Vault Shadows
Chapter 4: The Shadow and the Snake
The saloon door swings open wafting the distinct smell of cigarettes, large amounts of alcohol and the faint smell of grunge from Nova in her usual place to the left of the bar known for her solicitations. Wading through thick clouds of smoke, holding his breath as if breathing in would poison him leading him to a quicker grave, finally making it to an empty bar stool in front of the now ghoul-run bar, the radio seemingly still broken with the sound of the instantly recognizable Three Dog fading in and out in static. The clearly out-of-place man in grey gestures for a scotch on the rocks, his drink of choice whenever he visits the saloon, while placing a handful of caps on the table, a clear sign for someone to approach him whether for niceties or to try something lucrative.
"Business has really picked up, huh?" The words make their way from a gravelly throat surrounded by an air of hopelessness about his goal to find The Vault Descendant. Without letting the ghoul answer his remark Kel continues, "I need information, do you know anyone who can get me that?"
Gob finishes pouring the man's scotch on the rocks and places both palms on the bar, nearly in protest, "you know if Moriarty wasn't killed by the girl I'm sure you're looking for right now, he would kick your ass to the curb. You're lucky I'm more forgiving than that old bastard." The ghoul takes a shot of vodka as if paying respects to the late owner of the saloon, with a grunt after taking the shot the ghoul continues as Kel had, not allowing a response, "if it's information you're looking for about that cold-hearted bitch just ask around, she comes in town on occasion and I'm sure at least one of these smooth-skins knows something."
The aching, scarred man tries not to take offense of those words on behalf of the woman he has been searching for since her debut on GNR, finishing his scotch he turns in his stool, his muscles contracting visibly sculpting under the fabric of his suit. A low groan comes from the man as he lifts himself from the stool, his eye making notes of the people around the bar more interested now with Gob not handing over any knowledge the ghoul might have known. To the left of the bar, drinking alone, was the visibly hard mercenary Jericho; however, his guise of being this hard ass who was not fazed by much was trumped by him being the caretaker for a young girl who had brought out the man's soft side more so than he would readily admit. To the right of the bar within the lounge area, nearly clouded by smoke, sat a young blonde who had moved here not to long ago in hopes of building a life that was safe and stable in hopes her family, her brother namely, would follow in her footsteps from there original home set-up on a crumbling highway. Beside the woman, a table away, was an even more out of place than the man scanning the room, sat a man in a white three-piece with his trilby sitting neatly on the table beside him, He is clearly not from around here, one of Tenpenny's men, it must be.
Following that thought the menacing man turns to Gob and nods to assure that the ghoul-owner was on the side of the man who may be making quite the scene if this goes south in a hurry, knowing Kel's reputation at the bar it just might. The floor creaks under the presence of the man out on a mission, he plants his body in the chair adjacent to the man in white's, taking one of the man's cigars from a box he left on the side table. "You don't mind, do you?" The man asks only for formality, he had no intention of not lighting the cigar if he had minded, "I see you are clearly from a more refined establishment than this rust bucket, why are you here? Wait, wait, before you answer that I have a couple other questions that are much more important to my being here than you may be able to answer." His words making a great pace from his lips as if time was of the essence and he had no desire for idle chit chat.
The man in white is taken out of his element "Sure, I don't see why- ".
Kel cuts him off almost as soon as the man agrees to answer his questioning, "So, I'm assuming you're Mister Burke? That old chicken shit Tenpenny's right hand man. Good gig huh? No doubt you have been around these parts for a little bit, I need any information on that escaped vault dweller that you can give me," the experienced man watches the man who is clearly in a sense of awe.
"W-well I know a little bit but," his demeanor finally readjusts to the usual slime ball behavior anyone that works for Tenpenny is known for, "in order for me to divulge that kind of information, I would need something from you. You aren't the only one looking for that girl and I can't be giving someone else the knowledge I possess."
The contrast man in grey sneers, "what do you want, filth?" His attitude getting more and more disgusted with the man in his presence wishing to put lead between the man's eyes
"Now, now, don't you want to know about your damsel?" The rat of a man grins as his words make Kel sit upright in his chair, "that's more like it, now all I need you to do is rid my master's horizon of this eye sore of a- ". Cutting off the words emitting the man in white was a fist held as tight as the teeth that were gritted by the man throwing the punch.
