"Now's probably a bad time to ask, but… Have you- Has your hair always been…"
Ann tore her eyes away from yet another recently-dispatched mech heap and glanced back at Ryan.
"I mean, I heard that you got a suit and a fancy combat system from Dad's old pal, but uh… Jeez, you could probably take on all of Factió Pugní without breaking a sweat!"
A small smile crept onto Ann's lips for a brief moment.
"About that… Ayane and I assaulted one of their compounds, the freighter out from Harbour Town, thinking that they had you captive there, or at least knew where to find you."
"The Walter Raleigh? Seriously?"
"Mhm, we made a great team. Got the ROM from T.R. himself, fixed it up in Noctis, and, well, we followed the trail here." The young woman rubbed the back of her neck as she glanced about, wary of any approaching enemies as they conversed. For some reason she hardly had to worry about getting jumped in the middle of a conversation; perhaps everyone and everything was in agreement that interrupting was just rude. "But to answer your question, it happened under Highway 42. This… this power inside me, it blossomed."
Catching the subtle twitch of Ryan's cybernetic eye and that scar that ran across it, Ann was quick to reassure him.
"Don't worry, I can control it now."
"Don't blame yourself," Ryan countered with a reassuring smile of his own. "It was an accident."
There was no reason to doubt the young man. Ann thought back to her upbringing, her childhood, and knew that Ryan was a man who spoke from the heart without any sugarcoating. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which, though Ann treasured now, often got him into trouble growing up. Punks loved to pick fights with him, and he refused to stand down. Even Ann bullied him from time to time, yet Ryan continued to keep his heart open and support his sister. Looking back, Ann had regrets; she should have treated him better, even if he was a stubborn fool.
It took destroying his eye in a freak accident for her to realize just how poor of a sister she had been, let alone the danger she posed for those she loved.
"Oh, so you can control me now, hm?" Amok's caustic tone chipped away at the tender moment and forced Ann back to the present.
"Wha- Well, what am I supposed to tell him? That there's a superpowered, mangled version of myself feeding power to me through an alternate dimension, and that she's in my head right now?"
Amok scoffed, yet Ann could feel the gears in her head shudder to a halt.
"Fair point."
Moving down yet another Consortium corridor, the siblings kept their heads on a swivel. From their attire, youthfulness, and the way they carried themselves, anyone, from the lowest of janitors to the most senior of staff, would know for certain that they did not belong. Then again, with the chaos present throughout the entire base plus the mechanical drake wreaking havoc on the surface, few were in a position to stop and question them. Still, like rats fleeing a sinking ship, someone with unsated bloodlust was bound to take offense to their existence on their way out.
"You'd think the world was coming to an end with all these alarms and flashing lights," Ryan commented, bemused.
"Their world," Ann muttered aloud. "Not ours. We're getting out of here."
"Damn right."
With that stim-shot having perked Ryan back up to his usual self, more or less, Ann felt comfortable knowing that she wouldn't have to escort him. She had found a few more syringes and healing items along the way and loaded him up while he equipped himself with a nightstick plucked from a dispatched guard. While he wouldn't be able to fight by Ann's side or fight the foes she's used to, he could at least bash the average rank and file scientist around if they thought about getting in their way.
A large locked door stood between the siblings and their goal. Ann had followed both printed signs and her intuition, leading her to the Inner Consortium's medical bay. She could only hope that Ayane was still safe and sound, yet the lack of security leading up to this place did not bode well in Ann's mind. Either guards and doctors had taken their patients, Ayane included, elsewhere, or people were waiting for them inside. Again, if the experience of rescuing Ryan taught Ann anything, it was that nothing was below the Consortium's standards.
"Get ready, Ryan," Ann cautioned, her hand to the side of her head as she examined a nearby keypad. "There could be anything behind these doors."
"What kind of plan are we- Wait, what are you doing?"
"I'm hacking."
"When did you learn to hack?"
Ann felt another smile tugging at her lips; one of pride, but also embarrassment.
"Um… Well, Ayane taught me just as we were trying to get into your apartment. By the way, you really need to change your keycode."
"What's wrong with it?"
"Ryan, you live in an apartment block filled with schizophrenics and conspiracy theorists," Ann said with a chuckle. "1984 isn't that hard to guess."
"Well, it was either that or F451, and you can't use letters."
