#code:lisbeth

[beheadingofmakai]

Artificial

Nothing important, just a short exercise to get a feel of a character I’ll be using for a tabletop game. Keep this in mind when reading this, as it is less a nuanced story and more “the concept put into practice”. As such, not all information is readily available, and won’t be, as her development will happen through the game proper. It’s a short story about one Lisbeth Elstad, who can be best described as a “walking pharmacy”.

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“One... Two of them... No peepers from inside the building itself. Regular windows, not polarized, likely bulletproofed and magic-warded, no cameras that I can see, and the surrounding buildings don’t seem to be theirs, but...”

Through the binoculars, a pair of silver eyes scouted through a remote location by the hole in a wall of an abandoned building. This wasn’t the middle of nowhere, this wasn’t some backwater hole, it was merely a less bustling part of Southern California, so the well oiled cogs of society were alive and running just four stories underneath. A werewolf in a suit, running late for his job interview, a harpy rollerblading, carefully using her wings to balance herself while her human friend, wearing a matching neon green sweatshirt, instructed her how to better use her torso to handle the shifts in weight efficiently, smiles on their faces. This wasn’t your old village or the dumps, this was the city, with all the eyes and ears that come with the package. It wasn’t an option for Lisbeth Elstad to draw attention to herself while trying to get into that building by the squalid dead end street. She was unaffiliated with any sort of law enforcement or any sort of organization whatsoever. This was a one woman war running on bread crumbs that were ambiguous and obscure at best. It was less a wild goose chase as much as it was trying to find a tsuchinoko sleeping on a bed of four leaf clovers, neatly across the pot of gold by the rainbow’s end. That was more than enough for her to deem it worth a shot.

“...This stinks. That rat lied to me through his teeth! This info has to be wrong, this place is wide open like the legs of a cheap prostitute, and no matter how much I look at it, this can’t be affiliated with them at all, not with this Olympic gold medal level of incompetence. They were pros, these guys are peanuts at best... And yet...” And yet, she had nothing else to go on. Every clue, every tip, every trail she had followed so far had gone cold. This was all she had left. If she couldn’t find anything here, then that was that, it was back to square one again. Frustrated and resolute in equal parts, the girl put away her binoculars in one of her three satchels and descended the abandoned apartment complex’s stairs. The plan was simple: Get in that building, confirm if they are affiliated with them, and take any information of value by reason or by force.

Lisbeth made her way to the dead end by using the back alleys to call less attention to herself, what with the two-headed wolf pelt poised over her shoulders and all. She romanced the idea of saying, “Oh, this? Nah, don’t worry! I’m just a model on my way to the Rafael Laurel Feral Collection! Please come to cheer on me!” if she were to catch the eye of someone, but quickly discarded this clever ploy, preferring to stick to the shadows. When she was finally in position, she once again confirmed that it was merely two sentries by the door of the so called “Clement & Sibbens Law Firm”, no doubt a front for more morally bankrupt endeavors. They were dressed with security guard outfits, sure, but it was clear simply by looking at them that they were two-bit thugs at best. After a few seconds of pondering, the girl nodded to herself and seemed to have come up with an optimal plan for infiltration. Producing a small brown glass jar and a bottle of water, Lisbeth first poured some water in the jar, and then she extended her palm over the jar. From a hole in the center of Lisbeth’s hand, a pungent dark yellow substance oozed into the jar. “First, we dilute the sulfur mustard a bit...” she muttered to herself, as she was wont to do when working with chemicals, “we stir it a bit to let them coalesce, and after some hydrogen and oxygen...” -- as she murmured, the chemicals she mentioned were injected into the brew through the hole in her hands -- “...we have a very weak variant of mustard gas, high in oxygen, diluted, and without much kick.” As her substance was complete, the girl then dipped her finger lightly into the brew and gently rubbed it against her eyelids, blinking a couple of times. Soon enough, her eyes were red, little tears trailing down her cheeks. Dragging her hand across the ground at her feet, Lisbeth then rubbed her dirty hands across her pale face and, as a finishing touch, with a pristine scalpel produced from her breast pocket, she gave herself a little cut across the cheek. Step one was almost complete! The girl removed her black, pointy hat and her elegant black dress jacket, placing it neatly on the floor on top of her two-headed wolf pelt. The result: A fragile looking girl in a white shirt and black suit pants, eyes red from crying and her face dirty and bloody. She looked like the perfect victim.

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“...So, how much longer ‘till we change shifts?”

“We’ve literally been here around an hour, man.”

“This sucks, dude, bossman could at least let us bring our earbuds so we can jam out and no die of boredom, there’s nothing fun about standing here for five hours!”

“It used to be seven before we got more whiny kids like you, just tough it out and stop bit--”

“Ahhhh! Someone, please help me!”

The guards’ casual dialogue came to an abrupt end when the shrill screams of a girl flooded their ears. In this comparatively isolated dead end, two blocks away from the bustle and hustle of daily life, this was certainly not common. Their necks craned to meet the source of the voice and, sure as rain, they found it: A girl almost tripping on her own feet, desperately running, heavily panting, eyes red and face stained with tears, blood, and dirt. She looked like a waiter or receptionist, by the looks of her clothes, and was clearly a civilian. 

“Huh? Hey, what’s wrong? Are you alright, ma’am?” the more experienced guard asked, approaching her and trying to see what was it she was running from. “Stop yelling, it’s fine!”

“Th-the Veiled...! That Veiled, with big claws and fangs...! He tried to take my blood in broad daylight! Please, please, he’s coming! I escaped by sheer luck, but he’s coming, oh, lord! Please help me!” the woman hysterically explained, clinging to the guard’s broad chest like a terrified rat.

