The Hammer Falls
[Red-Light District, 1:00PM]
"HQ, this is Operative Lie. We are in position to assault the warehouse" Ren spoke quietly, glancing around the corner of an alley to peer at the seemingly-abandoned structure in front of him.
"Rodger, Operative" a SWAT officer replied. "Heat signatures reveal twenty hostiles, proceed when ready."
"Ready?" Ren asked, moving back from the end of the alley and swinging into the seat of his VCT-issued hoverbike.
"Ready!" Nora replied cheerily, holding Magnhild in grenade launcher form as she sat behind Ren and wrapped an arm around his waist for stability.
"Alright" Ren said, soundlessly starting the vehicle. "Prepare to breach."
He flew the bike out of the alley and gunned the silent engine, bearing down on the large loading doors. Nora rested the barrel of Magnhild against his shoulder and fired a single round, the grenade arcing through the air and blowing most of the door to smithereens as they passed. Once inside, Ren made a quick sweep of the area with his eyes and aura. Most of the thugs were on the ground floor, though a few were busy on catwalks above. All were stunned by their dramatic entrance, and had little time to react as Nora continued to fire grenades in a haphazard fashion. Shouting for Nora to dismount, Ren braked and turned hard, sending Nora sailing through the air. She laughed maniacally as Magnhild shifted into its warhammer form, cratering the floor and sending an unfortunate thug flying with the impact of her landing. Ren used the rotating momentum of the bike to his advantage, slipping one Stormflower free of its holster and firing short bursts at the thugs on the catwalks above.
Completing a 180 turn, he again gunned the engine and sped away from Nora, avoiding the return fire that the ten or so remaining thugs had just managed to muster. Cutting the forward propulsion and shifting all power to the suspension, Ren forced the hoverbike into the air, leaping from the sturdy machine at the apex of its flight. Grabbing the barrel of a thug's rifle with his free hand, Ren buried the blade of his Stormflower in the thug's shoulder, twisted his hand, and pulled the trigger. The man's body fell limp against the railing, his weight balancing Ren's as he flipped the thug's rifle around and fired wildly at the other catwalks, the heavier rounds making his aim horrible but tearing through metal and flesh alike. After ensuring that the thugs were indeed cowering for cover, Ren hauled himself over the railing and onto the catwalk, dropping the rifle and drawing his second Stormflower.
During this time Nora had not been idle. She had been dashing from thug to thug, braining them with swift blows from Magnhild. Her manic giggling hadn't ceased, and most of the remaining criminals were now more focused on escape than on standing their ground. Still, few could match the bubbly bomber's athleticism, and all went down before her rage.
"No! NO PLEASE!" one thug screamed, struggling to free his leg from beneath a piece of debris.
"Sorry-not-sorry~" Nora sang, bringing Magnhild down in a clean overhand strike.
"Die, bitch!" a particularly large thug shouted, hefting a machine gun and setting Nora in the crosshairs.
His head snapped back with a short burst of crimson, his knees buckling and the gun briefly discharging harmlessly into the air as Ren spared a moment to fire over his shoulder. Nora returned the favor by launching a grenade upwards, detonating it just beneath two thugs on the upper walkway and sending them tumbling down through four stories of open air. Ren jumped after them, a barrage of bullets ensuring that the job was finished as he landed with a tight roll. He rose with his Stormflowers in hand, performing a rapid sweep of the area both with his eyes and with his aura. Nora followed suit, though she mostly just turned in random directions and kept a firm finger on Magnhild's trigger.
"Stand down, Nora" Ren finally said, lowering his weapons and activating his comms. "HQ, the warehouse is secure. Proceed with the operation."
"Rodger, operative" a SWAT officer replied. "Proceeding as planned. APC inbound in three minutes."
"Understood" Ren replied, shutting off his comms and glancing around at the destruction he and his partner had caused. "Alright Nora, let's clean up a little before our guests arrive."
"Sure!" Nora agreed, slinging Magnhild over her shoulders and proceeding to drag the bodies of her victims into an out-of-the-way pile.
I wonder how you're doing... Ren mused, his mind on a certain cat faunus as he helped his partner with the bodies. Will you succeed? Or will I have to delay my vengeance even longer?
