Sasha generally preferred open shopping streets to the enclosed malls, but she had chosen to shop here today to escape the endless rain outsides, which she intensely begged would be giving way to nicer summer conditions soon. Like most Vancouverites, Sasha appreciated the positive effects the rainy climate had for the region’s lush vegetation, but she couldn’t deny that she preferred the dry and warm summers anyway.
With its one hundred stores, Pacific Centre wasn’t the largest mall in the city by a wide margin, but Sasha liked it for its convenient location, particularly appreciating that she didn’t need to brave the crazy downtown traffic to get here, but could use a convenient public transport link instead.
On this Tuesday morning, the mall wasn’t as crazily stuffed as it could be during weekends or afternoons, but Sasha still had to zig-zag herself through the crowd in order to avoid bumping into another person.
Sasha was just examining the display of her favourite boutique, pondering about whether or not the sorry remainders of free storage space in her tiny closet would allow for the addition of another summer dress, as her eyes noticed something odd behind her. In the window reflection Sasha noticed a large figure walking up straight towards her and stopping around seven feet behind her. She didn’t know what exactly it was what made her realize the danger, but her instincts saved her life as she drew on her magic and created a protective shield around her in the very same instant the cold blast struck her from behind. A portion of the frigid air still hit her a split second before her protection was fully in place - striking her into her back and left side, and knocking her down, while she was screaming in pain.
The larger portion of the blast hit the shop’s window, instantly freezing the glass and shattering it to tiny pieces of frozen shards flying wide in all directions.
The chill gnawing at her body was nothing Sasha had ever experienced before. Her entire left side instantly went completely numb, leaving her unable to move her left arm at all anymore. When Sasha glanced at her arm, she cringed as she realized that the skin was blistered and partially frozen solid.
People around her were screaming in panic. A few bystanders had been grazed by the cloud of cold and were now running off, holding their frost-bitten arms, hands and faces.
Holding her paralyzed left arm in an instinctive, but futile attempt to warm it, Sasha staggered back to her feet and locked her eyes at the person who just tried to kill her and almost succeeded. She was sure that she had never seen the tall, dark-skinned man before, who now stared at her with a smug smile on his lips.
“Who are you and why do want to kill me?” Sasha managed to squeeze through her clenched teeth.
The man shrugged. “The name’s Richard. But I usually go by ‘Frostbite’, for reasons you have probably realized by now. And I’ve got five million good reasons to kill you. Your former husband is very generous and very annoyed at you.”
“A killer for hire...I see,” Sasha said, and nodded towards the panicked people running away from them, trying to clear the area that had just turned into a warzone. “Let them go first, your quarrel is with me, not them. No reason to harm innocents.”
The man crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Fair enough, I have got all the time in the world to kill you,” he said. “Don’t move until they are gone, though.”
Sasha stood still, until the last civilian was safely out of range. Then she nodded her silent thanks to the man who wanted to kill her, but at least possessed enough honour not to endanger innocents in what was now to come.
An instant later another, much stronger icy cloud struck Sasha’s energy shield, but with her protection in place, Sasha was shielded from most of the effects, and felt only a very faint cold breeze around her body. Still realizing that she couldn’t keep her protective shield up for an indefinite time, Sasha pointed her good hand at the man and drew on her magic. The searing bolt of lightning struck Frostbite’s body dead centre - or would have, if the man hadn’t flexed his own hand upwards, creating a solid shield of ice in front of him. The lightning shattered into the shield, instantly destroying it, but also consuming its power in the process, and reflecting most of the remaining energy to the side. The man staggered back two steps from the heavy blast delivered to him - but then he grinned at Sasha again, slowly shaking his head and wiggling his index finger at her.
“That lightshow of yours won’t work on me, lady,” he chuckled.