The guard immediately stood in front of her, facing the direction she came running from, hand already on his pistol. “A Vampire!? In broad daylight!? Tsk, cocky bastard... Must be a real tough one to not mind the sun! These damn Veiled, sub-human pieces of trash, you take your eyes away from them for a moment and they immediately turn on you! Hey, kid! Come here, back me up, this one’s going to be tough!”

“Wh-what’s it got to do with us, man?!” the terrified underling shot back, clearly no having any of this bee’s wax. “Let her run, his beef is with her, not with us!”

“Idiot, I couldn’t care less about the girl! If he’s hungry enough to hunt in daylight, he may just be desperate and may go after anyone! If he goes inside the office, we’re done for!” chastised the senior. The less experienced guard simply resigned himself, nodding and standing side by side with his colleague.

“S-say, mister guard...”

“Don’t talk to us, we have to focus on that damn Veiled! We drop our guard for a second he’ll-- Urk...!”

“...How come you are just security guards, and yet pack guns? Hmm, mister guard? Why, oh why, would that be?”

The older guard plummeted and began convulsing on the floor, foaming at the mouth, his neck pulsating with veins, scraping at the ground helplessly with curled fingers. Before the rookie guard could react, the girl had already begun dashing towards him. He took a wild swing, a panicked reaction more than anything, which she gracefully ducked under, grabbing him by the shoulders with both hands and hitting him in the crotch with an ascending knee, putting all of her weight behind the attack while pulling herself towards him by the shoulder to maximize this ball-busting critical to infernal heights.

“Grrkk!”

As the guard crumpled, submerged in pain and his eyes spinning, he felt a hand grasp his head from behind, smashing his face against the asphalt.

“Do not make any noise or I’ll pierce your jugular,” Lisbeth explain with a calm, neutral voice. “If you scream, talk, or move in any way that I don’t particularly like...”

Lisbeth deliberately placed her free hand in his field of vision. The pale hand with long fingers, like a piano player’s, had a distinctive feature: A hole in the palm. Then, suddenly, a stake-like spike protruded from the hole, long, thick, and deadly, a single droplet of an indigo substance dripping from the tip.

“You see this? This is my ‘syringe’. You know how it hurts like hell when a bee stings? Well, that’s because of the venom more than the sting itself. You see that dear chum over there undergoing cardiac arrest? He got nice and intimate with the venom dripping from this here syringe, and for the low, low price of your noncooperation, you can join him right this moment, so you’ll tell me and give me what I want, or you can have a hot date with Saint Peter and tell him all about how it felt like when your bodily functions all shot down one by one as your body burned from within. Alternatively, nod thrice if you wish to cooperate and walk away from this one instead.”

And thrice he nodded.

“I want to enter this building. Nod once if I can walk in, nod twice if I need a key or any sort of verification.” The guard nodded once, but Lisbeth simply sighed, not particularly convinced. “I have some nice, nice sodium thiopental on me. That’s nerdspeak for ‘truth serum’, and overdosing you on that will not only get me what I want, but also leave you with lasting neurological damage, so please, be a darling and just dispense the... Uh, spill the... Aw, shucks, what was the term... The beans! Yes, please, deposit all of the beans here, if you would”.

After some silence, he nodded twice and whispered, “the keys are on my left vest pocket. Slow day, so no one is in aside from us, a couple of more guys, and Mister Clement,” his voice cracking once or twice during the sentence.

“And how’s the building’s layout? Any basements? Three paltry floors can’t be all this delightful office has to offer, hm?”

“...Who are y--”

The guard immediately felt pressure from Lisbeth’s spike threatening to bore a hole in his jugular. “Hey, now, love, don’t answer a question with a question. Where I come from, that gets you injected with neurotoxins.”

“...It’s got a large basement, two floors, you can only get there via the elevator. This is really all I know, I just started working here two weeks ago, please, you don’t have to do this!”

“Hmmmm... Ok! I’ll be taking this key, then, now... On your feet. Slowly.”

Taking the key, Lisbeth helped the terrified man stand up, and patted him one the shoulder. “See? I told you you could walk away!” But before the guard could take one step forward, Lisbeth’s wicked thorn found purchase on his left arm.

“Wh-what!? I thought we ha--” but her hand immediately covered his mouth.

“I said you could walk away, but I didn’t specify you’d do so alive. Now, be a darling and make a nice show for me, hm?”

The guard cursed her, or at least attempted to do so, but whatever words he intended to use were lost in his pained screaming as he burst into flames almost instantly. What Lisbeth injected him with wasn’t poison or a neurotoxin, it was something far more sinister, one of the many shames of human ingenuity, a reminder that somewhere out there, a scientist once thought “what if I could make the world burn?”. Napalm, injected directly to the bloodstream. “Why in the world did you think I told you to nod in order to communicate? The moment you spoke, you spoiled our agreement, Not talking was literally the second instruction I gave you,” the blonde muttered to herself.

With deft agility, Lisbeth left the smoldering man to scream and run at his leisure as she hid back in her back alley, the slow chemical painfully, slowly burning him away like the loudest candle in the fair, prompting a group of seven men burst out of the building to pursue the burning sod not long after. As they futilely tried to put out the napalm flames, stubborn as a mule as they are, Lisbeth simply dusted off her coat and her pelt, calmly wearing them again. A black jacket with elegant gold details with matching black pants and boots, a pelt of a two-headed wolf providing a feral contrast to her elegant attire, and a pointed hat, right out of the witches’ tales. From her second satchel, Lisbeth produced her last item: A blank, featureless mask, which covered her face while still letting locks of her cream blonde hair spill in front of it.

As the men were distracted by their doomed companions, one weakly twitching as the poison devoured him from within, the other flailing wildly and making a commotion, Lisbeth calmly walked inside the building unnoticed.

