The knocking on her door was not helping Revy to sleep. The worry of whether Ethan was dead or alive was making it impossible anyways, so there wasn't any reason for her not to get up and see who it was. She opened one eye long enough to locate her pants, and stood up as she pulled them on. Once she looked less like a slut, she went over to the door.
"I hope the asshole banging on my door has a fucking good reason to," she growled as she struggled with the lock.
Benny was standing there, "They found them."
"They, are they ok," her brain fully engaged at the news.
"Yeah. Well, at least ok for this place. They aren't dead, and they are on their feet. They should reach Chang's in an hour or two, once they have gone through a checkup."
Revy let her head fall back as she took a deep breath. She might actually have to learn how to pray and thank God for this. He might not even smite her for all the bullshit that she pulled most of the time.
She turned back into her room and grabbed her holsters and struggled to get them on as she started looking for her boots. She found one, but the other just wasn't showing up until Benny pointed up at the ceiling fan. She wasn't sure how it got up there, or why it was there, but she picked up a random AR18 she had in a corner and managed to knock it down and got it pulled on.
"So, I have known you for how long, and I have never seen inside anywhere you live, even having lived in the same building as you for almost two years now. It looks, way neater than I would expect," he said.
A tap on his shoulder made him turn his head to see Heidi sign, "Thank you, it isn't easy. It also can be traumatizing at times. The things I have seen in this room."
"I didn't see what she said, but let's go. I want to be there when they get there," Revy pushed past them.
Heidi shrugged, "At least she isn't press checking while she barns out."
"Barns," Benny looked at her confused.
"Oh fuck it. I'm following her," Heidi was a little red as she turned down the hall.
Once they had gotten in the GTO they didn't have much to say. It was hard to drive with the number of people that were displaced from the occupied area crowding into the street. This was something that they had never seen in the city before. Even when there was devastation, people just lived like they usually did, and found a way to pick up the pieces.
Strangely, Revy was the one paying the most attention. As a kid, any kind of foreign invasion seemed like some weird bit of fiction. The U.S. was all but invulnerable to invasion, given two oceans, and that there were more guns than there were people. There wasn't an army one that could deal with irregular forces made up of hunters with deer rifles once they hit the woods.
She wasn't any form of a scholar, but she had heard news stories of refugees that were displaced from an entire country. News stories about refugee camps being massacred because where they stopped and the camps built offended someone who had the money and a private army. How could anyone live like that?
"You ok Revy? You seem way too interested in these people. Are you trying to figure out a way to make some money off of it," Benny asked as he came to a stop while he waited for a group to wander out of the road.
"I, don't know how to see this," was all she said.
"What do you mean," he asked.
Revy grimaced, "You don't see it as weird?"
"For this city? I mean, it was bound to happen at some point given who holds the power around here. I just expected it to be a dust up between Chang and Balalaika that caused it, not a literal Russian invasion."
"That's just the thing, the idea of an invasion. We grew up in the states, who the fuck even came close to having the balls, let alone the equipment, to invade? No one in Chinatown ever really feared having the Reds storm Rockaway Beach. Who would have ever dreamed it was even possible? Seeing this, it's, disturbing," Revy felt a shiver run down her spine.
"I don't guess, I ever thought about it. I thought that New York City was crowded though, so why is this bothering you? Wait, why is anything bothering you" he looked at her from the corner of his eye.
Revy looked back over the mass of people. Why was this bothering her? This, didn't make sense to her now that it was brought up. She didn't care about people, they meant nothing to her.
"I don't know, maybe Ethan has been rubbing off on me. For a certified bad ass, he is a bit of a limp dick, you know it," she laughed it off.
Heidi held a note where they could see it, "Can't be too limp given Hannah. Though how hard it can get with him carrying a lamppost in his pants is a good question."
"Wait, what the hell are you talking about," Benny suddenly had a look on his face of slight inadequacy.