A double blast of frigid air shot in Sasha’s direction. In horror, Sasha realized that the first wave of the twin blast wasn’t even directed at her body – but at the floor under her feet. The cold air froze the tiled floor solid and created a thin layer of slippery ice on it. The second blast knocked into Sasha’s energy shield a split second later. Its energy almost exhausted, Sasha’s force field flickered under the assault, but still absorbed most of the cold. The blast still knocked Sasha backwards – and her feet immediately lost grip on the slippery ground that might as well have served as a hockey rink now. Falling hard on her behind, Sasha slid over the floor until her uncontrolled slide was finally stopped by her bumping backwards into a concrete wall, just in time for a third wave of freezing air rolling in at her.
And after absorbing the newest assault, Sasha’s shield folded, for its power was exhausted.
Sasha gazed at the laughing man as he raised his arm, the palm of his hand inverted backwards and pointing towards the ceiling. A solid spear of ice formed in his hand, at least five feet long and ten inches thick, featuring a razor sharp tip. Without her shield, the icy missile would surely kill Sasha if it hit her - and the ground was too slippery for Sasha to hope to be able to walk on it in any controlled fashion without wearing skates.
With a snarl, Frostbite threw the spear at her.
Sasha reached for her magic and propelled her body into flight, taking the only escape route left to her – the air. The ice spear missed her by mere inches, smashing into the wall Sasha had been leaning against, and shattering into a thousand pieces upon impact. Razor-sharp shards cut into Sasha’s unprotected arms and legs, sending waves of agony through her body. Some larger parts shattered multiple shop windows and destroyed the displays behind them in a hailstorm of ice.
Ignoring the pain, Sasha whirled around in mid-flight, aimed her right hand at Frostbite and launched a strong kinetic blast at him. Like he had done earlier, the man conjured up a shining barrier of ice to absorb most of the blast, but after shattering the icy shield to pieces, a portion of Sasha’s pressure wave still sent him flying, knocking him backwards into the already destroyed remains of a shop window display.
“So you can be hurt after all, huh?” Sasha muttered more to herself than to her opponent, as Frostbite slowly staggered back to his feet and advanced on her again. But whatever damage she might have done to him didn’t seem to bother him greatly, since has was still grinning.
He inhaled deeply - and Sasha was glad that her magic energy was replenished enough for her to recast her protective shield for at least a short while, for she knew what was going to come. With a flickering flash of light, the transparent bubble of energy sparked to live and encased Sasha.
The immense blast of cold air rolling through the mall was not even aimed at Sasha though, for Frostbite seemed to have realized that he couldn’t harm the woman directly, as long as her energy shield was up.
Instead he breathed the frigid air at the entire width of the mall, freezing floor, ceiling and walls, covering it all under a multiple-inch thick layer of ice. When he was finally done exhaling a miniature equivalent of an arctic storm, the entire mall looked like a giant ice cavern and its temperature had almost instantly dropped to around minus fifty degrees Celsius.
The intense ambient cold was nothing Sasha’s energy shield could fully protect her from. While a portion of it was still being absorbed by the magical protection, the chilling cold relentlessly bit into her exposed arms and legs, and Sasha was hardly wearing any sort of winter clothing to begin with.
Three other, more directed blasts struck Sasha’s shield dead centre in rapid succession and threw her back and around in mid-air, her body spinning out of control from the constant onslaught. Having to cancel her flight under the brutal attacks, Sasha landed on her feet on the slippery ice, barely able to keep her balance. Her protective shield was exhausted again, and despite Sasha’s best efforts to keep it up just a little bit longer, it collapsed just as the next wave of super-cold air rolled in.
And only then Sasha realized what Frostbite had been planning.
His previous attacks, vicious as they were, had no other purpose than exhausting her shield. The cold air from the newest wave was the actual attack – now that he had forced her back on the ground. The icy blast was now breezing around her unprotected feet and forming a solid layer of ice around them, freezing them in place as if glued to the ground. Sasha would no longer be able to evade any further incoming attacks by stepping aside or flying off. She was now an immobile target, impossible to miss. And she had nothing left to protect herself. For a brief moment Sasha thought about launching a kinetic pressure wave into the ice and shatter it to pieces - but the force necessary to free her legs would also be harmful enough to incapacitate herself in the process. Either way, the result would be the same: Sasha would have no way to escape the following attack, and her shield would be down for at least another minute before she could cast a new one.
