The wind laughed in delight as she split it, leaping and sprinting across rooftops as her hidden smile dominated her face. This was her favorite part. Her body was a blur of black and gleaming red on the radiant silver background of the shattered moon. Her cloak whipped and snapped in the gale, a living trail of red that billowed behind her.
The monstrous mechanical bellowing from the factories grew ever dimmer as she approached her target area, fading to just above background noise as the gentle hum of the nighttime Commercial District replaced it.
During the day the district was positively alive. Designated marketplaces overflowing with the shouts of hawkers and the bustling of patrons, the plazas full to bursting with humanity. Storefront doors never seemed to close, the endless chiming of entrance bells and welcoming shopkeepers contesting with the metallic growl of engines as cars meandered through. If the Northeastern Upper Class District (NEUCD for short) was the brain of the city, then the Commercial District was the ever beating heart, drawing every lien-cell to it before circulating the stuff around the city. Ruby grinned behind her mask, prime begging location.
However at night, while the heart still beat, it slowed its breakneck pace to a lazy - and usually illegal - plod. All around the district noise and life faded into the evening, and where it didn't the skull pounding musical throb of clubs and bars erupted alongside their patrons stomachs. The border with the Industrial District was different than the rest though: the giddy chatter of law abiding citizens was ousted by the muted and careful innuendo of crime, punctuated every now and then by the rushed curses and gunshots that indicated a deal gone wrong. It was rougher at night along The Border, as Valeans had come to call it, than anywhere else in the city save for the Industrial District itself. And that roughness was the reason she was here.
A face flashed in her mind as she ceased her movement and began overwatch from her perch atop a marble cornerstone. The face was slimy, coated in pockmarks and acne scars that were only outnumbered by the flopping clumps of greasy black hair in front of bulging brown eyes. The thin mouth was twisted in a permanently cruel smile with squares of blackness that indicated missing teeth. A milky white scar ran lengthwise across his chin before slipping up across his left cheek. Nix. The man was a monster, one that dealt in diluted fireblood, electric mind, and all other sorts of dust-drug mixes. Not even mentioning the straight amphetamines and pills. Exclusively dealing in extremely expensive and addictive substances, he had a habit of selling to children, human traffickers to keep their 'goods' under control, and even some high ranking and less-than-pure city officials. He ran one of the biggest dust-drug, or 'crystal', cartels in the city and was a serial rapist to boot. White teeth behind black cloth were covered by lips pressed into a thin line of distaste as Ruby mentally went over her target's deeds.
She'd be helping Vale a lot tonight.
The stark white marble of the roof around her bent into red as she launched herself across the street and onto the roof opposite her. A spiralling crimson missile bloomed into existence before fading just as fast, leaving only a swirling wake of petals that drifted to the street below.
Next left then across the dust shop and at the very top of the tower. She knew the directions by heart now after all the reconnaissance she'd done on the facility. Not that a three story townhome with a luxury tower nestled on top was hard to find, but it paid to be prepared. With the wind's applause she shot forth to the last rooftop: it was well-maintained for a roof, with only a few recent, and, by her standards, gleaming puddles mixed with barely tarnished climate control units. Old rubber soles plodded along to the Eastern corner of the rooftop where she kneeled, worn synthetic cloth meeting the coarse cement of the roof. Really need to get some kneepads, she thought as her right hand flew to the small of her back and retrieved the treasured rectangle that waited there.
A small hand clad entirely in black caressed the red-striped steel she held in her hands. She couldn't feel it, but, then again, she didn't need to; she'd memorized every ridge, every line, every scar. She knew it better than she knew her own body, she'd built it after all. She smiled despite herself, despite the morbidity of the weapon's implications; every muscle in her body relaxed as she brought the extension of herself to bear. Her thumb flicked against a tiny black switch, and her joy blossomed like the steel in her hands.
The rectangle split into three parts that each individually clanked and hissed in relief as they stretched into the stock, barrel, and receiver. Her left hand had already slipped to one of her thigh pockets, flipping it open and retrieving a high caliber dust cartridge before ramming it home at the exact moment the rifle was done transforming, a move born of years of practice.
