Dream Stasis Log: Assassin [Chapter 4 part D]

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The winter wind buffeted Amaterasu, and see desperately wrapped her arms around her body to keep warm. It was late in December but the Helios corporation seemed to refused to make it snow; they seemed to think that a bitter wind to simply frost up the windows was enough. As if getting back down to the inner cities Outlands was hard enough. Even if was lower to the ground than most buildings; climbing down from old SMNC practice arenas without being seen made the challenge even greater.

Assassinations were a good distraction from home though, life in the Clan was getting more harsher with Overlord forces closing in everyday. Everyone was on edge, and there were daily arguments over the governance of the Clan. The leader's son’s bickered daily with him and the other elders. One wanted to stand and fight, the other wanted to run out of the inner city into territories beyond the Overlords reach, and the youngest cowardly wanted to surrender. And the leader himself was pressuring everyone to be ready to fight. Amaterasu sighed, at least in the night the Clan was tranquilly silent and it would be a good thing to go home to.

The ex-clone waited for a pause in the wind before crossing over to the next ledge where her escape rope was. Turning the coroner, Amaterasu was shocked to find her first born daughter peering through one of the frost covered windows.

“Akali!?” Amaterasu voice rung with the sound of, frustration. The young child, a modeled image of her mother, looked back with panic-stricken eyes. She was only ten, and she had vowed to be just like her mother and got in a lot of trouble in doing so. Akali would practice every day with anyone who know how to use a weapon. On many occasions Amaterasu had found her climbing up skyscrapers, and getting stuck on the highest place she could possibly get to. Amaterasu would have to help her down, as if she was a cat stuck a tree. But this time Akali had gone to far, and by the look in her eyes she knew it.

“What, are you doing here? Does Ba know your up here?”
Akali looked down and hid her face, as Amaterasu towered over her. “Akali?” Amaterasu asked again, a growing concern fluttering in her chest “Why are you up here?”
“I-. . . Ba-. .” Akali shuttered, kneeling down to eye level, the ex-clone looked her daughter in the face. “Everyone was angry again. . . they were mad at Ba because they said he wasn’t helping. . .that he wasn’t fighting”
Amaterasu sighed “Martin.” While others in the Clan stood to fight, or worked with in the Clan to keep it running, Martin worked to gain and preserve knowledge. Some thought of him as a fool for pursuing something that survival did not require, but Martin made it clear that it was a fool who did not think that knowledge was important.

“I- I just got scared, so I-” Akali big sad brown eyes looked up to her mother, but they did little to temper Amaterasu mood.
“Just stay very close to me. We’ll see what your Ba says when we get home.” Amaterasu checked the rope to make sure it would hold till they two of them could make there way to the ground. The ex-assassin clone looked back at her daughter, she was looking intently at something inside the building. Curiosity, overtook her and Amaterasu wandered over to her daughter.

Looking through the window Amaterasu saw a huge garage. The ground and back corners of the room were littered with various SMNC bot parts and half built bodys. The iconic weapons of SMNC were bolted to the walls, the work benches were covered with various pieces of hardware, tools and ammunition. Nearest the door in the back corner there was a small desk splattered with blue prints of turrets and random papers. A combat kitty with it’s head opened to expose the wires inside sat on the desk next to a mirror on the wall behind the desk with a solitary picture taped to it that Amaterasu couldn’t make out. Hanging on a computer chair next to the desk was a ugly black sweater with a Hotshots logo on the back of it.

In the center of the room was a jack bot, but it was much smaller than the regular jack bots XL the ex-assassin used to face. It was painted yellow and white, instead of the regular black and orange, graffiti covered the huge bot from head to toe. Uncomfortably sitting on it shoulder was a . . .Pitgirl? Amaterasu had to take a second glance at her. The girl was wearing baggy black sweat pants simmering a bit in the dim light from oil stains. She wore the iconic Hotshots pitgirl half-shirt, half-sports bra, only it wasn’t opened at the front to display cleavage; it was zipped up all the way to her neck. A gray and orange cap was an unmistakable sign of a Pitgirl, however she wore it over top messy unbrushed hair that wasn’t even tied up in two pony tails. And even odder, she had what looked to be a birthmark the way it matched her skin tone so well.

Brushing hair back from her face, Amaterasu could she her perfectly now. She was a Pitgirl, it had been more than 15 years but Amaterasu still remembered. How could she forget the face of her life long nemesis. Her mind lingered back to the years of verbal abuse she had received from every Pitgirl she had come across. Amaterasu remembered back to her “childhood”, back when she was the only female combatant. Every time she talked, hate just spewed from the Pitgirl mouth towards her. There was a time that Amaterasu had her chance to get revenge. It was fuzzy but one day when she was young the ex-assassin had a Pitgirl named Emily pinned to the ground. She was beating her. Cutting her face in. It was horrible; but as the blood spilled, it felt good. But somehow it wasn’t enough, Amaterasu wanted to say something to her. Whisper something clever in her ear, that would have been a perfect revenge. But that was the time before she had found her voice, in freedom.

