Chapter 1: Prologue – The Fugitive

Never – not once in its 200 year long history – had an Association office been attacked. Naturally, then, it was something of a surprise when the five guards at its front gate hit the concrete, unconscious, without the slightest hint of sound.

They fell simultaneously. None of them had the time to register their descent, let alone respond to it in any audible fashion. This quite rudely prevented anyone from announcing the arrival of their grey-cloaked guest.

Of course, given that the guest in question was Terminal’s most wanted criminal, it was no wonder that she wanted to keep them quiet.

A radiant white glow wisped out from underneath the fugitive’s cloak as she quickly checked the prone figures. None of them would be waking up anytime soon, and given the lumps that were already forming on their heads, they would be nursing some fairly debilitating headaches when they did. The figure breathed a silent sigh of relief, followed by rather petulant pout. I know the gap between A Ranks and S Ranks is pretty large, she thought, but that was just pathetic.

The assailant took a deep breath and looked up. Before her was a pristine, white-tiled building, now freshly unguarded. At three stories tall, the spotless and heavily windowed exterior made it seem like a cross between an office building and a hospital – which it was, among other things.

Despite her dissatisfaction with the relative weakness of its defenders, the cloaked woman knew that there was only one other way that she’d have been able to enter this facility without an alarm being raised immediately. Between those two options, though, she always picked the nonlethal one when possible.

Luckily, this method precluded such an outcome. Unluckily, unless she wanted to waste time knocking out everyone in the building, somebody would eventually relay her arrival. Now that I think about it, though…

She paused and brought her glowing right fist up to her shadowed face. Translucent trails of light faded into the air as she debated herself above the pile of bodies she’d created. That’s definitely doable, she reasoned, before looking up at the entrance to the complex she was… “visiting.”  Even compared to some of the other complexes she’d “visited”, this one had a significant amount of security. And that didn’t even account for any Heroes that might be training or handling administrative work. Even if they ended up being as easy to handle as the five presently strewn around her, sheer numbers combined with a lack of the element of surprise could present a challenge. Or, at least, delay her for long enough that she wouldn’t be able to accomplish her objective.

As she stood there, reasoning with herself, the light faded from her hand. The silence faded away with it. The muffled breathing from the pile, the shifting of her cloak, the gentle breeze whistling past her covered ears – all of them rushed back with startling abruptness. She held her unlit hand in front of her, flipped it back and forth in astonishment, then threw her head back and groaned. “Already!? Ugh… Alright, knocking everyone out might take too long, after all” she decided. Satisfied with that decision, she straightened her hood and stepped over the bodies before pushing open the glass double-doors that led into the building. In an instant, she was bolting down the white marble hallway before her. It was imperative that she make as much headway as possible before the remaining guards noticed her presence.

Her progress was somewhat impeded by virtue of her not knowing the precise location of her target. Thankfully, the building was both fairly large and fairly empty, making it easy to glance at the signs and into the open rooms as she skidded through its wide hallways.

“Records Room… Printing Room… Cafeteria… Conference Rooms… Come ON!”

To her growing frustration, none of the rooms were the one that she was looking for. Her only solace was the fact that there weren’t many employees to push through, and none of them seemed to be questioning the cloaked figure sprinting through the building at top speed. They probably just assumed that she was a Hero who had forgotten a report or had been called in for an emergency assignment.

To be fair, she thought, they wouldn’t be too far off the mark.

By all accounts, it seemed that the few regular employees that were stuck doing work on the weekend weren’t going to pay her too much mind.

The guards, however, were a different matter.

As she turned to head down a staircase, the irritatingly familiar sound of alarms began to blare throughout the complex. A cavalcade of footsteps quickly followed. Either she’d been spotted and reported… or someone had discovered the bodies at the entrance. She chided herself for forgetting to hide the bodies. Again.

Infiltration had, admittedly, never been her strong suit.

“Not as far in as I’d like to be,” she huffed. For a moment, the cloaked figure wished that she could just fight everyone off. That was definitely her strong suit. Still, she knew that she had made the right call. There just wasn’t enough time for her to fight through everyone and still get to the Chamber in time – but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t fight through some of them.

