Chapter 15, The Dockyard
Hakke crouched on a rooftop overlooking an old two story building that stood alone across a mostly empty courtyard. The building he was observing looked like it acted as the administrative wing for the dockyards that it was attached to, or at least it was one of its functions. The upper floor at least. The bottom was dominated by a large interior work zone with what he assumed to be winches attached along its ceiling, the very ends of which he could just barely see through the tinted windows. Along the top floor he could see hallways and meeting rooms, empty of people and furniture. At least for the ones he could see into.
The yard itself was devoid of people, something that made the Warlock just slightly nervous, especially as there were more than enough old steel beams, shipping containers, and spools of hose scattered all throughout to provide ample cover for any number of hostels to collect and prepare for an assault. Just because Callie hadn't reported any Scroll signals in the yard didn't mean that the area was clear. As he observed the area, Callie pointed out some elements of interest to him.
"Do you see that blue shipping container?" She asked, "The one with the overly complicated snowflake symbol on the side?"
"Every symbol on this Light-forsaken planet is overly designed." Hakke muttered. "But, yes. I do."
"That is the symbol of the Schnee Dust Company, the largest provider of Dust on the planet. In fact, there are several other crates with their logo on it scattered throughout the yard here."
"Neat trivia. Why are you telling me this?"
"Because there is a good chance that there is still some Dust of various types within those containers. I think it's worth investigating even if Junior's lead turns out to be a bust. I would love to get my hands on one of the more exotic varieties available. Who knows what we will be able to do with it."
She had a point, Hakke thought. The raw Lightning Dust he had acquired from the Syndicate base had been contained in a protective vial. The other samples had been the bullets that they had been collecting from their enemies, which was a far more industrially robust form of the material. He guessed the powderized, and more volatile, version of the material was closer to how the material was harvested in the mines Callie had told him about. And if that was the raw form, then it wasn't that bad a guess to assume that the shipping containers might have some loose grains left in them; amounts that wouldn't get grabbed by even the most desperate scavengers.
And that was who he assumed had last been at this yard: scavengers and scrappers. Scrappers most likely owned this place, judging by some of the leftover equipment in the yard and the condition of the various piled materials. A chain link fence was thrown up around the perimeter of the property, separating it from the other docks in the area. Basic territory separation.
It wasn't a place he wanted to be, but there was an odd sense of comfort in the vague similarity that the docks had with the stretches of patrol land that he had haunted over the years. Even with the lack of burned out vehicles, buildings, and skeletons, it felt like the normal amount of dangerous he was used to.
Probably wasn't that healthy that he felt like that.
He checked his armaments once more. The Bolas Gauntlet was untested, but all of the basic principles he had used to construct it were well founded and well tested. He was confident that it would do the job he had made for it. He had fashioned a basic friction clip to hold his staff/baton to his belt, and to allow him to draw the thing quickly and easily. Eventually, he would put some hours into figuring out how the thing worked exactly, from there he could add some extra fun features to the staff. But that would be later.
He had had Callie digitize one of the Theon auto rifles for him, both as a backup in case the experimental ammo for Midnight Coup ended up not working, and as an easy source of Dust rounds to manufacture more rounds for his hand cannon if it did. It never hurt to have a backup plan after all.
Finally, he pulled Midnight Coup from the small of his back, he flipped open the cylinder and checked the positioning of the first experimental Dust cartridge loaded in. Despite its entirely untested usability, it was nice having its familiar weight in his hand again. That said, it might be time for a new paint job on the hand cannon. The white and metallic gold didn't lend itself to stealth that well, which would probably be a problem going forward judging by the amount of sneaking he had done in the last few days.
Last days. Day. Singular
This was his second day in the city of Vale.
Definitely didn't feel that way.
Regardless, Experimental Dust Round 1 was loaded and as ready as it was going to get. EDR 2 was in his bag, ready to go if EDR 1 turned out to be a horrible flop. His helmet was on, allowing Callie and he to communicate normally without broadcasting their whereabouts. His Light was present and accessible, even with the Barrier running interference.
This was probably a trap. But his enemies didn't have a single real idea as to what they were supposed to be trapping. It was one thing to trap a person. It was entirely another to trap a Guardian. Just ask any alien in Sol who had made that attempt how easy that was.
