Adrian sits down to rest.
"Get up, we got work to do. A case of gang violence. The Captain suspects that a Revenant is involved, he put me and you on the case."
Adrian gets up and follows Michael down the stairs.
As they descend the stairs, Michael continues explaining.
"The Jade Serpents and The Gilded Brotherhood are two rival gangs in the opium trade. Recently, a lot of the Brotherhood's men have been dying in their homes, shot through their windows. While this could be a normal case of gang violence, the accuracy of the shots makes us think that the Serpents have hired a Hunter Revenant. Your job is to use your natural ability to find out if these killings are Revenant-related or not."
"What is a Hunter?"
"They can use firearms well. Like, really fucking well. They will rarely miss against a normal person."
Michael and Adrian get outside the PRF. A carriage is right outside the PRF building.
Michael hops onto the carriage. Adrian follows him. Michael pulls out a file and says, "Blackthorn Street, 17th."
"Oh, that's Tim, by the way. He's our specialized carriage driver," Michael points to the carriage driver.
"Hello, mate. John Davis, new recruit," Adrian says.
"Hello, Tim Baker, carriage driver for the 4th station."
"Can you give me some more details?" Adrian says while looking at Michael.
"What more do you need to know? It's pretty fucking simple. The Serpents want full control of the opium market. They stumble across some Revenant and pay him to kill their rivals. All you need to do is confirm that it's a Revenant, then we beat the fuck out of The Serpents till they give the Revenant up."
The carriage stops at their destination—a decently sized apartment building.
"The fucker died on the second floor."
Adrian observes the building. It is a three-story high apartment with one window on each story. The window on the second floor is shattered.
Adrian and Michael walk into the building. There is one door and a stairway leading up. The floors and walls are clean and well-maintained.
They ascend the stairway. A wooden door greets them.
Adrian tries to open the door. It doesn't budge. It's locked.
"Move out the way," Michael says.
Adrian lets go of the door and moves onto the stairway.
Michael walks up to the door, winds up, and kicks it in.
The door slams open with a bang.
It's definitely broken. We could have just asked for a key from somebody, Adrian thinks, looking at Michael with a disappointed face.
"What? The guy's fucking dead. He's not going to use it, is he?"
Adrian is stunned and left speechless.
Adrian and Michael walk into the apartment.
The room is lit up by a gas lamp on the wall, still burning despite its owner's death.
A man is slumped over in his chair next to a table, blood trailing down from his neck onto the floor.
Adrian takes a closer look at the body. A bullet wound can be seen in his neck, no exit wound. A plate of rotten fish rests on the table.
The bullet's still lodged in there. The rotting fish shows that he's been dead for a while.
Adrian touches the body, feeling energy transfer from his core into his eye.
His vision instantly changes into the past.
It's instant now instead of taking time.
Adrian sees the man enjoying his plate of fish. The deafening sound of a shattering window fills the room.
The man looks over to see what happened before a silent bullet strikes him in the neck.
Adrian rewinds the scene back to the start but this time stands at the window, looking for the killer's whereabouts.
Adrian squints at the buildings before he sees a shadowy figure in the far distance, on top of a rooftop around 200 meters away. The shadowy figure fires the bullet.
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Adrian touches the man's body, and his vision instantly changes back to the present. No time has passed.
"The shot was from a rooftop around 200 meters away. It was nighttime with barely any lighting," Adrian says.
Michael walks up to the body, then puts two fingers into the hole in the man's throat and takes out a bullet. "It's a bullet from a Henry rifle."
"With the lack of lighting, large distance, and wind conditions, this shot could only be made by a skilled marksman or Revenant. Marksmen that skilled are way less common than Revenants. There's a big chance the person was a Revenant," Michael said.
"But what does that mean for us?"
"It means we have cause to find and beat the shit out of the Serpents."
"How are we gonna find the Serpents?"
"Shhhh." Michael puts a finger up to his mouth, gesturing for silence.
Adrian can hear distant footsteps starting to approach the apartment room.
Michael sneaks up behind the door and waits.
The footsteps get louder and louder until they eventually enter the room.
The exact second the footsteps enter the room, Michael leaps on the person, grabs them, and tackles them to the ground. He grabs the gun out of the person's holster and throws it across the room. The man screams out, "Who the fuck are you?"
"Police, motherfucker." Michael pulls out a pair of handcuffs and cuffs the man's hands. The whole process is done extremely quickly—Michael has experience in doing this.
"You are under arrest for the illegal possession of firearms, but more importantly, I have some questions for you."
"You with the Gilded Brotherhood, right?"
The man stays silent.
"Oh, you think you can just stay silent, huh?" Michael punches the man in the face repeatedly.
Oh god, why is this guy so violent? I'm pretty sure police officers aren't meant to torture people.