Frostbite chuckled. “I give you that, it was a lot harder than I thought,” he said, as he took slow measured steps towards his defeated opponent. “It’s also a shame to kill a hottie like you, but hey, I got five million good reasons to.”
Sasha’s mind worked frantically, playing through a dozen of different things she could try to avoid dying within the next few seconds - but Frostbite had managed to shrug off all her attacks more or less effortlessly, and another lightning or pressure blast would delay the inevitable only by a few seconds at best. Sasha knew that the strongest kinetic blast she was able to cast would blow the walls out and collapse the entire building, probably killing both herself and the attacker in the process, but she had no way to know whether or not all civilians had actually cleared the huge mall by now, so even that wouldn’t be an option.
The man stopped around twenty feet away from her. And he still laughed at her. Sasha was maybe ten seconds away from meeting a cold, frigid end. She let her gaze wander across the ice cavern that would become her tomb and onto the man who would take her life.
Frostbite inhaled.
As she already wanted to close her eyes and accept her fate, Sasha suddenly had one last idea. Frostbite had overcome her defences by attacking her indirectly...and so could she.
Her one good hand shot out, its palm facing towards a point slightly to the side of the man. With a snarl, Sasha released a strong pressure blast into the thick layer of ice covering the walls. The kinetic wave shattered the ice to a myriad of razor-sharp shards, showering Frostbite in a hailstorm of icy bullets. Without even watching for the results, Sasha aimed her hand subsequently at the ceiling, floor and far side of the wall, firing blast after blast into the ice, resulting in a continuous inferno of icy shrapnel raining down at Frostbite. From the corner of her eyes she saw him trying to deflect the murderous onslaught by rapidly creating shields of ice, but there was no way he could create them fast enough to cover all angles. Sasha narrowed her eyes and continued launching kinetic blasts at the general area her opponent was standing in until she had no energy left at all.
Heavily breathing, Sasha stood still, her hand slowly sinking down, while her eyes remained locked at Frostbite. His eyes stared into nothingness and his body trembled.
And like in slow motion, Frostbite slid down to the ground and collapsed, blood pouring out of dozens of gruesome wounds, ripped open by the sharp ice shards.
Exhausted and shivering from the still freezing temperatures in the ice-covered mall, Sasha let herself sink down as well, no longer able to stand.
She opened her eyes only when the cops and paramedics rushed in, freeing her feet from their icy prison and treating both her and the badly injured, but still alive attacker.
One of the paramedics wrapped a blanket around the shuddering Sasha and examined her blistered and frostbitten left arm. He cringed at the extensive injury. “I guess we better take you to a hospital, Miss. I am not sure if we can save the arm, but we will try our best, ok?”
Sasha smiled and shook her head. “It will be fine, just give me something for the pain.”
***
Sasha couldn’t remember ever to have lit the fireplace in mid-April, but after today’s events, the cosy heat made her comfortable and helped her body to warm up again. She glanced at her left arm and was satisfied that her regenerative body had taken good care of the frostbite, removing blisters and chilblains, and allowing her usual skin colour to be restored. She opened and closed her left hand a few times to make sure it had regained its full mobility, and smiled when she couldn’t notice any remainder of her injuries.
Sasha nipped at a glass of brandy her dad had brought her earlier, and enjoyed the imaginary but still very comfortable warmth the drink created in her stomach.
She stared into the fireplace, watching the flames dance. And for the first time it became painfully clear to her that if she wouldn’t end the conflict between Roger and her very soon, one of his attempts to kill her would eventually succeed.
