Ggjbffjvsfhbfrt

by Kahlil Johnson

Don’t own crap

5. Hdhdhd

The quick staccato of gunfire lit up the night, pops and cracks signally the Empire's advance throughout the city.

The sky was dim, city lights and muzzle flash guiding the way towards the main areas of action. The Empire was pushing down on all fronts, desperate to regain its foothold on the city, throwing themselves out on a final hail mary to gain back what they'd lost fighting him. So far, it was working.

Just not well enough.

The ABB was fighting tooth and nail for every inch.

A much longer and louder burst of gunshots made him turn his head before it faded out.

There was resistance at every corner, and while he didn't expect the Asians to simply roll over and take it, the sheer ferocity surprised him. It had been only a day since Lung had been arrested, and the Empire hadn't wasted a second. Coil had ordered him to lay low after giving him the bad news, and despite some initial confusion and panic, The ABB had rallied, and the Empire's rapid advance had stalled.

It didn't make any sense. Lung had been the sole unifying force in the gang besides the fear of the Empire, but even that fear hadn't stopped the city's original Asian gangs from fighting each other just as much. The gang was made of so many different cultures, races, languages, and religions, and all that along with the many historical grievances and general disdain they all held for each other, it should have been impossible to make work. But Lung simply made it happen, killing anyone and everyone who resisted him and forcing everyone into an uneasy truce, and with him gone, there was nothing hanging over their heads to stop the entire gang from disintegrating overnight, leaving a massive civil war for control in its wake, with dozens of different splinter groups all fighting each other and vying for control of Lung's conquests.

And yet they stood firm. He'd read rumors that the ABB had a new cape who was keeping everyone in line, but the chances of one man or woman who didn't have Lung's sheer power corraling that many people into submission seemed impossible, at least without them being visible and out in the open.

The gunfire died down slightly, and he nearly relaxed for a moment before even more started popping off just a block and a half away.

Oni Lee couldn't be the one holding down the fort, so if not him, who?

Perhaps it was no one at all. Maybe they all simply had agreed to work together until the Empire had been checked, however long that took.

Whatever the case, he didn't expect it to last very long.

The ringing phone in his pocket made him scowl.

For a moment, he was briefly tempted to just toss it off to the ground twenty feet below, but pragmatism prevailed, and he answered it instead.

"What do you want now?"

"As I'm sure you are aware, The ABB's stalemating the Empire as best it can, but plenty of districts have fallen so far. Are you near any of these contested points now?"

He lifted the phone from his ear and let the gunfire and distant shouts answer for him with a derisive snort.

"Good. I have my own mercenaries working on the Empire, along with a team for my "Odd Jobs" as it were, but-"

"You want me to help clean this up."

If Coil was irritated with the interruption, he didn't show it. The man seemed fairly implacable.

One day he might put that to the test.

"Yes. If and when you can, I'd like you to intervene in these skirmishes. I want the ABB weak, but I don't want the Empire getting any stronger either. Kaiser's already called in every favor he has with the Gesellschaft, and plenty he doesn't have as well, but by now I'm willing to bet that being in their debt isn't his biggest concern."

"Gesellschaft? They're the European branch of the Empire, yes?"

"Flip that around, and you have the right of it. Their influence here is nearly non-existent besides the Empire itself, but they've been propping it up since the 90s. Men, material, money, whatever they need, whenever they need it. For a price, of course."

The shouting and shooting had reached a crescendo now. It was heating up fast, and the cops had to deal with it almost everywhere in the city, just about all at once. The PRT hadn't had much time to celebrate before they had to go back out and clean up the bed they shat.

"What can I expect then? More capes?"

"I have no doubt Kaiser's asked for plenty. Whether they would actually be sent down is another matter entirely. It depends on whether or not they've written him off by now. Krieg was their last liaison, and I can't imagine they would have been happy with the news of his death and Hookwolf's disappearance. It's possible though. I suppose we'll have to find out."

He didn't miss how Coil stretched the we. He must genuinely want him to think of this as a fair partnership.

So far, he wasn't impressed, but he'd give the man credit for trying. He was already better than Hazel or Cinder, but that wasn't exactly a high bar. If not for him threatening Sabah, he would have almost been impressed with how simply straightforward and professional Coil was.

"Speaking of Hookwolf, do you have any idea where he could have gone? A man like that isn't exactly subtle, he's bound to have shown up somewhere."

He could hear some sort of shuffling on the other end. It sounded like footsteps. An assistant?

"I had thought the same, but for all intents and purposes, he's simply dropped off the face of the earth. The last time anyone saw him, you both were fighting. The next day, Stormtiger and Cricket vanished from the Empire as well."

"They leave town?"

"I wouldn't doubt it, but I'm still not sure. I know someone in Boston whom I convinced to keep an eye out, but for all I know they could still be in the city. Right now I'm more worried about whoever butchered the Merchants."

"Think it was Hookwolf?"

"Well, the bodies fit, but not the MO. As you said, Hookwolf isn't subtle, and whoever did this was a ghost. No visual on-street cameras, and what few witnesses there were described a "shadow", and one moving quickly at that. The massacre was spread out house to house, and the last few bodies are still being rounded up. Someone would have seen Hookwolf, and while Cricket is feasible, I don't understand *why* she would do it."

"And the 9?"

There was a silence on the other end, and it lasted a moment too long to not worry him.

Shouted swears in various different languages accompanied by the high-speed whipcracks of machine-gun fire filled the void.

"No. No, if it was them, we'd know already."

He didn't comment on the slight hesitation in his voice.

"How hard do you want me on the Empire then? Would you rather I simply cut off their spearheads, or halt their advance entirely?"

"I'd prefer a more measured approach. The distraction the war gives me is useful. Operate as you see fit, so long as you don't draw too much attention, and damage the Empire's advance too harshly."

"Understood."

He ended the call before Coil could speak further.

He followed the sound of shots, straining his hearing to get a proper bearing in the chaos, and turned west to the nearest battle.

He didn't have to go far, and he made his way to a spray-painted billboard to get a birds-eye view.

Eight Empire members were pinned down between a row of parked cars, most ducking and rolling around in a vain attempt to avoid the bullets that plowed right through the cheap steel and aluminum of the car's doors, but a few had found safety hiding by the engine blocks.

The ABB was simply sitting pretty inside some sort of seafood place, which the Empire was likely there to rob and/or burn down. The ABB had done a half-decent job turning it into a blockhouse, with the main entrance being blocked off by rows of furniture, and all the windows were boarded up with a small bit of room to shoot. The only way in or out was a single window to the right of the entrance that was conspicuously left open. He could imagine the kind of traps they'd left behind. There was a nearby parked van with the doors thrown wide, and he counted maybe six individual muzzle flashes from the ABB's side.

He cracked his knuckles, sighing.

One Empire man slightly more clever than his fellows was crouch walking past the cars, narrowly avoiding the bullets raining down from above. It seemed like he was trying to find a blindspot.

They never saw it coming.

He leaped forward, foot extended out, and crashed into him, and he could feel the man's bones buckle under the force.

He put his other foot down and leaned forward, surfing the man's body as it skid along the concrete, his screams of pure agony drowned out by the gunfire. He kept going till the momentum dried up, then he used his ribcage as a springboard, closing the distance to the men behind the line, who turned and noticed him just as he landed in a roll, unsheathing Wilt and slicing the closest man's gun in half while sweeping his legs in a single smooth motion. He dived forward, past the man he dropped, going into a combat roll and flipping Wilt into a reverse grip.

He swept past two of the shocked men, and the ABB used that distraction to blow off their heads. He stopped just behind a shaven-headed man desperately trying to turn his rifle around and shoot him.

He thrust Wilt behind him, the blade shearing off the man's pointer finger as it slid through the gun's trigger guard, and he wrenched his elbow up, splitting the rifle in half and carving a line across his chest. By now, the rest had recognized him, and their fear paralyzed them long enough for the ABB to take advantage and cut most of them down. Still, two remained, and they both were taking aim. He turned and caught one-half of the fallen gun with a free hand as bullets started smashing flat against his aura. He twisted his entire body and threw it like a frisbee, and it crashed into a nazi's head, breaking apart in a shower of springs, scrap, and bullets.

The last man swore, panicking as he re-loaded his gun. The ABB wasn't wasting any more ammunition now.

The man had a good trigger finger at least. He managed to empty his fifteen-round magazine in about a third as many seconds.

Wilt twirled in his hands like a buzzsaw, and every single round was blocked, blade shining brighter and brighter with each bullet.

The gun clicked empty, and his boot lashed forward and kicked him to the floor. He didn't try and get up, even as his chest rose and fell.

For the first time, there was silence, the only noticeable shots being several blocks off.

Wilt clicked home just as the barricade at the door was taken down, and several ratty-looking men stepped out.

All still had their guns out, and they looked rather wary.

All except one, who was grinning like he was staring at new his best friend. He stepped forward past the corpses and spread his arms wide like he was waiting for an embrace. His hands were twitching like mad, and he had a junkies glint in his eyes.

His finger hadn't left the trigger of his pistol.

"Josetsu-ki! What are you doing here?"

"Josetsu-ki?"

The man laughed(Or cackled rather)and swept his foot out to kick a still cooling corpse, and spat to the ground, grinning like the cat who caught the canary. "Snowblower!" He kicked the body again for emphasis. "I swear the Japs come up with the best names. Ya didn't answer my question though..."

The merriment had left him now, and his eyes narrowed.

"I know you've been fuckin up the Gwelio pretty bad lately, but you've never helped us out before. Why now?"

"You never needed my help, you had Lung. Now you don't, and while I don't like any of you.."

He turned his head to the man feigning unconsciousness by the cars. It was the one whom he only knocked down.

He walked towards them and stomped his foot on their hand, twisting it and grinding the bones to powder amidst their screams. "I hate the Empire."

"Fantastic! We were gonna get back in Li's van and drive around wherever we needed, you wanna come with us? I always wanted to see you up close and personal."

He stepped back and lazily swept his foot to the side, putting the man out for real.

He eyed the panel van with disgust, but as the men waited for his response, he figured they could be useful for information on whoever the hell was keeping this whole thing running.

"Fine."

The lead man cheered, pumping his arms in the air.

"Those dumb fucks ain't gonna know what hit 'em! Man, my guys are gonna be so excited to meet you!"

"Wonderful."

The sarcasm was lost on them all as they lined upwards the vehicle, and after a moment's hesitation, he followed suit.

Last edited: Jun 2, 2022

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Jun 1, 2022

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MasterDuplicator

Big Fan of a Mad Cow

Jun 6, 2022

#934

I apologize for the great delay. Between writing Guàiwù, life stuff, and my own laziness, this chapter was pretty much thrown on the backburner, but I've finished the last touches today. Not very happy with it, but figured I'd need to get it out there. May rewrite later.

/

The van rocked and rolled across the pothole-ridden street, swerving and turning erratically. He would have spoken up and questioned the wisdom of letting someone under the influence drive, but it wasn't like the crash would kill him anyway.

The other passengers didn't seem pleased either, but also kept quiet.

On one particularly egregious turn, he lost his balance and tumbled into the man sitting beside him, and he couldn't keep his annoyed growl down, and the men around him flinched.

The man he bumped into apologized in some foreign language and tried to shy away, but there was no room. The van was jury-rigged for delivering drugs, not people, and it showed. They were all shoulder to shoulder, constantly knocking into each other.

Apparently, the driver had heard him, because he rather hastily apologized.

"It's fine. Just keep it steady, will you?"

"Y-yeah, no problem."

He heard the man take a calming breath, and his driving improved quite rapidly.

The other men in the van fumbled with their guns as the car shuddered on, and he winced at how poorly maintained their weapons were.

Three of the men were holding what seemed to be relatively modern rifles, but he could tell they weren't comfortable with them, or really had any experience operating them. One man kept fidgeting with the charging handle, which seemed to be stuck. The gun itself seemed rather worn out, as if it had gone through several previous owners.

Apparently, none of them had ever cleaned it.

The rest were armed with various sorts of handguns, but he could tell these were not up to par. They looked old, almost antique, and on some, he could even make out what looked like rust.

He winced at the non-existent trigger discipline, and felt his eye twitch when he saw one man had holstered his gun in his waistband, directly over his nether region.

But what finally broke him was the man to his left performing an ammo check by looking down the barrel of his gun.

These people were the ones who'd held up against the Empire for so long?

He reached over and snatched it out of his hands with a glower, and everyone collectively inhaled. Some even readied for their weapons, and the man he stole the gun from looked scared and furious in equal measure.

He tapped the magazine release and caught the mag as it slipped out, waving in his hand like one might wave a new toy to a dog. "If you need to check your ammo, do that." He slid the magazine back in place, then reached up and inched back the slide, eying the glinting brass. "If you don't know whether or not you have a round chambered, pull back the slide just like this." He let go, and it slid back into place. He spun the gun in his hand for a moment before holding it out for him to take. "You understand?"

He nodded in a stupor and took it back.

Everyone was staring slack-jawed.

Well, since he had already started...

He snapped his fingers in the face of the waistband guy, drawing his attention. "Put that thing literally anywhere else, preferably by keeping it in your hands. You keep a gun in a belt or waistband, you're gonna shoot yourself at some point. Buy or steal a proper holster, and if you simply must put your gun in a waistband or belt, at least place it behind your back, so if the worst happens, you just won't be able to sit down for a while."

He turned his head to the man with the jam, holding out both hands. "Give that here."

The man hesitated a moment, then muttered something in what he thought was Chinese and held it out.

He took it and cradled it in his arms carefully, and he reached for the charging handle and yanked. It resisted him for a moment before he pulled it back, and a malformed casing flew out and hit the man to his right, and he let out an incomprehensible swear. "Strip this down and clean it. If you don't know how, find someone who does."

He handed it back and glanced at the rest.

"You lot with the pistols should toss them out as soon as you can. Find something newer, you get me?"

They all nodded, mouths slightly agape.

"Good."

He leaned back in his seat with a frown.

This should have been basic knowledge. Even the scummiest and dumbest two-bit gangsters and junkies should know not to stare down the barrel of a gun to check it.

He eyed them, and his frown stretched even further.

With his night vision and the headlights, he could see their faces perfectly clearly, but this was the first time he was actively paying attention to them.

The disparity in ages stuck out the most. Two looked barely into high school, one looked college age, and the rest he would peg in their late thirties and early forties. One maybe even retirement age.

What the hell were people that like that doing here?

Despite their solid aim during the shootout, he could tell why their gun sense was lacking.

This was probably the first time most of them had ever even seen a gun, let alone held one.

That restaurant's fortifications couldn't have been them then. They must have just been sent down to man them.

Were they conscripted? Threatened? Or did they simply join up to make sure the Empire didn't get too far into their communities?

He snapped to attention at the sound of gunshots nearby, and the driver spoke up, the amusement in his voice plain to behold, despite his thick accent doing its best to hide it.

"We're almost there, everyone get ready."

The driver glanced at him in the rear view mirror, and he could just barely make out his smile. "Man, they are gonna piss themselves when they see you!"

The shots grew loud enough to drown out his reply, the sheer amount of automatic fire deafening his sensitive ears before he pulled his aura up, red energy shimmering around him before it settled over his skin, and he lifted Blush from his belt, Wilt in tow. He felt a sense of what almost felt like nostalgia. He could make out fire and flames past the windshield, and the barest hints of muzzle flash. It looked like an actual war zone.

The others watched him as he stood, and it seemed to finally sink in that he was here, with them, about to fight on their side.

He could hear the bullets whizz past, and he leaned forward in front of the oldest "gangster" and body blocked the hail of gunfire that plowed through the side of the van, hissing in pain as he absorbed what energy he could. The van served hard one last time, then stopped just as suddenly. "Shitshitshit, get the fuck out!" The man closest to the doors kicked them open, and they all filled out, him last in line.

They emerged out the mouth of an alley right into a shitstorm.

The ABB, Empire, and Police were locked in a three-way shootout. The ABB was using the nearby restaurants as bunkers, opening fire from the inside with the occasional straggler in the street, and the Empire had broken into a line of apartments on the opposite side, forcing terrified civilians out into the open as they fired off from the balconies. They had more men, but most were pinned down behind the vehicles that brought them there.

The cops had the worst of it, two patrol cars on each end of the road in a vain attempt at a barricade. They returned fire whenever they could, but for the most part, they were hunkered down, presumably waiting for reinforcements, but whether that would be more SWAT or the PRT, he couldn't say.

He scanned the environment, scowling.

He turned to shout orders, but all the men around him were gone, headed for what cover they could find, or making a beeline for the ABB's main gathering.

Right. These weren't his White Fang, and he couldn't treat them like they were.

Most didn't speak English, let alone understand what Enfilade and defilade meant.

He could see all the ways to turn this around, the maneuvers, the tactics, but none of it would matter without the training.

If they would even listen to him in the first place.

A bullet smashed into the side of the alley wall, sending dust and chunks of brick to the ground, and he shook his head.

Cops first. They would be slaughtered if they stayed any longer.

He poked his head out the alley into the street, judging the distance. The crossfire would be annoying, but he could block enough that the damage would be negligible.

Several of the people who had been forcefully evicted evidently shared his idea, but several had been cut down by the hail of fire before they could get far.

