Shades of Red [Bunny ║ Ryees]

Ryees · Oct 3, 2024

█ Amoret , D e v e r e u x

𝙸𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚘 » 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚎 » 𝙷𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢 »

"Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood."

"Everybody is a book of blood; wherever we're opened, we're red."

Once upon a time, there was a girl and the girl had a shadow

Name: amoret devereux
Nicknames: mori / ami
Age: 19
Gender: female

Physical;
Hair: pink
Eyes: blue/lilac
Height: 5'0
Body: petite

Assets;
Weapon:two butterfly knives, rainbow finish 9"

Her past was not something she considered.

It wasn't the story of a happy family. It didn't matter to her either. What if it was why she was the way she was?

All that mattered was the hunt and more importantly the kill.

Like a flower set free on the breeze, Amoret drifts from city to city killing as she wants.

What draws her? What makes her single out someone to be the fascination?
A drifter. A blade. A desire.
Content 2
█ Alphonse R i v t h a l i a

𝙸𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚘 » 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚎 » 𝙷𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢 »

"What's a job without a Job?"

"Take the good; leave the bad; remember the ugly."

Anyone in pursuit of art is responding to a desire to make visible that which is not, to offer the unknown self to others.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

N a m e: Alphonse Rivthalia
Nicknames: Al, Mimic, Mim
A g e: 28
G e n d e r: Male

Physical;
H a i r: White, gray
E y e s: Blue, cold
H e i g h t: Tall, 6'2"
B o d y: Lithe, athletic

Assets;
Weapons:Varies by assignment; particularly adept with precision weapons and sharp melee weapons.
Other: Much of what he carries with him is provided by HR.

Terribly fond of surveillance equipment, particularly the easily hidden.

Mom was an accountant. Dad worked for the "government," unaffiliated, of course. Following dad into his line of work was not what Al had in mind, but life swept him along in the waves like it did everyone.

"Hazardous Response" was the front-name for a division that made people and things disappear. One of those names that technically didn't lie about what they did, but left the definition of "hazard" and "response" up to interpretation.
A soldier. A rifle. A plan.

"Kirin One in position. Checking DOPE, awaiting spotter feed."

"Kirin Two in position. Awaiting DOPE and spotter."

"Kirin Three moving into position, T-minus... fuckin' one more flight of stairs, ah shit man."

"Couple flights of stairs gonna take you out, Yeffrey?"

"Keep callin' me that and I'm going to take you out, Mimi."

Alphonse smiled into his scope, tuning out the comms chatter as Chaudoin leaned in and muttered a string of data to him. His hands flitted up to the scope, adjusting the knobs for elevation and wind. Jeff was a good enough friend, but the bright attitude he always carried made his addition to a team that much more valuable. Not to mention that he was a crack shot. But then, they all were.

From three points around the park, sets of eyes rested inside an open window with a rifle pointed outside. One laid on the bed, while another braced himself on a kitchen table. The last was in the process of taking the telescope off its tripod and screwing it into the bottom of his rifle, grinning and feeling very clever. The outside glare and the dimness of their rooms made them nearly invisible to the outside world, three scopes and their digital counterparts trained on the open space of a park.

"Kirin Three in position, spotter's doing their thing." Alphonse nodded internally, less a movement and more an acknowledgement to himself that they were live.

Hazardous Response had sent Alphonse and his team here with four dossiers, a group of attendees to an upcoming charity gala whose contribution was going to put money in the pocket of someone that, by someone else's metric, was undeserving. The details of the "whys" and "whats" were, as always, sparse, so save for the physical description of their targets and the expected routes they would take, the folders only contained photos and maps of the area. Those folders had been studied with the same level of scrutinous detail with which they always were, every line and every backup plan committed to memory over the course of the drive in from HQ.

Alphonse checked his watch. "Three forty-four. Should be just a sec, now." Chaudoin settled in next to him, her blonde hair sweeping down over her shoulder as she peered through the eyelet of the rangefinder.

"Two twenty-one, one dot, click up by the 21." Her bell-like voice was pitched low, somehow a delicate ring in the dim bedroom despite her mild Australian accent. "How y'feelin'?" Her eyes flicked over to him for the barest moment. "And relax your shoulders, fucksake."

Alphonse rocked his body to bump her shoulders, careful not to shuffle his bipod or jostle her rangefinder for his playfulness. "How 'bout you relax at all then I'll relax my shoulders, mm?"

She huffed a quiet sigh, dropping her gaze and shaking her head. "Look you know how I get on these things, multiple targets—"

"Bitch you get like this no matter how many targets there—"

"Clear comms. Four questions on the table."

The play dropped immediately, Alphonse and Chaudoin's eyes snapping forward. Three men and a woman in dark suits with silver nametags had stepped out of a car worth more than the entire park's contents, chatting and laughing pleasantly amongst themselves. One carried a tablet, tapping away while taking part in the conversation, seemingly scrolling around some sort of shopping app. Their car pulled away, leaving them to start towards the park path. A start that would never finish.

A soprano whisper in Alphonse's ear: "Do you have the shot?" And then a new voice crackled over the commlinks in the Kirins ears.

"Kirin, charge."

Three rifles barked from three windows, three angles casting bronze projectiles through the intervening space and creating three red sprays behind three heads. The last standing man balked, dropping his tablet and casting his head around the park in a panic, looking at the open paths as if there were somewhere to go. He chose a direction, the one their car had departed in, and took off towards it as fast as his suited legs could carry. The car had stopped after hearing the gunshots, the doors thrown open. Another round of shots chased him through the air, impacting the concrete between his legs, the dirt behind him, and one of the marble pillars. He dove headfirst into the backseat and the car peeled out, another trio of bullets punching through the back windshield, but finding purchase in only glass and steel.

In the dining room of a small house on the edge of the city, six people sat around a table spread full of white Chinese take-out containers, nearly screaming with laughter into the sound-proofing panels that caked every wall in the house six inches deep. It was a fairly modest affair, that house, but one that they had affectionately named Headquarters whenever they all worked as a unit, gathering before and after operations to talk strategy and tactics, as well as simply coexist in each other's company. They all traveled for work; coming together was often only because of work, but they always made a point of finding the time.

"For me it was the dive," Alphonse said, a grain of rice popping out between his lips and drawing a giggle from the table. "They're after me!" he exclaimed, pantomiming diving across the table.

Jeff and his spotter—and wife—Madeline nearly cracked their heads against the table with their laughter, while Marcus and Emmanuel were more politely covering their mouths and noses trying to stifle their laughter.

"Imagine someone thinkin' we'd ever actually let 'em go, right?" shot Emmanuel, choking on rice while digging back into the white contained with his chopsticks.

Chaudoin, from her place next to Alphonse, was trying to shake her head around the can of Squirt she was sipping from. "Mm—nuh, no way, not a chance, not in this city f'sure, 'bout as easy as it gets out here with all those buildings. And that park is so flat?" She threw a waved hand. "Could hit someone in a fuckin' racecar, no shot."

They shared another laugh, and then another, their conversation turning more and more adventurous as they spoke of the upcoming steps. The gala was quite the draw for quite a good many big-wigs in the world of all things Big Money, and their inbox was piling up with marks. They would have work for weeks, yet, all within the city, and all with enough multi-target operations to guarantee that they would have many opportunities to work together along the way.

The hours wound on, and Jeff and Madeline were the first to tap out for bedtime. Madeline had had a bottle of Barefoot to herself and had been making eyes at Jeff for nearly a half hour. When she started to creep her hands under the table in front of them all, Jeff had balked, his face turning red, and at the gesturing from Alphonse and Marcus, scooped her up like a princess. The sounds of her kissing up his neck chased them down the stairs to where the basement had been set up as personal quarters. Marcus and Emmanuel made to go for a walk, planning on picking up a drink refresh from the quick-mart down the road. Alphonse and Chaudoin were left to clean up the food.

"Clean answers today, nice shootin'," she chimed as she stacked up empty containers.

Alphonse nodded, grinning proudly for a moment before he nodded his head upwards at her. "No clean answers without clean questions, eh?" He saw the blush in her cheeks as her face dropped, suddenly very focused on her cleanup, but Alphonse shifted and she looked up. "Hey, I'll handle this, yeah?" he asked, pulling her stack of boxes towards him. "Long day, why don't you get some sleep?"

Her lips twisted, and she bounced on her heel, seeming to suddenly be uncomfortably nervous. "You think she's gonna be in town for this?" Her voice was thick in the back of her throat, half-choked.

Alphonse was nodding, half to himself and half to Chaudoin, already lost enough in his mental spreadsheets to not notice Chaudoin's cough and the way she was now staring at the floor. "Bait seems good; she's been local and there's a lot of big names here. We still don't know what her motives are, really, but she at least seems to always operate along a path."

Chaudoin looked like she was about to say something, but decided against it, making for the stairs but pausing just as her hand touched the railing. She looked back up at Alphonse, her smile as sincere as she could muster. "Well, good luck then?" Alphonse did not seem to notice how it was a question as he grinned and nodded back at her, and then she was down the stairs.

Alphonse finished the kitchen cleanup, wiping off the tables with one earbud in, listening to a newsfeed from one of his personal connections regarding their competition. Usually, that was where he found his first signs that Amoret was on her way.

Bunny · Oct 4, 2024

A pretty face was nothing more than a tool. For a woman it was like a fine figure, a beautiful dress. What was the old adage? A pretty face and a beautiful body blind a man more quickly than any poker through the eyes? No, but that did have promise. A charming smile, a pretty dress and a lovely face though were all weapons in Amoret’s arsenal. Though they were far from her favorite. In truth, they were a means to an end…

The soft velvet of the dress clung to her petite form like a second skin. It hid little and everything. The crushed velvet shifted between a deep cobalt and a rich plum depending on how light hit it. Standing in the dim light of the upscale bar, where she wasn’t the only woman dressed so elegantly and scantily. Most of these women were whores. Not that she begrudged these women their livings, she just couldn’t understand why they would allow these.. Pigs to touch them. Sex had never appealed to Amoret. Any release she needed could be found on her own. But men like these had deep pockets and liked pretty things. Delicate things that they could break.

Pity that she wasn’t in the mood to be broken, but to break?

The smile that curled along her lips lit her face and made Amoret seem to glow. She was their ideal prey. From the bubblegum pink of her hair twisted into a messy bun, with curls falling free to tease at the slenderness of her neck, to draw the eye to the bare shoulders. Eyes were lined expertly to make her startling lilac eyes stand out. Her face otherwise was bare of makeup. The dress she’d picked (stolen) was perfect for her svelte form. None of it mattered though. Men smiled at her and while Amoret could play normal, there was something in her eyes. Something distant.

Those who hunted those barely legal, looking to ensnare young women would see it as fear or something already broken. Girl's with that sort of look in their eyes wouldn’t fight back. They mistook it for the look of someone already broken by the system. Was Amoret broken? She wasn’t whole but if asked and no one ever had, Amoret was unsure if she’d ever been whole. She wasn’t broken like the girls who they sought though.

It had been three months and in that time Amoret had dropped two bodies. The first had been on her way into the city. The second a month and a half ago. Her skin was starting to itch with the need to kill. Hunting was normal, it was how she passed the time. More akin to a wolf or a solitary big cat.. The hunt could take the edge off, at least for a while. Not forever though. That was why she was in this press of bodies. Their scent made her head ache. Too many perfumes. The sweet scent of sweat and the tang of unwashed bodies.

Humanity reeked.

It hadn’t been hard to convince the man to follow her into a run down section of the city. Odd, any young woman would have been on edge being asked to follow a man several times larger than herself over the wrong side of the tracks. He likely thought he’d have the upper hand. She was oh so small. Five feet barefoot and she was in heels..

Fool.

Amoret had no idea who this man was. Wrong place and wrong time? Not really.. She’d picked him days ago. She’d hunted him, following him from work, to his home. Watched as he fucked his wife. Watched from across the building as his secretary gave him a blowjob. The young man was handsome and looking to climb the ladder. What better way than fucking your way to the top? It seemed that Mr.She didn’t care what his fucking name was.. Couldn’t keep it in his pants. It hadn’t taken more than a smile, a come hither look and breathy giggle to convince him to follow.

“Is it much further?” He wasn’t suspicious, just impatient. “Not much.” Her voice was low, husky. She wanted to be sure she wouldn't be interrupted. She felt a shiver run down her spine and it wasn’t because her back was bare to the elements. Stopping, Amoret turned and pulled him by his tie closer. He moved in, more than willing to come closer. This is why he followed her out here to begin with! Amoret side-stepped and stuck out a slender foot, watching him fall like a pile of bricks.

She laughed as he hit the gravel dusted asphalt. She moved with liquid quickness; he wouldn’t see the beauty of the blade as it flashed through the moonlight. In this light it was less pink and held more blues and purples. The blade bit through the fabric of his pants and socks.. Then through the skin, muscle and tendons. Experience told her not to go too deep. To not lose her blade in the bone.

His scream made her shiver again and while not sexual, it was a kind of pleasure that was hard to beat. No one would hear him, not here and if they did.. Would they care? This wasn’t a friendly side of town.. Her laughter was bright and for the first time that night,something was real.

Blood pooled around the cooling body as the night slipped away into the dreary rays of dawn. Time normally didn’t matter to Amoret but she hadn’t had time to move her kill twice. Once had been enough of a pain in the ass. The chest of the man was a mosaic of parted skin, blood and muscle. It was drying to a tacky red substance that would flake off, staining her skin. Lifting the blade of her knife, she locked along it lazily. Sweet and coppery.