A flame of pride ignited in her heart as she held her own little work of art in her hands. Maybe it was a little boxy to be a sniper rifle, maybe the barrel was a little too long, and maybe, just maybe, she'd gone a little overkill on the caliber, but she loved it. She loved it as much as she loved her cloak.
Alright, her left hand flashed forward and snapped the bladed bipod into the roof, let's do this.
The building in her sights was four hundred feet away and painted a delicate orange with black trim. The windows were high and arching, and each framed a different scene. Here a room housing exclusively exotic pets, there a bustling and smoke filled kitchen that spewed delicacies like it was going out of style. Through one she spotted a group of men and women in bright orange vests and glasses playing a game of cards, one woman slammed her hand to the table before launching herself at the man across from her in a frenzy of tearing cloth; the rest just coughed and carried on. Only one window was shrouded: the one directly opposite her in the middle of the tower, but it would open soon.
She waited. She hummed her favorite song. and waited some more.
For three hours she lay there, her humming muffled by the thick cloth of her mask. Silver eyes flashed behind the scope as she scanned the warm night lights of Northern Vale. Cars drove by beneath her at ever decreasing intervals and ever increasing speeds as the blackness of night invited all sorts of types out to play. She double, triple, and quadruple checked her baby, making sure not a single drop of oil or shred of metal was out of place. Her fingers idly tapped a delicate beat that her head nodded along to, but her sights remained perfectly on target. The broken moon hid behind banks of never ending clouds, peeking out randomly to evaluate her progress before returning to its fluffy blanket.
The brisk wind assaulted her face in a useless effort to chill her, and she checked to make sure her scythe was still slung across her back for the fifteenth time. Come on, come on, come on, don't change it up tonight of all nights. Her finger drummed nervously on the side of her baby, matching the hammering of her heart that filled her head.
"Come on," she muttered, the words lost in the cotton of her mouth and the hum of the city around her.
And then, with the unrestrained frustration that only someone trying to figure out wonky blinds knows, the curtain was ripped to the side and the once inky blackness of the window was replaced with a glowing room she'd all but memorized.
Her crosshairs moved instinctively, lithe and practiced fingers barely making her scope so much as shake. They hovered over her target, and her finger pulled the trigger.
Her baby bucked in her arms as it delivered three gravity-dust-augmented FMJ rounds towards her target. The breaking of the glass mixed with the bark of her third round, and then they struck home.
The first round collided with the top of Nix's head, sending it snapping back into the bookshelf behind his desk. The second and third rounds seized the opening and smacked hard into the exposed flesh of his neck, cutting off the man's yell before it had begun. Silver eyes glistened behind the emotionless red visor that was pressed against her scope. They hardened as the man barely recovered mid-fall, and the round that was supposed to have elicited the eruption of red mist from his throat was deflected by his aura. Oh no you don't. She grunted and stood, her baby barking in her arms as she continued to fire; holes burst into existence as the man's desk withered and splintered under her relentless fire, but no telltale eruption of red stained the bookcase.
"Damn," she breathed, laying her rifle down behind the lip of the roof as one hand shot up and unbuckled the sling that held her scythe in place. It hadn't even had time to fully form before she rocketed forward.
Everything around her faded to shades of red streaked with black lines. Everything except for the window and desk that were in her path. She held her still morphing scythe behind her, the familiar clanking of steel absorbed and disregarded by her mind.
A spiralling red missile of pure death shattered what was left of the window, tiny shards of glass reflecting her cardinal in an infinite fractal as they impaled themselves in the walls. Rose petals burst into being behind it, funnelling into the room with the gale of wind that followed her, scattering the glistening heralds across every surface as the distance between her and the desk evaporated. Her scythe, merely a red and silver blur behind the missile, suddenly came into focus as it flourished into being above her, slicing through the desk with the ease provided by obsessively sharpened, dust-augmented steel combined with blinding speed.
A second after the wood splintered an explosion of pure sound echoed through the room, further stunning the already shocked figure that had crouched behind the once marvelous piece of wood. His hands, one holding a worn and gold-plated revolver, shot instinctively up to his ears, eyes closing as wind overwhelmed them.
