The Vindicator's Path
"Revenge isn't a passion. It's a disease. It eats at your mind and poisons your soul." – A mentor
In life – everybody's life, there are certain moments that truly define who we are. Sometimes, there are many. Sometimes, there are only a few. And sometimes, just one. Those with only a few defining moments are often said to be touched by fate, and that those defining moments will touch many lives and bring change to the world. Although, sometimes, one can be far too much.
Stepping out of the matte-black car he had been in just moments ago, Tanner Vermillion took in a deep breath of the evening Atlas air.
It was cold, mechanical and smelled faintly of soot sometimes. But it was home.
He turned around as he heard one of the heavily-tinted windows winding down. He faced a grey-haired man, likely in his mid 40's, sitting in the driver's seat. He was wearing what would be considered casual wear, but was actually battle-ready attire that could withstand more than it seemed possible.
"You're heading back to Mistral now, aren't you?" Tanner muttered just loud enough for the man to hear, a hint of resentment in his voice.
"Don't mutter, kid. It makes you look like a shy schoolgirl." The man, Marcus Black, remarked instead of immediately replying. He chuckled to himself as Tanner turned away in slight embarrassment. "Yeah, job's finished. I figured I should retire early, so I'm gonna grab as much Mistralian liquor and booty as I can before I disappear."
Tanner laughed at the words of his now-former mentor. He wished that he could've stuck around to help with what was undoubtedly going to be a rough night, but a deal was a deal. "Goodbye, Marcus. And consider us even." Tanner said with a wave as he turned and head down the bright streets to his destination.
"Give them hell, kid. And we were always even!" he heard Marcus shout at him as the engines of the car revved up. "It's your father I owed!"
Ah, dad. Smart move getting all these people to owe you favours, now I can put them to good use. He thought as the matte-black car sped down the other side of the road.
He clutched his black long-coat as close as he could to his chest in the frigid cold. Even with an orange undershirt made of high-quality cotton, and a pair of matching black slacks, he still shivered in the cold slightly.
He had never liked the cold.
That was where his scarf came in. It sported a dark-yellow colour with a crimson-red outline, and had been a gift made by both his father and mother. They had done the outline and body of the scarf, respectively. What made it so special was that his mother had a knack for imbuing weapons and clothing with Dust, and had carefully weaved Fire Dust into the scarf. This caused it to either emit a comfortable warmth when touched, or catch fire and be used as an amazingly effective torture weapon, when wielded properly.
He rubbed the end of the scarf in between two fingers, causing several hidden seams along the fabric to glow a faint orange, creating a gentle warmth as Tanner breathed out a puff of cold mist.
He was almost at his destination.
After quickly warming himself, he reached his hands under his long-coat to feel several black pouches he wore. Their weight in his hands gave him the reassurance he needed that he had brought enough firepower for today. And if he didn't...he could improvise.
At his slow, easy pace, Tanner eventually caught sight of his destination after roughly seven minutes of walking. Marcus had promised that he could get him close to the facility, but that he also wasn't going to risk getting too close.
The sun had long set behind the distant mountains, but the streets of Atlas were bright enough that it always seemed to be in sunset. Whether the light was provided by the grey and silver skyscrapers or the advanced holographic streetlights, the light they provided lit the vehicle repair workshop he was facing enough to make out every little detail.
Advancements in technology always seemed to work in slow motion for the outskirts of Atlas, the districts bereft of skyscrapers, unlike the inner and central sectors of the city. Instead, the streets were often surrounded on either side by identical-looking buildings, the only difference between the drab residential blocks being the small holographic addresses that gave them their individuality.
Walking down the streets of the more industrial-commercial district of the outer sector, he headed to what seemed like an equipment and vehicle repair store, though he knew better. Even if he hadn't made several prior visits to the building, Tanner could tell that it was one of the 'Four Corners' Mafia clan's repair and rearmaments facilities. The people that passed him along the streets gave him a mix of looks. Some gave him looks of curiosity, warning, fear, but most of the time, they didn't think twice about him, as people like him rolled by all the time. Good thing there weren't many people out tonight.
On his left, he wore a silver-coloured sabre-sword with an intricately carved handle that closely resembled the curved shape of the end of a walking stick. He didn't wear a scabbard, and instead let it hang by a leather loop in his belt. On his right, he wore a gold-coloured triple-barrel flintlock pistol with the intricate carving of a rose on its barrels. Beofield and Crossed Star; the mementos of his parents.
He ran his fingers through his dark-brown hair as he stopped in front of the glass double-doors that led into the front of the building. Gotta look presentable. He thought as he pushed the doors apart, and was immediately greeted with the warmth of the internal heating system of the building.