Yawning, she looked at the body and rose to her feet. The dress was stained with blood, so dark in places it was black. She snorted and shook her head. He’d begged her, threatened her and in the end he’d peed himself. “Pathetic..” She could clean the body up later. This warehouse was her current haunt, no one would find him today. She’d dispose of his carcass tomorrow night and move from the warehouse.

She wasn’t sane but Amoret wasn’t stupid either.

Body had followed her for years like a macabre breadcrumb trail. No one had yet to place her as the killer. Some law was aware that there was a killer.. But the who eluded them.

At least that had been the case. She had no idea that she was being watched now.

Ryees · Oct 4, 2024

"You want to fuckin' say that again?" Chaudoin balked, incredulous.

Alphonse scrubbed his face, turning around the screen of his laptop to face the now-gathered squad. In the two days since their kill, the infonets had lit up, knowledge of their exploits spreading like wildfire, and the four browser windows on the screen were all scrolling every few seconds with the incoming messages. The gala was enough of a worldwide event with enough hands in the cookie jar to warrant a lot of attention, and the three heads that had rolled the previous week had thrown a match into the tinder bed. The Ballinger brothers, which consisted of three brothers and a sister, were all major players in these sorts of fluffy, public events where large donations meant large amounts of praise and prestige, and their missing money would no doubt be a noticeable blow to the gala's expectations. It had become well known by now that it was the Kirin Cavalry that had dropped the three in the park—no other team had coordination like they did to pull off three one-shots that cleanly—but the fourth, supposedly "escaped" target had been taken down by some other individual in the following days, and that set the nets ablaze with speculation.

"Blossom took him out," Alphonse repeated, this time for the entire squad. When he had said it the first time to Chaudoin as she sleepily walked up the stairs, she had blinked at him like he was made out of candy corn before processing what he had said and darting down stairs to wake the rest of the Cavalry.

"How d'you know?" Chaudoin questioned now, pulling out a chair to fall into unceremoniously.

Alphonse took his screen back, tabbed, typed, and clicked, and a moment later, when he twisted it back to them, a satellite map was on-screen. "Obviuosly these sat-maps are a little fuzzy, but look, and tell me I'm wrong."

The group leaned forward over the table, staring at the grainy, zoomed-in image. It showed little to nothing of note besides the tops of heads in the area, but one neon pink blip did stand out amongst the crowds. Brows furrowed, lips were chewed, and heads were tilted, but it was Madeline who spoke first, noting, "This is two hours before he would have died, according to the nets," with a healthy dose of skepticism in her voice.

"She's casing it, at this point," he shot back, leaning forward on his elbows. "She's insane, but even she has the sense to take a quick peek at a place before she dumps a body in it. This was her stalk, and the kill happens later." He paused, then added, "Tell me that a pink-haired person wandering around this site the same day that Ray Ballinger died is a coincidence, I'll smack you."

The dots did seem to be connecting between the Cavalry, all but Chaudoin floating through differing levels of curiosity and interest as they stared at the satellite imagery. Only Chaudoin seemed unimpressed, pulling her eyes away from the screen and looking back up to Alphonse. "So what are you gonna do?" she asked quizzically, sounding as if she already dreaded the answer.

Alphonse grinned cheekily, bouncing his eyebrows. "We've never been in the same city as her. I'm going to stop in."

The late-spring air had a chill to it today, the post-rain kind of chill that clung to the skin and carried that not-cold-but-not-warm humidity with you inside once you got out of the open air. The afternoon had just started, and as Alphonse made his way down the bustling market street, the sun finally broke from the clouds to start doing away with some of the lingering rainwater that pooled in the streets. A light jacket was all that the weather prompted, and with a messenger back slung across his chest, Alphonse was happily traveling light. This market street was in a very walkable part of town, central and populated and well-known, and the cafe that Alphonse had chosen had an outdoor patio on the second floor that overlooked as much of the streets as any location could have.

He slipped inside, ordered to dine-in, and took his cortado and biscotti up the stairs to the terrace. The day really was beautiful, and he took that pleasure in as the slow, damp breeze lightly tossed his hair as he scanned out over the city. A drink and a treat, out on a balcony like this, basking in the last vestiges of spring, were a long-forgotten pleasure that had been lost to the shadowy lives they had lived for the last decade. If only—

A pop of pink on the street caught his eye, and as normal as could be, there she was. Blossom—the nickname that Chaudoin had applied to their unknown agent, and had stuck—ambled along the sidewalk as casual as any other street walker, completely nondescript aside from her standout hair color. Meeting your idols was always discouraged, and to some extent, Alphonse understood why, in that moment. He had expected her to stand out somehow, to have a shadow that twisted away from the light or a bloodstained handkerchief poking from her pocket, but he knew rationally that she, just like him, had to exist among the populace whilst they were walking in the light. The last sip of his coffee went down, and so did he.

The cafe had a small L-bend staircase that was entirely shielded from the public eye. As he slipped down it, he reached into the side pocket of his bag to retrieve the black plastic tracker tag and slip it into his palm.

He broke out onto the street, following Blossom's last path and finding her after only a moment of scanning. Calculations ran in his mind, marking her speed and pathing, and after another brief moment, he set off around the block the other direction. Touching his watch to start the timer, he muttered, "Watering the plants in five," the speaker in his ear picking up the sound through the conduction of his jaw.

"Moving," came Madeline's voice in his ear.

Alphonse's walk took him around the corner the opposite direction from Blossom's path, and he carefully adjusted his pace based on the ticking of the timer. He reached the corner, stopping and looking up at the street sign, applying a mildly confused look that allowed him to scan about in-character. Eyes set, he waited another half second, then started off down the path. It was a feat of self-control not to look at her anymore than he did any passersby, to not focus on the pouty lips that seemed to match her hair or glow in her eyes that hid within the memories of so many endings. And reaching out to touch her would simply be unnerving to her and everyone around, but the temptation was there as they neared.

A bump and a thunk on the street caught his attention, and he hollered a shocked bark as a car sped past them going half-again as fast as the speed limit on these shop-lined streets. The car had come close enough to drag its wheels through the puddles pooled in the street gutter, and the spray that was launched by that intrusion was his full height and then some. Reflexively trying to get out of its way, he threw himself aside—

—colliding with the pink-haired woman in his haste. His hips knocked into her midsection, threatening to toss her aside like a doll. Finally realizing what happened, Alphonse spun on one foot and steadied himself, one hand grabbing her shoulder and the other slipping down to smoothly halt her momentum by pulling on one hip. With over a foot on her, it was just as easy to stabilize her as it had been to nearly throw her off her feet. But now the moment had passed, and they were both still standing, and they were both wet with day-old rain, and that left him feeling entirely too embarrassed and wholly awkward.

"I—sorry, that car, I just." He lifted a hand towards the street, letting it clap back down to his side. He dropped his eyes for a moment, then looked back up at her. "Sorry, again. Sorry." Dripping with rainwater on one side, Alphonse excused himself and took off down the sidewalk, head down, and hands empty.

Bunny · Oct 6, 2024

She had slept like a baby. The light didn’t penetrate this deep into the warehouse and she rolled over on the mattress with a soft sigh. A hand stretched across the sheets, the cleanest thing in the dank room. Amoret’s skin was pale and startling against the darkness of the sheets. The dress had been struggled off last night, as had her panties. She didn’t like sleeping in anything, it made her feel trapped and that was the one thing she couldn’t stand. Slender legs pressed against the softness of the mattress and she stretched, yawning. The sun would be setting soon and she could dispose of the body several rooms away. Closing her eyes Amoret felt a smile curl on her lips. Last night had been fun. Nothing really beat the first cut and the fear in their eyes.

Sitting up she yawned, one arm rising above her head as she stretched again. She always slept best after a new kill. Rubbing at her eyes she rose to her feet and padded naked from the room toward where the body lay. Amoret needed to get rid of him but the question was how…

Bending over the body she riffled through his pockets and pulled out the wallet and keys she found. Opening the wallet she found several hundred dollars. “Bright side of you lot,” she said to the dead body at her feet. “You seem to carry a lot of cash.” She knelt on her haunches and pushed the face to the side. “Don’t want your misses to see what gets your rocks off?”

She’d take the money, but the cards, the keys to the car and the wedding ring along with any other valuables he might have on himself were off limits. She didn’t need a damn paper trail to follow her as she flitted from city to city. All the little bits would need to be scattered.

Her methods were not foolproof, but they worked well enough. The body this time would be left where it was.. All she needed to do was open the rolling door and someone would stumble across the corpse. The keys would be chucked. She’d need to clean the body off though, make sure to remove any of her finger prints. This was the part of her mind that kept her safe. Logical. Without these little precautions Amoret knew she’d draw attention.

The sun felt warm on her face as she slipped through the press of bodies. It was much like the bar and at the same time very different. There was laughter here and there, but here it was bright, happy. There it had been darker, sensual. Odd how light could change things. People were dressed in warmer clothing to avoid the chill the rain had brought with it. Children tugged on their parents hands, asking for this or that and Amoret watched them.

Odd to think childhood could be like that. Happy. A smile curled along her lips as one child swung on their father’s arm. She had emotions, despite what the books said she should have. Amoret had once tried to figure out what she was. Not normal. Broken somehow. Yet while there was a thrill with killing, she was quite sure it wasn’t sexual. It was a craving though, that gnawed away at her skin, sent her stomach spinning into knots..

Her mind was wondering as she walked. Old thoughts rising to clash with memories that were far from welcome. Even had she not been distracted, she wouldn’t have likely seen the small team stalking her. Though, if Amoret were to be asked,s he would have said she would have known. She was, after all, a predator herself.

Everyone wants to think they are just that good and to know otherwise might have humbled the pink haired girl. More likely however it would have resulted in violence. Who wants to feel like prey? Not even the prey themselves wanted to be hunted. Though, it had never stopped her from hunting those who thought they were the hunter…

Irony at its finest.

When the warm body collided with her, Amroet was set off balance and she could feel her body start to fall when a strong hand grabbed her shoulder, the other slipping to her hip. Lilac eyes met his and she swore, "Goddammit.." soft, husky voice more annoyed than angry and her eyes left him, looking after the car that had drenched her. She missed as the tracker was placed on her and she let out a feral little sound as she pulled herself free from the grasp of the stranger.

“Don’t worry about it..” She said and he turned, the matter seemingly excused. She didn’t notice the little device that was now safely in the pocket of her blue jeans. Hands brushed the dirty stain that was blossoming on the dark shirt and she hissed softly. Clothing wasn’t exactly hard to come by, but it wasn't as if she wanted to waste money on it. Money was good for feeding herself, for buying the small necessities that she desired..

The accident though wasn't one to color her day and it was forgotten about. The face that had been handsome had been dismissed moments later. After all, if pretty was a weapon, so was handsome. Day in fact passed. The jeans that the tracker had been worn off and on, a small territory roughly laid out for watchers. Amoret didn’t leave the city, but could be seen over it all. From slums to higher end neighborhoods. For now, she hunted and let her prey go, not feeling the need for a kill. The stalking was enough.. Till one morning she woke up and it wasn’t.

The start of her need showed itself with the inability to sleep. That naught, dressed in the jeans and a comfortable sweater, she paced around the warehouse for hours and then left it in the wee hours of the morning. She walked over the city and when that didn’t seem to fix it, she ran. There was no rhyme or reason to the paths she took, often doubling back until her body screamed with need to sleep. The sun was rising when she retreated to the inner part of her sanctuary. Three days of this followed. Some times, they’d see it, the erratic pattern and other times they would have no idea where she went.

She was wearing the jeans though when she finally couldn’t take it anymore. The man she’d picked was random, she’d not hunted him like she had others. She didn’t always feel the need to stalk those she killed. This man seemed.. Boring. Well built, taller than her by a fair bit what he promised in his expensive suit was a challenge. Amoret didn’t know who he was.. Didn’t care. She never did.

Luring men was too easy. Women would have been far more suspicious. They also were not nearly as much fun to hunt.. Though if she were in a pinch, a woman would do. The spot had been picked for its seclusion. A wooded area far from the path.. Much like the man before the achilles heel had been cut and she padded along the grass, damp underfoot. Blood? Water? She didn’t know. She watched as he crawled, amused. “Did you want to try screaming again?” Her voice was soft and sweet as she sat on his back. He was crying, a blubbery sound, his vocal cords on the verge of ruin. She slipped her knife between his ribs.

From the back like this she needed to be careful if she didn’t want him to die. She smiled and corrected herself mentally. If she didn’t want him to die yet. His cry of pain made her purr, and she pulled the blade free watching the blood trail down the rainbow surface.

“So Pretty..”
#ce9fd4

Ryees · Oct 7, 2024

Watching the tracker bound about the city was as fascinating as it was bizarre. Blossom's pathing was... erratic. Perhaps Alphonse had always expected her to operate more intelligibly, to have more organization; her kills were always so clean that he had assumed that there was as much planning into hers as went into Kirin's.

Alphonse was picking lazily at a cold container of leftover fried rice while he scrolled through the infonets when Chaudoin plodded up the stairs. The loose white tank top and sleep shorts left very little to the imagination, and on more than one occasion Alphonse had been tempted to stare at her slim, well-kept figure that was just a mite taller than average for a woman. She noticed him noticing, but his attention was already back on the screen before she had finished her overhead stretch.

"She really does seem more like a drifter every time we see her," he remarked, giving her a wave as his greeting.

