Kel leaned back against the chimney, her long, slender fingers idly tapping against her knee as she thought. Things were not as they seemed. She wasn't sure who was deceiving who, and without more information, she wouldn't know. A frown shaped on her lips, briefly. She had a few options, none of which were very satisfying to her. She loathed those who enslaved children, no matter what purpose they were used for. Leaving one of them in operation was enough to set her teeth on edge.

Her fingers were almost a blur as they moved, sharp teeth kneading at her lip as she thought. Another problem surfaced - she was curious. What kind of operation was hidden behind this facade? She couldn't simply float through the walls without knowing what was waiting for her.

Indecision gripped her for only a moment more. She would start at the source, find the man who had hired her to begin with. She stood, climbing down the side of the building in the alley that was on the side away from the building she had been watching. She had a contact point, that she had been told would be checked every six hours, but nothing else. She would wait until later this evening to approach the contact point. Until then, she would watch, and wait.

"You shouldn't stare off into the distance like that. It makes you look like you aren't right in the head." Druid's sudden appearance in the library snapped her out of her quiet reverie. She had been studying his demonologies again, attempting to gather more information on a particularly nasty sort of demon that had been seen recently stalking dockside. She had been woolgathering when he had caught her unawares.

Druid was the only who managed to still take her by surprise, these days.

She rolled her eyes, shaking her head at him. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that, Dru. One of these days, you are going to kill someone with a weak heart."

He scowled, shaking his head at her. "Dinner's ready."

Kel's stomach growled, and she winced. She'd been crouching on that same rooftop, completely invisible, keeping her eyes on the doorway, for nearly four hours now. She had searched the area around the building, looking for any other entrances, but had found none. She had attempted to glean surface thoughts from those within, but she heard only silence. It was disconcerting, and aroused her curiosity even more.

Everything about this seemed....wrong. She was missing several critical pieces of information, and it bothered her. With a sigh, she finally stood and made her way down the side of the building, only turning visible again once she was several blocks away from the building she had been watching. Hands tucked deep into her pockets, she took a meandering route through the city, stopping at a small kiosk to buy some unidentifiable meat, sandwiched between two fresh pieces of bread and a few slices of an exotic vegetable she had no name for.

She took a seat on a bench near a fountain. The centerpiece was of two children, one male and one female, with arms lifted to the sky. Water trickled down from their fingers, and the expression on their faces seemed to be awe at the sun above the square. It was an interesting choice for a place to meet, considering what she was about. She ate her food slowly, eyes half-lidded as she watched the crowd move past her. Very few paid any attention to the white-haired woman as she lounged. Though the fountain was well maintained, this was an area where people minded their own business, because someone else's business could be dangerous to their own skins. She had no idea what sort of creature her contact would be, but nothing came as a surprise anymore.

She had been sitting in the Inn, long fingers wrapped around a hot cup of coffee that she had just barely sipped, when a high pitched voice whispered in her ear. She would have jumped out of her skin, if she hadn't had years of training in keeping precise control of her body. She looked around, seeing and sensing nothing out of the ordinary.

Living in Rhy'din was a humbling experience, when it came to surprises.

A tiny, pinprick of light appeared in the corner of her eye, before she heard the voice once more. Her contact was nothing more than a bright bit of energy, that spoke. That particular job had netted her a good sum of money, but she never forgot the lesson - anything and anyone could be your contact.

Despite that lesson, she nearly fell off the bench when a woman sat down next to her. A woman who turned towards her, slit crimson eyes twinkling as her mouth twisted in a smile, baring sharp eyeteeth. A woman who could be her twin.

A hand slammed down hard on the scarred desk top. "What do you mean, she took her" Syv is the best they've sent through so far!"

The peon facing his superior officer didn't bat an eyelash. "Apparently, the original has far surpassed our original projections for potential. There's talk of some sort of symbiote that is augmenting her abilities, as well as the training she's received here being far superior to what she was given in our facilities."

The man seated at the desk leaned back, the chair creaking as he went. He folded his hands across his stomach, fingers tightening as they laced, so that his knuckles turned white. "So, what you are telling me is that the most dangerous weapon ever to be handled by this group is not only more dangerous than we initially thought, but is also completely beyond our current capabilities to bring back under our control."

