The Beginning

“Hello, Mesa.”

The man behind the desk was dressed in progressive Realm fashion, wearing a white poet shirt under a black jacket of some kind. He was not an easy man to locate – Mesa and Ash had tracked him from the Scavenger Lands all the way to the Pangu Prefecture, where it was only through a stroke of luck that they’d located the man’s temporary office.

He was also an exceptionally wanted man. Although the Immaculate Order, the All-Seeing Eye, and the Guild had separately approached the Grass-Spiders with contract offers on the man’s head, the job was already underway – it was an inside operation. It was believed that the man was involved in Atlas’s death; he hired the Grass-Spiders to take out the man Atlas died to kill, but the conditions were far different than what was promised – something went horribly wrong on that job, and after the man now behind the desk suggested he may have known that all along, the Grass Spiders marked him for death. Mesa’s usual jovial demeanor had faded – the job had been shrouded in too much secrecy, and at the same time, too much had gone right; Mesa simply wanted the task to be finished. Even with their not-inconsiderable skills, Ash and Mesa never should have found the place. It was as if it was meant to happen, and that was to say nothing of the issue at hand – how the fuck did this guy know Mesa’s name? Something wasn’t right. Mesa had entered the room with his flame piece drawn, and pulled back the hammer on the gun after the man spoke, leveling it with the seated man’s face. Ash, meanwhile, had infiltrated the local aerial traffic directorate, and was busy securing them an unhindered escape route. The man, not intimidated, spoke again.

“I knew the day would come when I would be forced to atone for my sins. Relax, you can put your piece away; I intend to take my own life in short order.”

Mesa, somewhat frustrated, made no movement to lower his weapon.

“Who th’fuck are you?”

The man smiled as he calmly produced a plasma tongue repeated from a desk drawer, letting a fire pearl roll from his cupped hand into the gun’s barrel. His movements were confident, but unthreatening.

“I should say that an assassin who does know which man he was sent to kill concerns me somewhat as a matter of public safety, no?”

As Mesa’s frustration mounted, he struggled not to squeeze the trigger. The moment was surreal, the two men surrounded by a bare office and only candle light – the dead, dark night of Blessed Isle winters provided no further light from the windows.

“You know what I’m asking. It doesn’t bother you that half of Creation wants you dead? Do you even know why?”

The man’s smile persisted, to Mesa’s further consternation. He replied after a brief moment of quiet, “Why would it bother me? Of course I know – I already told you that I was well aware I’d pay for what I’ve done. Why should you care? I’m just another hit to you, right? A deeper purse? No real investment in the situation? Isn’t that the advantage of you transient types, just moving where the winds take you and to hell with destiny and whatnot?” The man rotated his chair to face straight forward and laid his plasma tongue repeated neatly on the desk, folding his hands in his lap. Though his smile had faded, he held onto a mocking smugness when he finished his statements, “Or is that not working out like you’d hoped?”

Mesa, though he could not fully discount the relevance of the man’s criticisms, did his best to ignore them, focusing on the issue at hand – revenge. “A good man died because of you –“

The man interrupted Mesa sharply, “Two good men.”

Mesa shook his head, grunted a bit, and continued, “ – and everything about the circumstances was extraordinary. This has been no different. The bullshit I had to run through to get here, and it was nothing but that – bullshit – has done nothing to change my mind from thinking you’re into some pretty fucked up shit. Over the past month, I’ve seen the dead, demons, human trafficking, sorcerers, Shogunate revivalists, all connected to YOU – just what kind of fuckin’ game are you playing?” The man’s reply was no more enlightening.

“Infernalists, slavers, revolutionaries, the list goes on – the titles are probably true in various local capacities, but that’s not really what we’re about – people will see what they want to see, but they’re missing the point.”

“We?!” Mesa grip on the trigger tightened – enigma or not, this wasn’t going to go on for much longer.

“I suppose I’ve said too much already. I’ve failed at what I set out to do – clearly, you can see that I’m not in the best of positions. But I will leave you with this, Mesa; look around you. Really look around you – you’d be shocked at what you might see.”

The man picked up the gun on the desk and nestled the barrel, at an angle, into the bottom of his chin. Mesa ignored the man’s most recent statements, and again demanded, “Who is we?!”

The man, whose head was cocked back slightly in anticipation of his self-inflicted demised, met Mesa’s gaze with some effort.

“That’s for you to figure out, should it fancy your interest. But now, you know there’s a we, and not just a me.” The man pulled the trigger.

---

Ash and Mesa sat wordlessly on the Geronimo, flying peacefully out of Imperial airspace. Ravenous Moon, Waning Heart manned the ship’s wheel, while the two Grass Spiders sat on the ship’s starboard edge, looking at the torchlights of the Imperial City, glaring at them like a thousand ominous eyes in a nighttime jungle.

Ash looked over to Mesa, handing over the rolled cigarette he’d been smoking.

“You’re quiet tonight.”

Mesa, still wordlessly, took a final drag from the cigarette and flicked it over the ship’s edge.