Task 1: Guiding Fires:

The time on Karate Island was anything but evenful or yielding of any results. Bar the striking down of two ships worth of priates, partaking in whihc had enabled Iris the favbour to have a room to stayin for more then a night or two. So at least she wasn't raoming around, trying to make necessary ends meet everyday. Free from distractions like that and while waiting for any words from her short-while companions, she spent the days looking for any clues like a hawk.
Part of that routine was late walks around the more populated parts of the Island. Shady bars, the docks, notorious backalleys; all ripe with potential for something to happen, but nothing suspicious she ever encountered was relevant.

This was one of those nights. Due to the eventlessness of the procedure for pretty much every night, Iris had gotten into the habit of not always dragging the whole trunk with her arms around. The box itself locked and also locked in a room generously provided would be safe enough. So, armed with just the power stilts and dangerously bladed tail curled up as inconspicuous as possible, she wandered in moon- and torchlight along the usual route. Ran into a handful of people in unusual locations, but nothing. Alleys were quiet and warehouses locked and guarded. So without any major events, the short half-robotic girl was about to conclude for the night as she reached the by now usual resting spot somewhat uphill of the town center proper, overseeing it in an almost pretty way.

And it was from this nearly-vantage point, that she saw something. Which in itself is not unusual, people see things all the time, it is their primary source of perceiving their surroundings after all. This time was special, however, as what she saw did not quite fit the checklist of things she had gotten used to seeing from where she stood. The slightest, undulating sheen of light illuminated a wall that was probably forming a back alley with it's opposite. If it had been a smidgen brighter outside, she would have missed it, but now that she saw, the conclusion was clear. This must be some kind of flame source, and decisively larger then common things like torches or candles.

With almost no time between realizing the slight possibility and getting into motion, she was sprinting downhill, fast as artificial feet with no feeling would let her go without falling. And while Iris did not exactly know the layout of the town, she managed to roughly correlate where she had to go. A left, a right, straight down the road and around the block by following the street. When the girl made the last corner, she found her earlier assumption to be right. A sizable fire had been set against the backside wall of the building. It couldn't have been long, judging by the relatively small size, but it was already gnawing at the wooden frames of the ground floor's windows. Before long, it would probably find a way inside and start to really spread. But that was not Iris' concern right now. She bolted past the flame, to get around the next corner, silently as possible. The interest was in trying to find if whoever did lay that fire was still nearby, ideally for her to catch up. And Lady Luck did play the white-haired girl a decent hand for once. Hitting the road on the next side of the building, she could see someone ducking out into a side alley quickly. On top of this small success, the smell of fuel reinforced the impression that whoever had just run, was trying to start more fires to get the job done quicker. The chase was on.

Without stopping, Iris followed into the ravine between the backside of two houses that her culprit had run into moments before. She would get them even if that meant falling passing out from running immediately after. For a few corners, it was the same repeating thing. A tall shadow slinking out of sight just when the next back alley came into good view. Or whatever was considered good view in the dark of night under flimsy moonlight. Eventually though, just as she started to feel the bitter soreness of over-exerting build up in what had remained of her thighs, the culprit had run himself into a dead end. Not quite literally, but he had fallen over something or the other and a bunch of miscellaneous things rattled away over the bricked ground. This slight clumsiness allowed the half-machine to catch up. The man was tall for sure, but had almost no mass to his fram from the looks of it. She leapt the last stretch, ready to land hard in his collapsed body. But instead of the satisfying sound of bones compressing against the ground under a load, the girl found herself greeted by the quick slice of a knife, that bounced off her steely leg leaving a slim hole in her legwear and probably worse, a noteable groove in the metal.As such, it did stop her advance by means of surprise. She ended up not crushing the guy, giving him ample time to get up. He was bald as a baby and a thick beard covered most of his face below the nose, as she noticed when he turned on her. That was all the detail the moonlight would grant the situation, but it would be enough to take him on, Iris figured.

