Chapter II
Two minutes to Midnight

Note from the author: The minutes and seconds are different in this world. While there are 75 minutes in an hour in this world, there are still 24 hours in a day. There are about 42 seconds in each minute, which may get confusing at some point or another, but hopefully not too much. Please try to bear with me.


She was running quickly in a large circle, her outfit torn and shredded from miscalculated sword slashes. The runes were quickly being etched into the ground, and her body was pushing it's limit. It was the third time she had tried it this day, her own perverse technique. The circle had to be perfect, the speed had to be perfect, and this time it was not. She stepped on the edges of one of her own glyphs, and found herself flying into a large boulder. The impact racked her whole frame, and judging from the sudden pain in her back -- more particularly, her shoulder blade -- she guessed that she had just broken or cracked a bone. She was used to it, but still she cursed. She stood up, the sword dropping from numbed pawpads. Well damn, not only did she have to leave her refuge for the night to go buy candles, she had to do it looking like a mess and with a paralyzed arm. That was just fucking great, now wasn't it? And what was next? A giant vampire bat swarming down to try to suck her down to a dried-up husk...?

She bent down with her legs only, grabbed the sword in her other paw, and kicked the boulder onto the remaining glyphs. She didn't watch as it disappeared in the firey blasts, the rock going from it's huge form to small molecules in mere seconds. She walked up to her "home" -- a cave that she kept her many weapons in, as well as her stock of candles (for her protection rituals) and her hunted food, usually things that had underestimated herself. Like the feral beast some woman had released through the woods to kill whatever he could. It's death hgad been quick, and most likely painless. Even though it wasn't practical, she kept at least one of her many gauntlets on at any moment of the day and night. The one she had used to fell that poor beast was simple, at least to herself; It was a hard-leather gauntlet with four spikes along the knuckles, three spikes above that, slanted for a good bit of damage with a swiping motion, and three spikes pointing straight up for backhand attacks and the like right in the center of the back of the glove. It was one of her favorites, actually.

Mira dropped the sword off in the cave, and began the walk into town. She was going to have to wait until dawn when she got there, but it wouldn't matter. If she wanted to, and she very much did, she could be as still as death.

Thirty minutes later, a very uneventful trip through the woods, she sarrived at the town, and another two minutes, she was standing outside the candle shop, which was owned by an elderly bat, and her granddaughter worked there. It seemed too common any more, but that's how it was. Elderly women, and sometimes men, got younger people -- also usually women -- to work inside the shops and help with their duties. The vampire bat, Luna by birthname, Sol by choice, (She had always much rather liked the sun more than the moon, even if it didn't help her vision too much anymore) had been running the shop for 50 years, by town-talk. Her granddaughter, Cherry, was much livelier, and very accustomed to the work inside the poorly lit shop. She was 18, and usually had a broom in her wings, just to make sure the spotless floor stayed spotless. If she had something else to do, she set the broom aside, did that chore, then worked feverishly to make sure the floor wasn't getting any dirtier. Mira jumped onto the rooftop of the cottage-like building. Cherry was rather cute, Mira mused, but it's not like I'd be able to invite her to my "home..."She laid herself down gently so as not to agitate her shoulder, and she closed her eyes, falling into the much unwelcome abyss of her memories...



...She arrived at her school torn and bloody, bruised and battered. The other kids always stared, and the teachers avoided looking at her. It wasn't because she was ugly -- she was far from it,by most standards -- but instead because she was always torn up in the same places, a blood drop or two where she sat in her first, and sometimes her second, morning class. She didn't talk much, she was always reading her textbook and doing work, or reading a fictional novel, or, disturbing to the other children, weapon manuals, fighting tomes, and so on. Why did it matter to them anyway? The young pantheress never bothered anyone, she kept to herself, and was never in the way, so...Why did it matter? it seemed like the only reason was because she was different...What was the point if she couldn't be herself? She wasn't going to be some docile little child, and certainly not just so the teachers could present her with a piece of paper. She regarded everyone with the same cold, calculating eyes. She didn't let anyone get close to her, either. If they were to die tomorrow or the next day, and she had let them close, then it would hurt, and she would rather not face that at all. There was only one exception, her friend, Martez would later become reknowned under the name Rasputin. He had always seemed strange, and he was the only one Mira could ever talk to, because he didn't laugh or cry, but because he actually listened. He didn't have stupid comments to put in all the time. Later on though, he would have Mira listening to his rambling in a kind of swap of times. He felt she would appreciate the ideas he had at that time.
She sighed and snapped the manual for Cesti shut. She would become almost infamous in her native town by the age of 17, for slaughtering children that had tried to burn and maim the village and the people inside. Children that were maybe 8 yrs old, minimum, to 12 years old, maximum. It was then that she had left for her life of loneliness, excluding a frequent visit to her friend Martez.


