"Chaos half-loosed cannot be long controlled; it is all or nothing."
Chapter 13: An Electrifying Exit
"You know what, guys? I'm going to say it. I'm disappointed."
It was like nothing Trifa had ever seen.
Her erstwhile partner casually brought his sword to his left, catching a bullet before ramming steel through someone's chest. "I kind of expected more from you. I really did. Where's the pizazz?" He moved again, every muscle taut as he kicked his legs out in front of him, bouncing his entire weight on his arms as he swept two more men into a heap, one on top of the other. "The drama? The showmanship?" They struggled to get their guns free, to shoot him, to kill him, but the red haired swordsman was simply too fast. "Just because you don't stand a chance doesn't mean you should skimp out on a sense of style too! The least you could do is color coordinate!"
"Unbelievable…" she uttered under her breath.
His movements were fluid, almost beautiful - in a macabre way - and precise. He didn't utter a single sound of exertion for all the effort he was putting into each strike.
"What? That I'm beating these clowns like my unwanted stepchildren? Believe it, Blue." Adam glanced down at the final vile little creature, then reeled his sword back, and sliced the man's head off in one single motion. The blood welled upwards like a fountain. And then he turned back to her.
It had taken him seconds. Seconds for him to murder these….humans, and he was laughing.
He was saying something; his lips were moving, but she couldn't make out a thing. She stumbled backwards, absolute panic and feverish panic turned her guts to liquid. The blood was rushing too fast through her ears in a deafening roar, and a cold sweat broke over her as the vision of death approached, mere inches away before raising his hand nonchalantly.
"Oww! What the hell was that for, you ass?!"
Adam raised his eyebrow, before lowering his fingers. "Maybe that might motivate you to answer my questions with a little haste next time. I asked if you had any aura, FYI."
If she was any less terrified, she would have glared, but her tongue stayed wooden as she rubbed her smarting nose where he had flicked it, trying not to let her eyes water. If he saw her crying, there was no telling what the condescending prick would do to her. Then again, she thought, it couldn't possibly be worse than what she had already gone through.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him raising his hand again, and reacted, moving quickly to stop him.
"Would you quit it?!" She snapped, caught with nerves.
He looked on expectantly, and Trifa realized in that instant that it might just be unwise to test the sociopath's patience.
"...No." She admitted softly, with only the distant sounds of cries far below to drown her voice.
He hummed to himself.
"So you're useless then."
His reply was so matter of fact that Trifa almost hadn't processed the idea that he had spoken at all. Not until she caught a glimpse of the scarlet steel he was twirling casually at his side. The blade practically shimmered in and out of existence, the dull thudding of its propellor like movement the only sound to broach the air.
"I see."
"No, Wai-!"
She braced herself for the blow, the strike that would end her life.
But it never landed,
Instead she heard another voice scream — or rather the beginnings of one, only for it to be swiftly cut short, dying into a pathetic gurgle. Trifa opened her eyes to the sight of one of the men she thought slain at her feet, the blade of a katana embedded in his throat like a fence post. She hadn't even thought….
"Missed a spot."
Walking onward without pause, either oblivious or indifferent to his victim's final gasps, Trifa couldn't help but make a slight face as, without looking, Adam pulled his blade free, bringing a mass of blood and gore with it. One quick flick and both blood and viscera were gone.
It took a few moments for her mind to fire again, and she was able to push her body into a light jog, slowing as she fell into step with him again. He barely noticed. It wasn't until they reached the stairs that he finally spoke.
"You still alive back there?"
"Yes," she said, somewhat uncomfortably, watching as he held the sword in an almost vice like grip, as if he was toying with the idea of gutting her too. Now that they were onto the pleasantries, the awkwardness, for her, at least, had upped a level. "And you?"
Finally, he wordlessly spun the weapon around his wrist, before sliding it carefully back into its sheath. There was a unnatural focus to his gaze as he strode forth, the overcast shadows rendering an even more sinister quality to his movements. Trifa's skin felt clammy, and she was trembling slightly, no doubt because of the adrenaline coursing through her veins. It was hard to stop picturing the blood-spattered room. The horrible smell still clung to the inside of her nose. Regardless, there was something else in the way her stomach felt rubbery and weightless as they walked down the new hallway. Shaking her head to distance herself from her thoughts, she noticed that Adam still hadn't answered her question, the ever present smirk having dropped from his face entirely.
"Something wrong?"
"It's nothing," he dismissed her concern as he opened his eyes, resuming to move deeper into the darkening and narrowing passageway. He had apparently already decided it was better to remain silent; not reluctantly ponder how to strike a little conversation. It would help both of them to keep their wits about them, now so much needed when he seemed to want to focus on whatever task lay up ahead. Unfortunately Trifa's mouth opened first.
"So… how've you been?"
"Stupid mouth!"
She could practically hear him rolling his eyes, as the smirk came back.
"Been better. So have you by the looks of things, unless you usually look like you had a bus wheel spin over your face. No judging."
"Ha Ha."
"Why, thank you. I do try." Trifa tried to ignore the bubbling pocket of annoyance as he smiled before mockingly bowing.
"All right," she began, welling up her courage with teeth clenched. "I'm going to trust that there's a reason why we're not getting the hell out of here. But I'd really like to know what it is."
He stopped dead, pulling out his sword and stabbing through a wall seemingly at random, or so it seemed to her. However, when she heard a male scream from behind the other side , she started and looked closer. Upon looking closer, she made a face at the gruesome sight that greeted her— blood seeping underneath the skirting board.
"I'm in the middle of something." He said finally, giving a casual shrug of his shoulders as he flicked his blade clean. "Either hang around, or don't." A hint of cold seeped his voice with vigor now, despite his collected and almost jovial demeanour. It was frankly, unnerving to the blue haired girl; she couldn't recall ever seeing him smile before and certainly not like that. He had always been on the fringes of Kuo Kuana, never one to interact with others when he could help it. Trifa could recall catching him with a book in hand on some quiet rooftop, up in the mountains or out in the dunes. He had radiated hostility even then, but he had also been distant, a threat while no less dangerous, that was anything but imminent. She remembered thinking he was kind of intense, even more so by Sienna's description of him back in Atlas. Quiet. Dedicated. Had a tendency to hyperfocus, and a little antisocial, but with a surprising sense of humour if you took the time to look. From that, she'd been expecting somewhat like Rowan. But looking at Taurus now, that description didn't do him justice. Not at all.
"Surprising" was most definitely the word for his brand of inappropriately morbid humour, a word that could also be substituted with qualifiers like "jarring", "uncomfortable" or her personal favorite, "outright terrifying." But even more so than his words, Sienna had also failed to mention that her friend was a practiced sociopathic killer.