"Yes, sir. That's exactly what I'm telling you. We were not prepared for this sort of challenge when we undertook the mission to reign her in. Would you like my recommendation, sir?"

The man waves his hand in a permissive gesture, the light catching the ring situated on his middle finger.

"We should abort the current retrieval mission. Cut our losses, and return to base to rethink our strategy. Meanwhile, Syv can be used to gather more intel about Kelathe's current abilities and whereabouts and report to us as often as she is capable," the peon shifted on the balls of his feet, suddenly uncomfortable at the look on his commanding officer's face.

"Very well," the man behind the desk said, his words clipped by the anger he was attempting to hide. Though he had been willing to make the suggestion himself, he was glad that he had someone else to blame it on, should his superiors take it badly that they had to abort. "You can stay here, then. Collect the operative's reports on the subject in question. Gather what intel you can about this....place....and our own rogue operative. Surely she has ties to others here that might aid us in her apprehension and reintroduction to the program." He raised a hand to prevent the other from speaking, and gave him an almost predatory smile. "I will return to base, and begin formulating a strategy to neutralize the current threat, in case we are unable to find a way to apprehend securely and with minimal loss of personnel."

"Neutralize, sir? I thought we were instructed to bring her in alive, no matter the cost."

"We were. But the objectives must adapt to the situation. We cannot suffer more than an eighty percent loss of life in a retrieval attempt, no matter the importance of the operative we are attempting to retrieve. It is obvious that this mission had the potential of loss that would be devastating to the program. We've already lost a valuable asset to this....creature, and I don't want to lose any more. I will convince my superiors of this, in case you fail to find a way to subdue her, and bring back Syv. Kelathe is an incredible danger to the integrity of our entire operation, whether she knows it or not."

The peon had nothing else to contribute to the conversation, instead asking to be dismissed from his superior officer's presence. When permission was granted, he saluted him, and hurriedly left the ramshackle room that the officer had taken for his personal headquarters. The tension in his shoulders was obvious to anyone who passed him in the hallway. He kept his head down as he made his way to his own quarters, passing various armed guards as he went, and only there was he finally able to take a slow, deep breath.

He sat down on his bunk, with its regulation blanket and sheets, and rubbed the back of his neck for a moment. His thoughts raced from one scenario to another, and all of them looked pretty bleak. He was on this mission for observational purposes, as he was a specialist in anthropology. He had been sent with the group to Rhy'din to make a study of the people there, and their way of life. It had proved to be an almost impossible task. The variety of races and intelligent creatures that inhabited this strange place made it nearly impossible for him to make a good study of any single group.

Now, he was to be left to his own devices, without the protection from the combat-trained soldiers that had been sent with them into this world. He exhaled slowly as he began to come to terms with this, running his fingers through his shaggy brown hair. He pushed his glasses back up on his nose, and reached under his pillow for the thick notebook he had left there. It contained all of his current observations about this world, his speculations, and a growing list of questions that had yet to be answered.

He pulled a pen from his breast pocket, and began to write:

My name is Daniel Erikson. I'm not certain who will read my notes in the near future, as I am to be left here on this world to continue my observations on my own. These may be the last days of my life, unless I find a way to successfully integrate into the eclectic society that this world supports. I will keep faithful record of all that I observe and learn, and hope that, in the future, someone can make sense - and use - of this information.....

"I'm not certain where to begin. What, exactly, do you want to know?" Syv flexed her arms, shifting her body into a contorted position that would have made most people cringe. It made Kelathe smile.

"At the beginning, of course. Your birth, where it occurred, and who your parents were. What your training was like, who conducted it. Your education. Where you were raised, and kept, all these years. Why you and I are genetically identical, for the most part. Once we work through those questions, we'll get to why you are here." Kel sat cross-legged on the floor, her eyes never wavering, never blinking. Without the movement of her lips as she spoke, and the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, she could easily have been mistaken for a statue, carved of some pure white marble.

In contrast, Syv seemed to be constantly moving. Her skin rippled as tiny muscles twitched in her arms and legs, her body displaying the unease she felt at being constrained. Her eyes never settled on one place for more than a few seconds, as if she were attempting to memorize the entirety of the room and its only other occupant. Like an animal, always hunting for a route of escape. In her case, with her captor so close by and so obviously more powerful than she was, there was none.

