Atonement: Lincoln Clay

Episode 12: I hear the train coming


[Disabled doctor: :) ]

[Gamelover41592: Thanks, and you're about to find out what's in store for Locus.]

[Wombag1786: I'm glad you understand. Oh and I saw 'Man from U.N.C.L.E.' on TV! I need to watch it again though when I get the chance for some inspiration, it'd be perfect. I'm going to try my hand at getting a certain 'cowpoke's' rancid personality in this chapter for practice, let me know if I get him right.]

[Dracus6: I might do it, but I also might get Sam Fisher, or a certain ghostly Spec Ops team, or Captain Price, involved...]

[Elex: I don't know if I could pull it off. Smushing the two worlds together like that is a tall order for me, and if I do it, I want to do it right. SO if I ever get around to it, then it's a long way off.]

[STILLFASTABOI: Thanks, yes he will. No, Vito is busy running New Bordeaux and I may invovle him in later tales of Lincoln's adventures if I get that far. But for now, I know someone else who Lincoln knows that might be a good consigliere, here's a hint: he used to run Barclay Mills]


-2 DAYS LATER-

Locus had entered Mistral by way of his Bullhead transport and had touched down in the city near Haven academy. It was a good thing Cyrus had made that reservation for a private landing pad since they occasionally had business in that kingdom. The veteran mercenary made his way through the streets of Mistral City, passing all sorts of shops and businesses along the way to his destination. With some spare time on his hands before he would reach the location of a local contact he'd been pointed to for information, the mercenary decided to review his mission's parameters.

He more or less understood the mission he'd been paid to do, some private detective work for Lincoln and Donovan to look into the deaths of several archaeological researchers. As he walked along, he kept pondering the information he'd been given so far. All of the men and women who'd been killed were brutally tortured, most likely as part of an interrogation. The sheer gore of some of the deaths from what he heard meant their assailant was a violent sadist. But each of them was reported to also have been killed with a headshot, a swift death. That didn't usually match up, not if his past experience with Felix as a hitman was anything to go by.

It didn't make much sense to him, but on Remnant there were quite a few things that didn't always add up. The mercenary finished that thought as he rounded a corner to continue down another path in direction of his destination. His mind then wandered into another subject, the recent history of his current client, the mysterious mister Lincoln Clay. He heard from a few reliable sources about what Lincoln and Donovan has caused over at Junior's and bringing him under their employment.

The picture that information painted for him was more or less shaping into something he knew he had to keep an eye on. Lincoln seemed decent enough to him, and someone needed to bring Junior to heel before he could cause any major problems on behalf of the Xiong crime family. For now, Clay was simply keeping a lid on the city's crime, so it didn't require immediate attention. All in all, Locus decided it was a problem for another day.

His thoughts were then interrupted by a radio call from his partner. "Locus, this is Siris checking in. What's your status?"

"On my way to the crime scene." Locus responded. "Do you have any new intel we can use?"

"I've talked with the project's remaining scientists here at the university. So far, they've had some close encounters, and it definitely like they were being watched. Not to mention whatever data or papers they hadn't backed up were stolen by the suspects. I know this goes without saying, but they definitely have some ties to the Xiongs considering how evasive they were when I hit certain topics, otherwise they were very cooperative." Siris answered.

"So, most of the important findings are missing, and we might have multiple hostiles to deal with." Locus surmised.

"In that order, yes and most likely. But let's leave the Xiongs' business alone, as far as we're concerned all we're doing is looking into a private case to get some justice for a few lives. I'll see what else I can dig up here, you just investigate the residence of the head researcher, Doctor J Chang. If we're lucky, the cops missed something and we might have a few clues to go off of." Siris told his partner in a stern manner.

"Understood. I'll check in again later when I'm done. Over and out." Locus grunted in acknowledgement and ended the call.

Eventually he found himself at the front of door of a small townhouse and scanned the building with his eyes for an opening that hadn't been sealed. With no visible entrance on the front side of the building, Locus entered a nearby alley to further his search for an entrance where he believed no one would notice his entry into the building. The mercenary found a maintenance ladder on the side of the building and climbed to the roof. After that, he broke open a locked hatch on the roof and jumped down into the residence.

Locus looked around the upper floor and turned on his shotgun's flashlight attachment. He slowly looked around the room, taking in the various signs of a struggle and messy bloodstains. What immediately caught his interest was a bullet hole in the floor. The round itself had taken by a ballistics scientist but if the hole was anything to go by then it had been a handgun caliber. The angle of bullet's trajectory pointed to the victim being on their knees when they died, it was a finishing execution.

