Mikki stood there observing the scouts not too far away… they were his targets.

One of them was young…she reminded him of his fairy in a certain way, the age was the same and she had similarly colored brown hair. But this one was a lot older in all other ways if not by age.

Otherwise older.

Experience edged into her face with harsh lines and a grim determination. She wore goggles covering her eyes from sand and dust, baggy clothes in a muddy green color hanging from her slender frame. Her face was all hard cut lines and harsh features, hard to see from the dirt smearing them; she had a camouflage of leaves and debris all over her. And she did what a good scout did…be on the lookout. 

She was not the only one out here he knew. The Tarajan used the Slum inhabitants as Scouts, instead of mages they had civilians and non-mages on the lookout who alerted the mages in case of emergency. 

Call for help system. 

Or cannon fodder system for madmen as the media described it. 

Reality was different. 

It was merely a different system and being a scout was a dangerous job that came with a good pay for slum inhabitants. There was never a lack of applicants. Actually, he thought the system the Tarajan were using to improve the lives of the Slums and working zones was not a bad idea. Even if the better off folk denied it. 

Mikki sometimes asked himself if mages did not want to see it, or were simply turning an oblivious eye. Without those people, they had no food to eat and no clothes to wear. And yet, they treated them as they did. The non mages knew that but no matter their number an uprising was out of the question since they were dependent on mages to survive. 

So it was nothing but that plain spiral of hatred and discrimination, which had risen in the condemnation of the Tarajan as the worst the world had ever seen. Their actions  surely cemented that, but for those people of the slums the Tarajan were the heroes who also posed a danger. 

The living proof that change was possible, that one could make it. The ruling families feared that, the government feared it, the average mage in the streets all the same. 

Give them work, show them how to make it on their own. There was no charity, there was only reward for those willing to make an effort, sometimes on the cost of their lives, but if you made it you made it.

This appealed a lot to the people of the lower zones, often enough their bodies were the only thing they truly owned. 

The mages in the better zones, that was cruelty in their eyes. Send them money and food and good be it. The approach to give them work, where they could lose their lives but gain for their own. 

Cruelty. 

Hypocrites. But then, he understood and he knew it was them and that which gave him the things he needed most; mainly the permission to kill and slaughter to his heart's content. 

Here the Tarajan were everyone's favorite and quite mad heroes. A living proof that birth mattered nothing in the face of true power.

That was something the others could not tolerate, nor anyone would want to tolerate. No, they did not want to lose what they had, so the Tarajan were the villains. The bad guys. The ones needed to be gotten rid of at any price and if one could gain their most valuable thing even better. 

He raised his rifle and looked at the small girl. A non-mage. What a useless thing. Pulling the trigger he shot the scout down. She slumped silently, collapsing. Nothing seemed to have happened as he retreated. Another cold corpse on the forest ground. Spreading his mind he followed the invisible scent of the nearest person like a bloodhound. 

Silently, he went on a killing spree. Continuing. No matter how well hidden they were they could not hide from him. Tonight the scout system of the Tarajan would be saying goodbye. If he killed enough of the experienced ones they were bound to fall sooner rather than later. One after another they fell like flies to the forest ground, all of them non-mages. When, suddenly, he himself was shot at. A telepath, quite weak, he noticed as it hit his barriers.

A snort, he jumped down from the tree branch he had been nesting in and went for the weakling. He was a combat telepath. He focused and put pressure on the other side's brain until they should have screamed but could not. A last squash of force and the bug was dead. Their brain most likely liquified from the pressure. 

Mikki smiled. 

Today was a good day. 

Next one. Out here, no one could stop him, not in these few moments of precious freedom, not how he was right now. This was his element. 

“One would think one of my own kind would notice.” Behind him a voice whispered sounding like a figment of imagination and he whisked around to look into a pair of deep dark green eyes. Glowing green, forest green how only a Tarajan possessed it. 

The oldest Tarajan smiled at him, a grimace, a farce of happiness. Mikki recognized that gaze, but he also knew the other side would not recognize him. It was the downside of their heritage green eyes; one always knew who they were, but they never knew who the other side was. 

“I would request that you stop killing our scouts.” It said, so soft it sent shivers down one’’s spine. Mikki himself felt that shiver running down his back. He turned and gasped for air as he saw in the reflection of the lake behind him what he was standing against. 

A Monster. 

A woman stood there, pale as a sheet, her skin glowing like fresh fallen snow. Against his own volition he laughed. 

“You and your kind truly deserve death. All of the Tarajan.” He said and and the other party twirled a sword and something broke around him. 

An Illusion. 

“Titania likes you, although she will not admit it. So human she is, so gentle. So, I cannot kill you…not without permission.” 

Mikki felt himself gulp, all survival instincts screaming and raised his rifle, his mind gunning for the other mage. Trying to twist it, to invade the one in front of him. He was blocked, again and again a solid barrier in his path. The same as with the child. This was an artificial guard. The oldest young Miss of the Tarajan had warded him, like the other, from head to toe. Decked in spells to guard to protect to hide, and a weapons master like Raon Tarajan with all this tuned to him. He was a walking impossibility.

How he held himself and how he moved, that peculiar trait that all of it seemed so natural…to natural. 

“Raon Tarajan.” He muttered.

“I would have trouble if I were to work with the younger one…we do not like each other all that much, our magic does not mesh too well.” The pale skinned woman quietly said and smiled. “May I introduce myself as the Master's most prized Blade” 

“You are not human, and not a blade either, a monster, another one clearly.”