Kinda seemed like something that should have been included in his character description…
The red haired swordsman muttered something as he picked up his pace. Trifa bit down the urge to shiver. As much of a dick as he was being right now, even she knew it was not the time to be caught sneaking through hallways, whispering at each other, when every cockroach with a pulse was probably looking for them.
And, she admitted with a sinking feeling, he was pretty much her only hope out of this rathole of a building alive.
Did she mention he was a sociopath?
She wanted to ask what the hell his problem was, but as her eyes met his, she turned away. As if knowing she would not like the answer, or maybe he was just tormenting her or something she'd done – or… more likely, for what she hadn't done. 'I'll leave you for last,' his eye said. At least, that's what she thought, because what else could a glare like that promise? And as much as she kinda wanted to punch him in the face…. she also couldn't fight the growing sense of envy that seemed to blossom in her chest.
All her life, she had dealt with being mistreated, and had been powerless to do anything about it.
And yet, here was someone who didn't care for any of that, and solved all of his, and her problems with the business end of a blade. He acted as he saw fit, quickly and decisively. No hesitation. No weakness. How much could have been avoided if—
The swordsman raised a finger, stopping her in her tracks.
She let out something between a cough and a laugh, unsure of how to conduct herself around someone who clearly wasn't interested in talking to her.
"Since you're clearly not much use in a fight, I guess I can make some use of you another way until we get out of here."
"Of course,' she said, startled by his sudden speech. It wasn't like she had the option of saying no. "What do you need me to do?"
"Just watch my back – another pair of eyes could be useful. I guess. As you can see, I'm not expecting trouble," A cocktail of emotions entered his voice; ego, cockiness and a quiet unnatural, if entirely earned confidence, before chuckled darkly. "But you never know."
Adam knew in his gut he was close to the end now. Closer than he'd ever been in weeks. And nothing would stand in his way.
He could hear their voices shouting, screaming, begging but it meant nothing. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Only that they were in his way. He didn't feel any weakness. Or pity, or even sadness. Not since he had truly discarded his former self, for a hardened, pitiless creature who laughed in the faces of any man foolish enough to think himself superior to it. It still felt just as good as it ever had.
Even so, there was a small dark part of his brain that murmured that this… was all too easy. And it hadn't been all that long ago that— He tried to contain himself, but for a mere second, a moment long enough to draw a shudder, his soul dipped into a cold darkness fed by visions of his days of recovery after Myst. Being the expert in compartmentalizing that he was, he only needed a few seconds to bury that little errant thought back down where it belonged. He hated the trip to the past, but at the same time, he was grateful in that instant, reminded of what he needed to do, and what he needed to be wary of.
He cast a surreptitious look at Trifa.
Only a few days ago, Adam had come to the conclusion that he hated Mistral, the job he'd been landed with, and his employer, who incidentally, he was seriously considering disemboweling on his return trip in the name of principle. He'd thought that this would be a simple matter. That he would show up, drag his target out of whatever hidey hole she'd sequestered herself in. Hand her over to the snakes, and then be free to do what he pleased. From there, travel the world, live however he wanted, and look for new ways to achieve his goal of being the strongest he could be… maybe join a monastery or something once old age hit. He frowned. Nah. He wasn't much of a joiner these days, gods knows what he'd be like once he got his greys. Assuming he lived long enough. But from the moment he'd set foot in this cursed city, it had just been one mess after another. The dead end investigation, the lack of any leads, the whole fiasco with Arc, and now this. A reunion with an old "friend" at what could only be charitably described as the worst of times.
It was as if Fate herself had ordained him as a personal scratching post.
Before his mental gripes could reach their peak, they'd gone up another two floors, and his annoyance was quickly replaced with unease. It was quieter here. Adam and Trifa found themselves in another long passageway that led to a single metal door. But there was something very strange. The walls of the passage were unfinished; peeling wallpaper revealing dark brown rock with streaks of what looked like zinc or some other metal. The floor was rough too, even by this building's standards, and the way was lit by old-fashioned bulbs hanging on wires. It all reminded him of something … something he had seen very recently. But he couldn't remember what.
He easily spotted five sentries on the last floor alone. More were probably further down. Just who the hell owned this place? Who needed this much security for a brothel turned snuff house? Why was this area so guarded? Sure, the rest of the place had guards, but not to this degree. Did it have something to do with the whole snuff shop thing? If it did, it only made things more ridiculous. It was one thing to have a handful of brutes about, meant to intimidate, but not skilled fighters. It was entirely another to keep the bulk of them away from the place where they'd be the most useful. Why the hell were so many concentrated in one area?
Adam took a very quiet breath and called on his training. He didn't pause long, only long enough to get a direction. He listened, using his enhanced senses to listen for anything that seemed abnormal.
His sharp senses roved the corridor, looking for any details that might be considered odd; for sounds of concealment. For a scratch of cloth, a creaking floorboard… a quiet intake of breath. The echo of a shallow inhale drew his eye to a locked door.
His fingers clenched at the noise. And as his concentration grew, he could smell the oiled barrels of the guns, the sulphuric scent of weapons discharge, and even now, the stench of human sweat lingering in the air.
There were scuff marks, now that he looked. Beneath him and behind him – scratches on the floor, a trail scraped clean through the thin residue that coated it. Something—or someone— had been dragged though here. Did that mean he was on the right trail?
Only one way to find out, but first….
He gave Trifa a confident grin before slashing through the nearest door.
The cretins behind it never got a chance to scream before he'd opened the throats of the closest two, stabbing one through the eye for good measure. But this time one of them was a little faster; if a little off with his aim as he squeezed the trigger.
Adam leapt up, raised one arm and as the last one swung the smoking muzzle of the gun towards him again, in mere seconds Wilt's sheath struck his gun hand, making him howl in pain. His assailant's finger reflexively tightened on the trigger. The shot went wild, shattering the windows on the other side of the room as the gun fell from his wounded hand. Adam closed the distance between them in a few quick strides and kicked the gun away across the floor as the final thug threw a desperate, clumsy punch at him. He caught his fist in his own hand and twisted it viciously, kicking at his kneecap and dropping him to the floor in a whimpering heap.
'Please,' He moaned pitifully, 'I'll give you anything . . . anything!'
"All I want is information," Adam spoke, looking down at him with an expression that would freeze the blood. "Where's Miltia Malachite?"
"I don't know!" he said quickly. 'Please, you have to believe me."
"Pretty sure I don't." Adam replied, in a terror inducing mix of faux joviality and ice, lowering the tip of his sword towards him. 'So. For conversation's sake, are you right- or left-handed?"
"Third door to the right!"
"See? Don't you feel better now?" The swordsman sing-songed, just before Wilt's edge once again met flesh.
His victim gave a final strangled grunt and then slumped forward to the floor.