“If they are speaking like that oh so openly about the Veiled, then this might be worth checking out,” a somewhat annoyed Lisbeth remarked, indulging in her habit of conversing with herself.

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Carpeted floor, old metal cabinets, and steel chairs neatly lined up in front of a TV comprised the interior of the supposed Law Firm. Sure enough, this looked like an accommodating waiting room for consultations and other such licitations. The illusion would hold up pretty well if it weren’t for the rather sizable amount of armed men that stormed out of the building mere moments ago. As fun and wholesome as a man undergoing cardiac arrest next to someone burning to death can be, these are merely distractions and won’t last forever. Understanding this, Lisbeth took a good look at the building’s frame, lightly but quickly knocking on the walls to see which walls were hollow and which were firm, giving knowing nods after each tock tock and each knock knock. With a good idea of which walls were essential and which weren’t in the thankfully simply designed structure, Lisbeth took a deep breath and concentrated.

“...I say, I loathe doing this every time, but you gotta do what you gotta do... Here goes nothing. Can’t afford to skim it with all these guys packing heat” the masked girl murmured as she chatted with herself, halfheartedly laughing. One or two unsuspecting fools were one thing, but seven angry, buff men? Lisbeth shall take a rain check on that, thank you very much.

The veins in the blonde’s arm bulged as her arm was suddenly grew red and swollen, then purple and grotesque, and finally almost black and fully sickening. With some clearly pained grunting, the arm’s mass finally began to subside, and as it did, a clay-like, brick red substance came out of the hole in her hand. “Hurts like hell every damn time...”, she lamented as she spread some of it on the door frame, on the crevasse behind the reception desk, under the rug, and in a couple of other places. On each of the little mounds of clay, she stuck a little pin. Without looking back and while clutching her pained arm, Lisbeth made her way to the elevator. It was an old model with rusty binder-style curtain doors. A little plaque to the left of it read “Authorized Personnel Only”. She simply snorted and pressed the unlabeled button on the bottom of the panel, descending where, hopefully, the truth awaited her.

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The stagnant air of the dark basement wasn’t the worst aspect of it at all. In stark contrast with the pristine, welcoming presentation of the first floor, this basement was putrid. Crude wooden tables, assorted bottles of alcohol, a dart board (with no bullseyes on it, tragically enough), a table of billiards, and plenty of nasty looking utensils right out of a cheap gore B-movie. For someone with a mask, Lisbeth’s expression sure screamed “disgusted and furious”. It seems no one was home, at least not on this floor, but the same couldn’t be said about the first floor anymore. Footsteps, and many of them, tumbled and stomped above Lisbeth’s head. Calmly producing a small controller-like device, Lisbeth pressed the red button with an “>:)” emblazoned on it, a symphony of explosions and screams filling the air with the harmony of a trap well set and executed. Before she could celebrate, however, an unexpected scream came from the end of the hallway, something between terror and surprise in a beautiful if somewhat grating high pitch.

“Who’s there!? Please, by all means, make a sudden move so I can melt your face off with a clear conscience!” Lisbeth yelled at the source of the scream, receiving no answer. Protruding spikes from both of her hands, she cautiously advanced towards what looked like a cell at the end of a poorly lit hallway. Inside the cell, a little girl with long, thin horns huddled to the corner, terrified, tears streaming down her face. She was very thing and no doubt ill, if her labored breathing was any indication.

“P-please... Don’t... Don’t...”

Lisbeth came to a full stop upon realizing just whose face she threatened to melt off. “Ah, no, wait, hold on, I’m not one of th--”

“Stay away! What did I do to you people!? Why are you doing this to me! I want my mom! Stay away!” snapped the child, throwing a dog’s bowl that seemed to be from where she’d been eating the last few days. The sight couldn’t be more lamentable.

“Jeez... Yeah, of course you’d be wary if I look like this...” Lisbeth muttered to herself, for once cursing her choice of attire. Before she could sulk anymore, however, a light bulb shone above her head. “Hey, hey, I’m not going to get close, I just wanna show you something nice. Look at my hand.”

“...?” the child’s curiosity was roused, and she intently looked at the black-clad girl’s hand. The distinctive glove she wore lacked fabric where the palm is, kind of like fingerless gloves except an aggregate of one hundred times more pretentious. What caught her eye, however, wasn’t the strange glove, it was the hole in the center of her palm. Before she could craft a question about it in her tiny little mouth, however, a gentle jet of cold air blew from it, and soon after, beautiful snowflakes filled the cell. “W-wow! Snow...!? I’ve never seen snow! It’s so pretty! How are you doing that?”

As she produced more snowflakes with one hand, Lisbeth slowly removed her mask with the other, a friendly smile meeting the child’s cheerful expression. “By gently blowing a controlled amount of liquid nitrogen, I can freeze the natural humidity in the air, that is, the small amount of water in the air just enough to cause it to crystallize! In this way, if I manage the output in relation to room temperature and, if applicable, altitude, I can--” but she quickly shut her own mouth when she noticed the horribly perplexed expression on the poor child’s face.

“...U-uhh...?”

“...Magic, my dear friend!”

“Wow!”

Sometimes, less is more.

“My name is Lisbeth. Lisbeth Elstad,” she kindly explained as she approached slowly, until she finally was next to the child. “I have a hypothesis that your name must be really cute, given how cute you are, so would you mind sharing it with me? For science, of course.”

“I’m Marcela Toreca!” the child answered, no longer afraid of Lisbeth.

“Hypothesis confirmed! What a nice name, you little sweetling... Say, I need to ask you a few things, but if it becomes too hard to answer, don’t sweat it, ok? I’m here to more or less dismantle the place. How... How long have you been here? Why are you here?”