[Abandoned High Rise, Red-Light District]
"Station 1, online" Neptune said, closing and locking the access panel on a small cylindrical device in front of him.
"Station 2, online" Scarlet whispered through his comms, doing the same to his own cylindrical device on a nearby rooftop.
"..." a short, low tone from Sage's comms indicated that station 3 was also online.
"And... triangulation complete" Neptune announced, shifting from his kneeling position to a comfortable prone one. "Thanks for the setup, Scarlet."
"Whatever" Scarlet returned, his voice accompanied by the pattering of quick footfalls. "I have my own mission, you know."
Neptune sighed as Scarlet's line went dead, he had always had trouble socializing with the red-haired assassin, though not due to a lack of effort. He had a nagging suspicion that he had only been put in charge of Scarlet as a scapegoat, someone to take the fall if the reclusive and violent assassin ever got out of hand. Pushing those depressing thoughts aside, he pulled his plasma rifle off of his back and gazed through the scope. The weapon took only a few seconds to calibrate itself to the triangulation grid, and soon enough the abandoned high rise looked a lot less abandoned as aura signatures moved within its walls. He took a deep breath, the early afternoon air ruffling against his hair as he repeatedly filled and emptied his lungs. He was waiting for Sage to signal him, indicating that he was ready to breach. Scanning with the scope, he saw two aura signatures on the floor just below the penthouse flash from yellow to red, the kill signal. Setting his sights and taking one last deep breath, he locked his lungs and squeezed off two shots. The aura signatures instantly winked out, and a third aura, glowing green to designate a teammate, quickly ziplined from a neighboring building down to the now-unguarded corridor.
Neptune let his breath flow out smoothly, scanning Sage's general area for others who could have been alerted. So far, nothing seemed to have changed. He took a moment to offer a prayer of apology to the two lives he had just ended, the soft mutterings only vaguely assuaging his guilt. He wasn't second-guessing his choice of profession. On the contrary, he had signed up for the military in order to honor his family's sacrifices during both the First and Second Human-Faunus Wars, and had participated in multiple counter-terrorism operations. But this was different. Before he had been killing militants, extremists who seemingly held no morals or honor. But these people were just thugs, criminals for hire. Sure, they carried weapons and talked big, but how many of them had really committed crimes serious enough to warrant death without a trial? Despite what General Arc had claimed, he was certain that this 'cleansing' of the city was the least elegant way to go about eliminating a group of vigilantes.
Several flashing aura signatures broke his ruminations, and he cursed his wandering brain. Not bothering to steady his breath, he squeezed off four shots in rapid succession. Three auras winked out immediately, the fourth fell backwards and dimmed significantly. Sage's green form descended upon it, and when the musclebound infiltrator rose, the thug's aura was gone. Neptune, however, was only half aware of his teammate's actions, busy as he was with dropping two targets who were fleeing around a corner. If they made it deeper into the building, it was possible that his rifle wouldn't have enough stopping power to kill them through all the intervening material. One went down without resistance, but the other ducked and weaved in a random pattern, and though Neptune was certain that he had landed a glancing shot, the thug made it deep enough into the building to avoid additional fire.
"They'll know we're here in a minute" Neptune informed Sage. "Get up to that penthouse, now!"
As Sage's low tone of agreement came over the line, Neptune settled back into his breathing pattern and leaned into his rifle, taking aim at the roving figures in the penthouse. A breath, a full exhale, a deep breath, locking his lungs, and no more than three shots before exhaling and repeating. Though somewhat of a slow cycle, it reliably dropped at least two targets each time, weakening the penthouse defenses as Sage stormed through the floor just below. Unfortunately, the consistency of Neptune's accuracy eventually worked against him, the remaining thugs divining his position and taking the best cover they could as they blindly returned fire. Neptune sank even lower into the ground, thumbing a switch on his rifle and waiting as the familiar hum wound up.
"Plasma fire, inbound" he said as the hum reached its critical high pitch, warning Sage just as he pulled the trigger.
