Chapter Text
Rose Wilson had been many things over the course of her thus far fairly brief life. Daughter, nanny, assassin, Titan, addict, mercenary, villain, hero ... but tonight she had a role that was all but unknown to her ... Hunted. Oh certainly, in her time she had dodged the overbearing presence of her father here and again, but rarely in all that time had she ever truly feared for her life. She was a finely honed blade, a weapon crafted to take life wherever it went. She knew how to gauge a situation, and to avoid those few entanglements that were outside of her ability to conquer. He had taught her most of what she knew, and she'd picked up just enough tricks from other places to keep him off-balance. Her current predicament, however, filled her with a few doubts as to her recent judgment, a feeling she wasn't entirely familiar with. At least not since she'd stopped her self-destructive tendency of throwing herself at whichever target passed by first.
She had been a fool to answer the invitation, especially since the name on the return address was completely unfamiliar to her. The money offered had been more than she usually pulled in for a month's worth of jobs, though, especially once she became a little more discerning about who and what she would go up against. It sounded like a lark. Come to some rich bastard's private island, participate in an unspecified hunting challenge, go home with more than enough money to cover her bills for a few months, plus a few extras she'd been drooling over. Little had she guessed that the individual being hunted would actually be herself, rather than the grand adventure promised by the man who had sent her the directions to this cozy little engagement. It had all started with that damn military computer, and whatever nonsense had been inside those encrypted files she'd handed over to Drake. She should have known that such things led nowhere but right into the thick of more trouble than she cared to flirt with. If it weren't for that pesky conscience she seemed to have developed, she would have finished the job and moved on with her life. Instead, she'd turned the data over to a more well-known and respected hero and hang the consequences.
The sound of breaking branches off to her left caught Rose's attention, and the one-eyed young woman froze, not even daring to breathe as she watched her pursuers slowly make their way past her hiding spot. Speaking of consequences, they seemed to keep cropping up when they were least desired, close enough she could have reached out and touched them had she wanted to. There were only a pair of them right now, the party pursuing her must have split up to cover more ground. Rose allowed herself a small, patronizing smile. That was their first mistake. If you wanted to take down a Wilson, numbers were key. She had planned on dividing and conquering them, and they had taken care of the first half for her. Perhaps her luck was turning, then again, maybe this was just another case of most people being dumber than a box of rocks.
Cautiously she slid out of the tree, twin daggers dropping into her hands from their wrist sheathes as her feet hit the forest floor. If they thought hunting a Wilson was going to be a passing fancy, they were oh so very wrong. The rules of the game were simple, they tried to kill her, and she tried to kill them back. If she got them all, she won and could return home a much wealthier woman. She hated losing, and more importantly, she hated being stuck in a situation where the odds were stacked against her. Unfortunately for the two idiots that had just gone by, she was about to even those odds back towards her favour.
Stalking through the underbrush like the predator she was trained to be, she relished the sudden reversal of fortune, putting on a burst of speed to catch the rear man, slicing his throat with an efficient motion before he could alert his partner. Hot blood coated the blade and hilt, making the grip slippery for a moment. Unfortunately, the forward man was far more alert than his compatriot, turning in time to see his companion go slack in the white-haired female's arms. Shots rang out, signaling their location to the other hunters as she used the newly created corpse as a shield. The corpse crashed against her with each retort of the high-powered pistol her quarry wielded, letting her know that this guy, at least, meant business.
Swearing she dropped the body, rolling to safety behind a tree. She waited out the following hail of bullets, adrenaline coursing through her. Getting her jacked-up was the biggest mistake her victim could have made, as it activated her precognitive ability, allowing her to know exactly where he was going to be before he even started moving. Now the game was going to get real fun. Coming around the tree, moving faster than humanly possible, though not as fast as some of her former teammates, she tossed her dagger, the blade driving through the man's skull via his eye socket with a satisfyingly audible 'thunk'.
Rose raced forward, the forest coming alive as the rest of the hunting party rushed to converge on her current location. All attempts at stealth abandoned, she could track their movements by sound alone. Not wanting to leave empty-handed, she ducked down, picking up the man's gun and wresting her own weapon from its rather messy sheathe. As silent as night, she vanished into the underbrush, leaving not even a footprint behind to show her direction. She may have just become prey again, but she was hardly declawed. If these men were so secure in their eventual victory, she'd just left two bloody reminders as to why the price on her head was so steep.