It felt… clean. Methodical. 'It's gotten easier...' He realised, not for the first time, as he knelt and pulled the blooded blade free, wiping it on the dead body's shirt. Adam didn't know if that meant something. Didn't know if it meant anything. And just like the first time, he was even less sure that he one was just one more carved up sack of rotting flesh. It made no real difference to anyone, so why should it make one to him? Wordlessly, he straightened up, walking briskly past a stunned Trifa back into the hallway.
He didn't have any reason to believe the dead man had been lying, and even as he considered his words, certain facts began to fall into place. Logically, there had to be something up here. And it wasn't like he had anything to lose.
Taking a few steps along the corridor, Adam went over to the nearest of the doors. There was a spy-hole set in the front and he looked through it into what was clearly supposed to be a bedroom of some kind, with a dirty looking mattress, a toilet and a sink. He saw a half naked girl, stretched out on it. He couldn't tell if she was asleep, unconscious, or even if she was alive, but what he could tell was, she had short black hair, and was in no shape to move. Time was of the essence.
There were two bolts, but as far as he could see, no key. He drew back the bolts and jerked the door handle down. The door opened. He went in.
There was no furniture in the room, though perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a cell - save for one desk in the far-left corner, one bare bookshelf on the right side, the dirtied mattress in the centre of the room, and a few boxes in the far-right corner. There were no light sources, except for the glimmer from outside the single boarded up window.
Almost at once, he felt Trifa behind him, something catching in her throat as if she was about to speak. "We haven't got much time," he hissed quickly. He was speaking in a whisper even though there was little chance of being overheard.
Trifa could only nod, but she had enough presence of mind to stand at the door, no doubt aware that they would soon have company. Good. She could ask him questions later. Getting out of this hellhole alive was their top priority. No sooner had he returned his attention to the body on the mattress, did he find himself confronted with a pale face and two emerald eyes staring up at him. For one, heartstopping moment, he thought she might be dead. He wouldn't have put it past the Spiders to cut their losses by putting her down. One more body in a sea of them. Uncertain, he tapped at her bare forearm; still warm, which was a good sign, or so he hoped, but his digits came away wet. Curious, he drew the substance up to his own nose and smelled a faint odour of iron and tar. As he took a closer look at the liquid in his hands, he was horrified. It was not water, or sweat, no. It was blood. Her blood. And a fair amount of it; given the way it seemed to have crusted. Was it already too late?
But then, as if to prove him wrong , her mouth opened, her pupils contracted, and her gaze seemed to shift roving across the room. As if Adam wasn't even there.
It was… unsettling.
Whatever was wrong with her, it was clear to the faunus that she was who he was looking for. But what wasn't clear just yet was how she ended up this way. The sound of creaking floorboards in the distance was enough to put that part of the equation firmly from his mind.
That could wait.
He snapped his fingers, drawing her attention as best he was able. If he was too sudden, too forward, she might scream, and all that would do is draw what little attention hadn't been focus on his assault squarely to them. He waited until he was sure she could hear him, before reassuringly showing her his hands, speaking slowly and doing his best to mask his eagerness to be on the move.
"Militia, right? I'm not here to hurt you… I'm here to get you out of here, Can you stand?"
Suddenly her vision seemed to focus, and she practically flew off the mattress, latching onto his form like a limpet. For a girl who didn't seem to weigh more than a paperweight — Did they even feed her while she was here? — the impact and speed were nearly enough to topple him. Even so, his quick reflexes were enough to catch her, his body bracing for the attack. Except…. It never arrived.
She still wouldn't let go.
The underlying frustration with himself and his situation was ample enough fuel in that phantom moment for that little flame to explode into a second of barely repressed rage. He tried to pull his leg away from Miltia, but she held on fast as she was dragged across the coarse floorboards, her sobbing unrelenting. Adam gave another few rough jerks of his leg and he nearly lost his balance again. A loud huff escaped his flaring nostrils. He had to get her off him-!
Yet the girl remained undeterred by Adam's furious movements. "Please! What's going on?" she cried into his thigh, her pouring tears wetting the fabric beneath her eyes.
The fire of his bitterness was instantly snuffed out.
"You… You really don't know… Do you?" was all he could mutter. His entire body, which had been rigidly posed to free himself, had now gone limp from the absolute weight of the situation. What the hell was he doing? Quite simply, she was a pitiful creature, Her face was red now, and eyes utterly bloodshot. And her eyes… they swam in a foggy pool, faint and faraway. Now that he saw them, really saw them, he realized he knew those eyes well. These were the eyes that only knew how to look for one thing.
The next fix.
"I'll be good! I promise I'll be good! Just don't…"
She had trailed off into whimpering now, and Adam couldn't help but be still for a moment as she cried, an odd sense of what once could have been confused as pity washed over him. He wondered idly, why Xiang hadn't seemed to mention drug use in his initial appraisal of her; it certainly seemed evident to the faunus now that this had been going on for a while; It was impossible that he couldn't have known. As if the track marks he felt on her arm weren't dead enough a give away.
He doubted the girl even knew her own name.
And yet, even here, there were vultures willing to prey on her weakness.
What kind of mother could let that happen to her own child?
She took that moment to inch closer and fall to the floor, quivering, not in control of her mind or body. Adam had seen enough. He reached down and pinched a point at the side of the girl's neck and her eyes rolled upwards as she collapsed, unconscious.
The red haired faunus caught her, throwing her over his shoulder like a sack of flour.
"How did you do that?"
Damn, he'd forgotten she was still here.
He turned his head to catch Trifa in his peripheral, looking on in a sense of horror and what may well have been a hint of awe. It wasn't an emotion he could say he understood; it wasn't that impressive. "Family trademark." He replied, resisting the urge to shrug. He doubted Militia would wake up, but he didn't want to aggravate any of her wounds, especially because he hadn't had time to assess her full condition.
He did need her alive after all.
Suddenly the door at the other end of the room flew open and a scowling woman - obviously in charge — and flanked by a pair of bodyguards emerged. She was tall, almost as much as Adam himself, blue-eyed, with straw colored hair and the physique of a rake. Her hair was long, going down to the base of her spine, and done up in a huge ponytail.
"Housekeeping, I presume?" Adam drawled with easy confidence, meeting the woman's eyes. The plan hadn't changed. Do something stupid, slash through any obstacles, and save the girl. Thinking of the best way to cut the throats of the party crashers was only a minor impulse. He probably would have made it messy. But that was all the old Adam talking. He chuffed. It didn't take much to read this one. And she, like the rest of her kind, was far too pathetic to evoke his ire.
Who needed five men with guns to intimidate a strung out teenage girl?
He thought about it for a moment, tapping his chin in thought, while adjusting Miltia on his shoulder.
Or were they here for him? Oh, that would be a sorry state of affairs. He was almost insulted that they thought it would be enough.
Either way, the newcomer deserved his mockery, and nothing less. And that was what she would receive.
"Not exactly. I am the Madame of this humble establishment. And I believe you are attempting to leave with my property."
Adam cocked his head, as if amused by her hardened tone.
