A blade bursts from a man's throat, he paws at the weapons as blood gurgles from his mouth and life slowly leaves his eyes.
If the main gangs are creatures of millions, small gangs contain thousands. Dotted around Arthas, carving their own puny little territories surrounded by giants.
Her steps are as quiet as she can manage as she traverses through the factory.
“Nah homegirl, I’m telling you, this is the shit.” a man says as he bites into his burger.
The woman rolls her eyes, “Would it kill you to eat a salad?”
“Yes”
The gangs don’t let the small time hang around out of the goodness of their hearts, they’re a genuine threat that can and have repelled the bigger gangs' attempts to force them on their knees.
“Honestly Roy, you’ll put yourself into an early grave at this rate.”
Roy scoffs just before Alex pierces his heart.
For the most part they go for defensive tactics, not really capable of putting up a fight against something so overwhelming as the main gangs. Times of war change some things though, like sharks they rush towards the smell of blood.
She can’t stop the woman's scream, or the gunshot, before she cuts off her head. Boots crash on concrete as Alex tries to find somewhere to hide. She isn’t fast enough.
A bullet flies past her head as she ducks slightly, many more follow, she takes cover behind a crate. Luckily it's made of steel, just normal ass steel. A bullet hits the ground as Alex moves, she looks over and finds a man with a rifle aiming at her from the catwalk.
He shoots again, blood bursts from her leg as half the muscle of her left thigh is blown apart. She works her magic and forces herself to move, turning the corner of the crate as she suddenly finds herself in front of two gangers with their guns pointed straight at her. Bruises form as multiple bullets hit her ribs and head, pushing her back. She goes with the momentum of a bullet as it snaps back her head. Another shot from the rifle echoes throughout the factory. She pulls herself back and rushes towards the two ahead, digging deep into one of their brains as the other makes some distance and keeps shooting. A few bullets hit her limbs before she makes a cross-section of his stomach, freeing his guts to the glory of the world.
She keeps moving as her muscles burn and more descend upon her. She’s saving her Reison for someone who warrants that kind of firepower. She weaves through the groups as she slices through bodies, some of them have cybernetics, some of them have bionics. All of them die.
Alex is a mess of bruises and blood as she stares at the carnage surrounding her.
She turns to the catwalk and finds the rifleman gone.
She takes a few pictures and keeps moving.
-
Bone isn’t something easy to cut through, if her katana weren’t made of durasteel she wouldn’t even try it. But it makes for pretty good intimidation when a tornado of slashes tears through their limbs. They try to keep their distance and kite her with bullets, but she dodges the lethal shots and forces her limbs to keep moving despite their state.
She can see the bone of her arm as she stabs through a woman's eye. She feels something like disapproval when a man falls on her blade and she uses him as a shield.
She really wants a red-steel katana. Those things cut through just about anything and barely need any maintenance. The perfect blade for any aspiring swordsman. Swordswoman? Swordsperson.
She’s tackled to the ground as a mountain of muscle bowls her over. Brass knuckles crash into her face and her nose breaks. She’s a bit disoriented as he keeps punching, but she has enough presence of mind to draw her gun and shoot him in the chest.
She can see the sky, and his spine, before blood overtakes the wound and the woman falls over. She pushes her off and goes to get up, but not before the but of a gun crashes into her temple. She sweeps her blade in their direction and hears a scream.
She catches a grenade before it hits the ground and tosses it behind her. Someone's intestines drapes itself on her neck, like a necklace, as the explosion pushes her back to the ground.
She growls as she gets up to continue the slaughter, only to find that everyone's runs away. She’s tired, and her muscles burn something fierce, but she ignores it as she heads back to Lost Hope.
She can’t stop.
-
He watches as the girl walks back into the building with intestines wrapped around her neck and multiple wounds littered over her body. He can see the bones supposed to be covered by the biceps of her right arm. Her left leg is missing a large chunk of flesh and muscle as blood dribbles onto the ground.
“You have to stop.” Takeshi says, “you’re killing yourself doing this.”
She glares at him, and all the blood and gore make him take a step back. “You could make me stop, rich boy.” she says “you just have to pay her bills”
Takeshi goes silent, Ellie was very clear. He can’t give her a single credit. Which is bullshit because each place she ransacks only gets her friend a single day.
Alex sighs, “yeah, that’s about what I thought.”
She walks back to her room and tracks blood on the floor.
-
It’s her fault.
It's all her fault.
All she had to do was contain her anger at the sight of Anya getting hurt, all she had to do was play along with their little brawl. Sure, she probably would have lost, but is that really worse than what happened? Better bruised and battered than on the verge of death.
A knife buries itself in her guts, she grabs the offending party's head and bashes her skull against his until it caves in. She picks up her Katana from the ground and charges the group ahead of her with a bellow.
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She slashes a girl's midsection as multiple bullets dig into her chest. There are screams and pleas as she cuts through so many people. Her body hurts a lot, but she forces it to move and keeps digging into flesh, keeps cutting, keeps killing.
She has no excuse this time, before with Jason she could say that she was forced into an unpleasant situation and did her best with the hand she was dealt. This? She asked for this, quite literally, and so long as Anya’s in that hospital she’ll keep on killing.
Because she won’t lose Anya.
She refuses to be responsible for the death of her friend.
So the answer is simple, she won’t be.
All these people will die to keep Anya alive.
-
“This has to stop,” Aki insists, “look in a mirror Alex, you’re more corpse than person right now. You’ve barely made it three days, how do you expect to last however long that kid needs to survive at this rate?”
Alex keeps walking towards her bedroom, ignoring Aki as she moves in a daze. She’s lost a lot of blood the past few days, but that’s okay, it’ll all be okay. A hand lands on her shoulder and she winces as it aggravates a bullet wound.
