James sat next to his new friend for what seemed like hours, observing as the fight evolved to extreme proportions. The amount of electricity that was being channeled into the hollow’s attacks was enough that James could feel the electromagnetic forces. It wasn't a particularly strong feeling at this distance, but if he stayed long enough it probably would have begun to make him feel physically ill. Strong electromagnetic fields plus one human brain equals discomfort, as he had learned during his time in Aspin.

He began to notice a change in the air. It felt heavier, more charged, and full of… something. James wasn't quite sure about it until he noticed the thick dark clouds gathering over the fight. Was this a result of the electricity? Almost as if on cue, a bolt of lightening, quickly followed by thunder flashed between the clouds. It wouldn't have surprised him, but this was still a fairly uncommon occurrence. Clouds themselves weren't hard to find, but this sort of overcast was definitely a rare sight. Still, James knew it was simply a product of the strong electromagnetism and turned his attention back towards the fight.

The fight continued for much longer than James had hoped, and it came to a head when the girl with the bike got snatched out of the air by the hollow and beaten to a pulp. James had to look away. From what he could tell, she would have to have been extremely lucky to live through that sort of beating. The other girl had gotten onto her metal… thing and made a break for it.

As the hollow seemed to stand victorious, James began to notice something. It looked like the clouds were extending downwards. No, that wasn’t quite right, there was something falling from them. After another moment of observing this change in the weather, he felt a drop of the substance hit his head. Perplexed, he brought a hand up to touch the spot. This was water… falling from the clouds. James realized what was happening, but he almost couldn’t believe it.

“Is it… raining?” he uttered, near speechless. Dark overcast, water falling from the sky, lightning and thunder, there was no other explanation. It was actually raining. It hadn’t rained in decades. James got up from his crouch and stared at the wet spot on his hand as more drops of rain began to hit him. He almost didn’t notice the hollow start to make a panicked retreat towards Russell City. He looked back towards the black creature and observed in awe as the black shell crumbled away, and the girl who had been driving the now completely destroyed truck collapsed on all fours and threw up.

“Oh gods, what is this?” Ivan muttered, bringing a hand towards his face as the rain began to fall. The man had been fairly quiet over the duration of the fight, almost motionless too as he’d simply been starring in the general direction of the brawl. For him it was hard to do much but pretend to watch, as he had been restricted to looking for empty patches in the clouds of thrown up debris. Though the moment the rain began to fall, the filth caked bundle of rags came to life and he looked about in a perplexed manner which eventually brought him to stand. “Gods, I’m melting!” he screamed in panic, a shaky arm held up in front of him as the sudden rainstorm grew more intense. What clean rain fell on him began to run through his clothing, dribbling off his form in brown drops of foul smelling dirt. The rain began soaking Ivan’s outer layer of clothing as it continued to fall, and all those years of neglecting to bathe began to catch up with the still panicking man.

Fearfully he began patting himself down, grasping at various places on his body which to an extent slowly began to calm him down. “Oh,” was all he muttered, clutching his wrist and shaking it back and forth like he was confirming it was still there. The water still ran off Ivan in filth saturated drips but his outer layer of caked on dirt was gone and in a few places the liquid dripped off almost clean. “Oh, it’s just water,” Ivan then laughed, looking back towards where James sat. Though he looked directly at him, Ivan had to squint and lean closer to be sure he was there- the mud he was now seeing somewhat perplexing in how it appeared. “I- I’m sorry,” he then murmured, his voice sounding a little shaken from having believed the rain was dangerous.

____________________________

Vladimira clung to the metal bar as tightly as she could as it hurtled along, taking her away from the fight. >So you’re running, is that it? Just like you ran from everything else?< She ignored Pandora, pushed her away into a corner of her mind and threw up mental concrete walls.

The feeling utter powerlessness had scared her, she was used to being able to almost disarm entire groups of bandits and kill them with their own weapons, usually a spike to the throat, but Aeshma had been all but unfazed, cutting through steel darts that would’ve shredded a man and almost burning her alive.

She kept her eyes focused forward and didn’t look back or slow down, not when she distantly heard what sounded like a bone crushing impact, not when she heard what sounded like electrified punches, not for anything… except…

A drop of water hit her in the face and brought her back to reality. She lost her grip on the bar of metal and went tumbling, sliding painfully along the sand and rocks. Disoriented she sat up,

What was…? Water falling from the sky? Rain?

