Hunting Beneath The Stars

-Terasu-

Wearing a different set of clothes for a change, Diana walked through the portal to Terasu wearing a navy long-sleeved shirt and navy blue cargo pants with black boots. She emerged from the shimmering blue portal onto a world with a starry sky that was shrouded in perpetual darkness. There was a stark beauty to this world, but the blonde was not here to go stargazing. She was here to track down and put an end to a gang of young adult delinquents that had fled Fiore looking to escape from some murder charges they had racked up in Capital Crocus. Apparently they had grown bored with robbing the rich people of Fiore's capitol city and had opted to begin killing them instead.

The thirteen-strong gang had went on a four-week killing spree where they roamed the streets at night and killed any wealthy person they could find. If they could not find a victim on the streets, they simply broke into a wealthy home and killed everyone inside before stealing everything not nailed down. This pattern continued for four weeks before the Capital Crocus police traced their stolen goods and raided their headquarters in the slums of the city. The gang fled to Terasu and thought they had escaped justice by hopping into the portal, but they did not reckon on the Capital Crocus authorities putting out a bounty on their heads.

The bounty was put on them because they had killed five Capital Crocus police officers during their escape and the authorities wanted the gang brought to justice. They did not care if the gang was brought in alive or if they were killed... all the authorities wanted was for the group to be stopped. Since this job was a legally sanctioned one, Diana was free to use any weapon and any stratagem needed to accomplish the mission. Despite the freedom of action given to her, Diana's job would not be an easy one.

The gang likely knew that bounty hunters would be coming after them and had prepared for their arrival. They also knew that if they were taken alive their lives would be forfeit. All of the members would fight with everything they had to avoid capture and execution, so a non-violent capture of the targets would be nearly impossible. Diana would just have to eliminate them all.

Diana switched to Night Vision mode and walked along a wide dirt path that was surrounded by grass on both sides and rolling hills farther off the path. She looked around for gang members in hiding and for signs of traps hidden along the path or along its sides. She did not see any danger in the path, so Diana kept walking and looking for a trail to follow in order to find the gang. So far she had not seen any footprints or other signs of the ground being disturbed. either the gang was composed of mages with flight magic or they were simply very good at covering their tracks.

Diana continued to follow the trail while waking under the starry sky, which was a strangely beautiful background to have for the grim task that she was going to carry out. Life had a way of being strange like that.

[Word Count: 550]
[Total Word Count: 550/7,000]

Diana walked under the starry sky without seeing a single sign of the gang until she came to a crossroad. She had three paths to choose from. She switched to Infrared mode and looked for cooling footprints that might serve as a clue, but that approach backfired when she saw a lot of cooled footprints on the path and could not tell which ones belonged to the targets. Terasu was a planet that was a popular tourist attraction, after all. Diana frowned and looked around the crossroads for anything else that could point her in the right direction... disturbed grass, a blood trail, Jewels that had fallen out of a bag of Jewels, anything at all.

The blonde mage did not find any of those signs to help her along, so she would have to take a guess as to where the gang had traveled. They had likely gone somewhere remote to get away from the bounty hunters, but Diana had no knowledge of the planet's features other than the starry sky twinkling above her. Which path should she travel down? That was a perplexing question that lacked a clear-cut answer. It was not like the gang was going to lay out a red carpet and erect neon signs that pointed the way to their hideout for Diana's convenience.

She stood at the crossroads and looked down all three paths before making a decision. She would travel straight ahead and see where that path took her. It was not the most sophisticated or logical decision-making progress, but it was all that Diana had to go on because she had no other alternatives. Diana switched back to Night Vision mode and continued straight ahead to see where the path took her.

-Down the road, twenty minutes later-

Diana was walking along the path when she noticed that the terrain was starting to change from flat and grassy to gentle grassy hills. The new terrain had a minimal effect on her ability to walk the path, so it was more of a curiosity than any serious obstacle. Diana had traveled halfway down the path when she noticed a section of disturbed grass and a blood trail that led off the path and to the left. She paused in place and knelt down to examine both the disturbed grass and the blood trail. The blood looked to be fairly fresh because it glistened in the light and stuck to the grass it had fallen on.

