Ryozha flickered through the raging firefight, a blurred ghost stealing kinetic energy from everything he touched. Mafiosi and gangbangers alike found themselves gaping as bullets tinkled to the floor three feet from gun barrels, fragmentation grenades just kind of fell to bits with a sad little noise instead of going off –BANG-, rockets tumbled lazily out of the air to bounce a couple of times with the 'chonk' of abruptly-frozen metal as even their heat energy got sucked out.
And throughout it all, a haunting melody soared, a delicate flute piece that pierced through the thunder of battle and tore at the heartstrings. More than one hard-bitten goomba found himself lowering his weapon and dabbing at his eyes as he was overwhelmed with emotion.
Ryozha appeared next to Senritsu in a swirl of smoke, the melody of her flute soaring through the abrupt lull in the battle, little noise in their immediate area other than the occasional muffled sob. Senritsu blinked, but her song didn't falter. Curiousity shone in her eyes, though- while before, Ryozha's aura had been pure gold, now it was a roaring fire of red Nen, shot through with the occasional gold streak. Ryozha just shook his head, giving a one-shouldered shrug. "Will this hold them after you stop playing?" he questioned. Senritsu shook her head, and he gave a brief nod. "Alright. I'll start clearing through, then. Watch your back!" And with that, he was gone again, vanishing in a swirl of speed in the space between heartbeats.
Ryozha settled into his stride, zipping through the burning warehouse with little to mark his passing save a few eddies in the smoke. On his player, a familiar pattern of chords slammed out, and he grinned. George Thorogood started to sing "On the day I was born…" -Well, I may not be 'Bad to the Bone',- Ryozha thought, -but against these mooks, I might as well be.-
-beat-
A heavily built Zenji Clan goon, firing a huge assault rifle with wild abandon, sees a boy materialize, apparently out of thin air, in front of him. His gaping jaw is slammed shut by a snap kick that lifts him off his feet.
-beat-
A trio of Shamleggers, standing at bay with their weapons ready (one carrying what appeared to be a shoulder-mounted rapid-fire rocket launcher), open up in unison, filling the room they're in with fire. Unnoticed, a small figure decelerates in their midst. A whirling spin-kick pitches all three onto their faces, ruining their weapons and knocking the lot out.
-beat-
A Zenji-clan goon with an earpiece and a heavy pistol is snapping off shots around a corner and shouting into his radio. He feels his earpiece yanked out, and a young voice sings out "Sorry, but your party has been forcibly disconnected." He whirls just in time to catch the earpiece in the temple at two hundred miles an hour, and slumps, unconscious.
-beat-
One of the Shamleggers, a small man barely able to lift his huge chaingun, much less control it, found his wild spray of death interrupted by his chaingun lurching sideways to slap him into a wall. His eyes rolled back in his head as his head smacked into the plaster with a hollow -BONK-
-beat-
Five Zenji goons heard a brief whistling noise. The rearmost one was clipped under the ear by a ninety-mile-per-hour knee, the next smashed to the ground be a crashing axe-kick, the third caught a passing elbow to the temple, the fourth got a brief view of the tread pattern on Ryozha's sneaker before tripping over his fallen comrade and cracking his skull on the wall, and the final simply got a double-footed stomp to the crown of his head before Ryozha touched the ground again, fifteen feet down the hall.
-beat-
Ryozha reappeared next to Senritsu, who raised an eyebrow to him, still playing. The Speed Hunter just gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Taking care of the ones that were too far away or seemed to be resistant." he commented. Senritsu nodded, but kept playing. Ryozha frowned. "You want me to club 'em while they're helpless? That's no fun!" he complained, then paused. "Kind of lame, too."
Senritsu gave him a look, gauging his seriousness, then shrugged, smiled very faintly, and stopped playing. "Very well, then." she said. "We'll go together." Now it was Ryozha's turn to give HER a look, then he, too, shrugged. "You said that you were tougher than you looked, but that's really not hard..." he paused, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Er, no offense. But how tough ARE you, really?" Senritsu chuckled briefly and told him "Let's go find out."
