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deannawolEdited Version: Now with more flavor text ;) Blame my friends :P
Oh and before I forget ... Part one has been slightly edited as well, sorry!
A woman sat at the bar, hunched over a glass. A shaft of light hit her faded pink hair and died abruptly on the black leather jacket. One combat boot rested easily on the horizontal bar of the chair, the other on the floor. Anyone watching her would recognize the easy way she sat on the chair, it spoke of too many nights in a similar position in a different bar. It also spoke of someone who didn’t want to be disturbed.
Another glass of brown liquid was placed on the bar before her as she sat contemplating her fate. The credchip that she placed on the bar was removed and later replaced. That had happened quite a few times at this stage. She sat in the dingy, grimy bar with her back to the door, not caring about who came in or what they wanted. The barman went back to the time filling job that all barmen did, polishing glasses, not because it needed doing but because they could not be seen to be doing nothing. That was a rule that Lex had forgotten! In her line of work, it was almost death to not be doing a job or have several things on the go at once. No wonder people looked surprised to get a call from her in the past few weeks. Of course, she thought, that was only one of the reasons they looked surprised.
The second reason was something that Lex was still trying to come to terms with herself. They had somehow found themselves being blackmailed by one of the biggest corps in Night City, even the world. Arasaka, a curse word in it’s own right, had them under its thumb. They had even managed to get one of Night City’s infamous scream sheet reporters to do up an article on them and thrash their reputations. She knew in her heart that it was Arasaka framing them, but she couldn’t prove it. The bastard had gone underground again. Well, who could blame him? He had thrashed the reps of some of the best-known edgerunners in Night City. Everyone thought of their group as Arasaka’s personal pet edgerunning team, including Arasaka. And in a way, Lex thought, I suppose it was our own fault, we did take the money. However, even if we did not, the story would still have hit the scream sheets.
Lex picked up the glass, swirling the liquid slowly around the sides. It looks different without the nut in the bottom, she thought. Lifting the glass to her lips she could not help but inhale the smell of the liquid. It was acrid, blunt, and reminiscent of many nights spent in Crossroads or Ivory Coast. Closing her eyes, she knocked the glass back, swallowing quickly. It tasted terrible but the warm glow that she got when she finished swallowing the drink made up for it. It had become her habit long ago. The barman looked over again as the glass hit the counter again. His eyes questioned silently.
Lex smiled wryly, “Do you know how hard it is to get drunk with toxin binders?”
She laughed quietly to herself. Picking up her credchip, she checked the amount. She thought about pocketing it again and then decided against it, leaving it for the bartender. Lex got to her feet and ran a hand thru her hair, making sure everything was in place. She nodded to the bar tender and turned to leave. She was slightly surprised to find two other people in the bar but shrugged it off. They were probably just there for the same reason as she was.
Lex stepped out into the midday sun, squinting for a millisecond before the Anti-Dazzle she’d installed in her eyes, kicked in. The streets were still deserted. She looked in the direction in which she had just come and anger surged again. Maybe I had better wait a while, she thought. Turning to face in the opposite direction, she restarted her long walk.
Walking down the street, rubble piled along the side of the street, the stench was almost bad enough to make the most sturdy stomached person gag. Unfortunately that may have been the problem or at least part of it. Vomit mixed with piss mixed with the remains of whatever had been yesterday's single meal. Kibble was far beyond the reach of these people. Every so often a pile of rubbish moved showing its forgotten occupant. The scum, long forgotten by society pulls the plastic closer and holds his alcoholic lover tighter and returns to dreams of better times while selective amnesia erases societies memories of his existence again.
She was watching the pavement go by under her feet when she heard voices behind her, very faint.
“I told you in the bar, that’s her!”
“Couldn’t be, she wouldn’t come back here again, not after what she did…”
“Wouldn’t put it past her!”
Lex was wondering what they were on about. She was mentally trying to piece together who she could have pissed off in this neighborhood. She turned the corner, flattening herself against the wall. They followed and for a moment wondered where she was before realizing that she was onto them. Momentary panic crossed their faces before vanishing just as quickly. Both men simply kept walking, saying nothing. Lex took a step out in front of them. They stopped, looking at her. A realization crossed their faces as they grasped the fact that they had the wrong person. She could see them mentally going thru a list of things to say. Lex beat them to the punch.
“Who are you and why are you following me?”