Right about then, she wished to have brought her full equipment. But who could have known it would turn out this lucky. So the short-statured girl had no option besides making do with the given. Wasting no more time then that thought needed to finish, she threw herself at the guy again. He had switched plans from running to fighting apparently, as he still had not turned and instead brandished his fairly heavy and dangerous-looking hatchet, anticipating his assailant's next strike. Although admittedly, striking people with a swing like he had done just then, usually lead to deep and dangerous fleshwounds if not chopped appendages. And absolutely not a resounding clang-like noise. Regardless, he'd chop this person up and throw them on the fire, problem solved.
Iris flew fist first at the man, full well expecting the heavy-headed chopping tool to swing in again. And so it did, except she anticipated as much and leaned out of it's arc, knuckling her opponent in the kidneys. Of course, him being a considerably taller person, that gave him opportunity to plainly grab her by the collar and apply a strong backhand to the side of her head. Only then did it dawn on him that he was fighting what seemed top be a fairly young girl. Not that he had inhibitions, after all, burning down houses and especially the people within regardless of who they were, age or gender was his business.

It had been a fair while since Iris had been hit this hard. For a split second, she could have sworn to have blacked out. It could not have been much longer though, as she still was somewhat grappled by the Arsonist she had caught in the act. As soon as she had come to her senses however, she retaliated. Attempting to stab the arm restricting her movement as accurately as she could with a quick move of the tail. A terrified scream later, she felt the fingers dug into her clothes back off an was able to tear away. From the looks of it, he got him in the arm. At least that's what the blood already pouring indicated. Though she had little time to gloat this victory. Already could she feel her face swelling to uncomfortable levels, while the man opposite her grumbled something along the lines of „You stupid little bitch.“ between looking back and forth between his wound and her.
This time, it was him charging the few steps between the two, madly dedicated to try and split her skull with a good swing of the bladed tool. Again, Iris sought cover behind her armored leg attachments, rather risking another unsightly gash in them, then getting axed in any sensible parts.

The irritation on his face grew visible, even in the poor light and through his beard. While he had indeed dealt a considerable wound, there was no bleeding or anything else. Iris on her end however felt more then uncomfortable. Just because it did not lead to searing pain did not mean she wouldn't feel the intricate mechanics getting noteably bent out of shape. It was immediately clear to her that with this kind of damage, she probably could not keep up if he tried ot run away, nor combat him for much longer without being ad a severe disadvantage. Not that it was necessary, as the escalation was about to reach a whole new level. Seeing his attack foiled again, the Firebug reached into his open jacket and pulled out a gun, immediately directing it's business end at the cyborg. Who herself was kind of but not quite cowering, to haphazardly inspect the damaged machinery almost out of reflex, like normal people would try to cover their wounds

„Just die!“ the lanky man demanded letting the pistol roar and flash four times. Iris felt something whizz through the hair by her ear but before she could even process, two of the leaden projectiles had already burrowed into her shoulder. She would have loved to get up and jump at the guy like a tiger, but simply could not. Trying to bring any movement into her upper body resulted in lighting strikes of pain lashing out at every piece of organic material left in her fram. The only other things she felt with any of her senses were the smells of gasoline and fire. Deeply shaken by the pistol shots, she was giving her opponent ample time to pull out a decently sized bottle and empty it's contents on the floor around the girl before, almost savoring the moment, dropping a lit match into the puddle.

Iris assumed he had fled the scene, intending to leave finishing her to the flames he had set just for her alone. Luckily enough, the memories and fear for her life brought up by the encroaching flames and their fuel's smell, jolted her out of the pain-trance and into an even more adrenaline-driven survival fight. If not distracted by emotions and numbed by hormones, the pain would have probably torn her apart, but this way, she at least got out of the immediate vicinity of the burning, wet spot on the floor that was to be her end. Easily a quarter of an hour passed before she had panted and gasped through the pain and shock enough to intentionally get up ant think clearly. Hastily looking around, it was obvious her adversary had long left. Gods damn it all. She had lost the one tangible grasp on her probable culprit. At least now she knew who to look for. That was still a better lead then nothing. After having chased the guy for a little ways, she was now trying to locate herself, see where the wild hunt had lead her so she could find her way back. Looking up, she saw the glow of the fire from the very beginning of the confrontation. And that reminded her. She'd surprised the guy, prompting him to drop waht he was doing and run. So maybe some of his tools were still back there.