If you could find any of them still alive that is.
He leapt off the building, allowing his momentum to carry him over the fence and onto the property, a quick burst of Light halting his momentum. Keeping an eye out for any people, he crept over to the first shipping container and tried to open it. When that one proved to be locked with an old fashioned mechanical lock, he left it and moved on to the next SDC container. The second one proved to be a better mark, opening without any issue.
Of course, this meant that there was nothing of value in the shipping container, unless cigarette butts and empty beer cans were considered valuable here. He suspected they were not. It looked like he had stumbled onto the place that workers would hide to catch a break. The Warlock still took an extra second to scour the crate for anything useful, be that materials or information.
Nothing.
So far all he had managed to do was waste Lien on a taxi cab. While that had been an enlightening experience in and of itself, it wasn't what he was looking for.
He continued on towards the main building. Dusk was approaching fast, and if this was in fact a place where either mercenaries or criminals gathered, then it would probably get more crowded once night proper fell. The fact that the place appeared completely abandoned was beginning to sound minor alarms in his head, and he unclipped his baton. If there was someone here, knocking them out would be the best idea. Gunshots were too loud, and that was true even if he had a suppressor. Which he did not.
The Warlock circled around the building before finding and scaling a ladder on one side. Once on the second floor, he found a padlocked door leading inside the building proper. Shooting the lock off was out of the question for the time being, so he tried to hook the baton through the metal clasp in order to pry the padlock apart.
It seemed that Tank Top had not made his weapon to any spec outside of the illustrious 'metal smacking pole' category, and as such it was simply too big to fit anywhere advantageous. He eventually had to reclip it to his belt, making a mental note to add a spike on one, no, both edges to turn the thing into a crowbar when he dismantled it.
It could use some improvements.
He instead kneeled down and pressed two fingers to the top of the metal padlock, right where the metal loop passed through the corresponding loop on the door itself. He concentrated, allowing Solar Light to pool down his hand and into the metal, slowly heating it close to its melting point. He ground his teeth as he waited. While he had more than enough control over his Solar Light to ensure that he didn't hurt himself, said control didn't apply to the rapidly liquefying metal he had to jam his fingers against. Just because he could easily heal the injuries after the fact didn't make this part any less painful.
He didn't know how this sort of thing went for Aura users, but every time he took a hit he felt it. It was just that his Light and armor stopped the worst of the damage, at least usually, and anything that wasn't halted was healed at an incredibly rapid rate. This fact and the fact that he lived what most would consider a rough and tumble lifestyle added up to one of the most easily identified traits of a Guardian. A stupidly high pain tolerance.
Believe it or not, getting killed and dying was a truly awful, and horrifically painful experience, at least in Hakke's experience.
Finally, the metal grew soft enough for Hakke to tear the padlock off entirely and open the door.
"Picking anything up?" He asked Callie.
"No." She spoke into his helmet. "Nothing of concern as of yet. There is a security system here, but I'm able to scramble it without any real concern."
He began moving down the hallway presented before him. "I am not a fan of how simple this seems to be."
"Please don't jinx us again. Sometimes things work out in our favor, it happens. Let's just get as far as we can before your negativity comes back to roost."
Hakke snorted, and moved deeper into the building, peering into each doorway lining the hall one by one. Offices loomed back at him, barebones facilities with pale blue walls consisting of nothing but basic desks and chairs and holographic terminals for the various bean counters to count their beans. Filing cabinets lined several walls for whatever paper documents were needed for day to day operations, and the occasional copier or printer added some much needed spice.
Another door revealed a break room, with a pair of battered artificial leather couches and a small kitchenette, which he guessed was filled with basic amenities. He entered the break room and focused on one item he saw on the table functioning as the main feature of the kitchenette.
"Go ahead and stash that coffee machine, if you would." He told Callie as he sorted through a locker for coffee grounds and filters to go with it.
"Really?"
"Oh, absolutely. We're walking out of here with at least that."
"I am not fond of your newfound sense of kleptomania." She responded, appearing to digitize the small machine and the other materials Hakke laid out before vanishing once more.
"Oh please, I've always been like this. It's just that this time around the stuff I'm taking belongs to criminals, and not some homicidal aliens. Besides, cops and coffee go along hand in hand. As do Warlocks and coffee now that I think about it, as the more enlightened of my Warlock brethren know."