April 26th, 2011
Sasha had to admit that her ex-husband’s lair was well hidden, and that she would have never found it without the help of an informant. At first glance, the cannery looked perfectly normal, and she could even remember buying this exact brand of canned beans in a supermarket only a few days ago. But she had no doubt that Black Vortex was in this building, coordinating the Stinger gang from this very place, in a hidden area below the production plant. Her informant had been rather clear about that. The man had been a windfall gain for Sasha - a disgruntled member of the Stinger gang who had approached her a few days ago, telling her where and when to find her ex-husband. Sasha had decided to make the best possible use of the information. This was going to be the day when would put an end to his crimes.
Sasha snuck up to the fence, making sure that no security camera was pointing in her direction. Then she negated her own body’s weight and gently floated over the fence, coming to a safe landing on the other side. A few men were busy loading cans into a truck on the other side of the yard, but they were facing her with their backs, so Sasha used the opportunity to sneak into the building through a half-opened gate.
Sasha suspected that not too many actual gangsters would be on the production level. Actually she didn’t even think that the factory workers were necessarily aware of what was going on beneath their feet. They were likely just an oblivious part of Roger’s disguise, playing the same part Sasha herself had once played when she had fallen for his false love vows and became his wife.
Making sure that she remained undetected, Sasha nimbly snuck to the backside elevator. She cursed when she discovered the electronic card lock attached next to the elevator access. She would not be able to call the elevator without the proper key card. Frustrated, she hid behind a stack of boxes and waited, hoping that the problem would solve itself eventually. Thankfully she didn’t have to wait long before a man in a lab coat approached the elevator. Sasha watched him swipe his card and shortly after, the doors slid open and the man entered.
Before the elevator doors could close, Sasha called upon her magic to launch herself out of her hiding place. Soaring barely one foot above the ground, she flew right into the elevator, landing next to the surprised man.
“Hi there,” she said, winking at the man’s frozen face. And she released a blast of mental force from her raised hand, lifting the man off his feet and slamming him into the wall. He slid down to the floor and remained still.
“Sorry about that,” Sasha said to the unconscious man, while taking his key card. “But I need to borrow thi
s.”
She swiped the card through the access panel’s card-reader and selected the lowest floor. When the elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open, Sasha couldn’t help but being amazed at the sight that opened to her eyes beyond the elevator door. The perfectly well kept and lit metal-walled corridor looked as if someone had misplaced an entire military HQ and put it under this canary.
To her great relief, there were no security cameras attached to the corridor’s walls, since she would have no way to avoid getting spotted by them. Sasha could see numerous doors to the left and right of the corridor, some open, some closed. Sasha knew from her source that the first room was a changing room, where Roger’s hirelings could shed their factory worker disguise when coming down here. With a quick peek around the corner Sasha made sure that there was nobody else in the room, before she dragged the unconscious man into the room and put him behind the last locker row, where he wouldn’t be easily spotted.
According to the informant, Roger’s office was located in the last room on the far side of the corridor. Sasha would have to make her move quickly if she wanted to keep the moment of surprise on her side. She glanced into the corridor to make sure it was still empty, and then hurried through the corridor. When she reached the door she suspected to be Roger’s she paused shortly and listened - but she couldn’t hear anything in the room behind.
Oh well, let’s get it over with, she thought and kicked the door in.
And Sasha’s eyes went wide. The room was completely empty. No Roger. No desks. No office equipment. There was nothing in the room at all, except a single source of light at the ceiling, which was switched on. Sasha was confused for one split second. And then she suddenly understood what the switched on light in an otherwise completely empty room likely meant: The Stinger gang had been expecting her. Sasha whirled around, realizing that she had been fooled and that she had run into a trap. But it was too late. She barely saw the grinning face of the goon in the corridor behind her, holding an oddly shaped weapon in his hand, before the taser projectile hit her, flooding her body with many thousand volts of electrical energy and overloading her senses. Sasha didn’t feel collapsing to the floor anymore.
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