It took her way longer to get back then it had taken the girl to get away in chase. Seeing the building slowly consume in flames was still frightening, but far less so when she was in a safe distance. Prioritizing her personal goals over saving who or whatever was inside, she went about slowly searching the back alley for anything left by the culprit. Slowly not because she wanted to, but because she had to. If it had gone by her will, she'd found something immediately and made for the exit before any upholders of law and order appeared on the scene to put out the fire and save some lives. Though not too long did it take for her search to come up positive. The best of the find was a tin canister, most likely used for flammables, that should be of use for something. She'd inspect it in detail after trying to take care of her injuries, fixing the machinery as good as she could and getting a good night worth of sleep. She knew she didn't have endless amounts of time, but to just immediately rush on seemed unreasonable and night impossible in her state. With reward in hand, she finally hobbled off the scene, a burning building probably wouldn't go unnoticed for long and she did not want to be there when it got noticed.

[WC: 2192]

Task 2: Flammable Trail:

Two days had passed since Iris had stumbled into what was hopefully a lead to her culprit. Though the rest of the event's night, or rather early morning, she had spent fixing herself up. The bullet wounds she obviously could not do much about but bandage them as best as possible, but the somewhat bent out of shape leg, she spent what felt like ages on to straighten out. After seeing a discreet surgeon to patch up the shots the next day, another day just to rest up was taken. But the girl could not wait that much longer. Knowing she had a tangible lead haunted her thoughts, burned in her bones and just never left her a resting minute. So she ended up inspecting the canister for definitive directions, way before the recommended resting time was over.

Upon close observation, it became obvious the can was peeled clean of it's original label, leaving little knowledge about what it used to contain. Though luckily, the underside was signed off with marker, reading „Rumboldt 11/16“. With any luck, this could be a lead, but the thing was otherwise unremarkable: Tin-built, could probably hold around ten to fifteen liters, while smelling of gasoline faintly. Not a lot to go on, but the writing could probably make up for the lack of other features. Packing the container into what little space her arm-transportation trunk had, the girl set out. Naturally, the first plan was to see and ask around, if the supposed name written on the thing was someone's name, or the name of a store or some such. And it turned out, the most obvious thing is what it actually was. Though not without a detour. After stopping at multiple occasions, Iris ended up in the warehouse and loading area of the port. From asking around, she was told, the handwriting and type of canister looked like something belonging to a known merchant. Known for dabbling in risky and shady deals if the coin jingled loud enough. But also known for mastering in items of more or less daily use in some fields of work. Importing construction tools, material, machines and such on order. That description to the cyborg girl sounded plausible enough to also being able to procure fuel and the likes without being exceptionally suspicious. Secretly, she even hoped this already was her culprit, though seeing how the people's consensus was that the guy in question was always busy and more often then not on travels, chances were slim.

With some directions, she arrived. The location was a not quite as busy part of the seaside. A medium-sized storehouse with a smaller extension built on it's side. The huge double loading doors facing the water and subsequently the little pier belonging to the facility. It housed four boats that could be described as floating boards of wood: Wide and long, but not particularly deep, probably for bringing in goods from the somewhat further out in the water sitting ship. A good sign, if the guy's boat was around, chance were, he would be too. Inquisitively approaching the storehouse, Iris found the large front doors locked. Naturally, they would not leave those open outside of working hours. On the side building, she had more success. The handle turned upon her touch and let the door swing open. The insides were not so much a store as an office, though a rickety register sat on the desk. A door on the side wall lead to at least one more room she couldn't see, due to the door being closed at the moment. Without much care or caution, she entered further, dragging the trunk behind and letting the door fall shut. The resulting sound rustled up the unseen backroom, as noises now came through the wall, among them the voice of a man cursing to himself. And then the backdoor opened.

