The Lady and the Wolf - Penitency x Praxis

[Praxis]

She hated being this far out into the Blight. The sky was permanently a dismal shade of grey and putrid yellow -scarring left over from collapsing radiation blocks located some miles underground. Their infrastructure had some time ago began to wane, resulting in the cracking of concrete piping and seepage of foul poison that eventually worked its way into the topsoil of this land and on the land for hundreds of miles in any direction.
Refugees, 'fugees to the upper-tier, made their settlements here. Surviving on what little sustenance the area provided and suffering whatever long-term sicknesses came associated with living this deep into the Blight. She imagined them, all sallow-skinned and sickly, loosing bits of phlegm and blood through violent bursts of coughing with no attention paid to those around them. Skulking and cowering like dogs so far out into the death of the world that it was made necessary that she even be in a place like this. She kicked the heel of her heavy, black boot out a bit and adjusted herself into a reclined position, still lazily watching for anything from the hovercraft's observation deck.

Could be worse...
You could have his job.

She told herself, though remaining largely unconvinced. It was cold here, the air was foul and though she had no way to prove it she had convinced herself that it was murder on her skin. And for a girl -and she was that, only having come into her twenty third year, who epitomized the true power of genetic modification and diligence paid by those with enough wealth, any unwanted affects from toxic air wouldn't be tolerated. Her father had paid an otherworldly sum for her. Rather for her to be shaped in the image decided beforehand. Gone were the days of chance or random malady in those unborn. With enough money and sway any single person could have her clone grown from virtual nothingness. Simply order up the Rachel Elizabeth and in as soon as six month's time be the proud owner of her spitting image in every way down to the tiny, heart-shaped birthmark that had been arranged below her bottom lip.

A ridiculous notion regardless of it's plausibility. Her father had paid extra for her to be...unique. Something to set her apart and therefore above the other thousand or so permutations that were offered.

With her mother -the only woman he'd ever "truly loved" gone decades before her creation, he'd been forced into the decision of finding an heir to his company and its fortunes. And rather than wind down what remained of his already painfully long life in desperation, he'd bought his solution. Something of a habit of his.
And of course it had been her father who'd insisted that she work her way from the bottom. The way he had. So that she could understand the difference between buying greatness and being able to afford it.

She had begun to doze off when she heard the intercom buzz beside her. She lifted her head, brushing back a few strands of long, chestnut curls and smirked at the grainy screen. It displayed the image of a man, if one wanted to consider him that, waiting impatiently -shifting from foot to foot, outside of the ship. His face was shrouded by a re-breathing apparatus, goggles obscuring what little remained of his face though his body language spoke volumes to his mood. Apparently the poor weather and depressing locale took their toll even on bloodthirsty killers.

She pressed a large, circular button, hesitating before she spoke. Still smiling viciously at the figure, she cooed;
"What's the password?"

 

[Penitency]

The year is 2077; the world we once knew it had changed. Overpopulation, automation, artificial intelligence, wealth... everything changed the economic landscape no matter if you were in the United States or China. No single culture escaped the grasp of an ever shifting universe. Technology is endless... and yet, living conditions were getting worse and the rich were only getting more powerful. A majority of the population lived in crowded, dirty hub centers. The wealthy lived in the clouds, above the smog and the pollution of the inner cities. Some of them overlooked the downtrodden from the peaks of their skyscrapers mixed into the claustrophobic architecture. Others decided to live in floating islands high in the sky... either way, they were not breaking bread with the common folk beneath them, at least by choice. They controlled the tech... they fostered innovation.

With so many people came a change in the way the law was dispensed. Local Police Departments often called upon individuals known as Templars - legal "assassins" sent to do the dirty work of deleting murderers and psychopaths from the world. Each was given a handler assigned to them by the local PD as insurance. They had to keep these so-called Templars in check, right? In the past, one of them had flown off the handle, killing more than his assigned target, and ever since it's been law. Of course, they were the front lines preventing riots and taming the wild hearts, too. Those whom wanted to make a difference were crushed; they had to be in such a volatile world. Who would accept such living conditions? Who wanted to be in the slums all their lives? Artificially being held down by 'the man' upstairs. When a Templar came marching through a neighborhood, everyone locked their doors and hid for their lives. There was no more 'proven innocence' or trials for those suspected of murder. A Templar was dispatched, and that was the end of it.

Such innovation, some blamed, lead to the overcrowding. People lived longer lives, despite not seeing an improvement of its quality. The poor remained poor, but just for much longer... there was a pill for anything, yet sometimes locked behind a paywall. Many cities in between the much more crowded hubs became scenes of civil war. Rebels rose up, and the wealthy (or the law) came running. At times, the clashes brought nothing but ruin. Some refused to surrender fighting, and the city became nothing but a wasteland. Unchecked construction and code was also a problem, thus spiraling a once sprawling city into a desert of sand because of a radiation leak, or some other serious issue. These near uninhabitable places became refuge for outcasts and criminals alike when they needed a safe house away from crowded hubs.

Ethan Gray hated being this far out, yet the thrill of murder always acted as conciliation for the hassle. There was nothing but mildly radioactive dunes of sand, or heaps of garbage the hub centers dumped, among the troublemakers who were hiding from something in the Blight... Scavengers were some of the worst company to be among... and yet, they were everywhere, coughing their lungs out as they passed between scrap piles or abandoned vehicles. They tossed Ethan odd looks as he pushed aside the sheet covering the front door of a shack, but they knew better than to say anything. Everyone who witnessed the six foot, four inch tall brute knew what had happened inside of the structure he exited. The fact that he wore a toxin filtering face mask and goggles hinted he wasn't from the locale. A shemagh of tan color wrapped around his neck, just below the mask, to help shield from the air pollution of dirt and debris.

Carefully sliding his Heavy Industries P87 handgun into the holster strapped to his thigh, the man proceeded to walk among the downtrodden as he made his way back to the hovercraft that had landed not far away. Motioning to the drone hovering over head with his hand's command, it too made for the same route until finally docking atop of the cruiser. Heavy, booted footsteps loudly thumped across the hovercraft as he walked along it's edge until he reached the exterior door and jammed his fist on it. "Open up!" His deep, raspy voice spilled out into her ear com beneath all of his clothing and devices, slightly muted.

She could see it was clearly him on the camera; Ethan's long and black trench coat with synthetic brown fur lining the neck. A black undershirt was fitted to his robust chest and ripped core beneath it, followed by the pair of dirty blue jeans that hung low over his v-cut hips and tree-trunk sized thighs. Looking up to the camera above the hovercraft's door, he sarcastically noted, "Open the fucking door. How about that?"

 

[Praxis]

There was an audible click as her mic shut off and was replaced by an automated droning sound accompanied by a red light. It blared its makeshift alarm three times in pulsating succession before a mechanical voice answered back.

Invalid response. Resubmit acceptable keyword, Officer Gray.

She had resorted to using the craft's rudimentary AI. She giggled behind the screen as he slammed his fist into the bay door that sealed him out and her in from the harsh slaps of wind that curled around his coat and booted feet. After a beat the robotic male's voice continued in it's deadpan flatness.

You have three more attempts. Failure to submit an acceptable keyword will result in a forty-five minute lockout.
Please submit acceptable keyword to be in compliance with Outerworld Colonies Act Three Oh Eight.

Thank you.

