"Do not fuck with me, gentlemen; I'll destroy you."
--Vlad Taltos, _Yendi_


"What the fuck is the *matter* with you assholes?" he spat, feeling his shin for any breaks, teeth bared at the others. "Didn't you get her like I said?""

"Oh, fucking shit, Alfonse, oh *shit*...."

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, ASSHOLE! Why didn't you get her?"

A somewhat more coherent member managed.... "We tried. But....something.....some *thing*.....it came up and attacked Tyrell....knocked 'im out. It was fuckin' *huge*... It was like some horse with *arms*, man, all slimy..."

"Quit shittin' me! You were just a chicken!"

"I was NOT, man! We tried to stop it, but firin' at it didn't even slow it! So help me! Then it took off after the bitch. If we stayed it could of killed us all!"

Alfonse spat, crooked teeth bared as he tried to wipe away the clotting blood from the parallel nail-rakes on his face, the gesture of someone who loved control and who was enraged by having it doubly thwarted. "Fuckin' chicken, I oughta--"

"'Scuse me--there something of a problem?"

The new voice drawled into his rant, breaking it off in mid-breath.

The gathered gangbangers looked up, hands going to guns at the sight of the lean figure ambling towards their position, hair haloing in a silver shine under the few functioning streetlights. Behind his right shoulder the hilt and stylized bat-winged crossguard of a massive broadsword protruded, glinting dully as did the crimson leather of the coat underneath it. The posture was swaggeringly insouciant, but the eyes faintly seen gleaming under the ghostly bangs were anything but.

"None of your fuckin' business, man--"

"Man, you like the F word. What, don't get enough of it to satisfy you?" The stranger's mouth smirked. The stranger's eyes didn't. "Or, like, didn't you get far enough in school to learn any more vocab?"

A gunshot report smacked through the nearby buildings. Alfonse grinned viciously, only to have it smeared away from his mouth as the newcomer swiftly sidestepped the bullet even as the report still echoed.

"Man, and here I was trying to be friendly. No helping some people, I guess."

"Fuck off!"

"Yup, no creativity whatsoever." He drew up about ten feet away from the main body of the stunned group. "So. Did a girl come by here?" One elegant platinum eyebrow arched at the clotted blood on Alfonse's face. "Looked like. 'Parently, your dating habits need work too."

"I don't have to tell you nothin', pretty boy! So why don't you just go and--"

A second gun report broke the rant off into a scream of pain.

The black-gloved hand twirled a silver .45 idly as the hand's owner surveyed it with detached interest, then shifting to Alfonse, who was whimpering and grasping his wounded leg, which now also sported blood on the inside of the knee.

"Sheesh. Quit whining, I only grazed you. It was just a warning shot." The .45 then suddenly aimed rock steady at the knee full on, the voice gone utterly cold.

"The next won't be."

The gang shifted uncomfortably, feeling the disadvantage, then stopped dead as a second .45 was suddenly black in the impostor's left hand, aimed at the nearest members just as unshakably as the silver was at their leader.

Now." The man's voice was arctic. "You *will* tell me what happened, and you *will* tell me which direction she went. Yesterday. Because if you *don't*, I'll start on knees and work my way from there. The same for the rest of you." The rose gold of a sodium vapor lamp reflected off the silver of the eyes, turning them cerise. "I have had a *fucking /bad/* day and I'm ready to share it around if any of you hold out on me or so much as *blink* ugly. /Do you hear me?/" The light from the lamp was suddenly blocked as he subtly shifted, but it did nothing to change the reddish shade of the shadowed eyes.

"I.....okay, man." Another gang member let out a shaky breath. "We'll talk. We'll talk."

"Wow." came the sarcastic drawl. "Someone with sense here. GOOD boy." Those eyes ratcheted on him. "Talk. Now."