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Destruction's Right Hand (Razgriz & WritingxDreamer)

Ever since her fated meeting with the infamous 'Shiva', Gwendolyn took it upon herself to make her life as busy as possible. She wanted to think as little as possible about the events that had happened.. and almost happened. She had spent a good portion of the next few days working throughout the town on all the jobs that needed to be done. There were speculations on how hard a girl her size could work, but those were all brought to rest after her first day of labor. She managed to solve many of the issues that had been plaguing the town. She was no genius, but some of her innovative ideas were more than enough to solve a few problems.

On this particular day, Gwendolyn decided against wearing some of her more battle geared garb and for once wore clothes a bit more casual.. for her anyway. The long strands of her hair were braided and kept behind her back out of her way. She examined herself in the mirror once she had gotten dressed and brushed her fingers along the now non existent wound that was once on her shoulder. She hadn't heard much of anything about 'Shiva' since that day, and as much as she wanted to be relieved by that, thoughts of his true intentions plagued her. What kind of guy was that mad genius? Why did he help them exactly?

As usual, it was something else that drew her from her thoughts. She turned her head toward the front door. "Ah- One moment." Gwendolyn grabbed her pendant from her desk. Whenever she was on missions she chose not to wear it, as it was something precious to her.. the last thing given to her by her late boyfriend. It was a round stone that had a faint, constant, glow around it's center. It was a strange thing he claimed to have found while mining one day. He had hoped to use it as some kind of proposal item until he managed to find an actual ring, but that was just one more thing that he never got to do.

Gwendolyn pushed her thoughts away and put on the necklace as she opened the door. "The mayor? Is this some kind of mission or something?" Of course, the wording would have been much different. The mayor wanted to see.. her. But why just her? She hesitated before continuing in her response. "Thanks Brian.. I'll head right up there." The last thing she wanted to do was leave the mayor waiting too long and hear about it later. She shut the door behind her, giving a small wave to Brian before she took off ahead of him to the Mayor's house.

'What could he possibly want?'
 
Brian walked with Gwendolyn back to the Mayor's office; he too was curious why Redstone had specifically summoned for this young woman. Knowing him, it was to perhaps try and lecture Gwen on how her performance went yesterday. But neither of them would really know until they got there, so there was no real use in talking about. Around them as they walked past, people bustled about with their daily tasks. Several of them who passed gave their thanks to Gwen for her assistance in dealing with their issues; they were far from perfectly solved, but she certainly helped in keeping things together for a good while longer.

Redstone, meanwhile, was waiting patiently in his office with his legs on up on his desk. The small radio in his little operations center played some country music, the twings of the guitar strings and the melodic voices of the vocalists were rather calming for him; at first glance, one might think it odd for someone as gruff and rowdy as Redstone to be listening to this kind of music. But if his hardened exterior was overlooked, one could see that he acted that way because he needed to. He was this town's symbol of order, and it made him have to man up and assume the mantle. Regardless, when Brian and Gwendolyn walked into his office, he simply said, "Thank you, Brian. If you would.......". Brian nodded and left, leaving the young woman to face this man alone.

Redstone swung his legs down and went to turn off the radio, the dial making a small click before the music that had once played shut off. "Matthews, sit" he said, motioning to the chair in front of his desk. He then continued, "Matthews, I need you to tell me something. Yesterday, from what Hemmingway told me, your convoy was attacked by an Enforcer platoon. Both towns lost some people in the trade-off, but Hemmingway said you were saved by a robot named Shiva. He also said that a larger gold-plated one was particularly interested in you. Did this robot say anything? Do anything that might indicate who it is exactly we're dealing with?"
 
Sometimes she doubted how much help she could actually offer, but being thanked was something that definitely made her feel better. She smiled at each of the townspeople that offered her their gratitude. It was the least she could do, after all, many of the townspeople had done so much for her the past couple of months especially. She couldn't expect anything else in return for her hard work.

Gwendolyn wasn't a big fan of the mayor's choice of music; her face subconsciously scrunched up in response to it. She grew content with the silence after he turned it off, sending Brian away. She turned toward the other man, giving him a thankful nod. She felt bad for Brian, always having to do the running around jobs, like collecting her, since she wasn't the most.. punctual person in the world.