"Yeah, you haven't heard about this little whore's prank? The night before Rock domed the dude trying to kill Ethan, we got completely fucked, and had no brain activity. She stripped us, and put us in the same bed, in an empty room, and tied the door closed. We woke up having a complete fit, trying to figure out what was going on, and if we had banged. I am not kidding, I have screwed a couple of black dudes in my life, and he put them to shame, big time. He would have left me bed ridden for a week. I keep making fun of him for it. It's fun," she sat back in her seat and chuckled.
"Oh, wow. Uh, that, I... I should probably make sure that Jane never sees him naked. So, wait, I thought black guys were supposed to all be dickasaurus? Has porn been lying to me for most of my life," Benny looked down at his crotch.
"Benny, why the fuck do you think any of that shit is real? Most of the chicks are more plastic than they are human. I don't know if they have anyway to do that with cocks, but I wouldn't be surprised. Most of those mutants are specifically chosen for it. I have to wonder how the fuck they hunt them down. How much do you think it pays to go into public bathrooms and look at dicks while someone takes a piss, I think I could make a killing at it," her chuckles became louder.
Benny looked back up to start driving again, "They don't pay enough for me to do it. It is one thing to look at it on a screen, a whole other to see it in in the flesh. I wonder how those guys don't have blood pressure issues when they pop a hardon? It really looks like it would be dangerous."
"Who knows? Maybe people like that have more blood in them than anyone else. Hey, what the fuck is going on over there? That's Rock, what the fuck, who is he yelling at in that alley, why are all those dudes Ethan's old man brought there? Pull over," she was already opening the door before Benny could even hit the brake.
She pushed her way through, ignoring a couple of the soldiers groping her ass on the way. What was happening with Rock was more important, given that he didn't do a lot of random yelling down alleys. This was a whole new situation.
What she saw scared her. There was very little that did, but this sight would scare anyone who knew the two people. Ethan had a look of pure, unadulterated hate and anger on his face, as he held Roberta over three foot off the ground against a wall. It was apparent that it was taking every bit of strength she had to keep his hand open enough to breathe.
"Rock, what the fuck is happening here," she managed to reach Rock.
Rock looked over at her, "I don't fucking know. Garcia asked me to meet them to make sure that Roberta was ok. Everything seemed ok at first, and then one of the Sentinel guys bumped her and knocked her glasses off. The next thing I knew, Ethan had her against the wall and has been trying to choke her for a couple of minutes now. It just fucking, happened. I don't know why, and he hasn't said anything."
"Just, how the fuck is he even doing this? She is the scariest fucking thing to ever show itself in Roanapur. The fucking murder twins were nothing compared to her. He hasn't said a fucking thing since this started?"
"Nothing. It's like he turned into a fucking robot. He literally has just been through a war zone, and I don't what the fuck might be going on in his head. I can't get through to him," Rock threw his hands up.
Revy looked back at the two of them. Ethan's eyes looked like they were blood red. She had never seen him this angry, and she had seen him get angry. In the entire time she had known him, she had never been afraid of him, but it would have taken a vegetable not to be afraid of him right then. She could see every vein in his arm as he tried to close his hand around Roberta's neck, the smaller woman barely keeping the hand open.
"Ethan, what the utter fuck is wrong with you? Are you trying to set off a fucking murder robot? Let her go while she is still able to think," Revy yelled at him.
The man's head lolled over toward her, "Manuel."
"Who the fuck are you talking about? That is the fucking Bloodhound of Valencia, you heard of her when you were humping monkeys in the jungle over there, didn't you?"
"She, killed, Manuel," the man said, his voice cold, and dead.
"Who cares, how many people have you fucking killed? Just let her go," Revy didn't know how she wasn't backing down, but this was not the Ethan Haines that was like a brother to her.
"She killed the first person, that I ever felt wanted by. The first person to ever be kind to me. The first person to ever give me something to look forward to in life. She killed the man that was the first to treat me like his son," the hate and anger that filled Ethan's words made most of the assembled men step back.
"The old man that taught you to be a merc? News flash dumbshit, mercs die. If she did it, who gives a fuck? If it wasn't her, it might have been some random numbnuts in a bar somewhere. Why the fuck does it matter who killed him? Be thankful you actually had him, and that you lived to remember his wasted ass. That probably would mean more to him, than choking a bitch to death," Revy didn't know where any of this was coming from, but as she said it, she actually was believing it a little.