He knew the password, of course. She doubted very much that someone like him could forget something as simple as that. She was merely toying with him to passively attempt at correcting his generally surly behavior. And it was the long pauses in between the recorded messages that the true aggravation surely crept up his spine. During which the intercom would not receive any information until it's message had been played in full.
After what felt like an eternity the outer door hissed and began to open. Had it not been for her own desperate need to abandon this location and return home she likely could have let him deal with the automated system for as long as it took him. He'd surely have banged and kicked at the door a few more times in his blind rage at the girl's constant and needless shows of force. A reminder that though they technically operated from opposite ends of the same machine, their functions were enormously different. And she, technically, outranked him. As trivial as details like that actually were when in the field. Made worse that it was no secret she was the youngest in her position by a large margin. How she achieved that was easily deduced as well.

He was allowed entrance onto the craft's lift and into the sealed interior chamber. She was already at the helm of the large, open space inputting commands into a small terminal. She would set their course for one of the tractor lines that stretched from the nearest docking station several miles above ground. From there they would literally be towed by magnetic force into the sky and deposited in a housing lot full of exploring craft identical to theirs.

"Officer Hawthorne." She called to him, though did not turn to acknowledge his presence. "...would you please open the hatch. Would've been a more acceptable request.
"And as much of a pain as you may think I am, these two-bit droids are a lot worse."

Finally she spun from her perch some feet above him, swiveling in a suspended captain's chair and favoring him with a scornful narrowing of her eyes. She'd pulled her long train of curls back, tying it in a high and loose ponytail. A decision that made her appear decidedly younger than she already was and worked only to de-weaponize any of the venom in her voice. Her flight-suit -some dusty bluish piece that did little to accentuate the girl's figure, had been unzipped below the swell of her chest, leaving only the off-white ribbing of a tank top to cling to her ample breasts. A habit she rather enjoyed was watching as men's eyes nervously darted from her own piercing blue gaze to the generous valley of her breasts. They simply couldn't help themselves. And the agony of not wanting to settle too long on either had often nearly reduced her to laughing fits. The highlight of their day, no doubt. Oogling a pair of tits that had cost more to grow than was put into the entire ramshackle design of some of the lower colonies.

Despite the outside air's rather frigid howl, the interior of the craft was nearly sweltering, her pale skin damp with sweat. She had clearly been basking in the lap of comparative luxury while he'd been...doing whatever it was that he did out there. She went back to ignoring him, fixing her attention down at her boots which she began to hurriedly unlace. She kicked them haphazardly from her small feet and let them clatter to the open space below, paying him little mind.

"Besides. How was I supposed to know some Fugee didn't have a knife to your throat?"

"You smell. Like them." She said with an air of disinterest. As if addressing an unwelcome guest or a servant. One would guess that the two were very much the same to a girl like her.

"You should shower. It'll be a while before we're in range of the tractor line. I don't want to smell...that...the entire time.

 

[Penitency]

"God damnit..." Ethan cantankerously muttered under his breath after being refused entry by the hovercraft's onboard AI. Stepping back from the door, the muscular brute raised a glove covered hand beside his head to tap his ear piece with index and middle finger. Rachel didn't answer his com's pings. Again, the young girl was toying with a cold blooded killer, and yet, he didn't ever dare get his revenge. He knew his place. Rachel technically did outrank him under the Department's line of command. She was his handler... his overseer. Ethan was merely an attack dog that did her and the law's bidding. A deep and irritated sigh spilled loudly from between his covered lips under the material of his shemagh. Brown eyes, with radiant blots of green in between, shifted off to his right as he brooded internally before the threshold of the craft. Loudly, the errant winds outside whipped past him and kicked the tail end of his trench coat into a frenzy. Luckily for him, the googles and cloth about his face, along with the rebreather, saved him from inhaling the particles that were slowly killing (or mutating) the scavengers out here.

"Fuck. You." Ethan stepped forwards and pounded the door with his fist again, only to get the monotone response of the onboard AI. Again, it repeated to him about compliance, as if coaxing him into uttering the correct phrase. "OKAY! Plea~ " Before he could finish, the sealed bay door began to hiss. As it slid aside, the Templar stepped in with the heavy thud of his boots, and the whistle of the wind. It called out in a sharp howl through the craft, as if beckoning the murderer back out into the Blight where he belonged. Before she set course, Ethan pivoted on the heel of his boot and jammed the "close" button on the door's terminal. Again, it hissed to life as the reinforced steel rushed to the opposite end and formed a air-tight seal for fast travel. Hearing her words from the elevated cockpit, Ethan turned his head toward his mountainous shoulder to look at the back of her seat as he pulled his face wrap off, and then followed that with his rebreather.

Taking a deep breath naturally through his nose, he casually tossed the rebreather into the locker near the bay door. Their supplies and weapons were all stashed there. "I never said you were a pain..." Ethan teased her sarcastically as a growing, tugging grin began to take hold of his sharp facial lines. He had a stout jaw which was lined with stubble and pronounced cheeks. His light brown hair was kept neatly combed to one side, with errant bangs brushing over the front of his forehead. As dirty of a world he just came from, the man still didn't look half bad. There were just some smudges across the bridge of his nose and such, further highlighting his scar there.

"I wouldn't say that about my handler." He smirked under his breath as he began to pull down the trench coat he wore across those chiseled and defined arms. From her position in the cockpit, she could see his rigid and broad back facing her. Ethan's pronounced shoulder blades rippled against the material of his shirt as he led his trench down to his lower back and slipped it from his hands. "Why the fuck is the interior so damn hot? Is our condenser broke again!?" It was hard not to stand there and stare at his handler. Rachel had the body to die for, and she often used those big tits of hers as a weapon against other men... and yet, she hadn't been as successful with her attack dog.

"You try wrestling with a three hundred pound scav down there. You'll smell like him almost immediately..." Ethan said with disgust as he grabbed the bottom of his shirt and began to peel upwards. This first exposed his absolutely defined and lined six-pack, which was surrounded by the v-cuts of his hips at either end, and the lined ribs of his oblique muscles. As his colossal arms lifted higher, his ribs and pectorals could be seen stretched out, along with the bulk of those mountainous shoulders. Scars from the past lined his back in old wounds. Tossing the shirt into the locker, along with the holster strapped to his thigh, the man stepped under a small shower head in the corner of the ship's belly. In sight of her, he slapped the shower head's knob and luke warm water stored on the ship began to pour down his hard frame... much like someone taking a quick rinse at the beach, he ran both hands over his head as he spoke above the sound of water pattering across the floor, "I am sure your father would be proud... hearing you talk like that about the Blight and it's dying people." Both of his hands began to work the button of his soaked jeans now as he stood beneath the rain; the water coming off of him was pitch black, flowing into a small drain at his feet.

 

[Praxis]

She watched him pace about the interior, half-lidded eyes flickering back and forth as he went. He was an interesting creature. She'd always had a difficult time attributing their type to herself. Their mannerisms, so brutish with seldom a hint of grace reminded her of films she'd seen as a child of long extinct animals on now gone African plains. He would have been the third she'd been assigned to. The first two had died in action -both instances in some part her fault. Due more to her negligence and lack of commitment to the work. And whether it was her lack of professionalism, her basic disinterest in the work itself or just bad luck, she'd been assigned to him. His record of infallibility, when it came to murder at least, had counteracted Rachel's perceived ineptitude thus far.

He does have a certain appeal, though. Like a grizzly-bear in khaki.

