Interlude - Mizu the Angry Flame

She hated this kind of low-level work.

Not that it was beneath her, exactly, it just chaffed. She had ambition enough to see this entire shithole city burn, and yet she, like all the others, had to climb the ladder one rung at a damned time.

The anger simmered in her slow, boiling, like a kettle not yet ready to whistle.

Her master at the dojo had said that it wasn't the right way to do things, that she'd never make the breakthrough if she only bathed in the anger and never understood it, never embraced it and saw glimpses of the peace beneath.

He was an idiot a continent away now, and as far as she knew, he was also still just a D-ranker.

"Mizu?" Mercer said.

She glanced up. She and three of the other D-rankers were in a van. It was a nice van, admittedly. From the looks of it, someone might have thought that it was a luxury limo of sorts, not the armoured troop transport that it really was. The guild she was working with now liked to shower them in goodies, but it also liked to keep its goods close. The van was a good example of that.

Luxury, sure, but superficial, and not hers.

That annoyed her too, but it wasn't enough to spark any real anger. "What is it?" she asked.

"We're looking over the details that we have," he said, gesturing with a tablet. He liked those, and he loved going over plans again and again. He was an Earth-aligned kind of guy, and it showed.

"Fine," she replied, picking up her own tablet. She could have brought it all up in her augs--specialty crafted ones that had cost her a fortune because standard cyberware wasn't designed for someone whose blood ran so hot--but Mercer liked seeing that others were paying attention.

"There isn't too much to know," he said. "Scanners picked up a portal appearing in sub-district sixteen, on the corners of Martin Luther King Jr. and Diora. We further triangulated the position and relative height of the outburst to a store here..."

"A laundromat?" Steve asked.

He was a wind mage, and next to him, Clive was a water user, though he mostly used self-buffs. He was the weakest of the four of them, by far.

She was second in terms of raw strength, which irked her. She thought coming here would land her a cushy job and ways to advance, but no, not really. She'd done all of thirty-nine portal runs in almost a year. Thirty-nine!

"Yes, a laundromat. Corporate is reaching out to the owners now for permission to enter, but if they don't grant it, we're breaking in."

She snorted. "Better pay a fine than miss out on a portal?"

"All indications show that it's E-ranked. Mid-rank at best," Mercer said. "We'll be able to slip in and deal with it."

She made a noise of assent. An E-rank portal wasn't a challenge. She could burn through goblins like a torch through butter all day long, especially if she was pissed enough. A few firebolts and minor spells were all it would take, really.

Still, it was a good opportunity. The magic would be split four ways, but it would be one of the best boosts she'd gotten in a month or so. Her stats showed that she was still a solid two-dozen such portals from even tickling the bottom of C-rank.

"We'll take it slow anyway," Mercer said. "It's late. Don't expect quick reinforcements, especially not for such a low rank, but we might want to wait for E-ranker support from the guild anyway."

"Urgh," she said. A bunch of nobodies to stick around and get in the way, sucking up all the good ambient mana from around the dungeon. Well, whatever. From within, with a few kills, she'd get a lot more.

"We should consider our-- wait," Mercer said. He touched his ear, mostly to let them know that he was listening in on something. "Noted. We're on our way over now."

"What is it?" Clive asked.

"Portal was breached. Scanners picked up the fluctuation."

"Fuck," she hissed. Some other corp came and grabbed the prize? She'd not get another opportunity for weeks! Months, maybe! "Who did it?" she asked so she'd know who to hate some more.

"None of the other guilds or corps claimed it," Mercer said. "Could be a civilian that was caught in it. Or a solo."

She ground her teeth even as the van picked up speed.

They didn't technically have an emergency on their hands, so they couldn't light up and shoot past the damned traffic.

She was of half a mind to stick her head out the back and start blasting, but that's how traffic always made her feel.

It took a solid twenty minutes to arrive at the scene, during which Mercer didn't shut up about plans and contingencies.

The moment they arrived, she leapt out of the back. The others fumbled around for their gear, but she was ready to go. She had a revolver tucked in a holster by her side, but she never used it. Magic was her thing. She wanted to be one of those greats. The next Phoenix, the next Ashenbrander, Blaze or Eliot Flame.

They probably weren't called out to E-rank nothings.

The van parked a few dozen metres from the laundromat because of some procedure or another that she didn't care for. They started towards it, walking at a careful pace.

"Wait," Mercer said, and all four of them stopped. "Portal closing."

"Christ," Steve muttered.

"How long was it going for?" Clive asked.

"Sub one hour," Mercer said.

She worked her jaw. That was pretty fast. All four of them together could clear a dungeon in a night, sure, but going too fast was dangerous. A rough C-ranker?

Maybe they lived here and were annoyed at the portal. Only... she looked around, and while this wasn't the worst neighbourhood, it was outside of the walls. Even she lived within, in a nicer, safer space.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Movement ahead," Clive said. His gaze was fixed on the laundromat. There were stickers on the windows, some posters, and the glass was reflecting ads from across the street, but still, the movement within was obvious. She could feel it. A portal closing.