Her blade sang with joy as it met the neck of her target in a swipe that shattered his remaining aura, filling the air with a soft crack as the orange glow around him withered away.
She twisted her hands, sending the steel of her blade down into the wood of the floor with a crack. Splinters filled the air, tiny shards that bounced off her coat and aura, but pierced Nix like a thousand bees. He screamed in pain before her boot found his face, and something broke with a wet snap.
The floor released her scythe with a resigned groan, the singing blade eager to fulfill its design as she hefted it in both hands. She channeled her aura into her arms and swung.
Her target had just removed his hands from his twisted nose when the blade made contact with his neck, and the monster named Nix ceased to be.
She observed the head with practiced impassiveness as it thunked to the floor, the face still locked in a grotesque mask of pain and surprise. She turned, her crimson cloak flourishing behind her as petals streamed and flung themselves around her, accentuating the movement and turning her into something almost otherworldly.
The once magnificent room was a mess: pieces of glass that endlessly reflected her kill were embedded in the wall, bits of wood - large and small - lay scattered haphazardly about the floor, loose leaves of paper spilled from the remains of the desk in a flood of ink and pulped tree, and rose petals gently drifted through the air, spiralling to rest upon the polished hardwood floor and intricate Vacuan rug.
It was the chattering of teeth that drew her gaze first. To the side of the room, cowering behind an immensely carved and upholstered chair, was a young woman no older than twenty-five. She gripped her duster with knuckles white as snow, blue eyes that were now more pupil than anything else, snapping from the beheaded visage behind her and her own black and, now a little extra red, form.
"It's okay," she said as calmly as she could, "I'm not here to hurt you, only him."
The woman only trembled harder at the sound of her muffled and distorted voice; her mind so consumed by panic that it was unable to comprehend her words, only the gleaming steel blade that dripped life onto the floor and screamed death.
That won't work...how to help…
She snapped her fingers in revelation, the sudden crack causing the woman to flinch back in surprise. Black clad hands slipped into a pocket on the killer's thigh and pulled out the most unexpected thing.
"Here," she said, arm outstretched and holding one of her prized double chocolate chip cookies, "cookies make everything better." The woman did not - could not - move. She could only stare uncomprehendingly at the sweet that simply did not fit with the image around her.
"I promise it won't bite, in fact," she said with a devious smile the woman could not see, "you'll be the one bit-" The door burst open, slamming against the wall with a bang as the solid iron doorknob made contact with the unyielding stone. In the frame stood gangsters of all shapes and sizes, holding a various assortment of weaponry. They stood in shock, eyes wide and sprinting in their sockets in an effort to take in the scene before them.
Uh oh.
She threw the cookie like a frisbee, the weaponized treat making contact with the first goon's eye. In the same motion her head snapped back to the window and she darted toward it. The crackling of her boots on broken glass and the confused shout of 'what the fuck' faded into background noise as she activated her semblance and launched herself back out the window in a vibrant missile of red.
She landed with a roll on the roof directly across the window, bursting out of the motion in a fluid leap over the maze of ducts that lined the rooftop like veins.
"There! Across the roof, right there!"
Nope, no, there's nobody here. The roar of gunshots filled the night as the goons' submachine guns belched dust propelled lead at high speeds. The air around her was ripped and torn apart by the bullets that howled through the wind for her blood.
She zigged and zagged across the roof, her cloak obscuring her leaps and bounds as it billowed behind her, mocking the goons with its snapping and fluttering. Bullets buried themselves in the wall and ducts around her, a chorus of pings and heavy shattering of brick that penetrated the cloth covering her ears. She leapt, right foot making the briefest contact with the wall before her, before petals replaced her form.
She came to a stop five feet above the lip of what was, a few seconds ago, her sniper perch. Dammit, dammit, dammit; she took two seconds to fall back down to the concrete roof. Two seconds too long. She landed in a crouch, one hand shooting to the left to envelope the still warm barrel in a shroud of cloth. It scraped out a thanks as the stock and the cement rooftop fought.