The woman continued. "All we want is the girl. Whoever it is you're working for, you can still walk away with your life."
The tension was broken by the sound of laughter.
"Sure, sure. And I suppose you've got some Atlesian beachfront property to sell me too?"
"As a matter of fact I've be—"
Evidently she had realized she was being played for a fool. "A fair attempt,. But it will take more than that to get under my skin."
"It'd probably be easier if I had something sharp. I think I've got just the thing."
The woman gritted her teeth. This was clearly not going the way she had planned it in her head. "Empty threats, my faunus friend. You'll never get the chance. You see, we want the girl. You, on the other hand, are not worth a lien. You can die."
Adam smiled, and it was utterly feral. "Ladies first. Though, I think I'm using the word 'lady' a little liberally. Last time I saw a jawline like that, it was on a Beringel."
"How dare you-" She snarled.
"That said, is that why you chose to be a pimp? Because you look like a half melted Vav figurine? Must frighten off the clientele some, huh? Tell ya what, if you ever want to get laid, consider crawling up a chicken's ass and waiting. It's got to be better than being a walking venereal disease."
The henchmen closed in step by step.
Trifa gave Adam a look. "What is wrong with you?! Do you have a death wish?!"
"It's part of my charm." He replied easily, pretending not to be cognizant of the borderline frothing woman who was practically steaming with fury. "And it's not like it's my fault she has a face that could scare the life back into roadkill. If she has a problem, the Wicked Witch of the West can take it up with the higher power of her choice."
"Kill him!"
On a good day, hell, on a bad day, Adam would have been more than capable of killing all of them at once. But he didn't like his chances now, not with two bundles of deadweight to deal with, and keep alive, and cops downstairs, who had surely heard all the commotion by he commotion, and were probably putting the entire building under siege as they spoke.
They turned and started to run. An automatic weapon began to chatter behind them, as more of the thugs had begun to follow them up the stairs with bullets.
"Don't shoot the girl, you jackasses! We need her alive!"
The Madame's yelling carried after them like the whining of a mosquito. Fortunately, unbeknownst to Adam, Trifa and Miltia, her men were short on experience. Rather than lead their targets like they should have, the goons had brought their weapons around in an attempt to catch them from behind. And since they were firing on full-automatic, the machine pistols' magazines quickly ran dry.
That was when he had spotted the man from earlier—the one he had left under the stairs. Judging from the congealed blood on the left side of his face, and the kerchief tied around his upper thigh, Adam hadn't managed to wound him severely enough to keep him out. He was game, and apparently determined to exact some kind of revenge for what had taken place earlier.
One more complication.
He growled, looking up. There was another wooden staircase, seemingly unused, old and covered in plaster dust, but intact.
Moments later, Adam spotted torch beams from below and heard men with equipment jangling up the stairs: backup no doubt. Or worse; the cops from the basement. Returning to reception seemed like a terrible idea; he'd have to go through them and however many Spiders were still alive, he'd have no room to move, and he'd be fighting with dead weight. They couldn't go down, so he took an instant decision and raced up the musty staircase, with Trifa hot on his heels. The unlit corridors bought them time, but it wouldn't take them long to figure out where they went, and when they did, they'd be onto them in seconds.
He quickly swung around the next landing. He was faster than their pursuers, and managed to get up two floors in the same time it took them one. A floor later, he could hear them— thundering footsteps behind him. They were following them up. He heard the clicking of guns being readied, and it wasn't long until the bullets started zinging past him. Hoping he didn't find himself in a dead end, he pushed through the door and prayed for another way out.
He arrived at the top. Another door barred his way. He reached out and turned the handle and at that moment there was another burst of gunfire. Trifa screamed. Mercifully, the door had opened in front of him. He tumbled through, expecting at any moment to feel the rake of more bullets across his aura. Adam had made it onto the roof of the building. He lashed out with his heel, slamming the door shut behind him.
He found himself in a landscape of chimney stacks and water tanks. The roofs ran close to each other, with low walls and thick pipes dividing the different houses. Thinking quickly, he dragged Trifa behind one of the smokestacks, laying down Miltia's body as gently as the circumstances could allow. Trifa looked back and forth between their surroundings and Adam's face. No doubt wondering what he had intended, coming up here. It would have been an easy getaway, if it was just him and his target, but his other faunus tagalong didn't have half of his speed and agility, and couldn't jump across the rooftops the way he could. They were at least four or five floors above street level. Was there a fire escape? A staircase leading down?
They had no time to find out. The door flew open just before he managed to assess his surroundings long enough to work out how to put distance between themselves and the thugs who had just stormed out onto the roof.
"Keep quiet. I'll be right back."
"What are you-"
"This roof is only so big, they'll find us eventually unless I deal with them now. Trust me on this."
With a wink, he coiled his legs and leapt upwards like a spring, clearing the brickwork he had been hiding behind, and landing directly in front of the armed men, bouncing bullets off his rapidly spinning blade before bringing it into contact with soft flesh, eliciting a scream of pain.
"You're so dead!"
Adam smiled. "Talk is cheap."
Wilt found the thug's hand, right where it connected to the wrist. The man cried out as his flexor tendons were suddenly severed all at once. It immediately disabled his ability to pull the trigger, and before the man could even think to switch hands, it had been retracted, as Adam twisted the blade before retracting it in a spray of blood. As he leapt into the air, the faunus used his opponent's head as a footstool before dropping down and splitting his skull. From there, he slashed off a head and surged forward to run a third through the heart. As the faunus disengaged, the last one raised what appeared to be a gun and stared as his friends fell dead.
"…Cyan," said the man with the kerchief in a small tone, "You bastard!"
He charged forward and swung at him with his free hand . The attack was not clumsy, Adam noted ardently, with a sense of detachment; it had training behind it and was made properly. But Adam still turned it aside with relative ease. Bringing around his sword, he cut through the man's stomach, cutting him down with breathless ease.
"Alright. Now that we're done here. Let's see about making tracks before the cops show up, shall, we…
"Uh, Adam?"
He trailed off at Trifa's interruption, and noticed she was pointing to the rooftop's edge. His face morphed into a scowl as he jogged over— he could hear the sirens long before he saw the red and blue reflecting off the windows on the opposite building. Even so, his mood still sunk as he looked down to see a small army of flashing lights far below.
"Oh, come the fuck on—"
"I'll kill you" the man on the ground behind him roared. "I swear to the gods I'll kill you here and now!"
Adam whipped around to his fallen enemy, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Listen, buddy. I know you're kinda short on brains, but do the bodies lying around you not give you a clear indication of how this is going to go d-"
A moment of stillness, and almost-eerie silence, then an overwhelming blast of sound and light engulfed them, overloading their senses for a moment.