The grass had been disturbed by an application of force greater than walking. It looked like someone had been shoved to the ground there before being cut with a knife.

Diana walked to the left of the trail to keep it from being spoiled by her footsteps... and to avoid walking in blood and implicating herself in whatever activity caused the blood to be spilled, the most likely activity being murder. Using her special ability to avoid leaving footprints, Diana slowly stalked along the trail until she came to the source of the blood. The source was a pair of dead teenagers, one male and one female.

The male wore a red plaid long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans with work boots and the young woman wore a white tank top with short blue jean shorts and sandals. Their bodies looked like they had been dragged off the road after being killed. The trickle of blood from their throats was what had left the trail that Diana had followed to this point.

Their throats had been cut so deeply that their heads were nearly severed and their faces had been bruised, suggesting that they did not die without a struggle. The young woman's black purse had a broken strap and its contents had been dumped on the ground. Diana saw a tube of red lipstick, a white handkerchief, a roll of breath mints, a pack of mint chewing gum, and a small pink coin purse that had been ripped open and emptied of its contents.

It appeared the gang had an inability to lay low once they had escaped the authorities of Capital Crocus. It would have been prudent to simply lay low and restrain the urge to rob and murder, but a common sense measure like that was clearly beyond their limited reasoning abilities. That was unfortunate for the teenage couple but fortunate for Diana, who would remove the human refuse from the world and avenge the deaths of the couple. She looked to the right and saw a trail of bloody shoeprints that led towards a section of steeper hills. One of the killers had gotten careless and that simple error would cost them everything.

Diana left the bodies behind and walked to the side of the trail of bloody shoeprints through the hilly terrain, keeping a watch for traps or gang sentries all the while. She did not expect a group of amateurs to take any precautions like that, but she was still careful because they might have gotten a little bit smarter between killing the couple and returning to their hiding place. She had just crested a hill when she saw two people standing in the distance and holding knives.

The blonde dropped to her stomach and brought out Silent Hunter. She examined the people through her scope and saw that they had blood on their hands... literally. Near them was another pair of people lying on a blanket and their throats had been cut the same way as the teenage couple Diana had come across earlier. Diana slowly crawled forward to get a better shot and to listen to the banter that was floating to her ears courtesy of the wind.

"Hey man, coming out here was a good idea. We've been finding a whole bunch of people to rob and kill and the Capital Crocus cops can't get us here!" A teenage male wearing dark clothing with a pair of bloody boots on his feet said to another teenage male in similar garb. Their facial features were obscured by solid white masks of a human face. At least they were smart enough to take that precaution, but the masks would not be enough to protect them from a bullet to the head.

"Neither can those Rune Knights. They can't do anything outside of Fiore!" He said to his partner. The two teenagers laughed like they had gotten away with their crimes. Even though it was entirely possible for her to do so, Diana did not immediately kill them. She wanted to hear what else they had to say and possibly follow them back to their hideout. Once she had followed them to their hideout, she would begin her extermination of the gang.

[Word Count: 1,130]
[Total Word Count: 1,680/7,000]

Diana remained prone for what seemed like forever before the two gang members decided to finally move on from the scene of their latest crime and start walking back to a place presumed to be their hideout. Shrouded in shadow, Diana waited until they started walking before she started slowly crawling after them while using Infrared vision to track and follow their footprints without having to follow too closely and risk detection. She slowly crawled along the grass and followed the trail of footprints left behind by the gang members. Crawling took much longer than walking, but Diana did not want to be detected before she got to their hideout.

Diana crawled in the grass for the next two hours while staying out of sight of the quarry. It was slow and tedious going, but she would not be deterred. She had a job to do and she would complete it no matter how long it took. The gang would not live to learn from their mistakes, the biggest of all their mistakes being that their Capital Crocus crime spree garnered them enough infamy for the authorities to commission Diana to take them down.