The mercenary pictured it all in his head, the door had been forced open and two men had barged into the main room. Doctor Chun had been slashed several times during the fight as indicated by blood and blade marks on the floor. After the fight was over the interrogation had begun and it lasted for quite some time. From how the place had been ransacked he'd held out until he was out of aura to keep him alive.

Locus turned his head around to look at a nearby desk that appeared to have been turned inside out. He carefully inspected the inside of the seemingly empty drawers for anything that the killers missed. It felt absurd to him, but when he considered the criminal connections to the research… a secret button was within the real of possibilities. He felt a small depression in the wood and pressed on it, a loud clank sound echoed throughout the room. A small concealed door popped open to reveal a small safe with a wrapped package in it.

"Siris, do you copy?" Locus radioed to his partner.

"I'm here, you got something?" Siris asked.

"Yes, a small package. It's probably the extra research data." Locus replied.

"Good. I've got some more info on the suspects who were following some of the researchers. A few common factors in the sightings was a faunus of some kind, and a man in a duster coat and white hat." Siris said confidently and began relaying descriptions on of the two possible targets they were up against. Suddenly there was large explosion at the door.

*BOOM*

Locus was sent flying and painfully smacked against the drywall, leaving behind an indent and several cracked slabs of wall. He grunted in pain as he stood up and grabbed his shotgun on instinct as two men nonchalantly strolled into the room.

"Well looks like we found the guy who's been sniffing around where he shouldn't." One of the strangers said eagerly. The man in question wore a white hat, black trench coat and red shirt, giving him the appearance of a cowboy.

"Yes, we must deal with him quickly, the goddess is expecting us and we cannot disappoint her." The other man in the cloak said darkly, a bloodthirsty reverence in his voice.

With a look of annoyance, the cowboy shook his head at the cloak wearing psychopath. "Why you worship her is something I will never understand." He groaned.

"You're the ones who killed the scientists." Locus said as he pointed the shotgun in their direction.

The gunslinger nodded. "Guilty as charged cowpoke. Now why don't you hand over that little package you found and let us be on our way?"

Locus narrowed his eyes under his helmet. "That's not going to happen."

"Wrong choice of words." The gunslinger said in an eager tone as he drew two old school looking revolvers. A barrage of bullets was fired in the direction of the mercenary who managed to take cover behind a table. Locus brought up his pump action shotgun and prepared to fire just as he was rushed by the other man. The veteran mercenary sidestepped his opponent and fired his shotgun at near point-blank range against the man's back. Not wasting a second, he ran ups the stairs, narrowly avoiding being shot by the gunslinger.

Locus found a chair to stand on and jumped up to the hatch in the rooftop. He barely climbed out as his pursuers caught up to him. The mercenary then tossed the grenade into the hatch and took off running. He slid down the ladder with all due haste, sprinting for his life as he heard shouts from his pursuers.

"Get back here! You've got something I want!" The gunslinger roared wildly as he fired his gun in Locus's direction. Several innocent civilians ended up getting hit by stray gunfire as result of the cowboy's actions.

"We cannot let him escape, Micah." The man in the cloak told his partner.

"Ya think I don't know that, Tyrian?!" Micah snapped.

Locus continued to evade their pursuit, returning fire with his pistol to attempt to slow them down. The cloak wearing assailant though proved to be far faster than the gunslinger and managed to get ahead of the fleeing mercenary. A swift slash from a scorpion tail was narrowly avoided by the mercenary and he responded with a powerful blast from the shotgun. Despite being knocked back by the shot, Tyrian managed to barely stand his ground.

A gunshot whizzed by Locus's head and he swiftly tackled Tyrian to the ground and landed several heavy punches to the psychotic Faunus's face. Tyrian thrashed wildly and with a mighty heave he managed to throw the mercenary off of him. Locus tumbled for several feet and then found himself at the mercy of the gunslinger who began to beat him senseless. In a show of good timing, the mercenary managed to catch one of the cowboy's punches and land a counter strike to the man's gut.

Micah kneeled over in pain for a brief moment and Locus got back on his feet. After a moment to catch their respective winds, the two fighters stared each other down in an apparent stand-off. Both men took up a dueling stance to reach for their respective pistols, and in a brief flash of moves both men had drawn their guns and fired. Locus's shot knocked the gun out of Micah's hand, while Micah had managed to hit the mercenary in his left shoulder. Locus clutched his injury, and then charged at Micah to engage him in hand to hand combat.

"Tyrian now!" Micah shouted in desperation.

