A/N: Lots more violence in this chapter. Given it involves Adel in his 'darker mode', it can get pretty graphic, so head's up.
Looking over, Adel sat by the wall of the dingy, abandoned building that they were hanging out in, waiting to get the signal. Whip moved closer, seeing him look up, his usually kind, red eyes with a far darker look in them.
Truthfully, they looked downright murderous.
"It'll be soon."
"I know," he said, his voice soft...though determined.
Whip crouched, her hand running through his thick hair twice, pushing it back before she slid it down to cup the side of his face. He spared her a smile at this; she knew how to keep him steady. She always knew how to keep him steady; as far as he was concerned, she was his permanent rock.
"You're totally in control. I can tell."
He nodded, the soft smile still on his face. His eyes didn't change that much...but she knew. "I wonder how the others did."
"Knowing those two? It's dealt with. I imagine they had a harder job, though, if that was where they were sending the sniper."
"I imagine we'll get the foot soldiers." He cracked his knuckles.
At that, Whip heard her radio buzz; she picked up.
"Yes?"
Ralf's voice answered her on the other end. "They're done. Roll in. Clean it out and do some extra searching. Any documents you can find, collect them, if there are any there." He sounded fairly serious. "Search the bodies if you have to. We'll take any info you can get."
"Roger. Out." She put the radio away and nodded. Adel stood; the two headed out of the dingy building they were waiting in, quietly making their way through the nearby alley to the longer, flatter building-two stories, probably with a basement...but covered more ground. As they walked, she shook her head. "Ralf sounded pretty serious. Far more so than normal."
"What do you think it was?" Adel asked her.
"Hard to say," she said. "But we'll find out when we meet up again, I suppose." Looking up at the building, she rubbed her chin. "I imagine this is where they like to hole up. Their main hideout. Without their other goons, though…" she trailed off.
"They have nothing to stay my hands anymore." As he walked, his footsteps were heavy. He looked inexorable. "Do we even need to sneak in?"
"We... should try to be quiet at first," she said, pulling some of her lockpicks out. "Since we never know how they'll be armed. But if they hear something and attack...do what you do best," she said. "Don't even worry about the noise...or the cleanup."
He looked down at her. The look on his face would have scared anyone else, but she knew he had control of that side. She realized, in a way, how lucky she was. Leona had her whole issue that she had trouble with. Duo Lon didn't have an issue like the other two, but his powers could be difficult to control, and could affect him rather heavily.
Then Adel ended up with a cursed seed of power passed on from his father...a power that destroyed him, and started to drive his son mad, until he finally wrested control of it. But...it was a power that almost required Adel to quench it every so often.
Luckily, he had no lack of nasty members of the criminal underworld to turn it on when it came down to it. And she could tell he was going to, again, tonight.
Whip herself may have had horrible memories from time to time, and nightmares...but she had a tight-knit circle of friends, and a lover who would stand by her through anything...and no 'evil side' to speak of.
Arriving at the door, she pulled out the picks, fiddling with them for a few seconds before it popped. It was not even difficult.
Adel blinked. "That was almost too easy."
Tucking the picks away and drawing her knife and Desert Eagle, she nodded. "It's like they have enough people to not be particularly locked up tight." She chose her knife at first, knowing that the inside may be a little small to allow her whip to work its usual magic.
"Wonder what they're hiding in there," he said, waiting a few more moments. "I've seen a lot of these types of hideouts. I've...done this a lot, as you know."
"Oh, yes." Whip knew how Adel worked; he had even been a part of a couple of…sting operations, for lack of a better word, with their unit.
The Ikaris were clean; though being mercenaries, they were more a very light gray than a pure lily white, willing, for the betterment of everyone, to bend a rule or two if necessary. They had done so even to bury some of their known dirtier government workers in the past, with positive results, as they were able to get to things that sometimes the law protected nastier people from.
Adel, being a bit of a gray underworld businessman himself, had, with some intel 'accidentally' dropped to him, made 'deals' with some of the nastier underworld groups...sometimes, Heidern and his people's hands were tied due to international law, and sometimes a certain act may take too long to be cleared-an act that would end up saving a lot of people.