-Three hours later-

It had been three hours since the blonde had started crawling after the two criminals who had caught her attention to start with. Along the way they had stopped to sit on a hill, smoke cigarettes, and talk about their plans for the future. Their talk was boring until they mentioned that their boss, a young woman nicknamed "Switchblade" because of her weapon of choice, had plans to turn Terasu into their permanent base of operations because the planet had no shortage of tourists to rob and kill. Another reason Terasu was selected was because it was outside the jurisdiction of both the Capital Crocus authorities and the Rune Knights. With only the occasional bounty hunter to deal with, the gang felt secure enough to live on the planet for the rest of their lives... little did they know that their lives would be briefer than they expected.

Diana focused on the present and began watching the gang headquarters through the scope of Silent Hunter. She was lying on a hill a semicircle of canvas tents sitting in the middle of a grassy valley with steeper hills behind them. The gang could have chosen a better position for their camp because Diana had a clear shot on all of the tents, but their lack of foresight was beneficial to her because it made her job a lot easier. She watched the two gang members walk into the valley and disappear into a brown canvas tent, then heard them rummage through a cooler full of ice and produce what sounded like tin cans.

"Those dudes packed the good beer. Lochimeb Supreme's the beer of champions." One of the young men Diana had followed said to his partner, who readily agreed.

"Yeah, man. This campsite's a place to die for. We have the tents, the food, the sleeping bags... we're set for awhile!" He replied, laughing at his own joke.

"This campsite's a place to die for... that's a good one!" His friend complimented the joke before laughing with him. Diana did not have to think too hard to understand what the raconteur was getting at. She spotted a small pile of bodies behind a tent, ten bodies in all. They were five young men and five young women, presumably a group of friends who decided to go stargazing on Terasu and ran into the gang, who killed them for their belongings and dumped their bodies behind a tent. Diana switched from Silent Hunter to her Suppressed Assault Rifle because she may need the full-auto mode to kill the entire gang before they could escape the valley.

Once the shooting started Diana figured that the gang was going to make a break for it. She wanted to make sure that none of them escaped the fish bowl that they had so kindly put themselves into for her convenience. With enough patience and luck, none of them would leave the camp alive. Diana aimed at one of the tents and began to wait for her quarry to appear.

-One hour later-

Diana was waiting patiently for the gang members to emerge from their tents, but so far none of them had emerged for even a second. She heard them talk about the fun they had terrorizing Capital Crocus and lament how it cost the gang almost all of their accumulated loot to get confidential transportation to Terasu from someone known only as "The Ferryman." One then brought up the subject of the loot they were going to steal from the tourists they planned to prey on for the rest of their lives. Then one of them sensibly brought up the subject of food and asked how they would get a steady supply of food if all they had to live on was what tourists brought with them.

That single question opened the floodgates and started a discussion that soon turned heated. Diana was treated to the sounds of a verbal argument that could turn physical at any given moment. The combatants poured out of their tents and took their argument out into the open, giving the mage no shortage of targets to pick off at her leisure. The group was not as united as Diana thought it was because instead of civilly discussing a valid concern they were arguing loud enough for anyone with working ears to hear them. Maybe she could play off of that lack of unity to make her job easier.

Diana remained motionless and watched the conflict unfold. The combatants were threatening one another and asserting priority on the rations that they would take from the tourists. A suggestion that they begin scouting for animals that they could hunt and eat was soundly ignored by the bickering gang members. Diana waited patiently to see when Switchblade would come out to assert her authority and set the gang back on track.

[Word Count: 1,014]
[Total Word Count: 2,694/7,000]

-One hour later-

The argument had fizzled out without Switchblade's intervention and now the gang camp was quiet... sort of. Diana could hear the sounds of people sleeping or playing card games or doing other activities that a group of campers in Terasu did. The sight of a semicircle of tents in a valley under a starry sky was picturesque... if the campers had not murdered the previous occupants of the tents and had taken them over for their own use. Diana would right that wrong by wiping out the gang who planned to prey on people who visited Terasu. They would not live to see sunrise.

