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(( Continued from here ))

The explosives she set had gone off. First the back wall to her office had been taken out, followed by the force that propelled both Aria and her opponent out of the building. Aria twisted in mid-air, directing a charged blast from her weapon at her vulnerable opponent before flipping and landing on the ground with ease. The flip was unnecessary, a move that wasted precious energy and did nothing more than show off. She knew showing off would do her no good here, not against her opponent. She would need every bit of energy she had to survive this. It was bad enough that she had little time to prepare for the inevitable, and yet --

Her opponent landed. She ran through her options quickly. Symphony was a flamethrower, one of the few oddities as far as weapons were concerned. She wasn't one for brute force, or for taking things out quickly. The cold fire needed time to burn, to slowly sap away at her opponent's strengths. Aria needed to be one step ahead of her opponents, to move fast and evade as much as possible. She knew they were coming. She should have fled when she had the chance, she shouldn't have let them delay her, she shouldn't have let her curiosity get the better of her, she should have been a little more selfish.

Aria tightened her grip on her weapon, trying to stop them from shaking. They knew. They knew. "Are you here to be my executioner, Lance?" Aria asked as she raised her chin. She couldn't let her fear show. She had to stand tall, to at least act like she hadn't been caught off guard.

A corner of his mouth rose in a smirk. "That depends. Are you going to resist arrest? While I like it when you play hard to get, I'm afraid play time's over." The smirk faded as Lance grew serious, voice raised. "Why did you betray Deus, Aria?"

"Betrayal? That's a harsh word to use, Lance." From the corner of her eye she could see the assembled hunters begin to murmur and whisper to each other uncertainly. She wondered if they looked like they were having a lover's spat, one that was beginning to grow out of hand. If she could just keep him talking --

"You sold us out!" Lance snapped. "Portals were down, leaving hunters stranded at outposts cut off. How is it that seven outposts were eliminated? Seven outposts whose information and rosters you looked up three days before the attacks. Don't even act like you don't know. The attacks were simultaneous. Portals may have been down but security footage was not."

"What, are you accusing me of going there and personally aiding them in taking them out?" Aria laughed, shaking her head. "Cute theory, Lance. But riddle me this: how could I be in eight places at once?"

The assistant was quiet. "You've always been a bad liar, Aria. I said they were eliminated. Not all at once. The only way you could have known that it was all at once is if you knew about it."

s**t. "I'm quite confident that I know how to read reports, Lance."

"Even reports that aren't out yet?" Lance shook his head. "The reports came out while you were meeting with Dakota. The papers he delivered concerned the material estimation for a new proposal. Aria." His tone hardened, "Why did you run? That in and of itself makes you guilty."

"Did you even consider what those outposts were doing?" Aria replied. "Did you stop to think? To look into them? Fine. I'll admit it. I merely gave Halloween the push it needed to remove them. If anything you should be thanking me --"

"For what? For killing twenty-six? Seven of which were Mists?"

Aria narrowed her eyes. "Division alone won't absolve anyone of their sins and what they've done. Sacrifices have to be made for the greater good."

"Don't ******** tell me about sacrifices!" Lance interrupted, swinging his weapon towards her. Fire seemed to tear itself from the glowing red-yellow runes on his weapon, peeling off to shoot towards Aria in a crescent arc.

Aria threw herself to one side, barely dodging the arc. She could smell the burning cloth as she rolled, climbing to her feet with weapon raised. When could he --

Her weapon jerked up, trigger pulled back to blast fire up and cut into the second arc. The steam that formed was thick, forcing her back. Something hot and heavy slammed into her side, knocking her down before she could feel the weight of his chair ontop of her leg pinning her down.

The tip of Lance's weapon was at her throat. "Don't ******** tell me about sacrifices. You. You. It's because of your goddamn selfishness I'm in this chair, isn't it? Answer me!"

His weapon began to smolder. Aria couldn't restrain the flinch as his weapon pressed against her chin. She couldn't look at him.

"I ******** knew --" Lance's words were cut off as Aria's weapon snapped up and spat fire at him. The same instant she lifted her unpinned leg and kicked at him, sending him and chair flying.

Aria rolled to her feet, head held high. "You missed your chance, Lance. You should have thrust when you had me down." She chided him softly, ignoring him as he spat curses while he lifted himself up from his fallen position. She turned her attention to the hunters lingering nearby, voice raised. "I won't deny it. I won't waste time even ******** justifying it. Just know that next time we meet --" She broke off, her grin growing wide. "We'll likely be on opposing sides of your own choosing. I'll leave you all to your little problem of Circle hunters. What I have done pales in comparison to them. Otherwise? Be seeing you, Lance."

Aria blew a kiss towards Lance before she raised her weapon, burning a portal into existence. She stepped into it as he reached her, his weapon cutting through empty air as it snapped shut.

Lance swore a storm as he drove his weapon into the ground, snarling as he punched it. "Son of a b***h! You! Get the word out, Aria's gone rogue. Don't ******** -- s**t just. ******** assistant pulled out his phone and fired off a text message, bitter. If only he was a little faster, if only --

s**t. How could you?



"Sir?"

Lance looked up as a hunter approached. "What the ******** were you doing? You just ******** stood there and watched! Why didn't you shoot her?"

The hunter blanched. "Sir, we didn't -- it's just. We couldn't move sir. There's been a rise of Insanity in the area, weapons couldn't be summoned and we couldn't move sir."

The news prompted Lance to punch his weapon in frustration again. "******** b***h! I suspected, but now. Just. ********!" He groaned, turning to glare at the hunter. "What the ******** else do you want?"

"O-Orders sir," the hunter replied. "With Aria gone, you're now technically head of the Mist division and currently the highest ranking hunter here. Sir."

Lance fell silent, stilling as the news sank in. "Get the clean-up crew to the Mist office and clean it up. I want the wall replaced and new office set up there. Place anything that survived the explosion in a spare room for me to look through later. Reinforce the office and clean it out for me. I've got s**t to organize."

"Yes sir!"

He leaned back in his chair as the hunter scurried off, a strange calm overtaking him. Finally. Finally. The thing he had always wanted was within his reach. He reached out, retrieving his weapon. He wondered idly what the other division leaders would make of the recent events, and whether or not he would be held responsible for Aria's escape. No, wait -- that was a stupid question. Of course he would. The real question he should be asking himself was how much longer did he think he had to live before he was held accountable for it.

But that didn't matter. He would soon have a division to run, wouldn't he? And with that came power. He could barely wait.