The young man would proceed, at these deals, to horribly bury everyone involved. It would get written off as an 'underground incident', and were often bloody enough to be seen as something to send A Message to a rival syndicate. More often than not, they involved situations just like this; breaking into a hideout and wiping the floor with the opposition. Unlike his good friend Duo Lon, Adel didn't work with stealth most of the time. He broke in and hammered everyone in front of him.
But, since he and Whip were on a slightly more delicate mission this time, he would follow her lead and play it more quietly at first, until she gave the signal.
"Ready?" he said.
"As always."
Moving inside...it was surprisingly quiet. There weren't, for some reason, any people in this small area. It was darker, though not pitch black; and they could see a hallway attached to the room where there was some light coming out from underneath the closed door.
Whip carefully snuck over to check; she waved him forward. He followed-his footsteps were decidedly heavier. One of the other reasons why the big fellow didn't use a lot of stealth was also because he was terribly schooled in it. He simply never had to be.
Walking side by side down the hallway, the lights grew closer as they started to hear voices.
"You hear something?" one asked.
"Maybe. Go check it out."
"Why me?"
"Because I fuckin' said to. Get out there."
They heard someone start to shift into the hallway-hearing the door unlock-as Adel walked up ready to meet him.
Whip knew the man was just sent to his grisly death.
He turned, seeing Adel standing there, staring at him. His red eyes were cold; the man was a few inches shorter than him.
"H-hey!" he yelled, fishing for his gun.
It only took a single, immensely powered roundhouse kick to do the deed; before the man could draw his gun, Adel wound back and let spin, his huge, steel-shod boot connecting with his head, smashing it into the wall with a violent crunch.
Whip was used to this; she simply stepped over the body, paying no mind to the dripping sound. She knew, when that other side powered his blows, he could do as much damage with his vicious kicks as a strong man could do with a sledgehammer.
He looked at her as they walked.
"Why do they keep running into us?"
She snorted dark laughter. "They have no idea." She cocked her gun, twirling her knife once in her hand before gripping it.
Hearing more noises coming in from the other room, several men scrambled up to see what was happening; they were staring at the armed pair, Adel having tracked blood in from the other room.
The two took fighting stances. It was almost tradition for them at this point.
"Think we can get it all taken care of safely?" Clark asked.
"Of course. We've done this a bunch of times."
"There's so much of it. And it's not stored very well."
"It's okay. I've called a few of the specialists on it. Christ, just to try to keep the kid from being able to attack them, these idiots could have ended up blown sky high themselves." He shook his head. He always referred to Adel as 'the kid'-or 'Blondie' in more humorous situations-despite him being nearly twenty-four.
"They seem to be making their own," Clark said, shaking his head. "That means they may have a damn illegal factory for it somewhere." He looked around some more, as the two made sure the room was as secure as possible before waiting outside. "Should we...be here?"
Ralf shrugged. "If this much goes off, it's taking the entire building with it. And probably more than that."
"Point."
At that, Ralf's comm buzzed. Nodding to the door, he waved. "That's them. They're close. C'mon."
Clark chuckled under his breath. "Remember that one time where we had to deal with that one group of madmen?"
"I wonder if they had more, or if these guys beat them?" Ralf shook his head.
"I think we did pretty good."
"Yeah. Man, that underwater explosion was something, though."
"I can't believe they let you get rid of them that way," Clark laughed.
"Given the circumstances, I think it was the best option."
The two looked at each other and just shrugged, waiting for their support to get there.
Having pistol-whipped the fourth man before quickly stabbing him in the chest, Whip kicked the corpse to the side as Adel slammed his heel down on another's skull in a massive, overhead almost wheel-style kick, caving the top in and even splitting it open. He fell violently to the floor, blessedly face down. Two other corpses were behind them, one killed by gunshot, and another looking like he had taken several blows with a heavy object.
One of the men in the corner seemingly tried to call for help; there was only silence on his line.
"Shit," he yelled. "Where..?"
"We're ahead of you," Adel said, taking his trademark, relaxed fighting stance. Whip quickly spun her knife around, shoving it into the sheath and uncoiling Voodoo, given the room was bigger.