The feeling of grit stinging his skin, Adam's sight was the first to return, followed in short order by Trifa's. They watched in silent, frozen horror as the skin around the man's face and neck started to smoke and blacken. It grew across his body like a disease, muscles expanding to grotesque proportions and flexing as the man writhed. The skin that formed over them was on the verge of splitting, charred. and crackling with an electric blue beneath it, lining the folds of skin, veins and muscles, consuming his body.
The gun he had been holding fell to the ground with a hollow clatter, forgotten as the hulking figure rose to its feat and unleashed a deafening roar.
"...Well, that's a neat trick. Where were you back when we had an energy cri—"
Instinctively Adam tensed himself, feet apart, centre of gravity low. Just like he had been taught. But it was useless. He lunged into him, moving with frightening speed. It was like being run over by a bus. He felt the full impact of his body weight, then cried out as two massive hands seized hold of him and threw him head first across the rooftop.
Hurtling backwards, the red haired faunus twisted in mid air, instinctively lashing out with Wilt as he flew, in an attempt to land a counter strike.
Basic physics did the rest.
Sharp metal hit electrified flesh, as currents of blue lightning raced along the blade towards the hilt.
Adam barely had enough time to drop the sword before a loud crack splintered through the air, and a surge of power exploded in his direction.
"KILL YOU!"
"Well, that wasn't going to win me any awards any time soon."
Adam danced around the assault, his crimson hair whipping madly. His jacket slapped a martial rhythm with each dodge. He had no time to pull out his last remaining weapon, and his opponent was too far away for bare-fisted combat. Not that it would be a particularly smart idea to try that either.
"Wait…."
Out of the corner of his eye, Adam noticed the stomach wound that Wilt had left his opponent. Maybe…
"Not too civic minded, are you, Bolt Breath?"
He dodged again, avoiding a blast that struck something solid behind him.
Realising he had no other options, he raised the machine pistol and fired, but he hadn't been prepared for the kick of the weapon. The blast of fire almost tore it violently from his hands well before he had the chance to aim, sending it flying off target. Of the handful of shots that actually hit something, he was only marginally surprised to see the metal bounce off the skin, "...Shit."
His skin had hardened to an unnatural degree; the bullets bounced off like rain.
"I guess there's nothing for it then."
Adam thought he was being clever; punching things hard had always worked where bullets and blades hadn't. But as his fist made contact with flesh in what should have been a powerful gutshot, a jolt of electricity ran through him, forcing him to leap back and fall onto the ground in a painful crash. The pain was beyond anything he had ever endured. It stabbed through his mind like a thousand hot pokers, preventing all coherent thought. He barely had a few seconds to process the agony of the electric shock running through his system before he had been forced back, but it was enough. He scrambled away, hissing in pain as a stray bolt of lightning grazed his leg and burned into his aura.
The human energy battery laughed, cackling with the mania only the insane could muster.
"What the hell was that supposed to do?"
The faunus glared, gripping his injured hand. "Well, it was supposed to hurt!"
"Ok. New plan. You're fighting an enemy you can't touch. The usual 'hit it until it dies' approach isn't going to fly, and you can't run away. There has to be some way to put this guy down. Think!"
Dodging an incoming blast, he resisted the urge to massage his knuckles.
His opponent's skin was as hard as steel; it felt like punching a brick wall— and surging with electricity, but that couldn't apply to his entire body. There had to be a soft spot somewhere... Adam's chest was on fire, rising and falling with quick jabs of breath. He needed an actual plan and fast; his eye flickering around for something, anything, that could put his enemy down. Maybe wait him out until he ran out of juice? No. There was no telling how long that would take, and he was short on time as it was. One of the water towers! Maybe a shower would weaken the genetic freak show somehow?
But how to get him there?
A jagged bolt of artificial lightning shot from the creature's hands, narrowly singing Adam's sleeve as it struck the ground sending stone and dust everywhere.
"Hey!" The faunus yelled as he threw himself out of danger with a graceful dive and roll. "Lay off the jacket, you walking night light! This thing was hell to sew!"
The roar of inarticulate rage in response gave him a firm answer to his humble request, but there was something to be said for trying, he supposed.
But maybe he could find a way to use that ang— Another flash of lightning, this time a metaphorical one, tore through his head. He looked quickly down to the miniature crater the blast had left behind, before looking back at the tower with a gleaming smile.
That would do nicely.
One chance…
Adam knelt, gathering energy like a coiled spring. Suddenly, he rocketed up, kicking downward at full strength. The thug renewed its deadly hail of lightning, but Adam willed himself to dodge until he was almost upon him. He vaulted over the walking battery using his head as a stepping stone to gain height. It wasn't supposed to much more than irritate him, but with insulated soles, it was a good enough way to test his theory.
It worked.
His target spun, fury lacing his unnatural features to see Adam, now clinging to the edge of the tower with one hand, using his boots to maintain his grip. The tough wood under his hands would probably give him splinters, but that was the least of his concerns. Dangling from his perch, he beckoned with his hand. He had to time this right…
"C'mon now! Follow the leader! You can do it! Who's a good boy?"
Predictably, it wasn't long before the supercharged idiot threw another blast of lightning in his direction — only to find that Adam was no longer there.
"They make this too easy, I swear…"
Itwas a simple thing to avoid what came next. All he'd had to do was let go.
The thug's cocky smile was replaced by a pained scream as the pressurised deluge of water crashed down onto the rooftop. The resounding howls were like those of an animal, screaming and braying for blood as the water covered him. Credit to him, he was still moving, and the faunus couldn't help but have just a little respect for that. Just a little.
He roared, spittle flying from his mouth into the cool air. "Y-You son of a bitch! You're dead! Fucking dead!"
"Hold on a minute, Sparky. Gonna have to catch me, first." Adam slipped through his wild, wide and desperate blasts, doing his best to keep out of the expanding pool of electrified water.
"And the way I figure it…"
He kicked the ground with both feet, sending his legs flying into the air. The momentum pulled his lower body upward until he was briefly balanced upside down. "You can't catch…" Adam squeezed the trigger as his hands arced upwards. The barrel was just centimeters from his electrifying opponent , who was readying to fling his hands over his face, finally realising what the faunus had intended."What you can't see!" A stream of crimson bolts tore through the barrel, ripping apart it and the man's eye in an explosion of crimson.
The man was forced on his knees, screaming as tears of blood ran between his fingers. The internal bleeding would've been enough to kill most people, but he wasn't going to take chances, not with what Adam had just seen. The old hunger that bubbled in in his gut, to test himself, had started to bubble up in him, but it was quickly tempered. He couldn't afford to cut loose now.
He had a job to do.
He looked down at his fallen katana.
The blade, much to his surprise, had held; there wasn't a blemish to be found. The scarlet steel had endured under far more than he could have expected. But that was more than could be said for its handle. The traditional wrappings were scarred with electrical burns; the fabric simply being unable to handle the sheer voltage put through it. Worse still…. The handle itself; the wooden sleeve that housed the blade itself had a large jagged fissure running along its side, deep enough that he could physically see the metal within.