"No. I was cold." She answered casually, offering him a toothy, insincere grin. "What's the matter, honey? Bad day at the office? Did the bad guys not walk into your bullets?" She had affected a saccharine tone in her voice, one that he would had recognized by now as condescension. He ignored her and began to disrobe.

It would have been untrue to say she'd never taken a peek. Lord knew he wasn't shy. And that hadn't been the first time she'd seen him fling any and every article of clothing off as if in a race when he returned from a mission. It was the scars that most often commanded her attention though. The criss-crossing and hash-marked story they told was something she couldn't keep herself from being curious about. It seemed so strange to her that someone, even someone like him, would entertain their existence. When others would spend fortunes to assure no such blemishes ever occurred at all.

He would eat you whole

She smirked at the mere idea of it, still watching him with a bridled intrigue that neither confirmed nor betrayed the girls inner monlogue. Wearing an expression of equal parts biological need and...something else. Contempt? It wasn't so dissimilar from the look she often wore when considering the lower colonies or, shudder to think, the Blight. A vestigial dislike of what she and those like her considered to be the epitome of Darwin's law.

Tacitly averting her eyes when he went to drop his jeans she instead turned her attention to one of the several monitors. The plotter was still deciding the hovercraft's best course and she was faced with the dreaded realization that they were about as far into the Blight as she'd ever been. About as far anywhere she'd ever been from her Skytop loft high above what used to be the Northern Californian coast. She much preferred the luxury it provided in her off hours. Even the cramped, greasy hallways of the dispatch yard -their destination, seemed like a haven compared to the barren, scorched plains that threatened to blur out their craft like it had done virtually everything else.

"When was the last time you saw Daddy at one of those fundraisers they do for them?" She called back when she heard the shower shut off.
"Never." She answered for him, still facing toward the craft's HUD. "He only thinks it's a great idea that I'm out here..learning, because he can't remember what this place is like down here."

~​

The bustle of the dispatch yard was a refreshing change of pace from the quiet interior of the hovercraft. Ethan and Rachel had never properly taken the time to get to know one another, nor had the topic ever been broached. The two had sat in virtual silence, him cleaning some complicated looking piece of weaponry and her lazily flipping through page after page of a small, black tablet. They'd made brief eye contact when they felt the grab of the tractor line and their craft was lifted skyward.

He stepped down onto the steel grating of the landing platform first, mindlessly offering his large hand up to her as she descended. And with as little thought as he'd made the offer she accepted, her small digits gripping tentatively as she took the last step. She adjusted the collar on her flight-suit and turned wordlessly to him, craning up to meet his gaze.

"Good work, Officer Gray." Her voice was crisp, enunciating the formality over the roar of engines as they powered on. The wind this high up was nearly as bad as it had been in the Blight and she struggled to keep her wild mane from whipping about her face. "I'll push for a better assignment next time." He handed her a small chip containing the recorded details of the mission which she tucked into a hip pocket.

"Hey!" She called when he turned to leave. "Good boy. Get'cher self a treat." She grinned viciously, tossing a small, metallic coin in his direction. Synthetic gold most likely. More a symbol of it's worth. Hard credit. Especially valuable in the city hubs that would readily trade city currency for government credit. Virtually useless to her considering the lifestyle she lead. This had never stopped her from keeping them on hand and peppering them out when she felt especially generous. If that was, in fact, what brought on the seemingly random acts of philanthropy.

Or was she paying toward something? Some never mentioned favor paid for in advance. If so, she'd never let on. This, too, had never stopped Ethan from taking them.

 

[Penitency]

It was true, the two had primarily been silent on the way back. Ethan took the time to rinse the grime of the Blight off of him and get into some fresh clothing before the hovercraft shook under the weight of the hitch. Soon enough, the duo was stepping out of their issued transport together. Ethan now wore a long, gray colored trench that differed from the last. Black lining and a high, pointy collar covered both sides of his bulky neck. A dark green button up shirt lay beneath the large layer of clothing, straining to his looming pectorals and broad shoulders. The tie strap and long length of his trench shifted about the ankles and lower back as he came to a stop upon hearing her words of praise. Nonchalantly, he turned to face her with a smug look taking hold of his sharp facial features. Warm lips tugged just enough to show a faint display of his pearly whites.

"You better." He threatened with those deep pitched words; he held unto his letters as if savoring each as they exited his throat. Turning around and beginning to confidently march away from her, the man paused when she called out again. Pivoting on the heel of his boots, Ethan spared her attention for a second time from a further distance away. Brows narrowed as he awaited her words silently. With his hands tucked into the front pockets of his trench, he was forced to remove one quickly as a coin was tossed in her direction. Green-brown eyes watched it rotate in the air, and with perfect harmony of hand-eye coordination, he raised an open hand beside his head. Calloused fingers immediately trapped the coin into his palm like a fly catcher it's prey. With a curt smirk, he pocketed the coin and proceeded to continue to walk off without acknowledgement of her words. Of course he was her puppy.

Soon enough, his boots were splashing up puddles across the sidewalk's pavement as pouring rain fell between the crowded buildings with vigor. Due to the dramatic climate change from overcrowding and heavy industrialization, it never seemed to stop pouring over Seattle. It was much worse than years past. With his head tilted down to avoid the brunt of the sideways falling rain, and the narrow of his brows, Ethan trudged his way through merchants, prostitutes, and goons toward his favorite strip joint. There was always someone selling shit, getting in your face over an advertisement, or a hologram did it for them. Ethan simply used his thick forearm to either shove along the individual or shrug off the intrusive ad. The hustle and loud, overwhelming noises the city produced was something he never got use to.

After traveling a few blocks, he finally found himself entering the dim and "romantically" set lighting of Red Tape. The pulse of synthwave music began to thump, filling his ears and rattling the walls. Ethan's heavy footsteps were overcome by the bass filling the hall as he traversed the long, claustrophobic corridor before finding himself face to face with bars and glass. The front desk hunched over his register with both forearms resting upon the desk and commanded grimily, "Twenty credits." Ethan nonchalantly reached into the pocket of his fresh jeans, and slid over the required amount before he was allowed entrance. "Have a good time." The host at the front watched him with a grimace as the coins were stored within the computer's register.

When he was off mission, everyone knew where to find the lonely puppy dog. Red Tape was Ethan's hangout when he wasn't on mission. Being that the Department nulled his senses and turned him into a hunter, the hunter had no clue how to return to normal life off task. He was a wandering soul trying to find company. Ethan lowly groaned from sore joints as he sat a seat near the neon pulsing stage. With a naked woman clinging to a pole before him, a waitress soon stepped over without a top on, "Office Gray! Welcome back... the usual, sir?" With her bountiful tits mashed between her forearms, the man was so close to his head being sandwiched between them. The girl made it this way with the bend in her waist.

Ethan nodded and spoke under his breath as he sat back and watched the girl currently performing, "Absolutely..."

 

[Praxis]

Rachel pinched a small tube of cotton between her thumb and forefinger, aiming the syrette's needle at the innermost area of her right thigh. With one naked leg draped over the other the girl was perched on the edge of her tub, the steam from the near boiling water kissing at her back as she sank the pinprick into her skin and squeezed. Almost instantly she felt a warm rush enter her body, beginning in and around her hips and spreading in large, radial waves that tickled at her ribs and up her neck. Her pulse quickened, a counterpart of the drug cocktail she'd just injected, speeding up the delivery of a very powerful synthetic opioid. She exhaled in a slow, breathy gasp and rocked gently from her perch.