She returned that wave, but failed to hide the flash of disdain in her sleepy face before she settled into the curiosity he had expected. "Morning," she said as she pulled a chair over next to him, "what do you mean?" She pushed the wooden chair right up next to his and fell into it from the opposite side, bringing her legs up and spinning on her butt until she was facing forward. Her head leaned on his shoulder, and she shivered as she tried to share his warmth—the house was not on the grid in any sense, data or power, so the morning chill that permeated the outside also touched the inside.

"Look at this," he replied, reaching forward with one hand to tab over a screen while the other arm automatically snaked around her shoulders. "It's all... nothing." The semi-random path through the city, traipsing from district to district, certainly did paint a picture of someone simply taking random turns as they walked with no clear destination in mind. "It's all over the place."

"Mm... Looks like nothin', yeh." Chaudoin yawned and her eyes tried to flutter close. They succeeded, more than once, as her consciousness wavered, nestled against Alphonse's side. "You been at this all mornin' then?"

"Nah," he answered easily, tabbing back to the info sector window. "Background, mostly; I've been looking into our next tag. The Ballingers were a big data company, and I'm getting the feeling that HR has some interest in keeping on that theme, 'cause these next folks are..." He tabbed again, then scrolled. "...cell phone company execs. Verizon, AT&T top-runners, I guess."

Chaudoin was infinitely more engaged now, eyes open and intently scanning the screen. "Where's our haunt?"

"Not sure yet. We're looking, still, I think."

Alphonse began to flip through tabs, but something caught Chaudoin's eye and she leaned forward to put her hand on his. "What is... where...?" She had tabbed back into the tracker map, pointing at the tracker. It was moving, again, and along a new path. "That's just... into the trees, isn't it?"

Alphonse freed his arm and leaned forward, zooming in on the path. Her movement was smoother, all of a sudden, entirely more focused than it had been at any point in her frantic-seeming jaunts around town. "Yeah there isn't... even a path there." Their eyes met for a moment. She sighed and leaned away from him, giving him space to snap up out of his chair.

The garden path was still damp with the same rain from earlier in the week. Alphonse strolled with veiled purpose on display for the passersby, glancing down at the display of his watch that now acted as his navigation. A bench gave him a vantage point to wait for the townsfolk to make their way past him, and at a break in the population, he shot forward into the treeline.

Alphonse was an expert in urban tracking, but not so in the wilderness. Finding footprints and disturbed twigs was not his forte, but thankfully it was only a few meters into the trees before he found the trail of blood that led onward into the failing light. His light jacket concealed a chest holster for a small handgun that he reached to and unclasped, easing the weapon in its holster. A step later, he touched the handle of the knife strapped up on his lower back, ensuring that its hilt was ready for an easy grasp. Truthfully, he had no idea what sort of reaction Blossom would have upon his intrusion, but in the event that she simply rounded on him, he wanted to be ready.

Something about the situation told him that was unlikely, though, as he caught the first glimpse of pink through the moderate foliage. Her art seemed to be in the hunt and the chase, rather than the confrontation and the fight. Alphonse would not leave it to chance if she turned out to be a trained combatant, but instinct told him that that was not the fear to be noted here. But there was a fear, certainly; it made him more uncomfortable that he could not identify it than it likely would have on its own.

“So Pretty...”

That voice sent a tiny chill down Alphonse's spine. It was always said that you should not meet your idols, but here he was, carefully creeping up on her trail while she loomed over a figure in the grass. She bent down, and he saw the motion that spoke to him of a stab, heard the wet schlick! of a knife entering flesh. She lifted that knife, a decorative butterfly knife once likely meant for balisong tricks, now sharpened to a wicked edge and bathed in the blood of who knew how many victims.

Alphonse stopped a few spans back from her, leaning against a tree. In the darkness of the forest, he cleared his throat.

Blossom froze, her knife pausing in the man's ribcage. With an elaborate slowness, she turned her head back, and for the first time Alphonse got a clear look at her face. Pouty and cherubic, those lavendrite irises captured his attention faster than any dossier would have, the narrowing of her eyes sharpening that look to one almost as keen as her blade. She made a much quicker affair of bending to drag her blade across the man's throat before she stood, bloodied blade dangling from her hand almost lackadaisically as she turned to face Alphonse.

"Out for a stroll in the woods kicking hornet's nests, are we?" he quipped wryly, bouncing his eyebrows at her. "Good on you to keep him quiet, though, could've been a lot messier."

Bunny · Oct 10, 2024

It was the same man from before. Her eyes narrowed, suspicious. She wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a crowd, had he not bumped into her. Amoret tended to ignore all others, they were little more than ghosts as she made her way through the world. She noticed some, for a brief moment and then they slipped from her mind as easily. That was unless she decided to hunt someone. They stood out in her mind. Aberrations and a curiosity that often ended when their blood was spilled. Not all died that she hunted, but more than not.

She finally spoke, her chin tilting. “Wasps?” She seemed confused, perhaps her lips curling at the edges. “Stalking is frowned upon, you know?” That smile grew “Even if it is terribly fun.”

Alphonse grinned at the sweetness in her voice. Gods but she was pretty. "I had a good time following you, I guess, so fair is fair. Not much of a stalker if I don't even know your name though, eh? I've been calling you 'Blossom,'" he admitted with a sheepish grin and a half-shrug. He added, "Alphonse, for the record," with a self-indicative gesture and a short bow of his head.

Her nose wrinkled in distaste. "A flower?" She knew how she looked but it was.. "Very disappointing and terribly unoriginal.." She inclined her head though, her chin titling at the end to watch him. "Not much of a stalker, but you found me.." She played with the bloody blade, the cold steal swinging between her fingers smoothly. "How."

He shrugged. "Rolls of the tongue better than, 'thie pink-haired girl,' y'know?" At her question, he brought his hand down to his pocket, but instead of reaching in, he tapped the outside of it indicatively.

Her eyes narrowed and her hand slipped into her pocket. The little bug was warm from her body heat and she gave a very animistic growl. "A tracker?" She held it up between two fingers. It was impressive he'd planted it on her but it too was.. "Boring. Is this what you do?" Tracking wasn't meant to be cold, calculated. "Boring and soulless. Let me guess, it isn't even for a fun reason.." She eyes him, curious but also quickly losing interest.

He paused at that, eyeing her up and down. "Well to start it was because you're a delight to watch; we share a profession, you and I." Alphonse slipped the knife free of its sheath just enough for the blade to catch the light, then slotted it back. "I have a little more back, though, I work with the Kirin Cavalry." Whether or not the name sparked any recognition, he continued on. "And I happen to know that you just made your life... quite a lot more difficult." His eyes flicked down to the cooling corpse behind her. "That may have been your most significant kill to date."

The blade was clearly a good one, though utilitarian. Amoret was starting to get a feel for the man before her. Straight laced and it explained so much; suits no matter the type were boring. "Profession?" The word was said as if she was experimenting with it. "So you kill, but you kill for money?" She tested her understanding and then smiled. It was beautiful, breath taking even and she shook her head once to the left once to the right. "We do not share a profession, Alphonse." His name was a soft, sweet purr. "Oh?" She looked down at the cooling body. "I doubt that.. and I didn't even get to finish. You ruined it.. " She pouted, honest to god pouted at him.

His head tilted side to side for a moment. "We get paid, sure, but no; we more kill for a purpose. There's a larger project involved. We make problems go away." The way she said his name prompted a visible chill, and he smiled in time with the sensation. This girl was, clearly, completely cracked out of her mind, in the same way that he, and all his colleagues were as well. Making your life about ending other lives changed you.

"If you want to finish, love, don't let me stop you. In fact, I'd even help you." He stepped away from the tree, circling around the corpse and giving her a healthy, safe distance. "Because in... maybe ten, fifteen minutes at best, this park is going to be crawling with suits." His foot nudged the shoulder of the face-down man. "This guy is worth a fortune; and you know that gala in town? He was supposed to shave off some of his fortune into those pockets for a pretty lucrative deal under the table. I imagine him going missing in broad daylight is setting off alarms as we speak."

Her laughter was low and she lifted a dark brow slowly. “Purpose?” That seemed boring, but it was quickly coming to be expected from what he did. The shudder was caught by the little pink haired demon and she found that fascinating. It hadn’t been fear, that she was sure of. She looked at him now, like he’d finally done something truly interesting.

He was a handsome man. Her eyes traced the strong lines of his face, the arch of his brow, the straight line of his nose, the sinful curl of his lips as he smiled to to the curve of his jaw. His hair was startling white and she found it suited him perfectly. She kicked the body with one small foot. “It is no longer fun once they are dead. And while we talked his heart stopped fully.. So no more blood.” The word blood was wistful and dreamy.

She let him circle her, not close enough, even with his nearly double arm length to touch her, his foot nudging the cooling body in turn now. “Gala?” She questioned, turning to look at him. “Is that why there are so many fun people to hunt here?” Her eyes lit up and she glanced past him and she shrugged. “Well if we are to have company, I think it is time for me to leave..” She shifted and lowered to wipe her blade on the man’s coat and folded it with practiced ease and slipped it back into her pocket.

She stalked closer to him, on her tiptoes, as if this was some sort of game, to her it was.. She stopped near him. Close enough for her to touch him if she wanted.. Though without a weapon in her hands, it seemed he didn’t dear her. She didn’t blame him. She wasn’t exactly scary.. She rose further on her toes, hands on his chest as she beckoned him closer. When he bent, she pressed her lips to his ear. “Next time, hunt me like I hunt.. You will have so much more fun..” Her words were low, sensual and she licked the edge of his ear before pushing away from him and slipping through the trees.

The little bug he’d placed on her was tossed over her shoulder towards where he had been. Oddly she found herself hoping he’d give it a try.. Amoret wanted to see him again.

Ryees · Oct 10, 2024

Physically, her approach did not instill any noticeable change within Alphonse, but as she neared, his senses went on high alert. He watched her slip the knife away, then watched her movements carefully to ensure she did not try to go for it again. But her advance seemed innocent, as her hands came up—to her eye level—to rest delicately on his chest. Her frame was small, delicate in a way that asked for gentle handling, but he knew well enough that her mindscape was as hardened as they came. Working with a team to kill was one thing; doing everything solo meant that all of the burden and all of the inhumanity was centered on one individual.

When her face came in close, he kept his eyes on hers until her face passed him by, running his hands down his shoulders as her face passed his. That voice in his ear, low and personal, was a challenge and an invitation all in one, and the slip of her tongue against his cartilage produced a smile in turn that matched the keen wickedness that she was trying so hard to exude. Alphonse was not sure, in that moment, how much of it was a show and how much of it was her true self, but the truth likely lay somewhere in the middle, as it often did. His squad had worked through their struggles with their humanity long ago. Killing was just a job for them now. But how much was still to be unearthed within—

Alphonse scrunched his face at her back as she walked away. She had never told him her name.

Alphonse let himself into the house to find the rest of his squad at the kitchen table, poking through the same remnants of their white-box Chinese from the night before that he had had for lunch. They looked up from their screens when he came in, each with a laptop or a phone in front of them, and it seemed as if he had been the topic of conversation by the way they nodded their heads at his arrival.

"How'vit gho?" Madeline asked through a mouthful of rice, forcing a swallow. "Chaudoin filled us in, d'ya find her?"

Alphonse nodded with a self-satisfied grin and a wave of his brows. "I met her," he proclaimed, pulling a chair and turning it around to drop forward into it.

The eyes went up around the table. "You met her!?" repeated Madeline, leaning forward on her elbows. "How'd it go? What's she like?"

With a shrug and a tilt of his head, Alphonse leaned forward against the back of the chair. "'Bout what you'd expect. Short. Hot. Messed up. Basically Chaudoin, with pink hair." He smirked at his friend, who had taken the shot poorly and was currently pouting.

"Too short and not hot enough," Chaudoin replied, tossing her dirty-blonde waves haughtily. "How messed up?"

"'Member when we all had our breakthroughs?" he asked, receiving a collective not that was a touch more somber than the moments preceding. "'Bout like that. She's on her own, got no one to bounce sense off of. Probably all locked up in her head. Takes her job a little differently, than we do, though."

Emmanuel tilted his head quizzically. "How you mean?"

Alphonse took a moment, dropping his chin onto his crossed arms and bouncing his jaw. "She plays it... like it's a game, I think?" One corner of his mouth twisted, unsure. "Hard to say. She takes a lot more pleasure in it than any of us ever did. A lot more pleasure, by the sound of it."

"Oh gawd," Chaudoin groaned, slumping back in her chair. "All that talent an' it's wasted in some pink-haired sadist? Fucksake put her behin' the barrel of a fifty and tell her to go nuts, she'd be an ace."

Alphonse was already shaking his head. "She'd never. When she found the tracker, she called me boring," he explained, furrowing his brow with a half-grin. "Like, what? Boring? We had to go through so much trouble to get that bug on her."

"And I got to drive-by you, best part of my day," Chaudoin added with a self-amused chuckle that echoed around the table.

"Exactly!" Alphonse agreed, leaning into the self-deprecation. "It's a perspective thing. She's weirdly old school. She thinks that if you're not Jack the Ripper then you're cheating, I think. Wants to do everything by hand, boots on the ground."

"That's so exhausting though," Madeline droned, sounding exhausted just by thinking about it. "Room to room, town to town, going off of vague rumors, bank security footage, news caster background clips, and footprints? That shit sucks, ya'd never find me going back." She punctuated her thought by pushing the last half of a soft-boiled egg between her lips and slurping the last of the broth out of her black plastic bowl. "Satellites and long-range rifles for me, please."

