The wheels of his stolen transport ground slowly to a halt.
"Shit. I should have known better just by looking at that heap of junk. Just my luck I'm a chump for a fancy paint job." It was true. He was. And this wasn't the first time something like this had happened. IF only he had taken the sensible and sturdy, if only a little plain, plus-drive wheeler he would still be on the road, putting distance between him and what he was currentlyrunning from. Then again, that was part of the problem; he needed something "here and now", and he needed something fast. Sure, he had planned on this impressive-looking number failing eventually, but the four chargers each feeding both of the engines has guaranteed him the benefit of getting out before his pursuer could discern where he was going or which route he was going to take.

His blade, while far above average, was failing him more and more frequently since he had taken this last assignment.
That was almost 7 months ago today.
In the early months he was sure that he had graduated to the big leagues, and that he would have to up his game. Was this an entirely new breed of quarry? Could so much have changed with the simple signing of a contract? In the time directly after that, he became certain that he was losing his edge. Most of the agents he's encountered since then looked, felt, even smelled the same as those he'd been dispatching for the last 39 years. And he was good. He knew that. But something was different... He just didn't know what is was. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't going to have much, if any time to find out before it was too late.

"This is no time to reminisce." he said out loud, although he knew, he *hoped* that there was no one around for at least 15 sections. "What the hell happened back there?!" he screamed to himself. He desperately wanted something to blame for what had happened. He hadn't been forced to disengage from a battle for nearly 40 years. When he was a punk kid. Those in The Tower wouldn't even have considered him at that age; not for at least ten more years. Since then he had honed his skills, placing a tick on the gnarled handle of his Takouba for every one of themhe had vanquished. Currently it was hard to tell where the ticks began or ended, and the marks had spread from the handle itself, halfway up the length of the blade itself. And at this age, he should just have been entering his prime...
"What the hell happened..."
It began like any other job; five felled before the rest of the patrons in the seedy and foul pub could even pull their faces out of the large containers of disgusting woodfuel they used to minimize the despair they were so accustomed to since things had changed. By the time anyone knew anything was amiss, 4 more were down, and the two he had just engaged were only a matter of moments. But after those two had fallen, legs and arms dismembered and still falling toward the ground, he knew there was a problem. The last of this company to be dealt with was something different. His Takouba Megan-Espashould have sailed through this one just as it had thousands of times in the past, but just before the critical strike was to made, something made him hesitate. This wasn't like the difficulty he had had lately; they all fell, it just took a little more effort. The realization of whatever had momentarily stayed his hand this time gave him such a shock that he nearly dropped Meganin disbelief. The commotion in the pub has risen to a fever pitch, as bar fights seem to do. As fortune would have it, some drunken patron had thrown a chair, knocked down a lantern, ans started a fire that distracted his opponent just long enough for him to make the decision to "fall back."

"We never retreat. We Fall Back. Regroup." He said to himself bitterly. It was something he's picked up along the way... Something people said to make themselves feel better about having to flee. It didn't make him feel any better...

He continued to assess what had happened. He left the pub and chose his transport; the one that he was sitting in the dirt next to wondering how he was going to get to his destination. He had one eye in the mirror until the transport had failed, and he never once saw any sign that he had been followed. He would rather have still been driving, but he was alone.

At that moment, he thought he knew what had happened; why he hadn't cut this one down like he had all the others. Again he laughed bitterly to himself, and even stood up, contemplating walking back to the bar he had fled to finish his business. But as he stood up and turned around, he was greeted by the face of the "man" he had left in the fire at the pub. Megan was in the dust at his feet. Stupid.
"Shit."