Ireland, 1981
Orion Kavanagh had found the love of his young life. He knew because she was beautiful and classy and his mother wholeheartedly disapproved. Breanna Gallagher was too old for him. And they were moving too fast. It was outrageous. But there it was. The young, sixteen year old boy had a woman he saw spending the rest of his life with.
And then she got pregnant.
He was shocked, to say the least, but also… happy, in a way. Hell, this was going to be his wife one day anyway. Why shouldn't they have a family? And over those nine months… he doted and adored the mother of his child, and his mother begrudgingly accepted that this woman would be a part of their lives. And he was apprenticing to an arms dealer, determined to make good money for his budding family. Even if it was criminal work, it was work that paid well. And if he got to say who got the guns and who didn't, even in a small way, he could keep the good side on top. And on the joyous day of their daughter's birth… Breanna disappeared from the hospital. Orion was left holding an infant child he had no idea what to do with. He waited for her there, even after their daughter was discharged he sat with her in the waiting room. Surely his future wife wouldn't just leave and never come back…
But that's precisely what happened. Extreme postpartum depression, the doctors told him. He had to accept she was gone and focus on taking care of the baby. Maybe she would come back when she was able to work past it. So… he tried. In his own way. Anna, as she came to be called, was under his mother's care while he went on pursuing his criminal career. Which, it may be interesting to note, his mother approved of much more than the woman. She never once said 'I told you so' to him, although she was well within her rights to do so. She was a good woman.
What none of them knew, of course, was that Orion was a name plucked from a list of males with good genes, good enough to pass on to another generation, as part of an odd breeding program. The child, Breanna knew, would be injected with The Formula, and one day manifest synthetic abilities. Until then, The Company would watch her grow and wait to see if that ability something they could use.
1987
Little redheaded Anna looked adorable even in all black, and even with a somber expression on her face. Orion held her hand as his mother's casket was lowered into the ground. And when he poured the first shovel of dirt over it, little Anna pulled a handful of sand out of her pocket and threw it in as well. He looked down at her, a question in his gaze. The little girl smiled sadly at him and told him it was 'from under the swings' at the park her grandmother used to take her to. Picking her up, Orion held his young daughter as they walked back to the car, both too filled with sorrow for the wake and the older one happy he could use the younger as an excuse not to go.
It was an adjustment. He was established enough now that taking his daughter in wasn't impossible, it was just… inconvenient. It gave him an obvious weakness. And people did try to exploit it, at the beginning. But father-bear instincts he didn't know he had kept her protected and kept the other criminals convinced it was a good idea to just leave the girl alone. And Orion was surprised to find that he enjoyed being a dad. He liked walking her to school and picking her up. He liked the playground. He loved her little comments. She could always get a smile from him. And she looked like such an angel. And he loved her. He wasn't sure he was such a good dad… but she was such a good kid, he figured he was doing something right. She knew on instinct to be quiet when he was doing business, but she did also pay attention. It was in these young years that Orion met a new contact. Brian Finnegan. He was a member of the IRA and would come one of Orion's repeat customers. And best friend.
1996
By the time little Anna hit her teens, there was a whole new group of people watching for her to manifest. And a new place for her mother. It was the closest thing Breanna got to any motherly feelings, her obsessive need to follow this project around to watch her daughter. She betrayed her fellows, turned on alleys, allied with enemies, all to keep this project within her reach. But still… Breanna never did come back to the Kavanaghs. And Anna had learned not to ask Orion about her. The only time she got an answer at all was when he was drunk, and even then, it was never the same answer twice. Sometimes, she would see him sitting with a picture and looking sad… but she never did see the picture. She didn't know, though, that Orion had embarked on a quest to find Breanna Gallagher. He was sure he still loved her, but really all he wanted was to know why. Why did she leave? Why did she never come back? Why did she choose him at all?
But there was a different sort of trouble on Orion's mind during those years. Boys had started to notice his little Anna. This was met, like so many of life's problems, with a shotgun. Anna was frustrated at first, given that every boy she brought home, sneaking or otherwise, got chased off with a wave of a gun… but over the years, she started to view it as a sort of measuring stick. Where was the boy who'd laugh and dare him to shoot? It wasn't like Orion was really going to shoot any of them. Sheesh.
It was then that Brian Finnegan and Orion Kavanagh conspired to get their two kids together. Nevermind that Jason had a girlfriend at the time, apparently he needed a better one. The two men were very smug the day they had their two small families over for dinner, and the kids noticed, of course. Unfortunately for them both, their children did not spark into a wild romance at the sight of each other. Although, Anna did develop a crush that lingered throughout the years of friendship that followed between the two. She once ask her dad why she'd never met Brian's son before, and Orion said that the boy had been 'a punk kid who didn't know his arse from his ankles'. Which confused Anna, because Jason certainly was still troublesome by the time she met him.
