Runaway Train

[Nox]

Target 1: Robert Read, Diplomat, Atharim, Traveling to/from China
[dossier attached]  [itinerary attached]

Target 2: Song Fan, Beijing China [dossier attached]

---

Nox had too much time on his hands.  And not enough research to kill his time.  His mind kept wandering to the promises he made.  One such lapse reminded Nox to pick up something for the girls as he was leaving on the ferry.  They may not enjoy the trinket, but what girl didn't like snowglobes.  Aurora never did, but she like knives and crossbow bolts so there was that.

Nox shook Big Ben and watched the snow fall around the clock tower.  It was cute.  Not cool.  But cute.  He'd have to remember to pick them up something from other stops if he could. 

Another lapse had Nox staring at his wallet screen.  He'd never gotten Hayden's number, it was Raffe's he stared at.  He'd made the promise to a stranger -- so what if he didn't keep it.  Soon was relative.

Nox sighed and hit the text messages.  The last one he'd sent to Raffe was about closing up when he hooked up with Oriena and set a new life direction even if he hadn't known it at the time.  Those moments spearheaded a new thought -- a new way to live.  And Nox was just now starting to embrace it all.

Nox still didn't know what to say to Raffe.  And the words that he sent were stupid.

  How's Lily? 

Nox didn't expect an answer.  He didn't really know what to say.  But he reached out.  It was more than he'd done when he left -- though the note had been for him and him alone.  Nox couldn't have said good-bye to his face. 

Shortly there after a reply buzzed Nox's wallet and in return Raffe had sent a picture of Lily sitting amongst his other plants on the window sill.  She looked at home nestled among the other greenery.  Almost like it was meant to be.  It drew Nox's mood down.

The first night on the train was restless.  Nightmares, and research kept him awake.  The guy was Atharim -- false prophet spewing words, but Nox didn't really care.  He just had to figure out how to take him out without derailing a train.

Somewhere in the dead of night Nox felt a man channeling.  He didn't feel anything, he didn't see anything but somewhere on the train another man was channeling. 

While he'd been with Hayden he hadn't had time to put any of his theories to the test.  He'd been too busy getting his body worked over by the other man to think beyond his dick.  Now he was alone -- the nightmares took his body again.  He realized it wasn't just Raffe, it was contentment.  He fucking needed a warm body to feel safe.  He'd always had Aurora to curl up with when shit got bad.  That didn't work now that his twin was dead.  And no one there to love him.

Depression sank hard in his heart.  Even the recent memories of a warm body ravaging his body wasn't enough to keep his nights warm.  He had to find something else.

The first stop on the train Nox ironically found that pink bunny sitting in the window of a shop and he picked it up.  It didn't last long once he got back to his seat on the train.  He tore into it and found the pouch in the head and started sorting out the leaves inside.  He had to figure out what each one was.

Another of the long list of projects he had before he hit China where his next mark waited.  He still had to handle the current one.  But how do you kill a man on a train when you don't want to get caught.  Easy enough he wasn't a god so he couldn't see the trick Nox would employ he just had to make sure there were no witnesses.

[Nox]

Nox spent the night trying to weave the light sphere backwards -- from end to start. It always fizzled out. Sometimes dangerously so. Nox opted for a ball of water instead -- if that exploded at least the worst that could happen would be he'd get wet. Or so he hoped. He couldn't think of an ill effect of water. Not on the scale he was weaving anyway. But no matter how carefully he wove it, he always say the weave, which meant someone else would too.

He tried to sleep. But the nightmares plagued him until he found the right combination of the herbs in the pouch that dulled the horde. Ironically he knew what some of them where thanks to Raffe.

It was the middle of the night when he thought to snap pictures of the dried leaves and sent a text to Raffe.

Can you help me identify these leaves? They were in Morgan's pink bunny.

This time he hoped for an answer. But he didn't stare waiting patently for Raffe to reply. He went on to try to sleep. And when that failed he tried a different method. What if he twisted the thread around?

That was easier said than done. How does one turn an invisible power around. It came from him. It surely had two sides. Inside and outside, right and left, there were always at least two sides, anything else was physically impossible.

The metaphorical exercise was draining. And the mental workout had Nox drifting off into slumber land with nightmares at the helm.

[Nox]

Nox started awake with a nightmare. He walked the length of the train and eventually found his mark. It had been pure coincidence that the man fell asleep in the diner car and was sawing logs peacefully. It really was nothing to look around at the nearly empty car. Only two women were present. They'd never know.

He did feel the presence of a man channeling somewhere else, but not close, and he couldn't see them, so they couldn't see him. And his weave would be so small no one should feel much even if they were in the same room.

It didn't take much to delve into the man's body and search for the arteries. Nox busied himself by making a plate of food. His stomach rumbled and there was no bloody meat on the menu, and his body ached for more than food in that moment. The horde missed the warmth of Hayden -- of the hot meals they ate. There had been no fighting and they were satisfied. Two out of three in perfection and Nox could life a life of happiness -- if only he'd known that sooner -- maybe his life wouldn't have gone to shit. Maybe he wouldn't be here. He definitely didn't want to be here -- not now. Not again.