One woman was laying beneath a car, eyes shut, and hands clasped over her chest in prayer as bullets shredded the car all around her.

She wouldn't last much longer at this rate.

Screw it.

He booked it from the alley and beelined towards her, Wilt flicking to and fro, slicing and reflecting in all directions, but even as fast as he was, a few rounds made it through.

He ducked his head and slid the last few feet to the car, leaving an imprint on the pavement as stopped. He went on all fours and placed a hand over her mouth just as she opened her eyes and saw him.

He shushed her before she could scream, nodding his head in the direction from where he came. "Lady, I know you're probably frightened like hell seeing me, but you got more reason to be scared of all of those bullets whizzing around your head."

As he spoke, a stray bullet grazed her shoulder and smashed into his arm, and he grabbed her and yanked her free of the car, crouching over her and shielding her with his body.

She moaned in pain and frantically stared at the blood flowing down her jacket. He lifted his hand free and tried to soften his voice. "Look at me, ignore that, just look at me." She turned her head towards him slowly, eyes wide with terror. She looked about as young as Shadow Stalker. "That's just a graze, the bullet didn't hit you. It's gonna sting like hell, but you'll be fine. Now we have to get up and run, do you understand?"

She whimpered, shaking her head and rolling her eyes in the direction of the ABB's fire.

"I worked something out with one of them, and if he's spread the word by now, and I am sure he has, they won't shoot me. I can you protect from the Empire just like this, okay?"

She slowly nodded, but her eyes were full of fear.

He frowned internally. Blake was the one who dealt with Faunus and Human civilians. He didn't know what to say.

"Uh.." He leaned down further, ducking his head just as a bullet that would have taken it off blitzed by.

He remembered that Blake always took her mask off to look people in the eye.

He hesitated a moment, but as he watched the blood bubble up out of her shoulder and dye the street red, he made his choice.

He put Blush back onto his belt and reached upward to tilt his mask off his nose, pushing it up and to the side so it still covered the brand, but let her see his eye.

"What's your name?"

The girl swallowed, choking on her words a moment before she spoke up. "Charlotte."

"Okay Charlotte, my name's Adam. I want you to look me in the eye, so you can tell I mean what I'm about to say next, okay?"

She moved her head slightly, and soft green met baby blue. "Charlotte, I promise that the ABB won't shoot you, and I promise I'll keep you safe."

That, at last, seemed to mollify her, and she slowly nodded, relaxing beneath him as best she could.

He reached down and awkwardly unsheathed Wilt with his left hand, and held out his right arm. "Link your arm around mine and huddle up to my right side."

She rose into a crouch and did as she was told, and she leaned into him, squeezing his arm tighter than a vice.

"When I say run, you get up and run. No matter how fast you go I can keep pace, so do not hold back. We're gonna make a break for that line of cop cars, and I'll hand you off to them and take care of the Empire. I'll count down for you, okay?"

She buried her head in his chest, and he felt her nod.

"Okay."

He tensed his legs in a runner's stance, rising slightly.

"3."

She somehow held him even tighter, breathing speeding up and up.

"2."

He held Wilt up to the side and let loose a few experimental swings.

"1."

He saw one Empire member firing from a balcony get shot, and he fell off and splattered forty feet below.

"Run."

Last edited: Jul 25, 2022

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MasterDuplicator

Big Fan of a Mad Cow

Jun 13, 2022

#971

One thing I miss with RWBY was the interesting ways aura worked. Pyrrha talks about it letting you sense stuff, and Ren does that a few times with Grimm and Tyrian. Fox used it basically pretty much just to see, and him and Ren were also throwing shockwaves around and shit, plus Blake and Qrow tossed around little energy arcs for like two episodes, and then basically never used them again. I miss seeing stuff like that in the show. Now it's just people's health bar. Another weirdly untouched thing is the PRT itself, at least the regular troopers. They are apparently the default parahuman response force, but I can't really think of pretty much any story that really features them, and from what I've seen via the wiki and some quest stuff, they have some really nasty gear, and I could 110% believe they could reasonably fuck-up most D list villains, so it always seemed odd to me they never pop up. They'll cameo here a few times, and if I do a part two, much more there.

/

Aura was a multifaceted tool.

Everyone in Remnant understood it was the manifestation of your soul, your innermost being.

Layman's understood that aura was a shield, something that would save you from danger and harm, but were mostly ignorant as to its use for the attack.

Huntsmen and Huntresses in training used it as a weapon, increasing their speed and strength, but often at the expense of defense or martial skill, confident that its defensive and healing aspects would get them out of any real trouble.

But professionals understood it was both.

With enough training, aura could do nigh on anything you wished.

But most either didn't know or don't bother to learn.

Aura could protect you sure, make you faster or stronger, but most left it at that. Formal huntsmen academies encouraged its use against the Grimm, emphasizing speed and agility before anything more nuanced, as the Grimm moved much faster than people could, sometimes even with aura.

He never attended any academies however, and was left almost entirely on his own to learn and experiment.

Aura naturally buffs natural speed and strength, but what about Hearing? Eyesight? Energy? Was there a limit to what aura could improve?

He asked Ghira, then Sienna, these questions, and they simply shrugged their shoulders and told him to see for himself.

And so he did.

While the average Huntsman used his aura to give himself nigh impossible strength, he was sharpening his hearing to listen for a heartbeat four blocks away.

While the average Huntsman focussed his Aura to his legs and muscles to give himself speed greater than a Bullhead, he was layering aura across his eyes, letting him track and react to every movement as if were happening in slow-motion.

He learned to focus a layer of aura around his feet, letting him walk on without sound.

He learned to pulse it outward and sense other auras, allowing him to track Huntsmen with ease.

He could focus it on small cuts and wounds, healing himself in seconds instead of the several minutes auras natural healing took.

None of it came without cost, of course. Drawing aura from its natural spread-out form would leave the enhanced parts untouchable, but the rest of yourself weakened. In those conditions, aura could falter in its core role and fail to fully protect its owner from harm, and perhaps that may have been the reason aura manipulation was so seldom taught.

But as he hauled Charlotte to her feet and she broke out into a sprint, he put those long-learned lessons to use.

Time seemed to slow, his unseen pupils dilating. Colors grew brighter, more vibrant, and his eyes burned from the strain before more aura layered down and soothed the ache away.

The bullets careening through the air were ground almost to a halt, and he could see the trails behind them marking their trajectory in perfect clarity.

As a thin red layer of energy settled across his ears, he was almost deafened at the cacophony of noise that erupted before he adjusted.

He heard three dozen hearts start beating up almost in sync, three dozen lungs begin to expand and contract, and could hear the exact moment every man on the street fired a shot, that soft click giving them and their aim away even when he couldn't see them. He could hear Charlotte's heart race, each thump-thump coinciding each step forward or shot that whizzed by.

He focussed the remainder of his aura on his left arm, and it twitched and spasmed for a half-second before his body adjusted.

Wilt swept to the side the instant Charlottle cleared the car with him in tow.

His arm felt weightless, like there was no gravity or air resistance trying to slow him. It almost felt like it was disconnected from his body, and he was moving it with his mind.

No aura user could withstand the combined automatic fire of over twenty men, and that was the amount of Empire members in a prime position to open fire on him while he was exposed.

But he could damn well try.

They made it ten feet before the Empire and ABB both saw him and realized he was out in the open.

His aura flared once more, leaving a weak shimmer across his body and a bright crimson flash across his head, adrenaline and aura kicking him into overdrive. While the ABB let out several surprised and disbelieving shouts, they quickly rallied and reorganized once they noticed the Empire stop firing at them, and shift their aim to him.

The next volley was directed solely at him. Dozens, if not hundreds of bullets all heading directly around, him, at him, or at Charlotte.

No man on Remnant or Earth could have dodged that.

And he didn't.

Wilt returned every single bullet back to sender. He could see where each one would go, count the seconds it would take to arrive, and react accordingly.

Several men were struck by the ricochets, and the ABB used the opportunity to try and pick more off themselves, to a much lesser degree of success.

Another ten feet, another mass volley, this time much better grouped, and he poured more aura into his sword arm, simply focusing on blocking and swiping rather than deflecting with any real accuracy. The movement of his arm was out of sync with the rest of his body, and to the outside observer, his arm wasn't even visibly moving, bullets scattering about as if swept aside by an invisible force, the faint red flicker between each blink the only sign that Wilt was doing its job.

But as good as he was, skill alone wasn't enough against that onslaught.

He grunted in pain as several shots bounced and skid off his aura, and the pain was much worse than usual, red sparks flickering off and on around him as he felt several new bruises form beneath his skin. His aura was working, but only at the skin level, and every bullet felt like getting struck by a paintball or BB.

He wasn't watching his feet, head completely turned to the side, putting all his focus into defending himself, trusting in Charlotte to lead the way.

He lurched forward and cursed as she tripped, and he leaned over her just in time to stop her from being shredded by automatic fire, agony lancing up and down his back with each impact, and he gasped when a few bullets ripped right through his waning aura and grazed him, shearing through his pants and jacket before his aura recovered and settled back over the affected areas.

The cops had seen him now, and he saw one older man wave him down before firing up at the balconies, dropping two men. The ABB was shouting and screaming in too many tones and languages for him to tell if they were yelling at him, the cops, or Empire, but he could tell at least some of them were telling him to hurry up.

He yanked Charlotte up by the arm, pulling her to his side again and shoving her forward, yelling above the din of screams, shots, and crackling fires. "Hurry up, we're almost there, just a little more!"

She ran once more, and the ABB's suppressing fire was too much for most of the Empire to focus on him, and he saw several Asians get mowed down by return fire. Already there had to have been a dozen or more injured or killed on both sides.

He put his injuries out of his mind and focussed on pushing Charlotte the last few feet.

The patrol cars were just up ahead, and an older cop rushed out to meet him halfway, holstering his gun and reaching out to grab her. He shoved her forward and spun around, Wilt darting left and right, covering their retreat. He sheathed the red hot blade and ducked behind the patrol car just as the cop brought Charlotte down with him.

The other cop, the partner, spoke up, a dark-skinned younger man with a decidedly panicked look on his face. "Man, what the fuck are you doing here?"

The older cop pushed Charlotte's head down under the rearview mirror just in time to save her from the bullet that tore it apart. "Mike, shut up and leave him be. I don't give a damn what he's doing here." The man nodded in his direction, and he noticed how hastily he was dressed. The only way he would have known he was a cop was the badge on his lapel and the gun at his waist. "He saved this girl's life, and knowing him from what he's been up to lately, he's probably here for the same reason we are."

He sighed in relief as let his aura smooth back over, the pain fading as his aura leveled itself evenly around him, the extra enhancements fading away. "I came here to make sure the Empire is stopped here, to get that girl to safety, and to make sure you all get the hell out of here. This is FUBAR, neither you nor your guys at the end of the street can handle this. I can. Take the girl and go."

The younger, Mike, interjected. "We called in help, the PRT sh-"

The older man growled and cut him off. "The PRT's got a whole god damn army out here already Mike, armored vans and APCs, Real guns instead of that foam shit, and some of the meanest lookin armor I've ever seen, and it's still a shitshow out there. Right now, our situation ain't the exception, it's the rule. PRT ain't coming, at least for a while. We can't handle it, but maybe he can."

He stopped, tugging Charlotte closer to him. He was staring right into his mask. "You can handle all this, can't you?"

The cop was giving him a very deliberate look, and he had the feeling he was answering more than one question.

"I can."

The old man sighed in relief and nodded. "Okay, good. I'll radio in, tell the others to clear off. Anything you need from me before you head out?"

He turned back into the street. His distraction had bought the ABB the time to pick off the Empire's sharpshooters, and all that was left were the ones in the street hiding behind what few cars that hadn't exploded yet, and the small remainder in the apartments, either held up treating wounded or shooting out windows.

He shrugged.

"I could use your gun."

"Cole, y-"

The cop lifted his gun from his holster and pulled the trigger as fast as he could, barrel pointed at his head, and Wilt came up to absorb it all.

He counted seventeen clicks before the slide locked back and Charlotte stopped covering her ears.

He sheathed his sword with a slight scowl.

"Cole" had the audacity to roll his eyes. "Don't get pissy, I knew you'd get 'em."

Charlotte seemed to take offense. "He saved me, that was-"

The world greyed, the street lights winked out, the fires were extinguished, and a high-pitched keening wail drowned out all other noise as a glowing red blade plunged into the ground.

Reality bled away into darkness as jagged red cracks formed across the street, lightning snapping outward towards the sky, petals swirling.

The cracks and splits spread and spread like fractured glass as far as his eye could see.

Then they surged brighter than ever before, and the color came back just as plumes of red energy shot out from the cracks, directly under the Empire's feet.

The spikes flared maybe ten feet high before imploding, and half the street wilted into petals, drifting away in the night's chilly breeze.

Just about every parked car and man out in the open came with.

"Jesus Christ.."

"Well those potholes are gonna be a bitch to fix."

What few Empire men that had survived were howling and moaning in agony, sans limbs, feet, or fingers, skin mottled with a red and black rot that was spreading all across their body from the affected areas.

"It's over. I'd get out of here quick. Doubt the ABB would take kindly to all of you sticking around."

"Sounds good to me."

Charlotte made to open the patrol car's door and sit inside when she spotted the grazes, and she stepped forward with a hand outstretched. "Your bleeding.."

"I'm fine. Go."

She hesitated again, but nodded, and the cops ushered her into the backseat before driving off.

The ABB's victorious cheers were almost deafening, and most of them booked it inside to the occupied apartments, and he could hear several moans and groans cut short by gunshots.

He winced at the quiet whimpers of pain coming from the wounded in the street, and he could see the men afflicted by his semblance limply twitch and writhe as it killed them. One man was reaching a hand out towards him silently pleading, and he watched his fingers decay in real-time, blackening and rotting right before his eyes until the skin and muscle simply sloughed away and fell to the street, breaking apart into petals.

He jumped when a gunshot rang out and half the man's head exploded. The body went still, and the van driver walked towards him, another grin on his face. "They thought I was fulla shit! But you sure fuckin showed them, now didn't ya? That light show was the coolest friggin thing ever!"

The man paused a moment to watch its full effects in action, leaning down to pinch a blackened petal between his fingers. He chuckled under his breath, whispering. "Man, that woulda been so cool to watch on acid."

"Are we finished here?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. They ain't coming back here."

"Good."

"Ya know..." The ABB member paused and tilted his head, taking a good long look at Wilt, and he couldn't stop himself from reflexively placing a defensive hand across its grip. "You swing that thing pretty good for an American."

He snorted, a quick red flashing emitting from his hair and gloves. "I'm not an American at all."

"Fair enough."

They both sighed, and turned to watch the devastation slowly spread across the street. Not many people would be parking down here for a good long while.

For a moment they just stood, occasionally flinching at nearby gunshots and watching the fires slowly burn themselves out. The ABB had finished off every Empire man left, and were now shooing the nearby civilians out of the area, despite their pleas to be let back inside their homes.

His fists clenched.

As soon as he took a step forward, the man beside him turned back towards him. "You should join up."

What?

The man laughed, and he quickly realized he'd spoken his absolute disbelief aloud.

"I'm not joking. You've done a lot for us, even before Lung got nabbed, and he won't stay gone long."

"I get why you might think it, but I'm not Asian under this mask."

"Well, you swing an Asian sword, dress like a Yakuza, and have been fuckin the Empire for months. Plenty of people think you are, and it ain't like you ever gotta take that mask off and spoil it anyhow."

The man paused again, itching the back of his head rather relentlessly before continuing, and he noted a quick flash of fear and revulsion across his face before he smiled again. "Listen, Lung is..." Another pause, slightly longer this time. "Well, Lung's just Lung, and while that means a whole lotta shit, if there's one thing I can admire about him, it's that he's fair, and he's pragmatic. You stick around, keeping helping us out, he won't forget that. I heard rumors he's already had his eye on you for a while, and when he gets out, and you're still fighting by our side, he'd have no choice but to bring you in. You already got lotta fans here, including me, and you'd get your own crew and leadership position practically on the spot. He likes people who get shit done, and you ain't gotta worry about the horns or any other freaky shit with him. He won't care."

"And your current boss? Would they mind?"

He'd never seen someone clam up so fast and so roughly in his entire life. The druggie's teeth were grinding down atop his lip hard enough to puncture it, and a stream of blood was running across it. He scratched his neck again, and this time his fingers came back towards his waist red. He shook a moment before he steadied himself. "Bakuda's a big fan of your style. She wouldn't mind."

"Bakuda?"

"Yeah. She's..."

His eyes went glassy for a second before he finished his sentence. "She's running things with the Oni, but Lung'll ditch her once he gets back. You'll see."

It sounded like he was reassuring himself more than him, but he let it slide.

"Anyway, Lung'd be-"

A phone rang, and he reached into his pocket on autopilot before stopping once the Asian fished his phone from his jeans and raised it to his ear. "What, I'm really fucking-"

He heard a shrill female voice speak up, but between the phone's horrible audio quality and the incredibly thick accent, he couldn't understand a word.

The man blanched white enough to make Alabaster envious, and he silently nodded before the woman screamed at him and hung up.