The man with the phone shoved it into his pocket. "Go!"
The enemy started to fan out to try to surround them; armed with light pistols, knives and clubs, they seemed to at least have a modicum of strategy. One of them started to lay down suppressive fire, causing the pair to have to dance around to reach the others; ducking, rolling and dodging. One bullet hit the edge of Adelheid's coat, though it was the loose half, and did not penetrate it, though it did lodge into the Kevlar.
Whip noticed this and mentally felt a bit of relief; their jackets and clothing looked to be enough to stop the penetration of these arms, even though they'd still hurt. But she knew that they were the biggest danger; managing to roll into place, she lashed out with Voodoo, winding it around one's leg, yanking him violently off of his feet so that he almost flew.
Adelheid, seeing this, met the man with one of his patented genocide cutters while he hovered, tearing up his chest, neck, and head in a terrific spray of blood and viscera.
After that, the others looked at each other, wondering what they had just gotten themselves into. Adel mentally gave them some credit for at least being somewhat trained; still, he knew that a lot of the men on the ground were not of high training. Those types tended to either elevate higher, or could even become bosses themselves.
"I didn't even have to call that one out," Whip called over to him, obviously trying some intimidation.
"I know what it means when you do that," he said, looking over at her, smirking. The look in his eyes was still a little disturbed, but she could see he was completely cool-headed.
She went to flick the gun from another's hand with the whip as Adel met him with a ferocious flying kick that smashed in the side of his head, dropping him twitching as one more blow with his heel did for him; he continued by rushing another with his hand out, grabbing his chest and slamming him violently into the wall, caving it in.
They both missed a couple of extra enemies that had dashed in. One closed in on Whip with an incredible speed, his fairly long knife slashing at her; it went hard enough to cut through her glove even though it was lightly armored. Hissing, she back-ended him with Voodoo's handle before shooting him point blank, part of his head being blown away as the blood spattered on her.
Paying it no mind, she glanced over at Adel, who was disengaging his hand from the one he had just slammed into the wall. Turning too late, an enemy's knife was plunged partially into his shoulder; the sudden movement was to his benefit, as it did not hit him in the back. As the enemy dodged back to try again, Whip had managed to coil Voodoo around his neck, bringing him swiftly to the ground where Adel was able to brutally finish him under his heel.
They had no time to breathe. At this point, it felt like the entire building knew what was going on. Repositioning some, Whip lashed Voodoo out, hitting a chair in front of a few of the men, causing them to stumble as Adel went back to her side.
"Seems like they gave us the crowded building," he said.
"Isn't that always the case?" She spat some blood on the ground where one of the men had managed to backhand her, causing her to bite her lip. Adel reached over with his one cleaner sleeve, wiping it off before they went to intercept the others.
Two of the others drew guns again; looking around, they saw several dead men, many in very, very bad condition. Trying to figure out the best way to approach the young man and young woman who seemingly did for them within minutes, they tried a pincer attack, with one running up the middle, utilizing what cover they could, making it difficult for Whip to get a bead on them with her heavy pistol.
Adel skipped to the side, flipping a man over his head with his leg, enabling Whip to put a bullet in him before he even hit the ground, blowing his chest out with the high-caliber round. He then kicked a chair over to another one, knocking him down, causing him to have to regain his weapon as Whip holstered her gun and used Voodoo to pull another over before quickly unsheathing her knife and driving it home into his chest before he could react.
The two noticed a couple of more skilled looking men that had exploded in; they suspected that, somewhere, they may have called in for backup. Whip quickly dodged the blows from a larger man-he himself had a long knife and a set of knuckles, while Adelheid found himself facing off with a very fast man that was dual-wielding blades. During this, a man with a pistol was trying to get a bead on one of them in an unarmored part, while a fourth had taken off. Cursing under his breath, Adel knew he may have been calling for yet more backup, seemingly trying to set up their last stand here...or to possibly distract them.
