Chapter Text
The stranger looks as guilty as Namaari feels.
Both women are frozen; the stranger with her hand still on the door she just exited, Namaari mid-stride toward that very same room. The standoff lasts for a long second before the other woman grins and waves.
“Hiya!” she calls. “What’re you doin’ here?”
“What am I doing here?” Namaari echoes, doing her best to act righteously suspicious. She’s the one in the Talon Casino security uniform, after all. Stolen, obviously, but the stranger can't know that. “What are you doing here? There’s no maintenance scheduled for today.”
The other woman is also in uniform, the baggy blue-grey jumpsuit worn by all Talon’s tech staff. It doesn’t quite fit, the sleeves flopping back and forth when she shrugs, but that’s not necessarily suspicious. Maybe she just has weirdly short arms.
What is suspicious is the face she makes as she tries to think up an excuse. “Yup, yup,” the techie mutters. “Nothing scheduled, sure. I just... was... napping!” She pauses, considering this, then nods. “Right, napping... in the server room. Because... it’s warm. And... I like the hum.” Another pause, another nod. “Yeah, that holds together,” she says under her breath.
Namaari stares.
“Aaanyway,” says the stranger, eyeing Namaari’s lilac suit. “There weren’t any security patrols on the schedule either. It’s, um, not suspicious that I know that because, uh... I checked! So I wouldn’t get caught—caught sleeping on the job, I mean, not... caught installing a remote access into the security servers.” She very obviously shoves something into her pocket. “I mean, whaaat? Who said that?”
“I could lie,” sighs Namaari, “but you’re clearly here for the same reason I am.”
“Oh, you’re robbing Dang Hai, too?”
“Don’t say—” She resists the urge to rub her temples. “Who do you work for?” Namaari asks. “Is someone supposed to be watching you?”
“Right!” One hand rises to screw an earpiece into the hacker’s ear. “Almost forgot to put it back in,” she chuckles. “Thanks, stranger.”
Speechless, Namaari can only watch as the stranger cocks her head and carries on a one-side conversation.
“Yup!”
“Yup.”
“Uh huh.”
“Not... exactly.”
“You don’t need to yell, Boun. She’s really nice!”
Namaari would really like to get into the server room, but the stranger seems content to lean against the door, playing with her mane of pale purple hair as she chatters on. Namaari could make her move, but using force against someone this oblivious just seems sad.
Lulled by the other woman’s complete lack of concern, she almost misses the brush of footsteps in the hall behind her.
Almost.
Namaari drops to a crouch just in time. Instead of the side of her head, the kick grazes her uniform hat, knocking the cap to the floor. Fists snapping up, she turns, keeping one eye on the naïve hacker in case it’s all just an act.
But when she sees her would-be ambusher, Namaari suddenly has no attention to spare.
“You!”
“Namaari!” Raya matches her tone with a grin. “What a surprise!” Her smile drops, taking the friendly tone with it. “Not.”
“I should have known.” Namaari lets herself straighten, guard relaxing the tiniest fraction. Raya probably won't sucker punch her. “Whenever I find a Dragon Key, there you are.” She feels the corner of her mouth tick up. “Always two steps behind, dep la.”
Raya snorts. “You cheated back in Tail.”
She manages not to smirk too broadly. The Dragon Key in Tail had been kept in a vast temple, filled with traps of the rolling-boulder and poison-dart variety. While Raya worked her way through the deadly obstacle course, Namaari simply parachuted down and drilled an entry point into the final chamber. The look on Raya’s face when she staggered in to find Namaari waving down through the newly installed skylight still gives her a warm fuzzy feeling.
“Whatever you have to tell yourself,” she replies.
Their eyes lock, the air between their faces crackling with familiar energy. It’s always been like this with them. A contest, a rivalry that’s spanned three countries and twice that many years. Sometimes, Namaari almost enjoys it; the clash of wits, skills, and occasionally fists that has occupied a corner of her thoughts ever since she and Raya met trying to steal the same dragon scroll.
And now here they are again, both eyeing the same prize, both too stubborn to—
“Hiya, boss!”
“Gah!” She lets out a mortifying squeak as the hacker pops up beside her, skipping past to hang off Raya’s arm.
“Sisu,” grumbles the taller woman. “What did I tell you?”
A blank grin. “Oh, tons of stuff!”
“In and out,” Raya hisses. “In and out. Not in and ‘stop to chat with my nemesis.’”
“Oh, this is her?” The woman turns her wide smile on Namaari. “Hi! It’s very nice to meet you. I love your hair—”
“Not now, Sisu!” Namaari watches Raya give her accomplice a fond shove down the hall. “Get out of here, okay? Back to the others.”
“Whatever you say, chief.” Leaning around Raya’s shoulder, Sisu gives Namaari a wave. “Bye, Namaari—”
“Go!”
As the hacker’s footsteps patter away, Namaari shakes her head. “She’s new.”
Raya lifts an eyebrow. “Jealous?” she asks, lifting one knee in a stretch.
“I mean new. Inexperienced.” Namaari rolls out her shoulders and bounces on her toes. “She can't be very skilled.”
“Yeah, still sounding jealous,” snickers Raya, flexing her fingers one by one. “So,” she says, tone conversational. “Since you're always ‘two steps ahead,’ I assume you already know aaall about the defenses Dang Hai's got around his key.”
“In his penthouse complex,” Namaari supplies.
“Yes, obviously it’s in his penthouse,” Raya snaps. “At the very center of Talon, past layers and layers of private thugs.”
“And cameras.”
“I was getting to that.”
“Sure. Just like you were getting to the biometric scanners.”
Raya scowls. “And once you’re inside, don’t forget about the infrared tripwires.”
“I won't. You just make sure you don’t get lost. I hear the complex is built like a maze.”
“Worry about yourself,” laughs Raya. “You haven't even mentioned the pressure plates and the paralyzing gas.”
“Well, I had to leave something for you.” Namaari finishes stretching with a soft grunt. “I think that about covers it,” she muses, shedding her blazer and starting to unbutton her uniform shirt. She takes silent satisfaction in the way Raya’s eyes bulge when she sees the matte white catsuit underneath.
“Shouldn’t you be wearing black?” she asks, trying to sound dismissive even with her gaze riveted to Namaari’s fingers.
“Black is for amateurs.”
Raya rolls her eyes. “You want a head start? I know you haven't gotten to stick your thingamajig into the secret computer boxes.”
“Plug my cyberinfiltration spike into the security servers,” translates Namaari.
“Oh, don’t pretend you know what that means any more than I do,” Raya scoffs, her eyes bright and alive. Namaari can feel a matching energy thrumming under her own skin, both of them eager to test themselves and each other.
“No need for a head start,” she answers. “You could use the handicap.”
“Careful, you’ll hurt my feelings.” Raya’s exaggerated pout is undermined by the grin struggling to peek past. “On five, then?”
Namaari nods. “One...”
“Two...”
They both start running on the count of four.