Spit and blood fly from the man's jaw from the sucker punch thrown by the man he had just made the request to. Kel stood tall over the still sitting man before grabbing the cowardly man's face and slamming his head into the wall of the bar denting the metal, followed with another shot to the jaw with placement mimicking that of the first blow. The assault was watched by all bar goers, even the town sheriff, Lucas Simms, whom was called as soon as the grey clad man made his way to the seat aside the man in white's.
The booming voice of the sheriff broke through the crowd that had formed around the scene, "Kel, enough! Leave Mister Burke alone, as far as I'm aware of that was an unwarranted attack and you can't be making scenes like that!" The sheriff grabbed the menacing figure by the arm, as he pulled the man from the bar in an effort to make it seem as if he were detaining the man, Lucas whispered to the nominal detainee, "I have been trying to bust Burke on anything to kick him out of this town, just give it time, you don't want The Regulators like they do that vault girl I heard you been looking for." The words from Simms were a message to the man, with Simms being the sheriff in order to keep his status he could not be seen with the man who had quite the reputation for fighting with drunkards prying for information on the scarred man's past.
With an uncommon air of sincerity, the shadow-like man turns to the sheriff, "thank you for that, Lucas, I was getting nowhere."
The words were not misplaced for the sheriff gave a winning smile, "just doing my job, now you do yours and hopefully you aren't late with helping your friend, now get outa here." The smiling sheriff lets him go at the entrance of the town after marking where the regulators seem to run their operations, The Regulator HQ.
…
Scratching his scabby skin, a scavenger prowls the entrance of the scrapyard, an oddly hot and humid day for the irradiated DC wasteland. The weak lungs of the scavenger heave as he coughs, his diaphragm mustering what strength it had to keep the man breathing as he looked upon the ruined scrapyard littered with not only trash but a few corpses of raiders, a few weeks old by now. The sickly scavenger's stomach grumbles as his mind tries to conjure up the last time he had ate anything, looking over the corpses the man wars between survival and morals, the thought of consuming another human weighing heavily on his conscious. Must live. The only words coming to the man's mind as he looms over the freshest looking corpse out of the band of dead raiders.
The crosshair of a scope sway to-and-fro as a figure perched upon a rock overlooking the scrapyard scouts the area when a unforgettable sight meets his single eye. A near ghoulish state of a feral scavenger creeping over a body of a raider who had once chased him through that exact scrapyard. Audible disgusted sounds escape the lips of the sniper whilst watching the patchy haired individual tear away at the corpse of a pale raider corpse contrasted only by the purple mohawk upon the deceased female raider's head. The urge to vomit nearly overtakes the shadowy sniper, but before he releases the contents of his stomach he ceases the ghastly sight by narrowing in on the head of the scavenger seemingly turned zombie, the finger of the assassin tightens on the trigger allowing the firing pin to strike the primer on the tail end of the casing, sending a .308 down the long barrel of the rifle encased in flame. A ball of fire bursts from the end of the rifle, directed by the muzzle brake above and to the sides keeping stability and accuracy at a constant. The lead bullet escapes the barrel, whirling through the air in the direction of the scavenger looming over the corpse, as quick as the lead left the barrel it enters the skull of the depraved man, ripping through the skin, shattering the plate of his skull, and finally bursts out through the forehead of the flesh consuming scavenger. Barely visible through the scope, grey brain matter follows the bullet out of the giant exit wound formed by the lead ripping through the cranium of the now lifeless man. Unable to resist any further Kel rips off his mask before heaving his breakfast on the rocks beside him at the site of a non-feral ghoul eating another human whom had been long since deceased.
Making his way from his perch Kel takes out a piece of dark chocolate to ease his stomach before reequipping his mask and approaching the entrance of the scrapyard where he had just dispatched a cannibal. Reaching the corpse of the flesh consuming man, Kel takes a deep breathe as he starts the arduous task of looting the corpses. The scavenger, to the assassin's surprise was actually carrying a lunchbox filled with a freshly prepared meal completed with a purified water which turned the man's stomach even more, realizing the scavenger was specificaly out to eat human flesh. Taking what few valuables that the corpses held, Kel takes note of what he had claimed. With the corpses now laid in a pattern trademark to Kel when he looted corpses, their shirts pulled over their faces and a large 'X' marked on the stomachs of those already searched, the man now goes over the spoils of the search, first the lunchbox with a brahmin steak sandwich, fancy lad cakes and a purified water, next was a handful of bobby pins from many of the raider's hair, thirty-four caps in total, one frag mine, and finishing off the pile, a blood bag that matched Merrick's blood type, O positive. Grinning at his newly found possessions he loads up his small pack and readies himself to start up his journey again after filling his stomach with the contents of the lunchbox replacing the breakfast lost by the early encounter.