Hostility was dripping from Lex’ voice, her eyes flashing as she barely kept her temper in check. Today was not a good day to pull this shit.
“Eh ..” the larger of the two began, frantically searching his limited intelligence, “We thought you were someone else?”
Lex’ patience snapped as she punched out. She hit him square in the solar plexus, causing him to double over in a mixture of shock and pain. She brought her hand up to catch the back of his head. Bringing her knee up, pushing down on the back of his head at the same time, she smashed his face off her armored knee. A crunch told her that she had broken his nose with her actions.
“I didn’t ask for excuses. Who are you?”
The shorter guy pulled back the sleeve of his jacket and showed her a tattoo. Ordinarily, to a general person on the street, it would not have meant much, but to Lex it meant everything. It was a modified ying yang symbol but instead of the black and white features, they were red and blue. Two words circled the tattoo, Kyr and Vikati, Blood and Tears. Lex could not help muttering the English translation under her breath. It was picked up by the unharmed guy. He seemed shocked that she knew what they meant. The questioning look on his face gave his shock away. Lex said nothing, just pulled up the sleeve of her armored jacket to reveal her own tattoo.
They seemed strangely relieved. The unharmed man held out his hand. Waiting for her to take his hand, he said, “Pieter”. She simply looked at his hand. It dropped after a few seconds.
“That’s Yuri,” pointing to his friend, who was now trying to stem the flow of blood from his damaged nostrils.
Yuri attempted a sneer but when holding his nose in one hand and rummaging for a tissue in the other, it didn’t quite work, all Lex got was the sight of some bloodstained teeth. Blood dripped over his top lip to his chin and from there to his faded green top making a strange brown colour and blending with the faded hammer and sickle pattern on the shirt. Unsuccessful in his hunt for a tissue, he tried wiping the line of clotting blood under his nose on his sleeve but this only resulted in leaving streaks on his cheek and his sleeve. Breaking her gaze with a look of disgust, she redirected her focus back to Pieter.
“You never answered my question. Why were you following me?” Lex persisted.
“What Yuri said was true, he thought you were someone else. Some blad that got kicked a few weeks ago for screwing over the gang.”
“Wouldn’t happen to be Tsarina by any chance would it?”
Shock filled his face yet again. Lex was starting to suspect that it was a common expression on his face.
“Eh, yeah! How’d you know?”
“Doesn’t matter. What were you gonna do to her if she did show up?”
“Show her who is boss round here. That she can’t get away with doing something like that to the Gang.”
Pride seemed to fill his voice as he talked about what he was going to do to Tsarina if she came back. That was all very well, but Lex definitely took this personally. After all, Tsarina was her sister. Lex sighed, falling back on too many years experience, changing from manual to autopilot as her brain switched off and her reflexes took over, finding her center.. She turned slightly and slid her hand under her coat. It reappeared holding a gun. In the split second that it took for Pieter to realise what was happening, Lex had pulled the trigger. Yuri watched thru watering eyes as Pieter toppled backwards to slam hard into the ground. A single trail of blood trickled from a single entry wound. His eyes stared at the sky unblinkingly.
Yuri looked back up to see the barrel of a gun pointed at him. He half turned to run but no matter how fast you are, you cannot outrun a bullet. Lex pulled the trigger again. But it was not as clean this time. She had aimed the shot at the same spot on Yuri’s forehead but he had turned at the last minute. The bullet entered just behind the ear and reappeared in a fountain of blood and gore from the back of his head. The effect was the same though. Yuri took another step and appeared to miss the ground as his foot went out from under him. His jaw bounced as it hit the ground before coming to a stop, never to move again.
Lex reholstered her gun for the second time that day. They had seen more action today than they had in the past year. She was glad that she had not mixed up her guns and picked the P.O.S. by mistake. It would have taken forever to kill them. Lex turned her back on the two corpses behind her and kept walking. This time she had a destination in mind. She was heading back to her old turf. She had a score to settle.
How do you find out where you are in the Combat Zone? Simply look at the tags. The walls around were plastered with them as she moved closer to the center of Blood and Tears territory. Looking at their setup, she wasn’t too surprised when she wasn’t stopped. A few people looked in her direction but were too used to the combat zone to do any more. Here looking too closely at someone could mean a 9mm bullet in a vital part of your body. People scampered when someone who looked more dangerous than themselves walked on the same street. Lex definitely fitted into that category.