He sighed as he blocked the blood flow to the man's heart as he dished out a salad with green lettuce and tomatoes. He felt the man's pulse fade, his heart explode before he withdrew the power and finished with a grilled fish fillet and headed to a table down a few down from the man who looked like he slept. It'd be hours before someone really noticed -- at least that's what Nox hoped. It was an easy mark.

[Nox]

Twisting, and research and two days of the same monotony. The fucking days blended into the nights. And he still had four more days of this shit.

On the plus side he'd figured out how to twist the power. It was hard, almost as hard as doubling flows and doing separate weaves at the same time. But as he got the technique down it became easier -- as with all things power related. While he couldn't see the weave, and he knew he was doing the weave right, they failed to finish. Every. single. time. It sucked.

So was it backwards? Or a whole new weave? How the fuck would that work, if he couldn't see it. So easiest first -- backwards and twisted. Talk about mind bending. And tiring.

Nox managed a few tries before he felt the presence of the man channeling again and decided to figure out what was going on. There were rumors of robberies but no one saw anything, heard anything and the train had only found the body of the former Atharim prophet dead in the diner car. Boo hoo.

[Nox]

Nox walked in the direction of the power he felt. Could the godling be invisible. Was he compelling a person to forget? He wondered how they choose to do the deed. How would he?

Illusion? Invisibility would be cool. Nox imagined that it was much the same as illusion except probably much harder to maintain while moving -- so probably not that. It was all about bending the light so that created the image you wanted someone to see. Jaxen had shown him that little trick and Nox used it with the lights the kid at the Methos concert shown. It was all part of his rotation now -- all part of his typical mental workout. He hadn't been lying when he told Hayden he worked out his mind body and soul. Yoga was only partially exercise, he needed something more than a little bit of meditation to cleanse his soul of the darkness he felt. But his mind and body -- that was easy. And the power exercised every bit of him. And that was a daily thing. Every weave he knew, he knew inside out, backwards and forwards. He could do them in his sleep he'd practiced them so much. Which was the point of the practice. Muscle memory. And now he was trying to do them backwards invisible just to see if they'd click.

Simple was easier, but still fucking hard. He had a thought which he took a moment to jot down in his wallet.

He didn't really have time for more than that as a man ran into him from the connecting train car. He was breathing heavy -- a little over weight and had been running. He emanated that menacing feeling Nox had been feeling. They stared at each other recognizing the power in each other. The slightly overweight man tried to barrel through Nox but he only managed to push Nox into a better stance to hold him back.

they tumbled into the walls and the man managed to get past him but Nox pulled him backwards with a swift tug and a wrapping of air. They both tumbled through the whooshing door into the space between cars. It was relatively safe if you weren't fighting. But they were.

They tippled and toppled as the rails clattered below. How Nox hadn't noticed the precarious footing before, but he noticed now as he worried about falling over.

The man tried to use the power to wrap Nox up but a wedge of spirit sliced through the weave and the man's body reverberated with the broken weave. Nox thought to shield the man but there wasn't any time as the theifs momentum carried him backwards one step to far and the man lost his footing. He carriened backwards and whatever was passing by smashed into his head leaving nothing but a bloody stump of a body with -- headless and smashed and Nox was covered in blood.

He screamed. Made it look real. Ran for the attendants. He spent the next few hours in a holding cell while they figured out what happened. He had plenty of time to practice backwards inverted weaves without anyone seeing. Too bad he was exhausted. And even sleep wasn't going to taken him anywhere worth going.

[Nox]

Success. In the confines of lock up he waited and wove and rested and wove and he managed to do a simple water orb inverted and backwards. Trial successful but how reliable? He'd have to get better at backwards. But some of the weaves he used were very complex, he'd never remember them backwards -- it was hard enough forwards. But he knew with practice he could do it. And his note would pay off if he could ever get back to his laptop.

Which happened more hours than Nox could count later. All CCTV footage showed the fight, nothing more than two men running into each other, tumbling around and the other man losing his footing. An accident. Self defense. No charges pressed as what remained of the body identified him as a stowaway as well as the theif. All stolen items were still on his person.

Police: 1, Theif: 0

But Nox didn't really care, he was just glad to be back in his seat with his laptop drawing out a light weave in a 3D program Aurora had created for the purposes of rendering out maps and rooms to find the best possible solutions to the visual problem. And this was a visual problem.

It was a simple weave forwards. And it was a simple weave backwards. But if you can't see it how do you know if it's right?

Finishing a weave backwards could end poorly -- like any other experiment Nox might have done when he first started learning. So he just didn't finish the weaves as he started practicing while he could see them. End to Start, release. End to start, release. over and over ad nauseum until he felt that he could do the weave without looking at the diagram in front of him. This way it wasn't tiring. Twisting it took effort and work and made remembering the backwards difficult. But it worked.

Nox replicated the light three times with inverted weaves. Three success in a row. He'd found the ticket -- too bad it wasn't really helpful until he could kill without being seen but that was still progress. And that made him happy. So very happy!