"Hear, hear!" Jeff called out after her, raising his red cup in toast. "Tradition's fine and all, but fuck it's so tedious."

A short round of chatter about modern-day assassination rolled over the table, discussing all the ways that a .300 magnum round outperformed the assassin's tea kettle or a sharpened butter knife. When the jokes subsided, though, Chaudoin was looking at Alphonse pensively. "So that was it? She told you that you were borin' and she left? 'Cause that would be boring."

Alphonse set his cup down and ran his finger around its edge as if the plastic were going to resonate like crystal. "She told me to come find her again, actually." When Chaudoin's eyebrows threatened to disappear into her hairline, he added, "And that I should hunt her like she hunts."

"Might be safer for her," Madeline cut in, ahead of Chaudoin's indignantly open mouth and raised, pointing finger. "Check it. They're pissed." She spun her laptop around, displaying the bounty board that the Cavalry often used when HR did not have any active jobs for them.

Pink twink

A girl with pink hair was seen in the park where Hearst was killed. 100k DOA

Free agent?

250k doa for hearst killer we needed him

Need this chick gone

Whoever killed Hearst you're dead lol 125k DoA <3

The list continued, and Alphonse let out a low whistle as the pages scrolled past. "What's the deal with this guy, Hearst? Never heardst of him."

Marcus and Emmanuel laughed in two different stages of snort, Chaudoin rolled her eyes, and Madeline pinched the bridge of her nose, turning her computer back around and clicking through screens. "Well, if you had heard anything about him, it would be that he was very rich like the rest of the attendees, but he had a particular fondness for long range comms and satellite relays. He was going to put a lot of money out there for some new idea about satellite phones mixing with the smartphone market, but he hadn't unveiled his idea yet and this was the introductory stage. He was going to deliver a huge chunk of change to Lockheed Martin and Verizon in some sort of joint operation idea, but no one had any details on it yet." She huffed a bitter laugh, and added, "She put us out of a job, too, for the record, he was on our mark list for this gala."

Alphonse fell into thought as the table hummed with low conversation, pondering Blossom and her chances. Operating alone meant she had no backup, if things went south, and operating so anachronistically meant that she had no overwatch of any sort. She had been seen entering the park, and likely someone had noted her disappearing into the trees after Hearst. If that was the case, then it was possible, however unlikely, that she had also been spotted on her way out. If someone found her in her sleep, there would be no one to hear the screams.

"I'm gonna find her." The words slipped out before he even realized it, thoughts manifesting as sounds against his will.

Conversation stopped dead at the table. "One more time? You're what?"

Alphonse was sitting straight, now, the pages of notes on Blossom in his own computer floating through his memory. How much work would be lost if she disappeared into the night? How many hours of his life had he put into following her, only to have her targeted by a half-dozen different organizations and solo operatives with money and guns? And if she died, he would never be able to feel what would happen if that tongue that had electrified his ear went elsewhere. "I'm gonna play her game," he said, now resolute. "I'll hunt her on her own terms."

Bunny · Oct 13, 2024

The lack of awareness wasn’t something he needed to worry about. While she had been seen entering after her prey and even leaving the woods without him, Amoret knew enough to not allow anyone to follow her. Those who had tried to follow her were lost with a touch of effort from the pink haired beauty. It was only thanks to Alphonse that she knew to do this. Wary that he’d tracked her and unwilling to make it as easy for others.

Relatively assured she had lost her tail, Amoret headed back to the warehouse and picked up the few things she couldn’t live without - Namely money - and a few other things she valued and she left. Had it just been him, Amoret might have lingered, but Kirin Company told her he wasn’t alone. He’d intrigued her enough that she’d invited him to play with her. A first. The others knowing where she was was not something that ‘Blossom’ was comfortable with. It also meant that she couldn’t simply pick another set of buildings. It was a habit and they were forcing her to change them.

The warehouses were picked because of their remoteness and the ease in which she could kill within them. Far from stupid, she knew that once the figured out she’d moved from the warehouse, they might look in others and when they failed to find her there, they would search for similar locals. Likely houses being built or that had been abandoned. That made them off limits. She wouldn’t make his hunt too easy.. So she settled for a vacation house. One that was clearly not in use.

While she could have afforded to rent, she never paid in anything but cash, which meant people would see her, know her.. Remember her possibly. That wasn’t something she would ever do.. Witnesses were not something she suffered. Amoret knew the game she played was deadly. She’d be found one day. Killed. By the government or someone like him. She wasn’t done playing.. Not yet.

The security system had been easy enough to bypass. While technology wasn’t her favorite thing to deal with, she knew how to. Call it a necessity. Amoret could and did know her way around it. Using it to hunt wasn’t fun for her though. She’d been honest when she told Alphonse that it was boring. She liked the thrill of tracking someone. Being so close to them that you could touch them and their being unaware. Hadn’t he felt it that day, when she’d slipped that damned bug on her? A thrill at being so close to her?

It turned out luring people back to the vacation home was far easier than taking them back to a warehouse. It was a pain in the ass to have to wear wigs but it wasn’t the end of the world. People would possibly be looking for that brilliant pink hair. While she was willing to hide it, she wasn’t willing to dye it. This night she’d picked long silky blonde locks, though once she’d gotten him home, she’d pulled it off with a sigh. Oh, he’d liked that. Which Amoret found amusing. Here, in a house.. A nice house.. She’d asked him to play a game with her. He’d strip and then she would.

“Turn around, let me see all of you.” Amoret purred, though he didn’t see the dead look in her eyes. Clearly not impressed by his toned physique. Attraction for Amoret was based on a connection of a sort. Demisexual. Though she wouldn’t have even known to give herself that title. When he turned she moved closer. Her blade in her hand. She ran her nails along his back, circling him, Mori knelt before him and she watched his eyes light up. She smiled at him then, brilliantly. His eye widened in shock as the blade cut through his tendons.

A creature of habit when she started a kill. Couldn’t have her fun be ruined by running. The hunt was done and now.. Now she killed.

A small hand pushed hard on his chest, the hand holding the blade behind his knees as as he lost his balance she pulled her arm back and shifted her body to the side. His head hit the floor with a thud, the carpet she’d placed over the drop cloth doing nothing to soften the blow. It would daze him and she stood, spinning in a circle.

The knee high black stockings gave her the ability to spin like a ballerina, her shoes kicked off at the door along with her wig. Rising on her toes, she flicked her blade, splattering his nearly naked form with his own blood. She pulled out her second knife from the pocket of her shorts, the dark denim leaving a slash of pale skin between the top of the socks and the bottom of them. The top was a soft, silky red. It had gone nicely with the blonde hair. The gasped slightly as she bent over nudging him with her foot. “Wake up, silly..” The man groaned and she smiled again. “Good boy..”

Dropping gracefully to her knees she leaned over his chest, the tip of her knife beginning to carve into his flesh. There was rarely rhyme or reason to how she killed; only the cut to the achilles tendon a constant. She slowly cut a flower into his chest, watching as the skin parted and blood filled the space. He was still dazed, but he’d soon not be. For now, she simply was biding her time. Pulling back she wrinkled her nose. “Blossom.” She snorted and he groaned again. “What..” He knew something was wrong and he tried to push himself to sitting.

“No, we are not getting up.” She said in a sweet tone and she slipped her knife into his side. She missed everything vital and his body stiffed and he swore. “What the fuck,” His voice was rough, slightly panicked. “Did you cut me?! Crazy ass bitch..” She snorted and pulled the knife free. “Correction, Cut and stabbed you and I am just starting. You can scream if you like, though I doubt it will help..” She sighed wistfully and looked at him from where she sat beside him still. “I do like it when you scream though, so please, feel free.” As if to emphasize it, she pushed his arm flat and stabbed her blade through his palm. His scream made her shiver. "Mmmm, just like that." She pulled the blade free again and rose to her fee, watching as he cradled his hand.

Ryees · Oct 16, 2024

A job interrupted what would have been a fixation for Alphonse. Thoughts of Blossom wandered away for some days as he immersed himself back into his normal world, one of vantage points and vectors and witness expectations and city maps that he weighted on the kitchen table and pored over with his squad. The sourness he had been getting from Chaudoin gradually faded over the days as Alphonse's meeting with the elusive pastel pixie was pushed further into the past.

The death of Hearst, following the deaths of the Ballinger brothers, had made the news both local and worldwide. Any talks of halting or delaying the gala were met with hearty cries of, "Don't let them scare us off," and, "We can't let these terrorists block our cause," as if their upscale circle jerk was anything more than a publicly washed display of peacocking all their money and power about for the world to see. This had been the expected response, particularly from Roe and Romeo, two lawyers who handled the legal affairs of nearly a dozen of the clients in attendance. They had made names for themselves for being as efficient and tactful as they were driven and successful, outmaneuvering their clients with information more often than any of the typical snake-tongued trickery expected of lawyers. Where their information came from was a tightly guarded secret, in their world...

...but a widely known one in the backrooms, where the infonets that the Cavalry frequented were often posted with messages of their opponents weeks before high-profile cases. Emmanuel had been tracking them for some time, now, and so it came as no surprise when HR sent down the extermination order as the gala gained steam. Both men were marked as targets, but the research surrounding the partners' whereabouts ran into a snag when Roe stopped making public appearances out of the blue. His last known whereabouts were a ritzy neighborhood on the beach at the edge of the city, a pompous neighborhood of fat, sprawling vacation homes and luxurious, overpriced bay windows. Considering they only had one mark, the full Cavalry was deemed unnecessary, and so only Alphonse and Chaudoin were to be in the field as operatives, with Marcus as their driver.

A tall apartment building with a rooftop garden served as their vantage for now, the exit door posted up with a sign suggesting that a pesticide spray had put the space off limits to visitors for the weekend. The rooftop greenhouse was two stories, and it was on that second floor that Alphonse and Chaudoin were secreted away, the barrel of his rifle nestled in the crook of a small tree. The ventilation window on the building served as his port, carefully aligned with the front door of an office building two blocks away down the long, straight boulevard.

"Target 540 yards. Wind 12 to 14 at 4 o'clock, holding between point-eight and point-ten."

Alphonse twitched his scop up and right in response to Chaudoin's robotically precise measurements, using the door frame—barely the size of a LEGO brick, to his eyes—as his known value to scale his angles.

"Looks good," she affirmed, glancing at the digital feed from this scope-cam. "Target expected within sixty, prepare for engage."

"Heard," Alphonse's response came, quietly and murmured into the cheek rest of his rifle. With his shot lined up and awaiting target appearance, his mind began to wander. Roe's disappearance from the public eye was enough of an anomaly that the Cavalry had spent hours talking through contingencies and hypotheticals if the man suddenly showed up, or if he were to appear on-site when the job was in motion. They had decided that he should also catch a bullet at the same time, and the details had been hashed out about how that would go down. With multiple targets, they always preferred to have multiple rifles on-site, but follow-up shots were always possible, if risky. Giving the targets any amount of time to react was always bad business.

Movement in the window caught Chaudoin's eye. "This is Kirin Two, Kirin squad preparing to engage."

"Kirin, you are free to charge."

Between the two, Roe was the more pompous and bombastic, the "loud one," to Romeo's quiet, classy charm. For him to have vanished, during the height of his strutting season, was a mystery that Alphonse could not shake from his head.

"Target has exited. Kirin One, fire when ready." Romeo had exited the apartment door, turning in place to slot the key into the deadbolt.

Where would he have gone? The beach houses near the water were nearly empty at this time of year, with spring in its full swing and the snowbirds still in their warm nests. For him to be at the houses near the beach...

"Kirin One, take the shot."

The thought occurred, and he blinked. There was no good reason for him to be there. Unless he was lured there.

Chaudoin's fingers snapped in his ear. "Alphonse!"

He blinked, twitched, and pulled the trigger. Brick splintered in a shower of dust.

Adjust. Fire. Fine red mist.

"Kirin One reporting good effect on target. Kirin squad returning to the stables."

"You missed!" Chaudoin hissed in a way that suggested she would be screaming if they were not ghosting down a public staircase. "How did you miss!? The call was perfect, that tree was the dream rifle rest, you—"

"The drop and the wind made me second guess, I had to realign."

Chaudoin did not buy it for a moment. "You're telling me that was a tracer? We don't trace; you don't trace."

"Look I got him, didn't I?" he retorted gruffly, slinging his arm around the base of the railing and exiting the stairwell door into the sunlight.

Chaudoin puffed air through her cheeks. "Tchyeah, eventually, after you missed." She rolled her eyes, stalking ahead of him to where Marcus was waiting in their silver crossover. As she hauled herself in the passenger seat, he heard her spit, "He missed!" to Marcus, prompting the man to lean forward against the steering wheel and eye him in horror.

"I fired a tracer, got him in two," Alphonse grumbled as he climbed into the back seat.

"Since when do we—you—fire tracers? What happened to one shit one hit?""

Alphonse's eyes threatened to roll entirely out of his head. "Get us the fuck home."

It was lining up. As Alphonse strode lazily down the sidewalk, his eyes settled on the next of the gaudy, over-gilded, almost-manors that sat lazily along the beach like overweight sunbathers dressed in ill-fitting Prada swimsuits. The Cavalry had had their laughs, when he had returned, but they were cut off with the clacking of the screen door as Alphonse had taken off on his own.

