Magically-tempered concrete cratered and gave way as aetherically-charged bullets blew through it. A head topped with braided, curly, light-brown, hair ducked low just in time to avoid getting a new non-functional orifice.

Sawyer took a moment to use her preternaturally sharp eyes, ears, and rapidly developing spiritual senses, to triangulate the direction of the bullet. Then quick as lightning travelling between heaven and earth, she blurred forwards. Crossing the mile-long distance that lay between herself and her would-be killer in less than a fraction of a second.

Elsewhere, there was a building that could be roughly described as a modern rendition of the leaning tower of Pisa, in a world of rust and economic down-turn. In that building, a gunman with a glowing bio-augmented eye glared at the visual being displayed to him. The visuals came from the eye’s wireless connection with the scoping camera that was mounted on his sniper rifle. He could have sworn that he’d had a kill-shot lined up.

Then not only did his target manage to duck beneath the shot, but she’d gone and disappeared on him. That was the problem with elites. One never knew what kind of tricks they were capable of, since they would always hide at least a few up their sleeves. And many of their other tricks would be hidden, by virtue of being the kind of trick that the “audience” doesn’t live to talk about.

“Welp, time to get out of here,” grumbled the man. Feeling something ominous coming on, and trusting his gut. He moved to leave the scene of his attempted kill. Unfortunately, as unreasonable as it was, he’d moved too slowly.

The door to the bathroom was standing in, was kicked open. The figure that stepped into the room was incongruously petite and slight compared to the terrifying, larger-than-life, aura she gave off. Sawyer Guillot stepped into the room and was immediately fired upon. Tilting her head and shoulders one way and then the other kept the gunman from getting her with a headshot. The padded-leather long-vest, and the specially-treated sweater and trousers that lay beneath were enough to stop any body-shots cold.

The gunman swore as he saw his shots clatter to the ground ineffectually around the woman. His would-be target. He looked behind him at the ruined wall of the bathroom, and the cityscape below. Considering whether he’d be able to land soundly and get running. He was thirty-floors up, and as a lower mid-level elite himself, despite not being augmented for constitution and defense, it wouldn’t be impossible for him to safely land after a fall of several stories. However, it was likely that thirty-floors would be a bit much.

The gunman ended up dithering for a moment too long, because before he knew it, the choice was already taken from him. The little woman surged forwards and suddenly the gunman was skyborne. Flying out the window and falling 330 feet. If the fall hadn’t been enough to kill him. The fact that the woman had fallen with him. Kneeing the man in the chest the whole way, so that his abdomen was all but broken in two upon their landing, would have been enough to assure his death.

Before dismounting the assassin, Sawyer slid her hunting knife through his neck. Decapitating the man. The blow to the chest would have destroyed all of the man’s internal organs, but you could never know. After enough years living as a hunter, Sawyer had seen enough odd sights, and run into enough odd powers, to know the wisdom of making sure of one’s kills.

Sawyer also took the time to rifle through the man’s person. Taking anything in his pockets. Emptying the various pouches and bags, she found him. She took out a camera to take a picture of the face and body. Then once she finally got up, she pulled an incinerator charm out of her own storage space and set the man’s corpse ablaze. Sawyer then clucked her tongue at herself, wishing she’d thought to kill the man inside the building, so she wouldn’t have to climb all the way back up to the 30th floor to see if the man had left any clues there.

A short while later, and a short search later, when she’d found and collected all that there was to find, Sawyer frowned as she looked around. Dusting herself off, before quickly leaving the area, as a blur of colorful wind. Fights in the middle of a wasteland had a tendency of drawing out monsters. She wasn’t running away, she’d do a bit more hunting, until she’d collected enough quarry to make this little trip into the wilds and wastes worth it.

*************************************************************************************************************

Sawyer returned to the city of Coron-Glaw once again. She stopped over at the local Adventurer’s guild headquarters. Stopping there briefly, to hand in the items she’d procured for the jobs she’d accepted, and a few extras, that she knew that the guild would be eager to buy off of her in general. She’d ignored the large number of messages that pinged into her system’s messenger-utility’s inbox. So too, did she ignore the messages that were left at the Adventurer’s guild. Many of the callers and message senders were people from large clans and families looking to recruit after one, or more, of their people, had run into her. The other callers were made up of private guilds and corporations with similar intentions.

It seemed that Sawyer’s star was rising again. A number of successfully completing guild jobs without fail, and clear and continuous progress in her cultivation, were enough to earn Sawyer a large number of admirers. Once upon a time, this would have had the young woman over the moon. A return to the glory that a younger, more immature, more arrogant version of herself had felt was her heaven-ordained due. Her brief fall from grace was enough to humble Sawyer, and also made her warier of those whose faces you only saw when things were going well.

