Crystal pillars scraped the sky of Providence City. With each tick of the clock, they got that much dimmer, as the office drones left their cells, the managers clocked out, and everyone made their way to the pristine streets below. It was a blessing to be greeted with the vibrant colors of a new night, the promise of a comfortable couch as soon as they got home, and the steady rhythm of boots marching up the asphalt.
Perched on a white wall, her feet dangling over astroturf, was a young woman whose eyes never stopped darting between the hordes. On the far side of an ornate water fountain, a young man with tired eyes and a business jacket slung over his shoulder was hailing a cab. Just across the street, a woman in a dress that clung to her like sticky taffy was illuminated by a sheet of red light, as she passed beneath a scanner.
And just turning the corner was a trio of law enforcement officers. Far from the men and women in blue she'd always seen in old media, these officers wore bulky black armor that covered them from head to toe. Their faces were obscured by jagged, faceless helmets, and proudly emblazoned upon their backs was a symbol that resembled a winged trident, with its head placed upside down.
If their get-up wasn't enough to make their presence known, the torso-sized hunks of steel that vaguely resembled guns did the job. They didn't force it on anyone, at least not that she could tell - people just stepped around them, waited for them to pass by, and treated them like civilians. These people weren't intimidated by the soldiers in black, but they did their best to behave around them.
They came marching up the sidewalk, right up to the girl perched on the wall. She stopped looking at them and kept her eyes on the streets - legs still dangling over the walls, and her head slightly bobbing like the headphones half-hidden in her voluminous hair were actually pumping music into her head. They gave her one glance and kept walking, but she didn't move again until a good minute after they'd left the scene.
When music started to pour out of the nearby bar, she tugged up the sleeve of her hoodie and re-read the marker pen scribblings. She got to her feet and stepped up to the sidewalk, with her hands stuffed back into her pockets and her eyes on the corner of the road. It took only a few moments for a big, red bus to roll into view. Its front-most seats were already filled with passengers quite happy to ignore one another, but it showed no sign of slowing down.
Right as it drove past her, she grabbed hold of the doorframe and hopped on to the road-grazing steps - the only part of its sleek design that one could hope to hold onto. She was small enough that she could duck beneath the height of the windows, away from the eyes of the passengers and beneath the attentions of passers-by. She didn't have to stay stuck to the bus for long, as it came down another road and slowed to a halt beside a gathering of office drones, who stood beneath a neon sign that read "Ethersoft".
She stepped off and slipped through the crowd as they hastened to the comforts of the bus, constantly searching for the one sloppy worker who wouldn't have packed everything away. She shuffled past one particularly disgruntled woman and snatched the cyan strap that peeked out of her purse. One quick tug, the lanyard was free, and she'd already disappeared in the crowd.
When the crowd thinned, she made a quick dash behind the perfectly-shaped shrubs and up to the side of the tall, many-windowed building that quite resembled a glass beehive. A wide alley greeted her, between garage and skyscraper, where she spotted a large green door set into the side of the building - the only part of it that manages to look like it couldn't be shattered by an errant bird.
She looked both ways down the alley, but either end was blocked by the outer walls of the building's behind, or else its front lawn. Not a soul moved, although she could hear the gentle hum of cars in the far distance. She stepped up the large door set into the side of the building and reached into her jacket, from which she retrieved two tools - one, bearing a curved fork tip and a chain, while the other, larger tool bore long prongs at one end, as well as a hook on the other.
After examining the thick metal plating across the center of the door, the young woman took the larger tool and pried out three of the bolts of the metal plate. Controlling her breathing, she found the lock within and jammed her smaller tool inside, until it was scraping against the lock. With great force, and the aid of her larger tool, she jammed it deep into the hole body of the lock until it could stand freely.
She pushed the hook of the larger tool through the chain on the other, and tugged until the body of the lock came clean off. Two more plates awaited her, as well as the locks behind them, and she placed them gently on the ground. After examining the locks, she pulled another square-tipped tool out of her hoodie and pushed it into the unveiled locks. One, two, three, they clicked open and the door swung forth.
With the lock-parts tucked against the wall and her tools back in her hoodie, she stepped inside the building and up the long flights of stairs that stretched upwards without end. She let out a sigh and, after checking the writing on her hand once more, started a long march up them. The floors went on and on until she finally arrived at number twenty eight, and the door swung open without hassle.