He picked up his broken sword, careful to only touch the wood, and doing his best to avoid puncturing himself on the rough, jagged splinters, before he locked it back into its sheath, giving a firm glare to his fallen foe.
The gun-shaped syringe… thing the thug turned monster had been carrying had fallen to the ground, and instinctually, Adam snatched it, picking it up with as much care as he could afford to spare. With a click, the empty cartridge inside came loose. Checking the other cylinders, he discovered fifteen more cartridges inside, all still filled with a thick red liquid.
What the hell was all that?
Had he injected himself with this stuff?
"Adam! There's a fire escape over here!"
He tucked the contraption into his jacket. There was time to meddle over that later. The swordsman had just taken a step towards Trifa when the roof door burst open again. Flashlight beams strobed through the air, first falling upon the circle of dead bodies before exploding out again, shouting filling the air. The cops seemingly took no heed of the large pool of water frothing up under their feet as they marched under the rooftop, guns at the ready.
"Nobody move! Everyone on their knees right now!"
Adam's mind raced. His peripheral caught Trifa behind him peeking over the smokestack. Probably wondering whether she should jump in, or find some way to flee. Couldn't say he'd blame her for the latter; this was his business after all, and she was in no condition to fight. And Miltia… It sounded like she was still out. He couldn't' pick up anything over the shouting, but he didn't think she was waking up, and she hopefully wasn't dead. If he wanted it to stay that way though… he needed to come up with something and fast.
Fighting was out. His sword was damaged to the point of unusability. His acquired pistol was probably out of ammo, and he'd be gunned down before he could draw. Unlike his last run in with a bunch of cops with guns, he didn't have the element of surprise, or a home turf advantage. These gunmen seemed a lot more well trained, which meant he probably wouldn't get a chance to nail one of them with a shuriken before the others could open fire, even if he could shift his weight and reach into his jacket unnoticed.
"Note to self; If I live through this, invest in a utility belt with pouches."
That same reasoning took Thorn out of the game too, but he knew for a fact he couldn't let himself get arrested. It would be a death sentence for himself, Charlotte and probably for Miltia too, which would just be another nail in Charlotte's coffin if she wasn't killed for his initial failure. And that was unacceptable. Not to mention, Mistral being what it was… There was a decent chance these cops were in someone's pocket. He needed a way out. Preferably one that didn't end in him being shot.
None of this was any good.
He needed a distraction.
"K.. K.. Killl yyouuu…"
As if on cue, Electric Meathead's speech was slurring as he somehow shambled his way into a semi upright position in the puddle, entirely ignorant of the rifles now firmly trained on his form. That much made sense, even if how the hell he was still alive didn't, since he damned sure couldn't see, but if he could hear…
That would do.
Thinking quickly, Adam smirked, bending his knees and saying the first words that came into his head.
"Eyes up, Sparky!"
The next few seconds were going to be crucial; a single mistake and his corpse would be an unrecognisable slab of charred meat.
There was a moment of confusion, of dizziness almost as the wounded idiot turned, sloshing the water around like a snarling dog to turn in Adam's direction. The faunus' grin didn't fade as he saw the realization and anger return to his face, as his veins seemed to glow a deadly blue. Tiny sparks fizzled in the water., a warning that the other men hadn't heeded. A warning that would spell their doom.
"DIIEEEE!"
The red haired faunus leapt from the edge of water as a web of current emanated from the man's form, eliciting wails of pain and agony. Adam had barely managed to throw himself backwards into solid brickwork before the lights once again surged, almost blinding him, had he not the foresight to close his eyes. In the fractions of a second before he did, one of the stray beams of the lightshow found him, casting his shadow across the wall of the opposite building. Adam saw his silhouette, - the darkness grew starker as the other beams landed behind his back.
He didn't want to believe what he had seen in that brief instant, a hallucination because of his addled mind, but it wasn't a sight he would soon forget. The man's muscles began to bubble and warp under his flesh, grotesque facial and muscular disfigurement. Grown men being forced on the ground by an unending torrent of electricity and, just for a moment, it's source screamed before his entire body dissipated into dust and was scattered into the wind.
It was no way to die.
Almost immediately, he felt someone tugging at his arm; Trifa no doubt, and he opened them again to see both the blue haired girl and a terrified pair of bright green eyes.
Adam looked up at the fire escape, then back down at the eerily quiet girl. He doubted she'd be able to climb that on her own. But they were out of options. "Hold on." He grabbed Miltia and slung her over his shoulder, jumping onto the ladder and grabbing hold with his remaining hand. She wasn't heavy, and she was struggling far less than he expected. He could only hope that good fortune held.
Climbing down was easier than either of them figured it would be; The joys of adrenaline, one supposed, but Adam knew the moment his boots hit street level that his struggles were far from over. Trifa did too from the look in her eyes, and the way she tried to force her way off the ground immediately after she crumpled the last few feet, her eyes hard and determined. Maybe there was hope for her yet.
He grabbed her arm and she blinked, looking back at him through tired eyes. She was drenched in dried blood- a parting gift from her extended stay no doubt... "We have to get out of here, before anyone else comes poking around."
"...Right."
Thankfully, the nighttime winter streets were darkened to almost black. His dark clothes helped to hide his suspicious appearance, as he continued to use back alleys and side streets to weave his way through the city. Trifa followed his lead, somehow attuned to every shift, every tension that she could see, every pause. It made a certain sense, Adam supposed. She had followed him this far.
The newly awakened Miltia on the other hand, naturally had other concerns.
"Let me go!" Her frustrated voice suddenly pierced the silence around them as she tried to get away from him.
"No." Came his simple reply, his hold on her too solid for her to win free.
Dragging the practically catatonic girl out of the alleys was a nightmare. There were no ways out behind the building; the cops had a cordon, and escaping that way would just land them in cuffs, or a body bag. They couldn't go to the streets; even if he had anything to disguise himself with, Trifa was still covered in blood and Miltia was damn near naked. Even he looked like he'd just exited a slaughterhouse. They'd ask questions, and if anyone else recognized her, then...
Staying in the open was a no go, not like this.
Which meant they'd have to circle back to the front.
Taking Miltia in both arms, he kept low, with Trifa at his back, crossing a stretch of paving that ran between the Widow and two housing blocks. Staying out of sight didn't seem that hard, and all was well until they finally reached the front, and the crowd that had seemingly gathered to watch.
The two faunus had expected the vast majority of the police to be inside the widow, participating in the raid, and indeed, from the sounds coming from inside, that was exactly what was happening.
What they hadn't counted on was some of the Spiders deciding to fight back, or the blockade that the cops had formed to keep the fighting from spilling outside and getting the lemmings hurt.