The man was clearly in the second half of his expected lifetime, though wearing plain clothes, a nearly immaculate white shirt being the most noteworthy thing. His stature gave away the fact that he had definitely worked hard for some time. Somewhat surprised by the unexpected visitor, he didn't bother to sit behind the massive desk taking up most of the room's space. Young kids did not usually belong into his clientele. „What?!“  He also did not sound very happy, while at the same time was clearly trying to keep form. „Er, i mean: Welcome. I don't usually take meetings without appointments.“ He did not even need to finish the sentence for Iris' expression to harden. It was obvious she would not be told off before getting what she had come for. „It will not take long.“, she said, „I just got a quick question you can help me with.“ He watched the girl turn around, procure a familiar-looking canister from the fairly large trunk she had apparently brought, quickly opening and closing it. Honestly he was more intrigued in what she might be hiding in it. Tossing the tin object to him, the short girl continued. „Look familiar? There's writing on the bottom and townspeople say the handwriting could be yours.“ She watched him clumsily catch the container and turn it around for a few seconds. „Actually, yes. I've sold this.“ - „To whom?“ she asked immediately, visibly excited in some way. She did not, for a second, think that his approach was a little naive. A professional would probably cover his tracks. At the least, the sudden spark in the guy's eyes should have been a dead giveaway. But for her in her tunnel-perception, all of those details blurred. „Let me look it up.“ This easy compliance despite claiming no to take customers without appointment should have been the last dead giveaway. Merchant-man went back to where he came from, presumably to look up records in the back room.

Iris heard him rummaging nearly forever. Minutes passed, but she did not want to press her apparent luck, regardless of growing impatient. In reality, the sounds from the second room were a mere trick to win time. First thing he actually had done was, opening a drawer to reveal a Den-Den Mushi, using it to call someone with just the words „It's me. Send the boys over, i have cleanup.“ as hushed as possible. He had recognized the canister immediately and also remembered the extra price Rumboldt always paid for so called „cleanup“ just in case someone ever asked about him. Then all it took was bridging the time until 'the boys' arrived, before he could make away through the back exit. That's what he preferred to do. Cleanup could get messy sometimes and it was always better to be entirely safe. Iris however, noticed none of that happening. But just as she felt like it had been hours and she was about to hit the door to the back to check on him, unpleasant, looking men started filing into the room from both doors. It was at least a dozen of them. As the fact that some of them were armed indicated, Iris realized, that the situation had turned very south and she had ran straight into some kind of trap.

Without any warning, the closest guy to her swang his club in a wide arc. Just barely ducking out of  getting clubbed in the neck, it was clear to the semi-robotic girl that any and all actions were now justified. Wasting no time, she immediately repaid the attack form just before with a knee to the abdomen, sending the man stumbling backwards into his comrades. This allowed her a little bit more room in this cramped space she shared with all these men. While not feeling entirely shipshape, Iris has had worse at this point. While she would have loved a breather of a few seconds to switch arms, which would have made everything far easier, she had to push the offense opportunity she had created herself. With the distance to her assailant, she had enough room to take measure for a kick, piling onto the same spot as the knee before. The iron pike springing from her heel easily punched through the guys guts and made it out the other side, only to bore into a second person he had stumbled backwards into before. Fairly enraged by this bad opening for their side, the men that had entered from  the room's backdoor also moved to jump the girl. Noticing just in time, using the same motion intended to pull out of the two-thug-shishkebab, she spun around, planting an iron foot against the side of the foremost backside attacker. Forced to the side by the motion, he fell to the floor with rolled back eyes and blood running out of nose and ears.

Though, being pincered like she was, no matter what she did, someone would always be in Iris' backside. So it happened, that one of the men managed to capture her by locking his huge arms around her torso, lifting the short girl off the floor in the process. Though this also meant, that she could easily kick at the men she was facing and her range being almost twice as long as they were expecting, due to the retractible spikes, the cyborg managed to spear two more men in their abdomen and chest area respectively, as they tried to close in and beat the somewhat captured little girl. At this point it dawned on pretty much all of them, that this was not just some random teenager to rough up or anything like the times they would come in to retrieve payment from unwilling customers. All Iris wanted in that moment was to be let go so instinctively, she struggled and fought against the bear-like hug trapping her against the man's body as well as the other men's attempts to retrain her further from angles she could not easily kick at.