Nothing to be done for now, the two started facing off. Adel knew that all he needed was a solid hit or two to put his opponent down, but he was skilled enough with the knives that he knew that he'd have to be at least a little careful. But he had been here a hundred times. He knew his plan of attack.
Next to him, Whip blocked a few strikes with her own blade, trying to back up some to allow herself to get some distance to get her whip strikes going better; but the man was smart-he wasn't letting her do this. Every time she tried, he ended up bullrushing her, causing her to leap back more to avoid the slash with his long blade.
Rethinking things, she dropped it and grabbed her other knife, beginning to dual wield herself against the man, the two of them sparking their weapons off the other. He was clearly surprised at her endurance, being able to hold up; she quickly slipped in, her fist around the knife handle where she clocked him on the side of the face, causing him to back off and spit blood. As she resheathed her second knife and grabbed her whip again to gain distance, Adel's enemy quickly managed to land a blade home in his shoulder, though luckily not too deep.
Hissing, he threw out a massive kick with the more limber man dodged. He turned toward Whip, nodding; the two could read each other's minds right now.
Adel leapt over at the man who was charging Whip; a massive kick later and he was flying back into the wall. It was misplaced, and not completely square, nor was it at full strength. Still, a couple of ribs cracked from the sheer force. Whip took this time to lash Voodoo around the arm of the dual-wielding man, clearly breaking the arm at the elbow as he dropped the knife; he was pulled forward and quickly stabbed in the neck as Adel leapt forward high into the air, his terrible overhead crescent kick landing home on the man's forehead, shattering it with the sound Whip was all-too-familiar with at this point.
The two looked directly at each other, knowing damn well their little maneuver of suddenly swapping opponents would work. It wasn't that they were incapable of taking the other out, but they knew each other's strengths and wanted to end the fight as quickly as possible.
Other times, they just wanted to show off to intimidate the opponent. Maybe even try to let them spill some info on their own.
They usually didn't take the hint, though. Adel wasn't surprised, as usually snitches in the underworld didn't live too long.
Untangling Voodoo from the dead man, she walked over, touching the wound on his shoulder; his eyes showed that it did not seem to bother him at this moment. She still shook her head, touching his face.
"Be careful," she said.
"I am." He looked around. "Where's the last one?"
"Not sure. I'll sweep the room, you go upstairs to check." She started to comb over things as he nodded, doing exactly what she said. Usually, the two simply did what came to them on these, but on this mission-as far as he was concerned-he was the muscle used to crush the opponent, and she was the one in charge.
As she began to rifle through things-carefully making sure that there was no one else coming, even locking the door to the hallway so reinforcements had to either unlock it or break in-she thought about what was going on.
Ralf had sounded far more serious than usual on their call. When he was commanding missions, he was always a little more serious than his jovial self, but he always had a slightly lighter sound. This time, that was absent, so she was quite interested in wrapping things up as quickly as possible; plus he made vague mentions of their end not being finished yet, which further made her wonder what extra had come up.
As she moved over to one of the corpses, she heard a muffled thud coming from upstairs. From that, she assumed that the last man that had run up there had been taken care of.
Finding a few odds and ends in pockets-she was pretty much immune to searching the corpses Adelheid had rendered unrecognizable-there was a card here, an address there-scribbled sometimes. A phone number. Placing anything that looked like it could help in her pouch, she went to check a desk in the corner, finding nothing of use there.
Satisfied that everything down here was secure, she went upstairs to check on Adelheid. Moving up the flight of stairs, she called up first, just so he knew.
"It's me."
"I could tell by your footsteps," she heard him say.
Smirking softly at that, she moved the rest of the way in. Looking over, she saw the corpse at the side with his temple crushed, and blood leaking from his nose, ears, and mouth. Moving toward his pocket, she checked his phone; it went out to an unlisted number, possibly what he was calling in for reinforcements for.
Adel shuffled around, anything else coming up vaguely empty. "Looks like this isn't their big treasure trove," he said.
"Nah. Just a staging point. Wonder if the other guys found that."
"Or if we thinned a bunch of them out." He laughed. "I swear, a lot of these guys operate the same way." He thought back to the last time they did for a bunch of guys-it wasn't all that different.