House by house, he had scouted, surreptitiously watching as many of the houses on the street as he could from the vantage points that were presented to him; a bus bench, a cafe's outside table, and a few others had become lookout points for him, and over the days, he had grown more and more confident he had found, at least, the right block. Houses that were occupied were ruled out, as were their neighbors. Anything with any signs of life, be it maids, outdoor services, squatters, or visitors were scratched off the list. One stretch, though, was entirely empty, a dozen houses in a row that had not shown signs of inhabitance for months. It was there that he focused his efforts, and where he had posted himself up to watch that day. And sure enough, an hour later, his intuition paid him a dividend.

Oscar Romeo strode arm-in-arm with a ravishingly beautiful blonde woman with a petite frame that struck Alphonse as familiar. He was a ways down the street from the pair, but their direction suggested he knew where they were going and their travel speed suggested he knew what they were going to do once they arrived.

When they had disappeared down the stone stairs to the beach, Alphonse stood, downing the last of his coffee and setting down the street. He angled himself one house over, holding the strap of his messenger bag as he trotted down the stairs. The house adjacent to his expected target was already unlocked—he had let himself in days before—and he stole inside, stepping into the master bedroom with an entire wall that was a window overlooking the beach. Its side wall, though, had a proper window with proper blinds, and it was through those that he peered. Sure enough, he saw that blonde and Roe slip inside, all making googly eyes at each other.

Something about that bothered him. Why did that bother him?

He darted from the bedroom to the window-wall, flipping the gold latch set along the seam of the wall and carefully swinging the pane up on its hydraulic arm, then settling it back down. The deck here had a staircase that led to the gravelly sand that separated the two lots, his steps ghosting him across the gap with in practiced silence. A basement door in the building Roe had disappeared into had been left unlocked by an earlier visit of Alphonse's, and that door opened and closed without a sound.

Inside, the insurgent fished into his bag, pulling from inside the compact sidearm and screwing its suppressor into its threads. Carefully, silently, he made his way upstairs.

"Did you cut me?! Crazy ass bitch...!"

Alphonse could not make out the words that were cooed so lusciously in response, but they made his hair prickle by their sultry warmth. He could not imagine what Roe was going through, but he would not have to for very long as his head crested the floor level. A heavy khhthunk! that sounded like a knife being pounded tip-first into a cutting board prompted a pained scream, and Alphonse's eyes traced the form of a pink-haired vixen perched on black-clad legs that made his lips part the slightest bit, staring at her from behind as she leaned forward over her prey.

The living room where she worked was decorated in lavish style, befitting that of someone who hired a service to make their vacation house feel as rich as they were. A vase that likely held as much value as most everyman's daily commuter vehicle sat on a high shelf on the far end of the room. The sharp, snappy hiss of his gun, carefully aimed across the room, exploded that vase into dust, and Alphonse stepped up and out of the stairwell with his weapon trained on Blossom.

"Don't let me interrupt you again," he quipped as he strode around the railing, grinning behind the sights of his pistol. "I wouldn't want you to think I was stalking you, or anything."

Bunny · Oct 17, 2024

The sharp snappy hiss made her turn on her feet, her face angry. When she saw who held the gun she lifted a brow, lazily. “Are you planning on shooting me, Alphonse?” That purr added to his name made her eyes darken and it wasn't’ entirely violence that lurked in those lilac eyes. The man at her feet was trying to turn on his stomach, likely to try and crawl away and though her eyes never left the white haired male, a small foot caught his injured hand under it and she pressed down on it, his cry made her her eyes flutter closed and she shivered before opening them again. “If not, put the gun away. I have no interest in killing you.” At least not yet. The words hung in the air.. She could never fully ensure she wouldn’t want to try.. But at the moment she found him far too entertaining.

Lifting her foot, the warm blood from his hand on her stocking and pooling across the floor. She shifted her body and sat on his back, just above his rear and she let her eyes drift from him and back to her current toy. He knew what she was, or so he claimed. Even if he hadn’t, she wouldn’t have stopped what she was doing unless forced. “Anatomy is helpful to know, but in the, it doesn’t really matter. He will not live to see the sunrise..” She purred as she slipped her blade into the strong back beneath her. The movement was slow, deliberate.

Her chin turned toward Alphonse and for a moment she debated letting him join in, but he’d see the flash of jealousy and anger before they leaked from her features. She wasn’t ready to share her toy with him. “How did you find me?” She asked him, brightly as she pulled the blade free. It was the pain, the scream and the blood that Amouret sought. Her head wiggled side to side as if thinking. “It has to do with him, doesn’t it?” She growled at the man beneath her, though the sound became an almost girlish giggle as he tried to buck her off in desperation. Her smaller frame bounced, her hair lifting around her face with the movement before she slammed her knife into his shoulder. “If I wanted a ride, I would ask our visitor, not you. Behave.”

“Please” His voice broke and he was crying. Disgust curled on her lips and she sighed. “He broke too quickly,” This was said more to herself than to Alphonse. “He didn’t look like he would break so soon.” She turned her head to him. “Or do you think he wants you to save him?” She tilted her chin, her hair brushing along her shoulders. “I think if that was his hope, he has you pegged all wrong.” She smiled at him, a slow, sweet curl of her lips. “If you know him, that means your company knows him.”

She toyed with her knife, drawing up and down his back. The tip biting into skin and leaving small shallow cuts that made the man whimper. “How much is he worth?” She was curious, not that it mattered, she’d not see any of the money. That made her pause though and she looked to Alphonse a hand lifting to him; as if asking him for help up. “Would you like him? As a reward for finding me?” She smiled.. “I’d kill him if you like, but would you still get paid, my Specter?”

He now had a nickname and while it wasn’t more creative than the one they’d labeled her with, she liked it better. The double entendre aside, Amouret liked it for more than just now. Though he did seem to enjoy spectating.

Ryees · Oct 18, 2024

“Are you planning on shooting me, Alphonse?”

Not with this particular gun, he thought wryly, lowering the weapon and leaning back against the railing. "Walking in on a woman doing the deed can be dangerous," he replied smoothly, "always better to be on the safe side." Gone was the blonde, the wig lying discarded by the front door. How surprised Romeo must have been to see the normalized hair color disappear for the eye-catching pink to take its place. Likely still less surprised than he was now, though.

The way her body bounced while her victim thrashed about was quite the sight, prompting an amused climb of Alphonse's brows. She was enjoying herself in that largely cracked, intensely detached sort of way, and even Alphonse winced when she brought that knife crashing into his shoulder. His experience with his victims' deaths may as well have been at the opposite end of a space telescope, for how far away he typically was; the fine red mist of his target's head erupting a mile away was much different than the meaty, thick sound of a blade punching through skin and entirely skipped the iron-scent in the air that left a metallic taste on the tongue.

"How did you find me? It has to do with him, doesn’t it?"

Alphonse nodded, making no effort to hide the way he looked up her black-clad legs as he thought about the sideway-suggested ride. "Mmmhm—that's where it started," he explained, slowly drifting over to the man lying on the floor in a pool of his serpentine lawyer-blood. Alphonse squatted low, tilting his head so he could meet Romeo's eyes as the cretin looked desperately up at him. "The thought occurred to me while I was scoping in on his brother," he hummed with a lilted inflection that drained what color was left in Romeo's face. "Roe is missing ninety percent of his skull, last I checked, and orchestrating that was quite the inspiration, let me say."

He stood, pinching off the amused smile that had come about at Romeo's dying hope burning away in his eyes. "Oscar Romeo. Partner at Roe and Romeo, a lawfirm that handles, almost exclusively, high-profile clients with very, very large bank accounts. Single, but dating one Rita Ferguson, and it's been getting serious lately. Drives a white BMW usually, but he's got a nice red Mustang as a summer car."

“If you know him, that means your company knows him. How much is he worth?”

Her hair falling off her shoulder and leaving it bare to the air was immeasurably distracting, but Alphonse pressed on smoothly. "Highest bid was 280k, last I checked. Honestly, seems cheap, doesn't it?" He tilted his head, eyes to the ceiling for a moment of contemplation. "A life as big as his worth less than some houses—hell, than any of the houses on this block."

When her hand came up like a princess daintily asking for assistance to rise from her throne, Alphonse grinned and stepped around. Careful to avoid the growing pool of blood, he took her hand and pulled steadily. She was light enough to spring right up, but when she came forward and bumped her chest against his, he failed to hide how much it surprised—and excited—him, by the way his eyes glimmered.

“Would you like him? As a reward for finding me? I’d kill him if you like, but would you still get paid, my Specter?”

That smile.

Alphonse smiled right back in her, a head taller than her but somehow still feeling eye-level for the weight of her presence in the room. He hand that held hers slunk behind her, dragging her hand with it to pin it to the small of her back. His other hand, having never stowed his handgun, slipped forward, pressing the barrel of the suppressor to her collarbone. "Well, that depends..." he crooned, moving the weapon up over her clavicle and to her neck. "I need to take credit for the kill... but who actually does the deed is—well, obviously, no one will know what happened in this house today." The barrel had climbed her neck now, socketed into the crook of her chin just over her jugular vein, and he used it to press her chin upwards. In the same motion, he pulled with he hand that held her behind her back, dragging her up precariously onto her tippy-toes. "So if you would be so kind and gracious as to let me take my tag from him, and keep quiet about it, yes, I would pocket aaall that money..." He paused, grinning coquettishly down at her, close enough for her to feel the heat of his breath. "...minus your cut, of course."

Bunny · Oct 22, 2024

Her lips quirked and she inclined her head in response. “That is true, but I didn’t kill, attack or maim you last time you did so,” she reminded him, Amoret’s voice playful. His wince was caught out of the corner of her eye and she turned curious eyes to him, like a kitten facing a rather interesting bug. Based on the fact he said they were in the same line of work, it wasn’t death that bothered him. “Do you not like the pain?” Curious. It was her favorite part, the pain, the screaming… the blood. Her eyes drifted away from his face. She loved the feeling of her knife slipping into someone. The textures she encountered.

Soft, almost bouncy skin, the tense, dense muscle.. The feeling as it hit bone, jarring and the sound it made.. Then when she hit something particularly soft within the body. It was all so beautiful to her. She couldn’t understand why someone wouldn’t want to feel all of that. Her eyes drifted back to Alphonse’s hands. Guns.. Again, impersonal.. She supposed it could be fun, but it didn’t seem so to her. This time however, she kept that thought to herself. At least verbally. He could likely see the thought on her face though as she considered his hands.

His eyes almost stroked her skin and something about the way he looked at her made Amoret want to purr. “Is he now?” She said, looking up into his face. She had been right, guns. Her chin tilted and she considered the information. “Sniper rifle then?” She might not use them or even like them, but she knew many ways to kill people. Her knives happened to be her favorite though. “Poor Rita,” she cooed softly, looking back down at the man. “Does she know you like to fuck strangers?” Her tone held reproach. “Such a naughty boy!” The tip of the knife nicked against his neck, not too much worse than you’d get shaving, but it would burn.

“Mmmn, I suppose, but as at most I get a few hundred dollars from wallets, it is quite a bit more.” It did seem like a low number for someone that at least sounded important. When she had lifted her hand, a silent request for help, he’d obliged. His hand was large and warm beneath her own. One yank and she was on her feet, her body pressing into his.

Yes, she liked the way he looked at her. She’d met others, from time to time, but none looked at her like this. Fear, pity and disgust were far more normal. There was something quite thrilling at him looking at her like the pathetic men she killed did.. Though he knew what she was and still looked at her like that. It was, in a word, delicious.

When he pinned her arm, she did purr, a soft little throaty sound. The cold touch of the gun made Amoret shiver. It would have been better as a knife against her skin, but that wasn’t who her Specter was. He pushed her chin up and for someone who had never been with another, it was thrilling and more than appealing for him to force her chin up, her eyes meeting his.

Had he asked her, Amoret wouldn’t have said she had a submissive bone in her body. She’d never felt the need or inclination to allow someone to pin her in place or force them to look at her. A gasp left her as he pushed her to her tip-toes; it was that or to harm herself. “Who would I tell Specter? I don’t take credit for any of my kills, not like you do.”

What she did next was just as new to her. His hold on her was used to her advantage, despite the pain it caused and she brushed her lips against his jaw, before dragging her teeth against his skin. “Half the reward, in cash.. And no tricksy little trackers either.” As she spoke her lips brushed his skin. “And you may have the tag.”
#ce9fd4

Ryees · Oct 22, 2024

She was a delight. Unhinged, certainly, and her lack of organization was going to get her killed eventually, but the joy with which she approached her work was fascinating and—was the word he was searching for "refreshing?" The likelihood of her success seemed slimmer and slimmer the longer he had watched her, but somehow she still managed to slip away from her scenes unscathed. Surely it was not just her feminine wiles that allowed her to escape the situations in which she put herself? Did she really just flirt and flutter her way out? There had to be more to the story.

The way she reacted to her world made him want to see more. The little shiver when cold steel touched her skin, the way she gasped and teetered on her stockinged toes as he forced her eyes up to his, looming his height over her. The gasp was too much not to prompt a greedy smile. When her face pushed forward his finger twitched onto the trigger in caution.

Blossom's lips against his jaw was cause for surprise, but not one that prompted a trigger pull. Her teeth on his jaw sent a shiver rippling down to his toes and back up, and a low rumble sounded in his chest accompanied by a breathy exhalation through his nose. Her chest against his, he clinched his arm down around her waist, lifting her and spinning her in a half circle, his back to the whimpering lawyer. He snapped his handgun back into its holster with a practiced ease, freeing his hand to slide up her back and lock at the back of her neck. His fingers tangled in her hair. He bent so that his eyes met hers, ice meeting petals.