He swallowed deep, before giving him another grin, this one obviously fake to any outside viewer. "Sorry, that was her. A big factory of ours is getting smashed up pretty bad, and she wants us to deal with it."

"Don't worry, I'll take care of it." He frowned at the blood dripping from the man's fingertips. "You just get some rest."

He made to jump away, but the man grabbed at his arm, staring at him like a starved man would at a buffet line. "You never answered me about hitching up."

He pulled his arm away and shook his head, and the ABB member's face dropped, before another obviously false grin came back. "That's fine, just..."

He shook his head, making to walk away. "You ever change your mind, swing by the docks and ask for Bai."

He nodded, then leapt away.

He reached for his phone, briefly smiling at the image Sabah had texted him a few hours before, and dialed the second number listed.

He only got two jumps in before it was answered. "What?"

"Bakuda. What do you know?"

"Bakuda? A bomb tinker Lung recruited near the end of March. She was arrested for a terror threat beforehand, but I dismissed her as a threat."

"You dismissed a bomb tinker as a threat?"

"A bomb tinker recruited under duress by Lung, who's notorious for being heavy-handed. She's hardly past her twentieth birthday and is a textbook narcissist, someone who would hate taking orders. I assumed she skipped the ABB as soon as Lung was arrested, but since your calling, she hasn't?"

"On the contrary, she's running it."

He could hear the confusion and apprehension in Coil's voice. "She's a failed college student infamous at her school for being mocking and controlling of her peers and is rigorously anti-social. How on earth would she keep order?"

He stopped in place, listening to the echoing gunshots and watching the glowing fires before replying. "I can think of a few ideas, especially with explosives."

The "And I've used them" went unsaid, but not unheard.

"None of them are pretty."

/

I'm very sorry for the ridiculous delay, but between writing and re-writing the huge Kaiju fight in Monster, Binging death note, and real-life shit, I sat on this chapter for way too long. It had been finished for a while, but I just never took the time to release it. Monster's big slug fight will be next, then I'll be back on this fully.

Last edited: Jun 13, 2022

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MasterDuplicator

Jun 13, 2022

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MasterDuplicator

MasterDuplicator

Big Fan of a Mad Cow

Jun 27, 2022

#1,083

Well shit, I guess we know which thing I'm doing first. I didn't expect it would be that much of a landslide, but, to be fair, we still have lots of time until this fic is done, so that may change(But from the looks of things I doubt it. If part two wins, it'll end either by the time Taylor gets outed, by echidna, or by Behemoth(AdamPhir Se would be really fun), and we'll see if I stop everything there or go all the way. I do have working titles for a short, almost snippet-like part 3 for the time skip, and a finale covering GM. Not touching Ward with a ten-foot pole, as I have not read it yet besides the Lung fight in 9.11(Is Ward worth a full read? I've heard some rather oddly mixed opinions on it).

Anywho, that's enough about all that. Here's the next chapter.

/

The last man was running as fast as his legs could carry him, panting and huffing while clamping a hand over their left arm, squeezing tight enough to slow the flow of blood leaking out past his fingers.

A single shot rang out, and he stumbled.

Another, and he fell down face-first with a scream, writhing a moment, before letting out one final rattling exhale and stilling.

He didn't get back up.

The ABB member who fired the gun let it slide out of his grip as he bent over and threw up, gagging and sputtering as he spat out small chunks of what he could only assume was his dinner a few hours prior.

He took a few steps forward, crunching shell casings underfoot, and put a comforting hand on his shoulder, squeezing slightly before rubbing his back as the kid coughed out his last, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

The city was quiet for the first time that night, the gunshots, fires, and screams replaced by a steady silence, with only the occasional emergency siren as proof things were amiss.

The waves lapping at the dock, the shining moon, and the neon lights spread all around would almost have made it a beautiful night if one could look past the glinting brass, the dripping blood, the bodies everywhere, and the acrid scent of urine and feces spread all across the factory from the dead's voided bowels and bladders.

He sniffed disdainfully, taking a small step back.

And the livings.

He pat the poor bastard on the back one last time as he made to stand, and the kid grabbed the gun off the floor and straightened himself out. He turned around to look back at the factory.

What was left of it.

The doorway had been utterly destroyed by an out-of-control car smashing through the entrance, a trail of broken bodies and destroyed furniture marking its path until it stopped at the other side of the building, the hood crumpled against the brick wall.

The driver was slumped forward in his seat, a small trail of blood flowing from his nose, and a river of red pouring from the nickel-sized hole in his skull.

Tables and chairs had been upended as makeshift cover, sending beakers and glasses and all manner of unknowable substances to the floor. The few prep tabes that hadn't been tipped over had been peppered with gunfire, and dozens of packaged bundles of white powder had been destroyed or ruptured, dumping what must have been thousands of dollars worth of cocaine to the glass, needle, and blood coated floor.

The boy wasn't looking at any of that though.

He was dead to the world, staring blankly at the horizon, eyes welled with tears.

He'd made a few pit stops intervening in some low-scale gunfights while guessing his way to the factory. He figured the ABB would be able to hold their own long enough.

A single tear ran down the ganger's face, and he sniffled before wiping it away.

He'd guessed wrong, and now everyone this boy knew was dead.

He flinched when several new gunshots sounded out, hand twitching in Wilt's direction before more sirens drowned them out.

The Empire's advance was breathing its last.

He frowned. The boy hadn't reacted at all.

His shoulders slumped, and he let out a low sigh.

It was finally over.

It was a first for him here, to be tired after a night out.

The frown stretched further when he glanced at his arm, and the half-dried blood staining his sleeve.

Wounded too.

All of it would be gone tomorrow, but the mere fact the cuts and grazes were still there at all was concerning enough.

The sirens grew louder, and he could very faintly hear the engines. They were already close.

He turned his head and eyed the ABB member again.

He still hadn't moved.

"Hey."

The sirens loomed.

"Hey."

Nothing.

He took a step forward just as the kid turned around and placed his gun under his own chin.

"W-"

The kid pulled the trigger.

The bullet went right through the bottom of his chin, ripping right through the brainstem and exiting out the back of his skull.

He felt something hot and wet and sticky splash across his face just as the kid bonelessly slumped over and tumbled into the ocean.

He jumped back in shock, eyes wide.

"Fuck me!"

Blue and red lights started flashing out the corner of his eye, and he heard an engine groan and rumble. Most likely a van or APC.

"I...Wha..."

He choked on his words as the body slowly sank into the bay, a crimson halo forming across the water's surface.

He wiped his face, leaning back and grimacing at the pink and red coating his glove. There wasn't time for this.

He turned away and ran up the road, speeding past the parking lot and stopping at the center of an intersection, giving one last lingering look at the docks.

"Sorry I was late."

That's what he got for not asking directions. He was too impatient.

He scowled. Been too impatient.

He leapt up to a nearby rooftop, eyeing the armored van he heard speed down the street and swerve right, directly into the parking lot.

He shook his head and made his way home, counting the police cars and firetrucks between each jump.

The entire BBPD and fire department must have been mobilized. There were dozens and dozens of cars, some even seemingly from different towns and counties.

The mayor and commissioner must have been desperate.

But the closer to home he got, the thinner they were spread, and by the time he entered the Merchants turf, it was lawless.

The Merchants were everywhere, men of all races and creeds taking to the streets, looting, smoking, and tearing the place apart. There had to have been dozens.

For a moment, he was sorely tempted to take them all on, damn the odds, but he held himself back, content that the police and PRT would handle it.

He made his way past them, tensing aura to his legs and leaping clear across the street, dozens of feet cleared in single jumps.

By the time he made it home, the beginning of aura exhaustion was starting to take hold. It was far from empty, but the battering he'd taken alongside his short-term enhancements had stressed it.

He drudged up the stairs, stepping inside his room and yawning, yanking off his gloves and tossing them in his bucket, almost immediately dying the water a pinkish-red.

His shoes were next, and he blinked at blood stains on his left sock before a quick tug on his pantleg revealed a few half-healed grazes, one above his ankle, and the rest by his thigh, their presence revealed by the small drops of blood weeping down his leg.

He dropped his jacket to the floor and unhooked his belt, tossing it alongside Wilt and Blush towards the corner, before limping towards his bedroll and all but collapsing on top of it. He threw his mask off to the side and was about to bury himself under the covers when he heard footsteps slowly make their way after him.

They paused a moment, then resumed, much faster, practically sprinting up the steps, He heard a soft thud a moment after.

He glanced to the floor and eyed the small blood trail leading out the door in annoyance.

Sloppy.

Who would that be then? Sabah was supposed to be-

"Adam! Adam! Are you okay?"

Shit.

He scrambled out of his bedroll, stumbling on his heel, and he lunged for his mask, placing it against his face just as Parian surged through the doorway, tossing the curtain aside.

She froze once she stepped inside and saw him. She wasn't even in costume, a pair of sweatpants and a hastily thrown-on jacket were all she had on.

"Oh my god, you're actually hurt, please tell me your okay!"

He held out one placating hand while the other adjusted the mask across his face so the brand could breathe. "Sabah I'm fine. Relax."

Her eyebrows rose up to merge with your hairline as she blinked in disbelief. "You've been shot, your bleeding, how can you tell me that with a straight fa-"

His aura shimmered across his body, a red barrier blinking to life across his body before it concentrated on the cuts.

Sabah, froze, mouth agape, as the wounds began sealing themselves up.

"Woah..."

She walked forward, leaning down to match his half-crouch, and watched the process in fascination.

It was slower than it should have been, but the mere fact it was happening before their eyes belied its speed. The bleeding stopped almost instantly, and what blood was there hardened into scabs, the skin around the area losing its pallor. After a few long seconds of that, the bruises lost their color, and the dried blood flaked off as the skin returned to a healthy pinkish white.

"Wow."

"I told you I'd be fine. Won't be a mark or scar by tomorrow. They would have been gone by then anyway, I just didn't want to exhaust myself further."

His punctuating yawn made her smile and shake her head. "Well forgive me for worrying. All I saw was the blood, and then when I came in and saw you all hunched over, I assumed the worst.

"It's fine." He ceased his fiddling and frowned at her. "What are you even doing here? I explicitly told you to stay home with your family or at your dorm until the ABB situation was dealt with."

"I was with my family, but I wasn't going to let the Empire or ABB affect my life, even for a day. As soon as everything calmed down, I went out and snagged your grocery order and made my way here."

"And where is that at?"

"Uh.." She flicked a loose strand of hair out of her face, almost sheepishly. "At the bottom of the stairs? I dropped the bags once I saw the blood trail, and I accidentally kicked them down when I was running up here."

She stood up, smoothing her hair again. "I'll go get them real quick."

"Just leave'em, they ain't going anywhere. I'll snag them in the morning."

He hauled himself to his feet, walking back towards his ruined jacket, tearing off a fresh strip. He heard Sabah turn around politely as he set his mask on the floor and began wrapping his face. It was practically routine by now, and while he could tell she was curious, it was nice she didn't try and broach the topic. She simply ignored it, and he was thankful for that.

He made sure to avoid his horns as the fabric coiled around his hair and face, and he winced when part of it grazed his eye. "How'd your family even let you come here? What did you tell them?"

He saw her shrug in his periphery. "The truth. I waited until the fighting had died down, then asked if I could check on a friend quickly, that I was worried about them."

His hand stilled, and felt something wet drip down his cheek. He pressed a finger towards his face and bit his tongue to stop from swearing. His fingertip came away red. He'd been very lucky recently, but his eye and the skin around it was finally starting to dry out. This was the longest he'd gone from cleaning it since he was a child.

His aura came in again, and he continued wrapping even as he shook in pain. The mask was stifling, he hadn't realized how much he'd missed being able to meet people's eyes until recently. He'd definitely need to score something to finally take care of it though.

If Parian noticed he was wrapping a little faster and looser than normal, she didn't comment. "You told them you were headed for a friend? They ask any questions?"

"Plenty. They know the only other person I talk to besides them is my roommate, so when I started doing my deliveries for you, they started asking questions. Why I'd be out so late, or why I seemed so much more personable lately. Even my roommate was starting to wonder. My aunt wouldn't let me leave until I told her about who I was visiting."

He finished wrapping and tugged the fabric down. It was much looser than normal, but it'd do. "What do they know?"

"That I've been hanging out with a boy around my age. That his name is Adam, that he's super tall, that he loves art."

She paused a moment to admire the room before speaking again. "He isn't very social, but he's smart, really funny, even though it's usually not on purpose, and he loves fashion and sewing almost as much as me."

She stopped a moment, and when he turned around, she had an expression on her face he couldn't place.

"That I think he's a good person, even if he doesn't know it or believe it."

He flinched.

Hard.

Sabah crossed her arms, but didn't take it back.

She thought that now..

But if she knew...

God, if she knew...

He laughed, attempting to defuse the tension in his limbs. "I can't imagine she would have been happy to hear you've been sneaking out to see a boy in the twilight hours of the day."

She snorted. "My father would have been apoplectic, and my mother would have asked a thousand questions, but my aunt just shrugged."

She shrugged herself a moment later. "She knows she won't have to worry about boys with me anyway."

She glanced down again, turning faintly green at the blood spatter. "That's not going to be fun to clean out."

"Clean out?"

Sabah stared.

"It's just blood."

Sabah was silent for a moment before burying her head in her hands, laughing at the apparent absurdity of that statement. "Ohh mmmy goddd Adam, no. We are not just going to leave a bunch of bloodstains all over your apartment, okay?"

He didn't respond for a few seconds, and that apparently was a few too many for her. "Okay?"

"Fine, fine, alright."

She sighed scanning his room for a moment, before nodding to herself and shaking her head.

"You need a break."

What/"What?"

"You have not spent a single day in Brockton Bay without either fighting someone, or planning a fight with someone. You need a break. I don't mean taking a week off or anything, just a day." He opened his mouth, and she scowled. "The city has survived the Empire without you for thirty years."

She sighed, running a hand through her hair. The movement looked rather familiar. She stared him dead in the eye.

"It can live without you for one extra day."

"Fine."

She blinked. "Really?"

"Yes, really."

She smiled, big and wide. "Good. Tomorrow at three, I'll come by, and we'll hit downtown and make a day of it. There are plenty of restaurants and stores and movie theatres, So we should be able to find something you'll enjoy. Deal?"

She extended an arm forward, apparently to officiate said deal.

He rolled his eyes and shook her hand. "Deal."

"Great. I'll some contacts for your eye, and a hat for your horns. Make sure to dress up!"

His eyes rolled so far back they nearly back-flipped, and she lightly punched him in the arm.

"Sure."

/

Sorry about the extra day's wait. I have no legitimate reason for the delay except that I finally made a Nexus account and went a bit haywire modding Witcher III.

I hope y'all can forgive me.

Last edited: Jun 28, 2022

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MasterDuplicator

Big Fan of a Mad Cow

Jul 6, 2022

#1,133

She delicately sidestepped a pile of shattered glass, grimacing at the muck around her feet. The sidewalk was littered with window fragments, blood, used needles, and stolen objects left behind by their captors. TVs, clothes, knives, food, guns, all tossed to the wayside.

The Merchants had torn the entire block apart. Everywhere she looked she saw burned-out cars, kicked-in doors, and fresh dried bloodstains.

Some hadn't even left, and she glared at the druggies sleeping in the street, makeshift tents and blankets made from stolen clothes blocking the way. No cars had come by all day, and for good reason.

She stepped in something wet and swore, lurching forward.

When she lifted up her shoe, the sole came back brown.

Her growl of frustration could have been heard from the end of the block.

The drugged-up zombies all around her didn't even react.

"Why did he have to pick such a shithole?"

The apartment was only a dozen feet away now, the telltale gap on the side marking Taurus's room.

She didn't like that name. It felt too...simple. Almost anti-climactic when you compared the name to the man.

Perhaps that could be by design. It gave away nothing about his appearance, power, or alignment(Though the horns made it understandable. Maybe she could help him brainstorm a more fitting title).

God knows the PRT could have anyway. It slightly surprised her they just ran with his given name, but, being fair to them, "Taurus" was much more inoffensive than "Bitch".

The thought of the PRT soured her already poor mood even further.

They were bringing in those capes from Chicago in few weeks, Gauss and Brazier. She didn't know much about them, except that the PRT apparently considered just the two of them enough to act as a stopgap. Gauss was supposedly a big mover, striker, and blaster, while Brazier was a complete unknown to her.

All she did know was that Brazier was supposed to hem Taurus in, and Gauss was supposed to knock him down.

The Wards were in much higher spirits now that Taurus's supposed "weakness" had been found out. Don't hit the sword, hit him, and do your damndest to disarm him. Without his sword, apparently, he couldn't throw out his weird fuckin energy blasts. Armsmaster hadn't been his usual stoic, cocky self lately, and she'd seen him practicing with his Halberd's a lot more recently. Getting his ass kicked like that musta stung.

But she didn't buy the sword theory.

She'd seen him toss out those little waves and discs a few times before, and he hadn't needed a boost either time. Her best guess was that he had some internal reservoir, something he could draw from to strike out, and that absorbing energy was just a quick and easy way to refill it. Whether he could send it out without a sword, she couldn't say, but considering he had those weird shadows(Clones?), she'd lean towards the answer being yes.