She didn't need his invitation before she started to sit in the chair across from his. She crossed her legs and leaned back in her seat, eyeing him a bit curiously. She had expected someone else to be there at the very least, but this meeting was exclusive to the two of them.. something she wasn't exactly accustomed to. Regardless, it wasn't enough to unnerve her, and she managed to sit in front of him in a casual enough manner. "Mayor Redstone. It's always a pleasure. What can I Do for you?"

She had expected him to bring up the incident, but it was a different matter for him to start talking about it. What could she say? They were saved by two oddball robots who left nothing more than a name. "He didn't say anything that would be particularly useful.. aside from rambling.." She frowned a bit, "He was kind of hard to follow, and none of us could really tell what he was aiming for. I thought for sure all of this stuff was in the report Hemmingway gave you. He was in charge of everything, so why did you call me here instead of him?"
 
Redstone just listened as Gwendolyn gave her account of what happened; like he expected, there wasn't much for her to tell. But he just found it odd that a robot would seem to gravitate towards her; he'd never heard of a machine actually possessing that kind of capability. "If you actually stopped and thought about it for a second, Gwendolyn, you'd know that I already talked to Hemmingway. How else would I have gotten the mission reports?" he snarled, picking up the stack of files from his desk to show they were there before tossing them unceremoniously back onto the piece of furniture from which he conducted business. If there was one thing that got under his skin, it was being questioned in his methods; she should have known by now that he ALWAYS talked to the mission leader first before talking to the security detail and other members of the mission team.

"And Gwendolyn, I suggest you actually arrive on time for a mission before you try getting smart with me. You haven't earned that right yet" he then added sharply, turning to glare at her with his good eye; it would be fairly obvious he wasn't up for dealing with a lot of bullshit. One would expect him to be somewhat upset; those damn Enforcers were a pain in the ass, making things harder than they needed to be. He then walked and sat down behind his desk, lighting up a cigar and taking a drag to help calm his temper. "But I didn't call you here for a reprimand. I was hoping you might have been able to shed some light on this whole Shiva business......Oh well". Taking another hit of the cigar, he was about to say something when a knock was heard at the door; Redstone just barked, "Who is it?" The door opened to reveal Hemmingway himself, standing there in his characteristic tan sleeveless trench coat and wide-brimmed hat. "Ah, Hemmingway, we were just talkin' about you. What can I do for ya?" Hemmingway just sighed and hefted a rather large set man in a top hat and business suit into the room, arms behind his back.

Redstone just pinched the bridge of his nose, "Burns, what are you doing back here? Do I really need to kick your ass again?" Hemmingway just added, "Caught this sleazebag trying to sell parts at overinflated prices". Redstone growled and suddenly leapt up from his desk, grabbing the shop owner by the scruff of his neck and bringing him up to eye level. The portly man's feet dangled slightly in the air, his expression one of obvious fear; Redstone then growled, "Guess I wasn't clear enough the first time I caught you doing this, Burns. You know how rare it is I give second chances". Burns just stumbled over himself, sputtering, "P....please, sir......S...she was asking for an intact heating coil.......Those are hard to come by....A..and I have so few in good condition" "That doesn't excuse you from selling it at triple the price; we have laws against price-gouging here, Burns" Hemmingway interjected; this caused Redstone to backhand the shopkeep, sending the man crashing to the floor. "I thought I made it clear that I wouldn't have sellers trying to rip off my people, Burns! Short supply or no, you keep things at a reasonable price and make a reasonable profit!" He then turned to Hemmingway and said, "You, take her and go somewhere else; this bastard and I need to have a little talk". Hemmingway nodded and said, "Come on, Gwen, let's go grab a drink". He then led the woman out of the Mayor's office, the town official cracking his knuckles as he prepared to "teach" this dimwit why no one fucked with his town.

"So, I guess Redstone's still in a bad mood, huh? At least that's not either of us on the receiving end of that" Hemmingway then commented jokingly, hoping to defuse any possible tension before asking, "So, he asked you about Shiva? Heh, sorry; didn't think he'd call you in by yourself. Just noted how odd it was that the big robot seemed so interested in you compared to the rest of us. Kinda makes you wonder, don't it?"
 