Pandora commented idly, >Yes, rain, brought on by the monster you just ran away from in a blind panic. Y’know, Aeshma, the murderous psycho who’s probably killed that other person. The other person whose name you don’t even know, I might add.<

Vladimira hung her head, simply sitting in the rain for a moment. Standing suddenly, she grabbed the bar of metal and turned around, walking briskly in the direction she’d come.

She’d kill Aeshma if she had to, somehow, but she also needed to see if the other woman was okay. >Oh, glad to see you’ve grown a spine.< Gripping the metal bar, she accelerated it in the direction of where the fight had been.
_____________________________________________

James shut his mouth and tilted his head back down once he had his fill of the liquid that descended from the heavens. As wonderful as this, for all intents and purposes, miracle of nature was, he knew there were other things that needed his attention. There was a remnant of an unexplainable battle ahead of him, and he wanted to investigate. “Right. I don’t know about you, Ivan, but I want to find out what just happened,” he said, gesturing towards what was left of the truck.

“Right, right,” Ivan quickly agreed, having been just staring at his hand in confused wonderment. Investigation had been the reason he’d stayed after all, that and the novelty of finding another immortal- for now the amusement over this had past though, and he became much more curious in learning more about what had happened. What he could infer was that things had settled down but he could no longer properly tell if anyone was still around; either they’d gone quiet or left.

James slung his AK onto his back and was about to start towards the remains of the fight, but then another question had popped into his mind. “Ivan, the way you’ve been acting… I don’t want to offend but… are you blind?” he asked as sincerely as possible. James could tell Ivan had some way of seeing, but something about how he was acting hinted that it was in some way other than his eyes.

The question caught Ivan momentarily off guard, and his pace slowed while his eyes continued to follow James- or at least where he could assume James was from his footprints. “Kind of,” was the only response he was willing to give at the moment, Ivan having a question of his own he felt was more important. “You said you were ‘good company’. I’m assuming this means you’re immortal but does that mean you’re a mind reader?” Ivan asked, wanting to know what the real answer was since ‘mind reading’ seemed a bit over the top.

James couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. “In a manner of speaking. I can pick up on things most people never would, and when I look at someone I can gauge certain things about them pretty easily. You don’t have any pupils, and while that in and of itself doesn’t mean anything for an immortal, the way your attention didn’t seem to be focused on things you were ‘seeing’ exactly was something of a tell,” James replied. He picked up the pace, knowing that Ivan was, in fact, following him. “So, how can you see, then?” James asked. “You have to have some way of seeing, right?”

Upon the mention of what his eyes looked like, Ivan brought a hand to his face out of fear he’d somehow lost his hood. When he learned that wasn’t the case however his gloved hand slowly dragged down his chest until it was at his side again. “I can uh- I can see the dust. Dust, dirt, mud. It’s why I panicked when the water came from nowhere, I could see my hand getting cleaner,” Ivan explained, a slight smile cracking underneath the bag on his head. People had guessed he was blind before, or at least assumed he must have needed glasses, but it felt odd for him explaining things the way they were. “I remember I could see once, back in my youth- but that was too long ago. I to this day don’t really understand it much but it makes little difference when you spend your life surrounded by desert,” he then continued, stumbling slightly as the two reached the top of a shallow ridge.

Below, Ivan could see the truck he’d heard crash as it’s tires were easy to see, everything else wasn’t as distinguishable however and it left him forced to guess about a lot of what was down there. “Is there someone there?” he asked, eyeing a humanoid outline framed by what looked like dirty clothing. “A dead someone?” he then asked himself, stepping forward to slide down the muddy ridge towards the battleground. Though his interest at first was solely on the body he saw, Ivan’s attention became drawn to the dozens of invisible scratches and scars all over the ground. Leaning down near one Ivan placed his hand on the nearly swamped ground and through both force and some manipulation of the mud, he pulled forth a jagged and muddied piece of glass. “The hell- that thing cooked the sand,” he announced, proud of his finding as he examined the ghostly shape he held.

James couldn’t stop staring at the body. He could tell for certain, even from several hundred meters back, that she was no longer alive, but being this close was very different. It felt foreboding, and although he wasn’t unaccustomed to death, he had…

“Shit.” He looked away. Something in the back of his mind told him that this wasn’t good for him. He shifted his focus towards the trail the other girl had left behind. He could still see her running towards Russell City, but she was way too far to catch up to. He would pursue her later. For now, he went to examine the chunks of black armor that had crumbled away.

