A tall, blue-haired man stood in what had, until recently, been a very busy bar. Now, it was a slaughterhouse. He looked at the carnage with a slight, satisfied smirk. He wished he'd be able to see the man's face when he saw this. But he wouldn't be able to, not yet. The time would come.
Hazel eyes swept the room one last time, admiring his work. Suddenly he frowned as he glanced at one of the many bodies. He approached to get a better look.
It was a woman, on the smallish side. There wasn't anything all that distinctive about her. What were apparently considered normal clothes (he didn't know what was called normal, and he frankly didn't care.) Long, curly black hair pulled into a ponytail. She had apparently been one of the victims shot by that fool who had tried to be a hero. What had caught his attention, however, was the expression on her face. Confused and slightly startled dismay. If she had been alive, he knew perfectly well how she would have vocalized it.
Goddammit, not again. His sentiments precisely.
He sighed in irritation. Things had been going so well, too. This was probably going to ruin his entire day, but it wouldn't do to leave her here for him to find. That could very well spoil everything. He glared at the corpse with undisguised dislike. "Must you always make things more difficult than they must be?"
The body didn't respond, nor was he expecting it to. It wasn't very often an actual expression made it to his face, and it was even rarer that the expression was something other than a sort of sarcastically amused indifference. But this was one of those times. Looking very put out, he grabbed the collar of the dead woman's coat, and dragged her out of the bar after him. "I very much wish I had the capability of killing you, woman."
Two hours later, he was sitting on a low hill on the edge of town, watching the road. Waiting for that sweet instant when that man would get there and find the present he had left. Maybe it would make up for the inconvenience that damnable woman would make for him.
A low rattling noise caught his attention. He sighed. Perfect. Just perfect.
Even though he was expecting something of the sort, the ear-shattering scream that ripped through the desert startled him. Normally, he liked such sounds. But coming from this particular source, it only served to annoy him further.
His hand shot out and clamped over the woman's mouth, cutting the scream off. She struggled for a moment, still not completely aware of where she was. "Shut up, woman. I don't want to listen to your shrieking." Plus, if that man heard it…
It took her several minutes, but she remained comparatively silent. Finally, her breathing stopped being so ragged, and the glassy look left her eyes. She sat up, rubbing her chest where the bullet had gone in. "I bloody well hate it when that happens. Just sitting there, trying to enjoy a quiet drink, and all hell breaks loose." Then his presence belatedly registered. She turned to look at him, then groaned and fell back over. "Figures. I hate you so much."
"The feeling is, I assure you, mutual."
"So you still running with that psychotic pack of freaks? Or you just slaughtering countless people just for your own amusement?"
"I will remind you that you were at one time a member of 'that psychotic pack of freaks.' And yes, I still lead them to do the Master's bidding."
She glared at him. "Yeah, yeah, don't remind me. Not one of the better chapters of my life. So I take it Sparky still has that grudge against his brother?"
"Do not call him that. I will not hesitate to slowly flay you alive from the inside out."
"Pft. Wouldn't do the damnedest bit of good, and you know it, and I know that you wouldn't bother wasting the energy. 'Sides, ain't like you haven't done it to me before."
He glared back at her with ill-concealed distaste. "You are positively the most annoying woman I have ever met."
"Yeah, I'm special like that." She sat up. "So, I take it that little… erm, display at the bar was something to do with that guy?"
"Yes."
"Damn, if I had known he was coming this way, I would have gone somewhere else. I absolutely hate getting killed. Ruins up my day, and generally a good part of my week getting over it. Plus my clothes." She looked down at her bloodstained shirt. "Well, at least it seems to have been a smaller caliber this time."
"Hollowpoint."
"Hollow- Goddammit, I just bought this coat! What is it with you and massively unnecessary amounts of destruction?"
"The man tried to be a hero. I didn't make him chose his ammunition."