"You'd know," she said, satisfied that there was not much more up here after a quick glance around.
"Yeah. Places like this make good hideouts," he said, folding his arms and leaning against the wall. "I had to go to several in my...younger years. When I was being...taught the business," he said.
Whip nodded, knowing what he meant.
"They're good," he continued. "Out of the way. Easy to pick up and run from. Easy to pay people to look the other way on, since local authorities aren't immune to getting their palms greased for a place like this no one cares about. Easy to defend, too...against ordinary opposition."
"It's like that with some other mercenary groups too," the soldier replied. "There are certain places that you know they'll hole up. And like Ralf knew...that they may have some specially armed people in that one place."
"The tall building...that was unused. Yeah, I wasn't surprised to hear that, I admit." He sighed. "And I was ready to bust in."
She rubbed his arm, mindful of any wounds he may have taken; their armor protected well, but stray blades could saw through the cloth. Both of them sported a few. "Well, it's not a problem now," she said.
At that, they heard a slam against the door downstairs, loud and clear.
"Speaking of which," he said, standing and cracking his bloodied knuckles.
"Looks like round two." She waved. "We can hide in the stairwell. Nail a couple before they can even come up." She drew her knife, leaving her gun holstered, knowing that they'd be in a tight spot-though she did reload it. The two went to stand side by side as they heard the door being forced; clearly whoever this was had no keys.
As they waited, they heard several sets of footsteps and voices; they were shouting in a confused manner, and somewhat alarmed-no doubt at the terrible corpses left behind, along with the floor that was likely sticky with blood at this point. Moving toward the back...near the hallway where the pair hid in the stairwell-a man shouted for the others to be ready to fall in.
As he moved close, Whip's knife lashed out, sliding into the side of his neck and out again before he could even say a word. He fell, grasping his neck as he bled out; the second man that ran up seeing this was grabbed by Adel's large hand, and his other slammed twice into his face before his forehead was smashed against his knee.
If he hadn't died from that, the extra shot he gave him with his boot-heel as he walked by did the trick, though it was not needed.
Glaring around the dim room, the group that had burst in-perhaps their last stand-glared at the pair, though one of them looked relatively concerned that these two had ended so many.
"You look familiar," one of the men said.
Adel snorted, spitting on the ground. "Don't know why." He did know why. He was just waiting for someone to remind him that he looked like his father.
"You should."
"What do you want from me?"
"Why did you break off what we had?"
"I don't even remember who you are." Whip heard the menacing tone in his voice, though it was steady.
"We had a nice thing going with your father."
"Probably all the more reason I broke it off."
"He owed us, though."
"Is that what this is about?" he snarled. "He's been dead now for a few years."
"And you're still here." The lead man seemed to be awfully brazen, for standing in the middle of a slaughterhouse. The fellow at the side shifted uncomfortably, his gun sort of wavering in his grasp.
He finally decided to speak up.
"Boss..?"
The man glared at him for a moment. Adel just laughed.
"I think your man there has the right idea." He stepped forward. "I suppose this is where I say 'Oh, if you let me go, I'll forget about this…'" The young man cracked his knuckles. "But I don't think I'm feeling that friendly." He looked around at the corpses that he had efficiently mangled. "But you may have known that."
Whip simply let him talk.
"You talk big for having a bunch of armed men in front of you."
"Like these guys weren't." He was unwavering. Now, a couple of the others started to stand down. Despite outnumbering them by eight to two, some of the others didn't like their odds.
"Look, the boss told us you'd try this stuff. So we set up some...plans."
Whip laughed at that, as Adel simply raised an eyebrow. "Turns out I have friends, too," he said.
One of the men tried to call over to someone, not getting an answer. "No answer," he said.
"Try again," the man in the front-a fellow who was fairly stocky, with the air of an enforcer about him-said firmly.
"Yeah, I'm tryin'. There's nothin' there."
"Told you I had friends," Adel said, a grin forming on his face. Whip recognized this one as driven by that side of him. Looking at the rest, she decided to speak up herself.
"I know that look. None of you are leaving here alive," she said plainly.
