Mars Time: 10:14, February 18, 2295

  B1, Red Rabbit Warren, Entrance #3

  The Warren's entrance yawned open like a mouth. Inside the dungeon were rusted metal doors frozen half-ajar, the darkness illuminated by the occasional fusion-powered candlelights. Jabari stood at the threshold, Oya the Kinetic Crossbow resting against his shoulder. He wondered if this was how his father had felt before the business collapsed: staring into something bad, knowing he was about to step inside anyway.

  "Well," he said to the empty air, "at least the Radi-Mons won't ask for a business plan."

  He triggered Oya's targeting scope. The Kinetic Crossbow hummed, the teal-bronze frame warming against his palm as the scope's holographic display flickered to life. Heat signatures painted the tunnel ahead in gradients of orange and red. Nothing was moving, but plenty of residual warmth. Bodies. Recent ones.

  Jabari stepped inside.

  His boots crunched on debris: shattered crates, spent bullet casings, what looked like a torn piece of ballistic weave still dripping something dark. Blood? Sweat?

  He moved, Oya sweeping smoothly. The scope tracked temperature variations, but the Warren's geothermal vents played havoc with readings. A hot spot could be a corpse or just some steam from a broken pipe.

  The first body appeared a few dozen meters in.

  Human. Male. Face-down in a spreading pool that had gone tacky. Jabari didn't need to roll him over to know the cause of death: the Skuggr acid burns across his back told the story. The man's Nucleus Watch was shattered, which meant no insurance payout for his family. If he had a family.

  "Sorry, friend," Jabari murmured. "Hope it was quick."

  He kept moving.

  More bodies. Two women with their throats opened—clean cuts, human weapons. A man missing his left arm, the cauterization suggesting a thermal weapon. Another man with his skull caved in, brain matter painting the wall in a splash.

  Jabari's grip tightened on Oya. His Nucleus Watch pulsed, golden-yellow face projecting holographic text:

  [Warning: High Mortality Rate Detected]

  [Recommendation: Abort mission and return to Lion District apartment]

  [Notification from Xing Hong Central 09:19, February 18: The Red Rabbit Warren exists beyond city security jurisdiction. Bounty hunters enter at personal peril. Verify with your insurance provider that coverage extends to potential injuries or fatalities!]

  "Yeah, thanks for that." He dismissed the notification. "Real helpful."

  Something moved in his peripheral vision.

  Jabari spun, Oya tracking—

  Just a rat. A massive Martian rat, easily the size of a small dog, dragging something fleshy into a side tunnel.

  Focus, Jabari. Find the Zephyrium if you can, but don't die trying. Simple.

  The tunnel branched ahead. Left passage showed scorch marks, right showed claw gouges. He chose right. Radi-Mons meant bounties, and bounties meant his father could eat something better than prison rations.

  That's when he saw it: a supply crate, half-buried under rubble but intact. Military-grade composite, Xing Hong's markings still visible.

  Jabari approached cautiously, Oya raised. The crate's lock was broken. He set the crossbow against the wall, keeping it within reach, and knelt.

  His fingers closed on the lid.

  That's when he heard it: the faint whisper of displaced air.

  Jabari threw himself sideways.

  The shotgun blast shredded the space where his head had been, composite pellets sparking off the tunnel wall. He rolled, came up with Sankofa half-drawn—

  The woman stepped from the shadows.

  Blonde hair pulled into a half-up ponytail. Ice-blue eyes cold enough to send chills down a man’s spine. Beige trench coat billowing as she closed distance, a white Breacher Shotgun already folding into brick form on the small of her back while her other hand drew a one-handed Thermal Axe that ignited with a sound like furnaces opening.

  Oh.

  Oh, Ekwensu.

  It was her. The Nordling from last night. The one who'd swept Xin off his feet just by existing.

  Jabari got Sankofa up just in time.

  Her axe met his Moonstone Cutlass in a shower of sparks. Heat washed over his face—the thermal edge was close, close enough he could smell his gray cloak singeing where it protected his shoulder.

  "That was rude!" Jabari pivoted, deflecting her follow-up strike. "Shooting at people without introducing yourself first!"

  She didn't answer. Didn't even blink. Just pressed forward with killing intent, each strike meant to end him: throat, femoral artery, under the ribs. Thankfully, he was agile enough to dodge them all.

  He ducked under a horizontal slash that would've taken his head off, rolling backward to create distance.

  "Okay, how about this—I'm Jabari. You were at Bounty Board #7 last night, showing Xin your mighty axe Járn and all—right?"