This wasn't really the first time that Gwendolyn had been on the receiving end of Redstone's fury. At the very least, while she was listening to him rant and rave about her stupidity, it was mildly entertaining to watch his face reach darker shades of red than she thought possible.

"Even with my record of being late, I Still get things done." She spoke up in her defense, but it was almost instantly drowned out by another rant. Gwendolyn gave up with a small sigh and leaned back in her seat. It was definitely going to be another one of those days. She had no idea that the mission the other day that subsequently involved Shiva would lead her into so many problems. She had interacted with the robot sure, but hadn't the rest of them? The whole day was starting to become a blur that she was beginning to question what had really happened.

When Hemmingway came through the door moments later, she couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief. She was already tired of getting chewed out, and even moreso tired of hearing about Shiva. She scrambled from her seat at Hemmingway's invitation and had no hesitation leaving the room with him. "It's been a long time since I've had to sit through one of those, You're my savior." Gwendolyn folded her arms behind her back while she walked beside him. "In all honesty.. I hadn't even noticed that Ivan and Shiva paid anymore attention to me than everyone else.." Gwendolyn shook her head, trying hard to think back on what exactly happened. "Maybe it was just a fluke thing.. There's nothing about me that would cause reason for some vigilante to focus on."

"A part of me wishes there was some way to contact Shiva though..." She said honestly, rubbing her hand through her hair. "I'd like to ask him a few things myself.. just like everyone else around here."
 
"Maybe, but unless we can find a way to talk to him, we'll never know for certain, now will we?" Hemmingway replied as they walked towards the only watering hole in the city: The Hub Distillery. Built from scavenged Old World schematics, they'd managed to find ways to craft fermentation vats that could take their excess sugar-producing crops and turn into rather unique blends. Wine, vodka, beer......Just about anything that could be made was; ironically, the only problem was finding things to serve the stuff in. Glass mugs crafted from scavenged beer bottles were used, but more often than not there were steel cups with hinged lids, apparently called "steins".

As they walked into the bar, they would find that it was moderately crowded as usual; the place itself was rather sizable given the size of the city, so there were still plenty of seats available. Several tables had people playing games of varying kinds. One such game was Five-Finger-Filet, a rather crude game were a knife was plunged in four set patterns between two fingers on the person's hand, the overall rules being that they couldn't stab the same spot twice in a row and there was no more than a two-second delay between stabs. The fifth and final stage was the player's choice of forty stabs, following the same rules as before. Bets were made that they could pass each stage without hitting their fingers three times. Another table hosted an Old World game of five-card poker using hastily assembled decks of cards found from scavenging runs.

Hemmingway led Gwendolyn up to the bar, choosing two stool that happened to be side by side. "Hemmingway! You jaded son-of-a-bitch! It's been ages since you been here!" The barkeep, Barry, said as he and Hemmingway shook hands. "Ah, treating your lady for a drink, huh?" he then commented jokingly; Hemmingway smirked and replied, "Figured I had to do somethin'; Redstone was ridin' her ass good". Barry just laughed and said, "Well shit, I'll drink to that! Bet he's been runnin' your ass ragged. You're kinda his "go-to" man for most things, ain'tcha?" Hemmingway nodded, "Yeah, but he does what he does, and hey, we're still on this side of the dirt, so something must be going right". Barry just chuckled and said, "Well, shit, what can I get for ya?" "Whiskey.....And whatever she wants. It's on me".
 
Gwendolyn had been to the Hub only a couple of times, but enough to recognize some of the regular patrons. More often than not she found herself engaging in some of the few gambling games that were scattered about in a crude manner. There was hardly any order when it came to the games people played, it was just whatever they could find on a particular day.

As they passed some of the tables, a few of the patrons glanced up and recognized the girl almost instantly. They nodded their heads in greeting, knowing full well who the man was walking beside her. Of course, once he passed by them first their smiles turned to scowls. Many times they could recall Gwendolyn playing them out of their money. She was better than most at the card games of the old ages. She had learned most of her tricks from her father back when she was younger, and some of them just happened to stick into her adult years.

Gwendolyn wasn't exactly the bragging time, but she felt a small tug of satisfaction at the sight of the scorned drinkers.

