pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq
I took my position alongside the mansion. Stealth was the goal and it was the dead of night which made my semblance a no-no. My semblance was the antithesis of stealth. I waited next to Neapolitan for a pair of guards to approach the same blind corner we'd snagged Nickel from and killed his buddy.
Random chance that we ended up with Nickel and depositing the other guard's body in an alley. I suppose Nickel ended up in an alley too so there's that.
A patrol was coming up.
I activated my semblance at the last second and spent it leaping out and grabbing one of the pair. "Hey-gck." I broke his neck by using my semblance on the move. He had aura and I just went right through it. It was blue colored and small compared to the flare of my semblance. A double flash of blue accompanied the sound of breaking bones and cartilage.
The shattered moon shone its soft light down overhead, giving everything an otherworldly appearance.
Neapolitan brought her's down much more stealthily. She smirked up at me to rub it in while she choked the dude she was holding to death or unconsciousness.
We dragged them into the mansion's blind corner. I stepped up, jumped off the wall, and pulled a security camera off the wall and crushed it with my bare hands. The metal crumpled beneath my fingers.
"How long do you figure we have?"
She held up five fingers.
I nodded in relative agreement. It could be as many as five minutes. That wasn't all that much time all things considered. In a fight it was practically forever but for a series of fights as we infiltrated? Not so much. I started charging up my next Limit Break. When we moved we moved together like we'd practiced it. In truth we were both relatively skilled hunters. This just came par for the course. I pulled my longsword and tried to jimmy the mansion doors open with the tip of the shorter, thinner blade.
Neapolitan teleported up high on the mansion walls and disabled another security camera. Whoever was supposed to be watching those wasn't doing a good job. Or malfunctions were common in which case Don Corneo deserved this. He deserved what we were about to bring down on him.
I struggled with the lock. The long blade I was using wasn't designed for this kind of play. In the end I resolved to simply cut it at the lock. I stepped back, took careful aim, and swept my sword down at the door. I hit the lock dead on and prayed I wouldn't trigger an electric alarm system.
Cink.
The door opened and we trickled inside. No alarms went off. Maybe it was luck or maybe there wasn't one set up at the door. Could be a silent alarm, too.
Inside there were places the plaster had been redone recently. They stood out amongst the neater walls as the places most likely to conceal explosives. I entered into a fine atrium, nowhere near as large as that of Haven's. There were five guards there. I brought my sword to bear and Neapolitan silenced them with her semblance.
We were on them. I brought the longsword around and neatly divided one's shoulders. I side-flipped through the air, low to the ground, both hands on Crocea Mors with the shield still on my back and cut into another with two rapid horizontal swings.
One of them was trying to speak into a microphone at his collar. Barking out commands for reinforcements or similar but it came out hushed. I cut him down with a piercing movement that ran him through near the heart.
The mansion's quarters were tight. I thought it would be best to just use the longsword for now.
Neo killed one by stabbing down through the collar bone down into the chest cavity. A spray of bullets chased her and silently shattered a large chandelier. It fell to the ground and scattered across the ground. She backflipped and cartwheeled back away from the arms fire, her eyes drawn in focus.
Her gaze fluttered. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her eyelids moved fast as she tried to concentrate. I got between her and the shooter. Blocking her with my body and shielding her from the damage.
I was on to the last man by then. I picked him up with one hand and drove my sword through his chest with the other. My shield was slightly folded in sheath form on my back and my breastplate shone in the darkness.
Things were going well. The current objective was to get at least Neo into the Don's office. That was our win condition. Our lose condition was getting caught too soon and being forced to fight all the guards and wading through the minefield. In that case we wouldn't even get the Don. He'd be sealed away inside his little vault and not even Limit would let me get access to him.
The chandelier had scattered glass all across the floor and it crunched under my boots as Neo let sound return to the room. Her semblance was fucking crazy. Though mine was a little like that too. Mine was about damage and raw skill. Her's, on the other hand, had utility in spades.
She could put up both visual and auditory illusions and had at the very least some kind of short range teleportation feature. Maybe longer than I thought, but she could do about fifty feet in my estimation. That's the biggest cap I'd seen on her doing it.
She was how I was going to win this thing.
Soft blue light preambled through the atrium and windows. The moon was high tonight and light trickled into the now dark mansion from outside.
"You ready?" I whispered.
She just gave me an eager grin and we proceeded through the house. There was a choke point ahead with more guards. Neo hushed them and I started cutting them down.
This room still had the lights on unlike the atrium and the blood was plainly visible in the soft yellow lights as it splashed across a fine painting.
I tried to cut through flesh and met aura. I sent the man stumbling even if I didn't kill him. He fell down to his knees and tried to rise. A wordless shout at his lips.
I thrust up under the ribs of another and charged a little. My semblance activated. I used the speed and strength to slice another nearly in half. He fell down in a silent scream.
I came back to the one with aura and I spent my semblance on a whirlwind of attacks. The same one I'd done to Cinder. His head hit the ceiling hard enough to crack it and he died from the trauma I put his torso through before I flung him. His red aura shattered under my assault. I'd perfectly timed the arrival of my semblance to deal with this more difficult foe.
Machine gun fire peppered my back and I lanced out with a leap and reached out, grabbed the man and tossed him behind me into Neapolitan's waiting arms. She put the small blade into his throat and beamed as he died in her loving arms.
I looked around and spotted a security camera. I pointed it out to Neo as I sliced the last guard down and she destroyed it.
We had to be fast. This whole operation was speed dependent. Otherwise the Don might start setting off his explosives and calling his men enforce. Neo drew back from where she put her blade through the camera.
Anything could give us away. Missing camera feeds or guards which didn't check in when they were supposed to. Plus someone could come across the bodies we were leaving behind in our wake. I figured that might give us away, too.
