[b][u]Mia Jones[/u][/b]

Silence - familiar silence - silence was something Mia can bear. She had no choice but to be patient, and as far as now, remained so. Her senses lit up among the hushed noises of the surrounding gangster at the soft thud of padding against the asphalt. The subtle scraping of sand and gravel against the road. Mia, in spite of her blindness and lack of faith in any higher power, it was as though she [i]felt[/i] her coming closer. Her own instincts flaring up. Adrenaline coursed through her chest and arms and legs; she kept them steady and poised. She just barely heard Reiko creep ever closer, just on the edge of her hearing.

Were she not looking for it, Mia would've never heard the beast coming. It was cause for concern. In the future, at least. The stillness insisted. Why was the beast hesitant? Reiko sounded above such a fight previously, but now she was stalking her? Tip-toeing? Frightened or cautious, she at least suspected something.

Mia's heart exploded in a rapid-paced beat at the touch of a sudden, cool breeze in front of her face. She had reacted even before Reiko's roar, drawing back by inches, and the roar itself reassuring her of her movements. Her body spiraled low around Reiko's positioning, the breeze created by her swiping claw brushing against her cheek - a close call by two inches, give or take - and found herself at the beast's side, where then by instinct, as influenced by years of hardship, brought her hand down to hammer upon Reiko's back. She wasn't quite sure where it would land. The proportions of the beast were unknown to her, but it had to have been somewhere between the shoulder-blades and her neck. 

Regardless, she was fueled by adrenaline and wasn't afraid to use every bit of her strength if that is what it took.

---------------

[b][u]Baron Moreau[/u][/b]

Baron's face was plastered with a sly and fox-like smile. He could see the confusion on Ivan's face as the man tried to decipher his words, to which in reply, Baron simply pulled a cigarette out of his pack and slipped it between his lips. It being a no-smoking bar, he didn't light it up, but it had become simply a matter of habit. Something to convince himself there was a lit cigarette between his lips, going even a step further to sucking at the dry stick. As he brought his hands to lips to carry the cigarette between his fingers, and blowing out a breath without smoke, he laughed quietly and gently to himself.

"It'd be a real shame, wouldn't it?" Baron replied. "You take a good deal of pride in making things go kaboom. Hey, rightfully so. You're good at what you do. I'm surprised you [i]wouldn't[/i] want to do something. This town's your home, right?"

He took another dry drag from his unlit cigarette. As he pulled it away, he looked at it, disappointed. It wasn't quite helping. He supposed his conscious was getting the better of its placebo effect.

"Damn thing. When you're finished with your drinks, how about we go outside so I don't get stuck with a dry cig'? Meanwhile, maybe you can show me around town. Show me what's good around here. Something you'd hate to see go to waste in this hypothetical... gang war."