Diana waited in position for any of the gang members to emerge from their tents. She had put the objective of killing Switchblade on the back burner in favor of killing any gang member who left the shelter of the canvas tents. She would not have long to wait. She overheard grumbling when a. male gang member who drew the short straw and had to take guard duty emerged from a green canvas tent with the same white mask as the other members. Diana had to wait for a better opportunity because killing him now would only alert the other criminals to her presence.

-Forty-five minutes later-

Diana watched him with uncanny patience and waited for just the right opportunity to eliminate him. That opportunity was not long in coming because he walked behind the semicircle of tents and stopped to look at the bodies of the campers they had killed to claim their shelter. Diana aimed the red dot of her scope on the side of his head and waited for it to settle, then squeezed the trigger and fired a Three-Round Burst. The man silently collapsed onto his right side and lay motionless on the ground.

Diana then lowered the weapon and looked around for other criminals to target. She also listened out for any sign that she had been detected during her lengthy wait for targets. When the camp did not react to the lack of a guard, she knew that she was in the clear and continued to watch for targets of opportunity. There were only twelve more gang members to go before this job would be completedd.

-Thirty minutes later-

Diana listened to the camp as they just now realized that their sentry had not yet reported back to them. Another gang member was soon sent out to look for her predecessor. She exited the comfort of her tent with much complaining and looked directly at Diana, but the shadows shrouded the mage and saved her from detection. The new sentry went about her business without even knowing that she was being watched through a scope.

Diana watched the hapless person bumble around the camp without any knowledge of how to do her job. She waited until the gang member came across the corpse of her predecessor and then shot her through the side of the head with a Three-Round Burst. The sentry fell onto her left side and did not move again. Diana wondered how long it would take for the criminals to notice that their new sentry had been killed before sending out a replacement.

-Ten minutes later-

Diana watched and noted that this time it took only ten minutes for the group to send out a replacement, who was understandably wary of his new assignment because he had not heard back from his colleagues in almost an hour. The new sentry looked around cautiously and tried not to stray out of the camp, staying within earshot of his friends at all times.

"Did ya find them yet?" A female voice asked the nervous sentry.

"No. Not yet." He replied. Another voice soon chimed in.

"They've run off and left us out here. They're probably gonna sell us out to the authorities to get a deal." A female snarked.

"They wouldn't dare. They're just as guilty of what happened as we are. They'd have to hand us all over to the authorities... if they'd even want to make a deal to start with. After what we did to get out here, I doubt they're in the mood for a deal." Another female voice claimed. The sentry started getting curious and walking around to the back of the tent cluster, where he spotted the bodies of the previous sentries. Diana sent him to join them with a Three-Round Burst to the side of the head. This was the third sentry the mage had killed in almost an hour and no one had made the connection yet.

-Five minutes later-

"What happened to our lookouts?" A female voice asked. Diana was paying close attention to this conversation because this might be her chance to knock off a leader, if not knock off Switchblade herself.

"I don't know, Switchblade. We haven't heard from them in almost an hour." Another female voice answered. The first sighed heavily.

"Fine. I'll go see about them myself!" The group leader exclaimed.

"I wouldn't do that, boss. I think someone's got us staked out. The others might be already dead." The second female cautioned Switchblade.

"I don't think so. I think they're just goofing off or they went to sleep on the job." Switchblade asserted. Diana focused on the tent and aimed at the flaps. She was going to kill the leader in front of her subordinates and sow panic in the gang.

Diana quietly observed as a person wearing a white mask with red teardrops painted under both eyes forcefully opened the flaps of a red canvas tent and stomped out to go check on the three gang members who had been previously assigned to lookout duty. Diana quickly aimed at her head, settled the red dot on the side of their head, and fired a Three-Round Burst. Switchblade went down with ease just like her subordinates had done. A black switchblade fell from her left hand and glimmered in the moonlight as she sprawled on the ground.

