As far as she knows for herself, Kien was born an orphan. Her first memories were those of being at dingy dinner tables, shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of other children in a cramped cafeteria.

Often targeted by both her peers and (so-called) caregivers, she was a quiet and shelled kid. That was until she became a little older and started lashing back. But she ended up becoming cold and distant from everyone. Even when she was adopted, the foster families would eventually be forced to return her due to an “unpleasant experience”.

Years of back-and-forth exchanging later, there was one family that crossed the line and sent Kien over the edge. It was the father who tried to make himself a bit too familiar with the eleven-year-old girl. In a raging panic, she fought him off, took at him with the closest sharp object she could grab, and saw that he’d never be able to make the same mistake twice. She wasn’t about to go back to that hell of an orphanage after that and took off on the run.

On her own, Kien picked up the art of thievery and conning as a means of survival. She was better than good, she was a natural. Through this, she even discovered her latent power of intangibility, which she had to keep secret but made her burgling much easier. In no time, she had climbed the ladder from pulling down pocket change to booking lavish hotel rooms for herself. But with bigger purses came bigger hands aiming to take them back and she found herself on a number of watchlists. This came to a head when she tried swindling the wrong bunch of powerful gangsters. Things went awry and Kien narrowly made it out of the ordeal with her head. Serious heat was put on her as she was hunted for miles and days. She was forced into a vast desert where she was believed to surely perish. But her resilience and resourcefulness kept her alive for the next three days, if only barely.

In the dead of night, Kien had made it into a small shantytown set in the middle of the expanse. She crawled to the first lit abode she saw and passed out promptly after dragging herself through the doors.

Later coming to, she was met and welcomed by Setha and Narven Kemorei, an older married couple, who owned and ran a diner they lived above in the heart of the town. Their daughter, Lee-Annette, who was but a couple years older than Kien, also helped with many things around the place. Even though they knew next to nothing about Kien, they offered her a meal and place to rest to regain her strength.

Traveled much of the unforgiving world, Kien wasn’t accustomed to this kind of treatment. But she wasn’t about to turn down free food and a bed for the night.

Over the next few days, the family tried in vain to reach out to Kien, who was all but mute thus far. The most adamant in their effort was Lee-Annette. Optimistic, intuitive, and honest, she clashed with Kien in a number of ways. Regardless of being shut out time after time, she would persist in trying to befriend the stranger.

Fully recovered, Kien wanted to waste no time and set herself to make off when all were asleep (along with a few of their goods to sell). Just before she could vanish into the night, she was struck with something she didn’t know existed within herself anymore– remorse. She couldn’t wrong these people after what they had done for her. Especially Lee-Annette.

Kien decided to stay and give the family thing one last try. Though it wouldn’t be an easy adjustment, life steadily on the run wasn’t in her best interest either.

Living in the shantytown was rough. With little local resources, residents would regularly organize a troop that would take the town’s few operational vehicles across plains to ruins of other former cities, where they scavenged for anything of use to salvage. But danger was always encroaching as these ruins would often be used as hideouts for roaming outlaws, so timing and scouting were crucial.

When she turned thirteen, Kien was finally deemed qualified to be a member of this troop alongside Lee-Annette.

On their item hunt, Lee-Annette was delighted to find an old sewing machine as she often dreamed of making her own clothes. Sadly, she was crestfallen to realize that it was unusable, missing many of its integral parts.

Kien noticed this and without anyone’s knowledge, took it upon herself to restore the appliance on her own, using scraps and pieces from whatever she could find and break down. It took many hours (and many more finger bandages) but she would eventually succeed.

When she presented Lee with the functional sewing machine, Lee was so overjoyed, she gave Kien the biggest and tightest hug in gratitude.

Kien was stunned. She realized that she had never been hugged before then. Such a simple gesture was too overwhelming and she broke down in Lee-Annette’s arms. And there she would stay all through the night.

Kien and Lee-Annette gradually formed an inseparable bond. The very first item Lee made with her new machine was the sockhat that Kien wears proudly to this day. (It was initially intended as a shirt but when Kien assumed and favored it to be a hat, Lee altered it to be a hat instead.) From there, Lee’s collection of clothing alterations grew and garnered much attention. People began making requests for designs of their own.

When Lee discovered Kien’s illiteracy, as she had never learned at the orphanage or while on the lam, she found the way to teach her, despite Kien’s frustrations. She even shared her birthday with Kien when she had no knowledge of her own. In time, Kien was willing to open up and share her dark past and even the secret of her intangibility powers, bringing them closer.