If she was physically present, and not in Hakke's Backpack, she would absolutely be giving him the stink eye. Undeterred, Hakke continued his investigation and returned to the main hallway. There were two more doors for him to check before he moved on to the more open first floor and a proper search of the yard.
The next door was another office. The last door was more interesting.
It looked like another break room at first glance, although that analysis was quickly cast aside. Aside from the lack of the kitchenette, the addition of an actual bed and footlocker was a dead giveaway that this was something else.
The footlocker was empty outside of a few sets of neatly folded basic dress clothing, which told him nothing as it seemed every single living person in this city wore that sort of thing. The extra suspenders he found alongside them were a bit different. And the half full tin of mustache wax was a fairly big clue in his book.
Of the three mercs he was looking for, and if this was one of their hideaways, then this had to be one of Doc's. That mustache of his had been on point after all.
Careful not to crumple anything too much and make it too obvious he had been here, he dug his way to the bottom of the foot locker. Unfortunately all he found were some crappy novels that the man had been reading. He noted with disgust that he had been dog-earing the pages to keep track of his place. While he had absolutely no interest in taking this book with him, as he had no idea what the hell a ninja was or what they had to do with love, and the book seemed to be what most people would call trash, the dog eared pages were too far.
The savage.
He replaced the bits and pieces before continuing, checking all the places he could think to look for clues of any sort. While he guessed this belonged to Doc, there was a non-zero chance that he was rooting through some random person's room instead. If he could confirm what he was looking at belonged to his target, then his options began to expand.
"Check that wall." Callie said, marking a safety poster hanging on the wall. The bottom of the paper wasn't actually adhered down, so he flipped it over to reveal a section of drywall that had been neatly sliced out, complete with a thumbhole for ease of removal. Inside the cavity was a small stash of Lien cards and a small paper notebook. He flipped through it, letting Callie capture each page in her memory.
He couldn't make heads or tails of what he was looking at, it seemed to be either written in code or dense financial mumbo jumbo, but he could determine that it involved money. Maybe a pay ledger for the less-than-legal activities that he was engaging in? It definitely would be the sort of thing that you wouldn't want to have a digital record of.
Definitely better than nothing.
He replaced everything back to how he found it and began heading down towards the first floor. Darkness was falling outside as the sun dipped below the surrounding buildings and street lights began to flash on one by one. There was movement on some of the other properties further out, along the other dockyards connected to the one he was in, but they were all far enough away that he didn't suspect that they were a real threat. At least as far as a direct assault was concerned.
They could have a sniper, however. There was more than one ideal location for a sniper to roost that he could see off to the left alone, and a particularly good sniper could easily set up across the river and hit him without his knowing. He wasn't particularly good at it, but he knew the basics of moving without making himself an easy target for a marksman.
Avoiding lingering in front of windows or other unprotected areas, he found himself overlooking a work floor. Chain winches hung from the tracks embedded in the ceiling and segmented working stations dotted the walls and into the center of the area. A deep furrow had been bored into the floor to allow access to the bottom of vehicles or heavier equipment. Almost directly underneath him he saw the tip of a forklift, or something close enough to what he knew as a forklift.
With as little sound as he could, he vaulted the bannister and dropped to the floor, not bothering to use his glide to slow himself. So far he had found nothing conclusive, no details that actually would help out with the investigation that he was conducting. He supposed he would need to give Junior another call once another day or two passed to see if he had something useful for the money he had spent.
It turned out 1,250 Lien was a pretty large amount to toss at a problem. He wanted to get something more than a crappy hint for what he had put in.
"Well, this feels like a bust." he said as he rooted through a workstation for any hint of anything useful.
"I wouldn't say that. Some of the numbers from that notebook you found seem to be transfer numbers and banking information of some variety. With a little time, I should be able to trace them back to whichever bank authorized them, and who was receiving and sending. Not the worst way to confirm who's accounts we just looked at, and if it is one of the mercenaries, it will tell us who exactly is their employer."
"You mean who in the Syndicate is the guy most likely to have the Crown."