"Ok, I'll talk, just please stop." The man's face is a bloody mess.
"My name is Harrison Thornhill. I am part of the Brotherhood."
"Good. Now answer me this: where is the Jade Serpent hideout?"
"I don't know the exact location, but they mostly deal around Briarfield."
"We're done here. Let's leave," Michael gestures to Adrian while grabbing the man off the ground.
Adrian and Michael, who's carrying the man, descend the stairway and get back into their carriage. Michael throws the man onto the carriage.
"Go back to the station," Michael says to Tim.
"Why were you so rough with this guy?"
"He's a drug dealer in the slums. They ruin the lives of people who are already struggling just to make some money. If I could, I would kill him."
This guy's rage seems to come from experience. Perhaps he lost an important person to drugs.
...
The carriage reaches the station.
"Wait here. I'll go hand over this bastard," Michael says to Adrian.
"Are you surprised by Michael's hate?" the carriage driver asks.
"Yes."
"He hates all criminals, not just drug dealers. From what I know, his childhood was spent in the slums. He probably had some sort of experience there. But don't worry about it too much. He can control it enough to not kill people."
Michael comes out of the PRF, this time holding his metal bat.
He gets in the carriage. "Briarfield," he says.
...
They arrive at Briarfield. Adrian looks around. The buildings and roads of this area look much more decrepit and dirty than what he's used to. The area is clearly a poor part of town.
"So what are we gonna do? We don't know where they are. We can't just search the entire district," Adrian says.
"What do you think a gang would do if they've nearly wiped out their enemies?"
"I don't know, celebrate?"
"Correct. Those bastards are probably at a pub, getting drunk off their ass."
"How will we know which pub?"
"They'll have protection waiting outside."
Adrian and Michael start walking around the district in search of the pub.
They search for around an hour before they find a pub with two men waiting outside the door.
"Go and try to get in. Let's be sure it's this one," Michael says to Adrian.
Adrian walks up to the pub and tries to get in before being pushed away by one of the guards. "Pub's closed for today. Fuck off."
Adrian walks back to Michael. "It's that one. Now what?"
"We raid it."
"Just the two of us? They'll have guns. I know we're Revenants, but we can still die to bullets."
"They won't have that many guns, maybe 3 or 4."
"I'm strong enough to block most of the bullets with my bat, but I need support. So it's as simple as this: we bust in, you stay behind me, you shoot the ones with guns, I pummel the rest."
"You can block bullets?"
"Yes, I'm a class 2 Warrior. My physical strength is far beyond normal humans."
"Can't we request backup?"
"It will take too long for them to come. We have to do this now."
This sounds like suicide, but he seems confident that we can do this, so fuck it, I'm gonna trust him.
Adrian and Michael walk up to the two men standing outside the pub door.
They both use punches infused with spirit energy to knock out the guards.
Michael gestures one, two, three with his hand, then—
BANG!
He kicks the door open.
Adrian and Michael walk inside the pub. There are around 20 men inside. All eyes turn to the door.
"Kill them!" one of the men shouts. Four of them pull out revolvers.
Michael is in front, standing with a bat in front of him, while Adrian is crouching down behind cover with his revolver in hand.
BANG!
Four shots ring out towards Michael. He dodges two of them and blocks the rest with his bat.
At the same time, Adrian takes a deep breath, steadies himself, and pours spirit energy into his eye, enhancing his perception. Gripping his revolver tightly, he peeks out from cover and—
BANG!
Adrian shoots one of the gunmen in the head.
The men without guns all rush towards Michael. Michael starts swinging his bat at the speed of a machine gun, and with each swing, one of the men falls to the ground.
The gunmen continue shooting at Michael, but all the bullets are either blocked or dodged.
Adrian peeks out again and fires two more shots. One hits a gunman in the chest, while the other misses its mark.
Michael's swings start slowing down—he’s tiring. One of the two remaining gunmen takes a shot.
BANG!
The shot hits Michael in his left leg. He lets out a grunt of pain.
Seeing his partner in danger, Adrian jumps out from his cover and fires three shots toward the gunmen.
They hit their marks.
No more gunmen are left standing, but eight men still remain.
Michael is rushed by the remaining eight at once. He pummels one of them, but the rest grab him and tackle him to the ground.
Adrian tries to shoot again, but his gun clicks—he’s out of bullets.
Michael, struggling under the weight of the men, shouts, "Surge!"
Adrian runs towards Michael, forcing all the energy he can into his right arm, and uses a Surge punch.
A massive shockwave of energy erupts, flinging the seven remaining men back against the wall.
Adrian stands over Michael, his heart racing, his arm shaking with pain. But there’s only one thought in his mind:
We fucking did it.