--
In the second warehouse, Kurapika stood over the half-mangled body of the latest in a sequence of Zenji-Clan goons, idly shaking bullets out of his Dowsing Chain, and glancing back at Leorio. Once again, he was mildly impressed. In a fight, Leorio's habitual, practically subliminal body-language broadcast of 'I'm harmless' was turned off… with a vengeance. Every move was made with the rapid, careful precision of a trained martial artist… and, while his friend might not be a Nen genius, or a superhuman fighter, like some… he was still good. Very, very good.
Leorio took advantage of the pause in battle as well, discarding the big assault rifle he had been bludgeoning the Shamlegger he had taken it away from with, and returned Kurapika's look. He shuddered a little. Kurapika-in-combat tended to be a little… different… from normal Kurapika. Colder. And able to hit harder. Much, much, much harder, better... and faster… stronger… the premed student found himself absently humming a certain Daft Punk song, and stopped with a twist of his mouth.
The two friends strode out shoulder-to-shoulder, then split in the hallway, Kurapika deftly catching a hail of bullets with his chain while Leorio simply gutkicked the startled Shamlegger near the door, a swift chop to the back of the neck disabling him completely while he shanked the second. As the man swore and dropped his gun, Leorio decked him. This taking care of any enemies in his immediate vicinity, he glanced back to see how Kurapika was doing. Of course, there was little point to this; Kurapika was just calmly advancing on the shooters, catching bullets, until he was close enough to hit them. This he did in a complicated flurry of limbs that ended with four bodies unceremoniously dumped on the floor (a the ball at the tip of the dowsing chain downing one, an elbow-to-backhand strike dropping another, what Leorio could have sworn was a nervestrike with Kurapika's TOE dropping the third, and a knee to the chin dropping the last).
Leorio laughed and shook his head. "I'll never know how you manage that without falling over." he commented as Kurapika. The smaller boy laughed and just said "Nen." Leorio gave an aggrieved sigh, and complained "You ALWAYS say that." Kurapika just shrugged, and the two moved onwards.
--
Senritsu absently tapped a gun barrel away with her flute, delivering a solid shot to the knee of the shooter, then an uppercut as the pain brought his face into her range, more interested in watching Ryozha than the rather inept gunmen the Shamleggers had managed to field. Now that the boy had been slowed down out of his usual blurred invisibility by his need to stay near her, his fighting style was clearer. She raised an eyebrow as she thought, flute touching lips for a brief, piercing shriek that completely disoriented the thug sneaking up behind her, then whipping the instrument back over her shoulder to knock him senseless.
Ryozha's fighting style was… odd. Not raw, as she'd first thought, or unskilled, just… strange. He was doing things he shouldn't be able to do, movement all hard angles and jolting lunges that SHOULD have left him violently off-balance and badly vulnerable, yet somehow… didn't. She frowned, tripping a thug who was trying to come up behind her, stepping aside and stabbing pressure points as the thug target tumbled forwards.
Ryozha, meanwhile, was just generally going to town, occasionally kicking it into high gear to intercept any wayward bullets before they could perforate Senritsu (although, in all honesty, she probably was never in THAT much danger). Bouncing around like a animated pinball sequence that was missing a few frames, he was ricocheting off the walls, the floor, even the ceiling and rafters at a few points. He had pulled out the heavy, anik-cored double-jointed staff that he used as his primary weapon and was bludgeoning thugs and made men alike about the head and shoulders as he flipped past overhead, or snarling it around their ankles and bringing them down hard as he skidded underneath them.
As the last goon crumpled to the floor, Ryozha skidded to a stop next to Senritsu. She gave him an odd look. Despite bouncing around like a cricket on a hotplate, he wasn't even breathing hard. He went perfectly still for a moment, and the little flautist just STARED; for that moment, sound wasn't reflecting off him. She couldn't even hear his heartbeat, much to her shock. He came out of it, his sound returning to normal, and returned her stare, looking a bit flustered. "I… uh… I think that's everyone in this building." he told her. Remembering herself, she listened for a moment, and then nodded.