"Exactly. We'll need to move fast before any of those records are either adjusted or hidden. I think we may need to take a trip to the CCTS tower that Cerulean was talking about. I should be able to use that network to brute force my way in, and hide our location all in one go."
Hakke nodded. It may not have been the lead he had thought they would get, but it was better than nothing. Especially if it allowed them to put a name to the person pulling the strings in Vale; their specific foe inside of the Syndicate. Destroying an organization was a hell of a lot easier when you knew who the main linchpins holding the thing together were. It was a strategy utilized by the Vanguard on nearly every campaign they had waged, and had proven to be incredibly effective every time.
The Red Legion hadn't fared well after Dominus Ghaul had been killed after all.
"Guess it's time to check out those SDC crates, see if we can't get anything useful out of them before-" Hakke stopped, his radar flashing a neutral color as it picked up movement. "Callie, any Scroll signals nearby?"
"Oh no." She began. "There are multiple signals all descending on our location, and I can almost guarantee there's more without."
Hakke sighed as he pulled out his Midnight Coup. "At least they had the common courtesy to let us loot the place first."
He calmly walked next to one of the concrete pillars that held the two story ceiling up to ensure that they could only shoot at him from one angle at a time. He heavily suspected it was the Syndicate, but on the off chance that it was some random local security or something, he wouldn't just start shooting wildly.
Figures soon began to take position around him, tucking themselves away behind what meager cover was possible in the messy confines of the work zone. He noted with very little surprise the blue markers on each figure. Syndicate thugs. Of course.
One figure didn't hide away with the others. Hakke groaned to himself as the tall man in a brilliantly embroidered purple vest stopped less than 6 meters away. The man had an impressive set of sideburns, he now noticed. A small detail that had escaped him the last time they had met.
He decided to greet the Syndicate enforcer, get the first word in. "Howdy, Murex. You're looking… better."
"Hakke." The man responded, to the Warlock's initial confusion. Confusion that vanished quickly once he thought about it. Outside of Cerulean and the bureaucrat at the Vale border wall, he had only told one other person his name.
"I take it that I have Junior to thank for this meeting?"
"Where is Detective Cerulean?" Murex asked, his voice neutral. Straight to business it seemed.
"Not here. Although I am kinda curious what she did to piss you people off so bad, think you could throw me a bone before you try to put me down?"
The enforcer pulled his grenade launcher-great sword out, and began circling around the Warlock slowly. "That is not how this is going to go down. Tell me where she is and I will make this quick."
"Ah." Something told him that this wasn't a 'catch the Warlock' sort of encounter. "Sorry to disappoint you again, but I don't think I'll do that." Hakke made a show of looking around him at the rest of the Syndicate thugs gathering. "I take it that you're probably not going to let me walk away, are you?"
Murex stopped pacing, having gotten out of the line of fire from all of his thugs. "You would be correct."
"Thought so."
Hakke whipped Midnight Coup to bear and fired at Murex's face. The hammer slammed forward and a dense plume of gritty red smoke erupted out of the barrel and from around the cylinder in a wimpy, almost wet sounding sputtering cough. Hakke froze, the barrel still pointing at the enforcer who responded by blinking in an unimpressed manner. Hakke popped open the cylinder to find the first sample of experimental Dust ammo smoldering in its container. He tilted the gun and allowed the ruined ammo to slide out of the gun and onto the floor where it landed with a light metallic click.
"Darn." he said.
Murex stared at the spent ammo for a moment longer before his eyes shifted up to the Warlock.
"Please kill him."
Over a dozen high quality auto guns opened up immediately on his command as Hakke ran and slid into the maintenance trench in the floor. Ducking down as flecks of broken concrete began raining down around him from the continuous fire, he pulled out the next ammo cartridge and slammed it home. He ran in a low crouch to the end of the trench, trying to stay mobile and out of their immediate line of sight. An instinct that proved useful as an ice grenade from Murex landed inside the trench roughly where he had been a second ago. If it had hit, he would have been immobilized, and killed rapidly after. Continuing forward, he leapt out of the trench and directly in front of a thug who had been closing the distance, who he promptly shot in the chest.
The first blend had been too low powered. The second proved to be far too volatile. A burning mess of half liquidated Dust poured out of the barrel and slammed into the unfortunate man, where it clung like napalm and sent him running off screeching. The fact that it removed one man from the fight was good. The fact that his gun was now on fire was less so.