"We'll see," he said, nodding to the two men at the sides to draw and fire.
To their credit, they were fast draws forcing Adel and Whip to go on the defensive immediately. Whip drew her own gun and Voodoo after quickly resheathing her knife as she rolled, ready to try to answer back with her own fire and to disarm anyone with a gun, giving Adel a clearer path to close in.
The men were somewhat intimidated by Whip's large gun; they lacked any sort of body armor at all, making it deadly. Truth be told, unless they were packing heavy vests, little could be done against a Desert Eagle round at this close of range; even if the vest worked, their ribs would be broken to the point where either one could finish them off.
She took aim and fired; trying to lead, she missed this one as the man doubled back. Whip handled the recoil shockingly well, though did have to reposition the gun afterward. He fired back at her as Adel ran low toward another armed man, coming up immediately into a genocide cutter, which hit him squarely.
As usual, the cutting aura he could summon around his leg-which in and of itself was deadly- tore completely up his torso and through his head, leaving the man in bloody tatters on the ground. He then focused on another; starting to close in as the man drew a long knife and a club.
Whip took advantage of the moment to quickly use Voodoo to disarm the man who was firing at her; at that, she reholstered her gun and chose to go for her knife, since Adel was now in the fray. Lashing out several times with Voodoo again, the powerful strikes shredded his clothing and left large, bloody lines in his flesh. As he was being battered around, she leapt over a table, kicked him in the chest, and when she landed-he had been knocked back from the kick-she planted the knife into the side of his neck, finishing the job.
She was suddenly knocked back and onto one knee from a gunshot in her shoulder. Stunning her for a moment-causing her to drop Voodoo at her side-her arm went numb, and she could only hope it wasn't broken. She had two layers of body armor on, thought it was thin; however, she could see the small round flattened against her, barely poking in.
Realizing it didn't penetrate, she had to move fast as the man brought his gun up again; quickly removing a throwing knife from her side, she flung it into the man's leg, causing him to buckle-though the throw wasn't clean. Luckily Whip was ambidextrous, so it did at least hit him.
Seeing Whip in distress and possibly a target for a better aimed shot to one of her unarmored vitals, Adel broke off from the man he was fighting and immediately crashed into the armed man, bowling him over. He was shockingly tough, though, managing to pull the throwing knife free from his leg, making a stab at Adel's leg with it as he was on the ground.
Hissing in pain-Whip kept them sharp, and it seemed to somewhat slice home, though not deeply-Adel simply snapped; he drove his heel-strengthened by rage and adrenaline-down on his head so hard it shattered on the spot, ending the man's nonsense within a split second.
Having just seen his partner's head practically explode and get some splattered on him, the man next to him started backing off. Whip had managed to recover, charging in with her blade and swinging as he dodged back. Her right arm was not the best at the moment, as it was still somewhat numb, though she had recovered her whip. The look in Adel's eyes was uneasy; she knew he was now in a more careless mode and she'd have to help watch his back.
Another man tried to strike Adel in the leg over the wound with a club, managing to hit him squarely. It caused him to back off, though not fall. Whip quickly ripped the club from his hand from a single lash of Voodoo, biting back any pain in her arm and heaving it at the other man nearby; while he was stunned by both the thing hitting him and the action, she shoved her blade up into his chest, kicking him away.
The two nodded. As usual, they were excellent at covering one another. They still weren't out of the woods yet; a few men remained, though one of them had decided to allow common sense to take over and tried to escape. However, the fact they had broken in made it difficult for him to try to escape through the door; he was quickly set upon by a still-angry Adelheid, his body slammed about with several kicks, each of them with far more force than normal behind them, smashing bones, eventually dropping him as the final one twisted his head around on his neck, nearly decapitating him.
Whip meanwhile got a fresh grip on Voodoo. She would worry about the pain later, letting the adrenaline carry her the rest of the way through. There were three remaining; and they looked extremely nervous, to say the least, after seeing what the pair of them did to the group in person. It was almost like it wasn't enough that the place was littered with bloody corpses; it took seeing them to truly frighten them.
The two of them supposed this was either a testament to their bravery and loyalty. Maybe even stupidity.