She opened her magic, tugging at the scraps in the air. It was nothing, or almost nothing.

"We going in, or what?" she asked.

"Let's wait?" Mercer proposed. "It's our duty to intercept and verify, if they go out the back we give chase but... wait, they're stepping out!"

The front door to the laundromat opened, and out came a woman.

She was a little taller than Mizu herself. Younger, too, though most of her lower face was covered by a black mask with thin filters and she had a baseball cap pulled low to shade her eyes. Still, Mizu caught a glimpse of pale blue eyes, almost a pastel colour. What magic was that?

The woman was wearing a tight bodysuit, or a leotard? It was covered by a heavy coat. Cargo pants... a knife in a hip holster and a long plastic bag by her side.

No injuries. No cuts or scrapes. Not even much more than dust around her ankles.

Still, there wasn't that tell-tale pressure that came from a C-ranker. This girl was a D-ranker, like Mizu herself. She wasn't in a league of her own.

"What the he--" Mizu started.

"The portal is finished," the woman said. Her voice was strange, a bit echoy from the mask, muffled.

Did this bitch think she was so cool?

"We have the right to ask you to show your permits," Mercer replied. "Which guild are you--"

"I'm leaving," the woman said. She started to do just that, walking... no, strutting by. She was practically slouching back.

Mizu glared, then gave in to the anger. "Oi! You bitch, we told you to give us your ID!" she stomped over, then reached out a hand to stab the woman in her stupid oversized chest.

Her hand was pushed away.

It wasn't even a slap, just a gentle press to the side.

Mizu saw red. The world around her sparked and warmed. The flame within roared.

She led with a fast strike. A gyaku zaki, a reverse punch, aimed at the woman's stomach. The woman stepped to the side, bending around the blow. When Mizu turned it into a backhanded swipe, her wrist met the woman's upper arm and was shoved upwards.

Mizu seethed. She stepped up and in, lunging with a knee only for the woman to push her leg down with a single hard smack. The contact was too quick for Mizu's flame to catch. She growled, flung a punch forwards with her hand igniting, but it only flew past a screen of messy black hair and caught nothing at all.

And then Mizu realized that the woman was close. Her shoulder was pulled forwards, she hopped on the spot, working to regain her footing, but the woman jabbed an open palm in her arm pit.

Mizu didn't have a choice, she cocked her hip to the side and tried to spin. Her arm came up, long reflexes from the dojo telling her to at least try to get the bitch to eat her elbow, but her legs caught on the woman's ankle mid twirl and she fell.

Fell into the woman's grasp.

An arm snaked around Mizu's neck, a leg was around one of hers, she couldn't put both feet down, and when the woman took a tiny step back, Mizu's own weight pulled her into a headlock. She was still off balance, but held in place by the arm around her neck.

Then she noticed the blade.

She'd never kept both of the woman's hands busy. Her free hand, her left, had pulled that combat knife out of its sheath.

She was holding it wrong, forefinger across the back of the blade, the rest wrapped loosely around the hilt. Still, naked steel was pointed unerringly towards Mizu's neck.

The moment held for a long, long time. Mizu was panting.

The woman's masked face was very close to Mizu's. "Stop panting like a dog. You're breathing my air," the woman said. Pale blue eyes looked to Mizu, then slowly shifted up and towards the others.

They were ready for a fight, but with Mizu the way she was...

"Don't do anything rash," Mercer said.

The woman tilted her head slightly, knife waving. "You're the rash ones," she replied. "Especially this angry little thing."

Mizu felt her heart skip a beat. She was so close to the bitch, if only she could explode in anger and heat, but... not, she was held in place, aware of the body so close to hers, of her enemy's heat, and her calm. Was she bored?

"There's four of us," Mercer said.

"And if you press this into a fight, there will only be three," the woman said. "I'd rather those odds than four on one. Or, I give you a better option. What do you say, Mizu Aokawa?"

Mizu swallowed, the heat in her dropping all of a sudden as a cold, uncomfortable sweat raced up her spine.

"What?" she squeaked, then immediately hated herself for it.

"Is a measly E-rank portal worth the life of one D-ranker and severe injuries to three others for the Storm Chasers?" she asked.

"It isn't," Mercer replied.

"Good. Then this storm is one that you'll let slip past."

The woman moved so suddenly that Mizu felt a wave of vertigo as she started to fall, and then she was shoved forwards, stumbling towards the others.

She turned, only... the woman was slowly grabbing her bag from the floor and putting her knife away.

"W-who are you?" Mizu asked.

The woman looked up, meeting Mizu's eyes again. Hers were so placid, so calm. There was a void there, something that swallowed anger whole. An opposite to Mizu herself.

"I'm..."

***

Art!

Minigrix: /mingrix