--
Kurapika and Leorio, meanwhile, were having to check the old-fashioned way, but eventually the building was pronounced clear. The two of them were standing and staring silently at the final building, a run-down office building that was getting more run-down by the second as heavy gunfire, rockets, grenades, and some sort of high-pitched thrumming noise that wasn't readily identifiable echoed across the weed-choked pavement they now stood on.
Ryozha jetted silently up, closely followed by Senritsu. He'd been circling her in order to maintain a close guard, much to her discomfiture- thanks to him using his hatsu to dampen any incidental noise from his running (such as the occasional sonic boom…), his heartbeat faded in and out in the most disconcerting manner, and the rhythm changed in a most a-rhythmic fashion as he switched between speed levels. All in all, she'd found it very unnerving… like watching someone turn into a ghost… and back… repeatedly, at more-or-less random intervals.
Kurapika took one look at Senritsu's face, and glared daggers at the young Speed Hunter, recognizing immediately that he was somehow causing Senritsu discomfort, although he, lacking Senritsu's amazing hearing, misinterpreted the cause. Before he could comment, though, Leorio grabbed his arm and spun him around, pointing sharply at one of the windows. "There! Did you SEE that?" the premed Hunter demanded. Kurapika stared, a bit rattled, but had to shake his head. Leorio frowned. "It looked like something from a cheap scifi movie- a death-ray or something." he said.
Kurapika gave him a skeptical look, but shrugged. He'd certainly seen stranger in his time as a pro-Hunter, although he wondered what sort of Hatsu would give that sort of effect. Ryozha had come up closer by that point, and shaken his head also. "Sorry, Leorio- I didn't catch anything either." he said, sounding surprised. With his speed, he would have expected to catch sight of most things, if alerted in time. Kurapika gave him another look, trying to puzzle out his tone. The Kurata simply wasn't sure what to make of Ryozha; the boy was (to his mind) loud, arrogant, careless, insensitive, and not nearly so bright as he seemed to think he was. Yet Leorio- whose judgement he had come to (grudgingly, at first) respect didn't seem to think so, and Senritsu seemed more confused than angry. The scarlet-eyed Hunter frowned irritably- it was a mystery he didn't need distracting him at this point.
His thoughts were interrupted by another of those odd thrumming noises... this one accompanied by a crackling roar as a sizeable chunk of the building face sloughed off, carved away by a dimly-visible beam of light, faint glow torching to brilliant gleam where it touched solid matter.
"Saw it that time." Ryozha commented, a little irrelevantly. The thrum amped up to a whine, and another beam stabbed out, blowing out a window and showering the street with shards of superheated glass. "Something certainly seems to be bothering them." Leorio noted with a frown. Kurapika glanced sharply at him. "We'd best get in there." he said shortly. "Leorio, guard the exit- the police are going to be wanting to know what's happening, and you're best suited to dealing with them. Senritsu, cover my back. Brat, try not to get in the way."
Following Kurapika's rapid-fire orders (more than a little grudgingly, on Ryozha's part), the quartet split up, Leorio finding a convenient overhang to watch for the police, the other three moving cautiously into the building. The entry hallway was a shambles, but seemed to be pretty much deserted. The thrum of the death ray was louder here, but seemed to be coming from upstairs. Then Ryozha twitched sharply as ZZTop's "Sharp Dressed Man" started playing through his headphones. Senritsu looked at him questioningly, but he just shrugged. Kurapika gave them both a sharp look, warning them to stay on task, but then HE jumped as a massive centipede coiled down the stairwell. Fully twenty feet long, it had a human skull for a head, and was hissing like a broken steam pipe. "Oo-Mukade!" Kurapika breathed.