A bolt of sapphire plasma, roughly ten centimeters in diameter and almost triple that in length erupted from the barrel of his rifle, speeding through the empty air to collide solidly with one of the penthouse's windows. The glass shattered from the heat difference, and the destructive projectile crashed into the far wall, setting it ablaze and rapidly elevating the room's temperature. Most of the aura signatures fled instantly, running towards the main penthouse door only to be cut down by the implacable Sage. One however, mildly stronger than the rest, did not. Thumbing a second switch to warn Sage of the remaining figure, Neptune switched his attention to the few remaining aura signatures in the lower floors and signaled the waiting SWAT teams to strike, buying his teammate enough time to finish the job and exit the building.
Sage stood amidst the ruins of the penthouse lobby, his fist still outstretched from his last meteoric punch and the blue glow of plasma fire lending his dark skin a mysterious cast. He heard a string of slow, sarcastic claps, and he retracted his arm and turned to face the last criminal standing. He looked to be either in his late teens or early twenties, with slicked-back grey hair, a black leather outfit, and weaponized anklets. Sage recognized him to be Mercury Black, the overconfident martial artist.
"You're pretty good" Mercury complimented, raising his hands and flicking his fingers forwards Sage as he settled into his stance. "But I'm better."
Sage merely shrugged, mentally reviewing his current dust levels as he settled into his own stance. He barely blinked and Mercury was in his face, delivering a flying roundhouse that he instantly ducked to avoid. Rising, he grasped Mercury's rotating body and bridged backwards, bashing his head into the floor with an improvised suplex. Scrambling back to his feet, Sage grunted as a low caliber round struck him in the side, Mercury's anklets pistoning back for another shot. Willing himself to ignore the bruise that was already forming, Sage flared his aura and released a small amount of dust from his tattoos, creating a temporary shield that took Mercury's followup shots and gave him enough time to prepare his final move. Bringing his arms down in a powerful grab, Sage hauled Mercury up by the shoulders and hurled him bodily into the wall engulfed in plasma fire. Flaring his aura and giving it access to the veins of dust tattooed on his forearms, he stepped forwards and pinned the criminal against the wall, the extreme heat feeling like nothing more than a summer breeze against his aura-protected skin.
It was only a handful of seconds before Mercury went limp, and Sage dropped the corpse and backed away before his clothes caught on fire. He looked down at the smoldering body a little guiltily, finally reaching down to fold the criminal's arms over his abdomen and close what remained of his eyes. Like Neptune, he wasn't quite sure that this string of operations was the best way to encourage the vigilantes to give up, and he viewed these deaths as unnecessary tragedies. Still, he rarely questioned orders, knowing that he was rarely given the whole picture to see. Signaling Neptune over his comms, he made his way slowly out of the building to meet up with his partner and regroup at the warehouse, as per their orders. He just wished that the day would end with a minimum of bloodshed.
[Unidentified Safehouse, Red-Light District]
"Well?" Coco asked, leaning back against the unfinished wall of a long-unused apartment.
"Hmm" Yatsuhashi replied, slowly rising from his kneeling position. "It would seem as though the safehouse has only fifteen guardians, none of which appear to be Cinder, Roman, or Neopolitan."
"Okay" Coco grinned, throwing a glance over her shoulder at the SWAT officer standing by the door. "Get your men ready, captain. We're going to breach and clear from the front door, from the roof, and from the side door your man found earlier. Wait on my signal."
"Yes sir" the officer replied, jogging off down the hall while relaying the orders to his men.
"You ready for this?" Coco asked, readjusting her handbag and watching through a window as the SWAT team took up positions around the nondescript storefront across the street.
"It's just a breach and clear" Yatsuhashi replied, opening the window and judging the distance he had to jump. "Nothing we haven't done a hundred times already."
"True" Coco admitted. "Think you can make it across in one go?"
"That depends" Yatsuhashi said, and Coco could hear the smirk on his face.
"On what?" Coco took the bait, knowing that Yatsuhashi liked to make at least one joke before each mission.
"On how many bullets you're carrying" he replied, glancing back at her with a twinkle in his eyes. "My back still hurts from last time, when you insisted on bringing all those high-explosive rounds."
"Hey, it wasn't my fault that we nearly blew up" Coco retorted, climbing onto Yatsuhashi's broad back. "A sniper got a lucky shot, is all."
"Whatever" Yatsuhashi grinned, backing up a few paces before sprinting at the open window.