A bullet slapped against the back of her neck before ricocheting across the rooftop and burying itself in a self dug grave of cement. Just ignore the red cloak, nothing to see here.
"Chase her, fucking chase her! Get in the cars, now!" The voice was panicked, furious, and four hundred feet too far behind her to do anything. She grinned victoriously underneath her mask as she reached the edge of rooftop furthest from the tower, a burst of twisting petals replacing her cloaked form right at the edge.
The world faded to red for the briefest of seconds before rocketing back into being around her.
She landed in a run, her tattered cloak throwing petals behind her as she heard the roar of car engines spring to life below and behind her. Baby #1 launched to the right, the glistening crescent catching on the rusted steel cylinder that formed the base of a worn electro-board. Her momentum had her rocketing around, gravity tugging at the edge of her consciousness for a second before her finger snapped a button and the blade and staff pivoted into war-scythe mode, elongating into almost a spear shape. The scythe's hold was broken, the splitting curse of metal grating across metal ceasing as her centripetal momentum redirected her to shooting over the street.
Her head snapped to the right in mid-air, the red of her visor reflecting three orange and black, speeding vans that churned and roared. She heard someone shout from them, and while she wasn't sure exactly what they said, the eruption of muzzle flashes from the windows told her it wasn't good.
Black boots landed on worn, grey concrete with a splash, shattering the oozy peace of a stagnant roof puddle. She felt bullets slash through the air behind her, but ignored them, continuing straight across the rooftop in a blur of red and black. Tires screeched below her and shouted curses broke the calm night air as the vans desperately tried to both preserve momentum and change direction. The high-pitched crumpling of metal combined with the shattering of brick erupted below, and she smiled. One down.
To an outside observer the burning crimson of her cloak would seem to envelop her body, its redness hiding her limbs behind an impenetrable shroud of solid color. At the same time, her entire form would seem to spiral, morphing into an angry bullet of pure red, of which only the tip seemed to be solid. The rest was a flurry of flaming, solid red tendrils that stretched and faded behind, swirling and morphing into rose petals that flew with equal intensity.
Twin vans roared down the streets and out of the stone mouth of twin buildings linked by a bridge, leaving behind a dancing wake of street dust and trash that flourished in the intermittent and silver light of the moon. Bullets and voices howled as they rent the tranquility of night apart and slammed into the brick and mortar of the buildings she stood upon, punctuated every now and then by a sharp crack of breaking glass and a scream.
Someone's gonna get killed if this keeps up. Her cloaked and masked head swiveled, scanning the brilliant light show that was the nighttime Vale skyline. Silver eyes locked onto a dome of sky-blue that dominated the skyline in a four block radius, and she grinned beneath the cotton of her mask. That'll do.
The dome was two blocks to her right and straight down a road crossed with glimmering blue crosswalks that lit up the solid black of the street. And, best of all, it was empty.
The shroud of spiralling red around her body vanished as she neared the curved stone crenellations of the roof before her. Warm, yellow lights baked the street below in artificial heat from a sign she could not see. Aura poured into her legs as she pushed off with her right foot and leapt into the air towards the curve. Black soles gnashed and fought against the stone, further smoothing with every powerful step she took; she could faintly feel gravity again attempt to shove all her blood and organs into her feet, but her aura stopped it cold.
The stone was beneath her feet for a solid two seconds before it vanished, leaving her flying through the air, tattered cloak flapping as petals undulated behind and around her and the scythe. If she didn't have her mask on then the whole block would've been lit up with the light reflecting off her smile. Her right hand snapped to her belt, clipping a chord to her waist, before, just as fast, shooting over to the haft of her baby and snapping onto the anchor at the bottom with a click. The shattered moon seemed to nod, and she shot off with a vengeance.
Everything but the shining blue of the dome faded away to shades of red and black as the building rushed to meet her. She flipped one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, her black boots tearing through the head of her spiral as her semblance deactivated. She twisted her wrist and snapped a button on the haft in one motion, the scythe, now on her left, clanked as it resumed its normal form. Mere seconds later metal cleaved into brick. Where metal met stone a black gash was left behind, sending chunks of brick flying indiscriminately in a plume behind her. She could feel her momentum bleeding away with every growl of the dome beneath her before, finally, she ceased, and the scythe caught.