Syv licked her lips, with a forked tongue as red as her eyes. "My beginning....I wasn't born, as you were. I didn't have parents, unless you call a test tube and a carefully placed syringe mother and father. I wasn't an accident of nature, like you were. I was designed. Engineered. I was grown, in a tube, in a room with no lights. They kept the lights off so that the photo-sensitivity we share would not be aggravated. They did it so that we couldn't see each other. There was more .....beings like us. Being grown, there in that room. They never told me how many of us there were. I only know that I am number seven.

"The closest thing I had to a companion was the computer they used to train us. I was not part of the accelerated growth program, where they downloaded information directly into the brain as the ....thing....grew. I am....thankful, for this..."

Kel held up her hand, pausing the other woman in the middle of her narrative. "Exactly how old are you, Syv?"

"Approximately seventeen years, two hundred thirty-seven days, and eleven hours old, give or take a few hours. There was a few times I was unable to keep count."

If it were possible, Kel seemed to go a little paler. So, Syv was not the woman she could have been, had she stayed on Earth. Instead, she was the teenager she had almost become. The thought that there were at least six more made her stomach suddenly feel tight, and her head reel. She balled up her fist, holding it against her stomach as she asked the next question.

"What do you mean by accelerated growth?" Kelathe dreaded the answer, even as she asked. But she had to know the truth.

"They only used that process with the first in the series. They needed an immediate body double for you, for some mission you were on. It was never told to me in detail, because she was," Syv paused shortly, and frowned, looking for an appropriate word, "disposed of shortly after your disappearance. She did not have your self-control. Because she didn't have as much time to learn her abilities, she began to go insane from the voices in her head. She, apparently, heard you speaking to her, and it finally pushed her over the edge.

"Her name was 'En."

Kel tapped her lips thoughtfully. Pieces of a puzzle she had long given up on finding an answer to began falling into place. Clarity, though, could be a dangerous thing.

"Kelathe Annabelle Skelicia, you stand accused of first degree murder, and high treason against the United States of America. You stand accused of planning and executing the murder of the President of the United States. How do you plead?"

"Not guilty," her voice was a thin whisper, immediately engulfed by the sudden murmurings and gasps from the audience. The sounds washed over her as she stood, next to her assigned legal counselor. Her hands were cuffed in front of her, though the handcuffs were loose on her thin wrists. She wore a blue jumpsuit, with a number printed across the pocket. Despite her abilities, she did nothing to escape, didn't even flinch when the officer grabbed her by the arm hard enough to bruise her, and began to force her towards the doors.

Margo. She was dead. Kelathe's last vision of her broken body made her flinch away from the guard's touch, but he shook her slightly, and pushed her on. Kel didn't care about anything happening around her, to her. She felt that numbness deep within her chest, an empty, bleeding hole that had once been filled by the odd love she shared for her partner. Cameras flashed, blinding her sensitive eyes, and she blinked wearily, not really seeing. She didn't hear the questions being thrown at her from every direction, from reporters who shoved microphones in her face, demanding answers. She didn't care when she was shoved in the back of a vehicle, her head hitting the top of the car as she went.

If she studied her fingers and hands long enough, she could see the blood. She had scrubbed them raw in her cell, with the little bit of water and soap they allowed her. But still, Margo's blood was still there. A tear slowly slipped from her eye, landing on her hands, and she made no move to brush it away.

Kel had been framed. Somewhere, in the logical part of her brain that had not been overwhelmed with loss, she knew this. She'd been given over like a sacrificial lamb in order to get an impossible task done. The organization she worked for, whose name she had never been told for security reasons, had given her up to the media as a scapegoat, knowing she would say nothing. She wouldn't be believed, anyway. They had abandoned her to her fate. She was sure, however, that somewhere in the crowd, someone was watching, a gun tucked under a jacket, just in case she tried.

She didn't pay attention during the trial. They had video footage, a slew of testimony from respectable, wealthy witnesses, and DNA evidence. Kel caught a glimpse of herself, wide-eyed, pulling the trigger on the president from behind. She frowned, and a moment of doubt and indecision fluttered across her brain.