She felt her eyelids growing heavy and did her best to hurry down into the tub, letting the heat bathe every inch her body, accentuating the mellowest notes of the drug and lulling her for a few long moments into a near sleep. The melodic pinging of in her left ear roused her, though for a moment she failed to place it's purpose. Eventually, through her stupor, she lifted her left forearm from the water and slid her index and middle fingers quickly across her slick flesh. A momentary blue glow emitted from just below the surface of her skin and she heard the voice come to life in her ear.

"Hey, babe." It said. She smiled weakly, closing her eyes again and letting her head rest against the back of the tub.

"Hi, baby..." she slurred back, feeling weary of the conversation before it had even begun.

"You sound tired. Did you work?" Her fiance's voice came back after a moment of non engagement from her. It would have been morning where he was, most likely. She could never quite remember the name of the Off-World Colony he'd been sent to. It was in their same relative system, but he'd explained some notion of time differentials relative to their position in the Galaxy. All Rachel could remember was being angry that he was leaving. The details of his weekly calls had been missed in her own heated fuming.

"Mhm."

"And how is -what did you call him? The 'Side of beef with a gun?"

She snorted, opening one eye to peer in annoyance around the spacious washroom. She'd dimmed the lights to virtual nothingness and was having difficulty making out the time on an antique desk clock she kept on her vanity's counter. The large, open space to her left had been dedicated to a viewing platform that ran the length of the loft. From there -and from virtually anywhere in the space it was possible to get a panoramic view of the California coastline. With the sun set only the fiery glitter of the city hubs illuminated the far-off skyline, twinkling in the high dark like a billion candles until they sharply dropped off and gave way to the inky black Pacific Ocean.

"Big. Angry." She replied flatly, rolling her eyes, she added; "Unpleasant."
She shifted in the tub, sloshing some of the foamy water and propping herself on an elbow along the edge. That had been strike two. Asking her about him. Was that the best he could think of? Asking her something as insipid as 'How her day was' had been strike one. Never having seen a game of baseball and generally ignoring rules that served to impede her point, it was with no lack of venom that she reciprocated;

"How's...wherever. Enjoying your time away from your life?" The last bit had been so purposefully barbed that the crushing silence that followed it made her stomach knot. She hadn't been sure what to expect from him after that. How couldhe answer that? Regardless a complete lack of reply -no, of concern was about the worst thing she could have imagined. She had been about to snap the dialogue into her eye implant and force him to look her in the face when three rude, successive chirps rung out in her ear. There was a flat silence on the other end and she knew she would have screamed at nothing.

"Hello!?" She asked, instinctively, glancing at her forearm and noticing a red circle illuminated beneath the skin where blue should have been. Raising her voice this time she called to seemingly nothing in particular.

"Call Adam." There was a pause, followed by the same three chirps, announcing the same error, this time from several speakers hidden throughout the loft.

Apologies, Miss Hawthorne. In-Home system is unable to communicate with WebSAT at this time. Please try again after some time.

The voice was dull, robotic. Not unlike that on the hovercraft.

"Shit." She hissed. Standing up and out of the tub, she reached for a plush, pink bathrobe and hurriedly wrapped it about her dripping body. She padded wetly through the open space, calling again to the in home system. If WebSAT was down it would've been pointless to try and initiate a call of any considerable distance. However, something closer may still have worked. Again the system failed and Rachel felt her first wave of true panic set in. Without contact to the world outside of her semi-circular bubble hovering several hundred feet above ground she was, in effect, stranded. At the mercy of whatever maintenance team got dispatched for issues such as this.

Any hope of that was soon eviscerated as from the corner of her eye she saw the Northernmost edge of the coast line go dark. Then the next. And the next. Grid by grid Rachel watched as huge chunks of the hub's lights began to simultaneously vanish from existence. Replaced by a sprawling darkness that merged seamlessly with the ocean, swallowing the long strip of land and plunging the world below her into a hellish, black void. Her loft came next as hers and all of the adjoining lattice-shaped rows of boxes lost their feeds from stations below.

Rachel gasped involuntarily. It was a high, airy sound that she hardly recognized as her own and dumbly stared around the pitch. She found her way to the floor and remained there for a long while, listening for sounds of...anything. When only oppressive darkness replied her mind began to scramble for solutions. The affects of the syrette were still pulsing at the base of her skull and made sharp thought difficult. Regardless she arrived at the same conclusion time and time again. She didn't have a choice.

She navigated into the menu behind her eyes, lids fluttering in place as she scrolled through menus and tabs, supplying credentials via the bio metric device that had been installed before her birth. The same device that allowed her access at all. For as long as her heart was beating her body would produce the energy to run minor but usually essential programs. Such as the interface that allowed her directly contact Ethan. It was a massive breach, to simply hop in the mind of her Templar without justifiable cause. To her knowledge neither of them were in any immediate danger. She would have to hope that these qualified as extenuating circumstances.

She sighed, pulled up the final menu needed and enabled the Override feature.

 

[Penitency]

Both hands rose, starting at the brows, and planted his palms over his own eyes. Fingers slowly traveled along the bridge of his nose, and then down to his lips, as Ethan let out an unwinding sigh. He was exhausted and mentally fatigued, yet, was finding refuge in a stimulating place such as Red Tape. At this point, it was habit to drown himself in the repeating pulse of electronic music pouring from speakers at every corner of the room. Every hit of the bass seemed to kick start a slow, rhythmic heart that was beneath his rib cage. Brown and green dotted eyes casually shifted between the naked women surrounding him, occasionally getting a glimpse of the one climbing the pole before him. Pulling out some credits from his back pocket, Ethan casually placed them on the ledge of the stage and waited the time to part with some of it. Another call girl waltzed over, one heel after the other, and ran a hand across his light brown, errant strands before the forehead.

The slow shift of his eyes up at her brought upon a pleasing sight. Most women in the bar had a large bust, but this one also seemed to have beautiful cascading hair. Her straight, raven tendrils fell across her shoulders and back as she slipped her hand about his shoulders and had a seat atop of Ethan's tree-trunk sized thighs. "Hey handsome, long time no chat. How's my favorite Templar, hm? Kill any bad guys today..?" She noted with seductive, slow mentioned words. Her lips hung unto every noun and verb. The call girl was luring him into her web as a single nail ran along his chest while her long legs crossed over the side of his thigh. Ethan's calloused hand ran up along the top of the woman's lush leg as he looked her squarely in the eyes with a growing smile, "Mm, how long has it been since we've been in a backroom together, Kyra?" Ethan changed the topic completely. He often did not prefer to talk department matters, or the sensitivity of his work.

"Too long, Officer. You going to handcuff me again and fuck my brains out?" Kyra hissed as she leaned her chin up against the top of his shoulder and looked toward the side of his face with glowing intent. The neon lights of the stage washed over them both as Ethan smirked. His tongue washed quickly over his bottom lip before it withdrew back into oral confines. "Tempting. I was thinking~" Before he could finish his thought, another call girl - a blonde this time, came up to the couple seated on the chair. Her hands planted themselves atop of Ethan's thighs as she leaned forwards with a seductive grin, "Aren't you two going to let me join you again? I'd be so... so torn." Her words were dripping sarcasm, and yet, she did know Ethan was quite the spender. It didn't hurt his body was molded to perfection and he did have a rather tall standing...