Cracking her knuckles, she silently apologized to the approaching security forces for how rough things were going get for them.

…

Tessa Trilvaine, the Head of Security, was seething. Today was supposed to be her day off. But when her second-in-command was found unconscious in front of the main entrance amidst four other guards from his unit, the rest of the security team needed her to take command.

Command came easily to Tessa; in fact, she was quite built for it. Her sturdy six-foot frame towered well over half of the security forces, and her deep, resonant voice seemed to add another two feet on top of that. Straight, platinum-blonde hair swept through the air like a lance with every turn and every order before coming to rest on her naturally pale skin. Each command was given with a sharp gesture from long arms that gently rippled with honed muscle. To the onlooked, she was the optimal blend of alluring elegance and focused intensity.

Normally, Tessa exuded a calm ferocity. Right now, though, her orders were doused in fury. Which was good, because it meant that nobody was making any suicidal comments concerning her lack of uniform. Rather than the standard white military outfit with blue trim, Tessa was equipped with a purple t-shirt that was clearly a size too large, a pair of baggy gray sweatpants, and black combat boots. It was by no means professional, but it didn’t matter – that booming voice and aura of intimidation were the only uniform she needed.

She met up with one of the five security teams that guarded the complex to confirm the situation. According to the head of that team, an intruder in a grey cloak had been spotted tearing their way across the building. Brief testimonies from the few employees that were in the building made it clear that they seemed to be searching for something. And yet, despite the intruder’s haste, the downed guards hadn’t been dealt any permanently debilitating or fatal injuries.

Tessa’s knew that her second-in-command, Zwei Fletchr, was no pushover. Like her, he was an A-Rank – a classification given only to those who had proven themselves to be in the upper tiers of combat prowess in Terminal. He had only recently been promoted to that rank, but it hardly mattered; whoever this intruder was, they must have been either incredibly strong or incredibly underhanded to get through him so easily while avoiding fatal blows. Why did the intruder choose to avoid lethality despite having such a clear advantage? Tessa had no idea, and was frankly unconcerned. Regardless of their intentions, the only two things that mattered were that they had broken some serious laws and that she couldn’t take them lightly.

She held her right hand up to her mouth. A glowing blue circle traced itself into her palm, into which she spoke, “Attention! An intruder has been detected in the building! Suspect is highly dangerous! Engage safety protocols! A lockdown will be initiated shortly!”

Her voice carried clear as day across the complex. The few employees who were walking around, filling out forms, or logging data on computers quickly ducked into the closest rooms and began sealing the doors. Two formally dressed men who ended up in the same room shared a nervous glance as the door slid shut and locked itself.

“Safety protocols?”

“Lock the doors, secure any sensitive information, and activate room defenses. It’s been drilled a bunch of times.”

“Sure, but… I never thought we’d actually have to use them!”

Both stared at the sealed door, wondering what could possibly be happening outside of their secured space.

With her message sent out, the circle on Tessa’s hand faded out. She turned to address the other guards in the team she had joined up with.

“Has anybody gotten a clear eye on our intruder?”

One of the guards stepped forward. “Nothing except what we’ve reported. From what I’ve been told, every time she’s encountered a guard, she’s run away from them.”

“Any altercations?”

“A few have fired some warning spells, but she hasn’t returned fire or otherwise engaged them.”

“Alright… wait, ‘she’?”

Before he could respond, a green light emerged from the left palms of each of the guards, Tessa included. Each of them put their left hands to their ears, and were greeted by the same message: “We’ve surrounded her! She’s on the second floor! Block the-”

The transmission was cut short by an explosion that caved the ceiling a short distance away from Tessa and her team. Amongst the failing pieces of ceiling was the intruder, who launched herself off of the largest block of marble and sped towards the guards in front of her.

Tessa was the first to react with a single, traditional order:

“FIRE!”