The lawyer who had been assigned to her did nothing to help her, despite her plea of not guilty. At one point in the trial, during a rather loud protest by people in the audience, he leaned over and informed her that she was a monster who needed to be sent back to hell, to burn with the other traitors and murderers.

Kelathe only stared at him with her ruby colored, slit eyes until he looked away in shame.

Syv had been quiet for quite some time, studying the other woman as she relived those moments in painfully accurate detail. After a long pause, Kelathe snapped out of it. "It looks like we are going to be here awhile, Syv. Do you need to use the bathroom' Are you hungry, thirsty?"

Syv scowled in her direction. "Why do you care" I'm a prisoner, one who poses a danger to your existence. Once you get all of the information out of me you can, you are just going to kill me. Why bother?"

Kel laughed, softly. "I haven't decided whether or not to kill you, Syv. It would probably be for the best, if I did. But, in my time here, I've learned something of compassion, of love. Almost as much as I knew hatred and fear." She stood gracefully, and moved towards the door. "You haven't even scratched the surface of life yet, Syv. I don't care how you were made, or who made you. I don't even care if you were sent specifically to eliminate me. Whatever you are, you deserve a chance, just like everyone else. I'm not asking you to blindly place your faith in someone who may end up slitting your throat anyway. But, just for a little bit, just until we get to the end of this story, let me treat you like a person, and not a weapon."

Syv moved food to mouth, keeping her eyes in line with Kel's knees. She had been kept in these chains for several days now, but Kel made sure it was an easy captivity. Food was readily provided, whenever she asked, and she was allowed to shower and use the facilities as well. Syv was continuously surprised at how much Kel went out of her way to take care of her. Still, every time she tried to move, she was reminded that she was a prisoner, living on borrowed time. At any moment, Kel could become bored, or decide she had learned enough. That could mean Syv's life.

Kelathe ate her own food silently, watching the other woman's deliberate movements. She wished she could trust Syv without the chains, but she knew the kind of training she went through. No doubt they had added in a liberal dose of mentally controlling their subject so that she would not be as prone to emotion as Kel was. That was saying something; before Kel came to Rhy'din, and before the demon, she was as cold as Syv was. She felt nothing, unless it was the pain or fear of others. She had lived vicariously, floating in and out of other beings and sampling their emotions. It was after the demon broke her that she truly began to feel. Dru had brought her along the rest of the way.

Their movements mirrored each other as they ate. Both were left handed. Both held the chopsticks at the same angle, with the same ease. Even their facial expressions were the same, when they had them.

Kelathepondered this. Despite the fact that they had had no contact until this point, they could have been identical. Kel had many more years of experience to draw from, and that wisdom had left its mark on her body and her mind. So how could they be so similar" Differing experiences had left its mark in how they both acted, but in these little things they were .....She felt an uneasy shifting within her mind, as something dark suddenly became curious. A thin tendril of ebony began to work its way back from her temple, through her braid. Syv looked up, her eyes narrowing at this change.

"How do you do that?" She asked, setting her bowl on her crossed legs. The chains made a faint sound as the metal scraped against itself.

Kel lifted one shoulder in a shrug, concentrating on her food. In her mind, she soothed. She beguiled. She tempted. Finally, that darkness faded back again, curious as she allowed it to watch through her own. They had come to uneasy truce, and although the demon would always be treacherous, it was subdued by her will. When she spoke, the sibilant hiss that accompanied her words was more pronounced.

"It's a long story. Suffice it to say I acquired an.....ally in this world, that augments my abilities." Syv's gaze met Kelathe's, a spark of an idea of forming. "Don't even think about it. You don't want to know what I went through to get to this point, and you don't have the strength." Kel backed her words with a sharp push of her own mind, into Syv's, breaking through the other woman's barriers as if they were a child's stack of sticks, instead of the fortress Syv had projected.

Kel regretted the reminder of her power, when Syv dropped her eyes back to Kel's knees, in a gesture of submission. Kelathe sighed, and reached out to touch Syv's shoulder. The other woman didn't jerk away from her, which was definitely progress of sorts. "I'm sorry, Syv. I shouldn't have done that. I know how hard it is to build up shields like that. I also know what its like to have someone completely rip them away without your permission. This isn't helping you trust me."