…
Tactfully, Kel looks over the hill he had come upon, on the hill mirroring his resides a building with some free range brahmin roaming on the hind side of the relatively flat hill, approaching the hill were seven men all sporting the iconic duster and cowboy hat. There was one; however, that did not dawn the hat, instead wearing an eye patch covering an eye afflicted with similar scarring, although more recent, to that of the sniper who is observing the group of men. The man with the eye patch had an all too familiar pompadour just with the sides and back shaved down: Kel feels his face as he watches the man through his scope, both the men shared scars on the same side of their faces, the only difference being that the man with the eyepatch was clearly missing his eye and the only scars on him were that of Deathclaw compared to Kel's eye still there, just white. Then, as the man with the eye patch turns his face in the direction of the sniper the eye behind the scope widens in shock, his skin turning white as if seeing a ghost that had haunted him throughout his childhood, Butch.
Emotions explode inside the man, each individual emotion trying to take hold of the man, fighting for attention after seeing that cretin not only made it out of the vault, but was under the guise of a regulator, the polar opposite of what the man was known for in the past. Sliding down the back slope of the hill, anger takes over the man gripping his rifle as if it were the throat of the unpleasant reminder of the pain he had endured from the fury of that man with similar scars. The anger burns through the grey-clad man's flesh, pain ripping around the scars littering his body with his facial scars and eye being the roaring flame that sourced the pain. Gritting his teeth, seething with a foamy saliva dripping from the maw of the survivor, Why him? Why now? I search for her and he is here! Fuck! The infection of anger grasps tightly on his mind afflicting him unlike any of his experiences with that immoral being wearing that leather duster and eye patch.
…
Finding time to be alone outside the small dining hall, where Alex was celebrating her tenth birthday, Kel was fiddling with his very own Pip Boy that he had received the day prior on his own birthday that no one, not even his father Officer O'Brian, had been in attendance to.
Following the familiar beeping of the intercom and a conversation between Alex and her father, the young boy gets nervous to be seen by the girl that was about to leave the room given away by the sound of the mechanical door screeching open. Raven black curls bounce into sight as she leaves the room, too excited about some surprise that was awaiting her in the reactor room to look in the direction of her secret admirer, watching her play with her new Pip Boy 3000 and a vintage Grognak the Barbarian magazine that could only have been a gift from Amata, Alex's best friend and Overseer's daughter. Kel's cheeks flushed with a deep pink realizing that he was technically spying on the girl with emerald eyes as she made her way to the basement of the vault.
A deep, soothing tone addresses the young Kel, "why not go and talk to my daughter? I'm sure she would love to hear from you, especially on her birthday." The tall man dawning a neat lab coat over his jumpsuit, hair as black as his daughter's, and eyes not all that similar to her own, clearly a trait from her late mother rather than father. James crouched to next to the ten-year-old his words of wisdom sticking with the boy, "You have to be the one to put yourself out there or else you will continue to be walked on by people, this world can be unforgiving, there is no time for what ifs."
The black eyes on the boy widening with both surprise and happiness due to someone giving him not only positive attention but the push he needed to try to be the catalyst in starting a conversation with the girl he had wished to try and talk to for years. With James parting toward the reactors, Kel started to muster his confidence, finding different ways to approach the girl in conversation, and as if on cue to ruin everything a smug pompadour sporting boy exits the dining hall with his two punks that would eventually form the gang that would infect the vault with their shenanigans, Butch DeLoria, Wally Mack, and Paul Hannon Junior.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here boys? The Ghost of the Vault has a crush on that dumb girl." Butch says in a mocking tone, followed by the insulting laughter of the other two boys in his company.
The boosted confidence of the boy inciting him to react, "Shut up Butch, you're just a punk who doesn't know which arm his Pip Boy is on. Which is it? Left, or right?" The words fueled by raw emotion flying from his lips as if they had a mind of their own. The insults making even the two compatriots of Butch laugh in amusement at his expense only furthering the anger that Butch had been feeling for the normally sheepish boy.