She remembered her time with the gang well, the good times, the parties, the long nights and at the end, the betrayal by her family. It had been good at the time, until she made a mistake and followed her heart.
It was only when she actually tried to enter the building that the leader of Blood and Tears stayed that she was stopped. She mentally crossed her fingers and raised her sleeve, showing the tattoo that had marked her initiation into the gang. He seemed unsure. Her face wasn’t familiar but she had the tattoo. Lex started thinking.
“Got some info, he’ll need to hear it right now!”
“Info? On who?”
“Sharks.”
“We put them down. Why would he need to hear anything about them?”
“You didn’t put them down hard enough!”
Lex was trying to get a feel for the guard to couch her answers so that he would let her thru. Obviously she had hit a nerve.
Moving slightly, he allowed her to enter the dingy building. Stray strands of light guided her way as she wandered down the dark corridors. Occasionally stepping over people who were either dead or unconscious, Lex could not tell which and she was not getting any closer, she made her way forward. A figure in a doorway reached out for her and got rewarded with a swift kick, urging him to retract the appendage quickly. Walking thru the corridors, looking into rooms thru open doors she catches sight of some gangers trying to chase the buzz that they had felt last night, other gangers were still not awake from whatever had happened the night before. People had passed out on top of other people. Lex remembered too many nights that she had woken up in similar positions.
She came to a door at the end of a corridor. If memory served right, this was his room. The him in question was Mikhail Petrovich, otherwise known as “Dusk”. She braced herself against the opposite wall and lifted her leg. Drawing it back, she kicked in the door. As she stepped into the room she saw Dusk on top of some oriental girl.
“You know in my day, we only fucked our own!”
Dusk seemed to notice her for the first time. She grabbed him by the hair and dragged him out of bed. Drawing one of her guns, she pointed it at him.
“Put on some pants, we have business to take care of!”
Dusk grabbed some pants and hurriedly pulled them on. He didn’t notice Lex move closer and grab a handful of hair. She dragged him out the door and back the way that she had come. The guard backed out of the way when he saw her threatening Dusk. Lex finally deposited him in the street in front of the building with a vicious push, knocking him to the ground. Lex pointed her gun at Dusk and saw fear cross his face. She changed the aim at the last second and shot at the pavement just behind him. Then Lex started a waiting game. Dusk got to his feet, followed at every step by the barrel of a very large gun.
Lex stood relaxed in the street, taking in as much as possible without losing focus on her target. A burned out car still stood in the street. She still remembered when that had been done. The remains of a bonfire still smoldered, no doubt the result of some festivities last night. The way of life had not changed much since she left, the only stable thing in the 'Zone.
In small groups, people started to appear, woken by the sound of a gun firing. They had definitely not expected to find the sight before them. Their leader was standing in just a pair of combats in the middle of the street while a woman in hard armor stood beside him pointing a gun at him.
When enough people had emerged from their hiding holes, Lex made her move. She started to talk.
“A lot of you don’t know who I am and that’s not important. What is important is that you know my sister, Tsarina! She was kicked out of the gang, cause this double-crossing son of a bitch was using her in his little power struggle and then fucked her over.”
Lex surveyed the crowd.
“I came here to get retribution for my sister and to secure that she will not be harmed in the future.”
Lex lowered her gun and shucked off her armored jacket. She removed the other gun from the holster and placed everything on the ground.
“What I propose is a fight between Dusk and myself. If Dusk wins, Dusk can do whatever he wants with me, but my sister is not to be harmed ever again. If I win, my sister will be left alone and unharmed.” Lex looked at Dusk. “What do you say?”
Dusk sized her up and nodded.
“Its settled then!”
Lex looked away from Dusk, checking the crowd. The faces may have changed in the time she had been gone but a few faces looked familiar if you took in the effects that drugs, alcohol and too many fights had on already rough faces. The group seemed to be mostly women with a few men. Lex supposed that the men may have gone to help Mother Russia's beloved sons with the recent mob war, thinking themselves gangsters.
Lex looked back at Dusk but Dusk had already started. He lunged at he knocking her to the ground. Lex’ instincts took over as blows were traded. Dusk managed to punch Lex in the kidneys, causing her to bend backwards for a second. Dusk was back on his feet again. Lex rolled out of the way of his leg as he brought it crashing down, just missing her at the last minute. Lex flipped back up and they were face to face again. Lex blocked a few of Dusks punches and kicks and traded him blow for blow. Nothing existed outside the fight for the pair of them.