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At once, the five-man team took their positions: three up front and centered in the hallway, and two on either side and slightly behind the front line. Their commander (Tessa) formed the furthest point in the triangle. Each of them put their hands out in unison. Glowing circles, inlaid with runes, appeared before them. The three in front fired a barrage of fireballs, ice shards, and thunderbolts, respectively. The two on the sides released creeping vines onto the walls. Tessa’s circle did not fire anything. Instead, a perfectly crafted spear made of ice began to emerge from the sigil.

This formation was the standard “capture alive” five-man formation that most Central security teams used, and one of the first taught to new recruits when they began their training with Terminal’s government. Usually, a target who dodged the initial barrage wouldn’t have the time to react to the vines and would end up ensnared, and one who fired back to deflect the barrage wouldn’t be able to clearly see the vines in time to properly avoid them. And if you got hit by the elemental trio of spells… well, you’d soon be wishing that you had simply taken the vines.

It was a simple but effective maneuver which worked as a solid option against most humanoid opponents. Unless you were a government trainee or a repeat criminal, you likely wouldn’t know how to avoid it. And even if you did know how, you might not be capable of it. Tessa’s presence at the end of the formation served as insurance against anyone who might fit those categories.

The cloaked figure had never even considered joining the government’s security forces, but she was still intimately familiar with the formation. After all, she’d been subject to it numerous times. And as the security team was about to find out, she both knew how to avoid it, and was more than capable of doing so.

With inhuman speed and agility, she dodged between the various offensive shots despite their wide coverage. There’s the distraction, she thought. Now for the trap. The vines, reacting to her approach, launched forward to ensnare her. Despite that, she neither slowed down, nor attempted to move out of their path.

Seeing that the figure made no effort to dodge or otherwise destroy the vines, Tessa flashed a satisfied smirk; the intruder was as good as caught. There was no need for her to waste time with her own spell, so she prepared to dismiss it. As her hand shifted to break the rune and the half-emerged spear, though, she saw the slightest smirk from underneath that grey hood. Her own cocky smile quickly dropped. The figure put her hand out – no magic, no rune, no weapon – and produced from it a barrage of fireballs, ice shards, and thunderbolts matching the exact ones that had just been directed towards her. The assault tore the vines to shreds, allowing her to leap over the guards and barely avoid the jagged spear of ice that Tessa had hastily finished summoning to her hand and thrust upwards.

Despite the intruder’s speed and the unbalanced spear, the strike managed to graze the hood of her cloak. With a light crackle, the top of the hood tore and froze. When the intruder landed, the torn hood fell and revealed her short-cut silver hair. Despite being caught somewhat off-guard by the intruder’s display, Tessa recovered quickly. Pivoting on her heel, the Head of Security lunged forward. A frigid gale trailed behind her, coating the floor and walls with frost as she soared past. The figure whipped around and thrust her hand forward to meet the attack. In her grip now was an identical frozen spear, which appeared seemingly from nowhere. The tips of their weapons collided and crackled, releasing an even stronger gale that blew the guards back across the newly frozen ground.

Within that frozen vortex, the Head of Security met eyes with the intruder. She held an enthusiastic grin, but her golden eyes weren’t focused on Tessa. They were focused on something behind her.

Tessa opened her mouth to ask what the intruder was looking at. But as she took in her target’s face, whatever words she was going to utter turned into an empty stream of air that joined the winds around them. Her eyes grew wide with realization.

The intruder’s eyes drifted back to her opponent. She gave the officer a quick once-over. “Nice strike,” she whispered. “And nice outfit,” she added with a wink.

Dumbstruck, Tessa faltered. It was only for an instant, but that instant was more than enough. The intruder twisted her spear and knocked both weapons against the ground, releasing a blinding light-blue explosion of frost and snow. Tessa swung her free hand, blowing away the frost.

But the intruder was already gone.

The sound of increasingly distant footsteps echoed through the hall as the winds settled. The spear fell unceremoniously from the Head of Security’s trembling hand. She stood there and stared at the empty hallway, almost deathly still. The guards that had been blown away came up to her, joined shortly by two other squads that were dropping down from the hole in the ceiling. Some of them ran forward to give chase, but Tessa threw her hand out to block them.