Ryozha was already kicking it in the face before Kurapika could close his mouth, but the boy simply bounced off, banking off two walls and the ceiling to bleed off speed. "It's a Nen-beast." he reported. "I have a... harder time... affecting constructs." he admitted, his eyes downcast for a moment. Then there was no further time for conversation as the monster insect attacked, spraying poison mist as it came.
Kurapika's chains were in hand, his dowsing chain flickering in and out as he probed for weak points in the chitinous armour. Ryozha was dashing about, apparently aimlessly (although careful observation would show that he was using wind-cuts to keep the poison vapour away from the three of them), and Senritsu had her flute to her lips, listening carefully. Then she began to play, an eerie melody that swirled around the ears, seeming to seek a way in. The giant centipede wavered for a moment as the sound found its way to the controller, then collapsed into a long, writhing mound of poisonous insects that retreated into the shadows.
A drawling voice from further up the stairwell commented "Your little vermin can't even handle a little music, Zeechik?" With the comment, a figure swaggered into view. "Sharp Dressed Man" was still playing, and Ryozha had to admit it was appropriate- the guy looked like a high-fashion model. Everything about him just OOZED style- not a hair was out of place, everything was pressed so neatly that it looked like it had been done by a geometry major, and… Ryozha noticed that Senritsu's music had changed. It took him a few beats, but he recognized the song as "I'm too Sexy (for my Shirt)". Combined with the weirdness of the situation, it was too much, and he burst out laughing. Senritsu managed to play a little longer before dissolving into giggles herself.
Meanwhile, the perfectly-coifed stranger was turning… not red with anger, exactly, but a very stylish faint hint of blush coloured his cheeks, until he burst out "I will not be mocked by a child and a little troll. DIE!" On the last word, he made a blurred lunge... and slammed into Kurapika's fist with such force that it probably should have split him in two.
Instead, he simply stopped dead, flicked imaginary dust off where Kurapika's fist had touched him, and smiled. Slowly, and, of course, stylishly. Kurapika didn't bother waiting for it to finish- his fist flickered out so fast that even Ryozha was impressed, then used the kickback from that to add speed to a backwards lunge. His dowsing chain lashed out, once, twice, then wrapped completely around the fashionista's head to smash him into the ceiling, then the floor. As the dust cleared, the chain lashed out one final time, shattering the slowly re-forming Oo-Mukade into its component bugs once more.
Ryozha glanced aside at Senritsu. "He's really rather good, isn't he?" he asked, with a trace of begrudging admiration in his voice. Senritsu just nodded, looking distracted. Then Ryozha froze, staring in disbelief as rubble was shouldered aside and the fashion plate stood, not even mussed. "Oh, that's IT." he growled. Time slowed, and he strode forwards, movement that would be an invisible blur to anyone else. Stomping up to the apparently frozen fashionista, he planted a palm flat on his chest and released a pulse of kinetic energy, nearly twenty tonnes of force concentrated in the space of a handspan. The perfectly-styled fighter abruptly became a perfectly-styled screaming blur, smashing out through the wall and vanishing.
A disheveled-looking man(?) detached from the shadows (probably the aforementioned Zeechik, Ryozha thought), staring after his abruptly-departed comrade. Loose dark-coloured slacks and a shabby trenchcoat obscured his(?) form almost completely, while shaggy hair that was probably dirty-blond hung to his shoulders in the back and bangs that hung to the bridge of his nose hid most of the rest. Bugs swarmed around him(?), and his mouth was twisted in an angry, petulant frown. "Andrej!" he(?) exclaimed. The voice gave away no clues as to gender, a light tenor that could have been either male or female. Ryozha stared from the centipede manipulator to Kurapika and back, obviously a little nonplussed to have two androgenes in the same room.
"You'll PAY for that, scum!" the bug-controller yelled. Then he leapt out the hole that the fashionista (Andrej, apparently) had left in his rather... unplanned... exit. Ryozha raced over, scaling the wall in a vertical run to peer out of the hole, but the odd fighter was already gone- apparently whatever allowed him/her/it to hide in the shadows while directing their monster bugs also applied to running away.
