(Year 0)

Her boots clicked with every step as she strutted down the paved street. The sun radiated down with nearly unbearable heat, and she wiped her brow, blinking sweat out of her eyes. Why couldn't they have given me another night mission? she complained to herself. Why'd it have to be in the middle of the day, and in Falcondar City, the largest city in the desert?

She sighed, turning her focus back to the mission. Get in, find it, take it, get out. Unfortunately, there wasn't going to be any fighting involved. But she had brought her special boots, just in case.

As she turned into a back street, a rough voice spoke up behind her. “Look! Some poor girl’s lost!” Gruff laughter followed.

She spun around, eyes glinting at the prospect of a fight. Showing bullies their place wouldn't be frowned upon by the council, would it?

Standing behind her were six people who looked to be in their late teens. The one in front had a tattoo of a dragon crossing half of his face, and there was a pistol attached to his belt.

“Where?” she asked, crossing her arms and smirking in what she knew was an irritating way.

“What's your name, girl?” the boy asked tauntingly.

“Kallista,” she replied with a smile. “And did anyone tell you that wearing black doesn't exactly hide you on a hot desert day? Although, I don't think even the best camouflage could cover up that disgusting face.”

One of the girls snorted, but the rest of the pack just glared at Kallista. Kallista glared back in the most provoking way she could. Somebody attack me, she wanted to beg. It had been three years since her first combat mission, and fighting hadn't gotten old. She was convinced it never would.

The tattooed boy grinned suddenly. “You'd better watch your words,” he said, drawing his pistol and waving it condescendingly.

She gave him a flat stare. “If you want to make the gun an actual surprising reveal, you need to put the gun where I can't see it from a mile away.”

He cocked the pistol, raising it in a steady hand. “You need to start being a little more careful,” he warned.

“Tastro, what are you doing?” one of the boys demanded. “You're not actually going to shoot her, are you?”

“Let him do it,” one of the others snarled. “Do you think he'd hesitate to shoot me?”

“Dasdaka knows I sure want him to sometimes,” the first grumbled.

Kallista rolled her eyes, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. “So are you going to attack me? Or are you just gonna keep up this conversation?” she asked. “It's a nice conversation, I mean, but-”

“Alright,” the boy Tastro interrupted. “Keep your mouth shut.”

“You are so cliché,” Kallista groaned. Three, she counted in her head. Two. She tensed her muscles. One.

As usual, her intuition was spot on. A bullet whizzed past her ear as she jumped to the side. “Your mistake,” she told Tastro as she rolled to her feet. “I’m not allowed to attack anyone if they don't attack me first.”

Then she jumped up again as a bullet flew by beneath her. As she fell toward the ground, her boots shifted. The metal soles opened, revealing a secondary layer of hard plastic, then folded together, creating a blade sticking out from the boot, which separated into a row of metal wheels.

Kallista hit the ground, expertly balancing on the wheels. A look of surprise flashed across Tastro’s face, before it lit up in a grin. “You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to fight one of you,” he told her. “I mean, any fight’s good, but you’ll be fun. And I’ve always wanted Raven Empire tech.”

“My thoughts exactly,” she said, rolling in a slow circle. “It’s been forever since I’ve fought someone who knew who I was. Of course, it won’t be as fun for you as you might think.”

Tastro threw the gun over his shoulder. “Get out of my way,” he barked at the rest of his gang. Looking startled, they backed off. Tastro assumed a basic stance, his hips rotated slightly and his hands raised protectively in front of his face.

Kallista noted his defensive posture. He knows how to fight us, she remarked. Or rather, he knows how to fight the average one of us. Kallista had taken every combat course offered in the underground organization, her fascination driving her to pursue battle as a hunter pursues prey. And she had enough charges for an extended fight.

She didn’t even shift her weight before she burst into motion. She gave no clue as to the direction of her movement until she blasted straight at Tastro, an earsplitting bang accompanying the flash of light by her heels. As the charge went off, the recoil from the blast shot her forward, and she crouched into a ball, tearing toward Tastro.