  The woman paused, her weapon held ready. Those blue eyes fixed on him for the first time.

  "Sigrun, yeah?" He kept backing toward where he'd dropped Oya. "Saw you leave. Xin was pretty shaken up after."

  "This isn't personal." Her voice was flat. Professional.

  "Yeah, I get it. Big bounty, everyone's a competitor." His fingers found Oya's frame. "So you just…remove competitors on your way in. Makes sense!"

  "I hate killing people I know." Still that emotionless tone. "So it's better if I don't know your name."

  "Too late for that, hey?" Jabari's grip tightened on the crossbow. "I can't walk away either. Got family debt to pay. My pa owes banks on Earth some four hundred thousand dollars. Failed startup and all that." He shook his head. "Need every dollar I can find to get him out of debtor's prison."

  "Sad story." She flexed her axe arm. The thermal edge hummed, quantum-blue light painting her face. "I'll make this quick."

  Then she charged.

  Jabari moved in time as he uttered the Anansemka words: "?sram Anamm?n!"

  Silver radiance enveloped him, moonlight clinging to his limbs. His body felt lighter as the spell took hold. He sidestepped her lunge, leaving a faint trail of luminous silver behind.

  The spell bought him space. He brought Oya up, the Kinetic Crossbow's scope painting targeting solutions across his vision. That's when his Nucleus Watch chimed:

  [Major Enemy Health Calculated]

  [Sigrun F. - Nordling Drifter; Psi Lynx certified! Exercise extreme caution!]

  She was closing again but he planted his feet, sharpening his aim.

  His crosshairs locked center mass.

  "B?lae Sika!"

  The bolt ignited with silver blue flame as it left Oya's chamber. The enchanted shot caught Sigrun on the left shoulder.

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  The impact would've shocked an average opponent. Instead she stumbled, the bolt punching through her beige trench coat. Its ballistic weave had absorbed most of the force, but the silver flame seared through to the navy turtleneck beneath, burning fabric and scoring flesh.

  Blood bloomed across her snowy shoulder, dark against the fabric.

  She kept coming, her ivory face still without expression.

  "Okay, you’re the ‘shake it off’ type…" Jabari cycled another bolt, backing up. His Moonlit Step was still active, silver light trailing his movements. He had speed, had range—

  But Sigrun closed the distance in three long strides, ignoring the wound like it was a papercut. Her axe Járn came around in an arc.

  Jabari ducked under it, feeling heat pass overhead, and slashed with Sankofa. The moonstone blade caught her exposed side where the trench coat gaped open, and sliced through the turtleneck’s ballistic weave to open a minor gash.

  More blood. A hit that should've made anyone hesitate.

  She pivoted and kicked at his knee.

  Jabari jumped back, his enhanced speed the only thing saving him. His momentum was building now, his strikes flowing into natural combinations.

  "Hey! You're bleeding," he said, circling right.

  "I noticed." Her expression hadn't changed. Still cold. Like pain was mere concept.

  She came at him again, and Jabari realized something that made his stomach drop: she wasn't trying to dodge. She was trading hits, accepting damage to close distance.

  Why not use her gun? Or a spell? Was she being dumb? Or maybe there were emotions warring beneath all that ice mountain exterior.

  He fired Oya again—no time for enchantment, just a clean shot aimed at her thigh.

  Sigrun's axe came around in a tight arc. Járn's thermal edge caught the bolt mid-flight, the superheated blade vaporizing it in a burst of sparks and molten metal. Fragments peppered her pants like burning coals, small scorch marks appearing on the black fabric.

  She grunted. Shifted weight slightly.

  Then kept coming.

  "What are you?" Jabari whispered.

  Sigrun's lips might've twitched. "Determined."

  They clashed again, Sankofa meeting Járn, sparks flying with each impact. But this time Jabari felt it: the raw strength behind her strikes, each blow rattling his bones despite his enhanced speed. His agility let him avoid the worst, redirecting her force, but something about her vibes felt very wrong, unsettling.

  A corner of his gray cloak caught fire where Járn's edge grazed it. He shrugged out of the garment mid-parry, letting it fall.

  His movements were flowing now. He landed another cut across her left forearm—making a cut through the beige coat sleeve and the deep navy fabric beneath, seeing blood—then spun away before she could counter, silver light trailing his motion.

  The horror was setting in: she had three visible wounds now. The ambient lights painted her in sharp highlight—golden hair, ice-blue eyes, blood-splattered beauty that belonged on recruitment posters, not in a tunnel trying to murder him.