Also, the invitations just simply weren’t that appealing. Sawyer had already seen what life was inside a private guild. She had already been a loyal unto death, “company girl”. Sawyer had no desire to go back to taking orders and trying to curry favor. She had no desire to be a pawn in such a group's dog-and-pony show politicking. There was nothing that they could offer her, that she couldn’t get herself, with far less headache. Thus she was fine quietly declining and purposefully making herself hard to reach.

Once she’d received the first disbursement of the payment for her work in the wilderness, and saw messages confirming that others would soon be on their way, Sawyer was soon on “her” way. She light-heartedly moseyed over to the place that had become almost like a home to her, considering that her current life as a wanderer and freelancer, made her apartment just feel like a place to store her bed.

“Good afternoon,” said Sawyer.

“Oh, it’s Sawyer! Hey, girl! How’s it going?!” said Josephine. Bright as a strobe flash. Carrying what seemed to be some kind of pie.

“Nice to see you again, Ms. Guillot,” said the pink-haired, yellow-eyed shopkeeper. Pulling his long elegant legs off of the countertop and putting on the strange facade of averageness he wore when customers were present.

“I hope your hunt went well, Miss,” said Ellis.

“It did...At least, until the end, when someone tried to kill me,” said Sawyer. A wry smile made its way up her normally cool features.

“Ah, I hear that’s one of the unfortunate hazards of the adventurer lifestyle. Was it an assassin or a bandit?” said Ellis.

“Well, I was going to ask if I could purchase your services in finding that out if you don’t mind,” said Sawyer. Sighing. If one was doing too well, one would gain new enemies, along with the new would-be friends. It was even entirely possible that the person who’d hired this person was some self-important soul of the “if can’t have it then I’ll destroy it”-type...Assuming of course that they actually were an assassin. It was true that the gunman could have easily been a very cautious bandit. In a world of genetically-augmented elites, criminals quickly learned to be extremely cautious and innovative.

“Sure, thing,” said Ellis.

“Er, wait one sec...” said Sawyer. Bringing out her camera, and the other items she’d gathered from the man’s body.

“And it seems that it ‘was’ an assassin,” said Ellis. Quickly supplying an answer, and then sending a data-packet to her through the system. A message filled with files showing identifying information regarding the gunman, the group he worked for, and the client that had hired the group, appearing in Sawyer’s inbox.

“Huh...Damn,” said Sawyer. Sighing. Feeling like she’d just been kicked in the gut.

“Hm? Why are you all down in the dump? This isn’t the first time someone’s tried to kill you while you were in the field,” said Josephine. Looking concerned. Stooping to meet the smaller one’s eyes.

“It says here that the people who hired that assassin were from my old guild,” said Sawyer.

“True...But if it helps, I have data that would suggest that it’s just a singular member of the guild. Not the guild itself…” said Ellis.

Sawyer frowned. Wondering why that mattered. Then she thought it over. She looked at the data like Ellis had indicated, and looked at the owner of the account that had hired the gun man’s company, and she found to her surprise that she “was” kind of feeling better.

“Wow, I guess that rotten Romeo is still trying to catch the eye of his Juliet,” muttered Sawyer. More annoyed than downcast now. If Sawyer had been the villainess of a certain annoying girl’s story, the villains of Sawyer’s story that pest’s many overly ardent suitors.

It seemed one of those suitors had caught onto Sawyer’s current success and was trying to “quell trouble” for his lady love. Stupidly failing to realize that his actions were basically buying a fight instead if he failed and got caught out. Though maybe that wasn’t exactly a fair assessment. The guy ‘had’ hidden himself quite deeply, just not deeply enough to hide from a certain store’s means of sniffing things out.

In either case, Sawyer still had to decide how to deal with the matter, but she felt better knowing that she wouldn’t necessarily have to clash with her old guild again. For better or worse, they’d basically been her only family up until the moment they kicked her out.

“Huh…?” said Josephine.

“It’s nothing...Thank you. Er, what did that cost me?” said Sawyer.

“Either 15200 credits, or 1 week in time,” said Ellis.

Sawyer sent the man his credits. Preferring to save her time for more important purchases.

There was a loud, musical, chirrup, and the clanging of bells that nearly made Sawyer jump out of her skin.

“Uh…?!” said Sawyer. Looking at the two shopkeepers in askance.

“Congratulations, Ms. Guillot. It seems you’ve purchased enough from our store, for a long enough period, to become our first loyalty-card holder,” said Ellis. Smiling warmly. The smile seemed to shatter the effect of his facade and made Sawyer’s stomach do backflips.