With a powerful aura-infused leap, he sailed across the street and landed lightly on top of the safehouse, already making for the rooftop access door. Coco was right behind him, signaling the SWAT teams to move in as he kicked down the door and took the staircase at a sprint. He burst through another door and into a sort of office space, his sudden entrance not provoking an immediate response. Some of the thugs were sleeping, some were cleaning weapons, still others were playing cards around a table. The ones with faster reaction times were glancing up at him, the traces of surprise slowly beginning to show on their faces. Then the telltale rattling of Coco's chaingun reached his ears, and he dived to the side as all hell broke loose. SWAT officers breached the offices from two sides at once, shouting for the criminals to surrender as Coco fired a few warning shots into the ceiling. Most of the criminals were stunned into compliance, and the few who reached for their weapons were quickly subdued. From his prone position, however, Yatsuhashi saw a sixteenth figure, one who he had not managed to catch with his aura sweep, dive through a grate in the floor. Wasting no time on explanations, he ignored Coco's surprised shout and followed the figure, somehow fitting his much larger figure down into the grate. Crawling as quickly as he could, he followed the muffled scuffling ahead of him to a ventilation grate outside, already displaced. Forcing himself out of the grate, he quickly found himself facing two pistols directly above his eyes.
"Move and you're a dead man" came a feminine voice, and Yatsuhashi could see just enough of the girl's figure to recognize her as Emerald Sustrai. Reacting in the middle of her sentence, he swatted both weapons aside and twisted his body, wrapping his ankles around one of Emerald's and yanking back.
She fell gracefully, extricating herself from his improvised grasp and rolling to the side. She brought one of her pistols up to fire, but instead turned it to the side and flicked a switch, shifting the weapon into the shape of a kama just in time to deflect Yatsuhashi's own massive sword. Using the momentum of his blade, he flipped himself back up onto his feet and settled into his guard, his eyes never leaving Emerald's form. She elected to roll to her feet, her second pistol shifting into a kama as well as she stared him down. They both moved in the same instant, Yatsuhashi bringing his sword up and Emerald swiping one kama down and the other to the side as they charged each other. Feeling Emerald's weapon pressing down on his blade, Yatsuhashi slid one hand down the back of his sword and levered the hilt upwards, catching Emerald across the face with a nasty punch. He pressed his advantage as she stumbled back, flaring his aura and sliding his blade diagonally upwards across her left forearm.
With a hissed curse of pain, Emerald reflexively dropped her kama, and Yatsuhashi quickly brought his foot down on the weapon. Even as the crunch of bent metal rewarded his efforts, Emerald used his partly-open stance to drive her remaining kama deep into his side, flaring her own aura and twisting the blade. Before he could bring his sword down in retaliation, she had driven her wounded hand into his gut in an aura-infused palm thrust. Yatsuhashi stumbled back a few paces, pain lancing up his side as he focused his own aura on bringing his spasming diaphragm back under control. Taking advantage of his temporary daze, Emerald shifted her kama back into a pistol and lined up her shot with a grin on her face. A single shot rang out, and Emerald screamed as her right knee buckled in a small explosion of red. Yatsuhashi looked up to see Coco, flanked by a SWAT officer, standing in the mouth of the side alley, her chaingun still deployed.
"This is the part where I'm supposed to read you your rights" she said, disengaging her weapon and reaching for her cuffs as Yatsuhashi stepped forward and leveled his blade with Emerald's neck. "But since I'm with the VCT, I hereby declare that as of-what time is it?"
"One fifteen" Yatsuhashi replied instantly.
"As of one fifteen of this date" Coco continued, flipping Emerald onto her stomach and cuffing the criminal's wrists together. "That the civil rights of Emerald Sustrai are hereby suspended pending further investigation."
"Bullshit!" Emerald complained loudly. "You can't fucking do this to me! I demand a lawyer."
"Actually" Yatsuhashi broke in, sheathing his blade over his back. "We can. Isn't that right, officer?"
"Indeed it is" the SWAT officer who had been flanking Coco replied, hauling Emerald to her feet. "As long a VCT operative has two witnesses, they can legally suspend the civil rights of anyone they so choose."
"Fuck this shit!" Emerald swore, struggling as best she could against her captor while launching into an impressive bilingual tirade.