Watching on whatever vantage point they could manage, they watched as hit after hit connected. Blood ran from Dusk’s nose and mouth. Lex was limping thanks to a kick to the knee from Dusk. They made sympathetic sounds as they watched the combatants fight.
Lex finally saw and opening and managed to get her finger to hook over the top of Dusk’s ribcage. He dropped from the pain as she hit the pressure point. She followed him down, pushing him as he dropped. Finally, she dropped a knee on his throat cutting off his air.
“Do you surrender?”
For the longest time, Dusk didn’t make a move. The crowd was holding its breath. Finally, he nodded, at least as much as he could with a knee on his throat. Lex rose and turned to pick up her things. A gasp from the crowd told her that something else was happening. She dropped into a roll and came up holding a gun. As Dusk lunged again at her, she pulled the trigger. She shot Dusk in the shoulder but he didn’t drop. She noticed that he had something clear in his hand. It was a piece of glass. She had no idea where he had gotten it but he was still approaching her. She squeezed the trigger again. This time, a clear shot. The dropped to fall face down on the asphalt, dead.
The crowd was silent.
Lex bent down. She pulled a ring off of Dusk’s finger. It was his “badge of office”. Looking around, she tossed it to a young woman standing a few feet away, looking very scared.
“You’re in charge now. Remember our deal!”
The girl was shocked but nodded dumbly. Lex picked back up her other gun and slid both of them into their holsters. She put back on the coat, wincing with the pain. She nodded to the girl once more and said just one word.
“Remember!”
Limping very slightly and with a hand on her ribs, she walked out as easily as she walked in. She could hear the voices behind her trying to make sense of the afternoon’s happenings but didn’t listen to what they said.
She didn’t look back as she walked away.
Under her breath she murmured, “The score is settled … finally!”
Oh and before I forget ... Part one has been slightly edited as well, sorry!
A woman sat at the bar, hunched over a glass. A shaft of light hit her faded pink hair and died abruptly on the black leather jacket. One combat boot rested easily on the horizontal bar of the chair, the other on the floor. Anyone watching her would recognize the easy way she sat on the chair, it spoke of too many nights in a similar position in a different bar. It also spoke of someone who didn’t want to be disturbed.
Another glass of brown liquid was placed on the bar before her as she sat contemplating her fate. The credchip that she placed on the bar was removed and later replaced. That had happened quite a few times at this stage. She sat in the dingy, grimy bar with her back to the door, not caring about who came in or what they wanted. The barman went back to the time filling job that all barmen did, polishing glasses, not because it needed doing but because they could not be seen to be doing nothing. That was a rule that Lex had forgotten! In her line of work, it was almost death to not be doing a job or have several things on the go at once. No wonder people looked surprised to get a call from her in the past few weeks. Of course, she thought, that was only one of the reasons they looked surprised.
The second reason was something that Lex was still trying to come to terms with herself. They had somehow found themselves being blackmailed by one of the biggest corps in Night City, even the world. Arasaka, a curse word in it’s own right, had them under its thumb. They had even managed to get one of Night City’s infamous scream sheet reporters to do up an article on them and thrash their reputations. She knew in her heart that it was Arasaka framing them, but she couldn’t prove it. The bastard had gone underground again. Well, who could blame him? He had thrashed the reps of some of the best-known edgerunners in Night City. Everyone thought of their group as Arasaka’s personal pet edgerunning team, including Arasaka. And in a way, Lex thought, I suppose it was our own fault, we did take the money. However, even if we did not, the story would still have hit the scream sheets.
Lex picked up the glass, swirling the liquid slowly around the sides. It looks different without the nut in the bottom, she thought. Lifting the glass to her lips she could not help but inhale the smell of the liquid. It was acrid, blunt, and reminiscent of many nights spent in Crossroads or Ivory Coast. Closing her eyes, she knocked the glass back, swallowing quickly. It tasted terrible but the warm glow that she got when she finished swallowing the drink made up for it. It had become her habit long ago. The barman looked over again as the glass hit the counter again. His eyes questioned silently.
Lex smiled wryly, “Do you know how hard it is to get drunk with toxin binders?”