She let go without a second thought, falling all of three feet below the shaft of her baby before the cord around her waist snapped taut. Her boots met the blue stone with a thud as the pendulum of her body swung towards it, curling inwards with the collision to lessen the blow. At the same time, her right hand shot to the rectangle of black and red steel that was clipped to the small of her back.
The cars were barrelling down the road, their engines and drivers belting obscenities almost as colorful as their paint job. Baby #2 blossomed in her grip.
The pair were two blocks away, neck and neck as guns bristled from their windows.
She brought the familiar stock to her shoulder, muscles instinctively relaxing at the intimate position.
One block away.
She centered the crosshairs exactly where Driver One's chest would be in two seconds.
Two-thousand feet.
She exhaled. And fired.
The roar of her rifle matched the first barks of their own submachine guns, which were just as quickly silenced.
A font of red sprayed across the back window of Car One, coating the people in the backseat in the blood of their comrade, but they didn't have time to process that. Immediately, the car veered to the right; Driver Two slammed on the brakes, black smoke from burning rubber erupting from behind the wheels. He almost made it, but oversteered to the left just a little too much. Car One, now horizontal to the street, finally gave in to physics, its top momentum causing it to roll end over end down the happily lit street. At the same time, Car Two clipped some poor family's stairs, flipping it onto its side as it skidded down the street in a finale of scraping steel and curtains of sparks accompanied by a mechanical growl she assumed was one of their engines.
A few bodies were flung from Car One, ragdolling across the ground and smearing the pavement red, but only a few. None came from Car Two.
It took thirty seconds for both cars to come to a rest, and all the while the faint growl grew louder. Car One was nothing but a crumpled ingot of steel, leather, and wiring that occasionally leaked blood. Car Two was a lot better off, having merely ridden its side across the, now smeared orange, pavement. Her breath burst from her mouth as she lowered her rifle, the carbon dioxide forming a cloud of barely visible air before it was whisked away by the cold night's breeze.
But yet, she couldn't quite relax, something nipped at the back of her mind, a sense that whispered danger in her ear. Her eyes went wide. The growl. The tail end of the thought was punctuated by a blinding burst of white light that, even through her visor, had her raising her hand in an attempt to stem it. Her head shot to the source of the light, eyes just able to make out the overlaid axes emblazoned on a shield and framed in a laurel that heralded the Vale Police Department.
She stiffened. Shit.
"Lay down your weapons and surrender peacefully," a mechanical voice shouted, just barely clearing the ear-shattering din of the Bullhead's engines.
She was moving before the voice even spoke, barrel flying to the spot where her scythe lay buried in the blue stone of the dome. The starting whir of a rotary cannon nipped at her ears as she fired, emptying her magazine on the anchor. One crack sent debris pinging off her visor, two cracks loosed a chunk of stone the size of her fist. Come on, baby, come on. Three had the tip of the scythe completely exposed, slipping loose as it grated across stone; she fell. Seconds later the bone shaking BRRRRRRT of a Bullhead's cannon obliterated the air, pelting her aura with\ shrapnel that bloomed from the innumerable impact points.
Her left hand just had time to grab the haft of her scythe before she shot away in a cloud of petals in the first direction she saw.
"Eep!" Her head narrowly missed the billboard that had materialized in front of it, the sparkling neon rushing past her ear in a solid whoosh of displaced air. She tucked and rolled again to recover, a spinning ball of torn red and harsh black that broke apart as quickly as it had formed. Her feet fought for a skidding stop from her roll, nearly smooth soles screeching as the pavement below furthered their flatness. Pale lips moved in unseen curses behind her mask, words drowned out by the tunnel vision of simply stopping.
Her scythe sprang to life in her hand, the neon green and blue above mixing gruesomely with the crimson stain that still clung to the blade. With a flick of her wrist and the splitting of air she slammed it into the ground beneath her, sending chunks of roof shooting in every direction. Even then it took her another two seconds and twenty feet to stop.