Syv bit her lip, setting the bowl aside. Her appetite was suddenly gone. All Kel asked was that she trust her. Syv felt her loyalties to those who had created her, almost as surely as she felt the chains that Kel kept on her. Every time her thoughts leaned towards trusting Kel, her thoughts became disoriented and her head would pound. She'd said nothing of her reaction to Kelathe so far. Every time she'd tried, it was as if something had stopped her tongue.

A low hum filled the room, as images flashed passed Syv's eyes more quickly than she could understand them. This particular training focused on flora that would be useful to her in her travels - edible plants, medicinal plants, plants she could use to build, bind, or break. It was supposed to be an easy lesson, but Syv could feel a headache building just behind her crimson eyes. She had been taught methods to control pain, but they did nothing to alleviate this. The earbud that sat in her ear suddenly blasted with static, causing her to jerk, and yank it out, wincing in pain. She felt suddenly woozy, disoriented. She waved her hand, trying to get the attention of the technician who was supposed to be monitoring the session, but there was no response.

Images kept flashing, interspersed with words.

Syv began to scream.

Daniel didn't mean for the gun to go off. He had fumbled his service revolver from the holster beneath his jacket. Fumbled, being the loose term for what was actually a sincerely clumsy attempt at unsnapping the holster and yanking it out in a timely fashion. It was an unfortunate part of his assignment that he was forced to remain armed at all times. It was also unfortunate that he had neither training nor aptitude for fire arms.

The loud boom and the smell of cordite and burnt plaster spreading through through the room was not accompanied by any sense of safety or relief at taking care of the immediate danger. Instead, fear flowed through him, making his knees grow weak, as Kel's slender, pale hand wrapped fingers of iron around his wrist. He could feel the woman pressed against his back, and he dared not move, not even to release the gun from his fingers.

Her breath was warm against his neck, her voice suddenly filling his mind, even as his ears processed the sound of her voice. "That was a mistake, Daniel."

He could feel the tension building the air, smell the scent of his sweat as he shuddered. It felt electric - and also very, very wrong.

She was simply gone.

He had barely drawn in a shaky breath, before it was snatched away by the chill of ice down his spine. It was contrasted by the fire that bloomed behind his eyes, growing to a raging inferno that felt as if his eyes would boil out of his skull.

He could feel it. Feel her. She invaded his mind. Kel, and someone, some thing else. His skull wasn't large enough to hold them both. He tried to scream, but it came out only as a ragged gasp for air. Spots danced before his eyes, and then.....nothing.

*****

Calm enveloped him. He floated on a gentle sea, staring up at the sun as it beat down upon him. It was one of his earliest memories. He could feel his father's hands beneath his knees, holding him up in the water as he floated.

Daniel opened his eyes, blinking slowly. He found that he had wedged himself between the set of drawers that held his meager possessions, and the wall. The light floating down from the single window made his eyes ache fiercely, so he closed them again, leaning his head against the cool wall. He would stay right here, for the moment.

He ran his fingers back through his hair, trying to run the past few minutes through his mind. What had happened" Had he been dreaming" Was he finally under enough pressure that he was hallucinating"

He sniffed. He could smell the cordite, could see where the bullet had taken a chunk of plaster out of the bedroom wall.

So where was Kelathe" There was something - if only he could remember.

Kel looked out through Daniel's eyes, suppressing the full extent of his knowledge of her abilities. They kept trying to surface, but she eased them back under, teased the information she was seeking to the front of his mind.

"Syv..." Her lips barely parted as she spoke, ruby eyes glazed as she reveled in the control, the feel of his mind.

The reaction was instantaneous. Information flowed over the surface of his mind, like a computer screen. She absorbed it all. Tracked the neural pathways, eking out every possible tidbit she could find, even if it seemed inconsequential.

She found nothing. Nothing that would help her, or Syv. Daniel was a peon, expendable. Not worthy of any important information.

What she did find was sympathy for Syv. What he did know about her made him pity her. She found a memory of him reaching out to her, trying to speak with her, and being reprimanded for it by his superior officer.

It was the only reason she left him alive.

*****

Kel left Daniel where he was, easing his mind into a dreamless sleep to make her departure easier on him. She was frustrated - the situation, the lack of information, her helplessness. There was nothing she could do. She was running out of time.

Syv was dying.