"Half... can't," he murmured, walking forward and pushing her backwards until her back met the railing he was leaning against a moment ago. "But I'll tell you what: You can have my cut..." Alphonse grinned in her face, making it well enough obvious that there was a catch incoming.

He released her hair, taking a half step back, his arm slinking out from behind her back. Alphonse stepped to one side, slipping in between the space between Blossom and the railing and then settling his hands on her hips to pull her back against him. With his back half-bent against the railing, he moved his head forward so that his lips were in line with her ear. "I want to watch you kill him," he droned deeply, a sepulchral baritone rumble in her ear. His head turned so that his lips were pressed into her neck, and his hands slid up her side, caressing her flanks and rising to her shoulders. Thunder rumbled against her collarbones as he said, "Show me what how you do it," into her flesh.

When his hands reached her shoulders, they slid down her arms, tracing thin lines with his nails down her arm until his hands reached her wrists. His left secured her left, pulling around her front to hug her across her body. The other covered the back of her right hand, his hand nearly fully encompassing hers as he shadowed his grip over hers on her knife. When he moved that hand to her front, he slowly guided the blade up her front, delicately pushing the tip of the blade up the center line of her shirt, then up onto the flesh of her neck, until the blade was in line with her own throat. With the blade flat against her neck, he muttered once more into her ear. "I want to see the real you." Then he dropped his her hands, sliding his hands around to her back and giving her an encouraging push away from him.

Bunny · Oct 25, 2024

Oh she liked that sound he had made. It wasn’t as good as a scream, but it also enticed a different feeling from her. That little growl followed by his exhale. When he lifted her into his arms it was her turn to exhale, a little gasp as her feet left the floor. They spun and she let out a laugh, throaty and amused as they moved. His gun was holstered before sliding along her spine and cupping the back of her neck. When they slid higher and tangled in her pink locks she purred, eyes meeting his.

They moved again, his body sheltering her even as he pushed her backward till her back hit the railing. Half, cant. He had murmured as they moved and she tilted her head. Yet he offered her his cut of the kill and she lifted a brow, she could feel the but coming. She could have his cut, but he wanted something from her. He turned her and placed her before him, her body snuggled back against his, enveloped in his warmth and scent. His body again, sheltered her as he bent closer, hips lips brushing her ear as he made his condition clear.

Her lips quirked as he told her he wanted to watch her kill the spineless lawyer. His lips brushed her neck and Amoret made another little pleased sound. His hands stroking along her side, up toward her shoulders. The slight flash of pain made her gasp, though not surprised.. Like the little sounds and purrs, they held something soaked in pleasure.

He played a dangerous game as his hand moved to her knife, it was something she’d never allowed another to touch and this growl was soft, a promise of violence as he moved the tip lightly over her shirt and then along her collar bones to her neck. He said it as if she’d ever hidden from him. The gentle push had her feet moving and she turned on her stocking clad toes to face. “You say it as if I have ever hidden, Specter.” Her voice was soft and sweet.

Though she turned back to the man, she didn’t mind an audience did she? Alphonse didn’t ask Amoret to kill him right out.. Didn’t say she couldn’t play. That would have been boring anyway and not who she was. It would have been a little too much like lying and for some perverse reason, Amoret didn’t want to lie. Not her Specter.

By the time she was done, Oscar had lost his voice from creaming. The floor was so much blood on the floor and his body was covered in it. She’d taken her time and had played. He saw each little tremor as the thrill of his blood, his screams had excited her. She had watched Alphonse too. If he couldn’t handle this, her, it would break the magic they had. Part of her fascination with him was his lack of fear from her. Disgust or fear and this little dream would shatter. It had been his icy eyes she’d watched as she’d slipped her blade into Oscar’s lungs. She didn’t need to see the bubbling blood as it foamed at his mouth, she could hear as he died.

Rising to her feet, she padded through the blood back to Alphonse and tipped her head up toward him. Her knife had been left in the body of the dying man, and she lifted her brow.

She rose on her toes, careful to not touch him with her bloody hands and when he bent some, closer to her she pressed her lips to his ear, much like the first time they’d met.

“Are we the same sort of monster?” Her question was soft, almost innocent despite what he’d just witnessed. “Or are you now scared of me because something is broken?”
#ce9fd4

Ryees · Oct 25, 2024

There was a strange sort of magic in the way she worked. His world was one of efficiency, of simplicity, and of contracts, moving from job to job for the prestige as much as the paycheck. The infonets raved about the jobs the Cavalry performed, their names whispered in bars and offices around the globe. Hers was a different kind of fame. It was bathed in mystery and spoken of more incredulously than admirably, but no less enthusiastically for the difference in tone. Alphonse was not the only one that had become a fan of hers, following her exploits in the dark corners of the dark places in the network... but he reckoned he was the first to see a live demonstration.

The satisfaction from a well-executed kill was always something that he cherished, but never something he had truly given much thought. The Cavalry planned a job. They staked out their target zones. They set up. They killed. They went home and celebrated. Then the loop repeated. The jobs were always different, the marks always new, but there was a sameness to it that, in the stark red light of Blossom's work, felt somehow very mundane, very scripted. The freedom with which she lured targets—any target she liked, rather than picking from a bounty board—into her temporary lairs, dazzling them and building up the tension before she slowly released it through the vent of a hundred lacerations given at the peak of confusion left him enraptured as he watched her work.

As he watched her play.

Oscar was a puppet to her, a doll with which she could play any game she desired. The look on her face was something he had never experienced for himself, but it looked very good on her. And when she finished, the satisfaction and lightness in her step as she bounced over to him was hard not to admire. He had been watching from the railing, leaned against it with his arms folded, his expression somewhat unreadable as he watched a master perform their craft. But as she came closer, he straightened. She was politely careful not to get blood on him as she leaned up, and he canted his shoulders forward for her head to nestle next to his.

“Are we the same sort of monster? Or are you now scared of me because something is broken?”

Again with her lips just at his ear, this time when the shiver ran down his spine he let it fuel a low, throaty chuckle, paired with a dismissive shake of his head. "Not scared, no. And we're not the same, but..." His eyes closed as his head shook, exhaling through his nose incredulously. When those silver eyes opened again, they were inquisitive, half-lidded, and digging, diving into her appearance like the silver tip of a chisel. "We see the world differently. We approach our practices differently." He reached down to her hand, stained in crimson, pulling it up by the wrist to hold her palm flat and forward, fingers together. He opened his own hand and hovered it just an inch from hers; her finger tips barely reached his first knuckle. Her hand, underneath the red paint, was slim and dainty and pretty. His, while clean, were sturdy and heavy, well-kept for a career that revolved around his manual dexterity. The contrast of a stained, small hand, and a clean, large one, was the illustration of their dichotomy.

"I'm no more afraid of you than I am any of my team," he answered simply, bending his fingers just a fraction so that the very tips of his fingers touched hers. "I know a dangerous person when I see one. I try my best to make sure I'm never on the other end of their scope—or at the end of their knife," he added, his eyes flicking over her shoulder. "You do what you do... hauntingly well. There's a reason you're so popular."

When his eyes met hers, they searched her face. "We're not the same, no... but we're not so different either." His hand, in time with his words, closed down on hers, mingling the spilled blood on their palms. Pushing forward into her, he pressed their chests together, slowly walking her backwards. "We do what we do for different reasons, and we have different methods, but at the end of the day..." The smile that he flashed, to their eyes, may have read as deviant, mischievous; to the average person, it would have been so far detached from reality that Alphonse appeared a monster. "People die because of us," he murmured, his voice low and wispy, "and others live by our choice alone."

The drop cloth rustled under their feet as he walked her back through the pool she had created. When her heels touched the body, though, he did not stop, using the corpse as a tabletop to bend her backwards. Carefully, he snuck a hand under her back, bending one knee to catch her fall, but only barely, rather unceremoniously dropping her atop Oscar's bleeding remains. With one knee planted, he lowered his chest into hers, pinning her against the body as he held her hand. And there, holding her against her prey, and his target, he kissed her. Slowly, he moved his lips against hers, but there was a heat in the way his teeth snuck her lower lip away that suggested that that gentleness may have been narrowly forced. When he let go over her hand, he dragged it up her middle, leaving a red streak over her sternum and up her neck as he pushed his hand up behind her head and locked her face to his.

It was a long few beats that he trapped her there, pulsing his lips and teeth against her pretty, pink, pouty mouth. When he released her lips, he released her hand, hovering over her on one knee. "Life is our plaything," he said, his voice husky. "So let's play."

Bunny · Oct 26, 2024

Long fingers encircled her wrist, lifting till her hand rested in the air, bloody palm held toward him. His own palm mirrored hers and Amoret found their differences fascinating. She was a tiny woman, there was no getting past it. Delicate. It was often why her prey never felt nervous following her anywhere she led them. How could a slip of a girl be dangerous? They could easily overpower her after all. Most people never considered the brutality that could be unleashed by humans, let alone from an unimposing female.

The tip of his fingers brushed her own and she looked past their hands to his eyes. A brow arched curiously. “Popular?” It was clear that the pink haired woman that his team had nicknamed blossom had no idea of the attention she drew. She lived in a bubble; one of blood, death and whim. His answer though, about whether or not he saw her a monster. The edges of her lips curled as his hand pressed against hers, the blood transferring between their skin.

Alphonse moved into her until their chests pressed together, then using his body, he forced her backward until her legs hit the body of Oscar. Herding her like he was, she had to either step over the body or fall, it seemed he had a plan though as a hand slinked around her slender body, palm resting on her back, supporting her body and lowering her all at once. Pinned against the corpse, her Specter crowded her space with his warmth and scent as his head lowered and his lips pressed to her own.

Her mouth was warm against his, softening as he kissed her. The scrape of his teeth made her shiver. The hand that had been holding hers slipped along her chest, leaving a trail of blood along her pale skin before it slipped into her hair holding her to him and the kiss. Not that she’d wanted to flit away. Amoret may have never kissed anyone before, but it was something that came naturally. Teeth scraped against his lower lip and her tongue slipped free of her mouth the brush against his mouth. When he pulled back, she found herself almost dizzy from something so simple as a kiss.

Life is our play thing

So let's play.

She smiled and shifted, arms slipping around his neck. She laid against the cooling corpse without a care in the world, her back resting against what had once been a living and breathing human, now nothing but meat and bones. “What did you have in mind, Specter for our wicked game?”

Ryees · Nov 5, 2024

His face traveled forward, lips moving into her neck and teeth finding purchase on her skin every other inch as he wormed his head in an arc around her neck from one side to the other. "The game started with you, miss Blossom," he replied, letting the hum of his words vibrate his lips on her neck. "You made the first move."

The one hand that held him off the ground did so in the cooling pool of blood beneath their makeshift mattress. He shifted his weight, planting his clean hand onto the flared hem of the man's coat to keep it clean, while the other swung around and up, coated in red. He folded his fingers, pressing his thumb neatly into the space made by Blossom's well-presented clavicle, holding for a moment, and pulling back. His thumb print remained in the space. Whether he meant it as a badge of honor or a tag of ownership, he left deliberately unclear.

"You unwittingly set into motion events that move up and out of the scope of your normal operations," he explained, the tone of his voice suggesting not that he was trying to talk down to her, but that he was warning her of machinations outside her purview as sincerely as possible. "Roe and Romeo were big-shots for this gala, and their disappearance was... delicately planned. We knew that the infonets would light up when they died, but when it was the whole of my organization they would be looking for, all they would find is smoke. We set it up that way. You, though, beat us to this one." He jerked his head to the corpse. "And while I had a head start, if I could find you, so can others."

Careful to get no more than his already-stained hand and the bottom of his shoes anointed, he rose, pulling Blossom to her stockinged feet just as he had the last time and walking them out of their wading pool. His messenger bag, which he had discarded against the railing, he dove into, producing a metal spray bottle the size of his hand. The solution inside was a styptic powder solution in alcohol; he sprayed it on his hand, then waved that hand for a moment for the alcohol to evaporate off; when it dried, he pressed his hands together and scrubbed vigorously, and within a moment, the dried blood had flaked off into tiny particles that fell away, leaving his hand clean. He sprayed the bottom of one shoe, then the other, repeating the dry-and-rub process there as well, before holding the spray bottle out to Blossom in offer. As he moved, he talked.

"I'm not sure what your ops look like day-to-day, but you've made a target of yourself. " He pulled out his phone, tapping over to the screenshot he had snapped of the infonets from that morning.

Infonets said:
Pink twink

A girl with pink hair was seen in the park where Hearst was killed. 100k DOA

Free agent?

250k doa for hearst killer we needed him

Need this chick gone

Whoever killed Hearst you're dead lol 125k DoA <3

"The next people to try and find you aren't going to be the pissed-off wife of the guy you swindled at the bar last night. They're going to be people like me. Organized, planned, and with a lot of resources. You stepped on some big toes." He bagged the spray once it was used, then leaned back against the railing. "So you've gotta figure out how you're going to lay low. My suggestion: Find me."

The glint in his eye was challenging, but it carried a weight to it that suggested it was perhaps less of a suggestion and more of a plea. "If I just walk back with you on my arm, the Cavalry will one, laugh me out of the trailer; but two, they'll also turn you away at the door. Particularly one of them—" his lips pursed as he held back a snort at the thought of look on Chaudoin's face when he walked up with the pink-haired damsel on his arm"—but in reality, none of them would be thrilled if they thought I was trying to wrangle you in. The last time we tried to add anyone to the squad, it took a good hot minute, and that was also at my suggestion. Worked out—she's great—but you know how it is: Killing is a delicate subject. Sharing those details can be uncomfortable."