The high pitched wail of sirens and the occasional pop of a gun nipped at her ears as her breath came out in quick expulsions. The complete absence of the Bullhead's mechanical growl didn't have her sprinting off right away, so she must be somewhat safe. Wheeeeere am I… Her head swiveled from side to side, taking in the unfamiliar view of the familiar city around her.
To her left was nothing but an endless line of rooftops lit by the dim white of lamps far below her, in front of her was-whoa. Her scope shot to her eyes.
Directly in front of her, a little over four-hundred feet away, was the crest of The Wall. The gargantuan structure towered over the streetlamps, cars, and even buildings that rose feebly from the ground. Moonlight, flickering and silver, bounced off the solid steel that lined the floor of the walkway, dashing to the immense gun emplacements that bristled like spikes off an Ursa Major's hide. The four main cannons she could see were absolutely massive, their silver barrels large enough for her to slide down with all her gear and still have room to spare, their lights and computers glowing steadily in the night, and each one had a soldier behind them on a single seat while another scanned the ground below with what must've been nightvision binoculars.
In the consistent forty feet between each cannon were four 68mm quad-barreled rotary cannons, and three 84mm flak cannons. The rotary cannons double as flak in times of emergency, capable of firing six-thousand normal depleted dust shells or four-thousand dust enhanced shells per minute. She unconsciously inched closer. Six-barrelled flak cannons capable of firing explosive shells that, even alone, could shred an ancient nevermore into nothing but feathers and a squawk. She had left her scythe behind in her quest to just get closer to the works of art that these weapons were.
And this was just what she could see! Her mind raced as silver eyes framed by her scope lapped up every drop of Grimm Soup making beauty in her line of sight. The crest of the wall, the walkway that all this was stationed on, was over forty feet thick, and beneath it, until they reached fifty feet above the ground, every level was equally, if not more heavily, armed.
I want ten.
She stayed there for what must've been over an hour, studying every steel spring and screw that made up these death worshipping monstrosities, and she loved every second of it.
How have I not been here before?
She didn't have a watch so she didn't know exactly when she began to physically and mentally tear herself away, but she did know it was late and that it took, well, a while. It helped that the blood staining her babies was slightly more important than these graceful giants.
"One day, guys," she said, backpedalling as slowly as possible to the edge of the roof behind her, eyes still locked on their glory. Her hand gripped the handle of her scythe still buried in the ground. "One day I'm gonna take one of you apart. And it's gonna be awesome."
She turned and leapt off the roof, a figure who would've been invisible against the blackness of the night sky if it weren't for the torn, frayed, and brilliantly red cloak that framed her figure. The pure white glow of the dust lamps below, at odds with the sky blue frames they were crafted from, was gobbled up by the darkness of asphalt and tar before being recycled as brilliantly white cross walks emblazoned like tatoos against the ground. The moon peaked out from behind its blanket of moisture just to watch her as the red blur that was Ruby Rose blinked in and out of existence, replaced by a radiant bolt of red.
"Awww c'mon," she complained as her finger found yet another new hole in her cloak courtesy of Nix's cartel.
"Fuckin' dust-damn drug hustlers," she muttered as her hand fumbled sightlessly to her left for the red scraps she knew were there somewhere. Pale, calloused hands finally met soft cloth and she internally sighed in relief, shifting the needle to in between her lips as she pressed some of the cloth over the hole in an effort to gauge its size. It wasn't even near where her body would be, those guys seriously needed better guns. Or better aim.
Milky hands criss-crossed with tiny, faded scars flitted across her cloak, looping the needle in and out of the soft fabrics as she patched them together. Though she had only started damage control sewing, as she called it, this year she'd had plenty of opportunities to practice with how often her cloak got filled with holes and tears. Her lips pressed into a thin line on her face. Doesn't make it cheap though; easily a whole day or four's earnings down the drain for just a single bolt of cloth. Either she needed to get better or make more money. Her jaw locked. Get better it is.
Her eyes roved longingly across the temptation that was her bed while she worked; she reeeaaally wanted to sleep, but she also knew that she had to get this done now or these tiny holes would bloom into full blown rips the next time she 'hit the town.'