She stopped right at the entrance, scuffing her feet on the curb in disgust and stepping inside.

She froze up at the first step, blinking in confusion at the grocery bag that had been upended. Half of its contents were spilled out onto the steps, littering the floor in fabrics, needles, and what looked like a few loaves of dry bread.

She shook her head and resumed her trek, the staircase groaning and creaking in tune with each step. She noticed a few blood stains that looked almost new, but considering how she came up here in the first place, for all she knew it could have been hers.

She made it up to the doorway, hesitating a moment when she noticed Taurus wasn't there to meet her. She knew he could hear better than anyone else she'd met, and she hadn't exactly been subtle climbing the steps.

She gently rapped her knuckles on the doorway.

Silence.

She knocked harder, pounding it with a closed fist.

Nothing.

Was he gone? This early?

She stepped forward and swept the curtain aside with a shout.

"Hey, I'm comin I-"

She froze.

Taurus was laying on his cot, stock still, half his face smothered by blankets.

"Oh shit."

His head twitched at the noise, and her breath hitched.

He shook his head, mumbling incoherently.

The blankets coiled tighter around him, and he stilled once more.

He was fucking asleep.

She clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle a half-hysterical giggle.

"Jesus.."

She stepped forward, carefully tilting her head to watch for a reaction.

Taurus didn't react.

Just her luck.

She surveyed the room again, eyes widening.

It was much more furnished since she'd last come. There were a few desks, a nightlight, a fucking laptop, and more drawings and paintings than she'd seen at the fuckin Brockton Bay Art Center.

A HUGE robot, a rose garden, a woman with flames in her eyes and a smile on her lips, and some sort of fucked up creepy victorian doll were the most memorable things recently added to the walls.

But what really drew her eye was the ceiling.

Or rather the people and objects adorning it.

A shadow clad in the darkest of blacks, an indigo scarf wrapped around its neck.

A body split in twain, half wilted.

A massive mecha, shaped almost like a spider.

A bowler hat held aloft by a cane.

A yellow silhouette with the longest, blondest, and most impractical hairstyle she'd ever seen, a thin sheen of black added to the right arm.

A tiger-stripped woman, with two matching pairs of earrings for each set of ears. The face matched a painting he'd already finished. Odd.

A malformed arm, almost shaped like a claw, that had flames swirling around its pointed fingertips.

A shirtless man in a welding mask, modified and shaped like a wolf's slanted face, a pair of swastikas adorning his pecs.

A halberd wrapped in an American flag.

A gas mask with a stylized Eight-Eight printed over the glass.

They were all lined one after the other, almost sequentially.

And there was room for plenty more left.

She couldn't wait to find out who'd be next.

"No.."

She jumped in place, muffling herself once more as she spun around to face Taurus.

He was babbling incoherently, face ashen white.

She could vaguely make out him shaking under the sheets.

Not only was he asleep, but he was also having a god damn nightmare?

She made her way over to him, fading to shadow, each step feather-light. She stopped and sucked in a breath as her body came back, and kneeled down next to him.

Taurus shook his head, whispered pleas ignored by whatever phantom was haunting him.

Her hand reached out of its own accord, and she frowned.

She'd never had many nightmares, and whenever her little sister had a freakout, she just had her mother take care of it.

Her frown twisted into a full-on grimace.

It galled her a little, to have to admit she just flat out didn't know what to do here.

She remembered her mom would often whisper to her, or pet her hair, but that was for toddlers. It probably wouldn't work here.

Taurus fucking whimpered.

Eh, screw it.

She laid her hand on his shoulder, and almost immediately Taurus flinched so hard she almost thought he had woken up before the whispers and mumbles came back in full.

"Shhh..."

She rubbed up and down his shoulder, running her fingers down his covered arm.

"Shhhh..."

The mumbling slowed, and something wet dripped out of his eye and slid down his cheek.

Her hand moved up, coiling through his hair and tousling it.

"Shhh...I'm.."

Her hand stilled, tightening up into a fist and knotting his hair.

She didn't know what to say.

This was utterly unchartered territory for her.

She leaned forward, whispering as her hand scratched his scalp.

"Shhh...I'm here."

Taurus's lips stopped moving.

"I'm here."

She paused a moment, wiping down his cheek with her free hand.

"Here for you."

Taurus stilled, and she leaned back.

She felt a twinge of something in her chest. But by the time she had even noticed it was there, it was already fading.

She watched him fall back into a deep slumber impassively. She smoothed his hair back down, face blank, before standing back up.

Taurus was finally free of whatever had been bothering him, and she took a moment to better study his face.

It was so at odds with what he projected. He seemed so much older, wiser, with the mask on. His height, his skill, his power, and the little nuggets of wisdom and advice he'd give out, all pointed to an older, experienced, and veteran cape. The grizzled warrior type.

But when the mask was off...

It still shocked her a little, how young he was.

The permanent scowl and the small wrinkles forming under his good eye were both signs of stress aging him prematurely, but the rest of his face countered that.

The bright blue of his eye(eyes?), the softness of his cheeks, the smoothness of his skin, and the fact he had zero facial hair, not even stubble or strands.

How old was he? Nineteen? Twenty? Twenty-Five? He couldn't be any older than that surely.

What could possibly bother a man who'd killed dozens of people, almost apathetically, so much that it sticks with them even as they sleep?

A great heaving sigh echoed across the room.

Well, she sure as hell wasn't gonna wake him up after going through that effort.

Another sigh.

"Now what?"

There wasn't exactly much to do while she waited. It was only a little past seven in the morning, and knowing Taurus, this was probably him sleeping in. He could be back up anytime, and she didn't wanna wade through all the Merchants again.

She paced from one side of the room to the other, running her fingers across the paintings and carvings.

He had talent, she'd give him that. They were immaculately detailed, and each painting and drawing was a marked improvement over the last.

Maybe she could give it a try someday. Art had never really done anything for her, but seeing how dedicated Taurus was to it, giving it a shot couldn't hurt.

Hell, she'd seen a few paint cans around already. Surely he wouldn't mind, right?

She glanced around and saw some half-emptied yellow and black tubs by Taurus's cot.

She shrugged her shoulders and cracked her knuckles.

"Why the hell not?"

But as she bent down to grab the cans, something caught her eye.

A pommel and hilt, stuffed inside a matte black barrel and receiver that stretched on and on until a redwood stock, finished and lacquered, cut it off.

His sword and sheath.

She strode forward and kneeled again, admiring it.

She knew fuck-all about tinkering or engineering or whatever the hell made a sheath that double-functioned as a gun, but even she could tell it was well made.

The PRT had gotten into a minor slap fight with themselves over whether or not he'd made them it. Armsmaster blamed the Toyxbox, but she didn't buy that either.

She wasn't sure he'd built it, but he'd made it his own in a way no tinker could.

But why all the roses?

She understood having a motif, but it seemed a bit excessive, even to her.

Maybe-

"Well don't just stare at it."

Her heart leaped up and clogged her throat, turning a panicked swear into a strangled gasp.

She placed one hand over her racing heart as Taurus's smile was smothered by the slice of bread he was munching on.

"You ass, I thought you were asleep!"

The smile widened.

"I was. Not my fault you were too distracted to hear me get up."

Taurus shoved the rest of the slice in his mouth and bent down to rummage through the massive collections of grocery bags he'd collected.

She saw more fresh bread, soft drinks, yet more needles, fabrics, and threads, and skin care products?

"Where do you get all that stuff?"

Taurus ceased his rummaging. He turned his head towards her with a frown. "Where do I get what?"

She rolled her eyes and waved a hand across the room. "All of this? I know you sure as hell ain't the type to walk up to the local apple store and buy a fuckin laptop. I ain't dumb, and I ain't gonna tell. Just curious."

Taurus hummed and retrieved a water bottle, unscrewing the cap, before, much to her disbelief, chugging the entire thing, crumpling it in his fist and throwing it out past her head and down his balcony.

He rolled his shoulders and faced her again, tone grim. "Let's just say I know a guy, and we'll leave it at that."

He flicked his eyes towards his sword again.

"I was serious when I said don't just stare at it. Go ahead."

She tilted her head, uncomprehending.

Taurus smirked.

"I'm giving you permission. Go nuts."

Her feet dragged her back towards the sword almost on auto-pilot.

She squatted down, leaning forward and running her fingers across its body. Taurus closed in behind her as she marveled.

"Go on, pick it up. Just grab it by the-" She clamped one hand around the receiver, ahead of the trigger guard.

"There you go, you got it." She tried to stand up, but nearly tipped over when the sword slid out from her hand. Taurus put a hand on her shoulder to steady her.

"I should have warned you, I'm used to it, but it's a lot heavier than you'd expect it to be. Hold it tight, and keep your arm level when you stand up.

She did as he bayed, and he gave her an encouraging slap to the shoulder when she stood upright, sword in hand.

"How do you feel?"

She slid her pointer finger across the sheath before wrapping her right hand around the hilt of the sword.

Something electric ran down her spine.

"I feel powerful."

Taurus smiled again, but there was an edge to it, something almost dark.

"I know exactly what you mean."

/

Split into two, since I decided to expand this Sophia chapter on a whim, and it got outta hand real fast.

Last edited: Jul 9, 2022

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Jul 6, 2022

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Jul 7, 2022

#1,161

Ladies and gentlemen, for the very first time, we get to see what it's like to be on the other end of the patented Adam Taurus Temper Tantrum!(TM)

It isn't fun.

/

It felt right, holding Taurus's sword.

Like it belonged in her hands, like it was meant to be there 24/7.

Was this how he felt every time?

No wonder he carried it everywhere he went.

By the look on his face, he knew what she was feeling.

"I remember holding them for the first time too."

She turned her head to listen in, tapping her fingers on the hilt absentmindedly.

Taurus's free eye was rolled back, as if lost in a memory.

"I must have been.."

He trailed off, and she could see him counting off with his fingers

"Sixteen? Seventeen? I don't quite remember..."

He glanced down, back at the blade in her hands. Something flashed in his eyes, but she couldn't tell what. "I've had it so long it's practically a part of me. Since the day I made it, it hasn't left my side..until.."

He trailed off again, and his face slackened.

For the barest of moments, he looked lost.

"You made these?"

He twitched almost imperceptibly before nodding. "Yes, Yes I did. I thought the rose would have made it obvious."

"Well forgive me, but a tinker that makes guns and swords who also has an entire set of bullshit powers sounds pretty out there."

Taurus huffed and shook his head. "Well, tell Armsmaster he can keep his spot as top tinker. I'm not one. Wilt and Blush took me months to blueprint, let alone assemble. He could make them in a day."

She quirked a brow in amusement. "Wilt and Blush?"

Taurus scoffed, a hint of red warming his cheeks. "Like I said, I was either sixteen or seventeen. Besides, are you really gonna tell me Armsmaster hasn't named his equipment?"

"Yes."

Taurus's shoulders fell. "Oh."

She laughed and turned her head back down towards the sheath in her hand.

She inched her fingers back, pinky tapping the trigger, and Taurus cleared his throat.

"Don't pull that trigger unless you feel like jumping out there to catch Wilt when it lands. And it will go farther than you think it will, believe me on that."

For the briefest of moments, she was tempted to do it anyway, just to feel it happen.

Taurus's eye narrowed.

"Seriously. These aren't toys."

"I know that!"

"Then don't treat them like they are. Wilt is a sword, Blush is a gun. Treat them with respect, you understand me?"

She chanced another look at him. He seemed genuinely affronted.

"I understand."

He nodded his head, stepping back and to the side. "Good. Now, go ahead and unsheathe Wilt."

Her fingers tightened around the hilt, and she lightly tugged her hand forward.

It didn't budge.

She tried it again, and her fingers slid down across the grip fruitlessly. Taurus stepped a little closer, and she gripped it once more, tighter.

"Now-" Another tug. "You don't want to just yank it, you have it at an angle, a-" A pull this time. "Are you listening? If you-"

She yanked as hard as she could, and something clicked as Wilt sang free of its confinement, letting out an ear-piercing screech as it scraped the inside of the sheath. She took a stumbling step to the left in an attempt to control her accidental swing as Wilt arced towards Taurus's face.

A hasty hop backward saved him from having his mouth completely split open.

Instead, he managed to get away with only a small line carved into the surface of his cheek.

The wall wasn't so lucky.

Wilt slid right through it like there was nothing there at all, and it flew clear of her hand and tumbled across the floor with a clatter.

She followed Taurus's gaze toward the painting she'd marred.

It was a woman's face, the most detailed and almost..personal painting/carving he'd done. The hair and eyes seemingly had the most work put into them, because the golden amber of the eyes and the raven black of the hair were almost lifelike in the light. A pair of what looked like cat ears rested atop her head. It must have taken Taurus hours to make.

And now that all work was destroyed.

The face had been cleanly bisected, tearing a groove right through the hair, eyes, and nose.

Taurus's pupil shrunk down to a pinprick, and he let out a full-body shudder.

She could hear the leather in Taurus's gloves groan as he clenched his fists.

The blood pouring from his cheek was glowing.

Taurus closed his good eye and inhaled.

Deeply.

His right hand twitched, as if it was reaching for something, and he exhaled loudly, growling low in his throat.

Taurus slowly turned to face her, glaring balefully.

Something flashed red behind the cloth covering his left eye.

He wiped down his cheek, scowling at the red staining his glove.

"What..."

He leaned forward, eye narrowing.

"Was..."

His voice was dead, free of inflection.

He lunged forward, one hand shoving her into the nearest wall, with the other darting forward and yanking Blush from her hands.

She couldn't breathe, and he in leaned close, bearing down on her until their noses were practically touching.

"That?"

It was one thing, hear about his anger.

Another to see its aftereffects, from the Empire's many dead.

But having it directed at her was horrifying.

The hand that had her pinned to the wall crept upward.

"Well?"

When she felt his fingertips touch her throat, she broke.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I wasn't thinking an-"

His hand squeezed.

Not enough to choke, but enough to make her shut her mouth.

"Clearly."

Adam huffed, and she could see the physical effort it took for him to pull his hand away and let her breathe.

"It is obvious to anyone that you weren't thinking. What I want to know is why."

She opened her mouth, but he was already speaking again, almost shouting as he paced around the room, a flash of red sealing the cut on his cheek.

"I warned you not to treat it like a toy. You said you understood."

He froze mid-stride and did a 180 on his heel, facing her again and jabbing at her with a finger.

The smile on his face looked wrong.

Familiar.

She shuddered despite herself.

"You weren't...lying to me.."

He stepped closer, hair brightening and dimming like a stoplight.

"Were you?"

Sophia took a deep breath in.

He was furious.

She understood why, implicitly, but this level of anger?

She exhaled, attempting to straighten herself out.

She stepped in the shit, now she had to get it off her.

"I'm sorry. I made a mistake, I'll admit that, but I did'-

Taurus's fist ripped through the drywall above her head like it was paper mache, sending paint chips and dust all over her face.

Amidst her gasps and sputters, Taurus spoke up again.

"Don't pull that with me."

He twisted his hand around before violently tearing it free, ruining another carving.

He was on such a roll it looked like he hadn't even realized he'd done it.

"I'm not your mommy, or daddy, or whoever that "I'm sorry sir" act is for. Don't try it with me."

He blinked, tilting his head at her.

Then he leered.

"Save that shit for your principal."

She flinched.

He grinned.

"You were lying to me. Even if it wasn't on purpose, even if you meant it at the time, you were lying to me."

He stalked back towards her, posture tight, shoulders hunched like a wolf closing for a kill.

Then he was in her face again, whispering in her ear.

"Do you know why?"

She was frozen still. Her body wouldn't, couldn't, move.

She was paralyzed.

Steven's voice rang in her ears.

"Because you don't think."

Taurus leaned away, eye clouded by fury.

And something else.

Something...regretful?

Pondering?

"You don't think, you just do."

Taurus's glow winked out, and he sighed.

She felt herself slide down to the floor, legs giving out beneath their weight.

He was a giant to her, in this position.

He stared on, face void of emotion.

"I used to do the same thing."

His hand came up to rub the fabric covering his left eye.

"You wanna know how I got this?"

Her head snapped upward.

"I was only a few years younger than you. I was young and dumb. Just a kid."

He leaned forward, close enough that she could make out some sort of pattern beneath the cloth.

"I was doing a job, and was given instructions." Taurus's lips twitched upward, almost sardonically. "In my twelve-year-old brain's infinite wisdom, I decided to ignore those instructions. And I paid the price."

She swallowed, attempting to find her voice, but Taurus cut her off.

"And the older I became, the worse it got. I'd get tunnel vision, I went from not taking advice to flat out ignoring it, I stopped following the spirit of my orders, and only followed the letter. I took every single opportunity I could to do things my way, and if things couldn't get done the way I wanted them to be done, they often never got done at all."

Taurus glanced back at the painting she'd mangled. He bit his lip.

"Eventually, it reached a critical point. I surrounded myself with yes-men and sycophants, and I did away with everyone who disagreed with my methods, no matter who they were."

Taurus's hand dropped back to his waist.

"I used to do everything by whim, by assumption. You wanna know where that got me?"

She felt herself nod her head.

Taurus grabbed the bottom of his shirt and tugged it upward, revealing two angry, cherry red scars, one directly over his heart, and one right below it.