Moments later the red tent opened and the other female emerged to find the gang leader dead not too far from where she had set out to find the missing lookouts. Diana heard panicked screaming and the sound of tents nearly being torn down as the surviving gang members gathered around the corpse of their fallen leader. She then heard panicked murmuring.

"Oh man, someone killed Switchblade! What are we gonna do now?" The female gang member who had last spoken to Switchblade asked a male gang member with a red cutlass painted onto the forehead of his mask.

[Word Count: 1,124]
[Total Word Count: 3,818/7,000]

"I don't know, man. I don't know!" The male criminal with the cutlass painted on the forehead of his white mask exclaimed. Diana pondered whether to shoot him now or wait until he was officially appointed the new leader before shooting him. She decided to hold off and watch the proceedings just a little bit longer. Keeping them disorganized would work to her benefit because Diana was alone against nine gang members who were frightened and desperately looking for both leadership and a way out of their predicament. However, the huntress did not want to pressure them too much and make them think that their only option was to hunt her down.

Diana recalled something in a book owned by her father that he occasionally read. The section warned against pressing cornered enemies too hard because if pressed too hard they would spare no effort to take down their tormentor, even if it cost them their own lives to do so. The same section instead advised giving cornered enemies a way out because if put under just the right amount of pressure they would take the way out instead of organizing to fight back. Diana kept that advice in mind as she watched the meeting unfold.

"Someone has to know what to do. Right now we don't have a leader or a plan!" A male with a plain mask exclaimed.

"Cutlass, what do we do?" A female asked the masked male who was taller than the others. Silence filled the air as he tried to come up with a plan to keep what was left of the group together. Diana elected to let him speak, if only to gain insight into what the disorganized group would try to do to escape their predicament.

"We... we have to find somewhere safer. We're dead if we stay here!" He answered confidently. The gang rallied around him and waited for the next command. It was interesting to see how the criminals quickly rallied around their new leader, suggesting that either Switchblade was only "leader" because she was the toughest of the gang or that the members were so desperate for instruction that they turned to Cutlass for leadership. Diana held her fire and watched him rally the gang the best he could.

"Where do we go from here, Cutlass?" A male gang member asked the new leader.

"I don't know. We can't go back to Crocus because they'll hang us. We can't go to The Ferryman to take us somewhere else because we don't have enough money to pay his toll. Like it or not, we're stuck here." Cutlass summarized their situation to the rest of the group. Diana was wary when she heard that because it tied in with what the book warned her about. They had no way off the planet and were in a desperate situation because of it, so if she pushed them too hard they might come after her with everything they had. She needed to take her time and wait for them to become more vulnerable by waiting for group members to become isolated.

"Hey, we might be able to take over that cave I saw near the portal entrance we took!" A female suggested. Cutlass, lacking any other viable alternatives and feeling the pressure to step up and lead, seized on that idea. Diana winced. She was going to have to follow them all the way back to the entrance of Terasu without being detected, which would be hard because now the gang would be looking for their unseen tormentor.

"OK. We'll head back that way, but I need everyone to stay together. Something strange's going on here." Cutlass said to the gang. They all agreed to stick together and follow his lead. Diana remained a silent observer of the proceedings as the group began to pack its purloined belongings and set out for a location they hoped would represent safety. Diana really did not want to go inside a cave to kill them because there was only one entrance and the gang could easily defend it with their numbers. She also did not want to wait them out because they had enough food to last at least a week while the mage did not have any food.

Diana did not act yet because the gang was still together. Her new plan of attack was to pick them off one by one, but whether by accident or design Cutlass was making the blonde's mission difficult. In the space of fifteen minutes they had packed everything they could except for the tents... she watched the gang leave the valley at a brisk walk and not look back. They tromped by Diana only inches from her feet as she laid prone, but by some miracle they did not see her lying on the grass or trip over her feet. Once they were gone the blonde stood up and brought out Silent Hunter, then resumed the chase.

