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Post by jack on May 29, 2016 2:36:06 GMT
Can't die here.He inhaled, deeply. It did nothing to help him catch his breath. His head hurt, and his heart was still racing in his ribcage. He couldn't die here. What kind of fucking story would it be if he just dropped dead here, because he couldn't keep running away from this guy who thought he was about to get killed? Fucker had what looked like a machine gun with him, and as if that wasn't bad enough -- he had opened fire. Yeah, what a surprise. Thankfully, the bullets had missed him. Maybe the guy was drunk, or something. Or maybe he just enjoyed seeing a kid run around alleyways like a rat trapped in a maze. Naturally, no-one gave a shit. Guns were commonplace in the Factory District. People came to have a good time and got attacked, sky is blue. People came to attack people and had a good time instead, grass is green. His heart in his throat, and his legs barely just holding him up, Jack dragged himself out from the alleyway and into temporary relief in a shipping container. aegis |
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Post by aegis on May 30, 2016 2:51:19 GMT
He doesn't know much but he does know this; anyone can die, anywhere and anytime. How many times has he been the proof of that fact? The count is beyond him, but it remains unassailable fact. Another fact he knows: the man with the gun is going to die today. Aegis doesn't know why, or what he's done to attract Spectre's wrath, and neither does he care, but he's going to kill him. This is his mission. He crouches on top of a shipping container and watches the man follow a boy into it. There's the sound of laughter like cold metal. Aegis slips off the edge and lands heavily on the pavement. There's cracks in the concrete where his feet were when he steps forward and slips inside after him like a ghost. The man doesn't notice him. He's facing the wrong way, with his gun slung carelessly at his hip and his eyes on the kid he followed. He's talking, but the words are white noise to Aegis. Inconsequential. He unsheathes the knife strapped to his thigh. jack |
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May 30, 2016 12:59:02 GMT
Post by jack on May 30, 2016 12:59:02 GMT
Jack didn't like playing a game of cat-and-mouse. It made him feel like cheese instead of either animal; laid out on a faulty mousetrap, waiting for something to just grab him and make a break for it. Uneasily, and feeling like his gut was about to fall into a void, Jack traipsed around several crates and crouched behind them. After him, he heard the sound of heavy footsteps enter the shipping container. Damn, thought Jack to himself. After the heavy footsteps came cold, choking laughter that sounded as if it came from everywhere. The noise bounced off the metal walls of the container like ping pong balls -- each of them, echoes included, bouncing towards where Jack was in specific. He raised his hands to cover his ears, but they did little to filter out the laughter. The footsteps drew closer to the crates, and hungrily, the man's forked tongue slid across his fanged teeth. Jack held his breath. aegis |
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May 30, 2016 13:22:55 GMT
Post by aegis on May 30, 2016 13:22:55 GMT
There was an unusual objective in his mission report this time. Make it personal. Let him know who killed him.
Aegis doesn't understand the point. Dead is dead is dead. What someone thinks in their last moments, what they hope or fear for, is not something that has occurred to him for long decades. But he follows his objectives. He is the objective. So tonight he is going to be personal. He walks up behind the man with the casual disdain of a born predator and grips his hair with his left arm, wrenching his head back. The man's eyes roll in his head, whites showing crazily, as he tries to track what's happening to him. Aegis leans forward and says You shouldn't have angered Spectre and the man's eyes widen for a moment in recognition, in understanding, and Aegis stabs him in the gut. He twists the knife and draws it out. There is a horrible gurgling sound. He stabs again. It's a slow-killing pair of wounds. Aegis lets go of the man's hair and he goes to his knees. Aegis kicks him in the back of his left knee for good measure and he goes down to all fours, spitting blood onto the concrete. He tries to speak but only makes a wet, gluey sound. It's the sound of someone choking to death as fluid rises in their lungs. Aegis knows it well. Blood is pooling on the floor beneath him, and Aegis follows it as it runs in rivulets to the boy's feet. He looks at him with blank eyes. jack |
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May 30, 2016 13:48:18 GMT
Post by jack on May 30, 2016 13:48:18 GMT
The man got close enough, and Jack swore he could hear the man smile in the silence between the two of them. But then he heard a sudden, vile watery gasp that succeeded the sound of torn fabric; Jack wasn't even sure if he should hope for a saviour or another murderer to end the night. Perhaps it was for the better that he did not hope at all. Slumped over into the pool of blood and not quite moving, was the man with the forked tongue. Jack figured that he must have looked just like any other person -- except dying, and definitely not coming back to life. The man sounded like a fish floundering about on land, but it wasn't like what he did mattered. Jack was still holding his breath. The man's blood pooled around his knees and hands from where Jack crouched like a stone, staining his already-red trainers an even darker shade of red. Jack glanced up at the man with the metal arm when he felt the cold burn of eyes on him -- he looked back, eyes equally blank, but only because his mind had gone blank at that exact moment. He pulled his left hand up and away from the blood. It made a sort of splash-squelch as a new stream of blood flowed in its place. Finally, Jack took a deep breath, and let the scene hit him like a truck. He buried his tear-stained face in his bloody hands, not quite sobbing, but on the verge of hyperventilating as his brain vainly tried to piece everything together. aegis |
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Post by VALKYRIE on May 31, 2016 2:05:06 GMT