Stepping into the building, the doors swung closed while making the ringing sound of a small bell as he quickly took in his surroundings. Directly in front of him was a metal counter, where a customer was quietly waiting for the attendant to return from…whatever he was doing. Either side of the interior of the store had a metal rack lined with an assortment of weapons, meant to silently inform customers that if what they needed to be repaired was anything other than what was on display, they had better find another repair-shop.
On either side of the wall, separated by the counter that reached to either end of the wall, were bronze tubes that functioned as Dust dispensers, and were marked with different coloured lights depending on what kind of Dust they carried.
Walking up to the metal counter on the man's right side, he didn't even give the bystander a glance as he rested his elbows on the countertop.
"Excuse me, sir. I was here first." He said in an annoyed and warning tone.
Another one of those customers…right. Tanner thought as he sighed. "You better leave while you still can." Tanner warned.
The man then shoved his hand in his pocket to pull out a handful of Lien before slamming it on the counter. "I was here first, so you'd better get behind me or-" he was cut off as the door to the back of the workshop opened and a bald man with a pale complexion walked through.
"Well you'll have to pay extra if you want a paintjob," the bald man said, carrying a folded cleaver-like weapon in his arms as he closed the door with his foot, not having noticed Tanner. "-but other than that, it should be good as n-" he froze when his eyes landed on Tanner.
The bald man looked like he was about to yell, a scowl forming on his face, but Tanner was faster and drew his flintlock to unload three shots into the man. Two pierced his Aura while the third pierced his skull. Blood and traces of brain-matter sprayed out of the back of his head as the bullet hit the wall behind the man.
Only then did Tanner turn to look at the customer, who now wore a terrified expression as the bald man collapsed to the floor. His eyes were wide and his hands were shaking as Tanner made his way through the counter doors. Picking up the folded weapon, he handed it to the shaking, horrified customer while pushing the Lien on the table back towards him.
"Take your weapon, take your money, and get out." Tanner warned through grit teeth, pointing his Crossed Star at the man's forehead. The man did so at a sprint as the door behind Tanner opened again. Glad I didn't have to warn him a third time.
A tanned-skin man wearing a beanie stepped out of the door with his sub-machine gun drawn, only to be body-slammed into the wall of the store. Kicking the door closed with his foot, Tanner quickly stunned the man with the door's force while drawing out Beofield. Holding it in his right hand, he quickly pierced it through the man's throat as he was about to yell for help. The man choked and spluttered while blood dripped down the wound in his neck as Tanner pushed Beofield as far back as he could before he felt it press against the plaster walls.
The sabre almost flew from his grasp at the speed he pulled it out of the man's neck, blood spurting from the man's artery as it did. Tanner quickly wiped the blood off the sword on the dead man's shirt as the corpse slid to the floor before he turned his attention on the door that led to the back of the workshop, and to the garage-section.
Closing his eyes for a moment, he felt a surge of Aura run through his left arm and flow into the flintlock pistol he still held. He concentrated on the three remaining shots inside of it, felt the carefully cut Dust crystals and their resonating glow. Then, he activated his Semblance.
When he opened his eyes, he quickly swung himself over the counter-top and took cover behind it as he fired off a single shot at the door.
The shot he fired was a Fire Dust pellet, but after having used his Semblance, Dust Ministration, the explosion it created was easily three times the size of a regular Dust crystal of the same size. The door flew off its hinges as it splintered into multiple shards, before those shards of wood burnt to ash.
Immediately following the explosion, a wide spray of bullets came through the doorway in an attempt to hit whoever blew the door apart as the smoke and dust settled.
Waiting for a few seconds for them to run their guns dry, Tanner quickly stuck Crossed Star over the top of the counter to fire a single shot through the doorway, aimed roughly at the ground. As soon as he fired the shot, he jumped over the counter-top with the intention of following the blue pellet.
The men on the other side of the doorway resumed firing as soon as they saw him, but their bullets were blocked as a five-feet tall wall of ice rose out of the spot where the shot had landed. Taking cover behind the wall of ice, Tanner quickly reloaded his pistol as the barrel separated from the rest of the gun on a rotating pivot, sliding two spherical Dust Crystals into each of the three barrels of the gun, aside from the one with a remaining pellet.
Should've done this before I jumped into the line of fire. He thought as he quickly took in his surroundings. He was now in the vehicle repair bay, which could only be accessed through either the doorway he came through, or a garage door off to the side which was large enough for a bullhead to fly into. Industrial-grade repair equipment and machinery were placed and bolted to the ground in several different locations.
The wall of ice that protected him was slowly being chipped away as the gunmen switched to Fire Dust bullets, which not only cut straight through the wall, but also broke off large chunks of the edges of the wall.