Marcela’s face immediately went grim again, tears welling in her eyes. “They... They kidnapped me. Snatched me when I was on the park with mama and papa, I saw them beat them up, yelled at them over something, and I’ve been here for four days. They... They were going to sell me tomorrow, and they, they sometimes would take the branding iron there and--”

Whatever came after that, Lisbeth didn’t hear as she hugged the child close. “Tug on the pelt. Grab it with all of your might and tug on it. Try to rip it if you want. Don’t say anything else, just rip and tug.” And so the child did, gripping the wolf pelt with all the strength her little hands could muster, pulling at it. It wasn’t necessary to make her relive those events anymore. “Marcela, your skin is pretty pale, and I noticed you have trouble breathing. I’m kind of in a hurry here, so I can’t really check you thoroughly, but I have a shot that’ll help you.”

The child shook with a single, potent goosebump. “U-uh, no, I’m fi--”

“You aren’t afraid of shots, aren’t you, darling? My, my, and here I thought I’d show you some more snow tricks, but alas, they are only for brave kids!”

“Uuuh... F-fine! I ain’t afraid of no needle!”

Lisbeth couldn’t help but smile. Producing a long, thin syringe filled with a green liquid from one of her satchels, Lisbeth gently held Marcela’s wrist and extended her arm. “Ok now! Close your eyes and don’t open them no matter what, ok? It won’t take more than a minute.”

With a nod and a smile, Marcela closed her eyes. Lisbeth discreetly put away the syringe and protruded one of her hand spikes, gently pressing it against a vein on Marcela’s arm and pumping her full of vitamins, nutrients, and mild energizers. Then, after retracting her spike, Lisbeth produced a different, empty syringe from her satchel. “Ok, open your eyes now.”

“...Did I do good?”

“Now, don’t tell anyone I said this, but I’ve met plenty of kickass kids in my time, but you? Easily the kickassest... Kickassetest? You did great.”

The little horned girl couldn’t help but smile. “Miss... Are you going to get me out of here?”

Lisbeth gestured a cross with both of her index fingers. “Not if you call me ‘Miss’ again! Lis is fine, I’m not much older than you. I’ll get you out of here, but first, I need to finish my own business here. Once I’m done with that, I assure you that no one will hound you again, and I’ll take you back outside. So be good like hydrogen and stay put here until I’m done, ok?”

“No! I-I’ll help you, Lis! Th-that guy has a weird trick! He shot my dad from the front, but the bullet hit him in the back somehow! If you go in alone, he’ll kill you! I’m strong, I’ll help you!” the resolute little Marcela declared, putting up her little dukes.

“...Ah, how am I gonna say no to this? Ok, but on one condition: I have a special potion that will help you become stronger. You can come with me only, and only if you take it. Howzat sound?”

“Fine! Even if it’s another i-injection,” -- Marcela’s voice cracked -- “I’ll accompany Lis! Give it to me!”

“Hmhm! Brave little pancake, ain’tcha? Ok, here’s the potion.”

With a sudden yet gentle and careful motion, Lis’ palm cradled the petite girl’s face, a mildly sweet and ether-like odor blanketing Marcela’s nostrils. The tiny girl quickly collapsed, Lisbeth catching her and settling her down gently. “A jet of chloroform always gets the job done, doesn’t it? Sleep tight, Marcela.”

Wearing her mask once anew, the resolute girl made her way to the staircase at the end of the poorly lit corridor, making sure her footsteps would be silent, the unexplored second basement floor beckoning every violent urge in her already trembling body. Tilting her mask sideways just slightly, Lisbeth nibbled on the tip of one of her spikes, “snacking” on liquid diazepam to calm herself. “Let’s have some words, you and I, Mister Clement...”

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The second floor basement was vastly different. It wasn’t luxurious by any definition, but it didn’t feel cramped, had no cells, and felt more like a little gathering spot with touches of mancave, given the plenty bookcases, billiards table, bar, and other such “classy” entertainment staples, all of which would have had an endearing air were it not for the whole Veiled trafficking. If anything, it’s correct to say this place wasn’t luxurious yet, as it was clear it was slowly but surely being furnished little by little to resemble some sort of mafia underground hangout, the kind wacky and villainous art collectors seem to always have in the movies. At the far end of the spacious basement, on an elevated section, not yet carpeted, a large leather chair with two arms barely peeking on the arm rest were Lisbeth’s goal. That had to be Clement. Controlling her breathing and making sure her footsteps were silent, the girl managed no more than three steps before a voice froze her in place.

“That’s far enough, madame. You seriously didn’t think you’d be able to sneak up on me after detonating bombs on the first floor, right?”

In a split second and with her eyes wide with shock, Lisbeth tumbled out of the way, a bullet grazing her left shoulder from behind, a little grunt escaping her lips. The chair turned around, and sitting on it was a man in his early 30s, slicked back black hair with piercing blue eyes, his exquisite white suit looked less like a legal adviser’s and more like an hedonist’s pajamas, save for the single glove he wore over his right hand, and dung beetles everywhere in the world felt a strange sense of attraction to his shit eating grin. “You made me wait quite a bit, Exter. I hope you have a good reason to have made a mess of my office without a warrant. And here I thought I had made a good network. So, who snitched on me? I bet it was Harland! I always suspected him of being an undercover rat, hah!”

“Hah, don’t lump me together with those wusses. Exter’s aren’t worth the filth stuck to the sole of my boots. I’m here on behalf of no one but myself. I just wanted to have a little chat with you, see? I need to know the legality of disfiguring someone’s face with a lead pipe, Mister Lawman, so please help me out here.”