Roberta had managed to jam her fingers between Ethan's and some of the muscles in her neck that were strong enough to hold up to the pressure. She had not seen it coming, and it wasn't because of her eyesight. She had never seen anyone else move like that, save the people that had been in the same group she had belonged to. The group that Manuel had trained.
With the slight reprieve while Revy was yelling at him, she started trying to reach into her bra to get to the picture. She was hoping that if he saw it, and saw Manuel in it, it might make him back off long enough for her to tell him the truth of what happened. The problem was that his hand was in the way of her getting her hand in her shirt, and she could feel the photographic paper rubbing against the side of her nipple.
She was starting to have a harder time keeping her mind clear. He had a really good grip, tight enough he could have cracked her skull if he had grabbed that instead of her neck. He must have been a really good student for as short of a time that he had been with Manuel, because the old man had trained her group for years, and she was the only one that was still around, and not for much longer if she couldn't give him a reason to let go.
Finally he did seem to notice her flailing trying to get her hand in her shirt, "You stash something in there when I couldn't fucking see you," his voice was still dead as he reached up with his free hand and grabbed the collar of her top.
The violence that he pulled back with was impressive. She hadn't felt his fingers go behind the strap of her bra, but he ripped everything down the front of her body. He didn't seem to notice the picture as it fluttered to the ground, nor did the sight of her bare breast seem to catch his attention. The hatred he had for her, was very strong if it was able to block out a naked boob in his face.
Everyone surrounding them was shuffling uneasily. They were even less prepared for the situation, than she had been. In a normal situation, they would have had the barrel of a rifle pressed against the back of his head, and ordering him to drop her. The issue was that he was apparently the son of their boss, and had been ordered to find him and make sure that he got back to him in good health.
Rock was the one that moved though. He had noticed the picture flutter to the ground and went and picked it up. He looked down at it. An older man, two teenage boys, and three teenage girls. It took him a second to recognize Roberta, meaning that the picture must have been taken during her earlier days with F.A.R.C.. He turned it over and saw Rosarita Cisneros written on it, but that wasn't the name that caught his attention.
Manuel Escoberas, RIP 1986.
It couldn't be. Ethan had said that he saw him die.
"Ethan, Manuel's last name was Escoberas, wasn't it," he asked, finally saying something that the man acknowledge, even if it was only a stare.
"Rock, we don't have time for this," Revy said out of the side of her mouth.
"What year did he die," Rock asked.
"1982," they wasn't much effort put into the words.
Rock looked at the year on the picture. 1986. Four years later. Was there a possibility?
"Was this him," he held the picture up where Ethan could see it.
Roberta crumpled as she was abruptly dropped. She took extremely deep breaths, trying to get enough oxygen in her lungs to start replacing what was being deprived to her. It was still going to be a moment before she was able to talk, but at least she wasn't about to be killed at that exact moment.
Ethan almost ripped the picture from Rock's hand. He studied the face in the old picture, trying to find some evidence that it wasn't the same person. There wasn't any denying it though. Looking at that picture, he knew every wrinkle and scar on the man's face. The crazed eyes of someone who had almost fallen into being nothing but a thinking beast. This was Manuel, there wasn't any denying it.
"How?"
No one answered, or was even sure if he was asking anyone in particular. He just stood there, his eyes glued to the old piece of paper. He stood there like a tree, the only thing separating him from a statue being the slight expansion and contraction of his body as he breathed.
He finally turned back to where Roberta had pulled herself up against a wall. He walked to her, and squatted down in front of her. He didn't say anything for a long time. He was probably having a hard time trying to figure out what to ask, or even get his thoughts in any kind of order, given that part of his understanding of the world had been completely shattered.
"You put two in his chest," he finally said.
"Chinese, ammo," Roberta managed to choke out.
It didn't mean much to anyone else there, but it seemed to mean something to Ethan. He stood and, he just walked away without another word.