Turning her attention back to the doors, Ann put Ayane's teaching to good use and put in the final touches. The keypad let out a chirp of confirmation, the doors churned and groaned, and then, with a hydraulic hiss, they parted to reveal another long corridor with several rooms branching off it on either side. At the very end, about six doors down, a medical orderly looked up from his datapad and nearly fell on his ass in terror. He let out a squeal and ducked into a room with the doors slamming shut behind him. It was a long shot, but intuition told Ann that wherever that man had gone, Ayane would be found there.
"Hustle!" Ann cried out, launching herself down the corridor.
Halfway down the corridor, a turret popped up from a floor panel at the far end and whirred to life. While it thankfully wasn't military-grade, its bulky design and heavy-hitting high-caliber gun made it a nightmare for anyone on the receiving end, especially if there was no cover to hide behind. Ann was too pressed for time to bother ducking into an adjacent room, and with Ryan right behind her, she couldn't take any risks. She slowed her charge to a cautious walk and materialized her hard light shield. Shaped like a kite, the shield fanned out and managed to cover Ann's frame from her neck to her knees.
"Get behind me, now!"
Ryan did what he was told as the turret locked on to them. While Ann's shield could block a hard swipe and leave her unharmed, it wasn't designed to handle sustained fire. More a buckler than portable cover, the hard light shield wasn't large enough to cover Ann and Ryan both. Amok was stupefied to see Ann trying this in the first place, but as bullets came flying toward them, she snapped out of her shock and stepped in. She sent her power rippling through Ann's limbs and into her shield, supercharging it to the best of her ability.
What had once been a reasonable kite shield soon spread out into a fully-fledged particle wall large enough to cover a grown man from head to toe. Ann and Ryan were both amazed; Ryan most of all, for he let out a nervous breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. Screaming, hot lead slammed against the particle shield and either fell harmlessly to the floor or ricocheted off to the side. Ann pressed forward, urging the shield along as she closed the distance. As soon as she was within reach of that pesky turret she lashed out with a kick to its side, knocking it off its pedestal and helpless to a follow-up strike from her saber.
"Why- Why would they have a turret in a medical ward," Ryan gasped as the particle shield collapsed.
"Why wouldn't they," Ann growled back, pulling her blade from the sparking chassis. "What if someone doesn't want to be poked and prodded against their will? Can't have anyone escaping…"
Amok's power receded while her cold voice slithered back through Ann's head once again.
"Shields are a crutch. I'll forgive it this time, but in the future, your blade is all you need."
"Oh sure, I'll just cut a bullet in half and get two holes for my trouble."
"You don't cut them in half. You deflect them, you insolent little twit," Amok snarked back with an amused scoff.
To the siblings' good fortune, the orderly from before had forgotten to seal the doors when he fled through them. Again the two looked at one another and nodded, poised for whatever may come their way. A swipe of the hand against the keypad and the doors slid open, and so the two Flores children ducked inside with weapons at the ready.
Two security guards armed with stun batons stood before them with the medical orderly cowering and panting off to the side, his fear as clear as day despite his medical mask and goggles. Another orderly stood at the far end of the room next to a high-tech device that consisted of a bed with a large scanning ring that ran along its length. Like his colleague, he looked back in alarm, his hands removed from the device's controls. Upon the bed and lying very still and quiet was Ayane, the purple-haired hacker extraordinaire. For a brief moment, Ann was relieved to see that she seemed unharmed, at least until she caught sight of a dark aqua-haired scientist whose glare almost stopped her cold in her tracks.
"Stop her," the woman gestured to the guards before turning to the orderly manning the controls. "And you- Don't just stand there! Complete the procedure!"
"Like hell you will!"
Ann lurched forward and, slipping between the two guards before they could bring their batons down, she slid and kicked the orderly's legs out from under him. His face fell flat against the controls with a sick thud, but nothing happened, save for a small splash of blood against the touchscreen as he crumpled to the floor. While he rolled around in agony and nursed his broken nose, Ann rose and put her sword through the controls. She could hear one of the guards falling to the floor as Ryan charged in with her, though the other guard was quick to engage him. Ignoring the other, cowering orderly, Ann swung her sword towards the dark aqua-haired scientist and held it at arm's length just a few inches away from her face.
There was fear in the woman's brown eyes, but rage and sorrow more so.
"What did you do to her?" Ann barked.
"What are you going to do? Kill me like you killed him?"