The mother and her daughter stood watching the Pitgirl work. As much as Amaterasu hated these women, as the young girl worked the ex-clone could could sense a heaviness in the Pitgirl movements. She was, troubled. Could Pitgirl even feel that. And even if they did, they never seemed to show it. Eventually the Pitgirl packed up her tools and hopped off the jackbot, and sauntered over to the desk. Flopping in a chair, the Pitgirl put her tools down and looks longingly at the picture taped to the mirror. Amaterasu, now extremely interested in the young girls actions plastered her face to the frosted window. Slowly the Pitgirl turned her face away from the picture to look at herself in the mirror. Tears ran soon rolled down her cheeks, she took off her hat and buried her face in her hands.

Amaterasu couldn’t believe her eyes. Awestruck she stood there watching a Pitgirl, in the middle of her sorrow. Was this how all Pitgirl where? Did they hide themselves behind a vain figure they were told to be and then in solitude they were. . . broken?

In the corner of her eye, Amaterasu saw the door of the room open a crack. Instinctively Amaterasu grabbed Akali, ducked to the right of the window. “Mama! Wha-” Akali moaned, “There’s someone coming through that door”, Amaterasu searched her pockets for a small mirror she used inside the building to sneak around corners. Looking at the inside of the rooms reflection, the ex-assassin saw the Pitgirl speaking to a Combat Girl, and identical twin for the crying girl. As the Pitgirl spoke tears still streamed down her face, Amaterasu could almost hear her screams from outside. The Combat Girl did little to comfort the girl, she still stood tall with her chin held high her expression barely change from a slightly shocked look. After a few minutes of talking the Combat Girl rolled her eyes and left, leaving the Pitgirl to slump in her chair in shame.

No the Combat/Pit Girl gene line is nothing like this young girl. They took no pity on the pain of other women, only what happens to her, especially her exterior. Yet this pitgirl, this iconic figure of the game that enslaved Amaterasu and her friends. That was supposed to be a living embodiment of Super Monday Night Combats grandeur and perfection that the entire world wanted to be a part of.
This Pitgirl was crying.
Was screaming out in bitter pain.
Amaterasu saw her the young girl turn and look up out to the window she stood next to. Startled the assassin clone quickly jerked her hand holding the mirror away. Waiting for her to look away, she stood trying to understand the situation. What had happen to this pitgirl to make her scream and cry like that? It wasn’t in her natural gene code to do so. What had gone wrong?

Akali managed to struggle out from her mothers arms and she rushed to the window to gaze back at the pitgirl. “Akali! NO.” Amaterasu called to her daughter. In that instant however the lights in the room flicked off. Akali and her mother watched as the still sobbing pitgirl pulled on an over-sized sweater and left the room.
“That was a clone, wasn’t it mama! Like you, only she was younger. Oh which one was she mama. Her skin was too light to be like aunt Jenni or you.” Akali pulled on her mother's arm to get her attention, but Amaterasu just stared blankly into the empty garage. “She was soooooo pretty. Come on mama tell me.”
“She was a Pitgirl” Akali face turned from excitement to shock. Her mother and father had told Akali and her younger siblings many stories of their old lives as clones. How they used to fight in the games, the different places the would go to and the people they would meet. How it felt to owned and how glad they were to be free. Amaterasu told her children about all the SMNC clones that she fought alongside and against. However as dangerous and deadly as her mother made them all sound none seemed more cruel than the Combat/Pit Girls. In the stories, Akali was shocked to hear how her proud mother was verbally abused by this extremely beautiful girl. How the insults from this girl would make her want to constantly keep her face masked and never speak.

Akali was now as confused as her mother. The child didn’t want to believe that beautiful young girl cause her mother so much pain, and yet was crying like any normal person would when they were sad. “That girl was one of. . .” the girl trailed off and her mother nodded. “Yes the one that was crying was a pitgirl. Other like her were one of the reasons I hated being apart of those scary games.” Amaterasu looked to her daughter, pulling her in closer to warm her. “They always used to smile and be so happy while they did it though. But I’ve never seen a Pitgirl cry or scream like that one. It’s . . . unnatural for them.”
“It. . . it reminded me of the time when you were crying over uncle Robert’s body. . .”

The comment hit Amaterasu straight in the chest. A Pitgirl, the face of her everlasting enemy, was weeping like she did. Just as her people were giving up in the shadows, a new hope was living in the mind of a broken young clone. Even if it seemed hard for the young Pitgirl to hold one to. Amaterasu gripped the hand of her daughter, “Come we need to get home, less the storm blows us away.” Akali smiled at her mother and together they padded to the escape rope.

“Well tell the clan what we saw today, and tell them that even here there is hope is hope for our cause yet.”

Dream Recording 4 part D terminated