A few moments of struggling on both sides passed before she realized and remembered her fifth appendage still neatly folded up against her tailbone. Fragment of a second later, it was whipping around, lacerating the groin and legs of the guy holding her. In reaction the grip loosened, enough for her to gain ground on the attempt to break free, but even as the hug had almost dissolved one huge hand held her by the arm. Trying to push away from the man, eventually she let the gloved fake arm come loose throwing her to the ground and leaving the men in an even more confused state. First foot-spears, then a blade-tail and now detachable arms, this war the least normal thing they had ever seen in this line of work. Being down one limb and having left the men in an infinite-feeling moment of shock and confusion finally opened up the options for Iris to gear up properly. Practically ripping the carriage open, she slotted her arm stump into the metal and only a blink of an eye later the large iron fist swung overhead, coming down on one of the guys with a multitude of squishing and splintering sounds. Seeing a comrade basically squashed into a puddle all of a sudden, two of the ruffians realized they were in deeper trouble then they had bargained for and made for the nearest door, fleeing out into the harbor and out of sight. Clearly, some feared their employer more then being severely injured or killed, probably because failing a simple job came around to the same thing.

With just the left arm attached and the right still being the prosthetic, Iris was more then a little unbalanced. She was not really used to this and would need another good opportunity to switch into the full set. Trying to archive that, she immediately grabbed the man standing next to the bloody mess by the leg, easily pulling him off his feet.Swinging him back around to where her fist had just come from and sweeping up the still standing other guys in the motion, his body easily went through the wooden wall followed by everyone else, creating a large hole and knocking him out in the process. Now she had real breathing room. Quickly pulling the second, normal-sized arm off and letting it fall to the floor, the girl was fully equipped just a moment later. Just about the same moment the attackers needed to pick themselves up from being smashed through a wall. Not that it did them any good at this point. Initiating with a jumped punch, she easily reduced the number of combatants by another one, standing fully ready in the middle of six somewhat roughed up guys. None of them presented much resistance, still highly perplexed as to what was happening, maybe even terrified. To Iris, any of them was good enough, so she immediately jumped at the next one, pushing him off balance and trapping him under her huge palm against the floor before the tail snaked around her side and stabbed though his throat. Holding on to the guy and the ground beneath him, she then swung around this pivot to knock another thug out and away from the scene, sending him flying a fair bit. Propped up on both hands after this maneuver enabled her to kick backwards with both legs, hitting two of the remaining men so hard they tumbled off the side of the road into the water. This left the final two. Running uncoordinated at her, they too, were easy prey. Grabbing the punch one was trying to throw, she jerked him violently to the side, probably breaking his arm in the process. The real intent however, was to slam him against his last remaining comrade. As most of the men before those two, they were stopped dead by the impact of each other and fell over stumbling. For good measure, Iris brought the other fist down on the two bodies out of her turning around motion, resulting in a scream of pain cut short by immediate fainting.

Having over-exerted herself that violently, the girl huffed and puffed for a minute. Her bodily functions were still human after all. And then she realized that someone would probably notice the ridiculous commotion and destruction she had caused in the past minutes. So after catching her breath and loosing a few curses over the returning pain in her bullet wounds, the cyborg hurried back inside. If this was how things had developed, she might as well search the books for some record herself. After quickly picking up both normal prosthetics and switching the arms around, she made straight for the back room. Where indeed a few drawers full of folders  were kept. After looking through some semi-recent pages, she eventually learned that a Rumboldt person was indeed a customer, so she took the page in question just to have the address on paper, pocketed it quickly and made effort to leave the scene.