Perhaps a little of each.
Taking aim, one of the men started spraying ammo all around; a stray round tagged the loose part of Adel's longcoat again, but did not manage to actually slam into anything of his. His longcoat actually had thin plates in it, making it even better against small arms. The two danced around, Whip lashing out with Voodoo again, striking his arm, forcing him to drop his gun, before lashing back and across his face, leaving a deep, red gash. He stumbled...right into one of Adel's fully powered roundhouse kicks, which connected squarely with his face. It hit so hard he went flying clear across the room, cracking the wooden walls.
That was the end of that.
Cleaning up the final two was a matter of charging them. Whip tripped a man up, pulling him close, in range of her deadly knife, which found its way home in his neck; Adel swept the final man to the ground, glaring at him before delivering the brutal coup de grace; his trademark terrible, grounded axe kick.
Standing after finishing the final man-his shattered skull leaking everywhere under his blood-soaked boot-Adel turned, his harsh, deadly eyes somewhat losing the look of murder that they would hold when he was in that state.
Pulling her knife from the other man, she wiped it off on his body and resheathed it, walking over to him. He stood off of the gore, coming to meet her so the two could examine each others' wounds as they always would.
"You alright?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, exhaling.
"You have such good control, now," she said, gently stroking him next to one of the stab wounds he had taken.
"Got...a little careless." He took more slow, deep breaths, settling himself.
"I think we both did," she said, her hand moving to his back where she continued to rub it. "Mission accomplished, though. Everything was successful."
He glanced at her, a soft smile spreading on his face. "I guess it was, wasn't it?"
She holstered her gun, coiling Voodoo back up and hanging it at her hip again. Removing her gloves, she tucked them into her belt for now before going to examine a few things they were asked to check out. Adel noticed the wound on her hand, probably from the man who tried to stab her before she had shot him point blank. It didn't seem like it would need stitches, but he wasn't sure. There were a few more on her, as well; the two had taken their knocks, though admittedly the opposition had no chance. He rubbed a little blood away from under her nose.
"It's fine," she said, smiling up at him. "Just got tagged."
"I know." He slid his armored gloves off. His own hands and forearms were well protected.
"How's your leg?" she asked.
"Fine. Some of the blade got through, but he didn't get too deep." He showed the wound off. "It barely bothers me. It's more of a bruise from the club, if anything."
She looked over at the remains from earlier. "You got him...thoroughly, I have to say." Generally speaking, when he'd finish someone with a massive boot to the skull, the head would be...split open and in horrible shape, but still there. That was not the case this time. He had been quite a pain for both of them, between nearly breaking her shoulder and then almost nailing one of his tendons, and his rage had just spilled over in an adrenaline-fueled blow, its strength amplified beyond what he usually struck the enemy with.
He shrugged. "He made me mad." He gently prodded her shoulder. "Anything broken?"
"No," she said. "I'd know if it was. But it'll hurt for a little while." She frowned. "Might have to pass on sparring for a bit."
"You heal fast," he reassured her.
"Let's do one more sweep of the place. Check the leader. I'll go check upstairs for some things. Might be if we swap one of us might find something the other missed." She paused to give him a brief kiss on the lips; it lingered just for a moment.
It was sort of their way of decompressing after so much death; a small little light in the middle of their darker mission.
He touched her face lightly before she moved back upstairs as he double-checked everything. He didn't know much about this syndicate, truth be told, except that they were dirty and it was why he cut ties. But he had cut ties with them so long ago...still, the criminal underworld had a long memory, and the Bernsteins had both wealth and status. He supposed he should have known this could come back to bite him.
Any of the ones he had cut ties with-if they were still around, that was-could come back, so he supposed he should be a little more ready for the next time. Had Ralf and Clark not been around either, he'd have likely charged in on his own.
And much like earlier that spring, the results may have been disastrous.
Adel managed to find a few more odds and ends on the others, including the man who was presumably the leader. He wasn't sure if this was Furze or not-he had no idea what the man looked like-but he was certainly high ranking. Judging by the number of men here, and what was probably another couple of dozen done for by the other pairs-even if this wasn't him, his manpower was likely crippled down to almost nothing.