She snorted. "So you say." She shrugged her ruined coat off, and looked with disbelief at the huge, ragged hole the exit wound had made. "Damn, no wonder it still hurts."
He ignored her grumbling. From his experience, she always came back complaining, and never about anything he actually cared about.
"Why did you bring me here?"
He looked over at her. "Pardon? I didn't bring you here, you were a total surprise to me."
She shook her head. "I mean, up the hill. Out of the bar. You don't have any regard for anyone except Sparky, and I know that you come as close to hating me as it's possible for you to get. Why didn't you just leave me there with all the other party guests?"
He shrugged eloquently. "I didn't know when you would come back, and I don't know exactly when he's going to show up. And given how loud you tend to be…"
She waved her hand dismissively. "I get it, I get it. You didn't want to leave me somewhere where I could give the whole thing away when I came to."
"Precisely."
"Psychotic, arrogant prick."
He pondered for a moment how it had come to be that this... extremely irritating woman was the sole person who either dared or bothered to insult him, and how she was the only person subordinate to him whom he actually allowed to persist in doing so. Of course, it had a great deal to do with the fact that he couldn't kill her permanently, and she had long ago lost her fear of pain.
"While we're up here, having something akin to a civilized conversation, I am curious about something."
She was trying to figure a way to hide most of the bloodstains on her clothes. "Go on."
"Why did you leave? You could have been of great use to the Master."
"What, leave the Guns? Lots of reasons. For one, you all creep me the hell out." He wondered if he should take that as a compliment. "For another, I got sick of being used as target practice. Plus, there was what, maybe three people I could have an actual conversation with without someone likely to get shot? I mean, Dominique was okay, and I liked Midvalley's music. And when I could get Rai-Dei to pull his head out of his ass about his stupid… quest… thing, he was reasonable, I suppose. Is he still on about that, by the way?"
"Unfortunately."
"Gah. I told that man that death wasn't what he thought. Does he just not listen?" She rummaged around in her pocket and came out with a cigarette. "Anyway. Beyond them, I couldn't talk to anyone. Stupid gits." She lit the cigarette and took a meditive drag. "Besides, I was never very good at combat. My sole advantage is my stubborn refusal to die and stay dead."
"I seem to remember a different side of you when you first joined."
"Yeah, I was a wonderful little monster for you, then, wasn't I? But then, I was on the tail end of one of my funks. Didn't know who the hell I was, didn't know who the hell you people were, didn't really have much of the higher functions of my brain turned on. So I was more like a killer doom-bot than an actual hired gun. Judging from what I've pieced together, I was a tad… vicious. But then I snapped out of it, and I ceased to have any practical combat value."
"I would have preferred it if you had stayed that way."
"Don't always get what you want, boy."
"But you stayed, even after your practical value dropped. You above all the others I can't control, and you've always known that. I can only assume that you had a reason beyond the one that I have."
She grimaced at her cigarette. "Wish I could remember who got me hooked on these damned things. Wish I'd shot the bastard. Yeah, I had a reason. Don't guess you'd care much, though."
He shrugged again. "I am curious, and I have no where to be until he gets here."
"I was trying to save him."
He narrowed his eyes at her. "Do you mean to say that all that time you were working against the Master?"
"Now why do you assume that the only person I'd try to save is the brother? I didn't work for him. I'm talking about Sparky."
"The Master doesn't need saving. Least of all from someone so inferior."
"What is it you're always going on about? The pain of living or something?"
"Correct."
"I'll tell you a secret. Physical pain can be scary, but someone can get used to that. I mean, look at me. You know how many scars I've got; hell, you gave me half of them. And I hear tell that brother dear has nearly as many. In the end, there's only one sort of pain in this 'verse."
He looked interested. He was always interested in new ways of causing mayhem and pain, and he had heard her reel off some intriguing theories in the past.