[Word Count 2529]

Task 3: End of Fire:

With a concrete lead in hand, Iris could barely stand the wait until she was back in her lodging to get ready. Even the still existing small possibility that this was a wrong lead passed her by. After all, the recent unfolding of events was strong enough evidence to suggest that she was onto something. So her preparation was fairly plain. Leave all the unnecessary ballast, arm up fully and assume the worst. That being a confrontation of some kind with the perpetrator. So she ended up leaving the building fully stocked and augmented. Arms, legs, tail, no trunk case, no risks, she was determined to do whatever it would take to get to the bottom of the arson. Hardly any time had passed since the last encounter at the merchant's, the sun was slowly setting, but none of that was a reason for her to wait another minute. Wandering the streets with purpose, she did not have much difficulty finding the address from the bill she had effectively stolen. The place looked run down and a bit abandoned, but all the while well enough secured against prying eyes. Boarded windows, locks on the big loading doors of the small-ish storehouse. In fact, being sat somewhat outside of the town proper, it was probably a barn at some point and eventually abandoned. The ideal hideout for any kind of backhanded activities, if Iris had to guess.

What she did not have to do, was try to figure out how to get in without punching a hole through the wall. As the girl was just approaching the building, the double doors in the front opened just enough to let through two men. „Private property, bug off or things will get uncomfortable.“ was their opening statement. But both parties seemed to know that would not happen, The two men, for one, did not seem overly surprised at the sight of a relatively short girl with obvious machine limbs, slowly closing in as if she had not heard their warning. Iris did not expect no resistance at all and had already decided to push past these clowns and get her job done. As the distance between the two parties shrank, eventually the short girl pushed herself off the floor in an attempt to land on top of them and hand out a quick beating. Sadly, they got out of the way in different directions, making the quick beating part of the plan ever so much harder. Lacking decent alternatives, she decided to stick with the motion and go after the blonde of the two whom she was facing by chance.

Unsurprisingly, he had nothing to protect him from the impact of the huge metal fist and was sent flying backwards a little distance by her punch, ending up lieing on his back breathing heavily. Already experiencing a little bit of tunnel vision, Iris was about to finish the blonde off while he still tried to overcome the momentary pain. But just in time, a pair of hands belonging to the other person, closed around her neck. Stopped in her tracks, Iris stood stunned from the brutal grapple. All in all, a smart move. While it was highly unlikely some thug could remarkably damage her metal parts or survive many blows by them, she still needed to breathe. This gave blondie enough of a window to get up and while he still seemed to have problems breathing, it was not bad enough to be unable to fight. The girl temporarily retrained and distracted, he dared enter her action radius despite the heavy pummeling he had received just moments ago. Paying same for same, he went ahead and started uncoordinatedly beating her, fist after fist. Face, chest, stomach, anything reachable from the front got it's share, if only for two or three seconds. And then Iris jerked out of the short state of shock, almost as in reflex employing the tactic that had already proven helpful against matters trying to capitalize on her blind spot. Namely, a swift gut stab with her tail. Practically immediately, the short girl was able to draw breath again. And continued to attack the man in front of her once again, albeit way more vicious now. Again, a single hit sent him stumbling, which she followed up with a sweep of the leg, completely racking his balance. Now on the floor, he had a fraction of a second to realize what was happening, before she smashed most of his upper body into somewhat of a pulp, utilizing the torque of a short spin to bring the metal fist down with maximum force. Having done that, almost like in a frenzy, Iris rested her weight onto the knuckles still embedded in the mans chest cavity, panting. Partially from being choked out, partially in disbelief if what she was doing.