The question hung in the air and made Ann pause. She took a closer look at the woman before it hit her. This wasn't just any Consortium researcher, this was G's personal assistant. Ann didn't have many dealings with the woman during her tenure, mostly because she was usually stuffed up G's behind or tending to C, one of the other senior staff who had been possessed by Nidhogg. She never caught her name, but at the same time, she never really cared.
"You murderer," the assistant hissed. "That man was a father. He had a family!"
"That so? Well, he should have thought of his family before he threatened mine," Ann replied. She turned her head to the side and, still keeping her blade close to the assistant's face, she spoke to the two guards. "Both of you, drop your weapons! Do it!"
Ryan scrambled to his feet while the two guards dropped their stun batons. He had managed to avoid their weapons, but being so young and without armor, let alone much dexterity like Ann, he had been tossed and battered around. But it wasn't anything Ryan wasn't used to. He scooped up a stun baton for himself and wiped his lip with the back of his hand.
"Just, ugh… Get over there with that other guy," Ryan ordered, pointing to the cowering orderly from before.
"What did you do to Ayane?" Ann asked again.
"I'm not telling you anything," the assistant replied. She stood as still as a statue before Ann's blade. "You're just going to have to kill me. Shouldn't be a problem for you. You've killed so many people already. What's one more?"
Amok interjected with a hushed whisper in Ann's ear.
"Ann, be careful with this one," she warned, but Ann brushed her off.
"You think I like killing people? They didn't offer me much choice!" When the assistant refused to reply with anything other than folding her arms, Ann took out her pistol with her free hand and pointed it at the injured orderly on the floor beside her. "I'm not going to ask again. Either someone tells me what I want to know, or-"
The assistant scoffed and sneered, and so Ann made herself clear.
"Or… If and when this place goes to hell, somebody," she flicked the safety off and aimed for the orderly's knees, "won't be walking out of here."
Someone was bound to break. Ann was content to keep the pressure on, but Ryan, looking on with disbelief, was the first to break the silence.
"Ann, you can't just-"
"Wait, don't shoot, please!" The injured orderly held up his hands. "She's under general anesthesia, but we didn't do anything to her yet! I swear!"
"Alright, so what were you going to-" Ann paused, narrowed her eyes, and then she holstered her pistol. She gestured for the orderly to move. "Get up, and get with the others." As soon as the orderly did what he was told, Ann's tone darkened. "Memory replacement? The man's dead, and yet you wanted to follow through with it?"
"It was his last order to me," the assistant hissed in reply. "I don't expect you to understand."
Ann shook her head and sheathed her blade only to sink a gloved fist deep into the assistant's gut. She heard the woman gasp and shudder against her before doubling over, falling to her knees in agony. Ryan did not approve of this in the slightest.
"Ann!"
"Ryan, you stay out of this," Ann snapped as she jabbed a finger in his direction. Turning back to the gasping woman, Ann continued. "I don't have to understand you. I'm getting Ayane out of here, so stay down if you know what's good for you."
She turned and approached the medical bed to look Ayane over. It was such an alien sight having the perky paraplegic be so still, almost lifeless. Her avatar was always active, her voice as chipper as a festival, and her presence, though grating at times, was just the kind of spice that Ann relished in her life. The young hacker was unharmed, and she was still in her usual black and orange outfit. Once the anesthesia wore off, Ann figured that Ayane would be back to her usual self in no time.
Ann reached out to take Ayane into her arms, but then she was struck from behind. The whirr of a stun baton blasted her eardrums while its impact on the back of her head sent her reeling. She thought that she heard Ryan cry out for her, or perhaps it was Amok. Either way, Ann hardly managed a whimper before she lost consciousness. Her body fell against the side of the bed and crumpled to the floor where she laid just as still as Ayane did.
"Ann! No!"
The aqua-haired assistant stood over Ann's body with a stun baton in hand. Amok's warning was not without merit; the assistant was hardier than she appeared, and clever as well. She had struck Ann with her concealed weapon when the young woman turned her back to her. Dishonorable, perhaps, but the deed was done.
In an instant, the two guards from before lunged at Ryan and knocked his weapons away. He tried to fight back but, outnumbered and overpowered, it was a lost cause. A hook to the face, a punch to the gut, and a kick to the back of the legs soon forced him down to his knees where he found the assistant looming over him with her weapon in hand. As for the orderlies, at their wits' end with their equipment destroyed, they took the opportunity to flee the room. All of this was way above their pay grade.