Mikki was attacked before he got an answer, but it may have been answer enough. The force was considerable as he was thrown backwards. There was little he could do but twist midair and try to land on his feet when he was whipped aside abruptly.

“I knew it, your government asses are motherfucking shit.” a fourth voice said.

Well, it appeared tonight that a lot of people were gathering in the border Zones, “I cannot understand why we have to work with such pitiful useless piece of crap like this, commoner blood.” 

Zhang. 

Mikki did not know whom of the many Zhang cousins he had to deal with now that one had appeared. He could have very well made a run for it on his own, but then he would have his back exposed. Another attack, a cold harsh air slashed in between him and the Zhang woman. The Zhang let a snort out and was gone.

Where.

"Hello." The Zhang said directly behind Mikki.

The other woman, pale as she crackled a laugh. She stepped forward and appeared next to Raon Tarajan.

A minor, but pure Teleporter. His eyes widened. 

Now where had Tarajan gotten that. The last Teleport capable Family had been completely annihilated almost 10 years ago. For good. They were a danger to the order and troublesome to deal with. The city and families did see their use, but their ability came with a liberal mind and far too much free will. 

Ability suited the person using it and teleporters were free spirits, all of them. 

Such undesirable things in what should have been obedient servants to the government and the families with little sense in preservation. The Zhang higher ups themselves had quietly taken care of it after a family member of Lumiere dared voicing for them. Long before the times the Tarajan had walked.

The Zhang Patriarch had then made certain the Family was dead. So no one could come up with stupid ideas anymore. It was against their code, after all, to interact with normal people.  Not that their blood had not been desirable. Where could they have gone about acquiring it for their own. 

The Lumiere did best for what there was to do for their people and did nothing. Warriors have a lot of them, tools, convenient for use, precious but in the end no masters of their own. Their only interest was their own people. 

Mikki avoided the sword striking in his direction, a knife pierced through his leg and he only kept himself standing when a Hand grabbed him. “Do you know what we Zhang are famous for?” The support, he guessed, muttered into his ear. 

Falling. 

They were falling. 

Mikki stabilized himself and cussed as he hit the ground at an awkward angle right on his ill leg. 

“Stealing Bloodlines.” 

“Teleporter Bloodline.” He hissed and looked upwards to see a pleasantly smiling face of a woman with skin as dark as a night sky. Her hand was a long waterfall of star-filled darkness. A long scarlet birthmark running down her beautiful face. 

“Well, well, it seems the Tarajan had more secrets then even the Zhang.” Someone said and Mikki recognized the voice going to his knees and bowing his head. These were his lords. "Who would have suspected them to have a teleporter?" 

“Well you old fogies. No one here certainly expected them to have another teleporter but me. She is also not one from the same origin as me, the looks are too different, and she is pale skinned. Here goes my dear relatives' pride about having the last Teleporter bloodline in their ranks. Seems the slum rats had one too.”  

“Zhang…I suggest you keep your mouth shut.” Mikki growled and held up a gun at the man's face.

"Mei, my name is Mei." She hissed down to him.

“Now, now you little doll. Shooting me may make this entire mission a failure before it happens.” The lord said and then pointed at Mikki “You are supposed to be working together.” 

“No. I do not need to use this one’s help.” She growled, and Mikkis lips curled upwards.

"The you underestimate them." Mikki answered her. 

“Maybe but does it matter?” Mei Zhang raised both hands, “In this ballet of the mad, the ones like them die fast. Raon Tarajan will die.” 

“I see you are indeed what your father said you are.” One of the voices said to Mei, and Mikki had to hold himself in, “You are quite mad. Your and his first goal is Raon Tarajan. He is a weapons master, and apparently has a minor teleporter as his right hand. Her provisorial name will be Blade.” 

“What else does he have to his name, what we know of at least?” Mikki asked somewhat relieved it was not his fairy. Her blood was his and his alone. He would never share such a delicious slow kill with a victim of such worth with a Zhang crazy. 

“A few dozen apartments. A hefty inheritance, more spelled weapons than anyone else in the city and his mother’s absolute trust. While Marcia Tarajan has trust in all her children, Raon is her oldest son and their strongest combat mage, at least of what we know of.” 

“I understand.” 

“He is also his younger sister's bodyguard. They would not trust anyone else but a family member with her security. It is so pleasantly predictable. Titania is a valuable asset, and not much of a fighter. He is a killer not a guard, he will be with her and if you attack her, you will have him cover for her. He will not let her die. They stick together, protect each other. Such foolishness, no?”

“So basically, we are staging an attack on Titania Tarajan while targeting Raon Tarajan who is her acting bodyguard.” Zhang Mei concluded and started laughing. “Great, great, we will make that little sheltered oh-so-loved princess the reason for their doom. Say, can we kill her too?”

Mikki almost growled. Only as long as Titania was his kill, his and his alone, well he had no trouble with it. Comfortable or not, these were his lords; he was their tool. Nothing more nothing less. Even if there was a Zhang he was forced to work with. 

From the corner of his eyes he saw a shadow moving and shot it by reflex. No sound. Well better be careful over carelessness. The youngest brother was a Shadowwalker, for all they knew he could have been in this room listening to their every word. 

Although even if they did know. What would it matter? They were out to kill, that was what mattered. 

“I hope whatever you tried to Shoot is dead for your own sake. Although first things first gentleman.” The one behind his screen said, waiting for MIkki to answer. 

“It is sire.” Mikki answered calmly and gazed again at the shadow, nothing. 

“Wonderful we need to lure the girl out, she has been a lot more active lately. Her mother pays great value to education and we use that….I propose….”