Fait commed back to base again. “We don’t see anyone matching your description, base.”

“There’s something there, Fait. Continue your search.”

The centurion grunted after the connection was broken and moved off to the east, his section of their search grid.

Magenta stretched into the grass that carpeted the apartment complex common area, digging her multi-colored nails into the sod and grinning up at the clouds that partially obscured the sun. It was a rare, fine day in this part of Ireland, and she wasn’t at all sad to take a brief break from what had been, so far, a fruitless search.

A shadow fell over her as she felt fingers strike her in the hollow of her collarbone, followed by a spot under her left ear, then again above her diaphragm, all in the span of a blink. A soft rush of air that could have held the beginnings of a charm sighed from her open mouth, and she could nothing but blink as she heard and felt her assailant lay beside her.

“Please don’t get too alarmed,” said the soft voice. “You can breathe, slowly, but you will be quite unable to speak or move for a short time.” Steel hands with a velvet touch grasped her hands, pulling them behind her back and binding them with the grinding of a zip-tie. “But I’m nothing if not a little cautious.”

Then the voice was gone.

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Flavius Furius Aquila marched through his section of the zone, the itch between his shoulderblades having bothered him for the past few minutes. Every time he had tried to surreptitiously check his back, he’d found nothing. In his mounting frustration, he’d even stalked in a circle, spinning and looking without regard for betraying his motive or movements.

Every time, his rage mounted. Every time, there was nothing there but wind-tossed leaves and shadows. He rounded the corner of the six-foot wall around the complex and came up short, surprised to see another standing before him.

The newcomer wasn’t physically impressive to Flavius, but his warrior’s sense hammered at his lower brain, this man was dangerous. It didn’t strike at Flavius’ obvious senses the way their last mission had, where their quarry was a whirling maelstrom of misdirected Milliennial Spirit.

If Flavius could see more of his foe, perhaps he would have felt less apprehensive, but he couldn’t. The other man – of this, at least, he was sure – was dressed simply, cotton slacks, leather belt, a flowing, long shirt with voluminous sleeves. Yet – even as Flavius reckoned that they were both equidistant from the wall, and he was in sunlight, the shadows by his foe were longer, stretched so as to obscure his head and face, aided by the way the man’s head was held, looking slightly down.

All of this passed in a heartbeat, as noticeable to Flavius as taking a breath. He began to form a syllable, to warn the man to clear out, to tell him that they were hunting a possibly dangerous post-modern human, when the man’s head tilted, revealing silver-white eyes that glimmered despite the shadows covering his face. Their irises were only subtly separated from the rest of the eye, the contrast between that color and the black pit of his pupils startling.

The “detector” at Flavius’ hip bleeped softly, once.

And the man moved. He flowed towards Flavius like greased water, the movement so graceful that Flavius had a half-moment of appreciation before his instinctual defensive instincts took hold.

Being Flavius, that meant utterly destructive, sudden offense. The centurion’s left hand shot out, missing the man’s head by a centimeter. He attempted an elbow strike with the same arm, but grunted as the man’s left slammed into his abdomen, as effective as punching a brick wall with similar results. There was a fractional hesitation of Flavius’ descending elbow, enough to miss as the man circled behind the centurion and a fist hammered his spine. Flavius arched forward, snarling more with frustration then pain, and spun around to redirect his forward momentum.

A foot streaked towards his head, a foot that he grabbed, then gripped with both hands and threw. The man cartwheeled through the air, his feet lighting on a streetlamp’s pole, and then he flipped forward to his feet.

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Flavius tapped out the rally code on his communicator, his eyes never leaving his opponent.

Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper dvd The centurion advanced, guard up.

The man didn’t leave the comfortable crouch from his landing.

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He began to stand, Flavius launching a devastating right that would intersect his head.

A feint.

As Flavius planted his advance foot, the man dropped further into a crouch, slapping the side of Flavius’ knee with a deceptively light backhand. Robbed of support, Flavius dropped to a kneel, and the man stood, spinning as he rose, his foot arcing out.

With his right arm out of position from his over-extension, Flavius could only feel anger as the man’s heel cracked behind his ear, where his jawbone met his skull. There was a meaty crack, and Flavius was angry no more.

***

Fait’s strides ate up the ground, she cursed inwardly as she ran. No response from Magenta. Nothing further from Flavius after his general rally signal. And now, something was jamming her transmissions back to Lundunaborg. She was confident in her Kaiser’s ability to burn through any type of interference, but backtracking to their landing site would mean a loss of moments that her teammates might not have.