He leapt nimbly to the side, and she jumped, twisting so her entire body hung parallel to the ground. The sharpened metal wheels of her skates passed inches from Tastro’s face as he used his momentum to flip away from her attack.

Kallista landed rolling on her wheels, her bushy brown hair whipping around her face. It felt as though she was slicing through the ground as she bent her knees and skated around Tastro in a tight circle. He spun around to watch her movement, fists raised, in time to see her crouch and slide toward his legs. She swept one foot out, and the wheels cut a long gash in Tastro’s leg. He cried out and kicked at her, but she swerved and skated out of range, rolling backwards to keep an eye on him.

“So you like skating, huh?” Tastro growled, squeezing his pant leg to his calf to stem the blood flow. “That’s one of the more creative fighting styles I’ve seen your kind use, even if the weapon still mimics royal technology.”

“Thank you,” Kallista said, then attempted to curtsy in her skates. She almost fell over, then giggled and regained her balance, pushing off to circle around Tastro again.

Tastro lunged at her with a flying sidekick, and Kallista narrowed her eyes with a small smile. A charge went off, this time aimed at the ground rather than out behind her, and she launched into the air, flipping over Tastro’s head. He tried to skid and spin around, but his momentum carried him past her, and she kicked down, catching him in the shoulder with her bladed wheels before landing again.

He rolled quickly to his feet; the cut hadn’t been deep. Kallista didn’t pause, shooting around him in a circle. Her hair whipped out behind her as she jumped forward, flipping back so her feet could reach out to cut Tastro again. He ducked nimbly to the side and grabbed her leg to slam her into the ground, but she twisted and regained her feet, pulling away. She immediately curved around and flew at him with a spinning kick. He ran backward, expecting the fight to take a natural pause as they both regained their breath.

But Kallista didn’t slow down; she sped up. She used two charges back to back, shooting forward so fast the skin on her cheeks was pulled by the wind. With a third charge, she catapulted into a series of airborne somersaults, tucking her legs in as she flew at Tastro. At the last second, she snapped her legs out, slicing toward Tastro’s stomach. He jumped back and aimed a punch at Kallista’s head, but she instinctively grabbed his forearm. The power behind the punch sent a ringing shock through her bone, but she held on as her momentum carried her past him in a flash of skates and brown hair, pulling him to the ground.

Tastro hit the ground with a loud grunt, then had to roll to the side as Kallista’s skates came down where his chest had been moments before. Her lungs were burning with the effort of maintaining this tempest of attacks, but she knew she couldn’t give him time to rest. She had to break his defense before he had time to regain his strength.

So she ducked in with a flurry of punches, spinning around Tastro as she sent sharp jabs at his sides. He tried to follow all of her movements, but eventually she caught him with a light jab. He backed away, gasping, and Kallista used a charge to swerve behind him and catch his ear with an uppercut.

He screeched in pain, and that small distraction gave Kallista the opening she needed. She slid in, balancing on one foot, and spun, kicking both of his ankles. He jumped back too late, losing his balance.

Kallista didn’t give Tastro time to comprehend what had happened. She dove toward him, catching his shoulders, then flipped forward over him, her momentum pairing with another charge from her boots to throw him backward behind her. She landed clumsily, rolling backward from the force of her movements.

The move achieved what she wanted, however. Tastro went flying, landing in a crumpled heap in the street, and even as he tried to get up, Kallista used her last charge to shoot at him again. Her knee connected with his chest, and she heard the air leave his lungs as she pinned him to the street.

“Well, this was fun,” she said, grinning maliciously. “But I’ve got to go now. I was kind of in the middle of something.” She stood up and allowed Tastro to climb to his feet slowly. He turned away and retreated, bleeding from the places she had cut him.

She smiled to herself as he fled, hobbling down the street with occasional moans of pain. She didn't bother chasing him. After all, she had a mission to run.