She laughed quietly to herself. Picking up her credchip, she checked the amount. She thought about pocketing it again and then decided against it, leaving it for the bartender. Lex got to her feet and ran a hand thru her hair, making sure everything was in place. She nodded to the bar tender and turned to leave. She was slightly surprised to find two other people in the bar but shrugged it off. They were probably just there for the same reason as she was.
Lex stepped out into the midday sun, squinting for a millisecond before the Anti-Dazzle she’d installed in her eyes, kicked in. The streets were still deserted. She looked in the direction in which she had just come and anger surged again. Maybe I had better wait a while, she thought. Turning to face in the opposite direction, she restarted her long walk.
Walking down the street, rubble piled along the side of the street, the stench was almost bad enough to make the most sturdy stomached person gag. Unfortunately that may have been the problem or at least part of it. Vomit mixed with piss mixed with the remains of whatever had been yesterday's single meal. Kibble was far beyond the reach of these people. Every so often a pile of rubbish moved showing its forgotten occupant. The scum, long forgotten by society pulls the plastic closer and holds his alcoholic lover tighter and returns to dreams of better times while selective amnesia erases societies memories of his existence again.
She was watching the pavement go by under her feet when she heard voices behind her, very faint.
“I told you in the bar, that’s her!”
“Couldn’t be, she wouldn’t come back here again, not after what she did…”
“Wouldn’t put it past her!”
Lex was wondering what they were on about. She was mentally trying to piece together who she could have pissed off in this neighborhood. She turned the corner, flattening herself against the wall. They followed and for a moment wondered where she was before realizing that she was onto them. Momentary panic crossed their faces before vanishing just as quickly. Both men simply kept walking, saying nothing. Lex took a step out in front of them. They stopped, looking at her. A realization crossed their faces as they grasped the fact that they had the wrong person. She could see them mentally going thru a list of things to say. Lex beat them to the punch.
“Who are you and why are you following me?”
Hostility was dripping from Lex’ voice, her eyes flashing as she barely kept her temper in check. Today was not a good day to pull this shit.
“Eh ..” the larger of the two began, frantically searching his limited intelligence, “We thought you were someone else?”
Lex’ patience snapped as she punched out. She hit him square in the solar plexus, causing him to double over in a mixture of shock and pain. She brought her hand up to catch the back of his head. Bringing her knee up, pushing down on the back of his head at the same time, she smashed his face off her armored knee. A crunch told her that she had broken his nose with her actions.
“I didn’t ask for excuses. Who are you?”
The shorter guy pulled back the sleeve of his jacket and showed her a tattoo. Ordinarily, to a general person on the street, it would not have meant much, but to Lex it meant everything. It was a modified ying yang symbol but instead of the black and white features, they were red and blue. Two words circled the tattoo, Kyr and Vikati, Blood and Tears. Lex could not help muttering the English translation under her breath. It was picked up by the unharmed guy. He seemed shocked that she knew what they meant. The questioning look on his face gave his shock away. Lex said nothing, just pulled up the sleeve of her armored jacket to reveal her own tattoo.
They seemed strangely relieved. The unharmed man held out his hand. Waiting for her to take his hand, he said, “Pieter”. She simply looked at his hand. It dropped after a few seconds.
“That’s Yuri,” pointing to his friend, who was now trying to stem the flow of blood from his damaged nostrils.
Yuri attempted a sneer but when holding his nose in one hand and rummaging for a tissue in the other, it didn’t quite work, all Lex got was the sight of some bloodstained teeth. Blood dripped over his top lip to his chin and from there to his faded green top making a strange brown colour and blending with the faded hammer and sickle pattern on the shirt. Unsuccessful in his hunt for a tissue, he tried wiping the line of clotting blood under his nose on his sleeve but this only resulted in leaving streaks on his cheek and his sleeve. Breaking her gaze with a look of disgust, she redirected her focus back to Pieter.
“You never answered my question. Why were you following me?” Lex persisted.
“What Yuri said was true, he thought you were someone else. Some blad that got kicked a few weeks ago for screwing over the gang.”
“Wouldn’t happen to be Tsarina by any chance would it?”
Shock filled his face yet again. Lex was starting to suspect that it was a common expression on his face.
“Eh, yeah! How’d you know?”
“Doesn’t matter. What were you gonna do to her if she did show up?”
“Show her who is boss round here. That she can’t get away with doing something like that to the Gang.”
