ponytail

From the moment I woke up, I knew the day’d be unusual. Slept alright, maybe for too long. Felt pretty good – something that had become more common, lately. More strange, though, was that there was nothing in particular I had to do. Took a shower. Ate breakfast. Checked my email. …Nothing. No crises. Miss Marigold didn’t need me for anything. Annie and Mary were out on a mission together. Eightball didn’t have anything for me, either. Ended up lying in bed, staring at the ceiling for half an hour and enjoying the peace of it all, before getting up to get a little painting done.

Used to be something I did a lot, when I was a kid. …And when I was lucid, back in the Center. Wrote about my dreams and painted what I saw. Just picked up a brush again, recently. Since things finally started to get better. Didn’t find a whole lot of time for it, but bit by bit I managed to get it down on canvas. Mostly the good parts of my dreams. …Sometimes the shitty parts, too. Just to get them out there. An echo of advice from another life, I guess.

I figured I’d be able to put a few hours into the piece I’d been working on – a pink sea, full of spiral shells - but I barely got to work before my phone started to buzz.

The timing was something else. Almost made me think my room was bugged, but given who it was, it seemed unlikely. She’d probably say knowing everything about the enemy takes the fun out of it. Or she’d just make fun of me for having checker-patterned underwear. Didn’t matter, though – hadn’t really made any plans aside from sitting down and painting for a while. …Wasn’t sure I liked how she insisted that just meant I wasn’t doing anything, then, but her enthusiasm was a little contagious, and I agreed meeting up would be a good way to kill an afternoon.

It’d been a while since Nico and I got together. We both kept busy – preferred it that way. She always had people to kill – no, people to fight. That’s how she liked to think of it. Hunting down big targets and seeing if they could kill her. …None of them had yet. Not even us. Wasn’t much different for me, though, even if the targets weren’t the same. Witches. Traitors. The occasional unlucky son of a bitch that made the wrong enemies. Failing all that, there was always paperwork to do. Joys of being a Warmaster’s aide.

Barely got out the door before I saw her – didn’t look like she would have taken ‘no’ for an answer, if she was already out here waiting. Not that she was ever the type. She was leaning against her bike – a hunk of sleek, custom-made German engineering that not only went several hundred miles per hour if pushed, but also made the rider look like a huge asshole. Saw a twitch of silver in her hand as the door shut behind me, and her arm flicked toward me. It was a movement well beyond what a normal human was capable of, at least without years of training, and a shitload faster than a lot of magical girls I knew.

Nothing new, from her. My hand snapped out, half-reflex, half conscious decision, and I caught it an inch from my face – a cleaver, one of probably three she had on her person, if I guessed right. Heavier than my knife and polished to a mirror sheen, with the handle pierced with a ring. …She liked to spin her knives around on her fingers when she was bored. If I’d taken a second to look, she’d probably have another one out and spinning already.

Didn’t, though. Followed up on my catch with one smooth movement. Over my head in quick half-circle, then a flick of my wrist – different weight than mine, sure, but it wasn’t unfamiliar to me. She braced to catch it, letting out a giggle that abruptly stopped when my throw met its mark – the fat rear tire of her asshole-cycle.

“...Ass!” It took her a second to sputter out a reply before she yanked the cleaver out of the rapidly-deflating tire, then gave it a quick spin before tucking it into her blazer. “I know the idea of a joke is foreign to you, Wendy, but you don’t have to be a dick about it.” Couldn’t help but laugh, and after a little pouting, she joined in. This was what passed for a joke now; probably should have been something that bothered me more, but it was better than a moonlit tea party in a sea of corpses. Which was about as fun as it sounds. Second time wasn’t much better, either, trust me.

---

Didn’t take long to fix her tire, but that didn’t stop her bitching as we rode, even though she had to yell to be heard over the purring of her bike. We didn’t really have a plan; she just told me to get on, and I held on tight as she drove way too fucking fast to wherever she wanted to go. The whole world was a sea of yellow as I buried my face in her back, in her long, blonde ponytail. She hadn’t cut it since we were kids, she told me. Aside from getting rid of split ends, or something. …The pang of nostalgia made the rest of the trip a little less gut-wrenching.

Up until we screeched to a stop a few feet from a stunt ramp that would have catapulted us directly into the waste dump that was the ocean. Iron Claw Point. Mostly good for crappy pier food and spitting on people down on the beach. She’d given me some shit line about testing your courage or something, last time we’d hung out here, but that was retarded. Nico got that way when she was in a good mood – completely retarded. ...Despite my better judgment, that was a little contagious, too.

We got some ice cream at the pier, then leaned on the railing, looking out at the beach. Talked about nothing for a while, about the normal parts of our lives, or what passed for them. She was a senior this year, but mostly because the school didn’t want to lose her parents’ generous donations. Didn’t bother going, since it usually just meant the place would get wrecked when someone showed up to get revenge for ‘some dead fuckwad or another’, or when someone got eager to try and prove they were hot shit in the assassination business. The city was running dry, she said. Hadn’t been anyone worth taking on since the Rabbits, and we had an agreement there.

Me, I’d gotten a promotion recently, which we agreed was pretty much meaningless. ‘Callidus Prima’. Supposed to be a ceremonial thing, but it was another stack of responsibilities for a little more money I didn’t need, and it earned me the resentment of just about every other Callidus in the Officio. …Pretty sure it was just a way to con me into paperwork and training the new blood, under the guise of grooming me to be the next Warmaster, or something. Annie and Mary got the same treatment, but they were the Rank Leaders already. It wasn’t anything new for them.