Kurapika waved him down. "Forget him... her... whatever, brat. We need to find the weapons that were firing earlier." Ryozha glared at him, but then shrugged, forced to acknowledge it was probably necessary. Senritsu raised a hand, but he was already gone. When Kurapika looked at her, she dropped her hand and shook her head. "I think we're alone in here. I don't hear anyone else." The blond Kurata raised an eyebrow, but any questions were headed off by a strangled yell.
The two caught up with Ryozha quickly. He was a bit white and shaky-looking, the reason being fairly obvious- a trio of what used to be Shamleggers (insofar as could be told from what was left of their clothes) were... scattered... about the room. The most complete body was in three pieces; the least was little more than a puddle of gore. Kurapika eyed them dispassionately, then shrugged. "There isn't anything we can do for them. Let's get back to Leorio." Ryozha nodded greenly, and Senritsu followed, mute for the moment.
--
Blood slid down the handle of Jack Graves' bone mace, and he grinned, shaking the mace a little and flicking the viscous fluid off before it reached his hand. "Not exactly what I'd planned, but it'll do." he commented. Huge Jackie nodded, struggling under the weight of a massive particle cannon that they'd 'liberated' from the Shamleggers; Great Burke was carrying two, one over each shoulder. "I think we're going to be starting to fortify the hall." 'Cutter' told the other two. "I'm going to find me some steel plating, and maybe some 'contractors'. Those Mafia goons'll be sorry they ever came to my town." Thankfully, his smile was hidden by the dim light of the wee hours. It wasn't pretty.
--
Ryozha tossed and turned restlessly on the crummy little bed in his hotel room, his sleep restless and disturbed. The other three had split off- Leorio returning to his student quarters, Senritsu and Kurapika to a much more upscale hotel in a better part of town. Unheard, his player lit up, the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams" pounding out of it, tinny sound belting out of the headphones in the cheap little room.
The Speed Hunter's mind, though, was far away. He found himself on a shifting, formless dreamscape, mist curling and shifting in a wavering cityscape that could be mistaken for the waking city of Landinium if you squinted a little. He glanced around, and was startled to find himself blurring to wherever his gaze happened to fall. Slowing for a moment, a nearly jumped out of his astral skin when a voice roared around him.
"What an interesting little mind you have, child." Ryozha glared around himself, flickering about, trying to find the voice. His seventh sense was informing him that the 'vibrations' were coming from all directions at once, and he finally burst out "Who are you, and where am I?" "Still a child in some respects, though." the voice observed drily. Ryozha sputtered, and there was laughter that shook the unreal cityscape. "I am the Dreamer Under Landinium, 'Speed Hunter'." the voice intoned gravely, the capital letters of the title clicking audibly into place. "As to why... your dreams are filled... consumed... with the Codex Obscurata." Ryozha slumped. "So, let me guess." he grumbled. "You're looking for it too, and this is some kind of elaborate trap to get what I know, or to knock me out of the hunt."
Laughter bellowed again, and the cityscape shattered completely, replaced with the shadowy outlines of catacombs. Ryozha stared around, startled, and zipped through the tunnels as a result, blurring through miles of twisting underground passages. He leapt sideways in shock when the 'world' shifted again, forcibly jerking him back to the cityscape, the leap crossing a thousand virtual miles of endless cityscape in less than a blink.
Silence, for a time, then the voice sounded again, this time from a definite direction- the way Ryozha had come from. "An interesting mind, indeed." the Dreamer said, sounding distinctly nonplussed. "You've penetrated further into my defenses than anyone before, Swiftmind, and almost accidentally." A thoughtful pause, then the voice continued. "No, my interest in the Codex is merely academic- it contains some of the last factual information concerning myself on the planet. If you are the one to find the texts, you must come visit me face-to-face; perhaps, armed with that information, you might even be able to free me from my immortal prison."
With that, Ryozha was released from the dreamscape, sinking deeper into slumber.