"It got me both of these and a free ride down a river."

He put his shirt back down, smoothing it over with a sigh. Taurus leaned closer still, until they were once against almost nose to nose.

"Tell me, when you first put on that hockey mask and held that crossbow, did you stop to think about what you were doing? Did you make a plan? Ask for advice from someone you trusted? Or did you decide to start going out at night, beating, maiming, killing, on a whim?"

They both knew the answer.

"When the PRT booked you, did you try and follow their rules, adjust to the new regulations, try and make new friends? Or did you immediately start sneaking out to do your own patrols? Start sneaking broadhead bolts into your kit? Did you ever try and give them a chance? Or did you completely disregard their methods, simply because they weren't your methods?"

She did try, at first. But every day she spent with the PRT breathing down her neck just made her angrier and angrier, more and more spiteful.

"I made it a year, I think. A year and a few months, tops."

"Then you did better than I would have. But my point stands."

Taurus leaned away and stood up, walking back toward Wilt.

"Tell me something..." He picked Wilt back up, whipping it to the side to clean the blade of muck, and placed it back in its sheath. "When you came to me in that alley, what were you thinking? Did you have a plan in mind in case I was hostile? Did you have a plan in case you said something wrong and you pissed me off? Did you have a plan to even fight me in case I tried something? Or did you just assume I'd be friendly? That I was like you?"

The answer was written all over her face.

Taurus's sympathetic frown irked her and comforted her in equal measure. He clenched a fist and thumped his chest, right over his scars. "That's the kind of thinking that'll get you a pair of these."

He tucked Blush back into his belt, then crossed his arms. "Now, what went wrong here?"

She glanced back towards the ruined painting and gulped.

"I got..excited, I guess. I wasn't really listening to you, and I got frustrated attempting to get the damn sword out. I didn't really think about what would happen once I got it out."

"Good."

Taurus tracked her eyes and bit his lip.

"I shouldn't have.." He stalled, face glued to the floor.

His mouth opened, but no words came out. His tongue darted out and ran over his lips, and he shook his head. "I shouldn't have lost my temper with you. It was my fault for not stopping you anyway, it's just.."

Another quick glance and frustrated sigh. "The person in that painting meant a lot to me. In some very.."

Taurus swallowed and ran his sleeve across his face. "Complicated ways."

"Maybe I could help you fix it then? I..don't really have anywhere important to be, and I'm the one who fucked it up."

"You didn't." He flinched as he said it, like it came out automatically.

She raised a brow in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Taurus stared on silently, like he hadn't heard her. He walked towards the painting, tugging off a glove, and running a hand across the woman's cheek.

It looked almost intimate.

Then everything went dark, scarlet light blazing around Adam's fingers as he ran them up through her hair and down her face.

Thin red petals danced across the room, and the light came back so suddenly that she had to shut her eyes to stop it from blinding her.

When she opened them again, the painting was gone, and Taurus was still.

He tugged his glove back on without a word and made his way back towards her, extending a hand.

She hesitated a moment, then clasped it.

He pulled her up to her feet, then held out Blush once more.

"What? Are you-"

"You understand your mistake, right? What you did wrong?"

She glanced back down, towards the blade hidden away.

"I do."

Taurus nodded.

"Then let's try it again."

/

Okay, just one more part to this, from Adam's POV, then we get to the fun happy chapter.

Last edited: Jul 9, 2022

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Jul 13, 2022

#1,185

Shadow Stalker gingerly reached towards Blush, carefully wrapping her fingers back around the receiver and gently tugging it from his hands. Her grip was a bit too tight, but he could appreciate the extra caution. He walked a semi-circle around her, moving back to her right side, in the path of her sword arm.

She got the message and put a hand on Wilt's hilt, but he tapped a finger on her shoulder to get her attention before she could try again.

"Now, make sure your grip is secure, and we'll start slow. Give it a good tug, but again, do not try and yank it out. That's how accidents happen. Last time, you felt a click when you pulled it out?" A nod. "Good. When you feel that click, let go, and we'll go from there."

Shadow Stalker glanced back down, and slowly pulled. For a moment nothing happened, but as he reached forward to help, he heard a soft click, and she ripped her hand away from the hilt like it'd just burned her.

He smothered his rapidly growing smile with a fist and shook his head. "Well don't be afraid of it. It's just a thing."

She scowled. "I'm not afraid of it."

"But you're afraid of screwing up with it."

With the way her shoulders tensed up, he knew he'd hit the mark. He stepped closer and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. "You made a mistake. You've learned from it. You can't be reckless with it, but you can't treat it like a bomb about to go off either. As I said, it's about respect. Treat it right, and it will treat you right."

He put his hand atop hers, squeezing slightly, before pulling her hand back, slowly sliding Wilt free. "Like this. Don't bend your wrist, otherwise the edge of the blade will scrape the inside of the sheath, and that'll damage them both." He pulled Wilt halfway free, then let go of her hand and stepped back a few paces. Shadow Stalker paused a moment, then pulled Wilt completely free under her own power.

Adam shrugged. "There you have it."

Shadow Stalker was quiet a moment.

Then she laughed.

Hard.

His brow creased in concern when it took a full ten seconds for said laughter to subside.

She turned towards him again, huffing and panting, with the occasional giggle slipping free between exhales.

The look on his face nearly sent her into another fit, and she took another few seconds to compose herself before speaking. "I'm sorry, I must have sounded like a fuckin crazy person right there, it's just.." She sighed, rolling her eyes and gesturing towards the spot where Blake's portrait used to reside. "It was just so goddamn simple. How on earth did I fuck that up?"

He hummed. That was an easy one.

"Like I mentioned earlier, you weren't thinking or listening. If you had been, it would have gone just as smoothly. But don't beat yourself up over it. You wouldn't believe how many accidents I've gotten into involving that sword. Most of them for the same reasons."

"Really? You?"

He laughed, tugging up his sleeve and tapping one of the many small scars decorating his left arm. "Wilt bit me right here when I was messing around trying to spin it in my hands. I didn't have anyone to teach me properly for a long time, so you can rest assured I have a fairly large rap sheet when it comes to screw-ups. I'm rather lucky I heal so well, otherwise I'd have quite a few more of these."

Shadow Stalker took a moment to look his arm up and down, marveling at the sheer variety of the markings. Small nicks and cuts from training, full-on slashes and punctures from the many him-or-me melee fights he'd gotten into in his younger days, old, almost faded gunshot wounds, but what drew her eye most of all were the small burns peppered across his arm, primarily near his wrist. Most were remnants of his days in the mines outside Lagertod, but a good few were also from simple loading accidents working with Blush.

Sabah had shown that same curiosity about the many, many, scars that littered across his body, but had never spoken up due to her seemingly unwavering respect for his privacy.

"How the hell'd you get all these?"

Shadow Stalker had no such respect.

He tugged his sleeve down and shrugged, offhandedly gesturing towards Wilt. "When you're self-taught like me, you learn from your screw-ups, not from instruction. I used to swing swords like Wilt around like they were bats. For a while, I just coasted along with my durability, trusting that I'd be able to simply brute-force my way through battle, without any real strategy or finesse. But as time passed, that became less and less effective, so I started relying on my natural quickness instead. I had no real sparring partners or instructors until I was around nineteen, after Si-someone noticed my skill for the first time. So before that, I'd simply find a quiet place and just..swing Wilt around. I had no clue what I was doing, proper footwork, positioning, none of that. What I did have was speed and agility, and so I built my own style, uniquely tailored to me, around that. Eventually, once I did a proper get a proper teacher, I learned the proper nuances of swordplay."

Shadow Stalker seemed completely enthralled by the story, eyes wide and glittering. By the looks of it, she had a whole new level of respect for him. "I did kinda wonder why you seemed so..unconventional. Armsmaster was wondering as well too. He'd been wracking his brain trying to figure out how you made such a bastardized mixture of Iaido and Kendo work."

"I don't know what those are, or what those words mean." But they did seem vaguely Mistralian sounding.

Shadow Stalker blinked. She opened her mouth and raised a finger in bewilderment, before dropping the finger along with her shoulders, shaking her head midway through the movement. "Self-Taught. Right."

"Exactly. Now, to sheath. It's a lot simpler. Grab Blush and tilt it upward, and flip Wilt around and line them both up." Shadow Stalker nodded and did as instructed, fumbling slightly when changing her grip on Wilt's hilt. "Good. Now just pull Blush forward and slide Wilt in, both at the same time."

She was a bit slow and unsteady, and he winced at the loud scrape when the tip of the blade sank inside, but when Wilt clicked into place, he slapped her on the back in congratulations. "Simple as that. I'm grabbing another drink. Repeat until I say stop, and I wanna see you do it faster each time, got it?"

Shadow Stalker grinned and gave him a thumbs-up as he walked back towards his dumping ground. He reached into the nearest bag and fished around, sighing at the lack of water. He grimaced and resigned himself to the mercy of one of the many soft drinks Sabah had brought him. He'd never tried them or even really been interested in them, and had just been stockpiling them to spare her feelings.

Well, might as well give them a shot.

He reached back inside and pulled a canned one free at random, turning his head and giving Shadow Stalker an approving nod. Every few moments her movements got quieter and quieter.

He raised the drink to his face and popped off the tab with a thumb, briefly giving the brand name a once over.

He shrugged and raised it to his lips.

Acid pooled around his tongue, and he choked, dropping the can to the floor as he bent over the floor and gagged, spitting the liquid out to the ground as he sputtered, spit and fizz running down his chin.

Shadow Stalker howled.

As her laughter petered out and his gagging died down, she sheathed Wilt one final time and spoke up.

"Not a soda guy, are you?"

He coughed one last time and wiped his mouth, sneering. "Shut up and keep practicing."

She giggled. "Sure thing."

He straightened out just as Wilt sang free once more, and he tracked the movement of the can across the floor.

It lay against the wall where Blake's portrait had sat. He drudged over, carefully staying out of Shadow Stalker's way as she repeated the movements he'd drilled her on. He could see it was already starting to become muscle memory.

He'd admit, if only to himself, that it felt good to teach again. To train someone, to hone them, to make them better than they were.

To make them what he wanted them to be.

A shudder wracked his body, but it was gone just as quickly as it came.

But the line between his manipulation and genuine intention was beginning to blur. He was starting to legitimately enjoy her company, the sense of normalcy and routine she provided for him, like with Sabah.

He was almost starting to see her as another friend, a companion.

But when he picked up the can and glanced back at the empty space on his wall, he knew deep down what void he was trying to fill.

For a brief, selfish moment, he thought about keeping her around for himself, out of the way of the PRT, the Guild, or whatever family she had.

But he had a second chance, now. He wouldn't waste it.

His hand brushed over what few slivers of paint remained, one final flash of red wiping the slate clean.

He saw out the corner of his eye that Shadow Stalker wasn't moving, and that Wilt and Blush were on the floor. She was looking back and forth between him and the painting repeatedly, face twisted and tangled up in thought.

Then she let out a little "Ah" of acknowledgment.

He crumpled the can in his hand, soaking his glove, and threw it out into the street below.

"Who was she?"

"Someone important to me."

Shadow Stalker rolled her eyes. "No shit. I mean, who was she?"

He frowned. His left hand came up and swiped through empty air.

He looked back down towards where Wilt and Blush sat on the floor, and a self-deprecating chuckle slipped free without his consent.

Shadow Stalker, bless her heart, noticed, and picked Blush up, Wilt in tow, and tossed them back at him.

He caught them mid-air and tucked Blush back into his belt, running his hands along its length.

"That a sword or a stress ball?"

His glare, surprisingly, didn't cow her. She just crossed her arms and stood her ground.

He ran a hand through his hair, soaking it in liquid and exhaling harshly.

"The girl in that painting was my partner."

Shadow Stalker blinked. "What do you mean by partner? Like a-"

"Both. She was..." He squeezed Blush in his hand, ignoring her judgment. "She was both. We worked together, yes, but we were also.. involved. I was nineteen when it started, she was fifteen. We were together for about two years."

Shadow Stalker took a moment, visibly hesitating. She was clearly trying to pick her words, conscious of the landmine she'd stepped on. "You keep saying were and was. Is she..?"

"No. She's not dead, just..."

Gone? Missing?

The last he saw of her, he was doing his best to put her in the ground.

She had survived him, but what if someone else had gotten to her?

Where even was she? Her group was headed for Atlas, but it had been over a month since Argus. She could be in Mantle, Atlas, Vacuo, anywhere.

And he'd never be able to find out.

She could be alive, dead, with Yang, with someone else, she could be with her family, fighting Grimm, fighting Hazel, fighting for the new White Fang, anywhere.

She was just...

"Gone."

"Do you..know where?"

Adam shook his head.

"No."

He slumped back, leaning against the wall, turning his head to look outside at his brave new world.

"I just hope it's somewhere better than here."

Shadow Stalker nodded. "Not much worse than this place."

He hummed, shrugging slightly.

"Maybe."

Something vibrated, and he perked up, Wilt baring its teeth, but Shadow Stalker growled and jammed a hand in her pants pocket.

"God damn it, Emma..."

It was a whisper, muttered in the heat of the moment.

But he heard it, and he shoved Wilt back.

She pulled her phone free, scrolling rapidly. She was reading something, and she wasn't very pleased with whatever it said. She sighed, pinching her nose and tapping her foot.

She gave one last lingering look at him and the blank canvas, before jamming her phone back and place and throwing her hands in the air with a growl of frustration. "I gotta go. It's a school day, and my friends getting pissy I'm gone."

"You came here on a school day?"

She shrugged.

"Yeah?"

Adam boggled.

"Y-w-I..."

He huffed, kicking off the wall and placing his hands on his hips. "Education is a gift. I never got to go to school, and look at the shithole I live in. Get back there and learn."

"Alright, alright, fine."

She cracked her knuckles and stepped back towards his balcony.

And then she stopped dead.

"What was her name?"

He froze.

"What?"

Shadow Stalker turned back towards him, eyes soft. "I can tell she meant a lot to you. What was her name?"

"Blake."

He shoved down all the ugly feelings that reared back up at the utterance of her name.

"Blake Belladonna."

She glanced back at the wall.

"What are you gonna replace her with?"

"I don't know."

He swallowed.

Blake had moved on. Moved on, and found someone else.

In all likelihood, in all his time here, she likely hadn't thought of him once.

She had let him go.

"I think.."

He closed his eyes, sucking in a breath.

When he exhaled, a weight he hadn't known he'd even been carrying slipped away.

"I'll leave it blank."

He nodded to himself. "At least for now."

Shadow Stalker nodded minutely, muttering something under her breath too quiet for even him to catch without aura.

She turned away from him and made her way to the edge of his balcony

Then she tilted her head to the side, looking him right in the eye.

"Sophia Hess."

She kicked off the edge and phased to shadow before he could reply.

Last edited: Jul 13, 2022

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MasterDuplicator

MasterDuplicator

Big Fan of a Mad Cow

Jul 25, 2022

#1,221

Next week's schedule for work came in this morning, and it did not look good, so even though I said I didn't want to split this chapter up, I'm making myself a liar. The 2nd part will be the actual meat of the chapter, expect some length. Probably gonna be 3 parts tops, depending on how much development I want to do, Since Bakuda is a day away.

/

It took a moment, for what she said to sink in.

"Sophia Hess."

A name. Her name.

Why just blurt that out? Why-

"I can tell she meant a lot to you. What was her name?"

"Blake. Blake Belladonna."

"Sophia Hess."

It took another moment to understand what she meant.

"Oh."

His gloves were glowing. It took him a few blinks to realize the room was dyed in shades of greyscale.

His heart was racing, pounding in his chest hard enough to hurt. The wave of disgust that washed over him was visceral enough to make him gag.

"Oh shit."

He'd done it again.

He'd noticed the stares, the moments of quiet, the moments of awe.

He'd chosen to ignore them. He'd buried his head in the sand, and let those feelings sprout in her like a weed.

He had to put his foot down, before they poisoned her any further.

But when? How?

Coldly shutting her down could ruin all the work he'd put into her, but giving her hope would be infinitely crueler. She thought she had a chance.

And what reason had he given her to make her think she didn't?

He was young. He had obviously taken an interest in her. He'd trusted her, told her his secrets, and kept hers safe in return. He'd never set any real boundaries, he'd trained her, brought her to his home.

It was only natural someone as young as her would get the wrong idea.

From the outside looking it, it didn't quite look like the wrong idea at all.

That disgust soon turned to horror.

Turned to anger.

At himself, at her, at Blake, at everything and everyone all at once. It was an old feeling, his closest companion next to Wilt and Blush, a feeling he'd cultivated and fed during his time in the White Fang, during his time in Mantle, finally cracking free of the walls he'd built around it during his time in Brockton Bay.

It was that rage he felt whenever he looked in a mirror and saw the initials burned into his face, whenever he saw a snowflake fall from the sky, when he'd watched Blake disappear past the horizon at the Forever fall, when Cinder had come for him, when Indigo had adjusted his scarf, smiled, pointed to his mother, and said her.

He took a deep, deep breath in an attempt to calm the sudden trembling in his arms, to half, stall, or at least slow the inferno rising up from his chest.

But his attempt was just that.