Living in a dirt poor, retro ghetto, Kien wouldn’t have life any other way. She was generally and genuinely happy. Over the next few years, she became well-known by townspeople as a lively, fun-loving joker that wasn’t afraid to lay hands on anyone who disrespected or threatened her or those she cared for.

Another scavenging quest to a city ruin came about and Kien was among the troop once again, but without her sister. Away from the herd, Kien fazed through a mangle of clutter and debris and into a hidden bunker. It was used as a small armament, loaded with guns, blades, ammo, and a number of other weapons. With its coat of dust, there was no telling how long it could have been stowed there. She stashed all she could carry in her sack and managed to smuggle it back home undetected.

Kien couldn’t wait to show off her score to the other kids, firstly, Lee-Annette. But contrary to her predicted reaction, Lee showed more worry than approval. She urged Kien to turn it over to the townspeople, yet Kien refused, promising and bargaining a way to put Lee at ease.

Kien later gathered a number of the other kids in town and took them to its long-dilapidated outskirts to play with her new toys. For such youths, it was a time for the ages.

But the time had to end near nightfall when Lee-Annette came searching for Kien to call her home to dinner.

The kids were down to their last few rounds anyway. At the bottom of the sack, Kien found a grenade. She pulled the pin and gave it a blind chuck. A wild bounce took it out of the play area and out of a window, where it happened to land just yards from Lee-Annette before exploding with next to no time for her to react.

A chilling scream rang through the hollowed halls and smiles vanished. Kien’s soul froze when she learned what she had done. The blast gave her a serious burn that spread most of the front of her body. The group rushed her back to town where the most able hands did all they could with so little. Fortunately, Lee would be stabilized to live on, but it wouldn’t be the same life she knew. Along with the scarring, shrapnel had buried itself in her legs most of all, severing enough muscles and ligaments to disable her from walking. She had lost most of her vision in one eye. They nearly decided on amputation but neither conditions or Kien would allow it. The best craftsmen constructed her a wheelchair to get around and more volunteers helped redesign her home to accommodate her.

No one had to tell anyone that this was an accident but the fact remained: It was Kien’s fault. She felt the judging eyes following her everywhere she went so she started leaving home less and less. And even there, she’d hardly be able to look anyone in the face. The jokes and lively laughter that she and Lee-Annette shared were replaced with brief words between silences. Lee was most forgiving but it meant little to Kien in righting the wrong. Some nights, in the bedroom they shared, Lee would hear Kien stifling sobs. In her mind, the physical pain she felt was nothing compared to what Kien must have been feeling in her heart.

Weeks of this went by before Kien realized that this life was no life for her nor for Lee-Annette. There had to be better. Somewhere, some way, there had to be an answer to fix this. And Kien made up her mind to find it or die trying.

She stocked and planned her night to depart but before she left, she whispered a goodbye to a sleeping Lee-Annette (who wasn’t truly asleep).

Kien steals one the troop vehicles and sets off into the unknown with purpose. She fell back into her old thieving habits to get by and was noticed by a bunch aiming to acquire her talents. She excelled at the tasks and was led down the line to an underground organization known as R.A.D.S., a band of bounty/treasure hunters that span the globe over to procure their clientele’s every material desire– for the right price.

This would be Kien’s way to get any info she needed to complete her own mission. With her special skill set and some high-grade tech, she rocketed upward through the ranks, pulling jobs with precision and ease. She became the youngest to ever reach top-tier of R.A.D.S. agents at nineteen. She was known by authorities as The Pink Bandit, while her colleagues dubbed her “Misty” for her elusiveness.

The fast lifestyle of a wanted globetrotter suited Kien just fine. She stayed a step ahead of the law and could throw down with the best of them when she found herself in a pinch. But the past haunted her relentlessly. In silence, she’d still hear Lee’s scream echo in her thoughts. She’d drink to calm her mind, though with an exceptionally high tolerance, she would have to consume insane amounts of alcohol to numb herself to it all. She even had to go and concoct her own highly concentrated specialty brew, the infamous 2K Bomb, which most people wouldn’t even be able to drink and survive.

Years of searching and sleuthing, Kien catches a break in her quest. In one town she drifted through, there was heavy talk of a Magic Man that had recently visited. It was said that he saved the life of a child who was dying from extreme injury. Better than saved, the dying child was restored to perfect health and was found to attest to the claim himself.

There was no information on the Magic Man’s actual appearance, being covered in a cloak, but it was known that he had used a peculiar glowing stone to pull off the feat.

As farfetched and vague as the lead was, it was the best one Kien could go on. She’d find this Magic Man and have him heal Lee-Annette and restore her life to the one she had, by any means.

Traje do: 26.10.2016.

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