He fished into his wallet, then crossed the space between them and pinched the card between his index and ring fingers. He slid it down into the cup of her top, using one finger to push it all the way into the cup, then gave her chest a satisfied pat once it was in place. "I really do want you to succeed, but try not to use that if you don't have to. I've just told you everything you should need to find me." He popped his face forward, pressing a single, rough, flash of a kiss into her lips, then stepped back again, pulling his bag up onto his shoulder. "I won't judge you if you have to use the hint," he added with a wink, "but we both know you're sharp enough not to need it. You find me, and I'll deal with my team. And you'll have a place to call... Not home, maybe, but a place to sleep where you can actually get some real sleep. Lord knows it's a commodity in our line of work."

Bunny · Nov 11, 2024

The first challenge had been issued by her, he wasn’t wrong. The game had begun with it for Amoret, though for her specter it had likely begun when she began to kill in their territory amid the events that had so many powerful, depraved people filling the city. Such easy pickings for a cute little psychopath. The brush of his lips along her skin made her sigh, a pleased little content sound at the affection. So oddly soft for someone like Amoret; perhaps that was part of the appeal. No one had ever seen who she was, what she did and then shown her any softness.

The press of cooling blood against her skin was curious and it felt almost like Alphonse was marking her, though for what, she didn’t know. It almost felt possessive, as if he was claiming her and yet it could be something else. Any chance to dwell on it slipped away as he spoke. Her eyes narrowed for a moment, but it was clear even to the broken doll that he had pinned beneath him, that he was trying to help. Her lips trailed against his jaw, nuzzling against his skin gently as he explained how his operation would have vanished, that she was in danger.

Would it disturb him if she told him she expected to die before seeing her thirtieth birthday? It seemed unlikely. The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long, after all. Pulled to her feet, she allowed him to lead her from the body. Oddly, following him felt.. Natural. She watched with interest as he sprayed his hands and then his shoes. When he offered the bottle she lifted a brow lazily. She’d have a better chance of burning the house down to remove the traces of her presence than the little bottle would provide, but she said nothing and sprayed her own hands in a perfect mimic of him.

“For starters, I don’t use words like ‘ops’” she said as she shook her hands, her skin colder from the alcohol solution. Shifting on her bloody feet, she peered at the phone, before looking up at him. There was a curiosity on her face. “Why do you care if I live or die, Specter?” That little nickname was almost sensual as it purred from her lips. His answer, the almost plea in his voice gave her pause. He cared, for whatever reason if she saw another sunset or sunrise. That was… unusual for Amoret. And then there was the challenge he issued.

“Wrangle me?” There was a slight anger to her voice and those beautiful lavender eyes flashed. Her lips curled in a small snarl. “I don’t want to join your little.. Murder.” It was clear that the term wasn’t the act, but more like a murder of crows, a term for a group of killers. She huffed out a sort. “Killing is no different than anything else, it is just based on perception.” She lifted her clean hand, the pad of her thumb rubbing along his lower lip. “Soldiers kill for their country, they are not vilified. They are heroes. Because people want to see them that way. All based on perception. It isn’t as if your.. Cavalry are innocents. The men you kill,” she shifted, so he could see the body behind her, “is no different than me killing them.”

The proffered card was slipped into her top and his hand bruised along the swell of her breast. His mouth claimed hers, roughly and she leaned into the brief kiss before he pulled back and she laughed softly. “Bold of you to assume I sleep like anything like a baby, Alphonse. Don’t forget to claim your bounty, I still want your cut,” the words were sweet as she turned away from him.

She’d find him, without the little hint he’d given her. That alone would be fun, though Amoret was still against joining his little group. She wasn’t done playing with him though, no, Alphonse was far too fun. She watched him leave before turning back to the body. Her nose wrinkled.. As fun as her Specter was, he did often make her finish early.

That night, she cleaned up her ‘mess’.. Careful to destroy any traces of her presence. His warning had not fallen on deaf ears and while she knew she would die young, she wasn’t exactly in a hurry. Normally she didn’t care enough to take extreme precautions, but that pleading tone and the look he’d given her… It made Amoret more careful. It was more than changing her hair and dress, but avoiding cameras too. A week would slip by without a sign of her or her activities. It took some time to find all the trailers that could house a team. Some were easily discounted, others were possibilities.

She knew she’d found the correct place whens he’d watched him enter and leave twice. The second time, she’d watched some girl snuggled into his side and though she was clearly interested in Alphonse, he didn’t seem to return the feelings and she found that fascinating. Waiting until they all trooped out, well, most of them, Amoret headed toward the building that his little organized killers seemed to call home base. There were likely security procedures in place and she might have been able to find them and avoid them, but she didn’t feel like it.

When he returned with the little group, they’d find her leaning against the trailer’s side, her ankles crossed daintily. She’d dressed up for him, silly, but true. Some details had been picked up from that night when he’d slipped her that card. Such as the way his eyes had raked along the paleness of her thighs between her shorts and thigh highs. A short pleated skirt with white little crosses on every other pleat brushed against her thighs and a few inches below it, was the hem of dark thigh highs. Her pale stomach was exposed by a short crop top with a white collar and three little white buttons. A pair of platform wedges added several inches to her height. Amoret had left her pink hair on display, the wealth of soft pink foaming around her shoulders in charming profusion.

“Hello, Specter.” That sweet voice purred his name as they came closer and she flashed him a smile.

Ryees · Nov 15, 2024

A vial of collected blood and a wallet came with Alphonse as he departed Blossom and the beach house. The coagulant had cleaned him up enough to get home, and thankfully he was ablet to slip into the house without much notice and steal a shower before any eyes laid on him. Life resumed as normal, but with the ever-present anticipation of a surprise visitor lingering in the back of his mind.

The eight intervening days had been a bell curve of expectations. In some ways he was hoping for her to appear within the next day or so, but that was because of the simple truth that he wanted to see her again, to touch her again, to find some new and creative place to pin her under his weight and find out what other delightful sound effects he could make her produce. But the reality was that her appearing within a day was unrealistic, and moreover, would have been foolish; the Cavalry would never suspect him to actively give out their location, but his going to meet up with the pink-haired vixen and then her sudden appearance at their base would have simply been far too great a coincidence for the sharp-eyed, sharp-witted team to miss.

Roe and Romeo's deaths faded into the rear view, and days wound on. Eight days saw two jobs. The first was quick and painless and so simple it was a shock the kind of money being offered to clean it up. Perhaps as a solo operative it would have been more challenging, but executing three models, all in stiletto heels and cocktail dresses, on their way to their limousine in a private house on the edge of the city, proved to be so insultingly simple that Chaudoin fell asleep during her spotting.

The second, though, had turned into a project. The gala security had been expanded significantly, with military and counter-sniper forces officially planted on-site and throughout the city. Emmanuel spent many late nights scouring for bits and pieces of information that they could plan with, and it still ended up requiring a two-day stakeout in a construction site two miles away from the venue. Alphonse had almost taken a bullet from one of the sharpshooters positioned on a high rooftop down the street, but Madeline's trigger had been faster by enough time where the counter-sniper's rifle never even fired. The elimination of that soldier, though, prompted a full cancellation from their mark, and they went home empty-handed, tired, and grumpy.

As the van pulled onto the street of the subdivision that held the trailer park, Madeline slumped back in her seat. "...I just don't understand why we couldn't stop somewhere on the way home," Madeline grumbled sourly, her stomach making a protesting sound in agreement with her whining.

"We just had to get home as quickly as we could," replied Emmanuel, already exhausted for how many times he had said just that. "C'mon, Mads, y'can't always just stop somewhere when you have six rifles in the trunk."

"Well... the Burger King guy wouldn't have known that."

Jeff chuckled at his wife's expense, putting a hand on the small of her back. "I'm right there with you, hon, I'll get us something going when we get home."

She perked up at that; of the six of them, Jeff was by far the best in the kitchen. "I'll take that for now."

"Van needs an oil change," Marcus announced, glancing over at the panel from the front passenger seat. "Think it'll take long enough for me to do that, or should I start after?"

"Is that what that light is?" Chaudoin questioned, furrowing her brows at the dashboard.

"That is what that light means, yes," Marcus replied sardonically. "Hence the little oil-pan icon."

The look Chaudoin gave him suggested she was considering driving into oncoming traffic and that the only thing that stopped her was that there was no oncoming traffic. "Don't you 'hence me' you—"

"Someone's outside our house."

Chaudoin's foot pressed on the brake immediately, and she pulled them off the side of the road. Her rangefinder was already in her hand, zooming in on their trailer from the one block over still between them and their destination. She blinked into the scope, and then looked at Alphonse. "How the fuck did you see her?" she asked incredulously. "We're like two blocks out and there's buildings in between."

"Because I've been waiting to see her appear for a week" did not sound like the kind of thing that he should admit to his team, so instead Alphonse said, "Uh, hello, that pink? You could see her from fucking space, I'm surprised you missed her, miss spotter."

Successfully riposted by the assault on her pride, Chaudoin snapped the scope back up to her eye. Marcus and Jeff had theirs in hand, too, leaning between the seats to get a look at their trailer and the pink-haired sprite leaning against their wall.

"There is actually no fucking way..." Jeff's voice was an incredulous whisper.

"Fucking Blossom!?"

"What the fuck is she doing here?" Chaudoin's eyes flicked backwards at Alphonse, who caught the accusatory tone in her voice like a softball.

"Fuck you looking at me for? I didn't bring her."

"No you just fucked off and met her last week. The fuck did you say to her?"

"I didn't say anything! And my meeting her got us our calling card for the lawyer, thank you very much."

Chaudoin rolled her eyes, and her whole head with it. "And she just gave you the credit, sure, you didn't have to do anything for it."

"Who's gonna pay her? She doesn't work with a team or an org."

"Why do you know that!?" she shot back, spreading her hands and half-turning in her seat. "Why do you know anyth—"

"Wooooah woahwoahwoah, big deep breath Doey," Madeline interjected, leaning forward to wave her hands like signal flags in front of Chaudoin. "Don't get all up on Al, no way he would ever sell us out for this chick, no matter how long he's been in her fan club."

"Thank you," Alphonse said with a dramatic nod to the tactful Madeline. "I have no idea what she's here for. Not like she's here to audition, this isn't her bag."

"We don't take auditions anyway."

Chaudoin spat the words haughtily, but Emmanuel's piercing stare made her shrink. "Strange position for you to take," he said musingly, and that prompted Chaudoin to spin forward in her seat to hide her rising flush.

"I mean we gotta see what she wants, right?" Marcus asked. Chaudoin's head snapped around as if to say something, but she thought better of it and kept her mouth shut.

Jeff sighed, and all mouths in the van mirrored him. "Yeah. Let's go."

Chaudoin pulled them off the side of the road, winding the last of the way towards the trailer. When they arrived, their visitor was on display in all her black-clad glory, and Alphonse could not take his eyes off her. Nor could Emmanuel or Jeff, though Jeff had the tact to sling his eyes over to his wife before his leer was noticed.

"Well, let's go," Chaudoin said, unbuckling her belt, but Emmanuel's hand covered hers and held the buckle in place.

"Yes, let's go; Alphonse, Marcus, go." His eyes locked onto Chaudoin's pointedly. "The rest of us will stay here and keep an eye out. I'll get on a gun."

Chaudoin looked like she wanted to put him at the end of a rifle, but stayed quiet and simply nodded curtly. Alphonse also nodded, shuffling to the side door of the van and rolling it open to hop out, followed by Marcus.

“Hello, Specter.”

Marcus quirked an eyebrow at the nickname, and Alphonse mumbled, "I called her Blossom, she called me that, it was a whole thing," with a wave of his hand. But the smile he fixed her with contained a conspiratorial spark in his eye that was hidden as he stepped forward in front of Marcus. "Evening, Blossom." He made an effort to rule the playfulness out of his voice, and he successfully came across as curious without sounding in on the ruse. "What are you doing here?"

Bunny · Tuesday at 1:06 AM

Lavender eyes watched him, curious. A new game? Interesting. Amoret seemed to know without asking that this was a mask. That kiss, that worry had been real. For someone who distinctly didn’t people.. She was oddly apt at reading them. Perhaps it was in part due to how she picked the men who would follow her into the darkness. Pushing off the trailer she walked closer to him, ignoring the other man entirely. “You promised me your half, or don’t you remember, Alphonse?” His name was a sweet little purr and her hand lifted to rest on his chest, palm flat.

“Besides, you kept talking about your team. I was dying to meet them.” The word held a slight edge, as if it were distasteful. She slowly walked around him, her fingertips ghosting over his shirt as she finally acknowledged Marcus. Though, the warmth that had been in her eyes faded as she looked at him. Handsome, but no.. she could kill him. No movement was made as she circled to his back and her eyes fell on the van. Her eyes met Chaudoin’s and she lifted her free hand and blew a kiss at the van. To the resat of them, it might seem like an odd greeting, but in truth, Blossom was taunting the other female. Circling back before him she let her hands fall.

“And we're playing a game, are we not. You found me twice. Seemed only fair that I returned the favor.” Her voice was warm again as she tipped her face upwards some, her eyes meeting his. “I could have followed you when you left, interrupted your kills. But that seemed too childish. Besides, you do so because you’re ordered to. Not because it is fun.”