“...Hold on, you’re not an Exter?” Clement first looked genuinely confused for a second, and then simply let out a guffaw. “Ahahah! Oh, well, slap my ass and call me Cindy! You, you’re here alone? Unaffiliated? Well, that makes things easier.” Without further ado, he pointed the gun at Lisbeth and pulled the trigger. The sound very distinctly came from the pistol, but the bullet struck Lisbeth square in the back, making her lurch forward momentarily before she collapsed with a pained wimper. “If you’re not with anyone, then I have no interest in whatever information I can get out of you.”

“Why, that’s very rude, mister Clement, heh,” the girl laughed as she slowly rose from the ground. none the worse for wear. “At least let me finish talking. I suspected you’d have one of those after a little tip I got from a certain girl, but seeing you fire it confirmed it. That right there is a Rennard DZ87 ‘Mitsuhide’, isn’t it? Also known as the ‘Backshooter’, a popular enchanted handgun.”

Clement simply scratched his head. “Huh... Hey, how come you didn’t die? People usually do when I shoot them.”

“Ballistic gelatin,” explained the girl, tapping her back. “Never go in without some preparation. Put some there when I heard you had a habit of shooting people’s backs. I got some bad news for you, sweetheart, but that gun right there is useless. All the DZ87 does is use basic portal magic to teleport the bullet at the muzzle to a portal behind whatever is on its crosshairs. It’s an effective gun if you’re fighting completely mundane people or rookies, but otherwise, it’s just a gimmicky gun for, as the more crass denizens of the streets would say, pussies.”

“You mean to tell me you carry ballistic freaking gelatin with you everywhere you go? Why not just wear kevlar?”

“Good question! Why don’t you come a little close to good ol’ Lis and find out for yourself?”

The foes locked eyes for some silent moments, and when the calm was over, the storm began. Lisbeth produced some sort of little rubbery object, akin to an uninflated balloon, and pressed it against her hand’s hole, quickly filling it with a light green liquid, and the “balloon” filled, it gradually lost elasticity until it became a perfectly sealed glass orb, full of the liquid. This whole process happened in a second, and without losing any more time, she lobbed it Clement-wards, who dodged the flung weapon.

“Throwing balls versus a pistol? You must be out of your m--!”

Clement had to call a rain check on his very important taunting, however, when he heard the glass orb shatter behind him. The liquid inside the orb, as soon as it made contact with air, burst into a noxious miasma, a toxic gas that threatened to blanket him. Rapidly reacting, Clement leaped down from his high ground, evading the toxic gas, but before he knew it, Lisbeth was already making a rush for him, spikes hungry for his veins protruding from her palms. Clement took aim, and as he was pulling the trigger, Lisbeth turned her back to him.

“What...? Idiot, you could at least try to dodge the bullet instead of giving your back to m--Urgh!”

The gun went off, but the one struck was Clement. As he double over in pain, a swift kick from Lisbeth disarmed him, and another right on the chin floored him.

“Didn’t I explain before? The DZ87 makes a portal behind whatever is in its crosshairs. No one uses Mitsuhides on real combat anymore because of how utterly simplistic, outdated, and unreliable they are. All I had to do was give my back to you while being sufficiently close to you, and the portal, still technically behind me, is generated at a fixed distance, which happens to put you between the bullet and I. Even at the apex of their popularity, Mitsuhides were a side arm, and never a main weapon. You’d use the Mitsuhide with another firearm or weapon to keep your opponent guessing. If the bullet is always going to come from behind, it becomes trivial to deal with it,” the spiked girl explained with a matter-of-fact tone, almost as if dealing with a child. “You’ve never fought anything more dangerous than the parents of the innocent Veiled whose children you’ve abducted, am I right?”

“H-hey now, please! I’m just a lawyer! No need to get-- Hey, you said you wanted info, right? I’ll talk, I’ll talk! Just please promise you won’t kill me!”

Lisbeth’s eyes were looking not at a human being, but at garbage right now. “You’re quite the honest person, are you not? Talk, before I change my mind.”

“Thank you, thank you!” Clement said almost as if worshiping her. “...Hold on, before I start, you might want to do something about that Minotaur over there. She’s looking sickly, and, well, we haven’t fed her in two days,” the host explained as he pointed behind Lisbeth, towards the elevator.

“What!? Marcela, did you wake up alre--”

As soon as she turned around, something cold and sharp like the beak of a scythe found purchase on Lisbeth’s right side, sinking deep into her. She spat blood and fumbled her feet a bit before a kick sent her barreling to the floor, fresh vermilion spilling out of her wound.

“Hey, Miss Lecture, maybe don’t take your eyes off your enemy, dumbass.”

As Lisbeth turned around, Clement dipped his left hand on some of the blood left behind by her and used it to slick his hair back again. It had to be his left hand, after all, because his right arm was currently a massive metallic sickle. Moments later, the sickle turned back into a prosthetic arm.

“A Technomancer!?”

“Yup. That ‘dee zee’... Whatever you called it pistol was just insurance. I do practice some magic of my own, I mean, you’d have to be crazy not to if you’re in this business.” Clement’s jovial explanation ceased immediately after he noticed not as much blood as he expected was flowing “Hm? I thought the wound was deeper, you’re not dead yet. Again. You’re starting to piss me off, girl.” To be fair to Clement, it is pretty frustrating when people won’t die.

Upon closer inspection, Lisbeth was indeed wounded and bleeding but the wolf pelt had not been pierced at all. It was the impact itself more than any slashing damage that harmed Lisbeth. “And once again, she saved me...” Lisbeth murmured, clutching the pelt tightly before standing up.

Clement’s assault continued, his mechanical arm changing shapes to axes and swords and sickles, trying to mince Lisbeth into a pile of flesh and agony, but she kept her body parts where they should be by evading the attacks. However, it wasn’t graceful dodging, it was more akin to a headless chicken trying not to get diced up, something Clement picked up on. It was almost as if Lisbeth was afraid. As Clement advanced on her with a sword-arm, Lisbeth put chairs and other pieces of furniture between them, obstacles that were easily cleft in twain by the Technomancer.