Waving his gun violently in a futile attempt to put it out, Hakke leapt for the second story balcony to get out of this kill box he had inadvertently wandered into. Dust rounds began falling around him, slamming into his back like a hail of hammers as he floated upwards. He clambered over the railing and began to run towards the door leading back into the hallway when the gunfire stopped.
Hakke barely had time to question why that was before Murex was on top of him with a swing of his massive sword. He fell back, the sword passing by where his head had just been before it was thrust forwards again in a stab. Hakke twisted to the side, the blade barely scraping past his coat and underneath the strap of his satchel bag.
Seeing a golden opportunity, Hakke pulled the strap as tight as he could and pinned the blade to his own body with his left arm, and delivered an elbow strike with his right. Murex blocked the elbow with his arm, temporarily blocking his own sight, just enough for Hakke to test his newest toy. The bolas launched out and wrapped around the enforcer's torso, bright yellow arcs of electricity crackling around his body. A quick palm strike sent the man flying back, blade still firmly in the enforcer's hand.
Their boss no longer in the line of fire, and having taken up more advantageous positions, they began firing at him once more. Dust rounds smashed into his coat and helmet, leaving him seeing stars as he threw himself down into the hallway and began to run. He tried to release the cylinder of his burning hand cannon, only to find that it would not open. The latest experimental round had done more than liquefy, it had begun to solidify into a red hot, crusty mass.
It had jammed his gun.
"Traveler Damn it!" He roared, smashing the gun into a wall in an attempt to shatter the still burning Dust mass. He had at most five seconds before a man he knew for a fact could best him in a fight tore the bolas off and was on top of him. He needed a better area to fight the man, and a gun that actually worked. He pulled out the baton.
It was just the right size to act as a percussion hammer to knock the cylinder free. Would it damage the gun? Absolutely not. The thing was made by the finest gunsmiths of the Imperial Cabal. If one of those 500 kilogram muscle bound monsters was expected to use their weapons on a regular basis, then there was practically nothing he could do to the thing that would permanently damage it.
As he began beating the cylinder of Midnight Coup with his baton, a gunshot rang out and struck him on the shoulder, just below his armor. Looking down the hall, he saw a blue suited Syndicate goon making her way towards him with a pistol leveled. Beside her and breaking into a run was another man in a blue suit with a sword.
He was beginning to piece together something about the hierarchy of the Syndicate. A blue strip of cloth indicated that someone was a basic grunt, about par with a Fallen Dreg. Blue Suits on the other hand seemed to be tougher, and sometimes had Aura, making them akin to Vandals or shielded Captains. Not quite as dangerous, maybe, but it was an easy analogue he could draw.
That comparison more or less fell apart once Huntsmen were introduced.
And either way, it meant that he would rather avoid an active fight against Blue Suits, such as the two rapidly approaching him without his main gun ready.
He ripped open the door to one of the offices, slamming it back shut and heaving a nearby filing cabinet against it. As his enemies began slamming into the door, he placed Midnight Coup down on a table and began bashing the cylinder in earnest. Finally, the burning Dust gave, and Hakke emptied the cylinder as the door finally flew open. As the swordsman charged ahead, Hakke grabbed and threw a chair at the man, temporarily slowing him down just long enough for him to insert the last experimental round and slam the cylinder shut.
It was now or never.
The gun, for the first time since he ran out of bullets back during his week long Grimm hunting bonanza, roared to life. What he suspected was excess burning Dust once again bloomed out the sides and barrel like smoke from an old black powder pistol. He fired three shots into the man, three successful shots in rapid succession, letting the recoil carry his barrel up from his gut to his torso to his head. The man was blown backwards off his feet and onto the ground, where he lay unmoving.
He switched hands, placing his hand cannon in his left and his baton in his right, finally firing several shots in a line through the wall until he heard a yell. Where that bullet had gone, he sent several more, neutralizing the gun gal that had accompanied the swordsmen.
It seemed that the Dust rounds were following the pattern he had been noticing already. Using Dust traded the raw power and penetration of City munitions for the ability to knock opponents around better and less recoil.
He could make that work.