"Now you're gonna get it," the young DeLoria's words tied to a small fist bulleting for Kel's left cheek, and with the sucker punch landing a leathery vault suit met cold steel flooring. Butch, now towering over the boy who had stood his ground for the first time, began to let out his aggression upon the black sheep.
"Hey, what's going on out there?" The voice of the only officer that had attended the birthday boomed from the dining hall, "You boys cut it out!" Officer Gomez says as he picks up the antagonizing child by the collar and putting him aside before aiding the now bruised and battered Kel, "Are you alright, Kel?" The words sincere in tone, "get out of here, I'll take care of Butch," Officer Gomez gives the boy a smile as if everything would be ok.
Following the assault, Kel runs to his room and locks the sliding door behind him, sobbing, all the confidence instilled in him with that talk with James fleeting with each tear falling from the boy's face, setting the tone for the next six years until his escape from that hell hole. The last tear slips from his cheek and off his chin.
…
The final mix of anger and sadness fled from the scarred man's body with a tear that had fallen from his chin landing upon the rocks beside the mask that had been thrown to the grown during his disturbed state. No more, I need answers. Kel's expression fades from hate and anger to that of a state of apathy and impassivity. Steeling himself, the Ghost of the Vault hides his mask under his cowl's cape, picking up his rifle and making his way over the shallow hill toward the headquarters of the 'righteous' regulators that who, now, were just as corrupt as any group of raiders in his eye.
The seven regulators exit the head quarters as the man with an unimpressed look plastered on his face approaches, "Wait a second?" The gruff yet still annoying voice utters as the two scarred men cross paths, "Ghosty, is that you?" Butch asks feeling his own facial scars while examining the scars upon the man opposite of him as if looking in a mirror.
The gravely voice of the ghostly figure addresses the former Tunnel Snake, now regulator, "Long time no see, Butchy Boy," the words almost a display of aggression towards the regulator. "New Jacket?"
DeLoria sneers at Merrick as if they were innocent kids again, "You're lucky you aren't on the list or I'd take my time dropping you right here, right now. I'd still be rockin' those old digs if not for that bitch stealing them and leaving me for dead. How did you get even more ugly than before?" Butch spits in his direction.
Kel spits back, "same way I'm assuming you got yours, only I still have my eye. Looks like you and I are both ugly, only my personality isn't also shit. Learn which arm the Pip Boy is on yet?" Kel's snarky remark is followed by a smug look while showing off the arm where now only a white scar calls home rather than a Pip Boy.
"Well shit, you can get them off after all. Ole Stanley doesn't know shit apparently," the former Tunnel Snake maintains his composure not showing any reaction towards the insults. "Enough chit chat, what in the fuck are you doing over in these parts of the wastes, around my people?" His question nearing a demand for the information.
"Alex, I was tipped off that the regulators might know where she might be," Kel reveals his intentions with a soft tone.
Butch chuckles, "after all these years still pining over that dike? Haven't you heard? She's a monster now, kills just about everyone that tries to interact with her, she might just throw you at some deathclaws like she did with me. Crazy bitch." Butch's expression as he talks about the Vault Descendant mirrors his tone of distain and hatred.
The lip of the Vault Ghost twitches in primal anger, "I don't care what she's done to you or anyone else in this ruined world, she's not the monster you think she is. Now do you know where she is or not?" The man's fists tighten, the leather of his gloves making a sound as they tighten with the fist.
Seeing the amount of emotion within the other one-eyed man's words reminds him of how strong he feels for his lover, "look, I know how you feel right now, I can't tell you where she is exactly, we don't know. I also can't tell you where we are going, that regulator business." The sympathetic tone taking Kel off guard, "Hey Puke, keep looking and hopefully you are right, for her sake."
Kel nods to the other former vault dweller as Butch makes his way South while the ghost finds his way into the building known as the headquarters. The sound of the worn metal door scraps on the wooden porch at the front of the building, entering the rugged two-story building, a cowboy hat wearing female greets the man, "good afternoon, my name is Sonora Cruz, leader 'round these parts. How can I be of assistance?" Her winning smile hitting Kel like a refreshing breath of air after dealing with the bully of his past.
The athletically built man takes a seat at a table to chat with head regulator, "I don't know how well you could help me, but I am looking for someone. I was told that your people might know something about their whereabouts."
