Alex has decided with her expert analysis that delivery jobs suck absolute cheeks. Sure they’re making absolute bank right now, with Sasha and her pulling in five thousand a day while Aki makes triple that (courtesy of being the driver). After three weeks of work she has over a hundred thousand creds, enough to upgrade her left leg and maybe something else since they won’t have to replace the bone entirely. Maybe she should get new abs or keep on getting bone infusions. It’s all very surreal that this boring ass shit has made her the most money she’s ever seen, and will continue to do so until the end of the war. Absolute madness. She still wants the war to end though, and not because she’s bored. She wants to know if Vicktors is still alive. Sure she can’t participate in the brawls, but her and Li Chen have set aside a few hours to beat each other senseless, so it's not impossible for people of different factions to interact, just unlikely.
The longer this war goes on, the less likely her friend's survival becomes. Taking this job wasn’t really a choice in that regard, these deliveries would end the war quicker, surely the Kingdom and Bastion have limits on how much they can lose? They’ve already taken a pretty significant chunk of territory, and their advancements have stalled with the many bombs and high-caliber weaponry being present on the front lines.
As she finishes placing crates she hears something she shouldn’t this far from the frontlines, she hears gunfire, a lot of gunfire.
-
He sits on his throne contemplating, there is…so much. Too much. he stands at a precipice he doesn’t know he can cross, the only alternative being to fall. Change is such a meaningless thing, over the centuries things have remained the same despite all the little changes along the way. All the gangs that have risen and fell, yet the general outline remains the same. He was a proponent of this, once, believing in a mission that seems so far away now.
Footsteps echo through his hall as a giant of a man walks inside, he has a hammer strapped to his back as he regards Solomon with…concern? Of course, his friend has a bigger heart than his frame can handle. But he’s fine, more than fine, after all that he’s lived through he finally sees what’s truly important. He has a purpose that is feasible.
“Sylvia has begun her task,” the giant rumbles, “soon your vision will be complete.”
“But?” Solomon asks.
He sighs, and Soloman can feel the wind of his breath ruffle his robes.
“I do not see the point in this,” he replies “all it will bring is chaos and death.”
“That is the point my friend, a forest can only grow once it is burned to the ground.”
-
Lucas isn’t his jovial self today.
In some ways that’s a relief, Takeshi can’t really deal with his antics while trying to manage a delicate operation that should have gone to someone with more experience in espionage, maybe Raizou. But he is the Dragon Heir, a meaningless title when his father won’t die. But it’s still expected of him to be capable, and his magnanimous father saw this as an opportunity to further his talents.
Nevermind that he is a child, nevermind that he isn’t qualified. Takeshi is constantly worrying that the routes he gave his clan members weren’t enough to keep their activities a secret. He opted for sending them through the territories of smaller gangs, paying them off to leave them alone, hoping that would be enough to shake off any potential pursuers. But he has no experience with this, and his father thought it best that he learn on the job.
The lives of his clan rests on his shoulders, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Then Lucas puts a hand on his shoulder, “we need to go.”
-
Teal takes in a deep whiff, ah gunpowder, so refreshing. She looks at the warehouse and how its inhabitants fall like helpless babes. It’s a shame she likely isn’t needed, but each raid has to have someone like her, in case shit hits the fan as it were.
She’s kinda hoping it does.
Goliath wouldn’t be happy if he heard her say that, and that’s a shame. How can such a beast of violence not understand its beauty? But that’s okay, she can appreciate the blood and gore and struggle for the both of them.
-
He went searching for his friends as soon as he heard the gunfire, Alex was getting ready to join in the shooting, fucking idiot. Sasha, who has a surprising amount of sense alongside all the bullshit in that brain of hers, collected a few House members.
Likely to act as meat shields until the main force can save them, he approves. Sasha and Alex deferred leadership to him immediately once he found them, which is comforting. His friends trust him fully to keep them alive, even though he’s fucked up in the past. He’ll do his best to earn that trust as he guides them through the warehouse. He may or may not have snuck a peek at the blueprints of the place beforehand, and his destination is a storage room encased in concrete.
It only has one hallway, meaning they can hunker down in case they’re found without the worry of being flanked.
As they run the gunfire intensifies.
-
She doesn’t want to be here.
She never wanted to take this fucking job.
But who is she to deny the third fucking Finger? Tiny little Sasha against that madwoman would not end well. She knows how hierarchy works, she knows the score. Every job they take is not a suggestion. Sure they get paid generously for a bunch of brats pretending to be hardened gangers, but they don’t have a choice. Aki seems to understand this fact, although he sees it more as an opportunity than the death sentence it is. Alex, that loveable airhead, thinks all of this is optional, her dreams of being a Scar blinding her to the realities of gang life.
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Sasha had hoped the executions would have woken her up, but her ambitions seem firmly rooted. Although Sasha has spotted her staring at nothing every now and then, which is concerning, she doesn’t really know what she can do to help.
She has her own demons afterall, and she isn’t exactly proficient at dealing with them. As they follow Aki down a corridor of concrete, she laments the fact that this is probably the end of the road.
-
Alex is settled behind a durasteel shelf they tipped over, gun trained down the hallway beside a member of The House. The shooting stopped a few minutes ago, and so far it's just been silent, she keeps her focus on the hallway.
“Think they left?” A woman with a rifle.
