An end to a story.

An end to a story.

Little Victoria raised her head at the sound of the door opening. She was playing with her leet doll but had been keeping one eye on the door at all times. Waiting.

"Mummy!" She screamed and ran up to the figure that has just appeared at the door. The forgotten leet doll landed on the floor. Mummy leaned down and gave Victoria a big hug.
"Hello honey." She said. "How was your day?"
"Oh! It was great!" the girl said excitedly. "First we went to the garden with Jenny, then I fell into the pond and Jenny said I should be more careful and then..."
Victoria chatted on while her mother took her by the hand and brought her to the sofa. They both sat down, Victoria in her mother's lap, chattering excitedly, telling her mother all about her day and a thousand other things.

The little girl caught a glimpse of Jenny smirking as she was closing the door behind her. She found it odd but forgot about it instantly. Her mother was there. That was all that mattered.


Borealis, 8th May 29482

Spring. The streets of Borealis were flooded with sunlight, you could still feel the winter's chill in the wind though. It was not the time for hot weather yet. Soon.

The city was loud and crowded, as usual. People of all factions and breeds frequented it. You could hear occasional gunshots in the background. Ever since the Unicorns took over the city was a constant war zone. There was one thing you could see in there only rarely: children. They were kept inside the houses, protected from the skirmishes and duels happening day and night on the streets. Not a good place to raise a child.

Omni guards patrolling the streets... Real blessing for people like Vektria. Sloppy, slow, not really interested in protecting the neutral citizenship from anything. This provided opportunities the fixer would not turn down easily.

She was leaning on the wall in the main street, opposite FT, scanning the crowd lazily... looking for opportunities. A merchant with a fat wallet, a fighter too busy showing off his latest model of assault rifle to notice someone lifting his creds, an engineer collecting money for the things he combined for people in his workshop... They were all valid prey.

Credits... she was always short of them. It wasn't easy to scrape enough to make a living on Rubi-Ka. And she had expensive tastes too. Not as expensive as Eri's but still.

Ah, there he was. A guy sporting the latest fashion in armour. Most probably he didn't even know what to do with it. There were lots of people like him... lots of credits, huge ego... can't survive a fight unless they're in a big group. And a fat wallet...

Vek looked around discretely. There was a guard in vicinity but wasn't looking in her direction, distracted by an opi girl in a bikini advertising for Omni-Tek. The corporation was his friend alright.

The fixer moved towards her target slowly. The guy's armour was new and shiny, hasn't seen any action yet. Probably won't anyway. And yes... there it was. The guy was careless, she could see the wallet from there. She reached for it, she almost had it in her hand and... an alarm on her wristwatch went off!

Suddenly she was looking in the guy's eyes, widened with surprise... but not for long. She turned back and started running before he managed to shout "Stop! Thief!" In the corner of her eye she saw the guard turning towards her. Double bad luck. She cursed herself for forgetting to turn the alarm off before she went for the wallet. What was it anyway she wondered.

Vek turned into a back alley on top speed. The guard wasn't far behind, she knew it...

"URK!" was the only thing she managed to pronounce as she hit something hard, then was lifted in the air and slammed onto a wall. She would slide off it onto the ground but someone's hand pinned her in the spot by her throat.

She looked up at the owner of the hand and cursed herself again. That's why the alarm went off! The clanners she got in trouble with two weeks ago followed her there.

"Look what we have here..." the clanner smirked. "A little neut." This was bad.

"Omni-Tek protects!" she heard a shout and she hit the ground, trying to breathe, as the hand let her go. Of course, the clanner needed it to start shooting. By the sounds of it he was just doing that accompanied by his friends. Vek used the opportunity to crawl as far away from the place as she could.

She didn't want to stop and ask who or what the guard wanted to protect.

She noticed a shimmering pool of blue light and crawled towards it. She had the pass somewhere... She's never been to that place but it was better than staying in the middle of this little shooting party. Both sides have brought reinforcements already... it looked like it would last a bit.

"Welcome to Inner Sanctum" Vek heard. She quickly stood up and looked around for any enemies. The place looked empty for now, it was just this disembodied voice... On the other side of the room she noticed another blue portal and she started walking towards it. "Always forward" she thought.

"What the?!" she said aloud. Her movements were slow, it almost felt like the air was liquid. It was hard to walk in there. She heard a laughter in her head. Hosts of this place liked the joke she guessed.

"NO WAY!" she shouted and turned back to the portal she came from in there. It was better to face her enemies where she could at least outrun them. She jumped into the pool of light with her gun at the ready...

"Enforcer looking for team!" she heard someone shout. She looked around. This wasn't Borealis. This was the Temple of Three Winds' entrance.

She went slowly towards a stone slab nearby. "You don't mind I hope" the slab's resident didn't answer. "I'll take it as a yes." She chuckled and lied down next to the skeleton, massaging her achy throat.

It was good to know someone's day had been worse than hers.

*applauds*