Any question as to how she saw their killing was clear to Marcus. They were b-o-r-i-n-g. Her eyes flicked to Marcus, sizing him up. “You like to kill from far away too, don’t you?” Her voice was almost wistful. “Track as a team..” Her eyes moved back to Alphonse. “Safety, you said.” She lifted to her tiptoes, hands on his chest again. “So there is no prize on your heads.” Her lips brushed his jaw before she spun away. Her face was beautiful as she smiled at him. “Will they shoot me, Specter?” Her voice was musical as she pulled back. That voice lowered, so only he’d hear her. “I know that one wants to shoot me.” She spoke of Chaudoin naturally and she tilted her head. The look was curious, considering.

Why not have settled for the other female. Her mindset was likely similar to his. Mates should be compatible, should they not? It was curious, but it was clear by the way that her Specter treated her, that he wasn’t interested in her. It only made Amoret want to purr with contentment. That little kiss wouldn’t be the last time she intentionally poked Chaudion. It was interesting, really. Amoret had never had a ‘beau’ of any sort and to suddenly have a ‘rival’.. Though Amoret was sure the other woman was dangerous, she wasn’t afraid of her. She’d likely play by a set of rules that Amoret wouldn’t. It made her vulnerable and weak.

Fingers toyed with a button on his shirt. “And I hear there is a bounty on my head.” Blossom pouted at Marcus. “All because I just wanted to have a little fun!” The words were proclaimed with the same poutiness that danced in her face and eyes. She wasn’t good at people perhaps, but she was a hell of a mimic. Amoret wasn't a true psychopath, but she was oh so close.

There was something that did puzzle her, too. Dead was dead. What did it matter who killed them? Alphonse had taken credit for her kill and she could care less. Her fun had been had, the body was long since taken care of. “Surely it would be bad for business if I claimed I killed them, wouldn’t it? Oscar Romeo” Though her eyes had come back to Alphonse it was clear as she looked up into his own pale eyes, that she’d not intention of doing such a thing. He wanted her here though and she had to play this game.

Ryees · 2024-11-21T23:40:45-0600

Marcus knew that their spotter scopes did not have mics, and they were far enough away from the van that their voices would not carry. As Blossom approached them, he leaned over to whisper, "Does just she just always dress this hot?" just loud enough for them both to hear him.

Sharing in the cheeky conspiracy, Alphonse twitched the smallest of nods. "Far as I can tell, yeah, she just always looks this good." His voice was pitched equally low, but loud enough that Blossom would have no trouble hearing.

“You promised me your half, or don’t you remember, Alphonse?”

Marcus' eyebrows rose at that, and now he did fully turn his face to regard Alphonse with no small amount of surprise on his face. "Seriously?"

"Just my cut of Oscar's bounty," Alphonse answered both of them, but his eyes were on Blossom. "I'll make good on that while you're here," came his promise, and Marcus whistled under his breath.

"Pretty penny to give up."

"Pretty girl." That earned a snort and a nod from Marcus, but the mirth dropped from the mechanic's face as Blossom started to walk a circle around Alphonse. His hand twitched towards his belt, but Alphonse's left hand strayed out from his hip with his palm flared to the ground, the slightest movement, but one that was sharply perceived by his long-standing squadmate.

“Besides, you kept talking about your team. I was dying to meet them.”

He leaned into her touch a fraction, but his brows furrowed, a sarcastic twist on his lips. "I don't... believe you," he admitted, huffing a chuckle. "You think it's cheating to have more than one set of eyes."

“And we're playing a game, are we not. You found me twice. Seemed only fair that I returned the favor.”

Blossom's suggestion that she would have disrupted them earned an uncomfortable shuffle from Marcus, who was now sizing her up not as a woman, but the way he would a strangely aggressive housecat with a penchant for bloodlust. When her eyes snapped to him, he almost jumped.

“You like to kill from far away too, don’t you?”

"Rifle doesn't really work from up close," he smoothly shot back, jerking a thumb back towards the van. The large middle-doors on its side had been opened, and the dark-tinted window rolled down. The barrel of a rifle poked out from it, stabilized on a custom-built cushion mounted just inside the window. A large Nigerian man aimed down the sights with a short-range scope swapped in for the normal high-power scopes they used at long distances. The absolute perfect stillness to him, as if he were a snapshot of a human pasted into reality was, for such a large man, eerie and unsettling.

“Will they shoot me, Specter?”

The innocence and wonder in that question made Marcus further uncomfortable, his brows knitting together again. But as her personal note was whispered into Alphonse's ear, he could not suppress a snort. Even without that clandestine addition, though, Marcus answered her with a slow, considering nod. "Chaudoin... might shoot her," he admitted, "it's probably good that Em's on the gun."

Alphonse nodded his agreement emphatically. "Chaudoin gets all fussed when Jeff and Mads get frisky," Alphonse explained to Blossom, nodding his head back towards the van as he met his flower's pink gaze. "She thought I was lobbying for her recruiting so I could fuck her, but really she's just an incredible spotter. Basically a calculator up in that head of hers, she's brilliant." He spoke of her like he would speak of a very fancy new PC. "Invaluable, really, but still gets all pissed when she makes a pass at me and I turn her down."

Jeff's mouth had pressed to an annoyed, flat line. "Looking forward to that phase ending, honestly."

"I'm worried she'd try to break off and go solo," the snowy-haired sniper replied flatly, "end up on a bounty board herself. She's too hot-headed."

“And I hear there is a bounty on my head. All because I just wanted to have a little fun!”

Now Marcus was visibly uncomfortable, shifting on his feet and bouncing his heels, looking to Alphonse in an unsure, pleading way, begging for guidance. Alphonse, though, just smiled down at her, shaking his head dramatically. "Those bastards!" he scoffed, snapping his fingers theatrically. "No taste, philistines one and all."

Marcus finally broke. "Bro, who is this chick?" he balked, dropping his head at the neck and staring at her. "The fuck kind of deranged-shit is going on up there?" His finger tapped his temple as he stared incredulously at the pleasure-hunting thrill-seeker and her startling pink hair.

"I'mma be real, no one really knows how she actually gets by." The mystery in his voice held an unmistakable note of affection, taking obvious joy in the process of trying to sort out the puzzle that was Blossom and her unknown, bloody methods. "I always assumed she just skimmed the money off her targets, she doesn't ever claim kills."

“Surely it would be bad for business if I claimed I killed them, wouldn’t it? Oscar Romeo?”

"No one would buy it." Marcus had answered much too fast, and now he fidgeted with his hands. Less defensively, but more bashfully, he added, "we've already been credited and paid, and he's long tagged. That ship has sailed."

"But I did promise her my cut of the last," Alphonse announced, nodding with an honest finality that seemed to settle Marcus' nerves. "Cash is in the trailer, and maybe if she stays long enough she can tell us her fucking name, so we can referring to her as one of the fucking Powerpuff Girls." With that, Alphonse turned, holding his hand in front of his chest so as to mask the quick hand signals from any wandering eyes. The rifle barrel tilted skyward as Emmanuel dropped it from his shoulder, hoisting it out of the window and handing it back to a phantom set of hands inside the van. A moment later and the vehicle hummed the rest of the way into the driveway, prompting the trio on foot to take a few steps closer to the house.

"Doey's gonna kill you," Marcus said to Blossom directly as the van rumbled closer. "Just don't..." His lips curled over his teeth, and he shook his head. "I was going to say don't antagonize her too much, but—"

"I wouldn't be surprised if she posted up under the kitchen table while I counted her cash, just to piss Doey off," Alphonse interjected, and Marcus laughed, nodding. "But really," Al continued, "if you're going to actually stay here, you have to find a line, and not cross it. Skirt it all you want, but this team is really a team."

"We don't ride unless we ride as one."

"...unless we ride as one." Alphonse joined in the mantra halfway through, nodding in time. "I know you're used to on your own, and that you don't really care for a team, but I care for my team." His eyes flashed seriously at that, like the silver slide of a handgun cocking back in warning. "You have to play... nice enough to make Chaudoin agree to you hanging around."

"Is she hanging around!?" Madeline had hopped out of the van, her bobbed blonde hair bouncing in time with her chest as she hopped in place clapping her hands. "Good, she can tell me her color kit—I love the pink." As Jeff's head poked out of the side door, she craned her neck around. "J, would you fuck me if my hair was that pink?"

"I mean..." As his feet hit the ground, Jeff gave Blossom a healthy sizing-up, after having received implied permission from his wife to do so. And then he nodded, a sharp hint of enthusiasm left over in his eyes from the up-down he gave their visitor. "I fuck you now, I fuck with that color, so yeah, count me in."

Emmanuel and Chaudoin slipped out of the front doors as the van turned off, the tall, thick-chested man already shaking his head exasperatedly. Chaudoin, though, looked like she had spent an hour sucking down pure lemon juice. "What's she staying for?" Her voice was tight, restrained anger obvious in her tone, but the airs of politeness on display.

"She found us Oscar Romeo," Alphonse responded, sliding an arm around Blossom's shoulders in an approving way that Chaudoin absolutely noticed. "I'm not hurtin', and the Cavalry got paid 'cause of her, and HR is happy, so I told her I would give her my cut if we could take the tags."

"Wait, seriously?" Jeff asked as he put his hand on the doorknob, turning around to face Alphonse. "Bro that's a lot of cash, I know we're making out hot with this gala but, you didn't have to do that for us." The stunned gratitude in his voice turned into a wistful head shaking as he turned back to the door, starting on unlocking the ungodly number of latches and security measures on the door, including a fingerprint and retina scanner. "I'll give you a piece of mine, at least a little," he murmured as he stretched his eyelids open and a red light beamed into his iris.

"Yeah, I don't really need my full cut, J and I share most our earnings anyway." Her tongue clicked, and she tossed her arms up around Alphonse's neck for a quick, chaste hug. "That's really super nice of you."

Alphonse's arms landed in the small of her back and he squeezed her only for a moment before letting her go, shrugging dismissively but smiling at the recognition all the same. "Figured I'd need to butter you up if I was going to have a roommate for a few days."

"Not if I can watch her shower."

Madeline winked at Blossom as Jeff cracked the door open, but he paused in the door, spinning around to throw an accusing smile at his partner. "You better share," he warned, pointing a finger at her, but her gaze deflected that finger to Alphonse.

"I don't thinks she's mine to share," she quipped back, a second wink at Alphonse her last decree before she slipped inside.

Emmanuel had to duck his head to get through the doorway, and Chaudoin followed him inside briskly, eyes straight ahead and making a concerted effort to look anywhere but at Alphonse or Blossom. She stalked off to the right of the doorway as soon as she was inside, bodily throwing the duffel bag full of rifles onto the couch as she disappeared.

Alphonse inhaled deeply, then huffed a heavy sigh, but shrugged, turning towards Blossom. "I'm sure we'll hear about that later, but for now... welcome home."

The interior of the trailer seemed, initially, entirely too cramped for six people to live comfortably. It was a large mobile home, to its credit, with the first space opening up into a living room that contained two three-cushion couches of mismatched black and red leathers as well as two mismatched armchairs, one of which was broken and perpetually had its leg rest extended. The coffee table in the center of the room, though, was the first testament to the organization that the Cavalry kept, its cork coasters and napkin holder placed at particular, sharp right angles at even spaces in the corners. The furniture had its backs to them, a waist-high entertainment center held a sizeable TV and a smattering of consoles and players, antiquated mixed along with the modern.

Despite six humans entering the space ahead of them, the room was empty. The sounds of two voices chatting amongst themselves echoed from around the corner to the right, and the sound of sharp, angry footsteps echoed from the left.

To the left and right of the living room extended hallwaysj, the left with stairs that led too far down to be above ground level, and, even from the entryway, it was clear by the sound of Chaudoin's heeled boots echoing that that hallway extended much further than met the eye. The right side junction was fully above ground, and the kitchen table and chairs that poked out of then next room made its role obvious on first glance.

"Kitchen right, living room here, everything else left," Alphonse announced as he stepped to the center of the room and turned to face her. "Bedrooms, bathroom, our planning room, all that way." His arm pointed to the left-side hallways, but snapped back up with one finger extended. "Not that you can get in there, but for now you're going to want to hold off on going in that meeting room for a bit. Bedrooms aren't labeled, mine is the second door on the right. And Chaudoin's is the second door on the left, so do not confuse your lefts and rights. Bathroom is first door on the right, ops room is all the way at the end with all the locks."

His head turned back and forth, searching. "Jeff and Mads are in the kitchen, Jeff does most of the cooking; he's really good, and they were talking about him cooking on the way home. Em and Chaudoin and Marcus probably either went to the meeting room for Chaudoin to vent, or to their rooms." A hand came up behind his head, and he looked apologetic. "Kind of a lot, I know, but. Settle in, make yourself comfortable."

Shades of Red [Bunny ║ Ryees]

Imperishable Fractal Quintessence

Attachments

𝔴𝔦𝔠𝑘𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥

Imperishable Fractal Quintessence

𝔴𝔦𝔠𝑘𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥

Imperishable Fractal Quintessence

𝔴𝔦𝔠𝑘𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥

Imperishable Fractal Quintessence

𝔴𝔦𝔠𝑘𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥

Imperishable Fractal Quintessence

𝔴𝔦𝔠𝑘𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥

Imperishable Fractal Quintessence

𝔴𝔦𝔠𝑘𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥

Imperishable Fractal Quintessence

𝔴𝔦𝔠𝑘𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥

Imperishable Fractal Quintessence

𝔴𝔦𝔠𝑘𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥

Imperishable Fractal Quintessence

𝔴𝔦𝔠𝑘𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥

Imperishable Fractal Quintessence

𝔴𝔦𝔠𝑘𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥

Imperishable Fractal Quintessence