"You'll pay for this," Ryan shouted as blood oozed from a split lip.
"You brats caused all this," G's assistant snarled in reply. "If Zero-Six had just complied, none of this would be happening."
"Are you mental? Ann would never be your puppet. You're nothing but a bunch of lying, scheming pricks!"
"We scheme and manipulate to keep the world safe. That's how the world works; someone's always in the shadows pulling strings, or else everything falls apart." The assistant took a breath to try and compose herself, yet the stun baton in her hand remained a source of righteous fury for her. "You know, the Consortium was going to let you go once all this was over. Sure, memory replacement," she muttered as she tapped her temple, "but what's a day or two of lost time really worth in the grand scheme of things? As for G and the others, they were under pressure. They had to put their foot down. But your sister, she couldn't make a selfless choice. No, she had to lash out… she had to kill him!"
"So what's your plan now? Bore us all to death?"
The assistant fixed Ryan with a cold, hard look, but Ryan refused to back down, even while on his knees.
"Yeah, that's what I thought. Don't think, just follow orders," he scoffed.
Such a flippant response was answered with a strike to his back and shoulders by one of the guards. Ryan fell forward, howling in pain, yet he clung to consciousness. The other guard was prepared to follow up, but then he pointed past the assistant.
"Uh, ma'am? She's getting back up!"
From his position on the floor, Ryan looked past the assistant and, sure enough, Ann was stirring. The raven-haired lass shook and murmured, her body prone on the floor before she reached out to push herself up. Ryan's heart soared at the sight; it'd take more than a dirty strike to keep a Flores down. The assistant wasn't pleased in the slightest. With a baton sparking and crackling with electricity, she slammed it down upon Ann's backside and expected her to fall back down, to slip back into unconsciousness, or, a best-case scenario for the Consortium, for Zero-Six to give up the ghost once and for all.
But nothing happened save for the rippling of electricity over Ann's body; strong volts capable of incapacitating a fully-grown man, yet here they rolled off the young woman like water.
"Wha-? Just… Just stay down!"
"No."
The assistant struck again, but Ann reached up and caught the woman's wrist. There was hardly a struggle. Pushing the woman back, Ann soon rose to her feet, however slow and uncoordinated the effort was at first. It was to be expected for a woman who may as well have a concussion, but on the contrary, the lass felt as if shackles had been removed from her limbs. She breathed in, savored the moment, then let out a relieved sigh.
"...Ann?"
Ryan knew that this woman was his sister, but someone else was standing in her place. A mirage or an apparition was superimposed upon her lithe, athletic frame. Two metallic horns jutted from her forehead like those of a hannya demon, scars ran along the being's exposed arms and legs, black hair had shifted to a dark blue, and, most distressing of all, Ann's midriff seemed gone in favor of some cyan glow and an exposed spine as black as space. And those eyes- Ryan thought he could still see his sister's blue eyes, but a split-second later and they had been replaced with a set of venomous yellows. Finally, a wicked sneer had spread over her lips; one that sent Ryan's soaring heart plummeting.
Amok had entered the fray.
"Who wants the first dance?" she cooed as she cracked her knuckles.
While the two guards were armed, and so too was the assistant, Amok had no desire to pull out her blade. One of the guards closed the distance and took a swipe at her, but Amok ducked to the side and kicked him in the back. The other rushed her, seeking to overpower her with sheer force alone. This in turn was answered with an elbow to the ribs, then a palm strike to the man's jaw. And then, sensing the window of opportunity, Amok launched herself towards the assistant and slashed her fist across the woman's face, knocking her down to the floor.
"Enjoy the sample? Stick around," Amok hissed, turning her back to the writhing woman as the guards reorganized and came at her again. "There'll be more where that came from."
The standard Consortium armor softened Amok's blows, but only to a certain degree. A gut-punch from the savage woman felt like getting rammed by an animal, and with enough blunt force, not even armor could dull the pain. The two guards were soon possessed by fury and terror; they dialed up the power on their stun batons and no longer lashed out with the intent to incapacitate. Their strikes were harder and faster, and yet to Amok they were still just as weak as ever. She blocked a few blows and returned them with more than triple the force, gradually whittling them down until they left themselves open for a coup de grâce.