Pride seemed to fill his voice as he talked about what he was going to do to Tsarina if she came back. That was all very well, but Lex definitely took this personally. After all, Tsarina was her sister. Lex sighed, falling back on too many years experience, changing from manual to autopilot as her brain switched off and her reflexes took over, finding her center.. She turned slightly and slid her hand under her coat. It reappeared holding a gun. In the split second that it took for Pieter to realise what was happening, Lex had pulled the trigger. Yuri watched thru watering eyes as Pieter toppled backwards to slam hard into the ground. A single trail of blood trickled from a single entry wound. His eyes stared at the sky unblinkingly.
Yuri looked back up to see the barrel of a gun pointed at him. He half turned to run but no matter how fast you are, you cannot outrun a bullet. Lex pulled the trigger again. But it was not as clean this time. She had aimed the shot at the same spot on Yuri’s forehead but he had turned at the last minute. The bullet entered just behind the ear and reappeared in a fountain of blood and gore from the back of his head. The effect was the same though. Yuri took another step and appeared to miss the ground as his foot went out from under him. His jaw bounced as it hit the ground before coming to a stop, never to move again.
Lex reholstered her gun for the second time that day. They had seen more action today than they had in the past year. She was glad that she had not mixed up her guns and picked the P.O.S. by mistake. It would have taken forever to kill them. Lex turned her back on the two corpses behind her and kept walking. This time she had a destination in mind. She was heading back to her old turf. She had a score to settle.
How do you find out where you are in the Combat Zone? Simply look at the tags. The walls around were plastered with them as she moved closer to the center of Blood and Tears territory. Looking at their setup, she wasn’t too surprised when she wasn’t stopped. A few people looked in her direction but were too used to the combat zone to do any more. Here looking too closely at someone could mean a 9mm bullet in a vital part of your body. People scampered when someone who looked more dangerous than themselves walked on the same street. Lex definitely fitted into that category.
She remembered her time with the gang well, the good times, the parties, the long nights and at the end, the betrayal by her family. It had been good at the time, until she made a mistake and followed her heart.
It was only when she actually tried to enter the building that the leader of Blood and Tears stayed that she was stopped. She mentally crossed her fingers and raised her sleeve, showing the tattoo that had marked her initiation into the gang. He seemed unsure. Her face wasn’t familiar but she had the tattoo. Lex started thinking.
“Got some info, he’ll need to hear it right now!”
“Info? On who?”
“Sharks.”
“We put them down. Why would he need to hear anything about them?”
“You didn’t put them down hard enough!”
Lex was trying to get a feel for the guard to couch her answers so that he would let her thru. Obviously she had hit a nerve.
Moving slightly, he allowed her to enter the dingy building. Stray strands of light guided her way as she wandered down the dark corridors. Occasionally stepping over people who were either dead or unconscious, Lex could not tell which and she was not getting any closer, she made her way forward. A figure in a doorway reached out for her and got rewarded with a swift kick, urging him to retract the appendage quickly. Walking thru the corridors, looking into rooms thru open doors she catches sight of some gangers trying to chase the buzz that they had felt last night, other gangers were still not awake from whatever had happened the night before. People had passed out on top of other people. Lex remembered too many nights that she had woken up in similar positions.
She came to a door at the end of a corridor. If memory served right, this was his room. The him in question was Mikhail Petrovich, otherwise known as “Dusk”. She braced herself against the opposite wall and lifted her leg. Drawing it back, she kicked in the door. As she stepped into the room she saw Dusk on top of some oriental girl.
“You know in my day, we only fucked our own!”
Dusk seemed to notice her for the first time. She grabbed him by the hair and dragged him out of bed. Drawing one of her guns, she pointed it at him.
“Put on some pants, we have business to take care of!”
Dusk grabbed some pants and hurriedly pulled them on. He didn’t notice Lex move closer and grab a handful of hair. She dragged him out the door and back the way that she had come. The guard backed out of the way when he saw her threatening Dusk. Lex finally deposited him in the street in front of the building with a vicious push, knocking him to the ground. Lex pointed her gun at Dusk and saw fear cross his face. She changed the aim at the last second and shot at the pavement just behind him. Then Lex started a waiting game. Dusk got to his feet, followed at every step by the barrel of a very large gun.
Lex stood relaxed in the street, taking in as much as possible without losing focus on her target. A burned out car still stood in the street. She still remembered when that had been done. The remains of a bonfire still smoldered, no doubt the result of some festivities last night. The way of life had not changed much since she left, the only stable thing in the 'Zone.