Tanner peered around the side of the wall quickly to get an idea of what he was facing. He was able to make out at least a dozen armed men taking cover behind several unfinished vehicle frames, with some wielding pistols, while others wielded various sub-machine gun and tommy-gun models. He even saw two carrying flamethrowers.
Wait…flamethrowers? He thought as he heard the distinct – and approaching – roar of a flame. He quickly got back to his feet and sprinted behind a truck under repair as his ice wall shattered into a spray of melting shards.
"It's the Vermillion kid!" he heard one of the goons shout. "Get the boss, she'll want to see this!"
"Come on out, kid." He heard another man speak directly to him. The voice was slightly muffled, as if they were wearing a mask. Using the reflective glare of his sword to look around the corner, Tanner saw one of the men with a flamethrower slowly approaching him. "You've got nowhere left to run."
How many times had he heard that threat? It must have been a lot, because he started chuckling once it registered in his mind. He could see from the reflection of the pyro that he abruptly stopped as soon as Tanner started laughing.
"I'm not running, anymore!" he yelled as he turned around the corner. The pyro raised the end of his flamethrower to quickly turn Tanner into a kebab, but the brunette was faster. Raising his left hand, flintlock still in his grasp, he focussed on channelling his Aura through the outstretched appendage and out the barrels of the pistol. Using his Semblance, he felt the presence of the Fire Dust in the tank on the pyro's back, all in less than half a second.
In another half a second, he focussed on pulsing his Aura through the Fire Dust, causing it to spontaneously combust and incinerate the pyro. His fireproof clothing may have protected him from the flames, but not from the sheer force of the explosion.
The others behind the pyromaniac opened up with their guns as soon as he exploded, but Tanner quickly dived off to the side while focussing on extending his Aura further. It made his mind blurry and his legs weak, but the spontaneous combustion of the second pyro was worth it.
The explosive force of the blast was enough to knock most of the gunmen to the floor, while others were just staggered by the sheer force of the explosion. Tanner then took the opportunity to transform his sabre, morphing it into a silver double-barrelled flintlock pistol, closely resembling Crossed Star.
From his prone position on the ground, he emptied every shot he had into the mafia men until none of them were breathing. Once he was sure none of them were going to get up, he quickly sprung to his feet and dusted his long coat off.
More reinforcements will be coming soon, so I better hurry. He thought as he took some of the clips of ammunition from the dead bodies of the men that he once ordered about. Looking at the faces of the dead, he could even remember the names that went with a couple of them.
He quickly began thinking about the checklist he had created before he embarked on this 'heist', for lack of a better word. Ok, step one: clear out the building. Step two:… he thought as he made his way to a set of stairs that took him to the second floor of the building. As soon as he reached the top of the stairs, a bullet flew by and nearly pierced his head.
He turned to see a lone gunmen crouching in the hallway, which he quickly took care of with two well-placed shots. Walking down the hallway, he turned to face a door with a red sign that read 'Employees Only'. The brunette smirked as he knew that he was at the right place. Pushing the door open, he walked into a room with several differently labelled crates on one side, and a stash of weapons on the other. He walked through the room while kicking open any crate he walked by, quickly inspecting its contents as he grabbed the first one, a ton of Lightning Dust, as he carried it down the steps and hefting it into one of the working trucks.
He continued this sequence for two more crates before he started to tire and had to drag the fourth crate down the steps, which was when he stopped by the doorway as he looked to see a group of men with a woman standing by the truck. The men all stood with their swords, clubs and hammers ready to deliver a painful bludgeoning, while the woman stood at their front.
"I leave for a ten minute coffee break," the woman started slowly, she was wearing a hunter-green unzipped hoodie, a pair of shorts that barely did anything to cover her long, well-toned legs and had a twin-blade strapped to her back, reaching from her head to her toes. "And you show up and wreck my perfectly good store."
"Come on, Nessi. We both know that this place is anything but good." Tanner replied to the ebony-haired girl, with a slight green tint at the ends of her short-cut hair.
"Quite. You know you grandfathers will be very pleased to see you again." She said as she ran her fingers along the edge of the truck. "As well as find out that you're the one responsible for all those thefts."
"You'll have to catch me first." He said as he drew Beofield and transformed it to its sword form.
The woman sighed. "You never make this easy." She turned to one of the men at her side. "Sick 'im."
All six of the armed men immediately rushed the brunette as he prepared his battle-stance, pistol in one hand with sabre in the other. The first man to rush him wielded a long sledgehammer, which he easily ducked under before slashing at him with his sword. Another man holding a club tried to smash him in the back while he was distracted, but Tanner took quick notice of him and fired off two shots from his pistol into the man. He continued to parry and deflect his opponents before he began to realise that they were more skilled than he thought.
