First Sin: The Runaway Experiment (Pt. 2)

--- Mercer ---

“I thought you said you were taking me to one of your informants.” The runaway complained, turning on him from the place she’d been pacing for the last five minutes.

“I am.” He sighed, while forcing himself to remember he’d been just as impatient as the teen when he was her age. (Really wish that guy hadn’t downstairs hadn’t died.)

Apparently while he hadn’t killed the mercenary he’d beaten, the guard who’d shot at him had when they’d missed him. (And I feel I should call bullshit on the bad guys killing each other when I’m trying not to kill one of them.)

“Then why are we just sitting here?” The girl -who still refused to give him a name- growled.

“Because part of my deal with him is that he doesn’t walk up to my door and bug me at home.” A young voice said from the side of the bench behind him. “Speaking of, our usual meeting place is a street over and I’ve already helped you today.”

“And as long as you get paid you don’t mind helping again, right daredevil?” He told the blind teen as he offered a hundred over his shoulder.

“Don’t call me that.” Mathias Walker sighed, accepting the money. “Last thing I need is someone thinking I’m a Mask or the mouse trying to sue me. Also make the girl sit, her pacing is drawing looks from a couple of people.”

That made him laugh. “They won’t try anything with me here.”

“Most bangers don’t know you without your helmet.” The blind teen reminded him.

“Point.” He admitted, before gesturing to the girl to take a seat on the bus bench.

She did though it was as physically far as possible from them.

“Now what exactly do you need?” His informant asked.

“Girl here is looking for some people looking for her.” He answered, before glancing at the girl and making a few educated guesses.

“Can’t really help you with just that.” Mathias told him. “Got anything else for me?”

“Large facilities, probably underground.” He began. “Probably not in the way itself but near one of the borders. If I had to guess… most like near the southside of things, unless she crossed the river?”

The runaway stared at him for a moment before shaking her head.

“Right, southside of things it is.” He nodded. “Given who’s most likely involved in this mess, you’ll probably want to take a look under any nearby parking structures.”

“You know, sometimes I wonder why you bother asking for my help when you can narrow it down that much.” The blind teen admitted.

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“You’re faster than checking it on foot, and given how many of their guys we just killed…”

“You’re on a time crunch.” Mathias sighed. “Just give me a second.”

The girl glanced over the bench before glaring. “What is he doing?”

“Mathias is a Practitioner.” (If you can call someone who knows only one spell that.) “His specialty is a form of clairvoyance that allows him to… sense things at a distance. Currently he’s moving that sense around to try and find anything that fits what we’re looking for.”

“Alright… but how did you know to look for all of that stuff?”

He scratched at his neck for a moment as he considered the question before explaining, “You’re a Malcontent, there are only a few groups actively interested in you lot, and most of them operate fairly similarly. Meaning that we’re looking for someone with a large underground lab and holding facility, most likely one of the ones Asylum hid all over back in the day by building under parking structures to cover up their tracks. From there I first found you on the southside covered in bloody medical scrubs and bullet holes. Admittedly since it was raining, the scrubs were stained, and the fact that you’ve a healing factor means I couldn’t actually tell how old it was, nor if you’d crossed the river to get here. But the fact that you switched clothes by the next day, -and after each of your victims ruined your current clothes- means that night was most likely the same as your escape since you’d yet to change. Leaving just the river crossing in question.”

The girl continued to just stare at him.

“Yeah, don’t let him fool you, he may be a violent idiot, but he’s borderline Sherlock Holmes when he feels like it.” Mathias told the girl as he snapped out of his trance.

“You find anything?” He asked, not bothering to deny or support either of the teen’s statements.

--- Scarlet ---

“Alright, how do you want to do this?” The man asked her.

“What do you mean?” She frowned, wondering why he’d dragged her on top of a building rather than simply going inside of the ‘parking structure’ that she vaguely remembered through the bloodloss of the night she escaped that hell. (This is a waste of time! We should be down there killing these bastards!)

(Patience…)

Rolling her eyes at her other self she instead focused on what the man was telling her.

“There are a number of ways we could handle this.” The man began. “Personally I’d prefer it if we could sneak in there, plant explosives everywhere, and just blow the place to hell. Unfortunately, that has the downside of possibly killing anyone still trapped in there-”

“We’re not doing that!” She snapped. (I’m not going to risk killing her.)

The man stared at her for a moment before slowly saying, “Like I said, killing everyone is probably a bad idea.”

They were both quiet for a moment, one where she felt there was something she was missing before the man continued speaking.

“Our other options include again trying to sneak in and just cutting down everyone we see, though I’m not sure what your stealth skills are looking like and that leaves us surrounded if we’re caught. Alternatively we could just go in guns blazing, only I’m missing most of my guns and the ones I can pick up off of them aren’t really worth anything. Plus again, while I’m sure you can fight, I’m not sure if you can take on the numbers we’ll be facing without getting pinned down.”

“I can do whatever it takes to get in there and wipe these bastards out!” She growled at the man.

“I’m not saying you can’t.” The man told her, raising both his hands in the air. “But at the same time I don’t know what you’re capable of or what you’d prefer to do.”

“I don’t have time to just sit around!” She glared at the man as she felt her eyes burn red, “I don’t care what we do. I just need to get in there now!”

The man inhaled deeply before letting it out. “Alright, well, this is your vengeance so how do you want to do this? You’re in charge and you decide even if that’s just sending me to be a distraction while you sneak in to do what you’ve got to do.”