  And she didn't even care. Didn’t slow.

  His arms felt heavier than they should. Adrenaline crash, probably. Or blood loss he hadn't noticed.

  "Surrender," she offered, pressing forward, Járn's blade seething with quantum-blue. "I'll split the bounty. Five percent."

  "Five?" Jabari laughed. His breath was coming harder now. "Lady, you're not exactly selling the deal here."

  His Moonlit Step faded, silver light dissipating.

  Jabari tried to create distance, but his body felt heavier now—normal speed after enhancement always felt like moving through water. His limbs weren't responding as crisply.

  Sigrun raised her free hand, palm forward. Her lips moved, forming words in that guttural Nordic tongue, J?turmál: "Frost, bylgja!"

  Ice crystallized from her palm, spreading frost that surged through the air. The temperature plummeted. Jabari felt it hit his legs first, his boots suddenly adhering to the tunnel floor, frost creeping up his shins like grasping skeletal fingers.

  [Enemy Ability: Frost Moon Bolt]

  [Status Effect: Movement Speed Reduced by 40%]

  "Ekwensu—"

  He wrenched his right foot free, ice cracking, but it cost him his stance. His balance wavered for a crucial half-second.

  That's when Járn came around in a brutal backswing.

  The thermal edge caught Sankofa's guard at an angle Jabari couldn't compensate for—not with his feet still breaking free of ice. She twisted, using her superior strength and his compromised footing, and he felt his grip slip.

  The moonstone cutlass spun from his hands, clattering into shadows.

  [Weapon: Sankofa - DISARMED]

  "Shango's schlong!"

  He had Oya. Just Oya now, the crossbow suddenly feeling inadequate against a woman who'd tanked five of his hits and barely slowed. His feet were free of the ice, but the frost had done its work—broken his momentum, forced the opening she needed.

  Still bleeding. Still coming.

  Sigrun raised Járn overhead—both hands on the haft now, her whole body coiling into something different. The thermal edge's glow intensified, and Jabari tried to dodge—

  She lunged, shouting in Joturmal. "Valfall!"

  Blue Lunar energy enveloping her form, Sigrun crossed three meters crossed in an eyeblink. Járn came down like divine judgment, the Thermal Axe trailing quantum-blue fire—

  Jabari threw himself to the side, but the axe caught him across the chest—not a critical hit, his gray tee's ballistic weave absorbing the worst of it, but the force was big enough.

  He hit the tunnel wall hard. His ribs screamed protest as he forced himself upright, Oya somehow still in his hands but trembling.

  Sigrun advanced, unhurried. Blood dripped from her shoulder and her forearm, painting a red trail behind her on the tunnel floor. Her turtleneck was showing snowy skin and crimson beneath. Her face was unmarred, those blue eyes calm as winter sky.

  She looked like a bloodied Valkyrie. Beautiful and terrible and utterly unstoppable.

  "I need that Zephyrium more than you do," she said simply.

  "See, that's…" Jabari coughed, spat blood. "That's where we disagree. My dad's suicidal depression versus your... what, rent money?"

  Something flickered across her face. Anger? Guilt? It vanished too quickly to read.

  "You don't know anything about me," was all she said.

  Then her fist caught him in the solar plexus.

  Air exploded from his lungs. His Nucleus Watch screamed damage warnings as he hit the ground, Oya skittering from nerveless fingers. His vision swam, pain white-hot through his torso. Ribs cracked. Maybe broken. His arms felt weak, useless.

  Sigrun stood over him, Járn's thermal edge hovering near his throat. Her face was impassive again. Blood dripped from her wounds, pattering onto the tunnel floor beside his head.

  "Nothing personal," she said, raising Járn for the killing blow.

  Through blurring vision, Jabari watched the axe lift—watched blood run down her arm, watched her expression stay cold and empty despite bleeding from multiple wounds, watched his own death approaching—

  "Ara ara, what's this?"

  The voice cut through the dungeon like silk: feminine, playful, speaking with that lilt Jabari had heard last night at the Slumbering Mantis Inn.

  Fuuka stepped into the scene, her purple kimono pristine. Her Spirit Lantern floated beside her at head height, glowing toxic violet.

  Sigrun's body moved: weight shifting back, Járn angling toward the new threat instead of Jabari's throat. Her jaw tightened, blood still dripping from her shoulder.

  "Fuuka." The name came out flat, hostile. "You don't even need the bounty."

  "But I do, ne!" Fuuka clasped her hands together. "And I can't let you kill my new friend! We had such a wonderful evening together."