She'd already done her weapon maintenance first thing once she got back, fawning over her babies with rag and oil. Her scythe was perfectly fine, not a single nick in the steel crescent, but that didn't stop her from running her whetstone over it relentlessly just for good measure. Her sniper rifle had a few new scrapes and gouges on the stock from where it'd fought with the concrete, but it was nothing an hour of polishing couldn't fix.
Which brought her to her current, and a lot less fun, situation: wardrobe repair, AKA: Cloak City. It wasn't that the rest of her gear was undamaged, it was just that, well, this was her cloak. As much as she hated to admit it she could always find another jacket or mask or what have you, but her cloak had been with her from the beginning of it all, through Patch, the mainland, and now Vale.
Patch…
Her mind played through all her happier memories of the island, before the fall. A game of tag with Yang in the undisturbed, perfect blanket of white on winter mornings, baking double chocolate chip cookies with her dad and laughing as they came out as lumps of coal, getting the new puppy Zwei and finally having someone who had as much energy as she did, two too many blonds that, in their own twisted realities, thought their horrible puns were funny. They almost made her smile, almost made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but they didn't. Couldn't. Every single one was tainted, every memory buzzing with the muted undercurrent of bitterness and resentment that skittered underneath them like rats under the floorboards of a warehouse. She couldn't see it, but she could feel it, and, even now, it still hurt.
"Stupid promises," she mumbled under her breath, pale fingers even whiter from the lack of blood her clenched fists permitted to them.
Stupid family, stupid hunters, her eyes dilated slightly in anger, stupid Grimm.
Stop it, a voice in the back of her mind whispered, you know this leads to nowhere.
She sighed, consciously forcing her thoughts of what used to be her home to the back of her mind. She dug the needle into her finger, her aura flared and protested, but the pain gave her something to focus on.
She shoved all thoughts away and let the constant sewing consume her mind.
It took her a solid fifteen seconds to realize she'd been resewing the same hole over and over again. Her mouth morphed into a frown, well at least that won't tear any more. Her eyes grazed her treasured white thread, waste of thread though.
She leapt to her feet as fast as she could, her arms stretched to their limit in a vain attempt to touch the roof. She relished in the pops that resonated through her body, combined with the perfect burn of stretching stiff muscles.
Her legs brought her to her bed and she smiled as she plopped onto her straw and cotton filled "mattress" with a moan of pleasure voiced by every muscle in her body. It was definitely not the longest period of time she'd ran and used her semblance for, that title went to her two day long nonstop retreat from a Goliath. But still, it was nice to lay down.
She sighed a contented sigh that skipped around her container. The stale morning air of the docks whistled a lively tune as it snaked its way through the tiny gap she'd left in the container doors. It smelled of salt, dead fish, and industry, but she didn't care. It was nice to rest. The briefest of thoughts of checking the sketch under her bed flew to the front of her mind before being almost instantly slapped down by a voice that pleaded for sleep.
She knew she should be heading to the Commercial District to nab a good spot for the day, but she just couldn't find it in herself to actually care.
She slipped into a well deserved sleep with a smile still gracing her face.
A/N: Welcome back to Sanguine! First off, wow, was not expecting such a huge response to chapter one (not really that big in the grand scheme of things, but it's huge to me)! Second off, I'm really really glad you guys liked the first chapter so much!
This chapter, oh boy, this chapter is a doozy. Longest single chapter I've ever released I think, and definitely a lot of fun to write. Funnily enough, the first draft of this chapter actually didn't have a chase scene; it wasn't until I was reading this last week (about to release it then) that I was kinda like "Huh, you know what would be awesome? A chase scene." So I shoved some stuff to the side/deleted some lines and placed it in. Suffice to say that I enjoyed writing it.
Anyway, loaded chapter for a lot of stuff, hope you guys like it! Hope y'all have a good day, and stay safe!
November 30th, 2016: Dream sequence edited out and added to the very start of Chapter Three to help with super clumped and awkward pacing.
May 17th, 2017 Editing: Reread the chapter and revised the grammar, phrasing, and word choice to make it less messy. I think it flows better, but that might just be me. Chapter Six will be posted later today!