After she took a seat beside her superior, Gwendolyn offered a small smile to the bartender. "Just some brandy is okay with me, don't go easy on me. I'm not too shabby of a drinker."
 
The bartender nodded and poured the two of them their drinks, then left to attend to his other patrons, thinking that they might want to just talk with each other. Hemmingway sipped the strong liquid from the rather pristine glass before setting it back down. This whole Shiva business was bothering him; even now, he could hear several people talking about the strange robot that made his rather abrupt appearance. Seemed like the golden was the hot topic; it was strange, he hadn't even heard of Shiva or what he, if the label "Father" had any merit, had done to clearly aggravate the Enforcers so much.

"So, Gwen.....What's your take on all this? I know you probably don't want to talk about what happened....." Hemmingway started, but stopped for a couple of moments as he tried to formulate what to say next. "I mean, our trading and scavenging parties have been fucked with by Enforcer patrols before, but they never tried to kill us. At least, not with as much force as they had. It's strange...From what I've been hearing, the Resistance has been really pushing against the Enforcers lately, and now we see this Shiva character. Makes me wonder if he's allied with them or something...." Of course, Hemmingway wasn't a member of the Resistance, just an extremely talented soldier who shared Redstone's passion in protecting Central City. But he couldn't thinking what role "Shiva" had in all of this.
 
Gwendolyn took a somewhat exaggerated swig of her drink before she set it down beside her. Her gaze, for now, was locked onto the amber liquid inside the mug. There was a lot to think about, and she knew that was a gross understatement considering the situation. She sighed a bit, and rubbed her hands through her hair in a frustrated gesture before looking back to Hemmingway. "I don't know really.." She confessed, shaking her head with a somewhat exasperated tone. "It seemed like there was a lot more going on than a peon like me would be really able to understand." Gwendolyn hesitated before she threw out a hypothesis. "Maybe there's something else.. they've been looking for. Something they think the resistance might have?"

She took another swig of her drink, her mind deep in thought. "Maybe that's why the resistance has been more.. anal about getting stuff done. But I can't think of anything that could possibly get both parties so involved lately. Let alone bring in a third party." She definitely counted Shiva as his own side altogether. Perhaps this time he was on their side and seemed willing to help them fight against the enforcers.. but who's to say that his vision was something that completely coincided with their own? He was an enigma. And the fact that her superiors now seemed to think he had some sort of interest in her made her feel even more lost. Her lips parted and she took down the rest of her drink in an attempt to wash away all her troubling thoughts.

"Why me?" She rested her arm against the table before her chin laid against the palm of her hand. She furrowed her brows together. "Up until just recently I was just a backwater resistance member like everyone else. I let the big guns take care of all the crazy shit going on around me, but now I feel like I'm stuck in the middle of it."
 
"Hmm, could be....But what they think the Resistance might have that they might want is beyond me. I mean, sure they're organized, at least as far as the propaganda goes....But they're still just people against an even more organized army. But I'm with you in so much as being in the know of what Shiva's intentions are" Hemmingway replied to Gwen's insightful comment; the man seemed while the town itself wasn't under a abnormal amount of duress, it was far from perfect. Being one of the larger settlements, it had its fair share of crime - like the shopkeeper he'd hauled in to Redstone's office for "questioning" - and other troubles. But overall, the situation here was fairly decent if one looked at the big picture.

Hemmingway, however, didn't hear Gwendolyn's troubled muttering, his own mind busy in thought and everyone else too preoccupied with their own drinking and game-playing to really pay much mind. Lucky for her too, because there could be Enforcer spies anywhere posing as townspeople to try and fish out any and all Resistance members as they possibly could. And what poor Gwendolyn didn't know was that her encounters with Shiva were only just beginning. But that was not to be the topic of discussion for very long, because neither him nor Gwen wanted to reminisce on just how close they had come to dying that day.

In any case, Hemmingway turned to Gwen and said, "How about some blackjack or something? Let's see if you still got that magic touch of yours, Miss Fortune". "Miss Fortune" was one of the names that a lot of the players called her, since she seemed to have good luck a lot of the time and the luck of everyone else almost dropped. Even if she didn't play that, it wasn't hard to get a reputation around this little shindig.
 