"Well what's the name? We might just know something about them, we like to keep raps on people around the wastes," she asks as she turns on her primary terminal where she keeps her records.
Reaching up, Kel scratches his head in a nervous manner, "She's the girl that radio host has been talking about lately," Kel plays his cards in the way of an innocent individual with no real knowledge as to what he is getting himself into.
Sonora gives the girl a look of curiosity, "Now, why are you looking for the girl that's swiftly working her way to a new title; Harbinger of War?"
"Well, I kinda had a run in with her and similarly to one of your men, it ended with deathclaws," the man outlines the scars stretching across his face from the bottom of the right side of his chin up over his mouth and through the left portion of his face, damaging his eye. Kel smiles on the inside as the lie about his scars hits home with the regulator's leader as her curious look turns to one of a pained lover whose partner had experienced a similar fate.
"I'm sorry to hear that, I'm not going to waste much more of your time, we don't have a location for her on record or else we would have knocked down her door instead of setting up an ambush near southwestern D.C.," the lady reveals, not knowing just who she was talking to, thinking he was just some funnily dressed waster with a bad run in with the Vault Descendant. "If I were you, I'd let the professionals take care of everything, no need to get yourself in any more trouble with her." Cruz ends with another winning smile and goes for a handshake as the man stands from his chair.
Kel takes her hand, "I'll keep that in mind, you people are doing the work of angels," his words hurting him to say, but he hides the pain with a mirroring smile to that of his hostess before making his way from the hub of 'righteousness'.
…
The Brass Lantern, not as nice an establishment as the other bar in Megaton; however, with an open bar less than desirable people stay away, allowing regulars and settlers to go unbothered, enjoying their meals. Aside one of the Children of Atom, a bowl of noodles is being silently slurped up by a grey figure, two days having passed since his sit down with Sonora Cruz the man begins thinking of what his next step should be with finding the girl that had been just out of reach so many times now. While the noodles disappear into the pursed lips of the man, now plagued with a heavy five o'clock shadow covering half of his facial scars, he spots an odd individual he had not seen around the small town throughout the past three years and some change he has spent in the wastes.
Walking into the gated community the feminine figure hobbles down the stairs that lead to the center of the town, blood visibly making its way down the outer thigh as a gloved hand grips the upper hip above the blood trail. The mysterious person's skin grows pale as they make their way further and further down to the slope, amber eyes look around trying to take in a last picture while still conscious. Meeting their eyesight to the right is a brahmin being taken care of by a man not paying any mind to the seemingly bleeding out mercenary, then a door to a clinic, a group of visibly mad individuals standing in a pool of irradiated water surrounding a nuke, and finishing the last picture of the conscious mind, a man in all grey standing from a bar and leaving his food, making an effort to catch the stranger that has started to collapse. The last thing the fading amber eyes see, one black concerned eye contrasted by a scarred white closing the distance between his and theirs.
Kicking open the clinic door, Kel ignores the normal distasteful comment given by Doc Church to anyone who enters his clinic, "Not now Church, she needs medical assistance now!" The demanding man exclaims as he carries an unconscious and bleeding body to one of the cots, "I don't know what has caused the injury, maybe gunshot, maybe explosive. She just walked into town." Kel looks over the amber-eyed, short black hair cut with a fade and some grey streaks barely visible on the sides of her shaved head though she is clearly only a few years older than her savior. The man watches as the doctor goes through his routine of finding all wounds, patching them, and then hooking them up to fluids after administering a few stimpak to the site of the wounds, in this case five stimpak were needed to be used in order to properly aid in the repairing of the shrapnel wounds across her body, concentrated near the hip of the woman and scattered through her torso and thighs.
Walking back into the clinic, Kel makes his way to the back room where the mystery girl was being kept, his arms filled with a few supplies for a small campout, for him, he has bought three purified water bottles, two ready-to-eat meals, and for the woman, fancy lad cakes, a bar of dark chocolate and a Nuka Cola Quantum. The supplies being for when she wakes to hopefully help ease from her unconsciousness. The doctor says nothing except that it may be a few days until she wakes, his words met with a stare of annoyance, he did not care how long it would take, no one looked out for her and she made it all the way down the stairs with not so much as one person asking her state of health. This fact fumed Kel, No one should be neglected like that, he thinks to himself as the memory of when he was stung by a giant radscorpion and no one helped him until he was found by Agatha's deceased husband and saved from the fate of the wastes. He would wait there as long as it would take until he knew that he had saved a life as if he were repaying a debt to the world through this woman whose amber eyes flickered with unconscious life from time to time.