“...Hm? Oh... Oh! I see!” Clement declared, his eyes shining with the light of realization. “You... You are deadly afraid. You piece of shit kid. You clothes made it hard to notice, but now that I get a good look at you, not only are you just a kid, you’re trembling in your boots.”

“...Oh, please, of course my body language is going to be all weird during a life or death situation!”

“No.” boldly interrupted Clement, calling Lisbeth out on her bluff. “That’s not merely adrenaline, that’s fear. I know fear when I see it. When you abduct Veiled, you see fear. When their children are abducted, you see fear. When leave them beaten bloody as you take their children, you see fear. In your body language, demeanor, and words, I see it, girl. I see fear. You can’t fool a merchant of fear in the subject of his trade.”

“S-shut up, I’m two steps away from killing you, what the hell do you know!?” Lisbeth yelled back, losing her cool.

“I understand it, even! Girl, you dispatched my men and casually strolled in because it all went according to your plan. You’re very smart, I’ll give you that, but the moment things went off the rails, the moment things stopped going according to your plan... You panicked. The moment you saw my mechanical arm, your whole facade fell through. You expected a punk ass bitch with a gun, but you found a Technomancer instead. You do not know how to play it by ear!”

“...!” One didn’t have to look at Lisbeth’s face behind her mask to know she had been read like an open book. As if to confirm Clement’s words, Lisbeth filled two more orbs with a white powder and recklessly, or it’d be more accurate to say sloppily, threw them at his assailant. The lawyer simply snatched one of the air with his left hand, while moved out of the way of the other. As it landed on the floor, the orb shattered, causing a small explosion that left a little, short lived fire where it landed. 

“...White phosphorous, huh? It’s what they use in incendiary rounds, if I have my chemistry right. Still, a fire that little means you were very sloppy in producing it. Maybe, the quality of the things that come out of those holes in your hands depends on your focus. Pissing your pants as you are right now, you can’t even make a proper explosion, I’d wager,” Clement summarized, taking his sweet time in purpose to fully indulge in the helplessness of the girl in front him. “What kind of magic is this? I’ve never seen anything like it. You can just make things with those holes? It’s some sort of Conjuration or Alchemy, if I had to take a shot in the dark... It looks more like playing with chemicals more than any real magic. Just some artificial cheap tricks, perfect for an artificial cheap girl who has to fake her bravery! I’ll have plenty of time to see how it all works after I cut your arms off.”

Lisbeth’s response was to throw more orbs, but nothing worked against him in this chaotic state of mind. The plan had gone awry, and Lisbeth no longer knew what to do. Why? How come someone who got this far today was suddenly so inept and incompetent? Why was she suddenly a scared little nobody, when she had been oh so efficient mere minutes ago?

Well, the answer is simple.

“...Kudos to you, kid,” Clement chided, half seriously, half in jest. “It takes balls to do what you did when you are such a massive coward. That mask, that outfit, it’s all out to evoke fear, to make you look big, eh?”

“Shut up!” Lisbeth retorted, producing her spikes and lunging at Clement with a panicked leap, only to meet a metallic hammer-arm face first, her body being flung to a bookcase like a helpless rag doll as her mask clattered against the floor. As she tried to get on her feet, her body simply wouldn’t comply.

“Ahh... Ahh... Damn it, come on, stand...! Hhr...! That’s two or three ribs... Come on! Stand up! W-wait, where is my mask... Where is it...!”

“You know,” Clement continued, talking leisurely as the fight was as good as won. “I didn’t know what I expected behind that mask, but it sure as hell wasn’t an ugly ass kid with tears streaming down her face. I feel like a god damned idiot for having been tricked by you in the first place. As soon as I am done with you, I’m going to take it out on that little shit upstairs. You have only yourself to blame.”

“You...! Why do you kidnap Veiled children!? Is human trafficking that fun!? Are you really that desperate for some cash!?” the furious Lisbeth lashed out, crawling away from him, huddling against the bookcase she was flung against.

Clement simply blinked. “It’s not human trafficking, though? It’s just Veiled kids, no biggie.”

“...What?”

“Oh, come on, it’s just some garbage from the other side that shouldn’t be here in the first place! I wouldn’t do this with an actual fucking person, get real! Its just a Veiled! It’s like cattle! You take the young, and let the old make more young, and then take them again! It’s good business.”

“Good business, huh...? I see, it’s good business. Ripping children away from their parents is good business to you... So we are just good business to you, huh? Good to know, really good to know!”

“Hm? Wh--”

Clement had seen fear plenty of times, but there was something else he was very familiar with: Anger. He saw anger every time a Veiled parent would have their children taken away from them. He saw anger every time a Veiled children would get sold off to the highest bidder. He saw anger every time a helpless parent tried their hardest and was beaten to a pulp by him and his thugs. He knew anger when he saw it, and right now?

Lisbeth’s face wasn’t one of fear, not exclusively. She was afraid, for sure, but there was something far more potent that that in her lithe frame right now, causing it to shake not from fear anymore.

And that was the blistering, white, hot anger that her silver eyes exuded with naught an attempt to curb it.

Protruding her hand spikes, Lisbeth impaled herself and let out a primal scream as her veins bulged unnaturally. Not two seconds later, she less jumped and more exploded towards Clement with far more force and speed than her body type and musculature would suggest, quickly releasing a burst of liquid nitrogen to encase her right hand in a block of ice that smashed against the face of the Technomancer, his world spinning for a second. He swiped back at her, catching her with a well placed right hook, a literal hook, mind you, that should have pierced her real well. And it would have, had it not been for the ice shield Lisbeth quickly made with another burst of liquid nitrogen to intercept the hook. Clement acted fast, however, and used his regular hand to streak a punch right across the girl’s face with all of his strength. Surely, with their weight and height differences, she really should’ve felt this one, right?