He walked over to one, picking it up and examining it carefully. It wasn’t an artificial armor, it was more like what you see on a bug. It was almost like an exoskeleton, but it clearly wasn’t connected to her biologically. At least, not completely. This was something bordering on the metaphysical; to hold up so well during that fight, yet simply come crumbling apart as soon as it started raining. It wasn’t even the rain itself; the armor showed no signs of chemical deterioration. It simply started chipping and shearing off. The only connection to it’s disintegration that James could think of was that the beast… woman… whatever, had began running off shortly after the rain began to fall.

James noticed something approaching; no, someone, the woman from before. He looked up and, with the air now being much clearer, noticed with a fair amount of surprise that she had most of her clothes torn off. He almost physically took a step back as she drew closer.

Vladimira sped along the muddy ground, slowing down as she neared the scene of the fight. She didn’t see Aeshma’s form anywhere, or that of the other woman. She did see what looked like two people -regular humans-, and her eyes narrowed, where had they come from?

A second afterwards and she became uncomfortably conscious of her lack of clothing and slowed to an abrupt halt, watching them with apprehension. She normally would’ve dragged her clothing to herself, but neither her shirt nor her cloak had anything for her to pull on from this distance, and with their charred condition she wasn’t sure they’d survive regardless. Scowling, she started walking forward, metal bar reshaping itself around her fist “Who are you?! The fuck do you want?!”

James was… almost startled at the woman’s abrupt introduction, and her lack of clothing threw him off to the point of discombobulation. “Ummm… I- we… saw the fight. I wasn’t really sure…” James became all too aware of the woman’s nakedness and turned himself around. “Let’s just say we were curious. I don’t know about Ivan, but I’ve certainly never seen an immortal turn into a hollow, and then back again.”

He grew suspicious as he remembered how her fists had seemed to turn into the armor he saw earlier. Hell, for that matter, they still were. He inched his hand towards his CZ. “Furthermore, that black stuff; why did it grow on your hands?” he asked, strongly but earnestly. Meanwhile Ivan had only turned his head, still holding the smooth spike of glass in his hand as he watched a barely visible outline of a person approach. Whoever it was was confronting James at the moment, and he seemed to be handling it, though Ivan continued to watch just in case.

Vladimira stopped as he responded. So they weren’t bandits or something, or at least, probably weren’t bandits. “Простите…” she muttered, edging her way over to her clothing, or what was left of it at least. “As for the ‘Immortal turning into a hollow’ part, I’m honestly not sure what that was, but it wasn’t a Hollow. It’s… I don’t know what happened. The black stuff either, I don’t know.”

She grabbed her shirt, sighing as it crumbled into ash. Rummaging around in her rucksack she dragged out another shirt and hastily tugged it on, the plates of metal on her chest that’d likely saved her life more than once in the past few minutes… “Temper’s been ruined, гавно...” She sighed, folding the metal in her hands and stuffing it into the rucksack with everything else. At least her weapons seemed to be fine. And that rifle she remembered pulling off the truck, which was all well and good, but…

She stood and looked around before her gaze alighted on Evelina’s body, and her face darkened. “So she’s dead.”

“I haven’t checked yet, but I think so,” Ivan replied, his voice a little choked since he had to speak up to be heard clearly.

“She is. I can tell,” James interjected, more forcefully than intended. He let out a sigh before adding, “I’m sorry, if you knew her.”

“I didn’t.” She grumbled darkly, walking slowly over to Evelina’s body, “But somebody probably does.”

James took his hand from his holster, knowing this woman probably wasn’t a threat, and also partially out of guilt of incriminating her, even if unintentionally. He tried thinking of something to say, but it was hard to come up with something that wouldn’t sound like a blatant misdirection away from the woman’s body. It would be insensitive to bring anything else up at the time.

“I’ve buried people before; it wouldn’t take too long. If she was out here on her own one can expect to die,” Ivan suggested, having transitioned into that same sitting position as before: legs crossed and hands folded neatly in his lap. “If she has anything valuable we can sell it. Not like she needs it,” he then continued, his vision lost for a moment as he tried to follow the splash of the newcomer's footprints as she approached the corpse.

Vladimira shook her head, “No, she knew someone, not sure who, but I’ve got this feeling in my gut that just burying her, whoever she is, in a shallow grave in a bunch of sand wouldn’t be right.” She shrugged, “I’m going to take her back to Russell, hard enough to lose someone, even worse if there’s no body.”