“Unlikely” says the man with a machine gun “say what you will about their mental state, they’re thorough”
On that ominous note, the group goes quiet. Another minute later and they start to hear footsteps on the other end of the hallway. Alex hopes its one of theirs, and has it swiftly crushed as a woman with purple curls turns the corner. She’s wearing a blue toga with a purple sash, there’s only one group that dresses like they’re still in the first century.
The woman smiles wide at the sight of them, teeth sharp like a predator, and shoots into the roof with an absolute monster of a revolver that sends a deafening sound into the warehouse as she walks away. It doesn’t take long for many more footsteps to echo throughout the corridor
-
Alex is shooting.
A horde of bodies rushing at them, both steel and organic. Alex still doesn’t understand how the two factions with the most animosity between them managed an alliance. Even if the leaders were ok with it, what about the rank and file.
She follows the feeling guiding her and ducks. A bullet passes by above her.
She keeps shooting.
She has plenty of ammo for her Tengu, enough to last a siege at least, and her allies have plenty from foraging the storehouse Aki guided them to. She doesn’t know how he found the perfect place to hunker down, but she’s glad he did, bless the boy for his foresight. Huh, maybe she can ask Fleshy to actually do that. It’ll probably say no but who knows.
She keeps shooting.
She wonders how a group of this size managed to sneak past The House, surely their borders aren’t so lax during wartime? She’s also curious as to why they’re doing this, it’s basically suicide, they aren’t that close to the front lines, and a response should be imminent.
She keeps shooting.
-
Alex is so, so tired.
It’s only been thirty minutes but it feels like hours, the initial rush has turned into a more sporadic skirmish once they realized they can actually put up a fight, now Alex is playing whack-a-bitch. With her little magic predictions essentially acting as a cheat, but no one needs to know that. She hits more than she misses, and whenever she gets a feeling she rushes back to cover. She’s still gotten shot a few times, a few piercing through the skin of arms and legs, and one stuck in her ribs, she can feel the blood run down her skin. Her friends are in about the same state, she’s been taking more risks though.
She points her Tengu and shoots down the hallway, hitting someone in the knee, they don’t seem to particularly give a shit. That’s how it goes, some of them are made of glass and others are tanks.
Bionics are scary.
Not as scary as cybernetics though.
She keeps shooting.
Throughout the whole fight she’s maybe killed five people, with most of the wounded being dragged back before they can finish them off. There’s too many of them, too many to make sense, and still no response from The House, what the fuck is going on?
Her magic screams and she follows it like a prophet following scripture.
She grabs something they threw.
She throws it back.
It explodes, sending concrete shrapnel flying and pushing everyone to the ground, killing more than a few people. “What idiot uses a grenade indoors?!?” one of The House screams during the temporary lull in the violence “FUCK YOURSELF WITH A CROWBAR” he gets as a response. Then the shooting resumes.
-
Her feelings are coming more frequently now, and with more force, but she’s tired. In a way that’s beyond physical. She doesn’t know how much longer she can maintain this shit. Isn’t guerilla warfare supposed to be quick, purposeful strikes? The fuck is this siege bullshit? Where are their fucking reinforcements?
She shoots and shoots and doesn’t notice how almost every shot hits something vital now, slightly pushing back the horde of bodies. Everything hurts, it’s not like the headaches, something is happening to her body, and all she knows is that it hurts.
She reloads in a split second and keeps shooting.
-
What is a GUN?
It is the SPARK
It is the GUIDE
It is the JUDGE
IT IS DEATH.
-
Alex wakes up standing amongst corpses.
So, so many corpses. She is bleeding, her muscles burn in a way that is not natural, and something deep in her chest hurts.
But she is alive, they are not.
Her blade is soaked in blood.
So many bullets have gone through the walls that they cannot be called walls.
Gunsmoke pervades the building.
And the gore, there is so much gore.
The smell of piss and offal pervades the building.
She hears slow clapping and turns to find the purple haired woman.
“Impressive” says the woman with a hoarse voice.
She goes to respond.
She vomits blood.
-
She doesn’t know what’s happening, everything is a haze. A voice is saying something, multiple voices are saying something actually. She can’t really hear them, instead her eye’s are on the void with many arms before her.
“Hmmm” it says with the mouth on its chest.
“No” it says, grabbing her by her throat “I do not like you”
It goes to swallow her, but something stops it.
Garthamun’derka, says her protector, she is not yours to end.
-
Pain is a relative thing.
How do you compare the pain of being stabbed with being shot, or electricity against burns? Interestingly enough, you don’t really feel third degree burns, because the underlying nerves have been destroyed.
Alex does not feel pain when she wakes up, but she knows something is wrong, because she barely feels anything at all. The bed under her feels like it’s miles away, the breath she breathes belongs to someone else, the many wounds are just…annoyances, little pin pricks all over her body. Her arm moves like she’s stuck in molasses. There are voices, and she could probably understand what they were saying if she focused.
Focusing, such a novel concept, she can’t really seem to do that right now.
She knows they’re probably her friends, she’s still alive after all. Or maybe she’s going to be tortured, that would suck, but she’s not sure how much would register in her fugue state.
She decides that it would be rude to stay quiet either way.
“He…llo” she says expertly.
Silence.
Then an explosion of noise.
Alex’s just going to go back to sleep.