Even from here, they could hear the sounds of shouting and gunfire above them; breaking glass and screams reverberating into the night air. Naturally, everyone outside had decided to panic. Adam and Trifa were already running, tearing through the crowd when a chorus of screams and more gunshots sent civilians moving every which way. They reminded Adam of mice scattering, helpless and confused, not knowing where to flee.
Because asking for something to go his way for once was like asking for blood from a stone, wasn't it?
They ducked behind a row of parked cars as they tried to move through the crowd to little avail. There were two ancient cop cars parked outside the entrance, but several cars had been parked across the road to stop any vehicles from escaping. Realising the futility of their efforts, the trio emerged close to the headlamps of one police car that still had the engine running and were relieved to find it empty, but a serious-looking driver was propped on the bonnet, with a compact machine gun around his neck. In his hand was a radio, and he was talking rapidly into it.
Aware that they weren't going to get anywhere on foot, he crept around to the back of the police car and poked his head up over the boot. It wasn't ideal, but Adam figured that one against one with surprise on his side was about as good as the odds were likely to get.
The driver looked spaced out and he considered shooting him, grabbing his machine gun and making off in the car. But it would take time; his guns were busted, the cop's wasn't silenced and with more police doubtless on the way, it could turn into a full-blown chase.
He had to move fast.
Murphy always waited just long enough to let him think he'd gotten away with things, so of course he was right next to his victim when Miltia decided to scream through her webbed gag.
Adam moved suddenly to the right, sweeping his foot off the floor and up to the man's arm, before slamming him into the ground, quickly dragging his body behind the car to keep his fellow uniforms from seeing him. Fortunately their attention remained glued to the building, but Adam couldn't guarantee that for long.
Fortunately, the cop had left the engine of the four-wheel-drive running and it only took a matter of seconds to bundle the two inside, before hopping into the driver's seat and slamming the door.
He had difficulty with the controls of the vehicle. It was a older bulkier model: ten-spoke alloys and a demon of an engine. Adam pulled a heavy seatbelt across his waist and hit the start button. He knew full well he had no clue what he was doing, but there was too much adrenaline flowing for him to get hung up over it.
Yes, he had, he thought, no experience whatsoever to speak of with cars or driving, but it was a matter of necessity by this point. Getting away on foot was a pipe dream, Miltia was in no condition to drive, and he'd be lying if he said he trusted Trifa fully on any level just yet.
Besides. How hard could it be?
Charlotte could do it.
That errant thought was the last to pass through his mind, as he desperately shifted through his mind for every bit of information he knew about how to handle a vehicle….
"Can you drive?" Trifa had the gall to ask at this crucial moment — and was met with an admittedly deserved look of bewilderment and annoyance from Adam.
"Can you?" Adam snapped, slamming on the gas so hard that her arm was nearly ripped off holding onto the door. Unfortunately, this sent the car flying into reverse, the engine roaring as Trifa's head bounced against the dashboard and the vehicle itself slammed into a parked car with a brutal crunch of metal.
It had also drawn attention from the officers around him. Trifa swore as the car slammed back down to the pavement. "Slow the hell d-!"
He swung the tall car into a wide arc. A sedan car blasted its horn, as the driver slammed her brakes to avoid shunting them in the rear bumper.
"Whoops," Adam said, as he floored the accelerator and began slowly picking up speed. He looked back over his shoulder. All four tyres screeched as he did a backwards U-turn through the traffic. If the cops hadn't seen this manoeuvre, they certainly heard the horns of two approaching cars blasting as they swung out of his way, and the crunch of metal as the rear of the SUV made contact with something solid. One car sideswiped the metal barrier in the centre of the road, making a shower of orange sparks as it juddered to a halt.
"Dammit," Adam shouted, as he pushed the stick back into drive and rammed the gas pedal, heading into the oncoming traffic.
The police cars in the roadblock sounded their sirens and began moving towards them, as Adam noticed a break in the metal barrier and ploughed across the central reservation onto the correct side of the road.
With a sharp squeal of rubber on asphalt, the redhead spun the wheel and broke through the first wall of cars — the car jolted forward, practically leaping across the road in a sudden burst of speed. The rear windshield exploded, shards like bullets peppering the interior leather. Adam swerved, barely able to control the vehicle as it slammed into the side of another parked car, before flying out onto the road.
The car spun, wheels trailing smoke, around the corner of a street. At this point Adam wasn't even sure of where he was going, but damned if he was going to let that stop him at this point. With a quick jerky movement, he elbowed the gun out of his lap and into Trifa, the suddenness of it somehow making her jump; no doubt she was still trying to manage the (accidental) concussion he'd just given her.
He'd apologize later.
"Shoot anything behind you that tries to get close."
Caught off guard, Trifa nearly dropped the gun as it fell into her lap, shooting a hole in the floor right next to her foot trying to regain the correct grip. The recoil threw her off instantly. The single shot caused Adam to glance at her in between trying to keep control of the car, perplexed that she used it only once. "What's wrong, why aren't you shooting?" He called over the din of the engine and chaos.
"I…I don't know how,"
"Just point and pull the damn trigger! !" He couldn't believe she would balk now after what he had seen her do.
More swearing filled the back and the passenger seat on his blindside. Adam ignored it.
Right! Swerve! BRAKE!
Gunshots sounded out, Trifa finally returning fire on the officers giving chase. From the tone and volume of the swearing, she wasn't making much headway.
Their pursuers swerved left and right, dodging bullets. It was really beginning to piss him off, and that was before they took out guns of their own.
The blue haired faunus yelped when one pulled out a pistol and fired over her head. The bullet went wide, and Adam was starting to think the shooter hadn't been aiming at him at all.
That theory, of course, was proven when another car came up along the left and fired directly into the side of the window.
Miltia's cry was so loud even Adam could hear it from his position, and it spurred him to action. He yanked the steering wheel. Tires screamed in agony, smoke and burnt rubber filling the cabin. "Hold on, hold on, hold on!" he chant-screamed, hoping he heard her. Hoping she car leapt forward, swerving around three sedans and a motorcycle, all of which made the right decision in deciding on pulling out of the way.
Unfortunately, more space for them meant more space for the squad cars, too.
"Attention occupant of car fourty-eight! The radio scratched into life on the dashboard. Attention!, you are driving stolen police property, pull over immediately and give yourself up! This is your first and only warning-"
Adam quickly ripped it out, snapping a wire and tossed it into the backseat. The vehicle shuddered.
"Who the hell taught you to drive?!"
He didn't bother dignifying that with an answer. As he got faster, the car started rocking and pebbles were clattering against the bottom of the car.
Things did not get any better when he realized that he had just turned onto a one-way street — going in the wrong direction. To say it got a little hairy would be an understatement.
He felt a shot of adrenaline as he swung hard to the right and stamped the brake pedal. He avoided a pickup, which had swerved the other way, but now Adam was heading for an oncoming truck. He desperately twirled the steering wheel back to the left. The nose turned in, but the violent maneuver made the back end swing out, resulting in something dinging off the rear end of the car, and a crunch of metal.