An attempt.

The sky turned black as his fist swung wide toward the nearest wall.

(X)

Sabah made her way down the street, careful to not make eye contact with any passers-by. The Merchants had cleared out for the most part by now, but what few people were around didn't exactly look friendly. She'd caught a few trying to follow her, but quickly reaching for her pocket and making eye contact send them packing every time.

It was a bluff, of course. She didn't carry a knife or gun or anything like that, but they fell for it all the same.

What worried her was that one of them, one day, might decide to try and take that chance anyway. She didn't have much of anything for muscle, though she tried to keep in shape. That, combined with the fact she was 5'2 in heels, meant that day could come sooner than she'd like.

Maybe she should start carrying pepper spray, or a pocket knife. She didn't know anything about guns, though she supposed it was possible Adam would teach her, if she asked nicely enough. The same could probably be said for knife fighting as well(Though she held zero illusions about the practicality of trying to teach her proper hand-to-hand combat).

At the very least, she could ask what items would be best(Though she wasn't exactly looking forward to his reaction if and when she told him she'd been waltzing through Merchant territory completely unarmed).

Mentally picturing the absolute disbelief and confusion on his face made her smile. Even with half his face covered, he still somehow managed to be so expressive.

Thinking about said covered half made her grimace, and she was suddenly very conscious of the things she'd brought with her.

The bag lazily swinging in tune with her steps was packed tight with a pair of green contacts, a hat, and a pair of fingerless gloves.

It also carried a basic makeup kit, a carefully bubble-wrapped vanity mirror, an eyepatch, and a frankly obscene amount of concealer.

She wasn't quite sure what he'd do with those last few items.

Adam had mentioned a scar, and that the eye itself was damaged, but beyond that, all she had was her imagination to fill the gaps.

From what she'd read, Case-53's had either had a tattoo or brand to identify them, besides the obviously inhuman traits. She hadn't seen any markings on his chest, back, or limbs, and he wasn't shy about his scars, or even about his body in general.

The only exception was his eye.

And she had a funny feeling it wasn't a tattoo he wrapped in cloth and gauze every day.

Her fists clenched.

She wasn't an angry person.

She wasn't a violent person.

But if she ever found the man or woman who branded her best friend's face, she'd wring their goddamn neck.

No matter what earth he was from, what he'd done, or whoever he was before, no one could ever deserve that.

She dispelled those negative thoughts with a shake of the head, and her smile came back in full force as she stepped inside Adam's building and clambered up the stairs.

When she walked through his doorway and opened her mouth to greet him, it disappeared almost instantly.

Every desk, every stool, and every bag was tipped over, spilling bottles, guns, food, and loose cash all over the floor.

One stool, in particular, was in seven or eight different pieces, as someone had picked it up and smashed it against the floor or wall.

The wall by his bed was utterly ravaged, with five or six holes punched through the drywall, each one wide enough to fit her head through.

The portrait that used to be there was missing as well, and she couldn't see a single speck of color or carved-in markings to tell her it had ever even been there at all. A few other paintings had been defaced too, but none anywhere near that extent.

What surprised her was that her portrait just to the side of the mangled wall was completely untouched from the carnage.

She took a single step forward, steeling herself. Adam had a temper, she'd known that, but knowing that implicitly was much different from seeing it in person.

It was another painful reminder that beneath his awkward smiles and aloof demeanor, he'd hurt people. Killed people.

For a brief moment, she remembered seeing the broken and maimed bodies the police and PRT had fished out of that destroyed warehouse on the news, the decay and rot that had settled over the cadavers that couldn't have been over an hour old, and the brief flash of revulsion that bubbled up at the memory made her sway on her feet.

She couldn't think about that right now.

A light sigh caught her attention, and she turned her head towards Adam's balcony, noting how the color shimmered in the air, the room lightening and darkening between blinks, as if someone was rapidly flipping a light switch.

A living silhouette, two-toned in black and red, was sat in the midst of the distortions.

She could see the red of his hair, of his back and banner, but the rest of him was completely smothered by swirling shadows.

"Adam?"

The color came back to him almost instantly as he flinched, one hand grabbing at the floor to stop himself from slipping. He whirled around, climbing to his feet and mumbling under his breath.

Something resembling panic filled his face as he looked between her and the mess on his floor, but after a moment he stilled completely, his usual mask of indifference locked in place.

"Is it time?"

She huffed. He wasn't even going to acknowledge it?

"What happened in here?"

Adam shrugged in a way that was too casual to be anything but calculated. "I lost my temper earlier. I'm good now." His eye honed in on the bag in her hand, and he waved a hand at it. "What do you have there?"

God, he wasn't even subtle about it. "If you don't want to talk about it, then fine, whatever. This is the stuff for our day out." One eye flicked towards the shattered drywall near his bedroll, and she heard Adam swear under his breath. "If you still want to go, that is."

"I do, I do. It'd be a good opportunity for me to.." The silence that followed his unfinished sentence lasted a moment too long to be anything but awkward before she answered for him. "Destress? Just forget about everything?"

"Yes, exactly." Adam nodded his head hard enough she practically felt the whiplash. "I did some, uh, thinking, as it were." He glanced back out behind his shoulder, eyeing the skyscrapers and lowering sun, before nodding to himself again. "I haven't taken a day for myself in years. Maybe ever. I don't know Brockton Bay very well besides the basic layout. I couldn't really think of anything fun for us to do, though." He scratched the back of his neck, embarrassment obvious. "I don't have very many hobbies. I was thinking we could take more than just a day off? Extend this to tomorrow as well?"

She could work with that. Whatever had prompted his...Outburst had obviously made him reconsider a few things. "How about we start with a walk downtown?"

Adam shrugged, apparently indifferent. "Sounds fine." His eye flicked back towards the bag, and she curled her fists inward on reflex.

Might as well bite the bullet.

She unceremoniously dropped it to the floor and fished out the mirror, makeup, and eyepatch.

The confusion on his face was obvious, but when she pulled the concealer free, something obviously had clinked, because the brief flash of red and half-step backward made it clear he knew what those were for. "Sabah, I-"

"I know you have a scar, and that it's over your eye, but I thought that maybe with all of this we would attract less attention. You could just wear an eyepatch instead of covering half of your face. The concealer works on burns too."

That obviously had been the exact wrong thing to say, because Adam's face twisted up with an emotion she couldn't recognize, lips curled and eye hard. "It's a burn scar, yes. The problem is that it never healed properly. Some parts are still too sensitive to touch, let alone slathering them in makeup, and I've already gone on too long without cleaning it out."

"Oh." She hadn't thought of that. Rather stupid of her, in hindsight. "I'm sorry, I figured it would have been healed by now, since your..How old are you, anyway?"

Adam's dour countenance lightened up slightly, the smallest of smirks on his lips. "I'm twenty-three. I'll be twenty-four next January, I think." He huffed to himself, smirk widening. "I would have thought the same as well, in your shoes. How old are you?"

The way he hesitated on the month gave her pause for a moment, but only a moment. "Twenty-one. Twenty-two by June."

Adam nodded at that, before giving the makeup another look. She saw something twitch by his brow, then he strode forward and picked everything up, swooping past her and walking towards the bathroom before she could think of anything to say.

Five minutes went by.

Then ten.

Then fifteen.

When she checked her phone and saw that half an hour had gone by, she was about to go in and check on him, but the sound of his boots clicking on the tile floor halted her.

When he stepped back into view, she rather openly boggled at the transformation.

For the very first time, she could make out the left side of his face.

His normally windswept hair was haphazardly brushed down. It was rather obviously done by hand, and a few strands and spikes rather stubbornly stood on, but it at least let her see his horns in full. It still weirded her out seeing someone with actual horns on their head, but they fit his aesthetic quite well.

His free eye was now a bright emerald green, but several flecks of blue doggedly made their way through, giving him an almost heterochromatic look.

His nose was fully uncovered as well, she could vaguely make out a slight red area, but beyond that it looked as normal as could be. The area around his left eye looked the same, this time with the discoloring that much more obvious, with some areas left alone completely, and in those spots, she could see the warped and melted flesh perfectly clearly, brown and red scarring scattered alongside half-open, dried out wounds. There was obviously some sort of pattern, but the makeup obscured most of it.

The eyepatch completely obscured his bad eye, and he had apparently not considered the area around healed enough to cover, so the scarring was mostly out in the open.

Even after however many years it had been, most of the burns were still a bright cherry red, and the fact some parts of his face hadn't healed at all made her sick to her stomach, in horror and sympathy alike.

If parts of his face still looked that raw, she couldn't even begin to imagine what his eye and eyelid looked like underneath the patch.

Adam cleared his throat, and she snapped to attention. "You have a hat for me, right?"

She nodded. "And gloves." She reached back inside the bag and tossed the gloves at Adam, who caught them and slipped them on without complaint.

But when she pulled the hat free, his face dropped.

"What?"

His lips were peeled back into a sneer, like the hat's mere presence offended him on a personal level.

"I am not wearing a bowler hat."

"It's a homburg, Adam. Not a bowler hat."

"Whatever."

/

Addressing something Alpha Zerg brought up, and something I'm pretty sure a lot of other people have been thinking about as well, I am still unsure about pairing Adam with Parian. I kinda doubt my ability to sell it, considering I'd play it 100% straight, as I try and do with everything else in this fic.

Now, what do I mean by that? Well, I'd have to make it work without both of them being flagrantly out of character. Some allowances are allowed(And have certainly been taken), but I want both of them to still feel like Parian and Adam.

So if I do it, you can all rest assured it won't be done by flagrantly changing their traits, and that it'd be done at a point either at the end of this, or at the beginning to the middle part of Defender(More than likely the latter).

It would take into account all of Adam's issues, including but not limited to...

1. His obsessiveness and fixations(Wilt and Blush being his safety blanket/Squeeze Ball, the paintings, and his relationship with Blake really speaks for itself considering he chased her across a continent).

2. His temper and penchant for violence as the first contact option.

3. The fact that he just got out of a relationship(From his point of view, anyway) and that it got him sent here.

4. As Crake mentioned, he'd also need to be at a place where he could actually be ready for another relationship, that he could think to himself "I trust this person", and that he would need to have a sit-down to even really convince himself that'd be an option.

5. His many enemies.

6. While he wouldn't have a problem with being a subordinate, as seen with Sienna, being in a submissive position as a partner, which is the only thing Parian trusts(According to memory, correct if wrong) would cause some friction, but depending on how he rationalizes it, he could also be willing to go for it.

As for Parian, well, for a while she would have no clue she even likes Adam, and she wouldn't be able to place her feelings for him for quite some time, and once she finally does recognize what she feels, it would spark a pretty violent debate with herself, since up until that point, she'd only been attracted to women. She'd have no idea what to do.

Neither of them would, really. Adam's only experience with being in a relationship was while he was in a never-ending spiral of life and death situations while running a branch for a terrorist organization, and Sabah hasn't been in one at all up to this point. Sabah would want to take it slowly, and Adam would push it forward as fast as possible, because hey, I could get killed/arrested at any moment, I might as well get as much out of this as I can.

(Hope you don't mind me stealing your indent/PoV switch Zaru)

Bonus: More screencaps of Adam's face(and that absolutely permafucked eye) as well as a clip or two of him in action for some nice fight choreography eye candy.

Spoiler

Last edited: Jul 25, 2022

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Jul 25, 2022

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MasterDuplicator

Big Fan of a Mad Cow

Mar 19, 2023

#1,265

What the fuck?

/

With each step he took, more and more people looked toward him.

Most were subtle, quick glances, simply to take him in before quickly returning to their business. Some younger people stared on more casually, stopping in place for a moment or two before moving back on.

A few children loudly boggled and tried getting their parents to stare with them.

Those bothered him the most.

One little girl was pointing at him and tugging at her other sleeve. The woman turned towards him, making eye contact for a split second and pulling her daughter along in the opposite direction. Rather roughly, at that.

When the girl turned back toward him, he gave her a glare that had sent Atlesian Special Forces packing in the other direction.

He smiled unwittingly when the girl gasped and buried her face in her mother's sleeve.

That smile was quickly wiped away when he felt an elbow jab into his side.

It came back again at the sound of Sabah's surprised grunt. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her rub her elbow with a free hand. The blow hadn't even come close to even making him flinch, let alone hurt, and he didn't even have his aura up.

Something that was beginning to gnaw at him more and more with time as they made their way down the street.

"What was that for?"

Sabah huffed. "You know why. That was awful!"

"I was just teaching her a lesson. It's not polite to stare. Better she learns that from me than some addict who'll snap at the wrong glance."

"She was just curious, Adam. Surely you did the same thing when you were younger, right?"

He shook his head. "No. I knew my place."

Sabah dragged her feet for a moment, obviously caught off guard. "What's that supposed to mean?"

His smile disappeared. How to explain this to her?

"I was something..new in town when my family adopted me." He inclined his head down to look her in the eye. "People don't always like new. Especially when you stand out like me, at the age I was. So I kept my head down."

"People in town didn't like you?"

He hummed. "Some. Most adults could have cared less, but there were a few who didn't like me, or like what I represented. But they didn't bother me much. It's the children that were the worst."

Sabah let out a hum of affirmation and reached up to ruffle his shoulder. "I understand. I went through something similar when my family moved here. I had a hard time making friends for a long time." She laughed as she said it, eyes downcast. "I guess I still do."

He reached down, stiffly, and repeated her sympathetic pat, choking on and swallowing down the words that bubbled up his throat, words that would ruin their tentative relationship, and made a noise of agreement.

It was not something similar. It wasn't anywhere near the same, how could it be?

What he had gone through, what his fellows had gone through, she couldn't even imagine. She didn't know.

But how could she? She was only human. Without the Faunus or Grimm to unite themselves against, they'd simply turned on themselves, like a snake trying to devour its own tail, arbitrarily creating lines and differences where there were none simply to have something to hate.

In Remnant, it was simple. he could even almost understand it. You were either a human, or you were an animal.

But here? On Earth? What was the difference? Where was the line? Darker colored skin? Squinted eyes? A differently shaped skull?

All meaningless.

But what else did he expect from Humanity?

Nothing at all. Sabah may be a credit to her race, but she was still human. She was the exception.

He eyed her, subtly. Eyed the smile on her face, the simple joy in her eyes that came with his presence.

If all the humans on Remnant were like her, if even a fourth of them were, there would have been no need for Major Taurus to have put on his mask in the first place. Ghira would have won.

She came to a stop, and he stopped with her. She was pointing at a non-descript-looking coffee shop down the road. He inclined his head. "This is what you wanted to drag me to beforehand?"

She put her hands on her hips. "When was the last time you had coffee?"

He raised a hand. Took a moment to think.

The hand came back down.

"Let's go."

(X)

The stares started up as soon as he made his way inside.

They intensified when Sabah streamed in behind him.

He chuckled. He'd admit they were an odd pair.

Him, 6'4, broad-shouldered and battle-scarred, juxtaposed with a woman who was so small she had to wear children's shoes.

He understood the confusion.

The barista made eye contact with him(More with his eye patch, but he could forgive that) and he gave her a small nod and motioned toward a free table with two fingers. When Sabah stepped out from behind him, the barista lit up.

"Sabah! Good to see you!" The woman darted out from behind the counter and beelined towards Sabah, bringing her in for a crushing hug that Sabah awkwardly tried to return. Over Sabah's shoulder, the woman gave him a suspicious once-over. "Who's this?"

Sabah gently pulled herself from the woman's arms and gestured to him. "Anna, this is that friend I was telling you about. Adam, meet Anna. Anna, meet Adam."

The hostile aura around 'Anna' disappeared, and she gave him an appreciative once-over.

He almost choked when he saw her tongue flick across her lips. "Good to meet you. Table for two?"

He nodded dumbly.

(X)

The TV droned on and on about some cape conflict in central Africa, but she wasn't paying much attention to it. She was more interested in the look on Adam's face.

He was nursing a cup of honeyed tea, but he kept looking between her and her roommate across the cafe.

Once or twice she met his gaze and gave him a wink, which would cause her to laugh and make Adam wrench his head away towards the cafe's windows.

After the cycle repeated itself for the 3rd time in a row, he turned towards her instead. "Your roommate is...unique."

She chuckled and sipped her coffee. The news anchor moved on to some sort of local report about the ABB, but she tuned that out too. "I know she can be quite a bit. Are you interested?"

The reply was as brutal as it was immediate. "Not in the slightest."

She quirked a brow. "No?"

Adam scowled into his cup. "No."

She leaned back hands raised in surrender. "Okay, okay. Why do you keep looking back then?"

Adam took a long sip. He worked his tongue a moment as if searching for the words. "I'm just confused."

"About?"

"Why she seems interested in me."

She almost choked on her next sip, and she quickly set her coffee down to laugh.

Adam scowled harder. "Why is that so funny?"

"I'm just surprised you don't know why. You've got some cool scars, an eyepatch, your huge, you're around her age, and you've got a voice like gravel, with the bad boy vibes to match. What's not to like?"

Adam hummed. "I guess." He was staring at his reflection in his cup. "I guess it's just been a while."

"Do you even know how many people are going crazy about you on PHO?"

Adam boggled. "What the fuck?!"

"They're the minority of the minority, but yeah, they exist."