-One hour later-

Diana silently followed the fleeing criminals while looking for opportunities to catch gang members by themselves and eliminate them. Diana soon got a chance when she spotted a straggler drinking some beer out of a glass bottle while walking just behind the group on the same path that Diana had used to follow them. Diana dropped to a knee, aimed at the back of the straggler's head, and fired a Full Metal Jacket round that killed him in one shot. The target fell onto his face and dropped the beer bottle, showering the moonlit grass in beer of questionable quality. The rest of the refugees walked on their way without looking back.

Diana walked off to the side of the fallen gang member to continue the pursuit of the survivors. There were eight more of them left and she was not sure how long she could continue to stalk them and pick off stragglers before they got wise to her plan and turned the tables by starting to hunt for her. The blonde did not worry too much because the gang still had a way to go before they reached safety and that gave her time to eliminate them.

-Ten minutes later-

Diana's persistence was rewarded when she noticed another gang member sitting on a hill just off the path pull out a small bag of Jewels and count it out. Grumbling from the person revealed that they were going to go their own way instead of follow Cutlass around and live in a cave the rest of their life. The blonde went to one knee, aimed Silent Hunter at their head, and fired a Full Metal Jacket round in case the mask was a form of armor. The round punched through without difficulty and the target died instantly from a Full Metal Jacket round through the forehead. They fell back and flung the Jewels into the air, where the flashing gems landed on the ground like stars that had fallen to earth.

Diana left the Jewels where they were and noted how they twinkled in the moonlight as she walked by them. She would earn much more than the late gang member had thrown into the sky by killing the rest of the gang. The blonde continued to stalk the group from afar and look for targets of opportunity.

[Word Count: 1,236]
[Total Word Count: 5,054/7,000]

-Thirty minutes later-

Diana's quest to eliminate the gang continued. She had dealt with one straggler and one deserter looking to strike out on their own, but there were seven more gang members to deal with before the job was complete. Diana would do well to eliminate them all before they could seek refuge in the cave and she was forced to go in after them, a situation where they would hold the advantage. She continued to walk slowly along the trail and look for targets using Night Vision in an attempt to spot them before they spotted her. She did not have too far to look because she spotted two more gang members kneeling on some hills just a stone's throw away from the path.

Diana figured that they were either left behind to delay pursuit or were another pair of deserters looking to make their own way on Terasu. She turned off Night Vision and looked at them through her scope before she opened fire to make sure that she was shooting at gang members and not tourists who happened to be in a strange place. When she spotted the black robes and white masks she knew that they were legitimate targets.

Diana went to one knee, aimed at the forehead of the first member, then squeezed the trigger to fire a Full Metal Jacket round that killed them instantly. Their colleague flinched from the blood splatter that stained their mask and began to frantically look for the source of the shot, but it was too late. Diana had already aimed at their forehead and was squeezing the trigger. A second later and they too were dead from a Full Metal Jacket round to the forehead. Diana switched to Infrared vision and saw that their bodies were already beginning to cool.

That was how Diana worked. She did not believe in drawn-out, agonizing deaths for her targets or in toying with them just to establish dominance before she killed them. She was a huntress and the hallmark of her profession was a quick, clean kill. The mage left them behind and continued to stalk the five survivors before they could hole up in a cave.

-One hour later-

Diana continued down the trail with no signs of the remaining gang members anywhere. She did not spot any more stragglers or deserters, so she had to assume that Cutlass was left with the most devoted members of the gang. Whether they were devoted because they believed in its mission or were devoted because they had no other choice but to cast their lot with Cutlass was unknown, but now that the least dedicated of the criminals had been dealt with she would have to assume that she was dealing with the most committed members of the group.

Diana switched to Night Vision mode and peered down the road ahead of her. That was when she spotted the remaining five members of the gang standing in a semicircle in the middle of the path like they were waiting for her. Had she been spotted?

Diana went prone and crawled a short distance to get closer to them. Maybe they would have another illuminating conversation for her to eavesdrop on. She was rewarded with something that was a little sadder than she thought it would be.