Exhaling, Adel stood, the all too familiar stench of blood in his nostrils. After he got back upstairs, nodding at Whip, she finally contacted Ralf.
"Hey," the voice on the other line said.
"We're clear. We're just securing the area and checking for any more documents we might find."
"Roger. We're going to need a little more time here, but we should be in the clear soon. Sit tight."
"Everything okay?"
"We'll explain when we meet back at the garage. I'll ping it on your map."
"Where you started."
"Yes."
"Alright. See you then."
"Good job, guys," he said, before hanging up. Looking at Adel, she looked a bit puzzled.
"Is everything alright?" he asked.
"Yeah, they apparently need a little more time securing something. Wonder what's up?"
He walked over to her, wiping a little blood from her face. "Guess we'll find out."
"How are you?" she asked.
"Took a few hits, like I said. But...it's usual."
"Hadn't fought beside you since the spring. It…" she trailed off for a second. "I wish we didn't have to, but…"
He grinned, touching her under the chin. "I'm glad it's you by my side when we have to." The two planned on moving out through one of the fire escapes. There were fewer bodies upstairs, so it was a bit more pleasant; the downstairs looked like a slaughterhouse.
Sliding down next to the wall for a moment, Whip paused to catch her breath. Her adrenaline having worn off, she winced at her shoulder. It was definitely not broken, but it did not feel good to take a bullet. Seeing her in pain, Adel knelt next to her, opening her overshirt gently and moving her second shirt aside, as well as her slimline vest. He grimaced.
The bruise was already massive, spreading from the spot and all over her collarbone and chest.
"Ouch…" he trailed off, before gently putting everything back and kissing her lightly.
She touched his face. "I've taken worse. I think that night at the club in New York was far worse."
"Yeah, I'd say so," he said. "That was sort of a mess. Maybe there is something to your stealth method."
Whip chuckled softly at that; he slid down the wall next to her as she gently checked his leg out. Knowing the infirmary would do a fine job taking care of it, she sat back when she was done, leaning against him. As easily as the two were able to tear through the opposition, neither particularly liked it when it came down to this, even though they knew there was little escaping it.
Looking over, she reached for him. Grasping each others' hands as he rested his head on hers, they sat tight, waiting to hear from Ralf before they could head back to the chosen meeting spot, hopefully to finally close off the rest of the mission, putting yet another one of his family's problems to rest.
A/N: Once again you're all aware I go more action/grindhouse combat over Uber Realism(™).
I think this might drive home that sometimes, younger people-even if experienced-can get themselves into things that more experienced people may not(which is sometimes what I think isn't shown a lot in fic when it comes to these characters.) There's a lot of wisdom that comes with age and experience, even for someone like Ralf who likes to jump the gun-he still recognizes when it's best not to.
The rest of this crew taking part in this mission are young-Adel being around the oldest at maybe twenty-four by now-and no matter how experienced they are compared to others of that age, I can't help but think they're not going to be perfectly banging out missions(as we saw in the last chapter.)
All that said, I imagine, again, the list of Bernstein associates tends to go on and on. And some of them feel like raising their head sometimes. He'll probably never be free of them(especially if his old man ends up coming back later, christ.) But for now, it's all he can do to keep them quelled every so often by smashing them to little pieces.
Adel truly is a good dude in this ficverse, but that 'other side' to him(again, shown in earlier fics like Dark Legacies, Etudé of Revolution, and in its heaviest state in Nocturne when he finally gained control of it) can make him a little sadistic when he's dealing with his enemies. Getting that power passed on couldn't have been good for the young Bernstein, but at least it didn't destroy him like it did his father. (The game is vague on the power, but I assumed, seeing the shared skull explosion super, that he got some of it.) One comic(not canon, but I borrowed a couple of small things from to flesh it out since the game's so vague) referred to it as the 'killing spirit', so I sorta HC it as something that sorta forces him into nasty situations sometimes. He chooses to turn it on evil, despicable members of the criminal underworld, since he doesn't like harming anyone who doesn't deserve it.