She parried the first guard's incoming swipe with a kick to his side, then, as he recoiled, Amok unleashed a torrent of heavy kicks to his midsection. Somewhere in the cacophony of blows, a bone snapped, and yet Amok kept up the pressure until finishing it off with a devastating front kick. The unfortunate man slammed against the wall and slumped, down for the count. The other guard tried to hold Amok from behind, and for his ingenuity, he was rewarded with a headbutt that made him see stars. Pulling the helmet from his head, Amok grabbed ahold of his hair and brought his face down upon a sharp knee before crushing him between the floor and her boot.
"Miserable little cretins," Amok hissed in disgust. She heard the faint clack of high heels as the assistant tried to escape, but Amok was fresh out of mercy. "Now it's your turn."
Just before the assistant could clear the doorway and book it down the corridor, Amok flew across the room and grabbed her by the back of her lab coat. Momentum took the assistant's legs out from under her while Amok tugged back and slammed her down to the floor. The cry of agony was cut short by the lack of air in the assistant's lungs; the searing pain in the back of her head, too, had struck her silent. Amok strode around to the woman's front and straddled her. A wayward smack of the hand from the assistant was blocked and answered with Amok's own, again, across the face.
Amok reached down and grasped the assistant by the throat.
"Look at me. Look at me!"
Gagging, coughing, struggling to breathe, the assistant soon managed to look up at Amok through teary eyes.
"Oh, you poor thing… Ann might not understand you, but I do. Unrequited love is such a painful thing, no?" The assistant tried to pry the hand off her throat, but it was just no use. Amok was too strong, and she reveled in her position with a sick smile on her face. "Don't worry. You'll be reunited with that man soon enough."
A sinister, soft hiss announced the presence of a tantō pulled from Amok's back. The blade gleamed under the light as the savage woman twirled it about in her hand before angling it towards the whimpering woman beneath her. Savoring the moment, Amok watched as the assistant squeezed her eyes shut with tears streaming down her cheeks before plunging the blade dee-
THUMP.
Another foe had blindsided Amok, possibly an orderly looking to play the hero. Alarmed and agitated, she rolled off the assistant with her attacker and wrestled about on the floor for a second before kicking the insolent fool to the side. With her tantō in hand and bloodlust in her eyes, Amok managed to get on top of her attacker and brought her blade against his throat.
And then, surprising even herself, Amok froze before she could make that fateful incision.
"Ann… Please, it's me, Ryan. Don't do this," Ryan choked out, his hands raised.
"You have no right to interfere, boy," Amok grumbled.
"I have every right! Ann's my sister, and I won't let her be controlled by anyone, Consortium or… whoever or whatever you are." It seemed that Ryan had realized that his sister wasn't beyond those sharp yellow eyes, and yet even with a tantō close to his jugular, he refused to back down. "Ann's not a murderer, no matter what they say. She wouldn't want this."
Amok scoffed at Ryan's words, but she did rise and step away to allow him to stand. Like a hungry predator, Amok watched Ryan with her short blade in hand, waiting for a reason to put it to use. Ann had been incapacitated, and thus Amok had taken over to preserve them both. Though the young lass was out cold, her soul was ever-present; even now Amok felt her alter-ego's influence, and it made her stay her hand. That, and an emotion Amok hadn't felt in a long, long time.
"What if I told you that Ann and I are the same? A part of her revels in the killing, even though she tries to deny it. She's on a path to rewrite her destiny, to steer herself away from those who skulk and scheme in the shadows." Amok gestured to the assistant, now unconscious from the stress and pain. "Such a tale is often penned in others' blood."
"It doesn't have to be that way," Ryan replied. He stood before Amok with clenched fists and sharp, determined eyes. "No matter what it takes, I'll be there for Ann. I'll see to it that she doesn't have to lose herself anymore, and if that means beating you out of her, then… then so be it."
Despite how frightened he was, Ryan meant what he had said, and he was determined to go through with it, too. Amok watched as the young man put up his fists and steeled himself for a blow, but all that came for him was an impressed chuckle. She shook her head and sheathed her tantō with a small smile.
"Hm… You remind me of someone I once knew," she murmured. "In any case, I've had my fun, and Ann's stirring." Amok's amused expression then hardened. "Stay out of trouble… for her sake."