Gunshots in Old Town are not like gunshots in Arkham. People actually call the police, even in the Factory District. This doesn't mean the police always answer, but Valk was in the area for something else, and her communicator picked up the call on the scanner. "I'll handle it," she radio'd in and despite the dispatcher's gruff tone, she thought there was a note of relief there as well. Better a super freak goes in and does the dirty work than an officer, after all. By the time she gets to the scene, however, there's only a body and the whisper of footsteps, someone ducking around a corner before she can get a good glimpse of him. She's about to abandon the corpse--it isn't going anywhere, after all--when there's an intake of breath, like someone is about to start crying, and movement in the corner of her eye. She turns slowly afraid of what she's going to see, already know what she's going to see. "Are you hurt?" she asks in a gentle voice, trying to make herself even smaller, non-threatening. jack |
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May 31, 2016 12:27:14 GMT
Post by jack on May 31, 2016 12:27:14 GMT
He was trying his best to just think at the very least, but his brain seemed to have been numbed to the point where it simply wasn't providing him the responses he needed. He tried to think of something else -- like running away, or just dragging himself out of the blood that was starting to seep into his socks after having gotten through his trainers. No luck. Eventually, he slumped over, sitting squarely in the puddle of blood like a child playing outside in the rain. It was the least - and the most - that he could do for now. Jack slowly and hesitantly looked up, and his breath caught in his throat. At that moment, it was not out of the question for him to have thought that the lady was also someone out to cause harm, and that was precisely what he assumed. Fully aware that she could see him, but no longer giving a damn, Jack dragged himself backwards, trying to put as much distance as he could between the two of them. Hurt? He didn't think he was, and the man had intentionally shot at everything else but Jack. But that didn't matter when his brain was still scattered and trying to cope. His voice and breath struggled for space in his throat; he managed to produce some sort of half-cough, half-sob sort of noise, and that was it. In defeat, Jack slumped against a crate that he had backed up against. VALKYRIE |
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Post by VALKYRIE on Jun 3, 2016 5:43:03 GMT
Thalia lets him put distance between them. She stays where she's standing, hands up palm-first, and then, after thinking about it, backs up a little to give him more space. The kid doesn't look hurt, despite all the crying. Kind of because of all the crying; most injured people she interacts with spend surprisingly little time crying, at least at first. "It's okay," she says, because it really is, even if he doesn't realize that. Just because he doesn't believe it, doesn't mean it isn't true. "The guy who did this is gone." And if he comes back while she's here, he's going to regret it. "No one can hurt you."
Not right now, at least. jack |
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Post by jack on Jun 4, 2016 4:58:40 GMT
Her words were relieving, but it did not stop his heart from beating twice as fast, and his hands from shaking and barely finding purchase on anything he tried to grip. It was true that no one was going to hurt him, but her? What about her?
Jack found the strength to pull his head up and look at her. His vision swam; he could make out some pink in the darkness, and he wondered if it was a colour that he could trust. Green was fine, and red was dangerous, so what did that make pink? Dangerous, but friendly? Was it worth the leap of faith?
Weakly, he asked her in return, "What about you?"
VALKYRIE
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Post by VALKYRIE on Jun 5, 2016 9:13:56 GMT
It's not exactly professional, but she has to stifle a smile at the thought of the poor idiot who tries to shoot her with a gun. She's actually had someone open fire on her with an assault rifle just to have one of the bullets ricochet back into his hand. It wasn't actually funny at the time but it did feel an awful lot like justice. "No one is gonna hurt me either," she says. She's pretty sure that's what he's asking. It's often hard to decipher the traumatized. "We're both safe."
She backs up from the kid and kneels beside the body, grasping the man by the shoulders in order to move him. Touching him is--not fun. It looks like a recent death; she'd guess that he's still warm, although she can't feel the heat, but his flesh is soft and not yet stiff beneath her grip--she can detect pressure--and it's never an experience she looks forward to, handling a corpse. Thalia moves him behind a set of crates, out of the kid's line of sight. It's terrible procedure, of course, she's ruined the crime scene, but it's hard to care about that past his obvious terror. A psychic can come in and fix everything anyway, after she's done here. jack |
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Post by jack on Jun 5, 2016 12:49:37 GMT
It wasn't what he was asking, but Jack couldn't muster the energy to argue. Her words - 'We're both safe,' - however, was a better promise than anything else she could have said. Jack relaxed, mainly because being tired was taking too much out of him. If no one was going to hurt her, then that was good enough, too. At least one of them was safe.
He watched her kneel down, and the same choking noise from before rose in his chest. Jack knew what exactly she was moving. He didn't want to think about it. No longer caring that his hand was smeared with drying, yet sticky blood, Jack pressed his index finger and thumb to his temples. Hard.
It cleared his mind somewhat, but as soon as he staggered to his feet, they gave out under him.
VALKYRIE
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Post by VALKYRIE on Jun 5, 2016 22:52:17 GMT
He starts to go down and Thalia acts on instinct, stepping into catch him. Teenage boys weigh nothing compared to cars. It's only afterward that she thinks it might not have been the best idea, that he might not have wanted human contact but what was she supposed to let him do? Just fall? jack |
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Post by jack on Jun 6, 2016 11:16:20 GMT
He didn't protest being held up by the lady. It was almost comforting, if it wasn't for the voice in the back of his head telling him that he'd messed up big time. Who was she? Why was she here? Why did she even want to help him? His brain yelled questions at him continuously, until it eventually hit an point of no return.
Jack fainted.
VALKYRIE
(( /end? new thread? ))
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