THUD!

In the blink of an eye, the lights within the club died. The music that had once been consistently flowing now abruptly ended. Both girls warming up to the Officer quickly stood up in a panic, twisting their heads to and fro within the darkness. "What happened?" Voices all over the club began to provide a sensory rush in their angst, "The power!?" "Another shortage!?" "No way, this rarely happens!?" "Get out of the building!"

Ethan grabbed the arms of his chair and proceeded to stand up. Noticing the fucking blonde took his credits that had been laying on the stage's edge, he simply shook his head and adjusted the halves of his trench with both hands. Boots marched their way out with the rush of the crowd as the nonchalant Templar confidently kept to a normal stride instead of one of fear. He soon emerged from the running crowd outside as the orange glow of a freshly lit cigarette hanging from his lips. Rain immediately greeted all of those escaping the darkness as he clasped the cig between index and thumb, and then took a long drag. Pulling it from his lips, and lowering it to his side, smoke was exhaled and spiraled around the side of his head in a cloud.

That's when he heard something. His internal com connected to his handler, which was only to be used during life or death situations. Ethan's brows narrowed as he stepped under a canopy covering the sidewalk and brought his cigarette toward his lips as he spoke mentally to his handler, "What's wrong? Using this line could have both of our asses grilled by the Chief back at the Department, or worse, OPScore." Of course, OPScore was a secret department much like the Gestapo. One which rooted out civil disobedience, or crooked officials not doing what the leaders of the hub wanted.

"This connected to the outage?" He mentally relayed back as he took another deep drag.

 

[Praxis]

There was a tinny knocking sound, followed by a loud digital wail of feedback and a swear that emanated from somewhere deep within his mind. Ordinarily, if presented with such an odd task, a Handler would have gingerly manipulated the metaphorical levers and flywheels that stood as placeholders for the optic, auditory and sensory components of the shared mind when occupying their Templar. It was wise to handle with great care as the experience could be uncomfortable otherwise for both parties.

Rachel stumbled into Ethan's mind about as gracefully as a newborn fawn taking it's first steps, still struggling with the optics she was only treated to the busy sounds of wherever he was. There was panic surging through every voice that she -they could hear. All around were the sound of quick, uncertain footsteps, the occasional shriek in the distance and an air of calamity waiting to boil over. Except from him. He had remained calm despite her clumsy efforts and lack of regard for the mental ride she had just forced him on.

Hang on. She said brusquely. I still can't see anything. And how would I know that?!

Her voice cut through his mind, as scornful and accusatory as it would have been had she been standing beside him.

There we go. And though Ethan wouldn't have been able to feel this feature, Rachel had tapped into his eyes as well now, viewing his world through the darkness of her own closed lids. Sitting cross-legged on the floor of her loft, over sized bathrobe swaddled around her, she tilted her head about. Rolling her eyes in their sockets and attempting to get a handle on the controls was proving a bit more difficult than she had anticipated.

Ok, I think I've got it now. Tell me you know what's going on! Everything just went dark.

"Hey. Hey, Officer." one of the working girls had found Ethan under the awning and had began to tug at his sleeve. She wasn't one of Red Tape's girls. Too used for that. Too rough around the edges and haggard through the voice. Her deep, dark eyes pleaded up at him.

"What's going on? I got two babies uptown. Can you, like, gimme a ride? I gotta check on my babies. These people are getting fucking crazy out here." She was shuffling impatiently beside him, nervously jerking over her shoulder as the crowd around them was growing increasingly tense. Without power above ground it was worth betting that the subterranean tracks were down too. Thousands upon thousands of people, in the dark, realizing they were trapped shoulder to shoulder with god knew who.

Gross. Where are you?

"Hey! Officer!" The working girl barked, once more tugging at his sleeve when she saw he'd only offered her a short glance. "Please? I gotta get uptown. I need to check on my babies!"

Oh my god. Can you shut her up? Look, get rid of her...

There was a pause in her voice, though he could still hear her desperate breaths coming in short puffs as she measured her words.

...I need you.

 

[Penitency]

Ethan was the calm in the storm; here he was, taking a drag of his cigarette beneath an awning as everyone else scurried about in a panic. To him, it was just another blackout. There was no pending attack or gunshots, so this just happened to be a mechanical thing, right? Hazel eyes shifted between people at the two shared a mental link. Such an application deeply embedded in Ethan's brain was a painful one to use, but he blocked those receptors the best he could. At worse, his forehead wrinkled to express he had something on level of a headache as the two sync'd. "Ugh..." His deep and raspy pitch groaned out from between parted lips as smoke escaped from their corners and twirled along side his head again. Despite wanting to protest the fact that she was tapping into forbidden tech for this call, considering he still didn't think this was warranted, Ethan remained silent. Rachel was his handler, and he was to answer the call. Even if she was too young, and too inept.

"Easy on the mind, Rachel. Keep your fucking chatter to a minimum or you're going to give us both a migraine." Again, he mentally projected his words between their sync. And then, the tug to his long sleeve came. Ethan turned his head toward his shoulder and looked down upon the more haggard woman next to him. Silently, he brought his cigarette back to his lips while listening to her. Brows narrowed as if he was listening, yet was simply enjoying the smoke. Her words interrupted the lady's panic as Ethan mentally projected back, "Somewhere you and your kind stay away from. Inner city." Ethan pulled the cigarette from his lips after another drag. Smoke spilled from his lips as he yanked away his muscular arm from the woman's grasp, "I am no Taxi. Go ask a beat cop for one."

Shrugging off the woman rudely, the brute began to walk away as the rain began to assault him from overhead now without the protection of the awning. "Fine. Send over your coordinates to my navigation chip." There were no street addresses high in the sky, only numbers to route to. Tossing his cigarette unto the floor, Ethan stubbed it out with his boot as embers grew cold across the wet pavement. "I'll need a minute. Hang tight." It wasn't immediate, but Ethan marched as calmly as he could toward the Police Department's station a few blocks away. He shoved goons, and other panicked citizens out of the way as he continued through the incoming rush of those fearful. Sometimes, a little too fearful. Each of them clung to the Templar at times, as if he was some routine Police Officer that could turn the fucking power back on. Each were tossed aside with a snarl as he continued to follow his handler's orders.

Concluding the trip, Ethan found himself standing before the tall gates of the department's vehicle lock up. A blue glow rose up from the man's sleeve covered forearm, which then tripped the ID card reader mounted between the dual gates. "Access granted." A lady in monotone addressed the officer, as the two gates opened, only to join together again when he was inside. Moving toward his issued cruiser, Ethan bumped his fist across the bay door's access reader. Immediately, the sliding door on the driver's side began to lift up into the air like that of an old Lamborghini. Ethan noticed the other cruisers were not being attended to. Police were not rushing out to help the panicked citizens?

Ducking into his docked cruiser, the man flipped on the ignition and reached up with a chiseled arm to pull his door closed. A loud hiss imitated the sealing process; both doors clunked shut at either side of him in a vacuum seal and the sprawling interior dash board lit to life. A series of computer screens and holograms reflected across his form as he began to hit a few more buttons. Ethan's cruiser shook as its boosters from beneath activated, lifting it from the ground and into an elevated status.

As he sat hovering, it was then he noticed another police cruiser was levitating before him with it's strobe lights spiraling overhead. It's two large machine guns mounted to the belly of the cruiser was aimed already at him as a bellowing voice called out to him on the intercom, "Templar Gray, dock your vehicle and make exit, immediately!"