In small groups, people started to appear, woken by the sound of a gun firing. They had definitely not expected to find the sight before them. Their leader was standing in just a pair of combats in the middle of the street while a woman in hard armor stood beside him pointing a gun at him.
When enough people had emerged from their hiding holes, Lex made her move. She started to talk.
“A lot of you don’t know who I am and that’s not important. What is important is that you know my sister, Tsarina! She was kicked out of the gang, cause this double-crossing son of a bitch was using her in his little power struggle and then fucked her over.”
Lex surveyed the crowd.
“I came here to get retribution for my sister and to secure that she will not be harmed in the future.”
Lex lowered her gun and shucked off her armored jacket. She removed the other gun from the holster and placed everything on the ground.
“What I propose is a fight between Dusk and myself. If Dusk wins, Dusk can do whatever he wants with me, but my sister is not to be harmed ever again. If I win, my sister will be left alone and unharmed.” Lex looked at Dusk. “What do you say?”
Dusk sized her up and nodded.
“Its settled then!”
Lex looked away from Dusk, checking the crowd. The faces may have changed in the time she had been gone but a few faces looked familiar if you took in the effects that drugs, alcohol and too many fights had on already rough faces. The group seemed to be mostly women with a few men. Lex supposed that the men may have gone to help Mother Russia's beloved sons with the recent mob war, thinking themselves gangsters.
Lex looked back at Dusk but Dusk had already started. He lunged at he knocking her to the ground. Lex’ instincts took over as blows were traded. Dusk managed to punch Lex in the kidneys, causing her to bend backwards for a second. Dusk was back on his feet again. Lex rolled out of the way of his leg as he brought it crashing down, just missing her at the last minute. Lex flipped back up and they were face to face again. Lex blocked a few of Dusks punches and kicks and traded him blow for blow. Nothing existed outside the fight for the pair of them.
Watching on whatever vantage point they could manage, they watched as hit after hit connected. Blood ran from Dusk’s nose and mouth. Lex was limping thanks to a kick to the knee from Dusk. They made sympathetic sounds as they watched the combatants fight.
Lex finally saw and opening and managed to get her finger to hook over the top of Dusk’s ribcage. He dropped from the pain as she hit the pressure point. She followed him down, pushing him as he dropped. Finally, she dropped a knee on his throat cutting off his air.
“Do you surrender?”
For the longest time, Dusk didn’t make a move. The crowd was holding its breath. Finally, he nodded, at least as much as he could with a knee on his throat. Lex rose and turned to pick up her things. A gasp from the crowd told her that something else was happening. She dropped into a roll and came up holding a gun. As Dusk lunged again at her, she pulled the trigger. She shot Dusk in the shoulder but he didn’t drop. She noticed that he had something clear in his hand. It was a piece of glass. She had no idea where he had gotten it but he was still approaching her. She squeezed the trigger again. This time, a clear shot. The dropped to fall face down on the asphalt, dead.
The crowd was silent.
Lex bent down. She pulled a ring off of Dusk’s finger. It was his “badge of office”. Looking around, she tossed it to a young woman standing a few feet away, looking very scared.
“You’re in charge now. Remember our deal!”
The girl was shocked but nodded dumbly. Lex picked back up her other gun and slid both of them into their holsters. She put back on the coat, wincing with the pain. She nodded to the girl once more and said just one word.
“Remember!”
Limping very slightly and with a hand on her ribs, she walked out as easily as she walked in. She could hear the voices behind her trying to make sense of the afternoon’s happenings but didn’t listen to what they said.
She didn’t look back as she walked away.
Under her breath she murmured, “The score is settled … finally!”
And Sansygh retakes her position as 'least-kills in the group'
Date: 2004-03-26 08:07 am (UTC)Still, why do I think that Lex has only just gotten this party started?
*Inner Sansygh offers hugs and sympathy*
That is SCARY.
Date: 2004-03-27 06:39 am (UTC)*Bows in profound respect*
Re: That is SCARY.
Date: 2004-03-27 07:32 am (UTC)Some guy was talking about his conquests and I was thinking of the worst state the Combat Zone could deterioriate into considering that no one bar gangers and edge runners go there.
Bon
Re: That is SCARY.
Date: 2004-03-27 07:40 am (UTC)