She turned, walking back towards Ivan and James, “However,” she paused for a moment, eyeing the two, “who you are and why you happened to be watching that… encounter, I’d like to know.”

Ivan’s head rocked to one side slightly, muttering a short, “Fair question,” as he glanced towards James for a moment. Afterwards he turned back to the woman and nodded, uncrossing his legs to allow himself to stand. “I personally just happened to be walking by. I heard the commotion and once I recognized it had something to do with a hollow I was going to try stepping in to help. Then the situation escalated and I decided it would be smart to not interfere and be on my way. I bumped into this young man, and he managed to pique my curiosity which resulted in me wanting to investigate things with him. Simple really,” Ivan leisurely explained, finished standing up and now having to look down towards where he believed the stranger’s face was.

James folded his arms and shifted his gaze towards Russell City. “I was on my way there to look for a job. Saw the commotion from some miles away and came running. I thought you and… her, were about to rob the other woman…” he trailed off, gazing intently towards the city in the distance. “She made for Russell City. I’m going to track her down once I get there. My job security just became secondary, I think I should know what this black armor shit means for us,” he said, unfolding his arms. At the mention of an ‘us’ Ivan’s head turned briefly towards James, but whatever he was thinking was dismissed quickly by an amused snort and he returned his attention to Vladimira.

Vladimira nodded, “Probably not a bad idea. Keep an eye out though, to put it mildly, shit’s going down over there. So I’d keep your guard up.”

She turned back around, siphoning metal off what remained of the truck and forming it into a sled of sorts, wiping sweat from her forehead as she did so. She walked over and grabbed Evelina’s body, propping it onto the makeshift sled/stretcher to the best of her abilities, and securing her with several bands of steel. “Well, now that’s done.” She muttered, walking back to the truck to investigate the sizeable rifle she remembered pulling off of it.

And what a sizeable rifle indeed.

“How… is this… intact.” She muttered. She walked slightly closer, eyes wide. “A PTRS-41. How is this even…” She trailed off, “Okay, I’ve got to take this with me.”

As the… immense rifle came out, James couldn’t help but be impressed. Not by how effortlessly she seemed to pull it out, not by it’s size compared to her, but by the rifle itself. “That’s… Russian,” he managed to croak. 14.5x114mm anti-materiel rifle, used during both of the Great Wars several centuries ago. “Damn.” James was practically starstruck. He wasn’t partial to big guns, but this… this was a thing of beauty.

He managed to shake himself from his stupor long enough to remember there were things to be done. “Right. Well, since you’re heading to Russell City, can you make room on that sled of yours? Ivan can move sand to move faster, but I’ve got my legs and that’s pretty much it.”

Vladimira shook her head to clear it. She could drool later. “I could, don’t know how much more is left in that truck though, or how much I’ve got ‘till I pass out. How much do you weigh? I’ve still got to carry this,” she gestured at her newest acquisition, “And my own stuff.”

“Are we all traveling together now, is that it?” Ivan asked, his question meant to be rhetorical as he continued speaking after a short pause. “I think it might be worth mentioning then that I’m pretty sure there was a bike somewhere around here. I heard it still running when the truck crashed,” he continued to explain in an amused tone, looking around in an attempt to find the vehicle but missed it as his head swiveled back and forth.

“Bike?” James asked. He was right though, James could hear an engine idling. He followed the sound, spotting the bike a few meters away, tipped over from the chaos of the fight. “Hmmm, right then,” he said, walking over to it to inspect it. The handlebars seemed to have been bent slightly, but that was the only visible damage he could see. “It still works. Ivan, you want a lift?” James asked, pulling it back upright.

“I don’t like engines,” Ivan replied quite quickly, the slightest hint of hostility in his words. “I mean, it’s a bike too- I don’t want to weigh it down since I’m soaking wet. I’ll be fine,” he then continued, correcting himself and sounding apologetic in tone.

“So, it seems like we’re all set then.” Vladimira observed. “Give me a moment and I guess we’ll head for Russell?”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” James replied.

Ivan chuckled slightly, his expression of joy cut short by a rasped sounding cough. “Anywhere dry sounds nice, honestly. I’ll follow the two of you,” he explained, clearing his throat afterwards.

Vladimira shrugged, walking over to her rucksack and gear and rummaging around, pulling out a wad of plastic bags. “Knew I’d have a use for these some day.” she muttered as she crammed her cold, wet, and burnt clothing into some of the bags before stuffing them back into the rucksack. She grabbed her gun belt and rifle, slipping the belt on and the strap of the rifle over her shoulder.