“Alex. Did you hear me?” he says with a worried expression
Alex nods, “It’ll be fine Aki, I’m a magical girl. Those shits don’t stand a chance.”
That doesn’t seem to reassure the boy.
-
Alex is sent flying, crashing through a window and falling two stories straight on her back. She takes a moment to stare at the sky. Or the clouds covering the sky, It’ll probably rain today, which doesn’t happen all that often. She heard that in the old world Florida used to have near constant rainfall. She doesn’t know how anyone could tolerate that, but now it rains maybe once or twice a week.
A mountain of chrome bursts through the wall of the second floor, and Alex has to scramble out of the way before the tin man pulps her with his weight. He lands with a crash.
“Still alive girl?” says a reverbed voice, “that’s a shame, you look like you’re in pain. C’mere and I can end that for you nice and clean.”
Alex raises a brow as she looks up to the ruined wall, then back down to the ruined concrete beneath them. They chuckle, “okay, maybe not clean. But it will be quick, you won’t notice a thing”
“I’ll pass,” Alex says as she draws her Reison.
Instantly the distance between them is closed and the gun is slapped out of her hand, a bit of blood trails down the borg’s nose. Alex has a split second to dodge a strike to the head, It is enough. She slashes her katana at them and draws a thin line up their chest. It only cuts through the first layer of skin. Alex curses as she goes for another slash.
Her blade is caught by the borg and a fist to her stomach sends her flying across the street and into the windshield of a moving car. She lands hard on the pavement as she can feel multiple fractures spread out across her body. She stands shakily and a car honks at her to move out of the way. Alex considers giving them the finger but considering they didn’t just run her over she thinks better of it.
She approaches a very confused borg holding her katana.
“How are you still moving?” they asks “you’re beyond fucked up at this point.”
Alex spits out some blood, “magic.”
The borg lets out a small chuckle, “still got a sense of humor? That’s impressive girl.”
They appear in front of her and swing her katana, there’s no form or practice in it, but the speed of a Caber is more than enough to make up for that. Alex only has enough time to raise her left arm to block, half her bone is sliced through.
A kick to the chest sends her flying back into the streets, and she barely dodges the cars that pass. Alex looks up at the borg.
She’s losing.
She’s fucking losing.
This cannot stand, she has to do better, be better.
She pulls from the mark and her soul and forces herself to MOVE.
She sprints at the borg with all the strength her magic can substitute for her broken body, dodging cars without even looking. The borg raises a brow and and goes to swing her katana as she charges right at them.
They swing, she slides.
Right between their legs.
She keeps running.
She ducks and rolls as a blade cuts through some of her curls.
When she gets up, her Reison is in her hands pointed straight at the borgs head.
A low drone of bees sounds through the air as the borg's head snaps back. Alex moves and dodges a slash that would have cleaved her in half. The borg is missing a small chunk of brains, but they’re still moving.
Alex presses her gun to their temple and shoots again.
They swing wildly as severe brain damage hampers their judgment.
She aims and fires for the last time.
The borg falls dead to the ground.
As she goes to grab her katana she vomits a small glob of blood.
It’s fine, she’s fine, she won.
She just has to keep moving.
-
Alex is standing.
Just standing.
It’s not the first time she’s been the centre of a heap of corpses, not even the second, or third. She finds that funny, fifteen years old and already going on killing sprees? Getting a little ahead of herself is she? Her magic really makes a force to be reckoned with, but it’s not really her magic now is it. It’s a gift from a planet of gore. Like all the gore surrounding her now. She really needs to thank them.
She can’t really move right now, muscles burning as they are, so she just stands. She thinks she's figured out why her magic acts differently when using her mark. It’s making whatever she’s doing ridiculously efficient, meaning the burden on her soul is nonexistent, but her body still isn’t used to magic or some such bullshit. So if she had a chunky enough soul maybe she’d start feeling the physical effects of her telekinesis.
Heh, chunky soul.
Fuck everything hurts.
She moves aside as a shotgun blast tears tears through her side, leaving a small chunk of torn gore on her right. Fuck, her clothes are in tatters. She looks to find five people pointing guns at her.
“Goddamn, Is that a fucking zombie?” One of them says, she growls at them.
The man lets out a small yelp and backs away, which causes her to chuckle. Ah fuck, that hurts.
The man with the shotgun shoots again but she’s already moved, though not enough to dodge all the pellets. That’s another discovery she’s made the past few days, shotguns and automatics are a pain in the ass. Surprise to absolutely no one.
A hail of bullets assaults her, but that’s fine.
She’s among them now.
Her sword digs through the back of a womans neck, cutting off her spinal cord, she twirls as bullets go through her arms and a few enter her chest. She cuts off the hand of a man with a rifle, but not before he manages to shoot through her stomach.
Huh?
Why didn’t she get a warning?
She stumbles and uses the man as a human shield, then gunfire from somewhere further away sounds out. Just great.
“Take care of them! I’ve got the zombie girl,” one of them says.
Hmmm, a friend? Strange.
She doesn’t get much time to contemplate as her shield is blasted through and a cavalcade of pellets tear into her chest, throwing her back. She rolls and rolls until she finds her face pressed down onto the floor. What happened to her magic? Blood flows down the concrete as she can’t get herself to move, she tries to force it but her soul screams.
Someone kicks her on her back, she coughs out blood.
A shotgun is shoved into her mouth.
“Survive this bitch” the man snarls.
She tilts her head slightly just before the man shoots.
Teeth go flying as the bullets tear through half of her face.
“Goddamn, you actually did.” He says, amazed.
A hand grabs his head and crushes it like a cranberry.
A decently sized man with mountains for arms walks up to her bleeding body.
There’s a pendant around his neck.
“Hey kid,” Adam says “let’s get out of here”