The Heister

Saturday, 24th of October, 198 A.C, 19:48

“Your first trip outside the City Limits will be a surreal experience. The ruins immediately outside the walls are recognizable as modern architecture, lost, reclaimed, and lost again during the constant back and forth between Psychons and humanity. Depending on where you leave, these ruins stretch for miles before finally being replaced by the remnants of the great cities of the Pre-Calamity world. Even here, a strange mix of architecture exists, sections of ruins taken from all over the old world and mashed together into a smorgasbord of lost culture.” - Excerpt from a Viridian Academy lecture by the Investigator

“1… 1 and a half… 2… 2 and a half… 3… Shit.”

I bungled the catch on 3 and a half rotations and my bat clattered against the ground. I grabbed it and leaned against the tree I had been waiting beside.

~Nice one.

“Shut up,” I muttered. “Unless you want to stay there forever.”

~Take it off.

I decided not to respond to that one.

As I lounged, an unnaturally strong sense of impatience filled me. I sighed. “Yeah, I know. But as much as I’d love to, I can’t just run in this time. Babysitting duty, remember?” In response, I felt an urge to jokingly pout.

A sound made me look up. I saw a figure slinking around in the dark. He paused a distance to my left, hugging the corner of a building and peaking out to survey the area. That would be the Duelist, finally in position.

It had turned out that the whole pocket dimension thing had made the Duelist surprisingly handy at stealth. Now that he had arrived, I was just waiting for the signal.

The building ahead stood out, Brutalist bunker-like architecture amidst the sea of brick buildings surrounding us. A few corpo-bandits patrolled the outer entrance, but the building was otherwise quiet. With any luck, that would soon change.

Shouts suddenly rang out from inside the building. The bandits outside turned around just in time to see a blue and red streak burst out of the building’s entrance.

I heard a “Woohoo!” from the Scrapper as she charged headlong into the bandits, bouncing off of one and landing on the roof of the building. I had to give it to her, I liked the girl’s style.

The bandits brandished their weapons in response to the intruder. There were five of them, all armed. Two of them had spiked bats, the third a handgun, the fourth a rifle, and the fifth a red-hot rapier. He would be the leader of the group.

The Scrapper had enough sense to keep on the move, not giving the gun-wielding bandits a chance to get a clean shot off.

~Kick some ass.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” I murmured.

I took advantage of the distraction to make my advance. It wasn’t until I was a few feet away that the bandits noticed my presence.

The rifle guy turned around just in time to catch a bat to the face. The sound caught the attention of the others, who turned to face the more immediate threat. The leader directed the batters to rush me, leaving the last goon, the handgun-user, trained on the Scrapper.

As I braced for the approaching goons, I glanced over to the bandit with the handgun, worried that the Scrapper was in danger. Fortunately the Duelist came through, disappearing alongside the handgun-goon into a marble-sized bubble.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

I turned my attention back towards Bat one and Bat two. Bat one yelled as she came in swinging. I dodged quickly to the right and caught her arm with a kick.

Her partner’s bat rushed towards me, a clumsy swing that I blocked easily but which snagged my bat between the spikes on his own.

~Ugh, spiked bats.

“At least we agree there,” I said, wrenching my bat from the spikes and using the momentum to spin around behind him and smash it against his back. “Advantage of this baby being composite. Doesn’t get as stuck.”

~*my* bat.

“Is it? My apologies, I hadn’t noticed. Please, take it back. What’s that? Can’t? Sucks to be you then.” That remark clearly struck a nerve, as I felt a sudden rush of anger.

The first bandit had recovered her bat at this point, and seemed very eager to get revenge for her downed buddy.

My Veil picked up an opening and I dodged to the left. As she flew by I brought out my left arm, catching just below her chin in a glorious clothesline move that left her out cold.

With both of the batters taken care of I looked up and saw the Scrapper struggling with the leader. She was running out of juice and the flames coming off of that rapier were getting closer and closer with each passing second.

“Alright, alright, I’ll stop with the theatrics.” I sighed dramatically, pulled my revolver out of its holster, and placed a quick shot in the leader’s back. The gun sounded off a dull TUNK and the goon dropped like a rock.

The Scrapper froze, her aura suddenly vanishing. “What the hell!? Did you just shoot him?!”

I faked a shocked expression. “Oh my god, you’re right! What am I gonna do, I’m a killer!”

~Pause for effect.

Unable to keep the expression any longer, I broke down into laughter. “Oh man, you should see your face right now. Don’t worry, I didn’t kill him. Did that sound like a regular gunshot to you?”

I flipped open the revolver’s cylinder and took out a round. The casing was a matte white, with a pale blue round.

“Knockout rounds,” I said, showing it to her. “Don’t ask me how they work, all I know is that guns need to be custom-made to use them. I can still load normal rounds in here, mind you, but the others have twisted my arm into using these. Expensive as hell though. We’re constantly running out. I’ve only got these seven…” I took the now empty case out of the cylinder, “these six rounds left. So, if you see any of them lying around, do us all a favor and grab ‘em.”

The Scrapper let out a sigh. “Well, that’s a relief. I… *whew*... I really thought I just saw you kill someone…” With the scare over, she relaxed visibly. “Woo boy, fighting sure is tiring.”

She let herself flop down on the ground.

I offered her a hand up. “As much as I’d like to join you, it isn’t time for sleeping yet.”

Just then the sphere beside me shone brilliantly before bursting open to reveal a triumphant Duelist standing on the unconscious body of the rifleman. He grinned, and let out an emphatic, “tah-dah!”

“Ah, good,” I said. “Grab some weapons and let’s get going.”

The Duelist looked at me incredulously. “What?” I asked. “The Scrapper doesn’t look up to carrying much right now, and I’m sure as hell not lugging all that stuff around.” I shooed him away with my hands. “Get looting!”

As the Duelist slung the rifle over his shoulder and shoved the pistol into one of the many pockets lining the inside of his jacket, I noticed something a bit off about him. He was putting little flourishes into everything he was doing, and my Veil picked up a heightened ego coming from him.

~Drawback?

“Just a hunch, but I think I’m putting it together, yeah.”

The Scrapper gave me an inquisitive look. “Who’re you talking to?”

“Oh, uh, nobody,” I said. “Just talking to myself.” To my annoyance, I felt a sudden urge to laugh.

Fortunately, the Scrapper was soon distracted by the Duelist, who had just noticed a certain rapier.

“We’re allowed to keep some of this stuff, right?”

“That’s right,” I said. “We’re being paid according to the value of the stuff we turn in, but there’s no hard quota or anything. Although… if you’re planning on keeping that, I’d watch it closely. I might not be able to resist snatching it for myself one day. It’s a Splinter after all. Those things are worth a pretty penny.”

The Duelist gave me a glare as he quickly located the weapon’s scabbard and fastened it to his belt.

I decided now was the time to get the group back on task. “If you’re done looting, we’ve got a weapon cache to break into.”