“Now how to secure this… magnificent find.” She grumbled, shrugging eventually and placing the rifle on the makeshift sled/stretcher as well, pulling a piece of metal or two over it to hold it in place.

“Think we’re set, I suppose?” She said to the other two.

James had pulled the bike alongside the others and nodded towards the woman. “Wait, I don’t think we ever got your name, nor you ours.”

“Well, you go first if that’s the case.” Vladimira replied, stepping behind her makeshift transport.

James scoffed, somewhat amused by her apprehension. “James,” he said, simply.

“Vladimira, Vladimira Kovalik.” She said simply, shrugging, “And you, big guy?”

“Ivan,” he replied, sounding a lot more cheerful all of a sudden.

Around 2:30 PM, Russel City 'Underground'



"And..." Mystification tinged Lucania's eyes, a hand came to cover her mouth as she took in the painting, "What is it that I'm looking at here?"

"Confusion, perhaps?" The woman next to her, a small woman dressed in all black, spoke with a sultry French accent. She was an attendant, of sorts... she was the matron of this lobby area of The Underground... a 'specialty fashion superette' Lucy had recommended-- Apparently, if you had the ammo, and you wanted to become a different person, these were the experts. How Lucy had contacts here, Lucania figured, was information best left private.

"Confusion?" Her eyes grew murkier by the second. The woman in black wasn't wrong, Lucania certainly was confused.

Christ, the entire way The Underground operated confused her! It was raining outside! She wanted professional help transforming her appearance to make leaving Russel easier-- and then it starts raining! She wasn't sure what was going on! Leoluca was nowhere to be found, Lucy would be headed to Serenity within the hour, her Windcaller had been abducted as soon as the fashionistas of the establishment saw his state of dress... she was alone, and confused in the lobby of an establishment she had been informed would serve her purposes. SO far, she had been met with... perplexing rhetoric.

She supposed the painting was no exception.

"Confusion is good, Mademoiselle Castalia."

"Is it?" Pulling attention away from the seemingly random, yet thoughtfully formed shapes of vibrant color, Lucania turned to the woman in black, "I'm not sure it's either good or bad."

"It is what you feel, no?"

"I suppose so."

"Why?"

"Why do I feel that confusion isn't inherently good, or why am I confused?"

"Why are you confused, Mademoiselle Castalia?"

"You are aware that water is falling from the sky, miss...?"

"Somme--"

Something clicked in Lucania's mind, "Oh! Like the battle?"

"Oui."

A smirk replaced the contemplation on Lucania's face, "So, Miss Somme, is that the pseudonym you give everyone?"

"No..." She chuckled, taking a moment to light herself a cigarette, "Such tests are reserved only for my most illustrious subjects."

Several bits of that sentence stuck out to Lucania immediately-- that she was being tested was perhaps the most disconcerting bit, but there was also the fact that apparently, at least to this woman, criminal heiresses were considered 'illustrious.' Lucania couldn't tell if she felt honored or not... "Subjects?" Despite her confusion's gradual transformation into frustration, she found herself enthralled--

"Oui. You are my subject, Mademoiselle Castalia."

"Subject...?" Lucania parroted the woman's voice, "Like, Gaen experiment subject?"

"Mmmm..." The french woman muttered to herself, "Bright... not horribly good at deduction..."

"I'm sorry?"

"My name."

"Somme?"

"You already determined that wasn't my name, no?"

"I suppose, but then--"

"How did you determine that I was giving you a false name?"

"You're... French?" Lucania shrugged, "And the Battle of the Somme was fought in France?"

"Hmm..." The woman blew out a stream of smoke, "And how did you know about the battle?"

Lucania chuckled, "I must have read about it somewhere."

The woman sucked in air through her teeth, before tossing away the cigarette and slapping Lucania. Pain spread across her face fast, her eyes went wide as hands immediately shot up to apply pressure to the area of contact-- it was a light slap-- but it was an alien sensation to Lucania, combined with the surprise of the blow, the stinging pain persisted.

"What the hell, lady!?" There was a controlled edge to her voice.

"My subjects do not rely on luck!" Was the French woman's reply, her eyes held the fury of some vengeful god and her voice had the quality of an angry mother. Lucania couldn't help but feel a distinct childlike fear, "It is no wonder you failed to see past the lies of your companion."