The only communication was via the medium of car horns and obscene hand gestures, and judging by the screams increasing in both volume and pitch, his passengers were not big fans either.
Cars swerved to either side, people shouting and screaming as a police sedan and and three other cruisers came barreling through. The car jerked from side to side, Adam once again overcorrecting to avoid the incoming vehicles — and inadvertently crushing a biker against the side of a sedan and a truck. They fell away in cries of squealing rubber and metal.
Trifa winced.
She had faced death many times over these past few months, but the driving she encountered now was one of the most nerve-shredding experiences of her life, and not solely because of the lunatic she was sitting next to. Mistral had produced more than its fair share of motorsport heroes over the years and it quickly became clear to her in this instant that most of the population of Mistral believed that they too were racing drivers.
The only people more suicidal than the people driving cars were the lunatics on motorbikes and scooters, who wove through the lethal steel scrum with the sort of reckless abandon that would make one assume that the riders were somehow invulnerable. Then came the taxi and bus drivers, who had clearly learnt from bitter experience that the only law on this road was survival of the fittest. It was like being on the world's busiest and most dangerous race track during the annual psychopath convention, a fact that was compounded by the minor issue of the getaway driver of their little band not even having the beginning of a clue what he was doing.
Despite the opposing traffic, they crossed that block in what felt like in the blink of an eye. The car swerved as Adam turned into the right lane, now back in the flow.
With the pistol, Trifa popped off a single burst of fire at the car directly behind them. The first one missed but the second one landed in the tire, deflating it. The driver lost control and crashed, run over by the car that had been too close behind him.
Two cars left. They weren't trying to kill them; Adam had figured that much. Each car had at least one gun of their own; the gunfire pinging off the numbers of the car gave him that impression, but they didn't aim it at him. No, they pointed it at the back window, trying to get at its occupants.
So far they hadn't gotten that close, but Adam didn't want to think about that possibility right now.
The cop cars were fast, the drivers experienced, their reflexes too quick—Trifa probably couldn't hit them if they saw it coming, and Adam was mostly relying on luck and traffic to take care of them. Missing another five shots, the gun was starting to sound a little light in her hands. If she used up all the ammo, then there would be nothing she could do. Adam could only growl in frustration; he needed a different tactic. But what?
Cars and people raced past. It was just a blur at the edge of Adam's vision, and he had to squint against the wind to see where they were heading.
He looked over his shoulder instead.
Adam saw what was going to happen before she did. His brain had made the calculations; the lead car in the pursuit was going far too fast to stop. The car flipped on its rear bumper before falling on its side — the two cruisers behind ramming into it, going too fast and effectively blocking traffic.
His face still flushed from the heat, Adam could only watch on as they left the scene of carnage behind. No way those cops could have survived something like that. He flopped back, all energy drained, although his hands were still shaking from the adrenaline. Or maybe the freezing-ass weather.
"I-is it over?" asked Trifa next to him, teeth chattering.
"Yeah, that's it. That's all of them." Adam said, half-way laughing thanks to a combination of exhaustion and complete and utter denial of the shock he was going through at this moment. He ran a hand over his face, coming up to prop his wrists above the dashboard and inhaling deeply. He couldn't remember how he even remembered to breathe that entire time, because it felt like his heart was about to explode due to lack of oxygen. "For now."
Trifa chuckled, although it sounded a little frantic. "What the hell, man. What the actual hell."
Looking over, however, Adam realized that he had taken their circumstances far easier than his passengers. Miltia was still slumped over the rear seat. No signs of any new blood, and his vision was sharp enough to catch the rise and fall of her chest, bound beneath several globs of webbing. When the hell had she had the time to web her to her seat? Next to him, the other faunus was positively vibrating, almost sobbing, a wound-up spring of stress and fear. In truth, he was shocked by the way she had turned into an emotional wreck. It looked pathetic, but the way she was playing with the empty gun with an almost low chuckle made it almost unnerving. For the first time, Adam truly felt the presence of a personality of someone whom Sienna would have deigned to take under her wing. The woman had a great deal of charisma, leadership skills, and could feign affection with the best of them, but at her heart, she was as much a misanthrope as Adam ever was. It was probably what made… what had made them so close.
Straightening up in his own seat, the red headed bounty hunter leaned against the door, frowning at her. "Still alive?"
"What? Me? Yeah, I'm fine," Trifa scoffed, waving a hand in sarcastic dismissal, although she was trembling so badly the effect was lost. "I mean, I was so scared I almost pissed myself, but you know. First car chase or whatever. Go fucking Team."
They were not pursued as the car veered back onto the asphalt road, hurtling into the darkness beyond, though both of them knew it couldn't last long. She looked up, once she finally managed to get control of herself again, but by then, he wasn't listening, trying to picture a memory of Mistral's streets that would not serve him. He knew vaguely where he was, and where he had been, but even as his hands gripped the steering wheel, it took a few achingly long seconds to process his route.
"So…."
As Adam put his foot down, the steering wheel shuddered violently in his hands. He nudged the pedal more gently and the car picked up a little more speed again.
'What's wrong?' Trifa asked.
"No idea." Adam said, as he fought to keep the car going straight. "But I did hear something go crunch a little earlier over all the gunshots. By the looks of things, I'm guessing it wasn't just a pedestrian."
They were moving slightly slower now, and a truck was closing up behind at double the speed. The driver blasted his horn as he swung into another lane to overtake. Adam tried giving the accelerator another dab. The steering wheel almost ripped his arm off as the car veered dangerously towards the side of the passing truck.
"It's fine when I try to slow up, but I can't put any real power down for long."
"What are we gonna do?" Trifa asked.
"Gods know." Adam said, shaking his head. "But, I'm pretty sure we're certainly not gonna get anywhere near the safe house with this scrap heap."
"Safe house?"
"Two syllable words really shouldn't be that hard for you to process. You sure you didn't get shot in the head?"
If the elder faunus had the peripheral vision, he'd have noticed the way her features tightened, and her fists clenched in her lap. Even so, it wasn't hard to miss the sound of her grinding her teeth against each other, even over the low growl of the struggling engine. At another time he might have smirked, drawing petty satisfaction from successfully getting under her skin so throughly.
Instead he elected to ignore her, dismissing her fit of pique without a glance.
"The cops don't know we've had car trouble. As long as nobody discovers this car, at my guess, we should have an hour or two before anybody comes looking. The flooded district isn't far from here, and if we can dump it there, I'm pretty confident that they won't bother dredging for it."
"What's the plan when we get there?"
"...You're welcome to get out and walk now, Blue."
His offer was met with a predictable silence.
"Yeah." Adam rolled his eye, turning down into a dark wide alley ahead. "Thought so."