"Noisy, isn't she?" Coco commented as the officer dragged Emerald out of sight.
"Mhmm" Yatsuhashi replied, nodding. "She had potential, though. A pity she twisted the teachings of Haven to pursue this dark path."
"What is it with you Havenites and your propensity to philosophize about your own culture?" Coco asked jokingly.
"I'm not sure" Yatsuhashi admitted, only now checking the wound in his side. "I'll try to figure it out once I see a medic."
"Good idea" Coco winced, glancing at the wound and offering an arm of support as they walked back to their APC.
[Harper's Wharf, Red-Light District]
To the casual observer, Harper's Wharf was a mess of warehouses, decrepit moorings, and a rotating stock of shipping containers. The addition or subtraction of a few objects or people wouldn't make a difference to the overall appearance. To the denizens of the Red-Light district that called Harper's Wharf home, however, the addition of three unmarked shipping crates made all the difference. They had simply appeared there overnight, and rumors abounded that anyone who had seen them being placed had simply disappeared. As such, everyone was on edge, looking over their shoulders more than usual and hustling along with an added vigor in their step. It was among this fearful community that Scarlet walked, his combat fatigues covered by a nondescript trenchcoat and his head held high. He barely needed to consult the map that had been programmed into his scroll, he was drawn towards the captive Grimm by instinct alone. He paused in front of the shipping containers, nodding in approval as he sensed that his pack had not been harmed by the journey.
Pulling a small case from his pocket, he shrugged the trenchcoat off and stretched his thin frame in every direction, eliciting a short burst of satisfying cracks and pops. With fingers shaking from excitement, he carefully accessed a hidden keypad on the first shipping container, typing in a passcode and setting a timer for ninety seconds. Repeating the process with the other two containers, he finally undid the clasp of the case, flipping the lid back and grasping the single hypodermic syringe it contained. Tugging aside the collar of his fatigues, he eagerly inserted the needle and injected himself with his 'medicine'. The effect was instantaneous. He felt a dryness at the back of his throat, pressure building behind his temples. He braced himself with his feet set wide, clutching his skull and moaning in both agony and ecstasy as his vision blacked out, a roaring filled his ears, and hatred burned like fire under his skin.
Then the sensations stopped, and everything was right in the world again. He opened his eyes, gazing about with satisfaction. He had missed the familiar red tinge, the faint distortion, the great distance at which he could see. He pushed himself off the ground where he had fallen, and no lingering traces of pain could be felt. He inhaled deeply, smelling everything from the vaguely salty water behind him to the metal of the shipping containers to the stench of human fear that permeated this place like a fine perfume. His ears twitched, the releasing of multiple deadbolts ringing far louder than it should have. He turned to face the opening containers, grinning as he was greeted by three sets of glowing red eyes.
"Yes..." he murmured, reaching out with his mind to feel their dark, void-like souls, the mark of a true apex predator. He knew that his own soul was rapidly shriveling to match theirs, and he eagerly awaited the day when he could stand as their Alpha in truth, rather than by science.
The beowolves slowly crept from their crates, sniffing the air around them even as their gazes locked on to Scarlet. He growled, an assertive gesture. Only one growled back, a relative newcomer who had just recently joined his pack after one had died. Scarlet snarled, adopting an aggressive stance as he locked gazes with this unruly pup. The other two beowolves backed off, giving Scarlet and the newcomer plenty of room. The beowolf howled, rearing back and spreading its forelimbs wide. Scarlet returned the gesture, charging forwards to swipe at the grimm's unprotected chest. Though his arm was blocked by the beowolf's own, his strike connected with the force of a small car, knocking the grimm aside. Jumping onto its back, Scarlet wrapped his arms around its neck and opened his mouth wide, clamping down on its neck hard enough to draw blood. The beowolf whined, trying to buck him off as he growled, twisting his head and tearing out a small portion of the grimm's flesh. This ritual was common among grimm packs, with those who desired leadership having to claim it from the rest. Subdued, the formerly unruly beowolf placidly took its place next to the other two, and Scarlet nodded in satisfaction. Looking up at the warehouses around him, he howled an inhuman howl, signaling the beginning of the hunt.