"Well guys, this is the end of the line. I was wrong. There wasn't a cave here." Cutlass apologized to the remaining four members of the group. He sounded dejected and certain that they would turn on him and try to kill him on the spot. Instead they voiced their support of him and pledged to stay by his side no matter what came next.

"It's OK, Cutlass. We won't run anymore. We're tired of running. If whoever's killing us wants to finish the job, we'll fight them!" A young female voice declared. Murmurs of agreement rose from the other masked individuals.

"We've been with you since the beginning and we'll be here for the end." Another female asserted.

"We've been running together for at least eight years, man. I wish things coulda turned out different, but it is what it is. At least we're gonna leave the world together. I can't complain about that." A male made a philosophical comment about their situation. Diana could not help but to wonder what it was like to have genuine connections with people that lasted for any appreciable length of time, let alone eight years. The gang had been together for at least eight years, which was a lot longer than any relationship outside her "family" had lasted.

She had to shove the thought out of her mind before she got too emotionally compromised to finish the job. Diana was here to kill criminals, not to contemplate the lack of meaningful connections in her life. She focused on Cutlass and prepared to fire when she heard a gang member make a suggestion, one that she did not want to hear.

"I don't know about you, Cutlass, but I'm not gonna stand around and wait to die. Let's go look for whoever's been stalking us!" Another male suggested to the gang. That suggestion was met with an enthusiastic reception by the group, which all pulled edged weapons in unison. Diana had a feeling that things were about to get ugly.

"I'm down with that. Let's find whoever's doing this and cut them apart!" Cutlass said to rally his companions, brandishing a large knife that looked like a butcher knife. The others sported smaller but no less deadly knives and began actively looking for their tormentor. Diana slowly stood up and began to back away from the masked hunters, trying not to draw their attention until she could switch from Silent Hunter to her Suppressed Assault Rifle. Getting away was going to be difficult because they were actively looking for her, but she needed to put some distance between them and her so that she could try to kill them all before they found her.

Diana slowly backed away and relied on her power to blend with the shadows to save her from early detection. She kept facing them while dispelling Silent Hunter and bringing out the Suppressed Assault Rifle. She would need its rate of fire to survive if they found her and chased after her all at once, which was their most likely course of action. They were not going to separate and let her pick them off one by one. She was going to have to fight the entire gang at once.

Diana had successfully brought out her new weapon without them noticing, but the gang now started to advance in her direction. The huntress was not sure how much longer she could hide from them before the fighting began. One of the gang members took the lead and walked quickly down the path with a serrated edge combat knife in their hand. The blonde would have to think on her feet in order to avoid being on the wrong end of the gang's knives.

[Word Count: 1,201]
[Total Word Count: 6,255/7,000]

Diana paused in place and dropped to one knee because she saw that there was no getting away from the gang member who was quickly approaching her. The mage decided to stand her ground and wait for them to approach, then open fire. Diana placed the red dot of her scope on the target's head and held it steady until the target was close. She then squeezed the trigger and fired a Three-Round Burst to the head that dropped the gang member instantly. Their colleagues were quick to notice their friend's sudden demise and quicker to deduce that the killer was nearby.

"Damn! They got Gene!" A female called out. She and a friend made a beeline for their friend's position. Diana held her ground and aimed the red dot sight on the head of the female, who was just a few steps ahead of her fellow gang member and looking for Gene's killer.

"Stay together! They can't take us all on!" Cutlass advised his friends to stay together so that their adversary could not isolate and kill them. The two gang members continued to walk towards Diana and were halfway to her when the mage fired and brought down the first of them with a Three-Round Burst to the head. The target fell backwards and dropped their weapon, spurring their companion to sprint forward in an effort to find the shooter and at least spot them for Cutlass and the remaining gang member before they were killed. Diana would not allow that. She aimed the red dot on the runner's forehead and fired, bringing them down and watching as their momentum sent them sprawling forward and stopping at Diana's right.

"They're ahead of us!" The person standing next to Cutlass exclaimed before Diana took him down with another burst to the head. Cutlass stared at the body of his companion and then turned to face in Diana's direction with his butcher knife gleaming in the moonlight. He was not going to run anywhere. He was determined to go down fighting, but Diana was not going to indulge him in a glorious last stand. She was going to end this now while she had the chance.