Later that morning, he was restless and irritable, dimly-remembered dreams and a too-short sleep troubling his waking mind. He joined Kurapika, Senritsu, and Leorio in a small pub that Leorio had recommended. He reacted to Kurapika's skeptical look with bad grace, but managed to keep from starting a fight, grunting something about sleeping badly. Kurapika apparently accepted that, or at least ignored the younger boy for the moment. "I did some checking." the Kurata announced abruptly. "Zeechik and Andrej are definitely Zenji clan, although there was little information on them beyond that. It shouldn't be a surprise that a larger family than the Nostrads could afford some Nen-talent of their own." "Great. You can browse the Hunter site and explain non-surprises." Ryozha muttered crabbily.
Kurapika glared at him, and Ryozha blinked owlishly. The contacts he had noticed earlier had changed tint subtly, and the Speed Hunter could have sworn there was red around the edges. Then Kurapika visibly restrained himself, and Ryozha rocked forwards at the sudden absence of the titanic Nen-pressure he had been unconsciously fighting. Senritsu and Leorio were both looking from one to the other, a bit wide-eyed. "ANYWAYS." Kurapika went on, "We should probably find out more about what the Zenji are trying here- I don't think last night went according to plan."
Ryozha opened his mouth to object, but Leorio was already nodding, and he subsided irritably. Food arrived, and he concentrated on that, eating hungrily. Eventually, he volunteered "I'll take care of the cyber-front; I don't have any contacts here, except Leorio, really, so I can't help much that way." Kurapika looked about ready to suggest that he wasn't much help in ANY way, but the blond Hunter just nodded instead... after Senritsu jabbed him with her elbow. Ryozha smirked, sensing the movement, but thankfully his mouth was full.
After the group had split again- Senritsu was going to check with the local Nostrad Family lieutenant, and Kurapika and Leorio were going to check the local criminal haunts to see what was happening in the underground, Ryozha plopped down on the ratty little bed he currently called 'his'. His laptop banged open with the familiar flare of the pale peach-coloured Nen it was imbued with, and the boy cracked his knuckles, stretching his fingers. Then he started to type, a stacatto rattle that ramped up into a constant, vibrating whine as his hands blurred, the screen becoming an incomprehensible flicker as pages flicked in and out of view too fast for anyone else to follow.
--
Feitan dropped the mangled, tortured corpse of the Hunter they had caught in the archives of the Imperial Museum of Arts and Antiquities. Idly brushing flayed skin and blood off his short-bladed knife, he shook his head. "Useless and weak." he commented succinctly. "I don't know," Franklin answered, "I think he nearly touched you a couple of times there." Feitan shrugged. "Others been here- records are disturbed." he noted, the pride of a professional thief who left no traces colouring his voice with a bit of scorn. "Also, the guard told us he let some kids in, and this guy told us he had heard there were other Hunters looking for the Codex Obscurata." Franklin added, sounding slightly amused.
Feitan gave his huge companion a dirty look, then shrugged. "This one say only professor who translate this crap is out of country now." he said with a wave of his hand at the folders neatly spread out on top of the file cabinets, out of range of the spray of blood that had coloured nearly half the room. Franklin nodded, his distended ears bobbing, then frowned slightly. Ramming his fist through the door, he grabbed the guard who was passing by outside, looking for the missing man he was supposed to replace, and dragged him straight through the smashed door.
The guard blanched with fear as he saw the pair of corpses in the room- one the Hunter, the other the guard he had been coming to relieve- then gabbled incoherently as Franklin demanded "Do you know the professors who work here?" Feitan took the unresisting man, and did... something... to his fingers that elicited a shriek. Another shriek, and the guard managed to sob "Yes!" "Who's responsible for this section?" Franklin asked. Feitan's hands moved again, and the guard screamed. "Ivo! Professor Ivo!" he managed to gasp. Before Franklin could ask anything else, the guard added "He's out of town! I don't know when he'll be back!" "Records. Where?" Feitan demanded. "The main office! I don't know anything more... oh no... please don't..."