Just as Locus was about to close in for his assault Tyrian jumped in and tackled to the ground. The mercenary struggled to force his opponent off of him and resorted to kneeing the psychotic faunus in the balls. Tyrian immediately froze in sheer pain from the impact on his privates and emitted a high-pitched whine. Seeing an opening from his dirty tactic, Locus headbutted the assassin and threw him off. By the time Locus had begun trying to run again, Micah had retrieved his pistol and fired another barrage of gunshots at his target. The gunslinger took a breath and was about to squeeze the trigger for kill shot but suddenly a loud crack rang out in the air.

"Ah son of a-!" Micah cursed as the pistol flew out of his hand again.

Locus looked to a nearby rooftop as he sprinted away from the two hitmen to catch a faint glint from a rifle scope. "Looks like I got here just in time." Siris said smugly over the radio.

"Can you keep them pinned down?" Locus asked his fellow vigilante.

Siris fired another round at his targets and using his hands he signaled to locus with an 'ok' symbol. "For as long as you need. Get back to the bullhead, we're getting out of here and heading straight to Haven to chat up the headmaster. The local police should be on scene to clean up the mess soon enough." The sniper replied coolly.

"Understood, I'll be there soon." Locus finished, focusing heavily on his mad sprint to the bullhead and used his active camouflage to disappear when he finally got the chance.

Back with Tyrian and Micah, the gunslinger had taken cover behind a brick wall to avoid getting shot. "Tyrian, get off your ball-busted ass and catch that guy! I'll deal with that sniper!" Micah shouted and blindly fired his pistol at the sniper high above them. After firing several shots in desperation, a clever thought struck the gunslinger. He then grinned madly as he pulled out a match and lit a stick of dynamite. With a good heave he threw the explosive into the air and covered his ears as it was struck by a bullet. Using the smoke from the explosion as cover, Micah ran out from his current position and tried to outflank his enemy.

Tyrian pulled himself off of the ground and began trying to track down the fleeing mercenary. It was clear to him that wherever the mercenary had gone, he could not have gotten very far so quickly. Using his heightened faunus senses the zealous killer followed a trail of blood that Locus had left behind. He smirked to himself as he seemed to close in on the injured human with each passing moment.

After rounding a corner that lead into a dead end alley Tyrian decided to try striking fear into his opponent. "Come out human, I know you can hear me. Perhaps I might 'not' castrate you for what you did earlier." He said in a bloodthirsty tone. A can clanked at the end of the alley and Tyrian leapt at the disturbance, only to find nothing there except garbage cans and old crates. He was then taken by surprise as his opponent appeared behind him and fired a shotgun blast into his back at point blank range. A loud shout of pain erupted Trian's mouth as he flew into the brick wall with a loud thud.

Now filled with ire at the man who'd shot him, the psychotic zealot recovered and charged at Locus. The mercenary fluidly sidestepped his attack and countered by grabbing a knife and slashing Tyrian across the chest as he flew by.

"Why won't you die?!" Tyrian hissed as he attempted to close in on Locus for the kill, but the mercenary simply countered his attack once more. Locus then tossed a grenade in Tyrian's direction and took cover. With a loud bang, the grenade exploded and sent the zealous killer over flying over the wall, seemingly rendered unconscious from the blast. Locus didn't hesitate to leave the area and began running once more towards the direction of his objective.

-BACK WITH SIRIS-

The sniper and the gunslinger had gotten into a pistol battle, trading entire magazines worth of rounds several times over. Neither man was willing to back down from their prolonged battle of weapons and wit. Siris tried outflanking his enemy but Micah knew better than to let someone get behind him in a gunfight. The gunslinger transitioned from behind a cart to a nearby stone pillar and tossed another lit stick of dynamite. Siris spotted the incoming explosive and leapt safety behind stone wall just before it exploded.

"You're really nimble for a cripple!" Micah taunted his opponent as he fired his pistol at Siris.

"Seriously, trying to egg me on?!" Siris shouted to the mustache wearing hick. "I've heard better from someone way more annoying than you."

"Then hold still and you won't hear anything anymore!" Miacah rushed towards siris, rapidly firing his guns.

"I'd rather eat shit, redneck!" SIris shot back with own spare shotgun.

"Talk will get you nowhere peg leg!" Micah closed in and swiped at the one legged sniper with his bowie knife. Siris parried his enemy's attack and then punched him square in the face. "Grraagh! You broke jaw!" Micah cried out in pain.

"Good!" Siris shouted as he threw another punch and knocked out the gunslinging mad man. Micah unceremoniously tumbled to the ground and groaned in his sleep. With a quick flip of the middle finger, Siris turned around and walked away.

-END CHAPTER-