"Number three works, gimme more of that!" He yelled to Callie as he stepped back into the hallway. Another thug had emerged from the same end of the hallway as his predecessors, and Murex was back on his feet on the opposing end. If he stayed, they would sandwich him. Well, Murex would at least. Hakke was not eager to allow the enforcer to properly close the gap.
Now that he had revealed the bolas, using it effectively against him would be a hell of a lot harder.
He snapped a shot at the larger threat before returning to the office and smashing out a window by leaping through it. He glided over to the next sample of high ground he could find, one of the SDC shipping containers, and began firing at the thugs emerging from the first floor in earnest. He only let up to focus his Light and launch three trailing orbs of Solar Light back at the window he had emerged from to slow Murex down.
He continued firing, leaping from one container to another, dropping thugs where he could. One had climbed onto the shipping crate he found himself flying towards, and the Faunus man swung two thin curved swords at him. The Warlock blocked the first several swings before hitting the man with a palm strike, sending him hurtling off the container to ricochet off a steel railing.
Out of the corner of his eye the Warlock saw the man he had inadvertently set on fire run shrieking out of the building and launch himself off the dock and out of sight. A plume of steam billowed up from where he had vanished, followed by a loud splash.
He… felt a little bad about that. Not going to lie.
A shout alerted him to rapidly approaching danger, the Warlock barely managing to block the first flying swing from Murex. Hakke's Celestial Fire had failed in properly preventing the enforcer from exiting the building it seemed, and he had wasted very little time in re-engaging his foe. Once again, Hakke found himself overwhelmed and trading blows with a far better swordsman than himself, a feeling that was vindicated when Murex landed a powerful kick into Hakke's chest, sending him flying off the container.
His glide reoriented the Warlock, and a quick Dash sent him flying out of the way of a shot from Murex. He landed and fired in a staggered retreat, most of his shots being blocked by the enforcers flashing blade. The moment he could, he turned around to run properly once more. There were still plenty of people shooting at him to deal with.
Another leap and Dash sent the Warlock's extended baton careening into the head of one grunt, a shot from his hand cannon snapping the knee of another in the wrong direction. A palm strike sent a low hanging winch whipping into one more before Hakke leapt up and grabbed hold of a separate winch hanging above the floor. From his vantage point he would be able to send a hailstorm of shots into Murex when he next showed his face.
Except he didn't.
And outside the groans of the wounded and the whine of engines high above him, he didn't hear the enforcer on the approach, leaving the Warlock on high alert for the next-
Wait.
Engines?
This felt oddly familiar, and not in a good way. More of a 'I'm about to be shot' way. He Dashed off the winch just fast enough for the sniper round to hit his helmet at just the right angle for it to ricochet and not liquefy his brain. The shot still knocked him off balance, and he cartwheeled down to the concrete floor, landing with a heavy thud.
His head was ringing. He felt like he had just been slapped by Lord Shaxx, the Crucible handler back at the Tower. Frankly, he would have actually preferred to have been backhanded by Shaxx, that would at least have killed him outright, not debilitated him like this.
The screech of shearing metal rang out, and a figure dropped from above and landed gracefully a few meters away. Hakke got up and shook his head clear.
It wasn't Murex. The enforcer had made himself present now, sword at the ready but not making any move to attack. The man's face was a mix of trepidation and anger at the arrival of this new person.
It was her. It was the woman in white, the one that had shot him from her bullhead, leaving him for the Grimm to kill when he had first arrived on Remnant. Her weapon was definitely some sort of long handled blade, the handle nearly making up almost half of its size, with a large block separating the two. Thick locks of white hair billowing down to her waist, white suit, but now he could see her face. He scanned every detail, and did not like what he saw. It was her look, her demeanor.
She was going to kill him, and she was going to enjoy doing it.
"What the hell is this?" Murex demanded angrily. "I have this under control-"
"Know your place. This is above you." The woman said sweetly.
"Gods damn it, Magenta! This is my job, not yours."
Oh, he already didn't like her. "You know," he said as he got to his feet. "I appreciate the extra thrill you Syndicate shills have been throwing my way for whatever demented reason, but I'm getting kind of tired of everyone trying to kill me as of late. And I'm really getting tired of random people interrupting the perfectly good fight me and Murex had going here. So can I ask you to piss off to… wherever."