She woke up at sunrise, as was her regime', and began staring down at the space where Sol would be standing a few minutes later to unlock the shop. While Sol had the shop equipped for candle sales, she had a very secret back area, which wasn't in the back, more of a basement, and it had shipping boxes for Mira herself. While Sol didn't like the idea, she needed the money that Mira had always managed to have. Where she got it, Sol didn't know, and by this point, she didn't care. Mira dropped from the roof as silently as possible (which was soundless, although the small insects on the ground had probably felt an earthquake) and said "Hello, Sol."
Sol let out a wheezing squeak! and began gibbering, before turning to face the pantheress, "I...But...I didn't know and...Oh..Oh, hello, Mira... Here to pick up your orders?"
"Where is Cherry this morning? She's usually visiting in and out at night to make sure you haven't tried opening up too early, or stayed out too late," the pantheress was slowly flicking her tail inside her trench coat, which hid it quite well.
"How long have you been here, then?" The elderly bat asked, her wings held tight to her chest. Sol's heart was racing even still, and could have sworn she would have a heart attack the next time this happened.
"Estimated time of arrival was 14:07 Mg." "Why would you have been here so late? And I do wish you would stop doing that, you sound like one of those damned machines that they keep building...For the good of the people my tail! If there was any more "good" for the people nowadays, we would be wallowing in quicksand instead of dirt! And... Oh, I'm sorry, I'm letting my mouth run away with me again..." The bat was panting slightly, having spoken frantically, and more energetically than she usually did nowadays. "Uhh..Now what were you asking dear...?"
"Where is Cherry this morning?" Mira asked again. Her tone was expressionless, as it almost always was. The exceptions were when she was pissed, smug, or happy.
"Oh yes, I'm sorry, Cherry will be in about 9:67 Mf, Mira. Why, is there something you need with her? Or is something going wrong?"
"May I ask that we go inside before I say anything? I would much like to collect my orders as well as get a few of those special candles you make."
"Which ones? The ones that have scents, burn different colors, or the aroma-therapy ones or maybe th-...." She began to babble again. Mira sighed "Inside, please."
"Oh oh, yes dear, we should get in." The bat fumbled with the key and then dropped it. Squinting she began to bend over before Mira flicked the key into the air with one of her toes, caught it and unlocked it for her. Sol hadn't seen much of anything, and had only heard the lock click and the key landing in the pantheress' paws. She smiled gratefully, showing her larger fangs, or, fake fangs now. They were for show now, and they would be at her deathbed.
The two walked inside. It was amazing how clean the place had smelled, and always did smell, when Mira walked in. Cherry did absolutely fantastic work, and before she left she always burned one of those specially made scented candles. This one smelled like a mix between, well, cherries and plums. It didn't sound too good, not to the pantheress, but this was one of her favorite smells so far. They blended so well together...
"Hold on, yung'un, I'll get those daggers you asked for. What have you been doing with them anyway? You seem to run out of them so fast now," the bat turned back to regard the pantheress, and waited patiently for an answer, like so many elderly folks seemed to do.
"Missions and goals, and a bit of mercenery work, a lot of them break." Mira didn't pause before answering, nor did Sol expect her to. Although those daggers had been crafted to be nearly unbreakable, to shatter them would take a force much past the regular mortal's strength. "Just what have you been fighting, Chica?" The Chica word, of course. She was concerned.
"A demon or two, intruders upon my cave, and once, that woman's feral pet."
"You mean Garrnta's pet? The little fox?" Sol's eyes had grown quite large at this.
"No no, her other one, that werewolf-bear hybrid creature. It was sent to track me and I suppose to harm me. Know anything about it?"
Sol shook her head slightly before nodding, "Yes, she had been saying she got a hold of one of your cloths, had me look at it -- or more particularly, had Cherry look at it, since I couldn't tell a spoon from a fork!" She chuckled for a second or two, then continued, "She was talking about sending the little boy after you. If I'd thought she was serious, i would have told you, Chica."