"Only sort of pain there is, is being alone. Everything else is just a reflection of that." Her eyes got a far away look for a second. "Now, you people saw what I was, saw I could be of use to you, so you kept me, even after I wasn't much use fighting. But I saw some things myself, and I hear more than most think. Now, the Guns didn't need me, in any capacity. They all had someone, or some substitute, even if it was just the other Guns. Even you. I know you didn't socialize much, but you talked to Midvalley, and anyway, I guess that whatever emotions you used to have got beat out of you pretty early."
He raised an eyebrow, but didn't contradict her.
"Now, the boss is a separate case entirely. He looked at himself and saw that he was different, figured he was better than everyone else. I don't know, maybe he's right and he is higher up the evolutionary scale. But that's the fundamental difference between him and his brother. Always was."
"The difference is that his brother is an ungrateful weakling with no vision."
"Maybe, I haven't met the man. But the boss's problem was that he had too much vision. There was only one person that he considered an equal, and I guess you've noticed they ain't much on speaking terms. So he turned in on himself, figuring there wasn't anyone on this godforsaken piece of rock worthy of being his friend. There's only so much of being alone in the world a body can take. Believe me, I know."
"He isn't entirely alone. I cannot exactly speak for the others, but I remain his devoted servant."
She looked at him sadly. "That's exactly what you are, boy. A servant. Not a friend. He don't speak to you except to issue orders, does he? He just sits alone and broods. That ain't healthy, not for man nor angel or plant." She stubbed out her cigarette. "I figure it drove him mad pretty quick." Seeing the snarl forming on his face, she said quietly, "Oh, come on. Even you know that he is. You just don't care because you're just as nuts, and in the same way. Anyway, by the time I got there, it was beyond my ability to fix. There's only one person can fix him now, and I have no idea how that's gonna play out."
"Are you suggesting the Master's misbegotten brother-?" His voice was as outraged as it ever got.
"I ain't suggesting anything. Like I said, I never met the man, I don't know if he can fix it, or if he'll want to. It hit the point long ago where no human…" A wry smile twisted her mouth. "Or demi-human can fix it. Now, from what I hear, his brother seemed to go the opposite way, trying to hide his differences, trying to be like everyone else."
"Yes. A disgrace to his brother and his kind."
"Disgrace or not, he was never alone. I know he had friends, probably still does. I've heard you talking about killing them for him. So I suppose he's coped better with life than Sparky."
They were silent for a moment. "That's really why I left, you know. Can't stand being useless." She picked up her coat. "I don't suppose you happened to get my gun. No, I didn't think so. Not that it matters." She started heading off into the desert away from town.
"If you think that highly of him, then why haven't you tracked him down and told him your theories?"
"What, the brother? Don't know as he'd believe me, or care if he did. Besides, you'd just use whatever I told him and turn it into a trap, which would kinda defeat the purpose of the whole exercise. And I get the sneaking suspicion that this is the kind of thing he's gotta work out on his own."
"Then why aren't you aiding him, ensuring that he does?"
She looked at him. "Legato, I lived with the Gung-Ho Guns for three years. I've seen them training. I've also heard the stories of the Humanoid Typhoon, and I'm a good deal more inquisitive than you might guess. I honestly don't think he needs my help." She stretched, wincing at the pain caused by the gaping wound in her back. "Don't worry about me going down there and ruining whatever party you have planned. I don't want anything more to do with this. Besides, if I think about the bodies too much, I'll freak out. I suppose I'll wander around a bit, stay out of the major cities, since that seems to be where you boys like to play. Maybe go into a delirium for about a decade; feels to be about that time again. Don't suppose I'll run into you or the Guns again. Hope I don't."
"The feeling is mutual." She walked away from him, out into the desert night, leaving him to wait for a certain blond gunman to find his way into town. "May our paths never cross again, Jeyra the Eternal."
"Likewise, Legato Bluesummers."
Additional Note: As I said, Legato may be somewhat out of character (at the very least, much more conversational). I had a reason; if you want to know it, email me. Likewise if you want to know why he can't control Jeyra.