"Murex, I regret to inform you that our employer has decided that you are not the individual who should be...correcting, this particular mistake. And I would recommend not interfering from now on." The woman, Magenta, said as she ignored Hakke. "Now, if you excuse me."
Her attention turned to Hakke, setting off innumerous alarm bells in his head. On one hand this excursion had been successful, wonderfully so. He had advanced up the hit list of whoever was pulling the strings in a rather big way. Originally, he had expected a slow escalation of strike teams aiming to kill him and the Detective until the really heavy guns came out. Instead, it seemed that it was Murex, someone that his cop ally had recognized on sight as dangerous who seemed to be the one in charge of hunting them down. Now though, it seemed that even he wasn't good enough by the boss's standards, as this Magenta, seemed to be the one that was in charge of putting them down.
And the name ringed in his head. Back at the Syndicate hideout he had raided, the two guards had talked about someone being sent specifically to kill Cerulean. Someone that they had refused to mention by name, who had a reputation so bad in her organization that the peons at every level feared for their lives at her mention alone. Like the vault guards had been.
This was her.
"I must ask, how many of you are there?" Magenta asked.
Huh?
"What?"
She groaned. "I am loath to repeat myself." She said as she began to walk forward. "And do not interfere, Murex."
She stopped in front of the Warlock. "Every time you do not answer my question, wretch, I will cut a piece from you."
He opened his mouth, a smarmy statement locked and loaded as her sword flicked out and slashed into his chest. His Light flared and a small section of his coat parted. It took a moment to register that he had even been hit, and even longer for the pain to be felt. He looked over to where she had sliced him, and was shocked to see a neat red line underneath the cut in his coat.
"Son of a bitc-" he began before he was forced to bring his baton up to defend himself. Her next slash had been aimed at his side, and just like the first, had been more like she had thrown a whip at him. He extended the baton into a staff and took a swing at her, firing off several shots with Midnight Coup with the other.
Her reaction was lazy, using her sword to guide his staff in an arc clean over her own head, and taking a single step to the side to avoid his gunshots. She even used her off hand to neatly brush her hair out of the line of fire. Then, quick as a snake, her blade sliced another clean line across his outer thigh.
There was something wrong with that blade. It had bent as she swung it, showcasing a degree of flexibility he had never seen in a sword before. It was highly flexible, far more than it had any right to be. Then there was the fact that it was cutting through his armor like it wasn't even there.
He recoiled as she sliced at him again and again, her attacks either avoiding his haphazard defense or bending around his staff when he managed to get it between him and her sword. His arms burned with numerous razor-like cuts she had inflicted.
"I ask again. How many are you?"
"What kind of questionnaire is this?" Hakke yelled as he Dashed backwards. Anything to get distance between her and him. His arms were a mess, red soaking into the fabric and splattered across the floor he had been pushed back against.
"There was one who wore your uniform in the Emerald Forest, and now I find you wearing the same. How many more are there?"
Of course. She had never seen his face back in the forest, he had been wearing his helmet. And as Guardians didn't exist here, there was no reason for her to even guess that he was the same person she had killed back there. While she was correct in her assumption that his coat was part of a uniform, it belonged to a group that didn't have any sort of jurisdiction on Remnant. Besides, he had only joined the Praxic Order for less than a week, and that was only so he could get his hands on a Duster of the Cormorant Blade.
What could he say? The thing looked nice.
"As many as are needed." he snarled through gritted teeth. Apparently she did not like that answer, as she sent another slash across his chest.
He had had enough of this. He jumped into a glide and threw a fusion grenade at Magenta, sending her darting away from the explosion. As she moved he took aim with his bolas and fired, sending it directly into her path. She saw it coming and slashed it out of the way with her sword, where it wrapped itself around the middle of the blade and activated.
He began unloading Midnight Coup into her, and to his dismay she was still capable of dodging his attacks. It seemed that her weapon was insulated, as the electricity was only arcing along the metal that it was connected to. Then the blade separated.
As it turned out, it wasn't a single sword. It was actually several very thin whip-like razor blades masquerading as a sword. She flicked the mess forward like a whip, the individual strands eviscerating the bolas that had been adhered to them and flashing towards him in a cloud.