  From the shadows behind Fuuka, something moved. Jabari's vision was clearing enough to see it: a writhing mass of organic tendrils and glistening flesh. The Poison Creeper from last night, its worm body hissing when it touched stone.

  Sigrun looked between Jabari, Fuuka, and the Creeper.

  "Ganging up on me?" Annoyance laced her voice now.

  "Indeed." Fuuka's grin was radiant, showing the whitest teeth Jabari had seen this year, though her canine teeth looked too sharp for a fellow human. "Such poor odds for a woman of your talents."

  For a long moment, no one moved. Jabari could feel the tension: two apex predators sizing each other up.

  Sigrun deactivated Járn's thermal core, the quantum-blue glow fading to nothing. The axe went to her belt in one smooth motion, replaced by the white Breacher Shotgun unfolding from its brick config. The weapon came up ready, barrel aimed at Fuuka's center mass.

  "Don't move." Sigrun said flatly.

  Her free hand went to her coat's inner pocket, pulling out a sleek cylinder—Medi-Vap. She pressed it to her lips without taking her eyes off Fuuka, inhaling the mint-and-metal mist.

  The effect was visible even from where Jabari lay. Her shoulder wound stopped first, tissue knitting together.

  Then her ribs, the gash sealing like zipper teeth closing. The cut on her forearm. The minor burn marks on her pants had already faded.

  It took maybe thirty seconds. Thirty seconds of Fuuka watching with that amused smile, making no move to interfere, her Poison Creeper coiled but patient. Thirty seconds of Sigrun's shotgun never lowering, her finger resting near the trigger.

  When the healing finished, Sigrun lowered the vaporizer but kept Skuld aimed at Fuuka.

  "We're not done," she said.

  "No." Fuuka's tone was pure honey. "Be careful in there, Sigrun-san?"

  Sigrun backed away, keeping both of them in her peripheral vision—Fuuka with her floating lantern and summoned horror, Jabari bleeding on the tunnel floor. Her footsteps were controlled, until the shadows swallowed her.

  She was gone. Only then did Jabari realize he'd been holding his breath.

  Fuuka knelt beside him, her Poison Creeper retracting into her robes like it had a nest in there. "Ara, you look terrible, Jabari-kun."

  "Feel worse," he managed. Speaking hurt. Everything hurt. And somewhere in the back of his mind, a question formed: How long was she watching? Did she wait to see if I'd win, or was she always going to intervene at the last second?

  The thought was uncomfortable.

  "Can you stand?" Fuuka asked.

  He tried. His body disagreed, ribs painful. "Give me...a minute. Or ten."

  Fuuka produced something from her kimono's many folds: a small clay jar sealed with wax. She broke the seal, and the smell hit him—herbs and something musky. She dabbed paste on his split lip, his bruised ribs, anywhere skin showed damage.

  [Shashan Healing Salve applied - Medicinal Extract from Proxima Centauri]

  Warmth spread wherever she touched, the pain retreating to manageable levels.

  "Better?" Fuuka's almond-shaped eyes studied him.

  "Yeah." Jabari sat up carefully, testing his ribs. Still tender, but functional. "Thanks. That's some expensive stuff, right? Proxima imports?"

  "I don't mind the cost." Her smile was enigmatic, impossible to read.

  The pain was all gone now.

  That's when his stomach growled. The sound was loud in the tunnel's relative quiet. He looked down at his abdomen, realization dawning.

  "Oh." He laughed. "That's why I felt so off during the fight. I never had breakfast."

  Fuuka's eyes sparkled with amusement. "Jabari-kun, you challenged a certified Psi Lynx without eating first?"

  "In my defense, I didn't know she'd be here." He struggled to his feet, retrieving Sankofa from where it had fallen and Oya from near the wall. Both weapons were intact, thank the Thousand Gods. "Or that I'd forgotten to eat. Or that she'd try to kill me." He paused. "Okay, the last one I probably should've expected."

  He checked Sankofa's blade for damage—just some minor scoring from where it had met Járn repeatedly. The moonstone edge was still proper. Oya's mechanisms cycled smoothly when he tested them.

  "You wouldn't happen to have breakfast in that kimono, would you?" he asked, only half-joking.

  Fuuka's smile widened. "I do."

  The Worm Witch produced a small rolled omelette from her sleeve, wrapped in bamboo leaf, well packaged and warm. How she'd kept it fresh was beyond him, but Jabari wasn't questioning miracles.

  "Eat," she said, pressing it into his hands. "Then we talk about what happens next."