"You're sure of this?"

"Adam, Jack Slash has unironic fangirls. I've read some of their posts. I've read some stuff from your fangirls too. They like your costume a lot."

Adam hummed. Then took a sip of his tea mechanically. She chuckled and gave him a moment to process that information.

"I've been thinking of changing that actually." She quirked a brow, but when it became clear he wasn't going to finish that sentence, she let it go.

After that, they fell into a companionable silence for a while, and she let the cafe's soothing music and wonderful coffee take her to nirvana.

(X)

It wasn't as good as Kali's tea, but it was close enough that he wanted more of it. He waved Anna down and pointedly looked away as she refilled his cup. "So. The mall."

Sabah nodded. "That's where we're headed next."

"Good. What do we do at the mall besides go to the arcade?"

Sabah chuckled. "Shop?"

"Mhm." He drifted off a moment to savor the honey's sweetness. "Shop where?"

"Anywhere and everywhere Adam. But there's a movie theatre too. So we could try that too?"

Hm..

"Sure. How crowded does it get there?"

"Very. But it'll be fine, no one will bother us, and everyone there will be off doing their own thing." Sabah gestured towards the door. "Are you in a hurry?"

He turned back towards Anna. She winked at him again.

Adam sipped his tea. "Yeah, I might be."

Sabah laughed. "Let's go then."

/

"If all the humans on Remnant were like her, if even a fourth of them were, there would have been no need for Major Taurus to put on his mask in the first place"

Ironically(or sadly) enough for Adam, there were that many people like that on Remnant. He just never bothered looking. In his fight against narrow-mindedness, he ended up blinder than most of the people he was purporting to be better than.

Also hi, holy shit it's been a while huh? I've missed a lot(See above), and I'm sorry for that. Quite literally almost the day after I posted that Purity snippet, my life went crazy, and I basically had zero free time between burnout, two surgeries, a managerial promotion, the subsequent smoking habit I developed after said promotion, extra classes I took to graduate early, and full-time hours, I've had zero time to write consistently.

But I have been when I could. So SO much, all in my head and in my computer. Almost the rest of this story, DONE, alongside the side stuff. All of Defender outlined and even parts preliminarily written. Monster's final chapter. Bark and bite basically being halfway finished in its entirety(Something like 60k words? I stopped at return to ostagar.)My first time writing in Taylor's POV in a one-shot about her becoming Kaiser's personal assistant. A one-shot about a romantic(romantic and platonic at the same time?) relationship between Adam and Cinder(That gets fucking dark. Be careful what you wish for, for you just might get it. Adam and Cinder both want revenge against team RWBY. It doesn't make them feel better). All will come with time. This chapter is only coming by itself because this is the first day in months where I'd actually have the time to haunt this thread other than to pop in for a few moments at a time. I'll be dumping a bunch of previews here so people know I've been busy and haven't just dipped.

All will come in time. I know It's been a while. I know it was kinda shitty of me just to go radio silent. But I'm keeping my word. This story isn't dead.

I'm back.

(Zaru, I finally have the my hero manga btw. Can't wait to read it.).

/

Defender

(X)

The beast yowled, its voice croaky and hoarse, almost human in its agony. Blood and saliva drooled down out of its broken mandible. It hauled itself back on all fours, and the force of the movement severed the last tendon holding its jaw in place. It dropped to the ground and dissolved into a black ichor that stained the concrete. Blood flowed freely out from its mouth, dying the monster's 'fur' red.

Red, red eyes rolled in their sockets and made eye contact with him.

Adam shuddered.

The beast lunged, and he could see nubs of flesh and bone sprouting out from its open mouth, trying to heal itself.

"I know it's not one-to-one, but you know how kids are. They get creative."

It let out a gurgled wail when Wilt stopped its charge dead on, the blade buried in its heart to the hilt.

One malformed paw moved to grab him, and he ripped Wilt down and to the side as hard as he could, ducking and rolling under its arm as it heaved forward and collapsed to the ground, its intestines spilling free to greet the open air.

He swallowed bile.

The Thing That Used To Be Brandish gurgled again.

Adam wanted to scream. Wilt's glow was blinding even through the blindfold wrapped around his eyes.

She rotated what was left of her head to look at him. To beg.

The world ran red.

Wilt returned to its sheath.

Brandish blew away in the wind.

He heard Victoria choke out her mother's name.

Jack's tinny sigh crackled out through the loudspeaker. "That was quick."

The furnace in his chest burned even brighter. His semblance raged, the blood all around him luminescent in the wake of his fury. He turned towards the loudspeaker attached to the fallen telephone pole, apoplectic. "You're fucking dead, do you hear me? You're going to die, SCREAMING!"

A chorus of howls in the distance. He turned his head eastward.

Somehow, Victoria got even paler. A wet slurry of blood, sweat, and salty tears was running down her chin and soaking into her dress. It was little more than ragged scraps of fabric at this point, blotted with streaks of green and yellow bile, and absolutely covered in gore.

"Let's see how the rest of New Wave gets along then, shall we?"

He looked back to Victoria. Her head was buried in her hands. She was swaying mid-air, shivering. "I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't-"

The howls sounded off again, closer.

Victoria sobbed.

/

Carnival

(X)

"Is everything alright, Taylor?"

The cup slid out from her hand, crashing to the ground.

The cheap porcelain shattered, spilling coffee all over the floor.

She stood stock still. Her arms were shaking. She wanted to scream, to cry, to fight and thrash and to break down and bury herself in Mr. Anders's chest and weep.

This was her last safe haven. She couldn't lose it. She rolled up her sleeves and made to pick up the shards of porcelain.

"Taylor." His voice was calm and gentle, but stern. Authoritative. It was a voice that commanded respect, that grabbed you, that made you turn your head and listen.

His face was hard, the easy smile on his face greatly at odds with the narrowed, hawk-eyed glare he levied at the soaked hardwood office floor. He turned towards her, and his mask fell.

He wore lots of those. He wore them by carefully curating his face and facial expressions, adding or removing subtle intonations in his voice, or even completely changing his body language and general demeanor. All swapped and shifted on a dime depending on who he was talking to. With Theo, the loving and doting father. With Kayden, the amiable yet bitter ex-husband.

At charities and gala's, a humble and bashful man who'd pulled himself up from his bootstraps. In meetings and in the office, a cold, stern, but polite businessman.

On the phone, something darker, a mix of all four yet sprinkled with something else.

But here, in this room with her, the mask fell away. He would swear, he would laugh, he would joke. He would smile, and it would be real.

She was the only person on earth he didn't have to fake anything for.

With her, and her alone, he could be himself.

And for her, it was the same way. He never judged. He always listened, and he never tried to decide things for her or give unsolicited 'advice' or tell her her problems didn't mean anything. She'd known him since summer camp for god's sake.

She could tell him things she couldn't tell her dad.

Here, she didn't have to be anyone.

"Taylor. What's wrong? You've been distracted all day. All week. Something is eating at you. Something big. Tell me."

The phone mask was on now. He wouldn't let it go, not now, after that.

The words spilled free almost on their own.

"ijonedagangandidonntknowwhattodo!"

Mr. Anders's took a moment to digest the incomprehensible word salad she'd just let loose.

She mentally prepared herself for several different reactions. For him to be confused, for him to be angry, for him to call the police or never speak to her again or just ask "What?" because even she could barely understand what the fuck she just said.

She could have never imagined that Mr. Anders would simply throw his head back and laugh.

/

Me and Mine

(X)

The door was already open.

She froze, and turned her head towards the garage. It was shut.

She took a hesitant step forward, wiping her eyes, cursing herself.

The tears on her face were long since dried, but that dull ache in her chest was still as fresh as it was since she'd seen the statue.

The girl dead, for nothing. Beacon, Vale, Roman, all dead, for nothing, for a destiny that wasn't even hers to begin with.

She made her way inside, silent as the grave, till she made it to the living room hallway

She saw the daughter first, halfway down the hall. She must have come home to see her family.

She grimaced at the hole in her throat.

And tried to run.

She leaned down to press a finger against her pulse. It was silent.

The body was still warm, and the blood was still wet.

Then she heard him grunt inside the living room down the hall. "You finally make it back?"

"Y-yes." The waver, the weakness in her voice almost brought the fury back.

The melancholy buried it again.

"You saw the statue." His voice was flat, but she knew there was a smile on his face.

"Yes."

Another grunt. Satisfied.

He enjoyed her misery. She couldn't begrudge him, not completely.

She'd savored his the same way.

"Good. The owners are dealt with. Is she here?"

"Yes. Both of them are, alongside Team JNPR and Ozma. Branwen's off in bar I suspect."

Another hum. Then silence.

She crossed the threshold and made her way inside the living room. A fireplace was slowly crackling, lighting up the dim room and illuminating the city outside.

The flames cast shadows on the young couple tied to the couch, their throats slit. They were long since dead.

Adam sat aside them, lazily sliding Wilt's across the father's jacket, ridding it of the daughter's blood.

The sheer callousness inherent to the motion made her laugh softly, almost involuntarily.

He narrowed his eyes. The ribbon that normally covered his face was nowhere to be found. "What?"

She laughed again, and made to sit next to him.

He rolled the bodies to the floor to make room with a dull thud, and she took the couple's spot.

"Do you really hate them that much?"

He quirked a brow, casting his eyes between her and the stiff corpses on the floor. "Them?"

She shook her head. "No. I meant humanity in general."

Adam went quiet. He cast his gaze towards her arm, then the fireplace.

Minutes passed by, in a silence only occasionally broken by the fire's spontaneous crackle as it devoured the firewood.

Eventually, Adam turned back towards her, voice a whisper. "I used to."

She leaned towards him. "But now?"

"Now?" He sighed. She saw the muscles around his bad eye twitch.

He tilted his head down to look her in the eye. "Now? I don't feel anything now."

Last edited: Mar 19, 2023

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MasterDuplicator

Mar 19, 2023

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MasterDuplicator

MasterDuplicator

Big Fan of a Mad Cow

Mar 25, 2023

#1,328

REDHEAD FIGHT! REDHEAD FIGHT!

I was trying to look up Monty's old footage for the Adam and Yang fight to help brush up on a chapter long upcoming(Honestly I might just give it its own place in the side-story slot, since its part of the backstory arc, but all it is a very, very, long and talkative fight scene that's several thousands of words of angry debating and attempted murder). Its working name is 'Couples Counseling'(I'm sure you can guess what it's about). So far, I consider it the only decent fight scene I've written so far besides Adam and Colin's rematch near the end. It's way longer than the show fight and incorporates all of old RWBY's old tricks, there's an actual philosophical and racial debate that happens in the middle, and this time around, Yang is not so stone-faced facing off against the internationally wanted terrorist four years and an over half a foot her senior that'd been haunting her dreams the past two years resurfacing just in time to almost kill your best friend again.

(Like, literally two or three episodes before just the merest glimpse of Adam in the snow nearly gave her a fucking heart attack, and you're telling me that she sees him again in real life, armed and willing to kill her, the most she gives him is a split-second widening of her eyes. Then she tries to threaten him halfway through the fight, and Adam rightfully just fucking laughs her off and throws it back in her face. That's literally the only line he has in the show post volume 3 ep9 besides "Moment of truth" that didn't make me roll my eyes).

But I'll save that for another day, in that "Why Adam" post you'll finally be seeing soon.

(TLDR, I think he's a bad character in a meh show, and that everyone who wanted him to be the Faunus Malcolm X must not have been watching the same show as me, because(Hot take incoming)...RWBY's plot and characters were literally never anywhere close to being strongly written or allegorical in my opinion, and anyone legitimately expecting a functional civil rights allegory out of RWBY of all shows must have been fucking high. The problem, though, is that I think RWBY would be so much more interesting if Adam was that kind of character, and the world was actually fleshed out and nuanced around issues like that. With the world as it is in RWBY, you could make a legitimately serious plot and intricate world that could have room for the magic Ozma plot and several throughline side-plots like a civil rights movement, so long as they were woven into the main narrative instead of being a jarringly isolated plot device like what we got. Which sounds more interesting to you? A jaded but passionate revolutionary torn between what he feels is right for his species and right for his conscience slowly buckling and breaking under the pressure of being a leader for his people whilst being forced to commit atrocities under a humans thumb, chafing and chafing at his apparent powerlessness in the face off Cinder's(Then Hazels) threats, terrified for his people after realizing that magic exists, and that the people using it are not on his side, that he escalates and escalates his behavior out of desperation until he is ostracized from the very organization he dedicated his life to and snaps?

Or a yandere hypocritical psychopathic grifter who literally doesn't give a shit about anything or anyone, that's an unthinking idiot literally incapable of planning ahead, who willingly whores himself out to humans for a leadership position in a red-shirt cannon fodder organization he gets to keep for all of like two weeks? I know who I'd rather watch).

But I digress.

Back to what I was saying, whilst looking for that animation, I fell down the RWBY fan animation rabbit hole after seeing that clip and felt I should share a few of them here, to better familiarize people here unfamiliar with seeing Adam in action, and for others already familiar, to make them long for the gold ole days of Monty's old style).

1, Adam and Raven

2, A wonderful alternate final confrontation between Adam and Blake

3, An almost perfect recreation of Monty's original Adam VS Yang at beacon(My absolute favorite of the bunch. Just needs to be smoothed out with better models and slightly less stilted animation, and you could have had me convinced Monty did it all himself).

And more sets of Animations about Adam fighting team JNPR I can't find a link for because they are solely hosted on Reddit. Just look up Adam vs JNPR and you'll see one of them pop up. The rest are on the animator's profile.

Anywho, here's the actual story. I apologize for the word salad.

/

He'd never offered a prayer to the brothers before. His family had been the farthest thing from religious, and one of the only happy memories he had of his father was the both of them sitting him by the radio and mock praying for Jacques Schnee after one of the man's latest PR health scares. But right now, as he was, utterly swamped by humans and noise and distractions, he was sorely tempted to ask them to deliver him free of this hell.

His aura was up, but it was doing nothing to temper the unease that had the hairs on the back of his neck bristling like a cat's fur.

Downtown had been one thing. As crowded as it was, there were plenty of buildings to jump over and a surplus of alleys to duck behind in case of a threat against him or Sabah.

But here? There was nowhere he could go if it all got too much.

A stranger's elbow bumped into his arm, and he could only barely hear the mumbled apology the offending party left him over the din of white noise around them as they shouldered their way through the crowd, half-hearted 'sorry's' and 'excuse me's doing little to mollify the annoyed mallgoers.

He felt Sabah slide up against him, looping her left arm through his right, and she gently tried tugging him to the side. He let himself be pulled to a sort of rest area, a collum of vending machines arrayed opposite a series of chairs and benches, and he made to sit down.

Sabah gestured back where they came from, slouching down Into a leather chair with a sigh of contentment. "I don't feel like wading through all that blindly today, so let's hash out a proper plan. We've already got a trip to the arcade and the theatre worked out, and I know a few clothing stores like to try, but is there anywhere specific you'd like to go or try and find? You can do just about anything here."

Adam shrugged. "I'll go wherever you want to take me."

Sabah frowned, and he could detect the barest hint of what almost sounded like irritation, of all things, bleed into her voice. "Adam, today is your day. Did you agree to this just to make me happy?"

"No."

"Then think of something you want to do or a place you want to go. It can be anything, and we have all the time in the world today to see it done." She heaved out a great sigh, further slouching into her chair, all but disappearing into its cushioning thanks to her small statue. "What's something you've always wanted to do, something that you could never find the time for? We can do it right here, right now."

He took a moment to chew on that.

Anything.

Anything at all.

He thought.

He thought some more.

And-

Nothing.

He couldn't think of anything. It was all so out of his norm, his comfort zone, that he didn't even know where to begin to start.

And it must have shown on his face, judging by the small twitch of Sabah's brow. He could see her tongue poke against her cheek, see her eyes narrow at the edges, brows creased in thought. "You can't think of anything."

With the way he'd grown up? He'd never imagined there could be a something in the first place. He'd never had a life goal, a bucket list, a plan of any kind, any sort of interests or hobbies outside of a vague interest in flowers and needlework born out of watching his mother, not things he'd done anything with until Ghira had taken him in and encouraged said interests till they had become talents.

Something in his stomach churned at the realization. What would he have done, without the White Fang in his life? If his mother hadn't tried taking him away?

He didn't know.

He grimaced internally, and he tasted something sour on his tongue. Without someone to guide him, without orders to follow, would he have done anything at all? Would he have ever blossomed into his own person without someone to guide him?

Something clicked.

Had he? Why had he even-

"Adam?"

He all but jumped out of his skin, blinking back into the present, freeing himself of his stupor with a sharp turn of his head. "I'm fine." It took a moment for him to recognize his own voice, to understand that he had spoken at all.

It wasn't true. It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't. And that was all there was to it.

He shook his head. "I'm trying, I really am. Just give me some time, okay? I'm not used to this. You decide." He didn't want to think about it anymore.

Sabah sighed again. "Fine. Look back over by the crowd. The first store you see is the one we'll go to first."

He nodded.

Turned his head. Saw a sign.

'Extreme Lifestyle'

He could see a large assortment of knives, bongs, sports gear, firearm paraphernalia, and firearm accessories through the store's window.