She entered the courtyard and slid on the grass as she stopped. A man-shape lounged in the shade of one of the decorative trees. Two recumbent shapes lay on the grass between them.

“They aren’t dead,” he said softly. Still, the sound managed to reach her ears, to soothe the burning anger that leapt to the front of her mind and radiated to her fingers and toes.

“What are you after? Our work is important. I can’t imagine why you would want to hurt us.” Fait’s eyes went to Magenta.

“Oh, I know all about your work,” whispered the man-shape. “After all, I saw the beginning with my own eyes.” And he stepped out from the trees, but the shadows clung to him for a moment, they stretched from the tree to his face and then they parted and she could see his eyes, his silver eyes gleaming without the aid of shadow cast by a hood. Something else was in those eyes, too, pain, perhaps; anger, maybe; old emotions, partially scabbed over but still painful.

“You were there? When it was destroyed?” Fait asked.

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“Yes. I was also there when it began.”

Fait’s eyes narrowed, then widened. “I think I know who you are…” and she grabbed for her phone, her thumb snapping the three-digit code as it rose to her mouth. She inhaled and she saw the man shrug as a metal shape snatched the device from her hand.

It landed a short distance behind her, pierced by a four-bladed star, the blades surrounding a carved yin-yang. The phone sparked once, pitifully.

“None of that, now,” whispered the man.

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Fait stared at her useless bit of gear a moment longer, then began to walk towards him. He copied her gesture, meeting her near the center of the courtyard. “What are you trying to prove?” she asked him.

“Just an announcement. A message.”

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“For?”

“Charlie.”

She blinked. “Have you tried a letter? An email?”

“I wanted to make sure he got it loud and clear.”

“Give me your name, and I’ll be certain to let him know.”

“Come now, Fait. Certainly you know actions speak louder.”

Fait struck, then, a lunging punch that shouldn’t have landed, but her warped reality allowed her to be a tiny bit faster than his lunging dodge, and her knuckles clipped his chin.

Riding the impact, he spun, leg striking out at air she’d ducked through a moment before. She countered, left thudding into his stomach, a knee he only just managed to deflect, then a shattering overhand right that made him hit the ground.

She straightened and aimed a kick at his ribs. He rolled towards her, knocking her other leg from under her and continuing away.

Fait leapt to her feet as he rose, silver eyes focused on her face. “A lucky shot,” he whispered.

“I’d know,” she countered, then moved towards him, a flurry of feet and fists. He dodged the first strike, but it was a feint to set him up for her second. As she landed it to his midsection, his arm snapped out in a backhand blow to her cheek. Fait readjusted her attack and launched a knee to his groin, intercepted with an interposed thigh as his other hand, knife-edged, struck the crease in the muscles of her left arm.

Numbed, the limb fell slack. Fait fell back, defensive, then confused as he failed to press his attack. He stood and waited.

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She stepped forward again, fist flying to a meeting with his raised shoulder. Her triumph disappeared with her breath as his knee impacted her abdomen at the same moment. She staggered back again, and again he waited.

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Gritting her teeth, she leapt, and he leapt, angling his body away from her outstretched leg, but not enough, not enough to avoid the blow. But he was ready, she felt, as her leg smashed into prepared muscle. She, however, was not prepared, not ready for the simultaneous strike as his foot struck her under the chin.

The pair fell to the sod, Fait somewhat more roughly than her opponent. Stunned, she lay there a moment too long. A shadow over her resolved itself into the man, silver eyes staring.

“An interesting style,” said the man. “I do apologize for borrowing your luck. Seemed the only way.”

She hardly felt his fingers impact her nerve centers. A last touch dulled the pain in her head and jaw.

“Tell him, when you see him, how it was to fight me,” he said, then laid a rolled bundle on the grass next to her. “And take him this, in case he doesn’t quite get it.”

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***

Some time later, Fait could move again, realizing after the fact that she had actually dozed a bit during her immobilization.

Flavius leaned sullenly against the wall, a dark splotch on one side of his head, centered under his ear. He glowered at nothing in particular, but his expression softened with relief as Fait sat up.

Magenta sat on the wall, feet kicking idly, a parcel – the man’s bundle – in her lap. She had untied it, draped its contents across her knees.

Fait moved to stand beside her, leaning on the wall for support.

“It’s soft,” Magenta said, running her hand over the black and white shape in the middle of the outfit’s chest.

XXx: State of the Union ipod “He wasn’t,” replied Fait.