Winter's Ashes

The Epic Introduction of Our Heroine (Or: Ash, the Great and Terrible)

I hate running. It's awful. Unfortunately, I have to do it a lot. Really, it's quite unfair. Not that I'm bad at it, I just don't like it. But the seriously ugly mutations behind me seem to enjoy it.

"'Work for S.H.I.E.L.D., Ashby!' they said. 'It'll be fun!' they said," I mumble under my breath. I glance back at my pursuers. "Liars! The lot of them!" Not that they care.

When I hear my footfalls begin to slap the ground wetly, I sigh in relief. The harbor, chock full of no cameras, is close. I can even smell water in the air. I skid around the corner, sliding through a puddle and nearly losing my balance. My heart is beating a mile a minute, and a wide grin splits my face at the energy of the chase. A good cat-and-mouse game works wonders for my drooping spirits. Also my cardio.

I run to the end of the dock and skid to a halt, dangerously close to tipping over the edge into water that looks oily and black under the stars. The mutations are halfway down the dock after me, lumbering with the disconcerting gait of things with limbs out of place. Some have too many arms, others have an odd number of legs, and others seem to have limbs in between a leg and an arm. A larm? An armeg? Whatever.

I can tell these ones are newly created. They're unsteady and wobbly on their limbs, not used to how their new bodies work. A little like babies, but not cute and intent on bashing my head in. Although I suppose babies could want to bash my head in. I've never asked. 

They still have stitches at their joints, and every single laceration oozes pus. I wrinkle my nose at the smell of necrotic flesh. Despite being new, they're already rotting, falling apart without having a chance to live. I pity them, I do. We're siblings, after all. I was planned, gene coded, grown, and augmented the same way they were. Maybe even the same facility. The only difference is that I got plans that worked.

They aren't very fast, just persistent. This gives me a chance to prepare. None can escape. If I miss a single one of my misbegotten siblings it will report my location and success rates. I'll have to move again, after finally finding a semblance of stability.

As soon as the closest is only yards away, I settle myself into a solid, steady stance and close my eyes. Reaching out with my powers, I anchor them in space. whining dimly reaches my ears as they realize they're trapped. I swallow hard. This is the hard part, now. The grip of my powers seeps inside them, working between molecules until I am present in every cell. 

And then I tear them apart. 

There isn't even any blood, just a rearranging of the molecules in the air around me. No proof of murder or even of a paper cut. No bodies to bury either, though. The lack of anything just makes it harder, though. Even though they would have killed me given the chance, I still did the same to them. They wouldn't have known what they had done, though. No guilt, just following orders.

I swallow the urge to throw up. Killing my siblings makes me feel like I'm peeling off my own skin with a cheese grater despite knowing they would have done the same. I lose the fight against my stomach and my hands and knees hit the dock with a hollow "thunk" as I retch. Only bile and water come up. Even their minds had been childish, filling with dim confusion and fear as they disintegrated. They whined like they were five years old without a cookie. Tears join the bile on the dock in front of me. Every time I have to kill a sibling my ribs crush my heart to pulp. 

But I can't afford to waste any more time. I was on a job, and I still have to report in. Self control is something I pride myself on, so I stand up straight, wipe my face and mouth, and start walking. My moral struggle over the deaths of the mutations is bound and shoved into a box in the back of my mind. 

Now I can focus on other things. For instance, the fact that reducing a material object down to its molecular makeup is a feat that makes me tired. And hungry. Mostly for a milkshake and maybe some fries. I sigh as I look at the watch around my wrist. I don't know what I'm going to do about my excursion. Explaining thirty-five minutes of after-assignment time usually isn't hard.

"Setting out to snipe one little senator and suddenly your life is in peril. Why do I live like this? Maybe I should quit. My contract's up soon, anyway." My musings are heard only by an ally cat that spits at me as I pass by. Despite their white-hat act, S.H.I.E.L.D. does, in fact, employ assassins. To kill people. Other than Black Widow, that is. She really isn't an assassin anymore, though. She's actually in Intelligence Acquisition and Observation. In short hand, she's a spy.

I'm thrown from my thoughts as I re-enter one of the main streets. It's late, and dark, but the people here don't seem to care. There's more than one bar open, and the light and music spills onto the street. Eleven thirty at night and the clubs are just getting started. Bars are well enough, but night clubs match my energy much better. Bars tend to be full of sad, heartsick (or heartbroken) drunk people, but clubs I usually find full of life and loud music. Full of drunk people, too, but fun drunk people. The heavy beat and shifting lights fill my senses until I can pretend to be normal and lose myself.

Sadly, that is what I want right now, but I can't indulge my self-destructive habits. What I need is a large cup of coffee with lots of sugar and then a shower. Then bed. My growling stomach reminds me to add food to my to-do list. I tug the black hood of my jacket up over my head and walk with long strides. I've found a determined walk can deter almost anyone from a flyer-pusher to a gangster. I'm only a little above average at five and a half feet, but I make up for my lack of intimidating height with ultra dense muscle tissue and hollow carbon nanotube and vibranium-adamantium alloy-composite bones. A mouthful, I know, but it is what it is.

I'm left alone as I walk, and duck into a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop for my sweets fix. While I sip a sugar bomb of a hot drink, I sluggishly try to compose a report in my head. At 17 hundred, target Senator Alexander Fitcher arrived at termination location. At 18-30 target excused himself to the restroom and then proceeded to the second floor of termination location. At 18-49 operative Doe terminated target Senator Alexander Fitcher.

All this is technically true. It's a perfect report of my objective, although it fails to mention my half hour of time used for... other things. 'Janise will be so proud,' I think.

The dregs disappear as I toss back the last of my beverage. The report does make the assignment seem easy, though. I roll my eyes. Hours of observation, planning, and obsessive research, coupled with an unholy number of hours lying on a cold marble floor resulted in the perfect hit. Not that anyone cares. S.H.I.E.L.D. likes short and to the point.

As if they knew the meaning of those words. Nick Fury didn't, that was for sure. Staff meetings with him in charge were long, boring, and full of procedure. The instances the Avengers are mentioned I find amusing, mostly because it's about how they've fucked up this time. 

As my mind wanders tiredly, the bell to little shop dings and large figures enter. I can smell them from here; they're leaking low levels of non-lethal radiation. It's a metallic, burning rubber kind of smell. Grimacing, I slowly slide out of my booth seat and duck my face away from them. I only start actually running when I'm out of sight of the new batch of mutations. I seem to have shocked the hulking creatures, and I'm down the street and around the corner before they even get to the back door of the place.

I've never had two sets of mutations find me in one night, and it's more than a little disconcerting. I keep running, turning corners and jumping low walls and high fences, putting plenty of obstacles and distance between us. I'm so busy looking for a place to hide I don't even realize until it's too late that there's a man in my way.

"Oof!" He and I both go down, hitting pavement hard. New York sidewalks are so unforgiving.