"Of course." The bat turned to go get the daggers, and Mira began browsing. The feral beast had been carrying something of hers; her old, torn-up money purse. It still had a coin or two left in it as well. She'd pocketed those, and had buried the corpse under a tall oak tree; the poor thing couldn't even be straightened out. Mira had taken a slash to her ankle and the teeth had grazed her leg before she'd pounded her spiked gauntlet into his head, then ripped out his hamstrings. Then she cut the throat, to make sure he was dead. She'd dealt with several such beasts before, though he'd been faster than most. It was a shame he'd been so intent on trying to kill her, she might have been able to turn him into an adequate partner, or mroe accurately, pet. Or not. He'd been too slow-witted to even realise she'd posed a larger threat on his life than just the 4.33% the papers claimed she was. A low-mortality rate had been issued for her; The army had taken quite a bit of credit for her kills. She couldn't do anything about it, though...
She heard Sol shuffling back up the steps with the box, and rushed over to take it from her, before she fell over.
"Oh thank you, it feels like it could weigh a ton! Maybe that's just old age catching up to me, though." The bat pulled out a handkerchief and began patting her forehead.
"It's 50 kerhinz, Sol. It's alright though, I suspect I'll be worse off when I'm your age...'' She smiled, slightly, as she looked upon the elderly bat. Sol let out an odd shriek, which was not displeasurable on the ears at all. "I see, and tell me, when you were 2, did you throw dirt on trees?"
"Not at all." Her tone had changed from expressionless to slightly humored. Sol smiled at that too, it was so hard to make the calculating pantheress break her tone, let alone her face.
"well, I imagine you'll pay a fair price for the knives?"
"Of course, Sol, 125% price because of the trouble you go through." Mira opened her trench, pushed a paw into one of the hidden pockets, and pulled out the bag of gems and gold nuggets. "470 merins each, Sol. Just like I promised."
"Ah, but you said you would pay 400 solid, each, my Chica. Something you want to ask of me then?" The stooped bat looked up into her face. Mira blinked and stared at the bat, then averted her gaze.
"70 merins is quite a bit extra, especially considering they cost 325 merins to make, and you ordered 2000 of them. What is it that bothers you? You know you can trust your dear old granny..."
Mira smiled again. She had slipped one day, and instead of calling her Luna, before her name change, she called her granny. Even now, she still used the slip-up to bring out other subjects or matters with Mira.
"Well, yes...I would like to know if you'd let me take out Cherry to get something to eat, Sol."
Again, Sol's eyes widened, and even considered handing back the precious gems, but she thought better of it, not because of Mira's temper, but because Mira, while cold-hearted, was the strange passion of her granddaughter's life. Cherry swept so frantically in the shop when the careful feline came in, it was hard not to guess that Cherry liked her secretly. Mira had always assumed she worked that diligently all the time, and how Sol had wished that were true!
"Yes, I suppose it would be okay..Just make sure not to take her to that little dinky restaurant across the street, you know the one. Le Stanhkeh Slums, they should have called it!" She squeaked her laugh again, and put the gems behind the counter.
Mira didn't smile. She laughed, and hugged Sol lightly. "I hope I can show Cherry a good time then."
"I would place my bets of 10,000 merins that she would!" The elder bat said cheerfully.
"That sure then? Well then, I may as well treat her like a princess tonight, yes?'' Mira smiled. In fact, she'd been trying to work up the nerve to ask Sol this for quite a few months, but she couldn't do it because she had wondered if Cherry would think such a thing unorthadox and even stupid. Now she just had to ask Cherry herself, who had, in fact been hiding behind the shelf the whole time, listening with a growing blush and hugging herself tightly.She'd come in to get an early start in the shop, so that if Mira had come along she could "sweep". She tried to sneak her way to another aisle when Mira turned to her. "Oh, hello there Cherry! How are you today?"
Cherry squeaked and giggled, and with her glowing cheeks, felt so foolish in front of the reserved pantheress. "umm, umm..." She couldn't say anything.
"Oh I see, so you heard, hmm?" Mira laid a paw on Sol's shoulder.
"I think she'll be happier being told now than later, don't you think, Chica?" Sol smiled up at the pantheress. Mira nodded. Cherry giggled again, and wrapped her wings loosely around her body. "I umm...yes, please take me somewhere tonight, ma'am." She lowered her head, and smiled shyly.
"Well then! i'll see you at Mardena Gardenia tonight then! And bring plenty of money, you're paying!" Mira was smiling again, and Sol cackled, lightly swatting the pantheress' right sleeve. Cherry heard it all with disbelief and thought this was the sweetest dream she'd had in months. Cherry was going to get ready for the night, dream or no dream.

Mira walked out with the box of knives under her good arm, and a "complimentary" scented candle inside. It was cherry-plum.