A well-lit office floor greeted her, with emptied booths each about the size of a car, and everything neatly tucked away. She crept up to a nearby window and peaked out at the cityscape - she was still far from the top, but it was high enough to grant her a commanding view of the surrounding area. She glanced at the smaller roads running through Providence City and smiled to herself, then laid eyes on the sign sitting at the far end of the floor.
She pushed her ear up against the office, a mess of black hair sitting just beneath the gilded plate that read Yuto Akiyama. The click-clack of fingertips on a keyboard and the white noise of air conditioning was all that greeted her, but she waited anyway. Half a minute passed, with the occasional pause, and then she reached beneath her hoodie and into the holster strapped over her gut.
With one hand on the handle, the other on the the cloth grip of a pistol, she shoulder-checked the door and marched inside without pause. Both hands held the hefty weapon steady, as she advanced on the tall Japanese gentleman at an onyx desk against the window. She was halfway across the room by the time he looked up and, his jaw hanging open, scrambled for somewhere to place his hands.
"Freeze!" She barked at him. In his panic and scrambling, she'd moved up to the desk and he'd tumbled backwards on his office chair. As he was sprent sprawling over the hardwood floor, she kicked him onto his stomach. "Rude." She muttered to herself, as she pushed his face into the ground with her foot and holstered her pistol. Just for a moment, as she retrieved a zip tie from her pocket and, yanking his hands together, tied them up tightly.
She ignored his panicked whimpers and half-pleas for his life and untied a length of cloth from her forearm. With a knee on his back, she wrapped it firmly over his lips and tied it as tightly as she could. His mouth was practically tied shut, so she pulled her pistol out once more and pulled him to his feet by the back of his business jacket. He stood a good head taller than her, but she had the muscles to fill out her clothes better than he did his business suit.
With one hand grasping the neck of his jacket, and the other holding a pistol pushed against his lower spine, she led him out of his office with her eyes set on the far side of the floor. She couldn't hear the telltale rumble of the elevator, or doors opening elsewhere on the floor, but she quickened her pace nonetheless, as she tugged the sobbing asian man through aisle upon aisle of cubicles.
He made a few attempts to tug against his bonds, pull away from her, but a swift stab of the pistol into his spine convinced him not to go any further. She arrived at the metal gateway and the dial above it - nothing was moving, so she pushed a tempting silver button. In no time at all, the elevator arrived and she shoved Yuko inside first. She released his neck briefly to swipe her lanyard through the scanner, then pushed the lowest button on the panel.
A melodic ditty accompanied the pair on their trip downwards, but soon the doors opened and they were free. Almost every parking spot was emptied, but nobody was in the echoing halls of the parking garage, so she begun her trek up the slopes and back into evening in Providence city. At the last exit, she heard tires against asphalt, and peeked around the corner just in time to a dark blue van stopping just around the back of the building.
"Home sweet home." She patted her cargo on the back and tugged him towards the back of the van, which she rapped on three times before it opened. Waiting for them was a sparsely populated room, with two rows of seats, a metal grating with a door that separated them from the driving seat, and a ginger man with a beard just as raggedy as his clothes. "I got him."
"Great job!" The man in the van smiled just as widely as his eyes opened, then helped usher Yuto into the van and tied him into one row of seats. "Are we planning on interrogating him now, or later?" He asked, double-checking the restraints before he strolled back over to the driver's seat. A quick rev of the engines and the back-doors locking followed, before the van rocked into motion.
"Later." The woman replied, as she sat in the row of seats opposite their tied-up passenger and stared at him through narrowed eyes. He seemed to tremble under her gaze. "Leave it to the professionals, yeah? I don't think they'd like it if we showed up with him already black and blue."
"You're the boss, Princess." The man's muffled voice replied, and only a few moments of silence passed between them before he spoke up again. "So, it all went smoothly, did it? No witnesses and all that?"
"No witnesses." Princess smirked, as she holstered her pistol firmly beneath her hoodie. "Went about as smoothly as it possibly could, although they'll know he's missing later..." She gasped as they went over a bump, then shook her head. "But I guess that would happen when it turns out her never got home anyway...so, yeah, it went well."
"I wouldn't expect anything less from you." The man in front replied with a chuckle. "Can you hear that?" He asked, as they went over another bump and the van rocked. Princess looked over at the grate and raised an eyebrow. "It's kind of like a whisper..."
The dark-skinned woman looked around the back of the van and shrugged. "I can't hea-" Her eyes went wide as she watched Yuko's cheeks twitch behind his gag. She tilted her head towards him and listened closely, concentrating hard as she tried to make out what he was saying.
