laughed dryly and clapped his hands over his knees and thighs in a fairly pointless attempt to clear the accumulated dust. In an altogether unexpected turn his tone and manner changed in a manner so arbitrary it struck Izzy that he was altogether disregarding all previous interaction and starting a new one. “You know where I could buy a pair of shoes around here?”

“Sure there’s a... what?” Izzy stopped herself mid-sentence, her arm pointing to Cinder’s shop dropping back to her side as the sudden right turn their conversation had taken caught up with her mouth.

The stranger followed her arm to the green-doored cobbler’s across the the street. “I find that when I just stop real quick like that people tend to just run on by.” he smiled a toothy grin back at her. “Pleasure to meet you Miss...?”

“Fuck yourself.” Izzy spat the words, and definitely some spit, with all the venom of a pit viper and knocked the overly happy man back into the first as she continued on her way.

“Good day, Madam Fuck Yourself.” he waved lazily from a place on contentment in the dirt.

When looking back on the raid Izzy would come to the conclusion that her plan and execution were not to blame. Every now and then there are circumstances beyond one’s control which will invariably shit upon you from a great height with little to no warning and when that happens the best you can do is close your mouth and hope none goes up your nose. On that particular night it went up her everything.

Continued surveillance of the area had revealed that while none of the nearby warehouses were abandoned there was one that nobody entered after sundown. Loitering with a mostly faked drunkenness until nightfall Izzy discreetly broke into the back door and arranged her creations along the window sills facing her target. Measuring out what she estimated to be ten minutes worth of fuse, which coincidentally was long enough to reach her planned exit, Izzy took a deep breath and checked the sky above her from great-height-upon-shitting-forces-of-destiny. Although unsure as to what they would look like she felt they would stand out against the mundane night sky that presented. In a profound display of bad judgement she took that to mean all was well and lit the fuse, the burning end snaking an inky smokey path back up the stairs she had come from.

Utilising the determined blind spot in the patrols Izzy skirted the perimeter of the warehouse and ensconced herself in a barely wide enough alley that gave her a direct path into one of the large curtained windows. She knelt, braced herself and slowly coiled into a ball of angry tension just waiting to explode the moment her surprise in the second floor did. She began, as quietly as she could, to breath heavier and raise her heart rate as she told herself over and over that the Old Friend could get her out of whatever awaited her inside as He always had. It was not the first time she had lied to herself, it was not the first time she had been wrong.

Although it was only a matter of fifteen seconds to Izzy it might as well have been an hour. She began to tense and fret at the idea that her fuse had been discovered and would soon be set upon from all sides. So focused was she on the myriad calamities that could befall her plan she was almost surprised when things started to go as expected. A sharp, rapid succession of cracks and pops synonymous with gunfire shattered the stillness of the night along with the second floor warehouse window. Men began shouting at the front of the target building, shadows could be seen dashing along the second floor and diving behind cover near her distraction. She counted five men sprinting passed to aid in the defence against her imaginary army, waited for a five count, then sprinted for the curtained window ahead the moment the second wave of fake gunshots began. Her skin pulsed and pounded around her as though it were suddenly too tight. Muscles strained and swelled as though they were constantly lifting an enormous weight. Her eyes burned. She tasted steel.

She also tasted blood a second later when she slammed through a plate glass window and has a slither of the shattered remains slice open her lower lip. The thick wool curtain behind the glass wrapped about her as the momentum carried her forward, slamming into something large, solid and judging from the sound, wooden. With her senses at the amplified level she’d worked herself into, Izzy found herself interpreting the situation as a threat and began to thrash about in a more panicked manner than she was willing to admit to. Ripping the curtain in two with an enraged snarl, Izzy quickly took in her surroundings. The warehouse was stacked to capacity with crates of varying size and length, small pathways left open by design with barely enough room for people let alone the contents to be moved. Sucking on the wound on her lower lip to prevent the flow of blood down her jaw and neck, Izzy began cautiously making her way towards what she determined to be the back of the warehouse. Information gathered along the road suggested that this group liked to keep high priority cargo the like of which she was hunting separated from other concerns, which made it unlikely that it would be anywhere in the maze she found herself in.

The muffled sounds of feigned combat still filled the air although the shouting was becoming less urgent, suggesting that the guards were starting to question how their attackers had failed to inflict any injuries. By her count there were not many shots left in her distraction let alone any credibility whatsoever and company would no doubt be arriving soon afterwards. Hastening her search through the maze of crates, Izzy soon realised that they were organised not by size or contents but instead by destination. Given the importance of the cargo she had little doubt that she was looking for a very particular destination, a place known only referred to by gang members and official documents as “Gorgon”. Illiteracy aside, Izzy had a good head for patterns and had persuaded a few choice people along the way to teach her the necessary place names that seemed to keep cropping up. Matching the images in her head she found a few that were headed for Kaland, more than a few for the Ossanic faction and no mention whatsoever of the Colonies.