Diana flipped the switch to full-auto fire and aimed for his chest. She held her aim steady and waited for just the right moment, then fired on full-auto and did not let up. Cutlass dropped his weapon and did a jerky dance as bullets riddled his body; Diana kept firing until he eventually fell onto his back and breathed his last. It was over.

Diana switched to Infrared vision to make sure the gang members were dead and saw that their bodies were already starting to get cold. Diana had killed all thirteen of them, so the job was now complete. Now she had to return to Capital Crocus to collect her payment, but first she had to find the portal that would take her back to Earthland. That would be a lengthy walk, but the blonde had walked for almost four hours just to track them to their campsite and had walked almost two hours to the site of the last stand, so walking for awhile longer was not impossible. The blonde dispelled her weapon and started putting one foot in front of the other until she reached the glimmering circular portal that was centered between two arches.

Diana waited until some teenagers with telescopes and picnic baskets stepped out, then stepped inside. She did not want to be around when they discovered the bodies of the gang members in the middle of the road. By the time they found them the mage would be long gone.

-Capital Crocus, Town Guard station, six hours later-

Diana entered a bustling Town Guard station at the address indicated on the job notice that she carried in her pocket. She walked up to a circular desk manned by a middle-aged female officer who wore "librarian" glasses with thick black rims and was reading papers on a clipboard. The older woman noticed the blonde's approach and spoke to her in a calm voice.

"What can I do for you?" The officer asked as she set aside the clipboard and turned the office chair to face her.

"I am here to claim the bounty on the gang that fled from Capital Crocus to Terasu." Diana answered politely as she handed over the job notice. The female officer took the paper and read over it, then nodded and picked up a black telephone sitting next to a desk calendar. Her fingers danced across the numbers and sounded out a pleasant musical tone as she dialed someone. Diana heard the phone ring for about fifteen seconds before a gruff male voice answered on the other end.

"Hello Chief Warren. I'm speaking to the mage we hired to eliminate the gang that fled to Terasu. She's here to claim the bounty on them." The female officer informed the man. The man was silent for a moment, then finally found words.

"Of course, Chief. I'll tell her that, Chief." The woman assured the chief. She then hung up the phone and faced the mage.

"The Chief's sending some people to check and make sure that you did the job. It'll take a few hours. Would you mind waiting in the lobby for a little while?" The woman asked Diana. Diana had not waited this long just to give up when payment was in sight, so she would wait for as long as it took to get paid. Diana nodded.

"Of course, Officer. I will wait." Diana replied politely before walking over to an empty chair and sitting down to wait for confirmation. She sat down, reached over to a small wooden stand, and picked up an interesting magazine on the latest fashions to come out of Le Beau Monde fashion house, which was coincidentally based in Capital Crocus. The blonde was not really interested in fashion, but she did not want to creep the officer out by looking at her for hours on end. The magazine would go a long way towards Diana not drawing unnecessary attention to herself.

-Four hours later-

Diana had read through all the magazines on the stand and had gotten up to use the restroom when the female officer called her over to meet with a burly bald man in a white long-sleeved shirt with red tie and red suspenders, blue dress pants, and a brown handlebar mustache. The man must have been Chief Warren. He extended a hand to her and she took it without reservation.

"We've confirmed that you did the job. All thirteen of them have been... taken care of. You've done an excellent job stopping that threat to public safety. Here's your reward." He congratulated her before handing over a large bag of Jewels. Diana took the bag with both hands and thanked the chief. He thanked her for a job well done.

"The five officers didn't die in vain. Thanks for what you did for us and for the citizens of Capital Crocus." He said to Diana before returning to his office. With her work here done, Diana left the station and started on the long walk home. It had taken a good long while, but Diana had successfully completed another job and had proven that she was a huntress through and through.

[Word Count: 1,256]
[Total Word Count: 7,511/7,000]