There was a plan B. I had an explosive that might be able to crack the vault open but without knowing what kind of locks were on it I'd had to make a guess with the fire dust crystal.
Neo had watched me rig the thing up with rapt attention back in the motel room with the dead man still on the chair.
"Just in case."
I'd said.
"Might be able to blow our way into the thing. You think you can teleport through a crack in the wall?"
She'd just nodded. It was good to have back up plans. If nothing else we'd make the Don uncomfortable and he'd probably be loath to call the police and have them go through his house. The last thing he wanted was cops around.
We might be able to wait him out. He'd have to come out eventually. Of course if his men overwhelmed and killed us it would be over.
Killed me, rather. Neo could just escape.
For now she was sticking things out with me because I was fun and I might get her that shot at Cinder. If that changed I'd be willing to bet she'd be gone.
We battled our way through a hushed corridor next. Neo's parasol was bullet proof, probably with webbed Titania. And she led the charge with her legs. A flurry of kicks broke the lead sentry's neck. I leapt over her and brought my sword down on the next. I went right through the gun he tried to raise to shield himself and bit deep at the collar. He went down.
If our map was accurate, that just left the Don's office ahead.
He was the first to notice us in the next well lit room.
I rolled into the room and thrust forward into a guard's stomach only to meet aura. I stood and slashed at him once, twice, thrice at the neck until I got through. Neo handled a guard with an electric stick by using his own charging momentum to fling him into the ceiling.
The electric door to the vault started to slowly close.
It was big with these metal knobs which would undoubtedly be hard to blast through or force open.
The Don was on the other side in a disheveled office with a mahogany table hammering away at a button.
Limit activated as I sliced into the stomach of another aura ridden sentry. I'd get through the last two of them eventually but not soon enough.
I used my great strength and an arcing wide swung to clock one in the head. He dropped like a sack of rocks from the trauma to his head. Then I stepped forward and smashed the pommel of my sword into the nose of the last hard enough to drive it back into his head.
I flicked my weapon into the door to wedge it open. The Titania in my sword groaned but held. The metal really was incredible. Maybe a bit of edge warping but nothing I couldn't get repaired if the rest of this op went well.
I gestured to Neo and she flickered inside through the tiny gap in the door. She pulled the Don's hand off the button and hit a different one and the door started to open.
I strode inside and Neo unhushed us.
"So," I said with heavy footfalls. "Should I tell you how this plays out or let you guess?" He leaned away from us with fear in his eyes.
I pressed a button with an arrow to the left on his desk, the same way the door was going and the mechanical vault closed behind me, reversing a second time on electric hinges.
Wide eyed, he was locked in with us.
pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq
I examined the edge warp on Crocea Mors with a scowl. There were some things that were sacred, some things that should remain as they were. For gods' sake if my mind and body weren't one of them then my sword should be.
The warp wasn't severe enough that the blade wouldn't sheath or anything. And it wasn't in a bad location per se, about midway between the hilt and tip. It could be worse, I decided.
I looked from the blade's edge down at Don Corneo.
From the corner of my eye, a shadow jumped out at me and I turned swiftly, prepared for more of a fight.
There was a secondary security deposit box at the edge of the room. At a guess that was where all the Lien was. Maybe the adrenaline just had me jumpy, was all. I hoped I wasn't going to start seizing. That would be pretty bad right here and now.
I put my sword in the shield and put my face down in Don Corneo's. I said nothing.
"Please…" he begged from his comfy looking chair.
"Listen, my friend here likes to torture people. She likes it a lot. She even gets off on it a little. A bit like you do with honey bee costumes."
He looked over at Neo and she nodded, eyes full of mirth as she loomed over him in those heels. A wicked smile etched in her face.
He shuddered. Maybe he didn't get off on those costumes anymore. "Wait… You haven't even told me what you want…"
I was maybe letting him stew in it.
"You're going to give us all your money. All of it. Every last Lien."
"You don't understand," he pleaded. "Cash is pretty much all I have right now. I'll be destitute."
"You hear that?" I asked Neo. "Cash rich and asset poor."
She smirked up at me. I bent back down over Corneo.
"You have your body. You have your life. You want to keep them?" I pulled out my explosive and stuck it to the smaller vault. Then I slammed his head right next to it.
"Oh please. Oh please. Gods please don't."
"See I don't really need your cooperation. I don't really need you to open this little vault. I can open it and your head at the same time. I can hand you over to my friend here and she'll cut your balls off and she'll like it too. There's only one way you get clear of this mess alive."
I wasn't really going to set it off while we were locked in this airtight compartment. But I could always open the door a little and give it some space. I could maybe survive an explosion like that. Maybe. But I would be none too fresh afterward and we still needed to fight our way out of here.
"Please I'll be nothing. I'll be no one."
"Cut his fingers off."
She held his hand out against the vault wall and drew her blade from her parasol.
"Fine! Fine! I'll open it, I'll do it. Just don't hurt me. Please!"
She cut him anyway and he screamed. His thumb dropped to the floor at my feet. I held his head against the little vault while Neo worked at his hand.
I looked at his desk. It seems the Don got a fancy looking new scroll, too, after Weiss made off with his last one.
"And I want your scroll, too."
He whimpered quietly.
"I'll do it. I'll do it please no more. Please."
Suffice to say we got the safety deposit box open and made off like criminals. I let Neo kill him too, couldn't let him start blowing things up on us or calling his guards.
There were millions of Lien in the little vault. We even had to leave some behind just because we couldn't carry it all.
"A thousand Lien for you." I counted out. "And one thousand for me."
She grinned down at me while I worked. Something nostalgic in her smile. Maybe a little wistful.
I let her think what she wanted. It'd be only cruel to crush her dreams and memories.
pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq
-WG