[Nearby...]
It was a fairly average day for Harper' Wharf, Neo thought, looking around at the warehouse slowly bustling with thugs. Lethargic, dull, and filled with work that was apparently important to Cinder's plans. In short, it was a day that she could have spent far more productively out on the streets. Still, Cinder was paying her good money and Roman had told her to go along with it, so she sighed and resigned herself to another average day of overseeing this one area of the city. Maybe she'd go out in a few minutes, relish standing in the vaguely salty air, and enter another warehouse that would have more or less the same level of activity. That belief was shattered by a savage howl from outside, followed by three more.
"Well" she said, opening her parasol and resting it over her shoulder as a beowolf crashed through the front door. "This just got interesting."
The thugs were slow to react, most still unnerved by the howl and utterly terrified at seeing an actual grimm. Thus, several died as the first beowolf, followed by two more, began to rampage through the warehouse. Neo shrugged, striding forward and idly twirling her parasol. Situations like this was why Cinder was paying her, after all. The first beowolf had nearly reached her, roaring and howling and generally making a nuisance of himself. Neo closed and swiped her parasol across its face in punishment, catching its attention. She parried its enraged swipe and backflipped away from the followup ground pound, drawing the thin blade from the handle of her parasol in the same motion. Still elegant, she flashed up to the beowolf's neck, grasped one of its spines for balance, and rammed her blade through the base of its skull.
At least, that's what she tried to do. Just as she lifted the blade to strike, she felt a sudden weight collide with her side, hurling her from the beowolf's back and onto the floor. Landing on her feet, she looked up to see a demon straight from hell looking back at her. He was moderately tall and surprisingly thin, combining with his pale skin to give him a malnourished appearance. His red hair hung low over one of his eyes, but the other shone like a blazing red beacon of hatred and crazed malevolence. Most disturbing of all were the red veins pulsing across his skin, turning his snarling face into a grimm-like mask. She had no further time to contemplate the newcomer's appearance, as he flew from the monster's back with a primal ferocity that she had rarely seen. Sidestepping, she brought the shaft of her parasol down on the back of his head, fully intending to bring her blade up into his neck as he stumbled. However, he barely reacted at all to the descending parasol, rebounding immediately and catching her blade across his forearm. A few drops of blood seeped through the thin cut, and he grinned at her.
"You..." he said, his face contorting in concentration, as if it were hard for him to remember the words. "You are... like... me..."
He lashed out at her, and again Neo marveled at his speed and ferocity. He barely looked human, even if she was certain that he was, and he definitely didn't act human. Still, Neo prided herself on being a realist. There was very little that she could do for this warehouse, or even for Cinder's operations on Harper's Wharf, against this obviously superior foe. Taking one of the few options left to her, she turned her tail and ran. It was a welcome sensation, running, an easy pattern of movement that she settled into. She heard an inhuman scream behind her, and suddenly three sets of heavy, quadruped footfalls were crashing behind her, getting closer by the second.
Okay... Neo thought, lining up her run straight at the wall. So he can command grimm? That's fair.
So thinking, she ran straight into the wall and disappeared in a burst of light, appearing on the other side and continuing to run. The beowolves merely crashed through the wall, howling and still hot on her heels. Grimacing, Neo bent her knees slightly and prepared to jump, intending to blink up to the rooftops and effect her getaway from there. As before, she felt the familiar weight hit her from behind, and her concentration slipped as she writhed, twisting in her opponent's grip and driving the side of her palm into his temple. His head twitched a little, but his grip merely tightened, his deceptively strong arms slowly crushing the life out of her. Neo grunted in pain, wriggling her sword hand until it was relatively free of his crushing embrace, and repeatedly drove her thin blade into his stomach. Any ordinary man would have at least expressed pain on his face. Her assailant merely grinned, a dribble of blood slowly running down one corner of his mouth. By the fourth strike, her blade was turned aside by an unyielding surface, and try though she might, she couldn't pierce it.
"Ossi..." the man hissed, his eye narrowing in concentration. "Ossifi- ossification" Neo's eyes widened in surprise and pain as his grip redoubled, and she could barely keep herself from crying out. Regardless of this man's abilities, she was rapidly losing the ability to breathe. She needed to leave now, before she ended up as an early afternoon snack for the waiting beowolves. Looking up at the rooftops, her swimming gaze saw a figure in black watching impassively. Hoping against hope, she focused what remained of her will and blinked up next to him.