Sabah shrugged. "There you have it."

(X)

The clerk at the register smiled at Adam as he stepped inside, mouth opening as if to greet him, when he cast his eyes toward her. His jaw clenched shut, and his lips thinned for the briefest of moments before a(seemingly?) pleasant smile settled on his face. "You two seem an odd pair. What can I help you with?"

She saw Adam's eye narrow, and she quickly spoke up before him. "We're just looking around."

The clerk chuckled. "Window shoppers, huh? Take your time. If you got any questions, I'm right here."

She blinked at the cordiality in his voice. "You don't mind?"

The clerk shrugged. "Mosta the people who walk in here are dumbass kids tryna find something to make them look tough. I shoo 'em off as much I can. You two are a welcome enough diversion I could honestly give two shits wh'eder your buying something or not."

Adam spoke up. "You get a lot of gang members coming by here?"

The man laughed. "Most of them know better by now, but erry once in awhile, some dumbass cracker or chink'll come swaggering up in here looking for a something to make 'em look a man."

"Empire-88 and ABB?"

The clerk sniffed. "And Merchants, and street kids, and Mall Ninjas, and just about everyone and everything in between. I'll sell to anyone but gangbangers. Anyone dumb enough to join a gang is too dumb to be trusted with a knife."

Adam's lips curled, but whether in agreement or disgust, she couldn't tell. "That's a broad statement."

The clerk sniffed again. "And a true one. I would know."

"How?" The man turned toward her, and for a split second, she was about to apologize for interrupting until the man barked out a laugh. "How you think? I was born outta Georgia, and I did some stupid ass shit when I was your age. Got sent to prison a couple times."

The man reached down and tugged up his shirt.

When she saw the tattoo on his stomach, she took an instinctive step back. "Hitched up with the 'Aryan' Brotherhood there." The clerk huffed under his breath. "They sure wasn't to fuckin 'Aryan', I'll tell you that, but they had my back. I figured we had common ground. Didn't like the-" The clerk paused, glancing toward her and swallowing his words. "I didn't like some folk back then."

Adam took a step forward, one fist clenched, seemingly without his cognizance. "And?"

"And I realized pretty quick they were just as stupid and degenerate as the people they said they was better than. They made deals with the Mexicans and the Blacks and the Asians and pulled the same dumb shit in the showers. Realized that they was all talk, that we was all just as stupid as each other. Closed off 'em. Got out on good behavior and got the fuck outta Georgia."

"To Brockton Bay, of all places?"

"Empire wasn't as big back then. Figured they'd get knocked down and replaced like every other gang in history. Then Kaiser happened, and it swelled up like a pimple." The clerk grunted, then chuckled under his breath. "Now it feels like every other fuckin week I got some hooligan walking in 'ere tryna make common cause."

"What do you tell them?"

"To fuck off back on down to their mamas."

To her surprise, Adam snorted. "We'll take a look around, then."

"Like I said, take your time." The clerk let his shirt fall made to lean against the counter.

Adam led her around, and she followed close behind.

There were too many different kinds of knives and machetes to properly count, some plain and solid looking, others rather garishly decorated with phrases like 'Zombie-killer' or 'Straight-shooter' etched into their grips. Some were engraved in gold and silver, and some looked as though they'd been dumped in a bucket of paint and left to dry.

Adam seemed faintly amused as he made his way down the row of glass cases. Brows lifted in amusement and/or incredulity as his gaze bounced off from item to item.

Then he began muttering under his breath all the different things wrong with each weapon, apparently for her benefit.

"Serrations on the wrong side."

"Blade too short for the hilt."

"Blade too long for the hilt."

On and on, he critiqued and lampooned with an expert's eye, pacing faster and faster down the aisle in apparent excitement.

The clerk looked on in amusement when Adam froze mid-stride, eyes narrowed on a special case by the register.

A paper sign was posted underneath it.

'Special item: 900'

Underneath, in brackets: 'This knife is banned by the Geneva Convention'.

She eyed it quizzically. The blade was spiraled.

She read the sign aloud, then turned to the clerk. "Is that true?"

The man chuckled. "I dunno, maybe. Don't think it's much of a knife. More like a fancy tent spike."

"Tent spike?"

Adam grunted, voiced laden with humor. "It's about all you could use it for. Can't slash with it, can't throw it, and trying to stab someone with a tip like that would be a gamble at best. Can't even try and hammer someone with the hilt."

She hummed. "Then why try and sell it?"

"That knife, young lady, ain't for sale. It's a test."

She echoed him, confused. "A test?"

Adam leaned forward. "Anyone willing to pay nine hundred dollars for a knife like that is an idiot. And the only reason you would buy a knife like that in the first place is if you wanna kill someone with it. And that loops right back around to them being stupid, because if they knew what they were doing, they'd realize it was a useless hunk of garbage and pick out something else."

The clerk nodded. "What he said. Any man who comes in here trying to buy that thing is a man I kick out and never see again."

Sabah hummed. "Clever."

He nodded. "Now that you've looked around, there anything you folks here can't live without?"

She and Adam shook their heads as one. "We've got a lot to do today. Sorry to bother you."

The clerk shook his head. "Y'all didn't bother me none. Enjoy your day."

"We will, thanks."

"Swing on by anytime."

She turned around to give the man a half-hearted, somewhat queasy nod.

With that, they made their way back out into the mall's foyer.

She took a moment to process the interaction.

"That was...interesting."

Adam concurred. "Where to now?"

"My roommate has been complaining about my taste in clothes. She recommended me a fancy clothes shop upstairs."

Adam shrugged. "Lead the way."

(X)

"Soooo..."

Sabah's words petered off into nothing, her voice muffled by the walls of the changing rooms. He heard her swear under her breath, could hear her fingers fumble with a stuck zipper.

Adam snorted.

The door swung open, and Sabah stepped outside, a dress folded over each arm, one red, one black. "They both fit, but I'm not too sure about the colors." She held them up to his face for inspection. "Red or black?"

His first instinct was to say both, but clamped that instinct down and took a moment to eye them critically.

His lips thinned. "Neither."

Sabah wilted. "Neither?"

He shook his head. The one in black had a bunch of frills and baroque patterns all over it. Not bad in its own right.

Just not...Sabah.

And the red?

It left far too little to the imagination.

When he told her as much, Sabah looked aghast for a moment before playfully punching his arm and walking back inside the changing room.

A nearby employee laughed, and he turned her way. She looked a year to two younger than him, her hair dyed a two-toned blonde and black that fell over one eye like a shower curtain. The other was drowning in enough eyeliner to make Roman Torchwick blush.

"Been a while since I've seen a girl bring her boyfriend with her. You-"

"We aren't together."

She blinked. "Oh. Huh."

He hummed. The girl gave him a subtle, almost bashful once over. "You-"

"No."

There was a small pause as the woman collected her thoughts. "Oh.."

She sighed, and then they were trapped inside an uncomfortable and oppressive silence that was only occasionally disturbed by the sounds of rustling cloth and zippers being zipped.

"Your friend has lotta clothes picked out, doesn't she?"

"Mhm."

The woman scuffed her feet.

There was another bout of awkward silence.

"Are...you looking for anything here today?"

He hummed with amusement, gesturing toward the rows and rows of bras, dresses, and skirts all lined up on racks and shelves throughout the room.

The girl rolled her eyes. "We have a men's section in the back, you know."

Adam paused. He turned back toward the dressing room for a moment, before turning back and nodding his head. The woman led him by the hand towards a small section tucked away in the back of the store.

"Here you are. Take a look."

Said men's 'section' amounted to two rows of coats and pants on hangers, and a single unisex shelf stuffed with belts and garters.

He humored her and took a look around pacing between the aisles. Nothing grabbed his eye, and he made to turn around.

He paused. At the far end of the left row was a gray and black double-breasted leather jacket.

Something in his chest tightened. There was a feeling, no, more of an urge, a compulsion, that took hold of him, that told him to take a closer look.

He was reminded of the duffle bag he'd been left with, when he'd first woken up. He didn't like thinking about it what that bag had meant, or why it had contained all his things.

He swallowed. Just deja vu.

But even as he'd said the words to himself, content to ignore it, his hands were already shrugging the jacket off its hanger. It was almost a one-one replica of his Mistralian leather jacket. The same two shades of grey and black, in the exact same spaces. The jammer difference was the collar, for it was bright red and swept out to the side like a suit jacket, rather than up and over his neckline like his old one.

All it needed was the zippers and his insignia.

He hummed. Just deja vu. He made to put it away.

Then his mouth opened, almost unbidden. "How much for this?"

The woman shrugged. "It's been there two months, and not one person has bought it, or even really looked at it. We were gonna throw it out in a week here anyway, so I'll give you it for about thirty bucks."

He nodded. "I'll take it". His mind was racing with ideas, about how he could modify and pad it and decorate it and make it his. He turned around to look outside the store's window and to the mall proper. "Is there a good men's store over here?"

"On the other side of the mall, yeah."

He reached into his pocket and hurriedly shoved a pair of twenties into her hand. "Keep the change."

He hurried out the door, all but sprinting through the double doors sealing the store off from the rabble.

"Hey, what about your friend?!"

"I won't be long!"

He needed to finish it.

He felt a twinge in his chest. He ignored it.

Just deja vu.

(X)

"I can't believe you made me wait fifteen minutes!"

He scratched the back of his neck, an apology wilting away off the tip of his tongue. "I thought you would have taken longer."

Sabah laughed. "I stepped out at the five-minute mark, Adam. I was trying to talk to you, to get your thoughts, but after five minutes without even hearing an 'Mmm' had me worried. I'm just glad that girl was there to fill me in before I had to start looking for you."

She elbowed him, hard enough to actually move him this time, and swept her arm out, gesturing widely towards him. "What are you wearing? Is that what you dipped out on me for?"

He nodded his head. "This is going to be my new..." He paused, searching for the right word. "Work uniform."

He didn't miss Sabah's quick twitch at the word work, but she recovered quickly. "Are you going to decorate it?"

He nodded his head.

Sabah stopped in front of him for a moment, to take it all in. He'd bought a simple black t-shirt, a lighter shade of black than the patches on his shoulders, and a matching pair of grey leather pants. He wore the same shoes as before and carried a bag in his left hand with a simple red-lined black drape and a trifecta of belts inside of it.

"It looks warmer, that's for sure, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. I guess I'll have to wait and see what you do with it.

He shrugged. "Summer's not going to last forever." Not that he'd be there for winter.

Sabah nodded at that. "Yeah." A small smile curved across her face after a moment, something flashing across her face "Yeah, I guess not."

"Where to now?"

"Well, I've got everything I wanted. Let's head down to the arcade."

That worked for him.

(X)

If the mall had been loud, this place was deafening. Children screaming all around, disco balls and party lights blazed brighter than the sun outside, the constantly shifting shades of black and purple and yellow had him wishing for his mask, with some of the flashing lights bright enough to shine through his eyepatch and irritate his eye.

Sabah had secluded herself over by the claw machines, content to try her luck at winning herself some candy and a few new stuffed animals, Whereas he'd settled by the cabinets and sampled the arcade's array of shooters and fighting games. It had been a real adjustment. Obviously, he was familiar with the concepts, but in Menagerie, only the richest of the rich had anything resembling a video game console. Blake had had some sort of enlarged scroll to play games on when they'd first met, but she'd outgrown it fairly quickly.

Adam could definitely see the appeal though.

Video games were fun.

He bent down over to slide another dollar coin into his current games slot when he heard Sabah erupt.

"Fuck!"

He swiveled around, hand drifting towards the sword he didn't have on him, and he desperately scanned the room for the source of Sabah's distress.

He saw her levy a kick at a claw machine hard enough to make it shake, which resulted in another bellowed swear and a low moan of pain as she hissed and rubbed her foot.

Adam chuckled.

He made his way toward her, a smile on his face. "What's wrong?"

Sabah was inconsolable. "This...this...ah.. this fucking piece of garbage scam motherfucking-"

He put his arms on her shoulders and forced her still. "Relax. Take a deep breath. Tell me the problem."

She did as he bayed, inhaling deeply through her nose. "I won at the other machines. Got some candy and little trinkets, but for the life of me, I just can't get that goddamn bear out of there."

He looked through the glass. There was a small assortment of stuffed animals inside, elephants, tigers, lions...

And, true to her word, a single rough-looking stuffed bear.

He quirked a brow. "Don't you have a million of those already?"

"Yeah, but I've already spent eleven dollars on this stupid thing. I definitely don't want all that money to be wasted."

His quirked brow rose up high enough to merge with his hairline. "Sabah, I've given you more money than anyone our age should even know what to do with."

"Yeah, money I can't spend, can't save, and can barely hide as is. My side business only brings so much and even that I can't just show off. It's not like I can just waltz up to the bank in full costume with a truckload of money and ask to open an account, now can I?"

That...was a fair point. "Let me try then."

"Are you sure?"

He was happy to help.

"How hard can it be?"

(X)

"Adam."

He tuned out her voice, his full attention laid bare on the claw as it slowly rose up and up, bear in hand.

"Adam."

The claw opened. The bear fell.

Adam inhaled. Slid in another coin.

The claw picked up the bear.

"Adam."

The claw opened. The bear fell.

Adam inhaled. Slid in another coin.

"Adam."

The claw rose up.

"Adam, it's not going to-"

The claw opened. The bear fell.

Adam inhaled.

His clenched fist plowed right through the glass. He shook the glass shards off his arm, lifted the bear free, and handed it to an absolutely dumbfounded Sabah.

"There."

Sabah boggled.

She looked at the bear, then back at him, then the bear again.

Her mouth opened.

"You guys know that thing is rigged, right?"

They both turned towards the speaker, a short, effeminate-looking boy with a lazy grin on his face and a slight, unidentifiable accent in his voice. Adam recognized him as the boy who'd bumped into him earlier.

"What?"

The boy's grin widened. "It's rigged?" The 'you idiot' silently tacked on at the end of his sentence was plain to hear. "Are you guys new here? Everyone knows that. Why'd you think there was no line?"

That...

That made sense.

He nodded. "Yeah. It's a straight-up scam."

Sabah grimaced. "So we just wasted twenty dollars for no reason?"

The boy chuckled. "Twenty dollars?"

Sabah blushed.

Adam scowled.

The boy laughed.

He opened his mouth, presumably to make some sort of witty remark, but the sound of a ringing phone closed it shut.

He reached into his pocket, fishing out an old-looking flip phone and raising it to his ear. "What do you want? I'm busy."

There was a small silence punctuated by the boy mocking a yapping mouth with his free hand. "You don't think I'm doing anything? Right now I'm being a good Samaritan-"

The laugh they heard over the end of the line was loud enough to crackle the phone's speaker. The boy shot them a wink. "That hurts, man. That really hurts. Why-"

Another pause. The boy's smile shifted. "Wait, shit, that was today?"

He let out perhaps the most melodramatic sigh Adam had ever heard in his life. "Can it wait-"

The boy pulled the phone away from his ear with a grimace as someone yelled over the other end. The boy mouthed 'Women' to him with a roll of his eyes. "Fine, yeah, I'll get going." Then he hung up, flipping the phone shut and lazily tossing it up and down in his head. "Well, I was going to show you guys around the joint properly, but duty calls. I gotta get outta here. You should leave too, this place gets really boring without me."

With that, the boy waltzed off without even a wave goodbye.

Sabah hesitated. "He was...colorful. Should we take his advice?"

An arcade employee groaning in annoyance as they spotted the broken glass on the floor made the decision easy.

He turned to her. "How about that movie?"

(X)

Thunder rumbled.

Rain slashed over the umbrella over their heads, loud and unrelenting. Sabah shivered, and he pulled her in closer.

The weather had taken a serious turn. It was only half past three, and the sky was already almost black, rolling with storm clouds dark enough to blot out the sun.

Sabah huddled up to him even further, like she was trying to get inside his jacket. Her dress was unsuited for the weather. He handed her the umbrella and shrugged off his jacket, sliding it over her shoulder.

Her shivers ceased. "Thanks."

Adam shrugged. "No problem."

She sighed, and they resumed walking. "How was your first day being normal?"

He huffed, slightly offended and highly amused. "It was okay."

"Okay?"

The tone of her question gave him pause. The look on Sabah's face was appraising. Judging.

He stopped. Chose his words carefully.

"It was nice, doing all this with you. Just nothing special."

Sabah hummed. Something in her eyes clouded, her eyes narrowing a touch.

Then she smiled. It looked off.

"That's alright. One step at a time, right?"

He hesitantly nodded. "Right."

Sabah nodded back and resumed walking, a touch faster.

The trip to dinner was silent.

Adam had a sinking feeling he'd chosen his words wrong.

/

God, Mercury and Alec would be best fucking friends, wouldn't they? Same with him and Roman.

Hmm...That gives me an idea.

/

Here is Adam's new outfit(Not mine, obviously. All credit should go to the author here). On a somewhat related note, I've considered commissioning art for this story, but I have zero ideas as to who I'd turn to, or how to go about it, but getting someone to draw 'Mall Ninja' Adam Taurus sounds hilarious to me. That knife mentioned is This. It's just as garbage as described. The Geneva convention thing is a weird marketing urban legend I see everywhere about it.