“Don’t bother.”

“But sir!”

“I said don’t bother!” She turned now to look at the assembled guards and bit her lip.

“I’m calling the main branch.”

The guards looked at each other with a mixture of confusion and concern. One of them, wearing a slightly altered uniform, stepped forward.

“Sir, if I might ask, why?

Tessa hesitated. “That… wasn’t just an intruder,” she managed. “That was Blazing Fist Jun.”

A cascade of murmurs erupted from the assembled party. Some lost feeling in their legs and sank to the ground. Others looked around to make sure that everyone was still accounted for.

“The… the S-Rank Fugitive?”

“The Annihilator?”

“There’s no way…”

“But… we’re alive…”

While the guards anxiously chattered amongst themselves, Tessa looked down at the fallen spear. With a wave of her hand it evaporated, taking the ice that coated the hallway away with it. That was her Personal Magic, something she had developed and honed for years. Only a few individuals knew how to use it, and she knew all of them personally. The fugitive – Jun – definitely wasn’t one of them. And yet, that damned woman…

Clenching her teeth, Tessa turned around a stomped past the guards. As she did, she stole a glance at the sign that Jun had been so interested in during their clash. A few rooms with directional arrows were on it, but one immediately stuck out to Tessa: “Summoning Room.” Knowing that meant very little at the moment, though. Jun was simply too strong for them to stop, even without her Gift. Her only option, frustrating as it might be, was to report what had happened to the higher ups at Central.

She glanced down at herself and frowned as Jun’s parting words echoed inside her head. I… should probably put on my uniform first…

…

Jun turned down another hallway. Thankfully, she now knew that her destination was only a little ways ahead of her.

The alarms were still going off, but there was little chance of her being pursued any further at this point. She definitely recognized me, Jun thought. If she’s smart, she’ll be calling for backup instead of trying to chase me. Of course, Jun had dealt with some less-intelligent – or more foolhardy – guards in her time. Not that it made a difference now that Jun knew where she was going. After turning another corner, she rolled her sleeve down to glance at her watch, which was miraculously still intact. She still had a few minutes – more than enough time.

With one final left turn, Jun slid to a stop in front of a large metal door laid into the rightmost wall. Above the door was a sign with glowing blue letters: “Summoning Room.” There was no handle or latch, nor any other visible method of opening the door from the outside.

“Lockdown protocol, huh?” Jun cracked her knuckles. “I hope these doors aren’t too expensive!”

She drew her fist back. Three brilliantly glowing red runic circles traced themselves around her arm and began to rotate at different velocities. As the rotations gathered speed they slid down her arm and gathered around her wrist. Once there, the runes burst into flames, which harmlessly crept up and coated her entire arm in a brilliant inferno.

“If anyone’s in there, they’re going to want to back away from the door!” she warned.

After giving whatever potential person happened to be dumb enough to stand directly behind a sealed door enough time to correct their error, she dashed forward and punched it. The moment that her fist connected, the flames around her arm exploded, launching the thick metal door directly into the opposite wall.

Jun leapt out of the smoke, catching a glimpse of two familiar platforms with massive cylindrical glass tubes over them. She ran over to the closest one, grabbed the handle of the door that was cut into the tube, swung it open, and shut it behind her. Muffled sounds of protestation were audible – though just barely – from the room outside as she placed her hand on the floor of the platform and closed her eyes. As she did, glowing runes appeared on the outside base of the platform. In response, the glass door locked itself, and light began to rise from beneath her feet. The fugitive let out a sigh of relief as she stood up, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes.

“I made it in time,” she confirmed to herself before reopening her eyes and taking in the multicolored lights that had begun to rise up around her.

“I wonder which world he’s on now?”

The lights grew in both size and number around her, completely enveloping her body. Their rainbow swirls joined eventually into a single white light that bathed the room in its furious glow. Suddenly, with a final flash and a sharp schweeeeeng, the light vanished, along with Jun.

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