But that disbelief did not last long, as her thoughts returned to the reason this was happening. Someone had to be held responsible, and if these people sided with the culprit or culprits, they might as well die for it. With that thought, her attention wandered to the second man, rolling on the floor slowly, hands trying to cover a bleeding gash in his gut. Medically, he was likely done for, but Iris didn't know that. Or would have cared about it. This would have been the moment for some kind of snappy comment, but the cyborg did not bother. Dragging the guy up by grabbing his head, she made him kind of kneel, due to her lack in height. What she wanted was old-fashioned vengeance, in form of a few steely kicks to his ribs and chest, before tossing the limpening body aside. If he had not been finished already, that abrupt move might have just broken his neck.
That problem out of the way, she could finally search this assumed hideout. After the men came out, the double doors were now unlocked. Iris could easily enter once she had made her way over. Or at least she thought so. Pushing open the door, light flooded through the crack, but before the white-haired girl could see anything clearly something whizzed just over her head. Clearly the door-watching person had aimed for an average person's head, but had not actually checked at whom he was swinging the piece of that now shattered against the door, showering both him and Iris in splinters.

Acting timely, the girl smashed the door still in her huge hand inwards, resulting in the satisfying bump noise wood made if it hit something hard. She did not even look at what effect that had and instead, swung around the door, robotic knee first, to follow up on that first hit. And follow up she did. Though fighting in the dark storehouse was not in her intentions, so directly after feeling that she hit something, she backed up and out. Ready to grab whoever stepped out of the shadow. Hearing the guy rustle around, Iris was expecting him to pop out any moment. But even after seconds, it did not happen. Carefully, she inched around the corner to see. Apparently, her hit had sent the third thug stumbling, right into a pile of small boxes. From what she could see with how little light she had, he was out cold. Eyes rolled back, a darkly shaded bruise on his bare shoulder, head uncomfortably twisted on a pillow of wooden containers. Good enough for her purpose, since she assumed that would be all the guards. Otherwise they would have to show up right about that point. This would give her a chance to search the place, before watchdog number three returned to consciousness, hopefully.

"R,
do me a favor and take care of some people. Need to teach a competitor a lesson.
Going to include a picture of the place in question. It's on Baterilla. I will pay you a handsome bonus for your support next time you visit me in Sabaody.

Regards, K."

That's what the letter read. Iris had quickly surveyed the interior of the place and started her search at some kind of desk stowed away in the far corner of the building. A couple tools orderlessly spread across the counter indicated that someone worked on this table on something at some point in time. Carefully as she could with her mismatched handsize, the girl had searched the drawers. Presenting her with the letter she had just read as a result. A paperclip held the second page and looking at it, everything came together. The paper showed a photo of the fairly luxurious house she used to live in before it was burned down. And that could only mean one thing: The trail she had followed was that of the person responsible. Though apparently another unknown person had ordered it so, practically bought the arson like a mundane service. And not even out of any reason towards her Family specifically.

Just as she was starting to internally boil between anger and a sort of shock, her attention was diverted. While she did not feel the impact of the glass bottle on her custom arm, she definitely heard and saw it shatter into thousands of pieces as well as the fireball that followed this and the heat it immediately radiated.
„Hope i'm not interrupting!“ she heard a lightly familiar voice. The firebomb that had luckily hit a not very sensitive zone was already burning out of fuel. Hastily Iris shoved the letter she had found under the armor plate of her left hand while turning around. And no one other but the same guy she had struggled with a few days before stood in the lit up fram of the double doors. And that was all he really said, while Iris herself did not even bother replying. After slowly drawing a handaxe from his belt, the Arsonist charged. However, he did not seem to have noticed that the intruder was not a regular person in the semi-darkness of the location. Unlike before, this time the girl had no problem deflecting the man's attack and his entire body with it due to the mass of her hands. Sending the guy intuitively into a wall, Iris had a second of break to actually take stance and think about what to do. After having ran shoulder first into the wall, the Baldy spun around, ready to charge again, but his chest met met a pair of equally sized knuckles, immediately rebounding him into the wall again. Only now did he put together that something was not normal, and upon regaining sharp vision that was blurred from the hit for a split second, he also noticed the short, slightly dark-skinned person with white hair standing behind the two extended arms. And he knew her, he could have sworn it was the girl who had bothered him on a job just a few days back. And things started to make sense, like how he had struck metal that night, trying to chop her up.