Nope.

Unfazed, Lisbeth swung her left hand this time as if to respond in kind, a white phosphorous-enhanced flaming uppercut that connected squarely with his jaw, quickly followed by another meteoric downwards hammer punch from the frozen hand, making him spit blood and a molar.

“S-shit, what the hell! How the hell...!”

“I pumped myself full of steroids and painkillers, darling. You are so, as they say on less reputable streets, fucked right now!”

Clement desperately turned his arm into a blade again and lunged at her, and surprisingly, found purchase, piercing the girl... And then, she grabbed onto the arm, and pulled him closer and closer.

“...! Did you intentionally...!? Wait, wait, are you nuts?! Wait!”

“Nuts? No, just desperate and short on time. Bare your neck.”

Clement’s begging fell on empty ears as Lisbeth’s left hand, swollen and charred with the burns from her own fire punch, protruded that nasty, flesh-hungry spike that quickly found its way to the veins in his neck, injecting something that quickly paralyzed Clement and made him burn from within. Pulling herself away from the arm that was currently running her through, Lisbeth, who wobbled and struggled to walk straight, one hand pressed tightly against her wound, approached his (obviously pretentious) whiskey cabinet, poured herself a glass, and drank it in one shot.

“...Even your taste in whiskey fucking sucks,” she quipped. Getting four more glasses, she lined them up in front of the poisoned Clement, and filled each with different, strange liquids directly from her hand holes. The first one was electric blue, the next, transparent, like water, followed by a light green liquid, and last but not least, a brown, sludge-like substance.

“Alright, Clement, we’re going to play something I like to call the Apothecary's Game. The rules are simple: In front of you are four glasses. Three of them are poison, but one of them is an antidote to the poison I just injected you with.”

“...What the hell is this?” Clement snarled, unable to move but seemingly able to speak.

“I didn’t give you a full dose of the venom, just enough to disable you... For now, anyways. That dose will turn lethal, given enough time, so your clock is ticking. Now, you can try and pick one of the glasses in front of you, giving you a 25% chance of picking the right choice. Pick wrong, however, and you will have drank a full dose of another poison. The two venoms in you will react really, really badly together, and you’ll die slowly and very painfully. Here’s where it gets fun!” -- Lisbeth cheerfully announced as she fastened her mask back in place, back in-character -- “If you give me information I want, and I believe you, I’ll take away one of the duds. Give me three answers I am looking for, and you’ll only be left with the antidote! Fair, isn’t it?”

“Fair like a gun to the temple, you maniac...”

“That’s rich coming from the child kidnapper. Alright, question one: How did you get this gig rolling? I heard you once worked with one Mister Sibbens, but he doesn’t seem to be around today.”

“...I killed Sibbens.” -- it seems Clement had given up on lying, fearing the repercussions of being caught -- “We originally only took cases that involved Veiled trying to get a citizenship here on the Human World. Sibbens was very much a philanthropist in this regard, and would sometimes not even charge Veiled if they didn’t have the means...”

“And you, of course, didn’t like that very much.”

“Heh, nope, not at all. I studied law to get paid accordingly, not to run a charity, much less one for sub-human freaks. Eventually, I staged his death, pinned the blame on a Veiled, and what do you know? The Exters fully bought into it.”

Lisbeth grabbed the glass with the light green fluid and tossed it across the room. “That’s one dud down. How did you get away with it for so long?”

“I still take cases, see? Veiled cases. I defend them, I vouch for them, I get them their citizenships, and play the part of the hero. I use a system much like the ‘decimation’ of the Roman Army: Every tenth Veiled family that comes, I get my boys to abduct their kids and threaten them to keep silent or risk getting their children killed. Even if they speak out against me, I have a bunch of other Veiled that will defend me, as I got them their citizenship for cheap. Then, I sell the Veiled kids in the black market for high prices. Pretty good system that guarantees no one snitches on you and, if they do, nothing happens anyways... Well, at least until an ugly masked bitch ruined it all.”

Lisbeth, however, didn’t react at all for a few seconds, and simply tossed the glass with the blue liquid away after a short delay. “It’s always money for your type, huh? That’s all we amount to when placed in front of you and your money: Obstacles to be removed, the consequences be damned. Ripping families apart is just so fun to you, isn’t it? Bad whiskey and a tacky mancave justifies it all for you, I gather. Last question: Were you involved in what happened to the White Silhouette?”

Clement looked visibly puzzled. “White... Silhouette? As in, the extremely efficient and deadly Doppel corps? They got crushed mysteriously some time ago, didn’t they?”

Lisbeth nodded. “Were you involved?”

“Not at all, I’m not that big of a player.”

“And do you know who could have done it? Do you have any clues? Any idea of where one could begin to look for answers?”

“I’ve seriously no idea of who could’ve done that... Why do you care so much for that?”

“I’m the one making the questions, sweetheart.”

“Yeah, yeah... But really, I’ve nothing to do with that, nor do I know who could have done it.”

“...Alright.” Lisbeth sighed, grabbing the glass with the transparent liquid and tossing it. “You’ve earned it. Here’s the antidote.” And just as she said that, Lisbeth also tossed away the antidote, the glass shattering against a bookcase, staining several books with the brown sludge. 

“Wh-what the fuck!? We had a deal!”

“It wasn’t a deal, it was a game. I don’t deal with serial kidnappers, and even less with lawyers. Kindly fuck off to the afterlife, please.” As if to call the curtain on this horrible specimen, Lisbeth’s spike dug into his neck one last time, pumping him full of the venom, making Clement undergo seizures as he bled from his eyes and frothed at the mouth, an ugly end for an ugly man.