The bolas was made of metal wire. His coat was made of nanofiber ballistic weave. Why was she able to cut everything?
The razors ripped into him, cutting him damn near everywhere. He screamed and fell to the ground, barely managing to keep his feet. She launched forwards as he brought up the bolas launcher once more in a desperate attempt to give himself any amount of breathing room. She neatly sidestepped the launched wire as the razors congealed back into a blade, one that she swept in an arc past his arm, neatly slicing the launcher off his arm. And to rub it in more, she continued the motion by shoving her sword clean through his chest, removing it and landing one last hammer-like blow against his helmet.
Hakke spun over, hitting the ground and rolling for a ways. He gasped greedily. He couldn't see anything. The polyglass of his Prodigal Hood helmet had shattered completely, and judging by the fact that he could feel cold metal pressing against his temple, the outside had crumpled somewhat as well. Luckily, her sword had just barely missed his heart. If she had hit that, not even his Light would have been able to offset the intense levels of internal bleeding he would have suffered.
He wheeled around desperately, pulling as much Light as he could muster against and past the Barrier, pushing to bring forth a Dawnblade to at the very least set his enemy on fire. It was just like the last time he had attempted to do this, the Barrier acted like a pressure valve, putting a hard cap on how much Light he was able to bring to bear. But now that he was expecting it, he acted to mitigate the damage. With a conscious effort, he shunted the energy down his arm and out his hand, flames beginning to roar out like a blowtorch.
He barely had enough Light to shield himself with. His makeshift Dawnblade was taking longer to generate than he anticipated. His enemy moved just a touch faster than he wanted.
She swiped her sword up in a powerful two handed strike that sliced through his meager Light reserves, his physical armor, and into his helmet. He was launched one way, and the ruins of his helmet another. He crashed face first into the floor.
He struggled up onto hands and knees.
"How fascinating." He heard Magenta say. What she found so fascinating, he really couldn't care less about at the moment. He was just curious why she was hanging back and talking instead of finishing him off.
The unmistakable sound of a bullet being manually loaded gave him his answer.
Hakke had landed on top of his hand cannon, and he hoped that his opponent hadn't noticed him grabbing it. He stood. He had been pushed back to the edge of the dock itself, well, less of a dock and more of a platform you could dock a boat to. His enemy was fast enough to cut off a retreat to the left or right, and even if he was able to get past her, Murex was still hanging out in the background. The river itself was surprisingly wide, too wide to glide across. And even if he tried that, he knew he would just be shot down. He wasn't happy, that was for sure.
"I'd rather if you didn't shoot me in the back of the head like a coward."
He really didn't like that the same person would be responsible for two deaths back to back.
"Good. I prefer looking those I kill in the eye."
He reached a hand up to his face, tracing the fresh cut that stretched from his chest, up his neck, and finally straight up his face to just narrowly miss his eye. He hadn't been beaten this badly in a long while. Guess that's what he got for making the same mistake he had been making for the entirety of his time on Remnant.
He had thought that he knew what to expect. The upper limit of what his enemies were capable of. He was still approaching everything like he was back home, applying the same tired old rules to a situation that demanded new ones. He licked his teeth. He would need to do better.
But for now, should he dodge left or right?
He whipped around as fast as he could, bobbing to the left as he went, Midnight Coup leveled at his enemy. She fired first.
He missed.
She didn't.
If he thought his head hurt before, well, it certainly did now. His mind wasn't running at a hundred miles an hour at least, it had slowed considerably when Magenta's bullet had torn a hole in his head.
It was funny how he was still able to think after that, he thought as he fell off the dock and into the river below.
Best part about writing with a Guardian as the main character? You get to do this sorta crap and get away with it! Gotta love that resurrection ability. This chapter has some extra meat on its bones to make up for the last chapter's anemic length.
- RangoTango
Ya'll know what time it is.
Al the Obsessive - No problem, man.
The Baz - As a Warlock main, I can do that. Gotta love Hive, they provide the eldritch, memetic nightmare scenarios I crave.
DarkMegatronXX47 - Not only are Hakke's plans not great, his luck is even worse! Alliance to remove the Titan hegemony for Guardian Games? Heck yea. Not planning to gun for gold and crush all who oppose the best class or anything. Nope.