While ducking under a horizontal swing from another sledgehammer, he cartwheeled away before he stuck a hand in his pouch as he righted himself.
Pulling out a chunk of pure Lightning Dust, he aimed it in his closed fist at three of the four remaining men that charged him. Focussing on the crystal and his enemies, he pulled his hand back before thrusting it forward; unleashing a wide streak of lightning that electrocuted all three men at once.
Opening his hand, he found the crystal had disintegrated in the process, but it worked just as well as the last swordsmen charged forward. With his free hand, he reached into his pouch again and pulled out a vial of Ice Dust. Cracking the vial with the pommel of his sword, he shook some of the fine powder towards the man and onto his sword. This caused the air in front of him to emit a faint blue energy as he slammed the sword into the ground, causing large icicles to sprout towards the swordsman and the woman.
The woman was able to dodge the attack in time, but the swordsman wasn't so lucky. In a few seconds, he had more than a few more holes in his body than he did seconds ago.
"Why do I have to do everything myself?" the woman, Vanessa, grumbled to herself as she drew her twin-blade in both hands.
Let's see if this actually works, the brunette thought as he flicked his sabre to his side while pulling back the pistol hammer on the hilt, setting up for one final trick. Pressing the trigger on the opposite side of the hilt, he activated one of the Dust pellets still in his sword, causing his whole sword to spark with electricity.
Vanessa held her weapon to her side before charging forward, unfazed by the display. Her movements were quick and fluid as she assaulted Tanner with a flurry of strikes, rebounding directly after one strike with the backwards motion of the blades colliding against one another.
Tanner was stuck on the defensive for a few seconds before he saw an opening. With his sabre sparking with electricity, he had the advantage of more powerful swings. Though, he knew that it wouldn't last for very long.
He was able to get a few slashes in by batting the blades of the twin-blade in one direction, before slashing at the opening. The lightning effect of the Dust was working as Vanessa's movements became less fluid and more stuttered, but he let his confidence get the best of him.
For the most part, she wasn't actually faking the pain. However, when she did feign to the left, Tanner decided to go for the opening which was immediately countered, causing him to lose hold of his sword as it was twisted out of his hand.
Thinking quickly, he used his free right hand to draw his pistol and put it to the woman's exposed chest. Her eyes widened and a smirk grew on Tanner's face…until they both heard the dry click of the gun.
They were both equally stunned for a moment as Tanner pulled the trigger two more times, only to give two more dry clicks.
"Son of a-" the wind was knocked out of him before he could get the rest out, and he was kicked on his back.
Pressing the blade up against his neck, Vanessa's whole body shook from the electric shocks and heavy breathing. "Any…last words?"
Tanner swallowed quickly to quench the dry feeling in his throat, which he cleared by clearing his throat. Uh…any last words…um, let's see. He said as he flexed his empty hands.
Only…one of them wasn't empty.
A wide grin spread across his face as he remembered what it was, causing Vanessa to develop a confused expression. "Yeah, catch!" he said as he tossed the cracked vial of Ice Dust directly at the woman's face.
With a little Aura behind the throw, the glass vial shattered and the Ice Dust exploded at the same time.
The blast of the explosion was enough to throw Vanessa straight into the wall of the building as a layer of ice formed around her face and shoulder, pinning her to the wall.
Rolling onto his side and getting up at a leisurely pace, Tanner whistled a tune to himself as he picked up the discarded twin-blade and sauntered over to the now-frightened woman.
She struggled with all her might, even clawing at the ice, but it was no use as Tanner drew the sword back…
…and stuck it into the wall, inches from her face.
She stared, wide-eyed at Tanner as her chest heaved up and down. "Y-you're not going to kill me?"
The brunette put a hand to her cheek as he spoke. "C'mon, Nessi. We're friends. I'm not going to kill you." In a sudden motion, he grabbed her free hand and pushed it against the wall with him, leaning in close to whisper directly into her ear. "I'm just going to make your life a living hell if you keep working for my grandfathers, ok?"
With a friendly peck on the cheek, he backed away to retrieve his sword and pistol - the sword no longer sparking. "Give them my love, and a message." He said with his back turned to her. "Tell them that Tanner Vermillion did this, and that they should take this as an act of war." He said as he moved back over to the last crate of Dust he was willing to steal and pulled out a couple of canisters of Fire Dust.
Popping both lids, he began sprinkling it about the entire room, not responding once to anything Vanessa had to say.
"I do hope you get out before you burn too badly." He said offhandedly, not looking at the black-haired woman directly as he shoved the last crate into the truck and pulled down the shutters. He quickly hopped into the driver's seat of the truck as he fished around for the keys, igniting the engine in one smooth movement.
And with the snap of his fingers, the whole building suddenly became a lot hotter.