To the front of the warehouse she heard alarmed voices as her deception was revealed. Doors could be heard slamming shut as the building was locked down as heavy footsteps on the ceiling indicated the second level sentries were taking steps to prevent any escape on their floor. Given that time had now run out and she should have been out of the building by now, Izzy broke into a full sprint in the hope that her quarry would be conspicuous in its solitude. A hope that paid off moments later when the crate maze suddenly halted and she found herself in the back quarter of the warehouse, an area completely devoid of anything bar a single, large crate at the extreme end of the room. Quickly glancing about for fear that someone had beat her here, Izzy blasted across the open space to skip to an unsteady stop at her target. Much to her surprise the crate was cold to the touch, even frosting slightly as her breath cast about the steel fittings and iron plates. Small intricate patterns had been carved into the panels that couldn’t make less sense to Izzy as they resembled none of the words she knew, but somewhere deep in her mind she got the feeling they weren’t words of any kind. Their positioning was odd and they seemed almost to hum when she ran her fingers over them.

Snapping her attention back the moment as the sound of crunching glass informed her that the guards had found her entry point. Quickly circling the container she was frustrated to find no obvious means of access. There were no hinges, no levers, no locks. So far as she could tell the entire thing was essentially one singular piece of metal bet into shape. Given that the extent of her investigative approach had been exhausted, Izzy fell back on her vast knowledge of physical problem solving. She hit it, very hard and multiple times. The expected hollow drum-like sound failed to present instead replaced with a dull thud that sounded closer to hitting solid rock than a box. She doubted it could be heard even a meter away so quiet was the sound. She attempted to push the box over but to no effect as the box did not show even the slightest indications that her efforts were producing results. She fumed, running a hand through her hair as the hot flush of frustration and failure met the tense knot of fear twisting and growing in her chest. An immediate sweat and formed across her exposed skin and she felt tears in her eyes. She was so close! It was right here, why couldn’t she open it? Why was everything so fucking hard!?

The voices were getting closer now as more footsteps pounded along the ceiling. She had to make a choice right now between two very undesirable options. The first choice was to attempt to flee before she was seen and try again later, something that would benefit from what she had learned but doubtlessly suffer from enhanced security measures. The second was to try and kill everybody. She did not like her odds on either, and despite how good the latter might feel and opted to flee. Darting back across the open space to the relative safety of the crate maze, she scrambled atop a large cluster tall rectangular boxes in the hope that she could simultaneously gain a vantage point on her incoming assailants and escape detection from anybody that may have already gotten too close. Laying flat against the uneven surface beneath her stomach she managed to get a bead on what she thought was around fourteen figures darting through the narrow pathways. Every now and then one would remain in place at what Izzy figured were predetermined choke points based on how practised the movements appeared. Despite the alarming tones and orders being shouted as maximum volume it was clear that none of these men were panicking. They were as disgustingly professional and disciplined as she had come to expect.

Wriggling along the crates as quietly as she could manage, but given the din being generated by her pursuers she doubted sound would be the thing to giver her away, Izzy gently lowered herself into a corridor already checked by a guard that had thundered past not even a second ago. The best option was the window she had come through, a determination inspired by the fact that no exit was going to be easy and she may as well head in a direction she was familiar with. There was also the added benefit of almost immediate cover afforded by the alley she had hidden in prior to launching the attack. Making her way back with as much confidence as her distracted memory afforded, Izzy peaked around a corner to see a sentry placed ahead of her. She could see behind him was the familiar path that lead to her planned exit window but had to quickly pull back behind cover as he turned and began walking in her direction. A few tense moments passed before she figured he hadn’t seen her what with the pace he moved at betraying no alarm beyond the baseline tension that filled the room. As he drew close still Izzy cast a quick glance about her and found a small gap barely large enough to accommodate her and slid between two crates just as the guard turned to look at the space she had just occupied. He sighed with a practiced boredom and began walking back the way he came, giving Izzy all the opportunity she needed. Sliding out of her concealment she moved with deathly silence and speed, quickly closing the distance between herself and her unwitting target. Looming up behind him she quickly gripped his jaw with one hand, his forehead with another and carried out a practised execution. She felt his neck snap with a violent and yet satisfactory jerk, but not before his already tensed muscles could trigger the firearm in his hands. The shot blasted through the nearby wall, shattering the immediate silence in her location. The shouting suddenly shifted in intensity and she heard somebody giving orders to converge on the shot. Kicking the dead guard and cursing his trigger discipline, Izzy figured stealth was pretty much as dead as her friend on the ground which reduced the contents of her options box significantly. Rummaging around in the back of her mind she nothing beyond a mad dash towards the window directly through anybody that got in her way, something that in her adrenaline soaked state she took no issue with.

The first few meters were fine, nobody jumped out and cut her head off which was one of Izzy’s primary yardsticks for a good day. She could see the crumpled glass filled curtain she had ripped in half minutes earlier. Still good. Then somebody jumped out and tried to cut her head off. Dropping to her knees at the last possible second, the blade passed just close enough to nip the edge off her nose and spit a spray of blood across her forehead. Pivoting on her left leg and leaping into a spin to convert her forward momentum into a punch aimed directly at the assailant, Izzy was intending to simply disorient or hopefully knock him unconscious. That was the until the bullet fired by another guard that had stepped out behind her pierced her body just above the hip. Pain blasted her senses. Time slowed. Fire burned throughout her veins. The Old Friend returned.