With the rain pattering against his craft, Ethan narrowed his gaze in confusion and spoke back to Rachel, "Uh- what did you do!? What's going on? I got PD telling me to land."

 

[Praxis]

She found the bobbing of his vision disorienting, twice having to open her eyes and peer about the blank space. The ceiling had been transformed from a usual, dim glow to a patchwork of stars in a blanket above her. Even this high up light pollution's reach made viewing the night sky a lackluster experience at best. Now though, with nothing taking center stage the Heavens were allowed full audience to the Earth. Taking their turn to rule the sky again and make all those who looked upon them tremble at their oppressive vastness.

She found this a somewhat worse state and laid back, resting her damp hair flush against the cool marble flooring and bending one knee to allow a bare foot to plant firmly. An old trick she'd picked up in her earliest college years. If it worked for being much too drunk, perhaps it would work for this. Letting her lids slide closed again there was a brief initiation sequence before her consciousness was plunged back into Ethan.

Right. Speaking of which, can you...not talk to me like that? Through your head I mean. It's...too weird.

The fact that Rachel was asking him to stop the very thing she clearly intended to continue doing to him seemed not to occur to her. And though she was speaking at full volume, to Ethan who had no access to the higher levels of their shared mind, she was nothing more than an irritating voice in his head.

Talk out loud, or something. The mic will pick you up. And-

There was a sound of spitting

are you smoking? Seriously!? Where do you even find cigarettes anymore? You know I can taste that, right?

If this was easy on the mind to Rachel, he would have been in for a show had the girl decided to begin shouting the way he'd seen her do. The volume and inflection of her voice was something more like nervous. She was babbling the rough drafts of her inner monologue at him. Breaking her own silence by focusing on the sweltering chaos around him. She didn't have to feel the humidity of too many bodies panicking in a narrow space. Or the constant spatter of oily, cold rain from above. As usual she was safe in the confines of whatever paradise while he carried the weight.

You're lucky. Local PD and Dispatch will be on generator power. For now, at least. What's going on down there? I don't hear any riot sirens. Where's all the patrols? This doesn't make any sense. A blackout this big should've tripped the Emergency systems.

She could feel herself becoming tense again. She'd somehow hoped that wherever Ethan was that the situation would be better. That the issue was only a minor hiccup in an otherwise mostly flawless system. Something that the plastic faces on the morning news would joke about now that the danger of it was safely behind them and the sun had risen. None of that seemed especially likely as she nervously glanced around the capacity of her ride's vision. Some had taken to lighting small bonfires along the sidewalks, packing down the garbage in large, black, aluminum bins and setting blaze to the mess within. They produced a thick, acrid smoke but did offer some small, flickering light along his path.

You feel tired. Sore.

Her voice was softer this time. And tinged with an unidentifiable shade of something else. Compassion? Concern?

Do you always feel like this?

She flexed her right hand, sensing the pain in his own but not experiencing it. There seemed to be a stiffness all throughout his joints and ligaments. The sort of dull, tepid pain that always lingers in the background. A sleeping version of agony that remained mercifully dormant. One that's stirring would likely bring Rachel to tears simply at the knowledge of it. He seemed to brush this line of questioning aside, asking again for her location and putting an end to it.

She had dropped from the feed for a moment, hearing the roar of engines in her mind. Snapping her eyes open she scrambled on hands and knees toward the viewing deck. Pressing her hands against cold glass she watched as a formation of eight tugs sailed below and passed her clustering of lofts. They were marked with large, red crosses. Aid ships. Dispatched from somewhere south of her by her best guess. But to where? She watched them disappear over the horizon until they were no more than blinking, red dots.

Tripping over the edge of a long, black sofa in her haste to the home's main terminal, Rachel tumbled to the floor. Instinctively she'd gone to break her fall and caught only the sharp, hard edge of her coffee table, cutting along her palm in a small, crescent mark. She felt the hot sting of it and hissed at the immediate pain. Somewhere, though dim and far, she heard Ethan calling her name. Shouting it, along with some other garbled mess she failed to comprehend. After a moment it clicked.

What did she do? She hadn't done anything. She hadn't even begun to enjoy her bath before the world had decided to gouge out the eyes of everyone and everything. She pressed her slashed palm against the softness of her robe and spat back her answer, closing her eyes as she did to bring him front and center.

Do?! I fell and cut my fucking hand, you moose! Because there's no lights on! Because this entire fucking planet is going down the dra- ahh

Her voice fell two full steps, a shudder escaping with the nonsense word. She, like him, was now staring directly down the barrel -barrels of a police cruiser aimed at him.

Whoa. Shit. What did you do?

 

[Penitency]

There was no time to answer her question. Instead, Ethan was pondering his options while staring down the barrels of a police cruiser levitating in front of him. The low and deep rumble of the boosters under his own cruiser hummed through the interior as his hands took hold of the controls. Rachel needed him, and he couldn't entertain landing the craft. A slow inhale through his nose had Ethan's looming pectorals slowly lifting up beneath the cover of his trench and shirt. His thumb brushed over the red button atop of one of the control sticks before it then mashed down. From underneath his own craft, the single chain gun began to let out a loud whine. Empty casings began to pour from the port of the long cylinder weapon toward the floor, bouncing about audibly as the gun continued to spray led in a frontal direction. Flame could be seen spurting with every repeating shot from the chaingun's end; hit after hit began to riddle the front of the opposite police cruiser. Glass, metal, and scrap could be seen sparking or fragmenting with every impact.

Without the ability to even get a shot off, the police cruiser in front of Ethan tilted upwards at the cabin. It's rear began to angle toward the floor as it lost thrust. In the process of falling from balance, it's two cannons fired off into the sky loudly in a series of thuds. Said shells rained over the sky like a pair of flares, yet hit nothing as they plunged into the waters miles away. After the shots, the cruiser came crashing flat unto the pavement of the lock up, as Ethan's immediately thrusted upwards. The muscular brute leaned toward his left, peering down so that he could see through the glass of his cockpit. Hazel eyes noticed the cruiser he had just decommissioned was unmaned?! His brows furrowed for a moment as he then diverted attention to where he was going, with his vessel rocketing upwards. Ethan was climbing fast as he spoke out to Rachel between their link, "That thing was hacked. No pilot. Someone was operating it from afar. How?!"

Nothing was adding up at his rate, but Ethan's hurry brought his cruiser quickly on par with Rachel's lavish estate. She could practically hear his vessel scraping across her attached landing pad the moment he was over it. The fusion cell within the craft had ran out just as he loomed above her place, which sent it crashing to the floor after losing thrust. Ethan groaned as he tipped his head back against the seat, yet was uninjured. Lazily, he reached over and undid the restraints that fell over either of his shoulders. They loudly retracted into the harness bar behind him. Standing up in a hunched fashion inside of the smaller interior, both hands took hold of the emergency door latch and pulled. His chiseled arms could only flare, yet remained hidden beneath his trench, as he groaned with the exertion it took to have the door hiss open.

Stepping out of the cruiser, he reached back inside for the auto shotgun sitting in a rack within. Pulling the weapon from its housing, the brute then began to march toward the door leading into her home from the paddock. Both hands clutched the shotgun, holding it pointed low, before his chest as he stopped at the door. Noticing sparks coming from the ruined keypad nearby, it only took Ethan nudging the powerless door open to gain entry. Like that, he was welcomed to the dark interior of her home. His footsteps were slow and cautious as he called out from the living room, "Rachel?"