Examining the elevated section where Lisbeth first spotted Clement, the Alchemist found a computer, conveniently on and accessible. Gripping her silver cross pendant, Lisbeth pulled on its bottom to remove what seemed to be a detachable section akin to a cap, revealing a USB drive. Plugging it into the computer, Lisbeth copied and pasted everything she could find in the terminal to it. Once she was done, Lisbeth copied an executable program onto the desktop, unplugged her drive, and ran the program, bricking the computer in mere seconds.

“...Until I am done going through this data, I can’t know for sure if he lied or not, but it seems he’s unrelated, making this a waste of time for the most part. Well, at least the world is one child kidnapper down...” And as she walked one, one could swear she also said “...And one lawyer down...” under her breath.

Putting the cap on her USB drive, Lisbeth called for the elevator, feebly and barely holding herself together, the kickback from the steroids and the waning effect of the painkillers making her really feel her sustained wounds. “...Better just bear with it... If I keep injecting this stuff, I’ll really OD...”

                                                     ---------

The sky grew pink over the Clement & Sibbens Law Firm office. Bodies and rubble adorned the first floor of the building as Lisbeth emerged from the elevator with the still asleep Marcela in her arms. Carrying her away, Lisbeth noticed, much to her relief, that despite there having been a literal explosion, it seems authorities were not yet in the area. “...The fact that they’ve taken so long to come check this out means they knew this was a front. I wonder how many of the local cops are under Clement’s pockets... Well, were under his pockets. Still, I should hurry.”

As she walked away through the back alleys and away from more populated areas, Lisbeth collapsed, both her and Marcela meeting the ground, unable to go on any longer with her wounds, particularly her broken ribs and the lower left side of her torso, which had been completely run through with Clement’s blade-arm. As much as she produced morphine in her body, she had accumulated far more damage than she could handle. As she lay on the floor, bleeding out, Lisbeth couldn’t help but feel a bit of relief.

It was all so scary. It can finally end. She did her best, right? This much was enough. Time and time again, she ended up in terrifying situations, acting as if she was on top of it all where in reality all she wanted was to scream. The mask looked intimidating, but it was all to conceal her terrified expression and her crying. She couldn’t help crying during battle. These clothes were so heavy, the pelt was so asphyxiating, both physically and mentally, an eternal reminder of who she must avenge.

But none of that mattered now, right? She could go. She could finally rest. She tried her best. Oluwasanmi and the Mercury Witch would welcome her in the afterlife, after so long, right? She could almost see them, the gentle giant and the rowdy witch, arms spread open, waiting for her...

“...Bullshit...”

It was only a matter of walking to the end of the light, where Father and Mother awaited her...

“...They aren’t my parents...”

Mere footsteps away...

“They never found the fucking bodies! They aren’t dead! Until I see the bodies, I won’t--”

Of course it’s never that easy. Even cowards have their pride. Even if a coward hates every moment of it, once cornered, once pressured, they will bare their fangs. It’s not that Lisbeth has nothing to lose, it’s that she lost it all already.

Some might take that as a sign to call it quits.

But Lisbeth isn’t like that.

Lisbeth shot awake, but the blinding pain caused by her sudden movement immediately made her inch back onto the bed. Wait... Bed?

“...Where... Just where am I?”

“Well, good morning, Miss Hero.”

White sheets, a window, medical equipment, and a woman in a suit sitting on the other side of the room. This was a hospital if she ever saw one.

“How...”

“How did you get here? Well, one Miss Marcela Toreca called us from a payphone, emergency call, and told us where to find you. It seems your good deed saved your life.”

“Marcela--! Where is she!?”

“Relax. She’s in the room adjacent to this one, she’s--”

“Malnutritioned and has a case of Plonar’s Disease! If we don’t treat the gangrene on the base of her horns, she might become a vegetable or even die!”

The woman in the suit whistled and clapped. “Well, now, that’s quite the accurate diagnosis. You are correct on all accounts and she’s being treated. You’ll be delighted to know her parents were contacted and they are in there, too. They really want to thank you for saving their disappeared daughter.”

Upon hearing this, Lisbeth visibly sank into her bed. “Ah... Well, that’s good to know... But now, you... Are no nurse, are you?”

The suited woman simply giggled. “Indeed I am not. Miss ‘Lisbeth’, was it? Unless you fed Marcela a false name, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance... Now, on behalf of the California NEST of Exters, I have some questions I’d like you to answer. And please don’t try to, ah, finesse your way out of this one. I’ll tell you right now we have the whole building surrounded.”

“...It doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice, then,” Lisbeth murmured, clearly displeased.

“Whether that is your name or not is irrelevant, really, because we know something for sure, courtesy of that tattoo on the back of your hand, Miss White Silhouette.”

“...Ah.”

Just now realizing she had been stripped of all her clothes to be put in a hospital gown, that also included her gloves, and with her gloves gone, the Canis Major tattoo on the back of her left hand was fully visible. 

“A genuine article, too. So you’re the sole survivor of the White Silhouette, huh? Well, Miss Lisbeth, we can’t have an ex-Doppel just running around in Exter turf like this, you no doubt understand. Depending on your cooperation, we might be able to reach some sort of compromise. I am sure we can both benefit from this, hmhm.”

Lisbeth could only listen to this office fox flap her gums. With the damage she sustained, she knew better than anyone, better than any of these doctors, that her body would break down should she try anything. It seems the gig was finally up.

It was this encounter that brought the story of “Lisbeth Elstad” to an end and that marked the beginning of the story “Lisbeth Elstad, Exter”, a story about a coward who has decide to face everything to recover what she lost, even if all she can recover is ‘closure’.

But that story is one for another day, for another medium.