Lucania tilted her head, "Wait, what?"

"The man you were with." The woman answered, lighting herself another fashion cigarette, "He goes by a false name."

"How do you know?"

For her query, Lucania was rewarded with another slap across the face.

"This is my craft! My ART! You foolish child! You dare question my expertise!?"

"No!" Her hands left her reddened cheek to clasp together as she did something of a bow before the woman, "No, no, no! Never!" Lucania rose, "It's just... I didn't know, is all!"

"How could you?" She took a drag, "You see the world as you wish it, not as it is."

"I'm..." More confusion, "...sorry?"

"Don't be!" The French woman chuckled, "You'll make a perfect canvas!"

"Canvas? I thought I was a subject?"

"You were, now you will be my canvas-- I will create you into something..." The woman vouged, "Even more illustrious!"

"Like..." Lucania's eyes ventured again to the painting, "...that?"

"Exactly!" The woman took a drag, "Do you know what this piece is called?"

"No, ma'am."

"Oh, I think you'll find it's very fitting for what you need!"

"Interesting."

"It's an Old World piece, titled 'Commitment to a New Idea,'"

History repeats itself. A hand came to cover Lucania's mouth as she took in the painting, colors striking even more vivid as her life under one name would soon give way to a newer one-- even if only temporarily.

Lucania tilted her head, eyes gleaming golden, "How very post-modernist."

"Oui! Shall we go get you changed Mademoiselle Castalia?"

Matching her voice, Lucania replied, "Oui, Mademoiselle Somme.

Shortly after passing through the fringes of Russell City, James felt the motorcycle begin to sputter. Odds are there wasn’t much fuel left. His suspicions were confirmed moments later, when the motorcycle let loose a couple of violent coughs before the engine stalled. No matter; it had made it to the city, and that was as far as it needed to go. James pulled the bike over to the side of the street, slowing it to a halt before putting the kickstand down and dismounting. He had seen the woman from before walking this street while they were approaching before making a turn, either at the next intersection or the one after that. He’d have to try to trace her steps from there.

“Alright, since this was hers I’ll leave it with you, Vladimira. It only seems fitting.” he said. “I’m going to follow that woman. Not to sound rude, but I would prefer to do this without interference. We can all regroup later,” he said, heading off into the direction he suspected the white-haired woman had gone. It was definitely hard to tell for sure where she had headed, but he wasn’t getting anywhere standing around thinking about it. At that thought, he ducked into an alleyway, keeping his eyes peeled for the immortal.

It occurred to him that it might not be possible to regroup with Ivan and Vladimira immediately, so he began thinking of a way he could get word to them. A bulletin board, perhaps? Or some place he could leave a note. That would have to work. He tried to focus his hearing on any footsteps he heard, and while it told him where people were, he didn’t know whose to track down. Still, it gave him an idea, and he figured the woman would be in a hurry. He tried to narrow it down based on that criteria. He paused and took a breath, closing his eyes and channeling his hearing.

After a moment, he got it narrowed down to four people within a hundred meters. No, three, one just entered a building somewhere behind him. He made a mental note of the location before setting after the other three, starting with the nearest. He turned right, following the sound through the muddy street. The rain made it difficult to get an exact location, but he had a rough idea, and that was good enough. After a moment of walking, he spotted the person in question. One of the winged guards. Figures; probably just got called in to something.

He got lucky though, as the second person was heading towards him. He looked to his left, seeing the man, another one of the guards. The guard caught a brief glimpse of James, but kept moving past him. James supposed they were searching for someone. Still, he wasted no time in locking onto the last person and turned around. He broke into a run, realizing they were moving away from him. It didn’t take too long to catch up to them, just some guy, possibly running late for something. That left only the one that went into the building a few blocks back.

James retraced his steps, heading back to the area in which he heard the person earlier. It seemed to be a housing complex. He could hear a pair talking in one of them; two women. He propped himself against the outer wall of the complex, trying to look as casual as possible while he did a little eavesdropping.

”Listen.. Alex.. I haven't heard-” began one of them.

”I'm about to change your life Missand,” the other interjected. Odd way to start a conversation, and while that alone would have only made him suspicious, what she said next confirmed what he thought.

”I solved the mystery. Tell everybody you know, the Immortals are gathering at Isolone.” Well, while that could have simply been a coincidence, it was still damning enough that even if this weren’t the woman from before, she still knew something. He pushed himself away from the wall as the conversation continued. He had to take some time to process what they were saying. He still couldn’t say for sure what was happening, but it was definitely something big.