…
Three days pass with the man remaining held up in the clinic sleeping in an extremely uncomfortable chair he called home throughout the past seventy-two hours. Kel's eyelids slip shut as midnight rolls nearer, his hand resting on the cot by the still unconscious woman.
Amber eyes meet a dim light in an alien room to her, she looks around in curiosity and with the thought of where she might be entering her mind, she remembers the last image she had seen before falling unconscious when her eyes meet the unconscious, lightly snoring, body in the chair adjacent to her cot. The woman continues looking about the room that the pair are in and realizes that the room they are in is separate from the rest of what she assumes is the clinic she had noted before going down. In her surprise she feels the man's arm on the edge of her cot and she coyly interlocks her hand with that of the man sleeping near her and snuggles into the warm arm keeping from waking the man from waking as she gets comfortable. The lady whispers in the right ear of the unconscious man as she begins to slip back into slumber, "thank you".
The one working eye of the man sleeping in a chair starts to wake, vision slowly growing to its full potential following a drawn-out yawn and a stretch. Reaching up in his stretch, Kel blushes lightly as he notices a smaller hand being held within his that he had now started to raise, waking the owner of the other arm, "shit! I'm sorry about that." The man's voice out of character for his usual quiet demeanor.
A soft voice, comforting to the ear escapes the muted ruby lips of the bed ridden woman, "don't stress yourself, darlin'. I've been through more than a handsome man stretching my wounds." Her voice carrying a slight wince of pain as her slight Bostonian accent meets the ears of the man beside her bed. "Why did you help me? A total stranger with nothing to gain for yourself?"
Kel tries to compose himself and not seem like a creep, "well it's a long story, let's just say I was in your shoes at one point and no one helped me when I was in need. I guess you could call it repaying a debt to the world." The cliché of his words hurting as they left his throat as though the embarrassment was more painful than the exploded girls wounds.
"Well, now I assume I owe you a debt," her suggestive tone slightly off putting to the man, "how long have I been out?" The girl asks as she props herself up on her palms, her eyesight leveling to her savior's, her amber eyes now full of life as they focus on his one black eye.
The grey dressed man stands while extending a hand to aid her in standing, "it has been three days since you stumbled into Megaton. Where did you come from, and how did you get injured like this?"
Standing up weakly next to the man, "I was heading to a riverboat landing down south by D.C. and all of a sudden as I passed nearby a broken overpass I saw a couple of hoodsies gunning down some raiders while dressed like a gangster and a pirate. Craziest thing I ever saw, but then as I was trying to scav the area that they had been running down, the floozies got caught in a serious fire fight with some regulators. It must've been something serious, those cowboy lookin', goodie two shoes were armed with some serious power. Before I knew it, the car nearest to me was struck by a stray missile during their all-out brawl, I didn't even see the rest of the fight with the explosions sending my ass over a ledge where I was safe for the most part aside from the metal littering my sorry self." The girl's voice aggravated by the encounter with the two females that indirectly lead to her injury and with a huff of frustration the lady shakes away her annoyance, "I'm sorry I never got your name, my name is Helena, Helena Everette."
The name matching the woman as though she was meant for it, "Well, you can just call me Kel," the universally distant man keeps his last name to himself not sure if he can divulge his last name to the girl he had been making sure would pull through. "Helena, with you making it through as glad as that makes me, I should be going. I have someone I need to find," his face going back to the slate of apathy that had plagued his face over the passed few days as his train of thought slips back on trying to find Alex.
"Wait, I might be able to…" Helena's words met with silence as the body of the man makes his way from her side, out of the clinic, "… I might be able to help…"
…
Near the Southwest side of D.C. binoculars are lifted granting sight to the user of a man in the distance scouring a fallen overpass by a building with signs of explosions from rockets strewn about the scene of a hard-fought battle. The man in the sights of the binocular wielding individual visually sighs as presumably no signs of the person he was looking for could be found, curiosity filling the eyes of the watcher. With the last of the area looked over by the man being spied upon, he fixates a small device onto his belt before disappearing into the surroundings as if he were pulled from their reality. Following the man camouflaging himself the binoculars fall from the amber eyes that had been hiding behind the telescopic device, where does he think he's going now?