"...five...six...seven...eight." Princess watched as Yuko started to open his mouth. It stretched out wider than it should have, then kept going a few inches past that, as an inhuman croak started to form at the back of his throat.
"Nonononono!" Princess leaped off of her seat with as much force as she could muster and slammed her elbow into Yuko's jaw, cutting off the cry as the back of his head slammed into the wall of the van. She brought her elbow back for another hit, but he twisted his spine out of the way and ducked beneath the blow. She cursed as her arm slammed into the wall, which gave her a good view of what he was doing behind his back.
In one smooth motion, he'd popped his hands and fingers free of the tightly-bound ziptie, forcing them to bend and squeeze against one another in a way that would normally break bones. With quickness unbefitting his stature, he raked his fingertips across Princess' face and shoved her off of him. While she stumbled over the floor of the van, he pulled himself back into a standing position and loomed over her in the dim light.
Princess reached for her pistol, but a business shoe kicked her hand away. She twisted around and brought her other elbow into the back of his other knee, upsetting his balance enough for her to scramble up the floor of the van and create some distance. As he steadied himself against the back doors, she heard the familiar whirring of scanners, the boots of the police force, and knew that she couldn't shoot him even if she wanted to.
He stretched his jaw wide open again, casually tearing off the gag she'd wrapped around it, and the cry started again. Just as he did, the van jolted forward and sent him stumbling. Princess used the metal grate to get into a crouching position and braced herself against it, then soared through the air like a spear, her shoulder slamming straight into his gut and tackling him to the ground, where his head slammed against the hard metal floor with a thunk.
He dug his fingers into her neck as she tried to pull herself up, while his slippery form manages to unsettle her attempts to pull her hands back up. She could already feel her skin starting to break, so she twisted her head as far round as she could and bit deep into his exposed wrist. It tasted like bleach, but she dug her teeth deeper and deeper until his hand flexed open.
She took advantage of the opening and pushed off of the floor with her toes, but his knee was already up and collided with her sternum. She couldn't speak with the air expelled from her lungs, but it didn't matter, as his wickedly long fingers wrapped around her throat and shoved her into a nearby seat. Her spine bent painfully over plastic, and she wheezed as she struggled to bring some more air into her throat.
She clenched her muscles tightly as she got a close-up view of Yuki's face, his too-wide maw, and the serpentine tongue that slithered within. With the instinct to survive burning in her heart, she grasped for either side of his head and brought his disgusting visage closer to hers - close enough to slam her forehead into it. A sickening crunch and a splatter of greenish gunk rewarded her, as her slender assailant reeled backwards.
Without a moment to lose, Princess took in the biggest breath she could and pulled herself back onto the seat. When it turned back to face her, gangly limbs flopping about the cramped interior of the van, she span around and cracked her foot against his temple. He crumpled over beside her as the van turned a corner, so she took the breather to reach into her hoodie and retrieve the large, metal tool she'd used earlier.
Still panting for breath, she brought the tool back to stab the fork straight into his spine, but he span around just in time to catch her forearm. Gritting her teeth as he started to shriek, Princess pushed hard against his struggling arm and mounted him to prevent his legs from kicking her. With her other hand, she grabbed the back of his resisting elbow and tugged it as hard as she could towards the driver's seat.
It bent unnaturally far, but at ninety degrees, a crack was heard along with his cry and she slammed the tool through his eye. He flailed, but with both arms crippled and his legs pinned, he didn't get far, as she yanked the tool back out of his skull, then back in again, and again, and again, until he didn't move any more.
Gritting her teeth, Princess fell back into her seat and wiped off some of the bleach-tasting gunk off of her face. The van came to a halt and the door of the metal grate opened, to reveal the man driving the van stepping out with wild eyes. His jaw hung open, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing, and he stammered over his words.
"It..." Princess gasped. "It was one of them, Badger." She stared into his eyes. "One. Of. Them."
"Y-Yeah, I can..." Badger unsteadily walked forward, scratching the back of his head as he stared at the floor. "I can see that. Sorry, I-I couldn't help much, there was a checkpoint, and I couldn't or we'd both be dead already..." He looked back up at Princess, then at the mangled face of the thing beside her, and shuddered.
"Yeah." Princess winced, as she cricked her neck and started to feel some of the pain flooding through her body. "Who does our intel, again?" She asked, with a tone as sweet as sugar.
"Err, Shotel, right?" Badger offered uncertainly.
"Right, Shotel...once i've had a few hundred showers..." Princess spat a mouthful of the creature's blood out of her mouth. "Remind me to kick his ass."