He heard the woman turning the door handle and moved himself around the corner of the building. She closed the door and began heading in the direction opposite him. He turned his head around the corner, getting a good look at the woman. There was no doubt, she was the one whom only an hour before had taken on the form of a hollow. Now that he was this close, he couldn’t help but find her a bit attractive. Still, that was secondary; she was still up to something. He was about to continue his pursuit when he heard footsteps behind him.

“You seem lost.” said a gruff voice. He turned his head around, coming face to face with the Wings from before. Figures. Anyone would have looked suspicious, trying to be as stealthy as James was. He was ashamed he hadn’t heard them approach, but he chocked it up to him still processing what was said. “Can we help you find something?” the other said, a hint of malice in his voice. James had to think of something. “Well…”

“Well… What?” the leader spat out harshly. “Spit it out, kid!” he barked. This wasn’t going well. “Did I do something wrong?” James asked, managing to retain his calm demeanor.

“Well, that depends,” the second one said. “What were you doing with those two immortals who entered the city a few minutes ago?” James could tell they were talking about Ivan and Vladimira. Still, what did that have to do with anything?

“I don’t really see why that matters, I mean-”

“Take off those goggles,” the leader said. No socio-political bent here; nope, none at all. James narrowed his eyes, looking over their weaponry. They both seemed to have the same equipment; radio, baton, handcuffs, etc. The biggest difference was that the leader carried an actual firearm while the other only had a taser. Still deadly in the right, or wrong hands.

Reluctantly, James reached towards his goggles, closing his eyes before pulling them off of his head. Usually he would be identifiable as an Immortal immediately, but the heavy overcast and rain made seeing through the tinted eyepieces much more difficult. He would use that to his advantage in the next few seconds. He opened his eyes and kept the goggles held over his head. Time began to slow as he noticed the reaction on their faces; a mix of surprise, apprehension, and most importantly, newfound hostility.

Without missing a beat, James threw the goggles at the second man’s face whilst simultaneously reaching for his CZ. He had it out of it’s holster and pointed at the leader in under a second; neither of them having an opportunity to even get their hands on their weapons. The leader stood frozen while the second, still startled by the diversion, fumbled for his taser.

“Don’t do anything rash, stupid!” James said to the second. He looked up at James, fear spreading across his face. He paused, hand just on the grip of the taser. As the two eased their hands upwards, time returned to normal speed for James. “Okay, now listen up you two. I don’t know what your beef is with me, but I can’t take any risks right now. Don’t do anything stupid and you’ll live,” he said, as forcefully as he could manage. He’d dealt with criminals before, but never law enforcement. It definitely filled James with some amount of nervousness as he made his demands.

“You,” he said, gesturing towards the one behind the leader. “Cuff this guy,” he said. He hesitated for a moment, but complied fairly quickly. “Turn around,” James said as the leader was finished being restrained. James grabbed for his cuffs, making sure never to take his gun off of him, then restrained him as well. “Alright, now I gotta do one last thing, and don’t take this personally,” he said, bringing his hand back and swiftly pistol-whipping the two of them.

They collapsed to the ground effortlessly. James knew they would either come to or be found eventually, but hopefully not for a while. He holstered his handgun and went to pick up his goggles, now soaked in mud. “Great,” he said, trying to clean them off with his jacket. It got some of the crap off, but he knew the goggles were practically useless for the meantime. He put them back over his head, hanging them around his neck. “So, Isolone then,” James thought aloud, pulling the hood over his head both as protection from the rain, and to help shade his eyes. It wasn’t exactly necessary for him to pursue the woman through the city anymore, seeing as he knew where she was going. He figured he’d begin looking for a way to let Ivan and Vladimira know, and maybe grab a bite to eat. He hadn’t eaten since morning.

---

After a quick stop at a sandwich stand, James decided to head to a bar he had heard about. The Bitch’s Brew. It seemed to be a happening sort of place; it was possible Ivan and Vladimira would head that way. He kept his eyes open for some means of leaving a message for Ivan and Vladimira, though he figured if all else failed he could simply leave the note with someone and hope they saw them. Not like they would be too difficult to identify.

James found himself at the entryway to the bar and let himself in. It was still fairly early in the afternoon, so it wasn’t like it was busy at this time. He found his way straight to the barkeep, taking out the note preemptively. “Hey, can I ask you something real quick?” he asked.