Her target’s head exploded upon impact, a mix of bone and brain spraying against the wall as though flung from some nightmarish pocket of hell. Landing on her feet, her senses pounded with overwhelming input, pulsing through nerve and muscle with such intensity that the distinction between pain and pleasure blurred into nothingness. All sense of the situation dissolved as her entire universe condensed to each moment in isolation, each moment that lead her directly towards the source of her torment. Launching back the way she came with unnatural speed, Izzah didn’t realise she was laughing maniacally as her opponent fired another hastily aimed shot that reflected harmlessly off her forehead, pushed back by the unbridled power of the Old Friend bursting out of her skin.

She watched her leg slash out and snap his knee clean from the side, the scream of pain failing to escape his throat as her open palm crushed his chest inwards and folded him into a crumpled mass on the darkened floor. A stifled whimper less than two meters away betrayed the men hiding in the next corridor over, they had either witnessed or pieced together the fate of their comrades and were having second thoughts about charging in to tackle her head on. A whisper, a recommendation to wait for reinforcements, a young panicked voice agrees with relief. Izzah had little time for caution or pity. Leaping into the air and kicking out with both legs, her target crate had the desired effect of slamming sharply into the next wall, crushing one of the hiding guards with a satisfy crunch of bone and splatter of blood. Scything through the tailwind left by crate, Izzah suddenly appeared behind the terrified guard who was still taking in what was left of his companion only to have his chest burst outward as Izzah’s fist drove through it from behind without even the slightest hint of resistance. As the blood showered over her she felt her rage grow, the pounding in her head grew louder still, the unstoppable ecstasy threatened to overwhelm her into inaction... through the haze, she remembered the ice cold container that she had come for. Izzy remembered, pushed, persuaded. Izzah shook her head slightly and without knowing why, turned to rocket back towards the rear end of the warehouse. No caution or consideration was given to ease of movement her path was a direct one. Wood chips and whatever the crates contained erupted in a sea of debris and shattered materials as the unstoppable force of the Old Friend would not be denied.

Back in open ground - target in sight. Muscles tensed and speed increased as Izzah intended to form tackle the crate clean through the wall. Everything after that would be a bonus. Twenty meters, voice shouted behind her. Fifteen meters, another bullet snapped passed her ear but failed to connect. Ten meters, she felt the hairs on her neck and arms behind to stand on end. Five meters, brace for impact.

Izzah found the next few seconds very confusing. Rather than taking the crate forward she found herself soaring casually backwards with all the self-determination of leaf in the wind. Skidding back through some of the mayhem she had already caused, there was just enough blinding rage left in her system to insist on a second try before self-preservation could remind anyone of just how horridly fucked the entire situation was. Half-way through her second attempt a white pain shattered the all consuming focus the Old Friend’s presence lended her. Dropping to all fours it became clear something bad had hit her from behind, smoke was curling out beneath her sleeves and she could smell burning hair and flesh. It wasn’t a bullet. It wasn’t a sword or a club. Forcing herself back up with an inhuman roar Izzah tried to press forward once more, this time with no intention of moving the infuriating object of her obsession but instead to head straight through the wall and make something close to an escape. A second wave of pain arced through her body, this time she electricity arcing off her fingers as the Old Friend suddenly vanished, the world spun as a third strike picked her up and slammed her back first against the iron box. Walking casually towards her was an exceptionally muscled individual covered in strange tattoos, a constant stream of lightning emitting from his open palm. Izzy screamed her throat hoarse, tears poured down her cheeks as death became all but a certainty.

It stopped as quickly as it had came, a second man that Izzy would probably have considered exceptionally attractive in a different circumstance, laid a calm hand on the tattooed one’s shoulder. “That will be all, Thrace.” he said in a deep, theatrical voice. “We’ve already got a mess on our hands no need to make more.”

“We should end her.” Thrace’s voice was thin, almost metallic.

“You should do as you’re told.” the man spoke in a tone no less casual or even than before, but an undeniable threat lingered beneath it.

Thrace lowered his head submissively. “Of course, I’m sorry Ja-”

The taller man slapped Thrace forcefully with the back of his hand. “Remember yourself! Never speak that name!”

“Yes sir!”

“Have her tended to. I don’t want her strong, just alive.” Jack Savage leaned down over Izzy’s smoking, twitching body, his face no more than a centimeter from hers. “The strength will come later. Once she is controlled.” Izzy could lose a fight, she could lose a limb, she could even die and feel no regret. What she could not abide was the failure. Unable to fall into unconsciousness for the pain that gripped her every move, she sobbed uncontrollably.

She had failed her brother.

[1] Mind out of the gutter.

Next Chapter: Part One: Promises