 

[Praxis]

Are you fucking crazy!?

She'd squawked at him as she watched the police cruiser all but disintegrate from the concentrated fire of his own weapons.

No! No, no, no, no, no.

She babbled in quick succession, the word buffeting itself in her panic.

That's stupid. Who would...-and why?! Ethan, no!
Do not bring that mess with you!

Her comm had gone silent again. She'd considered arguing with him about how little sense that theory made but instead decided to sit upright in her own space and attempt to clear her head. She heard his voice calling to her distantly, ignoring it and exhaling in a deep breath.

This was a bad dream. That's all. A twisted hit from the syrette that was still coursing it's way through her bloodstream. That busboy at the Gloria Hotel had burned her. It was simple, really. A bad hit had her hallucinating and all of this was some fever dream that'd she'd, eventually, wake from. It would be a good nine hours until her body and mind were free from the drug cocktail's cling completely. She took deep, purposeful breaths and disconnected from Ethan's feed. The reality of his voice proving too sharp a notion to exist in her delicate state.

A scraping noise, louder than anything she could ignore, began at the far end of the darkness. Toward the front entrance to her loft. She peered wide eyed through the dimness, pupils dilating to deep pools of black against icy blue. She'd just been able to make out the vaguest of shapes from where she sat cross-legged. She had scooted herself on wrist and bottom from between the coffee table -now streaked with her own blood, to the stonework of a large fireplace. With her back against this she rose, slowly, waiting for the scraping noises to cease before she'd inch again. Scraping gave way to pounding and without giving the situation much more thought she dropped back to hand and knees and scarpered on the icy wood floors, still clutching her wounded left hand against her robe. The plush material was beginning to soak through and she felt a tackiness against her bare stomach where she'd been pressing.

"Oh, fuck it!" She heard grumble from a Man's voice opposite the sealed door.

"Step back. I'll handle it." Another replied. There were three more loud, banging noises and a crackling of light and sound -like a blowtorch, that emitted from around the seal of the door.

She heard a sharp, raspy breathing that she realized was her own before she found the clarity to move again. She'd been frozen. Watching and listening to whomever was on the other end giving little care to if they were noticed. Her initial instinct had been to scream, though she had been able to suppress that. Hiding seemed like her best -if not only, option. Her stomach knotted, her mind chastising itself for having severed the link between Ethan and herself. Whoever was attempting to get in would likely succeed and she doubted she'd have the time to navigate her menus again to force herself into his mind.

There was a blue flash, followed by a popping sound that confirmed this. She'd have guessed they'd given up trying to coax the magnetic lock and had resorted to brute strength instead. The men's voices -as many as four perhaps, congratulated each other but soon began to argue again. Rachel inhaled, held and sank deeper into the inky recesses of an adjacent landing. If she was quick enough, she could have slipped through the patio entrance.

 

[Penitency]

Ethan's words were met with dead silence within the interior of the room. His footsteps crept ever so slowly across the sanitary floor as his shotgun was shouldered up against the front of his chest. With the barrel pointed toward the floor for now, the man's enhanced vision began to turn what was once a blackout into a viable scenario. Surrounding and within his irises, neon blue lines began to run across the circuitry otherwise not seen behind his optics; what was once normal looking façade was now one of the future. As if it was lit up by all the lights in the house, Rachel's interior was perfectly visible through the eyes of her Templar. He was augmented for the very reason to hunt those whom did others harm. Ethan was made to fight the worst of the worst on this planet. She couldn't ask for a better bodyguard.

Luckily for her, he had blasted the police cruiser back at the station and made his way up here in such a rush. The sound of the front door being tampered with drew Ethan's head to twist toward it; his shotgun was lifted in sheer surprise before his senses calmed. They had not breached the entryway yet. Ethan's eyes darted around the room once more as he searched for Rachel beforehand. Considering he had came from the side door (the landing pad entrance/garage) the two soon would be in visual contact in her fireplace hiding spot. She could watch as Ethan softly rushed across her floor toward the back of her couch. His hand extended out to her as the other clutched his weapon, as if telling her to stay put and be quiet. He said nothing as he took up a spot behind her living room furniture, resting his shotgun over it and trained upon the threshold.

So long as she did not get in the way of his fire, Ethan left Rachel to her own devices for now. Instead, his brows narrowed and aim went down the beaded sights of his pump shotgun. Once the four men outside stopped arguing, one of them booted open the door. His momentum forced his leg to cross the doorway as his hands clutched unto a submachine gun before his chest. Before he could raise the weapon to sweep the room, a loud BLAST of Ethan's shotgun punted him right back out of the interior. Blood sprayed in a series of small fountains from his chest as a spray of pellets showered his front; the goons clothing was torn to pieces as he fell back unto the man charging at his six, "ugh!"

The loud pump of Ethan's shotgun being loaded again resounded through the interior as the spent shell bounced around the floor at his knee. Now that the second goon had a dead man in his arms and laid upon his chest, the man tossed his fallen comrade aside with a frustrated growl. "Get in there you pussy!" One of the others gloated, as the second goon shrugged it off, and entered with his pistol raised in one hand. He began to squeeze the trigger, sending a series of POPS into the interior as he now passed the door, and began to run for cover while shooting in Ethan's general direction.

However, after the first shot, Ethan rolled across the floor to the opposite end of the couch. The bullets that pierced his previous location hit nothing but the floor as he took aim again and found the third man entering the living room in his crosshairs. Before he could get three feet inside, he was blasted back into the wall with a rain of pellets too. His own weapon clattered across the floor as he hit the wall, tumbled over a vase, left his blood streaked behind him, and slid until he was sitting on his ass near the door. Two down.

Again, the loud pump of Ethan's shotgun rung through the room, expending a second shell as the forth made entry. The remaining two men began to blast their weapons toward Ethan's location. Every bullet was ripping up her couch or destroying an end table. Lifting his shotgun over his shoulder, Ethan bolted across the living room and scooped up Rachel into his chiseled arm. His appendage wrapped around the small of her back and his hand hooked the hip farthest, as his other hand held the shotgun over his mountainous shoulder still. Tucked into a corner of the room, she could hear his breathing. Every inhale and exhale had those gigantic pectorals shifting against her. Cybernetic eyes peered down at her as he muttered, "Take my handgun..." He noted with a matter of fact voice. His handgun was holstered at his thigh.

After reloading, the goons began to fire toward their corner. Chips of her living room went flying all around them, but they were safe. One of them shouted, "Stop hiding! We want the girl! We might just let you live if you hand the bitch over!"

The other shot off a round before speaking up as well, "This is the last chance you get!"

When she took his pistol, Ethan pulled out of their cover and began to fire upon the two as he side-stepped back toward the couch. One of them loudly groaned out, his weapon flying up unto the air as he fell unto his back behind the loveseat he had been behind. The last and remaining augmented male extended his bionic arm and fired his pistol in Ethan's direction. A bullet connected with Ethan's shoulder, forcing him to grunt as he ducked behind the couch.