Of course, she was no angel, despite her childhood likeness. By the time she hit seventeen, she was a competent fence, buying and selling stolen goods with knowledge gained during a lifetime of watching criminals at work. And, of course, she always had Jason at her back whenever trouble popped up. Her dad had relaxed about the boys, too. Perhaps he sat with the confidence that Jason would take over guardian duties (which he did) or that Anna would eventually forget these other boys and end up with the one he picked for her (which she didn't). So there was a boyfriend or two (hooray!) which she actually didn't find as exciting as the other girls her age (not so hooray!)… but then, when your after-school activities involve guns and thieves… maybe it was just too much for boys to match, really.
2003
By the time she turned twenty-one, Anna was living at her own place, but she and Orion were never long apart. So when he called her that the house had been raided… she came right over. The odd thing was… nothing was taken. Nothing. Everything was flipped over, lamps and frames and mirrors broken, but really… it was a search, not a robbery. Even so, Anna opted to come stay with her dad for a while, given that his sense of security was rocked and he was near to freaking out. Criminals always are so paranoid.
But this time… it was justified. In her mother's moving around from faction to faction to follow this project, in her own… twisted idea of mothering, she'd made friends among other people of questionable morality. Namely… Kazimir Volken's people in Vanguard. And they agreed to do little… tasks for her here and there. Like killing Orion Kavanagh.
It was late one night when they came. Anna and Orion were having a couple nightcaps and watching (ironically) Casablanca (Nazis, see?) when they heard glass breaking upstairs. Orion, being paranoid, grabbed Anna and shoved her into their hidden closet under the stairs. After all… she was his baby girl. All he had. And she was no fighter, he knew that. He told her not to make a sound and moved away from the closet just as they came down the stairs. She would always regret not doing something that day, just anything but sitting there in a closet watching these strangers murder her father. But in all honesty, it was over too fast for her to have done anything. One shot to the head, no words, no demands, no explanations. And then they left. They didn't even take anything.
And when Jason found Anna there, huddled under the stairs weeping… well. She couldn't tell them how long she'd been in there. Truthfully… she lost it a little for a while after her dad's death. Her mind was obsessed with finding out who did it and, for the first time in her life, she really wanted to see someone dead. Before that moment, she'd always had a respect for human life… which is why she never learned to use a gun. But then… she was hungry for blood. And the fact that she had absolutely nothing to go on… well, it kept her nice and pissed off. She threw herself into her work, then, just non-stop, really. She made a lot of her contacts in that period… including some people in the Linderman Group. He likes art, apparently.
2006
Years had passed and Anna… had to admit that she was no closer to finding her father's killers. The trail was cold. Frozen, even. Revenge had become a simmering desire fading into a faint idea as those years passed. She accepted the fact that it was out of her reach, and anger fizzled into depression, leaving her to pull herself through the years. Even though her father had never wanted her to, she kept his arms dealing going, adding it to her repertoire of criminal activity. With Jason still at her side, of course. The man was too stubborn to let her fade into her rut, never to be seen again. Of course, she was stubbornly stuck in her rut, so it was quite a time for them. Perhaps a better test of friendship than all the trouble then gotten into and out of together before.
And then… the bomb in New York. Lexington found herself fairly unfeeling about the situation. She recognized it was a tragedy, She recognized that people died, people lost family and homes and possessions… But she couldn't bring herself to care. She cared later, when shipping her goods to her international customers got more expensive, but… It was a strong marker in her life, the moment she realized the depth of her own detachment. She looked around at the people around her, just as distant from the incident, physically, but so much closer on a basic human level. When did this happen to her? How could she fix it? Did she want to fix it? Why was that question on the table?
Early 2007
The following year was another rocker. The United States President announced superpowers. And then blamed the bomb…. on the superpowers. And apparently he had enough proof or backing that people didn't just drag him off to the funny farm. Anna wasn't sure how to take that. Evolved. She sure didn't know anyone who could walk through walls, although that would have been so good for a thief. She shelved it a bit, to be explored later when someone could actually show her the lightning from their fingertips. And in truth, even if there were Evolved… she kept thinking how convenient that announcement was. Clearly, the government over there fucked something up, the city exploded, and they needed a scapegoat. And who better than terribly powerful and uncontrolled people? You want to control the populous? Give them something to fear. And then tell them you're their only salvation. Some may have called her a conspiracy theorist, but that's just how she saw it.
Of course, she didn't have a lot of time to dwell on it. In April after the big reveal… Brian, Jason's father, was found dead. Drown. It looked like an accident, but those closest to the man knew it wasn't. Anna's heart broken for Jason then. She new the pain of losing your father, especially with him being all you had in the world for family. And she learned to feel again then, in her turn comforting him. But Jason didn't want comfort. He wanted revenge. And well. Anna did, too, her distant dream becoming a very real option. Brian had found Orion's killer and likely his own. And when Jason wanted to blow their safehouse… well, she couldn't let him go alone. He was her friend. He needed her. Plus, she was a pretty good getaway driver.