The sheet metal of the warehouse rooftop was warm against her cheek, the surprised growling of the beowolves far below her now. She still could hardly breathe, and her struggles were growing weaker by the second. She was almost certain that she had heard a rib crack just before she blinked. Then the pressure around her was gone, and she sucked in great breaths of air, not really caring how pathetic she looked. An argument was going on behind her, one she didn't pay much attention to until a familiar sound reached her ears: the sound of metal shearing through bone. She turned to see the figure in black, a mature-looking man, spinning with a scythe across his shoulders, the blade just then coming free of the opposite side of her assailant's neck. The man in black reversed his spin, flipping the rifle end for end twice as the blade retracted, raising the weapon to his shoulder and firing three times down into the street. The howling of the beowolves instantly stopped.
Neo, now mostly recovered, nearly froze as her savior turned to look at her. His black cloak fluttered slightly in the breeze, his face covered by a black filter mask. Blood still dripped from the blade of his scythe, retracted now to form a curious place for a handhold between the curved blade and the shaft, and a few wisps of gas still drifted from the end of the barrel. His grey eyes were stern, and his body language informed her that he would kill her at the slightest provocation. Her eyes glanced down at her blade and parasol, only a few inches away and yet too far for her to reach surreptitiously. Glancing back up, she saw a look in the man's eyes that clearly said "don't try it." The tense standoff lasted for several more seconds, her savior looking like he was wrestling with an internal question or problem. Apparently coming to some sort of solution, he nodded, flourished his scythe as he stowed it beneath his cloak, ran the three steps it took him to get to the edge, and jumped, disappearing in a burst of black rose petals.
Severely confused at this turn of events, Neo simply sat there for a few seconds while her jumbled brain finally worked out an answer: no matter what was going on, she needed to tell Roman.
[The Beacon Tavern]
"Hi, and welcome to the Beacon Tavern" a friendly, female voice greeted, and Blake just barely kept herself from flinching at its enthusiasm. She looked over at the bar to see a grinning blonde of about her own age leaning against it, her hands under her chin.
"Hello" Blake replied cautiously, slowly stepping up to the bar and choosing the stool closest to the door.
"Fair warning" the blonde said, apparently unsurprised by her caution. "The restaurant portion is temporarily closed while our head chef is on vacation, so all we have is bar snacks and drinks."
"That'll be fine" Blake replied, glancing up at the menu. "I'll have the tuna melt and a glass of water."
"Good choice" the blonde complemented, reaching for a glass over her shoulder. "HEY SUN, GET US A TUNA MELT OUT HERE!"
"YOU GOT IT!" a male voice came back through the kitchen door, and Blake set her jaw against screaming at the blonde's sudden shout. It wasn't that she couldn't handle loud noises, it was just that it had been almost directly in all four of her ears.
"There you go" the blonde said, setting the glass of water before her.
"Thank you" Blake replied, taking a sip. She waited for the blonde to go away, to leave her alone so that she could solidify her mental map of the district. That, however, seemed like an improbable occurrence.
"So..." the blonde began, smiling at her. "What brings a cute girl like you to a district like this?" Blake nearly choked on her second sip of water, somehow recovering and getting the liquid down with a minimum of discomfort. She had forgotten to think up a suitable lie.
"Well..." she mumbled, grabbing a napkin from a nearby box and wiping her lips. "You see..."
"One tuna melt!" the same male voice announced, and Blake looked up to see a rather handsome young man, evidently 'Sun', standing in the doorway. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn't put her finger on what. It took her a moment to realize that he was also staring at her with a look of concentration. As soon as she did, however, he was suddenly in front of her, smiling and sliding the plate under her nose.
"A beautiful dish for a beautifu-" he barely finished his sentence before getting smacked upside the head by his female counterpart.
"You'll have to excuse him" the blonde apologized. "He tends to hit on anything that has a pair and a pulse." Blake nodded in disinterested agreement, and instead focused on the sandwich before her. Sun had been right about one thing, though. It was a beautiful tuna melt.