 

[Praxis]

Rachel had only been able to press herself more insistently against the wall at her back, sliding inch by inch around a corner and toward the patio when she heard another, additional noise. The landing pad. Ethan! She felt a tiny glimmer of hope in her stomach but this too was brushed aside by the shoving open of her front door. The next few moments were a thunderous, blinding cascade of booming noises and the skittering of plaster and wood chips being shredded from their places along the floor and walls. She had never fully appreciate how loud a gun was when fired in a fairly confined space. And though her loft was spacious, the high ceilings and narrow hallways only worked to amplify that chaos that had erupted.

She remembered screaming, of that she seemed to have no problem. A high, piercing wail that struggled to match the room's cacophonous pitch. She saw shapes through the several muzzle flashes on the far end of the room, their shadows elongated grotesquely across the room's beige walls and hard, dark wood flooring. There was shouting, though she would have been unable to discern it's intention, only using it as a guide post of where not to be. She felt her body moving, though any motor function by then was purely instinct. The sheer will to live forcing through terrified atrophy to try and move the girl to safety. A large shape, one that could only be Ethan rose and fired a single, deafening blast opposite the gunfire and within a moment he was between her and the intruders.

"What the fuck is going!?" She wouldn't have remembered asking this either. She'd simply barked at him, hands grasping through the darkness to clutch at the sleeve of his coat.

He didn't answer, only brushing her small hands away and firing another shot, the hollow sound of a shell clattering to the floor near her. And again, before she could take a breath, he moved, scooping her up in his arms as he did this time and slinging her over his shoulder. She felt weightless, tiny, as he moved swiftly -much more swiftly than she would have imagined possible from such a hulking figure. He set her down and there was a brief respite in the fire as the intruder's peered about the room. Without giving it much thought they resumed. Shooting in wide sprays, shattering several wall-mounted photos and heavy, antique furniture as they blindly tried to simultaneously find and finish off their targets.

"W-what?" She asked, staring wide-eyed at him through the darkness. He was speaking to her again, repeating himself and gesturing quickly at what seemed like his foot. Finally, through a groan he un-holstered his pistol and thrust it at Rachel. With trembling hands she accepted it without realizing what it was. It clicked after a moment and another round of fire from the intruder's.

"And do what with it!?" Her voice incredulous at the suggestion.

She held the heavy, dark piece of metal with stiff fingers, as if it were something that would leave behind a residue. Ethan didn't answer, again moving almost too quickly for her to see, arranging himself on the far end of her and firing. She heard a scream of agony from one of the intruder's before a second shot tore through the open space and into Ethan's shoulder. Through the muzzle flash she saw a spray of blood spatter against the wall behind him. Finding the pistol's grip she felt the weapon slide into her hand. Not quite naturally, but enough for her to finger at the trigger. She could hear approaching footsteps. She could hear labored breathing.

"Where are you, bitch?" A voice muttered, it's step dragging through what must've been chunks of fragmented plaster. Away from her though. Toward where she thought she'd seen Ethan disappear.

"You can't hide forever." Further then, and facing away from her.

Pressing her back against the wall she rose in place, the plushy fabric of her robe gliding effortlessly against cool plaster, making not a sound. The pistol's wooden grip was pressing against the throbbing gash in her palm, but she didn't care. Through the enveloping layers of darkness she could just make out a shape. A smudged dark spot on a canvas of obsidian, but there nonetheless. She pointed and found center mass, held her breath, and fired.

She'd told herself she would fire three times. She'd seen it done enough in movies and television to know how it worked; The gun would fire, creating an explosion as it did. She'd have to fight the recoil of pressurized gas escaping the weapon's narrow barrel. Aim too high and she'd miss. Center-mass, as she'd been taught, was her safest bet. And though there were large portions of her textbook training she'd likely never known versus forgotten, she was certain no one had ever mentioned how difficult the trigger was to pull. What had been an intended three shots had been cut down to one. The brief seconds of hesitation as she struggled to activate the hammer on the pistol giving the lone intruder time to begin a turn. The single shot tore out of the pistol's barrel and lodged itself into a small, silver disk embedded on the intruder's upper forearm. A battery-pack of sorts, keeping the larger and more demanding of his augmentations running. They were, as the three of them would see, quite susceptible to piercing and twice as likely to incinerate if provoked.

A spurt of blue and white flame shot from it's shoulder, illuminating the room in a dazzling, white light. The figure whirled around, sparks turning to flame and flames licking at the crude circuitry of the Intruder's chest and back. He bellowed, attempting to pat out the damage but only managing to exacerbate it in his panic. His shrieks grew with the blue flames until both seemed to fizzle out and the man crumpled to the floor, smouldering in a heap.

Dark silence filled the loft, save for Ethan and Rachel's heavy breathing on opposite ends of the now upturned sofa. He called to her though she failed to hear him. She dropped his pistol to the floor with a heavy clatter and stepped timidly on wobbly legs toward the scene. What remained of the simmering blue flames was offering a shred in the way of light, just enough for Rachel to make out the heavily augmented figure and Ethan's dimly illuminatrd face as he sat slumped against the wall. The shot had done more damage to his shoulder than she could have figured and she saw rivulets of blackish blood trickling from the wound.

She whimpered, again noticing the sting in her sliced palm and moved toward him. Kneeling she raised her well hand to the gash and hissed through her teeth at it.

"Are you ok?" She asked. It seemed like a silly question given what had just occurred and she felt stupid immediately after having asked it.

 

[Penitency]

Ethan's shotgun fell from his hands and clattered across the floor upon being shot. There was a line of empty, red shells between her and him across the floor along with the countless other brass ones near the threshold. Rachel's guardian clutched his injured shoulder with a grimace across his handsome face; large fingers took a firm hold over the wound but he verbally expressed no pain. Ethan's palm plugged the open tear through his trench coat, yet black blood still continued to emerge from between. Despite the bleeding, the Templar had been in no rush for treatment or attention. It was very well known that blood was merely an aesthetic thing with the enhanced such as him. Something there to help make the humans accept the augmented more. He wasn't going to die over his injuries despite it looking such.

Hazel colored eyes peered toward their corners as she put down the last remaining intruder. Ethan heard the body fall to the floor with a sickening thump! A deep exhale spilled from between Ethan's warm lips in relief. According to his count, that had been the last attacker left. Her question drew a grin that began to tug at his lips. Ethan's husky and deep baritone retorted under the darkness of her living room, "I am fine. It only stings for a minute." Following his words, the muscular Adonis collected his shotgun in one hand and began to stand up sluggishly. Turning his body to face the entrance, his green and brown blended orbs noticed all of the threats had been neutralized. Pumping the shotgun between his hands had another shell tumbling across her once beautiful flooring.

"Good shot, partner." His voice had been dripping with sarcasm as Ethan rounded the couch. Ethan's confident and powerful gait brought him toward the pile of dead bodies slain near one another. After verifying each were not breathing anymore, he leaned his shotgun up against the front of his mountainous shoulder; it's barrel was trained up toward the ceiling as blood continued to trickle from the man's wound. "You cut yourself?" Ethan noted as he tossed his shotgun unto the couch and began to traverse his way into the kitchen. The sound of his boots impacting the tile resounded before he stopped near the cabinets. Pulling open each one until he found a bottle of whiskey and some clean paper towels, Ethan then made his way back.

He sat on the couch nonchalantly, placing the bottle on the coffee table and ripping off a portion of the paper towels to do some impromptu first aid on her wound. "Give me your hand. I am not going to have you bleeding all over the place like that." She'd come to note his bleeding already stopped. It was all just a stain now, and fragments of bullets they'd need to fish out later over some chit-chat, or more.