There had to have been something that the higher ups knew about that people like her and Hemmingway were blind to. Something that was big enough to warrant the attention of people even like Shiva. He didn't seem like the kind of guy, if he even was a guy, who would care too much about the minuscule things that brought this argument to a battlefield. Therefore there must be something that caught his attention as well.. but what is it that could be big enough? What is it that they managed to keep over the heads of all the common people and resistance members like herself. It was all frustrating to think about, and she didn't like to dwell over the lack of information.

Gwendolyn snapped out of her trance to hear Hemmingway's recollection of her nickname. A small blush rose to her cheeks in a bit of embarrassment and she looked off to the side with a slightly nervous laugh. "It's been a while since they last let me play around here." She held her drink in her hand for a few long moments before she took another swig. "But I suppose it couldn't hurt to make a little extra cash tonight."
 
"Hehe, and here I thought you'd chicken out, Gwen" Hemmingway replied casually, finishing his own drink and getting up from stool. It might be strange for most people to see Hemmingway acting so relaxed; usually, he was an uptight man who focused more on keeping the town in order. In many ways, he was a toned-down version of Redstone, except a little more popular with the ladies because of how he dressed and acted. He was also unusually talkative right now; more times than not, he was a very quiet and reserved individual, working in the shadows almost....At least until there was work to be done. Perhaps it was the near-brush with death and getting shot so close to a vital organ that made him want to associate with people more.

As they approached a table, the dealer - a medium-build, fair-skinned with short red hair man dressed in what appeared to be a tuxedo of sorts - looked up and saw Gwendolyn, his face contorting a bit as he stated, "Oh, no you don't, Missy. You go on and get out of here.....I don't need your curse hanging over this table. Damn near cleaned us out the last time you played". Hemmingway just chuckled and said, "Ah, come on, Robert, let the lady play. She's been workin' hard and deserves a break.....Besides, I bet she's run out of luck to use". Robert pursed his lips, replying after a shake of his head, "Nuh-uh, she's bad luck for everyone else......"
 
"Oh come on Robert." Gwendolyn couldn't help but smile while she leaned over the table a bit more. "You can't still be that sore about what happened last time. It wasn't a big deal."

"Not a big deal?" One of the current participants of the table turned his head to look up at the two. The tall, almost lanky brunette gave a little nod of greeting toward the two before he continued on his little rant. "Last time they let you swindle us out of some money with that scary luck of yours, I ended up going home completely broke. My wife still won't let me hear the end of it..." He leaned back a bit in his seat after taking a swig of his whiskey. "Oh Cheria.. I swear I thought I was never going to see the light of day after that encounter with her."

Gwendolyn couldn't help but break into a genuine laugh, smiling almost confidently at them. "Oh give me a break Garett, your wife would've beat you senseless that night anyway considering how much of that money you actually blew on drinks."

The man hung his head a bit, slightly embarrassed. "Aw come on, Why do you gotta have a good memory too?"
 
Hemmingway just chuckled when Gwen threw what Garett had said back in his face; Hemmingway wasn't there himself, but he'd heard afterwards of the man's crazy liquor-fueled antics. It wasn't just him that blew money on drinks; people from the bar were helping to get him drunk as well, letting the insanity follow as Garett sang. Rather sloppily too, but he helped people feel good that night. Of course, the morning after, everyone was hung over as all hell, but it was worth it to have a night of relaxation.

"All right, everyone! Enough jawing, let's play some cards!" the good-natured lieutenant then said as the small crowd took their seats at the table. Hemmingway sat right next to Gwen, saying "Hopefully some of that luck of yours will rub off on me". Robert then gave a small cough and said, "OK, here we go, folks! You all know the rules, no cheatin', no bein' a nuisance, none of that stuff! Here comes the first round!" Two cards were then dealt face-down to each player in accordance with the rules of blackjack, while one of Robert's own was face-up, its identity being the Queen of Hearts.

Hemmingway lifted his own cards by the corner to see what he had: Jack-Ten unsuited. A good hand, but given that the dealer was also holding a ten-point card, it was not so good. Hemmingway waved his hand horizontally across the table once, signaling that he wished to hold. Garett tapped the table once, signaling a hit from the dealer; upon receiving the card, Garett repeated Hemmingway's motion to stay. And now it was Gwendolyn's turn.
 
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