Firebrand

“Are you planning on taking down a fourth Bell this trip? That's easily a record, but the paperwork is giving me a headache.” Chit crawled onto Nina’s shoulder following a well-singed scar that signified just how long the cinder fox had been in her service.
Nina took her time responding as she pushed back ragged blond bangs, azure eyes fixed on a flock of obnoxious birds collecting on the far side of an otherwise empty field. She showed little interest in Chit's celebratory tally. “I told you there was a plan.”
“I'd call this borderline obsessive Nina, but we passed that long ag— who has a plan? The Bells?” Chit caught her meaning halfway into his own profession, but took it in stride, as was his tend. “Do you really think they're coordinating now? Collecting? If so, we should report that to the Agency; let a specialist handle it.”
“This is my responsibility. I will find them…” trailing off, Nina gave the field ahead one last check and began to move from her cover.
Nina might be able to justify these actions to herself. She'd suffered plenty, Chit knew, but it was still his tail on the line if the mission wasn’t reported correctly. “They can't all be faulty. Look at this one. It's ancient and just sitting there collecting birds. What trouble could it be causing?”
“Attempted fractricide.” Her staccato response quieted Chit’s protest. Few offenses were severe enough to forgive skirting the Agency’s bureaucratic safeguards. Intentionally endangering every occurrence of an individual was certainly on that list.
“Another one? Let me see... Oh, that's vile. How do you read these and stay— never mind.” Chit shook with disgust upon skimming thru the dossier. The tips of his black fur momentarily glowed red then white, shedding embers to the wind.
Chit recovered his composure. "Exporting spine eels is a serious offense," he declared with his best attempt at authority, "and a serious amount of paperwork for me," he utterly failed to leave unsaid.
"I'm more concerned with how they were used." Nina shushed.
"Those poor people," continued Chit, ignoring her tone. "I don't even want to imagine the pain they suffered. Did I ever tell you about my brother Riz—"
Nina cut off her companion bluntly, "Some of those poor people were me."
Momentarily uncertain, Chit peered down at Nina's exposed abdomen for puncture scars. She had a lot of scars, and Chit thought he knew them all.
Realization dawned. "Oh, you mean another you."
Nina didn't respond as she proceeded out onto the empty field. On the other side, perhaps two hundred paces away, a small pack of indigenous creatures grazed, encircling their young. Peaceful, she assumed, or at least she’d treat them as such unless they gave her a reason not to. Of course, a Bell sat there blanketed by a cacophony of beak and feather. This scourge would receive no such mercy.
"It's quite the nice stop; fresh air and soft grass,” Chit jittered conversationally. "That last stop... who alters yeast to be the size of trees and doesn't think it's going to take over the planet?"
Chit wrinkled his snout with the memory of that stench and sneezed a cloud of ash. Two soot streaks lined Nina's left jaw in a pattern suspiciously similar to the war marking of her ancestors. In times long past, Chit's kin would be sacrificed to protect vanguard warriors. If Nina or Chit recognized the uncomfortable symbolism, neither commented.
Instead, Nina took the opportunity to rebuke her companion for losing his focus. "We're not on vacation, Chit. This Bell may have the location of their gathering."
"That's what you said on shard 583, " Chit declared defensively. "Nina, I'm still unclear as to why we dismantled that Bell. I've logged: 'Subject initiated a worldwide social pandemic to promote the distribution of its Gram·o·Phone devices.' but honestly I don't understand it. Why would anyone spend their valuable time listening to the rantings of people they don't even know? Though, I could see keeping in contact with family more often. My pa, not my siblings. I have 52 of them you know. If I was trying to keep tabs on every new pup, we'd never get work done."
Nina picked up her pace, ignoring Chit's ramble, "I just found out on our last stop home that my sister Lavea enlisted with the Agency over a year ago. Maybe this Gram·o·Phone thing isn't a bad idea after all. Let's go back and get a few."
A distant thunderclap startled the mob of birds, only a few dozen paces away now, and they scrambled into the crimson sky. Isolated, Nina's quarry was finally in clear view.
As she drew a timeworn blade against her right arm tracing one more line among countless, blood tracing a soon-to-be scar, Nina leaped the remainder of the green.
Her great blade ablaze overhead and the earth, and another Bell's demise, quickly approaching, Nina finally looked over to her companion. "Respectfully, Chit, shut up!"