Feitan dropped the corpse- his third in the last hour- and glanced up at Franklin. "Should have brought Shalnark." he grunted. "Too bad." Franklin smirked faintly. "It's still your idea. You're the boss, remember?" Feitan scowled, but feigned indifference. "Maybe torture secretary, if there- will save time." Franklin nodded, and the two headed out of the file room.
--
Three hours later, Ryozha was still banging on his laptop, Bono singing "Stuck in a Moment You can't Get Out Of." out of his headphones. Despite Kurapika's unflattering description of him, Zenji was either surprisingly adept at covering his tracks, or so enormously rich that he could afford to hire someone to do it for him. Three hours had turned up a bare handful of slim leads on Zenji's work in Landinium.
Ryozha growled and sped up, his Nen roaring out in a golden storm as electronics and Nen blurred together, technomagic dancing across the aether. Then luck hit like a bolt of lightning; he stumbled across an underground site that a playful hacker had put up server records on... server records that included internal e-mail transactions of the Zenji clan.
The Speed Hunter growled an oath- Zenji wasn't covering his tracks; his Landinium operation was just so new that there simply hadn't been TIME to build up records- he had started less than a week before Kurapika had arrived. He grabbed out his phone and dialed Leorio's number, quickly relaying what he had learned. Leorio was uncharacteristically curt- apparently he and Kurapika were someplace dangerous.
--
Leorio tucked his phone away, returning the Shamlegger's angry, frightened glare with a bland look as the man dangled by his collar from Leorio's iron grip. The gang had been surprisingly easy to track down, at least for a Hunter- he supposed that the 'Number Men'- the Secret Intelligence Services- were too proud to hire outside help. That or one of those lost the gang had lost last night had been the one keeping their tracks hidden and their cover had crumbled remarkably quickly.
Kurapika was fighting off half a dozen of Shamleggers at once, chains and limbs flashing, while Leorio returned his attention to the punk he was holding- 'Paulie', apparently. "So, Paulie... what happened last night?" Leorio asked conversationally. The thug made a choking noise, and Leorio adjusted his grip slightly. Paulie had slowly been turning an alarming shade of purple, and he gasped and sputtered as Leorio ducked slightly, a big Shamlegger flying past overhead on a nearly flat trajectory.
"I... I don't know, mate." Paulie finally managed. "It was supposed to be a deal." He swung for a moment as another Shamlegger hurtled past and Leorio deftly stepped aside. "Them Mafia goombas were looking to buy some weapons to off some other goombas- it was GOOD money." He managed a shrug, nearly choking himself. "Dunno what blew up." Leorio nodded sagely, and tossed Paulie aside. Kurapika walked up, sheathing his chains up his sleeve. "It was a weapons deal." Leorio told him. "But they don't know what went wrong- Paulie..." he waved a hand at the crumpled heap that was the thug he had thrown "seemed to know the most out of everyone here, and he didn't know much- looks like they lost most of their seniour people to that mess last night- they're still trying to work out bail for the survivours."
Kurapika frowned. "That doesn't give us a lot to work with- even if we get permission to interrogate the ones in the cells, the Intel types won't let us dig up much- the Shamleggers embarassed them, and they'll be out for blood." Leorio made a face. "Yeah. The spooks around here aren't the forgiving types. We're going to have to nose around a bit more- if the Zenjis only set up recently, they may not even have a permanent headquarters yet." Kurapika nodded, looking a bit gloomy.
--
Ryozha hopped up, snapping his laptop shut.
That was all that saved his life as the entire wall of his room caved in, the crummy little bed smashing to the floor as a pile of wood pulp.
(Still more Author's Notes (what a surprise)- so, a few new players introduced, or at least hinted at. This chapter turned out rather bloodier than I'd originally intended- I suppose that's a given when Feitan gets loose, and when a powerful character like John 'Cutter' Graves is going slowly and violently insane. Anyways, things are going to get considerably more chaotic before they're done- the gangwar promised in the blurb only has two sides so far, and one of them is nearly obliterated. That's going to change -grin- )