Amok turned on her heel and gazed back at the purple-haired hacker still anesthetized on the bed. Ryan wasn't sure what to make of the gesture; Amok seemed almost transfixed on Ayane, at least until she moved to sit on the floor in a meditative position. Gradually Amok's superimposition faded away from Ann's body to leave the young woman looking as if nothing had happened. A brief moment passed in silence before Ann, conscious once more, gasped and shook herself awake. Like a child rising from a bad dream, Ann shot to her feet and stumbled about in a dazed stupor, her head whipping back and forth as she got her bearings.
Ann looked to Ayane, to the comatose guards lying about, to the unconscious assistant, and then she saw Ryan, who in turn saw her.
"Oh… Oh god… Ryan," she sputtered, tears pricking her eyes.
"It's okay, Ann. You're okay," Ryan reassured her as he closed the distance.
"D-did she…" Another glance to the downed personnel, then to Ryan's split lip. "Did I-"
"No, everyone's alright."
"I'm so, so sorr-"
Now it was Ryan's turn to fling his arms around Ann and hold her tight. He felt his sister shudder and cry in his arms, her face twisted in a mixture of pain, sorrow, and shame. Though he knew how dangerous Ann was firsthand, she was still his sister, and he was determined to make good on his word to that twisted doppelgänger of hers. After a moment of grief and comfort, Ann managed to compose herself enough to give Ryan a grateful squeeze back. She removed herself from his embrace and wiped her tears away, though her body still shuddered beneath the strain of stress.
A dull boom echoed throughout the Consortium like the crackle of thunder before the medical room shook and creaked. It was as if an earthquake was rippling through the area, or if a volcano had taken the moment to erupt right then and there. Equipment, decor, and debris clattered about while the bright fluorescent lights burst and died out. While alarms had been blaring for quite some time, they paled in comparison to the klaxons and shrill beeping of new ones. Red emergency lights flicked on while backup generators went to work powering only the most vital of utilities there in the Consortium.
Ann heard Amok giggle; it seemed that the great, mechanical drake up above had finally been destroyed, and for the security personnel who had felled it, they had been rewarded with its gruesome self-destruction.
"We can talk about this later," Ryan said over the cacophony. "But right now, we really need to get to safety. C'mon, Ann. We can all get out of here."
"Yeah, you're right," she sniveled in reply.
There would come a time to tell Ryan and the others everything, but not now. Ann returned to Ayane's side and, careful with her legs, she lifted her from the bed only to hand her to Ryan. Then, surprising the young man before her, Ann raised her hand to the side of her head and sent her brother map data of the Consortium's inner and exterior levels.
"What are you doing?"
"I need you to take Ayane and get out of here," Ann explained. "Just take the elevator down, then it should be a straight shot through the laboratories to the elevator leading back up to Doyle's lab. You should know the way back."
"No, wait- You're coming with us, right? Ann, you can't just-"
"I'll be alright. I'll find-"
"You don't have to push yourself away, not like before!"
Ann shook her head and took a breath to compose herself.
"It's not like that, I swear. Ryan, if I go with you, the Consortium is going to follow, and I can't risk you and Ayane getting caught in the crossfire. I'm… I'm going to find another way out; draw their attention so you two can escape."
Ryan had his concerns, but he soon bowed to Ann's judgment. He kept Ayane close to his chest while Ann took the time to look her over. She came close and brushed her hand over the girl's head. Ayane had been an invaluable friend, but as time passed and their adventures demanded more of them, Ann had gradually begun to see her as something more. Of course, Ayane was way ahead of her; sultry, perverted, demanding, and coy, though with the subtlety of a battering ram.
Stirring in her stupor, Ayane dipped her cheek into Ann's hand.
"I'll see you soon," Ann whispered with a smile.
With that said, Ann saw Ryan and Ayane out of the medical ward and sent them on their way. She made sure that Ryan was well-equipped for the journey with medical items, non-lethal grenades, and a small assortment of useful tools. She also implored him to record anything and everything he passed, just in case. People on the surface deserved to know what was going on down here, and, to a lesser extent, where their taxes were going.
A few slashes from Ann's blade brought down debris and blocked a passageway behind Ryan, hopefully buying him time against those who might pursue him and Ayane. Ann knew for certain that there were other escape routes, but if there weren't, then it wouldn't have mattered. She would carve her own path; through metal, flesh, and bones if need be.
"This is what you want, isn't it?" Ann growled, blade in hand as she stormed down a corridor. "Well buckle up, Amok. For them… I'll cut down anyone and anything."
Amok gave a displeased sigh at the insinuation, but she didn't necessarily shoot it down.
