The Metahuman Agency: The Superhuman War

Phoenix

"Fine," She growled, slapping some dust from her coat. She lied around the top of the ridge, a large rock outcropping up ahead, which blocked her view. She jerked a thumb at it. "Let's move around there. It should be up ahead, yeah?"

The man nodded and made a hand signal to the two other men. Their relaxed postures changed into an instant to more professional ones. Raising their AK-47s, the men crept alongside the ridge, sweeping their guns to and fro. One man peeked around the ridge's edge and made the signal for 'All clear'.

The sniper drew his own weapon and moved after them into a crouched position. Jacqueline followed, gripping her suitcase tightly and adjusting her sunglasses with her free hand.

The sniper was a man called E'temaad. He was a mercenary, a man who, by his own words, was only loyal to 'the scent of money'. His services had apparently doubled since the Soviet invasion of his country. Jacqueline was lucky to have found him. He did whatever she asked of him, as long as she could provide the cash. And luckily, she could.

Jacqueline frowned as she hugged the rock, inching alongside the sniper. To think she'd end up here, in this war torn country at the ass end of the world, trying to scrap a life for herself. It had been hard, making that decision. But she knew she wouldn't be safe in America. Not with her father's connections. So she ran. She hitched a ride on a plane and went to Europe. From there, by foot, by sea, and occasionally by air, she made her way downwards. And eventually, she'd ended up here.

Afghanistan. A place she'd only read about and barely considered a footnote in the world. But here she was. She'd presented herself as an arms dealer, selling mechanical devices she made as weapons off to the Afghan rebels trying to drive the Russian occupation out of their country. She'd made money, bit by bit, but while it was enough to survive, it wasn't enough to THRIVE.

In this place, tainted by the dead, she'd seen the horrors of war up close. She'd had her brushes with death as she made her way across the desert wastes. But through it all, something struck her. How one's fortune could be made in this world, how someone could actually become...better. Jacqueline knew she was brilliant. Who else could have made their way here and survive as she did? But her brilliance would only get her so far in life. Others had been spitting on it all her life. It had started with her father and continued with a long line of hostile people she'd met throughout her travels.

But they could see her magnificence. Even those who dismissed her as a girl in over her head had taken a liking to her inventions. It was always so satisfying to see the smugness vanish when a simple 'toy' of hers blew up a car or burrowed its way through enemy lines.

And through it all, Jacqueline had developed a certain fondness for the violence she saw around her. She liked it, even if it frightened her. But the adrenaline, the sheer excitement of running through a war torn territory, dodging enemy convoys and mortar fire appealed to her, on some instinctual level. She'd learned much about warfare through firsthand experience. Learned about independent factions who fought for themselves in these sorts of conflicts. Like scavengers, they'd show up and lend their services to any side who appealed to them, reaping the benefits and then disappearing Just as quick as they appeared. While fools around them lived and died for ideology, for petty morals, they were the true masters of the battlefield, the men who walked away with more riches then they knew what to do with. Men like E'temaad.

And perhaps...perhaps someone like her.

Jacqueline at last came to the edge of the rocky formation. She found herself at the edge of a cliff, which plunged to a hilly scrubland below. E'temaad's two mercenaries were crouched at the cliff's edge, watching ahead. E'temaad signaled Jacqueline to do the same and flopped down on his belly.