Celebration was a dim thing, though, as revenge doesn't serve as a decent salve. Celebration was also short-lived. They got a call one morning from a contact, the man who'd help lead Brian and them to the killers. It was an emergency, he said. But by the time they got there, he was nothing but a corpse. It was Anna that noticed the balled up paper in his hand. He'd torn a page out of a book of poetry. Alfred Noyes' The Highwayman. Specifically, one passage:
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him- with her death
It was clear enough to Anna. They had to get out.
They tried to grab their things, supplies, clothes, things they would need. But when they came home, it was only Jason's sharp eye and knowledge that kept them from being next. She'd just opened the door when he tackled her off the porch, just in time to avoid the bomb that took out the house.
Late 2007-2008
They left with what they had on them at the time, and never stopped anywhere for long. Anna had a lot of contacts, but not the kind you could go to to crash on their couch. Except maybe one. Over the next few months, they made their was into Berlin, to the house of a man called Claude. He owed Anna a few favors, plus, he was always looking at her ass, she was pretty sure she could count on him for some assistance. But that's not exactly how it went down. Turns out, he'd sold them out to an organization called Vanguard, which they found out, was whose safehouse they blew, and who'd been hunting them down. And worse? Berlin was a hotbed of Vanguard activity. They were behind enemy lines, and inches from death.
But Irish luck had carried them before, and it did again there. They fled the house, her contact now a dead body staining the carpet, and a few valuables in hand. Their run out of Berlin was close call after close call. Their car, their hotel, the taxi they called… nothing was face. The train they jumped wasn't even one they were supposed to be on, but they found them anyway. When the train went off the rails around a curve… Anna and Jason were throw clear and survived with broken bones and cuts and bruises. The rest of the train wasn't so lucky. Those days, they learned a lot. How to keep each other alive, how to avoid cities and unwanted eyes, Anna learned how to fight, how to shoot. She wasn't happy about it, but that's life.
Their running took them to a ship bound for Africa. Which sounded great to them. Hell, anywhere that wasn't infested with Vanguard was good. Ship life was pretty tough. Anna learned to live with rough skin and long days out in the hot sun. You wouldn't believe the sunburns. But even burnt and callused, Anna was a good looking girl. And the only girl. It didn't take too long for the sailors to suggest improper things to her. And while she dodged them for a while, when the first mate started getting insistent, he learned just how hard Jason could punch. (Pro tip: It's really hard.) … (That's what she said.)
2009-2010
So being tossed overboard is an interesting experience that Anna was hoping to never experience in her life. But hey, what can you do. Sometimes you get a vault full of gold, sometimes you get tossed overboard on the shores of some foreign country. That's life! They did make it to shore, but it was far from any real city and closer to the more rural villages. But they wandered around, looking for work, trying to survive, stealing, getting run out of places… sometimes, it felt like they weren't going to make it. But. eventually, Jason got an invitation to join up with the local drug lords. Cocaine was, apparently, a hot commodity. Anna hated it. It wasn't a good move. These guys would get their claws in them, and never let go. But, Jason's argument was a compelling one. They didn't have a lot of other options. Becoming hunters and living in the desert didn't sound too comfortable. Plus, that fair skin, no good in the sun. So while she refused to work for them herself… she didn't leave Jason there to get sucked in or god knows what else. She stayed there in a little place they were given, but given their locale… there just wasn't much she could do. So she spent those months learning how to work the land. She had herself a nice little garden and even a few crops managing to grow by the time the drug lords found out Jason was planning to get enough money to get out and run off. And with all the ins and outs of their organization in his head. Unacceptable.
So again, they were running for their lives. Or well, for his at least. And this time, their luck didn't hold as well as it had in the past. The bullet wounds to Jason's gut were beyond her abilities to treat, especially out in the middle of nowhere, hiding from the local drug cartel. She was going to watch him die if she didn't do something. And lose her best friend and all she had left in the world. And so, she did the one thing she could think of. She asked Daniel Linderman for help. It's probably the last thing they needed, another organization with their claws in… but survival had to take top priority. Linderman got them identification (Lexington and Seamus Lane, a brother-sister pair from Cork) to travel under safely, and even sent a couple bodyguards to ensure their travel to the US. He was so generous, in fact, he set Anna up with a little boutique in the city, on the Upper West Side, selling vintage items to the rich and successful. He was just so nice about it all. Anna, of course, is just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something more serious than him just giving her the most English sounding name ever. Lexington. Among the things she didn't know, of course, is that Linderman had been watching her, too, just like the others, waiting for that moment she manifests.
Say hello to the wolves, Anna, you've been thrown to them.