“You sound so surprised that you’re being jerked around,” Nico added coolly, once I was done bitching. She never quite forgave Eightball…no, never quite forgave the Officio for recruiting me. Told her again and again that my life was better now, but she insisted it was the same thing as luring a kid into a van with candy and then driving it into the ocean, and it’d only gotten worse since she found out another friend of hers contracted with the Ninth, back in Varrigan.

…Maybe it was for the best, though. Didn’t need her to change her mind – kept her from getting it in her head that she should make a contract. World wasn’t ready for Magical Nico, the Holy Sword of Santa Destroy, or some shit like that.

---

“Want to do it?” We’d talked about nothing for a while. Long enough for ice cream. For the crappy steak we split at Eat My Beef to settle. All afternoon, I guess, though the time flew by pretty quickly. …She cut me off mid-sentence with her question, accompanied by a manic grin.

…Asked her if she meant right here. In front of everyone. Right now.

“Absolutely. Come on, we hardly get a chance to anymore.” Her face pressed in close, and I could smell the steak sauce from earlier on her breath. Her hand squeezed mine, and I felt my face burn hot. …Stared right into her eyes – one a vivid blue, the other fractured, fragments of the same blue on the edge of a black abyss. My heart raced, and I mumbled the only thing I could think of.

…Thought you liked it better with the lights off.

“It’s hardly fair if you accommodate me all the time, Wendy.” …The one moment seemed to last an eternity. Then, I was shoved away, and nearly faster than I could react, a silvery cleaver was hurtling toward the pearl clipped to my scarf. …It was a wide swing. Pretty typical of Nico – if she used a weapon she could stab with, she might have scratched it. As it was, I ducked in and brushed her arm aside with mine and focused my energy into a gut-shot.

She tensed her stomach to absorb the hit, but she’d be feeling it for a week, at least. Realized a little too late what she was doing, just taking it like that - I felt her hands on my shoulders for just a split second before she shoved my head downward for an abrupt meeting with her knee. Didn’t waste any time as I staggered back, either – I was only off-balance for a split second, but in that time, her arms slipped around my waist, and the whole world flipped upside-down as she swung me over her head and slammed me into the pavement.

Might have been enough to knock the wind out of a normal human, but it wasn’t enough to leave a mark on me, and she knew that. With half a thought, I called up my knife, and I stabbed toward her shoulder as she was letting me go. Got nothing but air, though, and I narrowly rolled forward as she recovered, taking a swing at my soul gem again. …Wasn’t fucking around today. She must have been more hard-up for a challenge than I’d thought.

It was like fighting a wild animal, once Nico got going. I barely got the chance to stand before I met an endless barrage of wild, powerful slashes, each one of them nearly enough to send my knife spiraling away. Any kitchen knife but that one would be in pieces in a matter of seconds, and even mine chipped a little as I narrowly deflected blow after blow. She’d pulled a second knife on me, and it was all I could do to push her other arm away without getting a cleaver stuck in mine.

...This would be easier if I could just kill her. Shouldn’t think that way, but it was true. She sure as hell wasn’t holding back.

I almost didn’t notice in time when one of her cleavers had been spun away. She was tired of pushing against my defense. Or she knew she’d tire out before I did. Either way, what should have been a wild swing was a calculated grab, her arm reaching for mine as I moved to block. …No dice. I snapped my hand back and snagged her wrist. Tossed my knife the moment I knew I’d managed it – nice as it would be to just ram it into her shoulder joint and end this retarded contest completely – and snagged her shoulder.

She wasn’t dumb, but for a moment she seemed confused; I didn’t usually pull this kind of crap with her. It was all I needed. I leapt. Twisted in the air, and squeezed her arm between my legs. She dug her cleaver into my hip as I swung my leg around, but there was nothing she could do now as my calf connected with the side of her head and sent her toppling down to the ground, her head hitting the concrete with an audible ‘thunk’.

Didn’t fuck around once she was down. It wasn’t kind, and it wasn’t pretty, but I yanked on that arm as hard as I could. As hard as I could, anyway, without ripping it out. She hissed out a litany of fucks as her elbow popped, then her shoulder. Her cleaver dug into into my thigh twice, three times while I pulled, until I kicked her arm away and rolled off of her.

As always, she was quick to get back on her feet, but most of the bloodthirst had left her eyes as she tried to move her arm. …Told her it probably wasn’t a good idea, but she just glowered.

“…You barely even used your weapon. You’re fucking around with me. Didn’t use any sparklebitch tricks, either. How the hell am I supposed to go all-out if you keep going easy on me?” ...Yeah. I didn’t just dislocate her arm or anything. No. She just wasn’t wet because I didn’t stab her.

“That’s fucking right. You never used to be so afraid of hurting me.” She looked…hurt, and it made my heart ache. Told her the truth upfront: I’d be pretty upset if she died, and I sure as shit wasn’t going to be the one to do it during a sparring match. …Well, it was half the truth, but I wasn’t dumb enough to say that. No matter how the fight went, she’d sit and stew on it. If I won, she’d decide she was weak and kill herself trying to get stronger. If I lost, she’d think I threw the fight and fixate on taking me down. She still hadn’t gotten over Kilgore, and that was a lot less personal than this.

“...I don’t mind if it’s you, you know. It would feel like it was worth it.” Her icy glare melted, and she tucked her cleaver away to rub at her arm. “Full-circle, really. Best sort of closure a girl could hope for.”

…That was pretty gay.

“Oh, fuck off.”