After having bounced the guy back into the wall immediately, Iris just stood for a moment. Something was about to snap and she really wanted to stay in control of herself. Though this inner self-wrestling created an opening for her opponent to draw out the pistol she already knew and fire it without aiming it a whole lot. The attempt embedded herself into the top layer of her armored leg, nothing she needed to worry about but if he used that thing more often, it would be problematic.So her reflex was clear. The tail lashed out from behind her, taking a few tries of slicing the hand that held the pistol, but failing in all of them. Only prompting the pistol to be moved around until it almost pointed at her face. Realizing this mistake and problem, Iris considered to screw the advantage she had and rather ducked out of the way and back. Just in time as it would turn out from the deafening bang of the pistol's firing mechanism. Being forced to back up, she sadly opened up for more counterattacks, the next of which id not wait long. Almost immediately a small bottle zipped through the air, again barely missing the girl almost throwing herself out of the way. The sound of it shattering off in the shadow was followed by light almost immediately building near where it landed. Another firebomb, that's what it was. Iris put it together at this point that he must be armed in a few various ways just in cases things like these happen. Not that she had any choice to muse about what to do for long. The bearded guy leapt at her again and while he wanted to split her skull with hit axe, that did not work out, but he did manage to knock Iris to the ground, half-lieing on top himself. But before a second attempt at cracking skull could be made, her right arm sprang up, hitting him and knocking him over, essentially allowing her to reverse the roles. And while he proved strong enough to hold her punch off with a lot of effort and both arms crossed in front of his face, it was evident this was the limit. Without his gun and the firebombs, he seemed fairly limited in his actual fighting ability. While the short-haired girl reeled back for a second swing, he once again tried to go for the gun attempt, this time hitting actual flesh in her hip area. And as before, they ended up detaching from each other to gain distance and plan the next move. The shot rippled through every bit of Iris that would actually feel pain, but she was determined to end this whole thing there and then, adrenaline did the rest to keep her from collapsing.

After a moment of heavy breathing on both sides, Iris noticed that flames were rapidly eating away at the boxes stacked in the warehouse and it's wooden construction. Must have been the missed bottle from before. Which meant they were now on a timer. Iris was the first one to make the next move, but found her charge sidestepped easily. The next thing she felt was a familiar pain on her back. Between a lighter and a sip of another bottle of liquid, her opponent was practically spitting fire onto her now exposed back for about a second. While her top took the most of it, some holes burned though, letting the flames spike her bare skin, already somewhat scarred from the last time. Now that did it, this was too much like the last two encounters she had with his work. Panicked and enraged equally, she spun around, sending the Arsonist quite literally flying with a backhand that she felt was straining the capabilities of the machinery. He did not even stop skidding over the floor, before she had followed up, slamming open palms down onto his body. Immediately followed by a kick as he bounced off the floor from the impact. Carried further up  by this force, she grabbed him however it would go, ending up closing her one hand's fingers around both his legs  and the other clamped on his shoulder. She did not look. Or think. Especially not about what she was doing or what was happening to this guy, as she acted on instinct, the man she was mauling quite literally screaming in hellish pain.

One of his, not exactly, halves she smacked to the floor in front of her feet, the other one was hurled against the wall. Almost choking herself on her own heavy breating and groaning in pain and rage, she needed a moment before looking around. Her own handiwork disgusted her, now that she realized it and only barely not threw up, but more alarming was, when she realized how far and quick the fire had spread. Quite literally everything around her was creeping with flames, the walls were mostly coated and lots of the merchandise was definitely burning. Considering the roof groaned under stress, and what the guys probably used to store in this place, she had to get out. This would also be more scarring memories. Get out. That's the only thing she could make out in her mind. Get out. The next thing she knew was being barely a stones throw away from the whole disaster, prone on the ground. The smell of blood she had practically showered in as well as her burnt skin mixed with aroma of the dirt and grass she was laying in face first. It was most certainly done. Her breath became less urgent as the minutes passed, and turned sharp instead. After all, she had been shot at, again, as well as burned and the rush of adrenaline wore. But this was fine. She had worse, eventually Iris would manage to drag herself to a backalley doctor and lay low while the burning building outside town drew a lot of attention.

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