“Sure, what’cha need?” he replied, cleaning out a glass.

“Two things. First of all, where would you say is the most popular place here for Immortals?”

The bartender laughed a bit at that. “Well, I’d say you found it. Immortals come here all the time. Why do you ask?”

James paused to look around. Indeed it did seem like there was a high ratio of immortals here as opposed to normals. “Well then, I guess that brings me to my second question. Can I leave a note here? I need to get going, but I want a couple of people to know where I’m headed too.”

“Well, this is a business. We can’t just do stuff for free,” he replied, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “Tell you what. Buy a drink, and I’ll keep that note for you. Sound fair?”

James couldn’t help but be a bit annoyed, but to be fair, he did feel like having a drink. After the things that have been going on today, he figured he could use something to cheer him up a bit. “Yeah, sure,” he replied. “Get me something smooth. I don’t really care what, I’m not big on drinks,” he said.

“Comin’ right up,” the bartender said. James fished out a few of his shoddy 9mm rounds as payment for the drink and set them on the bar, along with the note. “There ya go,” the bartender said, setting a clear drink on the table. James took a sip from the glass, letting the lightly burning liquid slide down his throat. “Not bad,” James said.

“So, who am I saving this for?” the bartender asked, gesturing to the note.

“Oh, right,” James said, setting the glass on the bar. “One of them is named Ivan. He’s a big dude, wears pretty shoddy looking clothes, along with a rag on his head. You probably can’t really see his eyes, but he’s an immortal. The other is Vladimira. Also an immortal. Glowing red eyes, pulsating, no pupils. Hard to miss,” he said, slugging the rest of the drink. “Now, thank you for your time, and the drink, but I’ve got to get going.”

At that, James hopped off the stool and headed off to find a vehicle. He could probably manage to buy a bike or something. Maybe not a good one, but as long as it worked and was relatively quick, he would make do. He also took a moment to take his undershirt and properly wipe off his goggles in the rain. It didn’t take too long to find a shop, and after some negotiations, James managed to get his hands on a bike, complete with a full tank of gas. Of course, he exhausted all of his money, and a few more 9mm bullets, but he could recoup those at a later date. Wasting no time, he mounted the bike and sped off towards Isolone.

---

The ride took awhile, but after a few hours James could see the outskirts of Isolone. He had briefly seen a truck that he believed to be the woman’s. Alex, if he recalled the conversation he heard correctly. If he was right, he had passed her roughly an hour ago. That would put her fifteen minutes behind him, give or take a few. It would give him time to scope out the town before she arrived. If she was a threat, he needed a tactical advantage.

As he got closer, he realized that would be easier said than done. The buildings in the town seemed destroyed; either burned down or just collapsed. What the hell happened here? As he drew nearer he could make out more details. Debris was laying all around the street, coupled with all sorts of carnage. Corpses lay sprawled in the street and various buildings; some mutilated beyond recognition, some flayed, some missing limbs.

“Holy shit,” James muttered. He shut off the motorcycle so as to not make any noise and coasted the motorcycle as far as it would go. It stopped a couple hundred meters from what could be construed as the town limits. He put the kickstand down and took his AK off of his back, pulling the bolt back slightly to make sure it was loaded. Once he confirmed a bullet was in the chamber, he put the rifle to his shoulder, keeping it lowered as he entered Isolone.

He proceeded with more caution than he usually would. The atmosphere of this whole town was beyond oppressive, and he almost hesitated to even enter it. What exactly happened here? He kept his eyes peeled for any movement, but even as he passed the first buildings, nothing stirred. It stayed that way as he proceeded down the lone road leading through the town and towards what looked like a post office. It was damaged, but it fared better than a lot of the buildings, a solid chunk of one side being collapsed. James continued scanning the area, but he doubted anyone or anything was still here. They were likely either dead or got the fuck out.

He figured if there was anyone left they’d have seen him by now. That settled it; the town was completely destroyed, not a native soul left. James let out a sigh and put the rifle back on his back, jogging to the bike to bring it into the ghost town. He pushed the bike up the road, looking for a good place to put it. There was one section between a pair of houses where the roof had collapsed between them, leaving a crevice to conceal the bike. He left it there, then posted himself at the edge of the town, waiting for this Alex person to arrive.

---

Hardened rubber tires tore across the watery, mud laden streets of Russell City, carrying Alex away from the only city she’d ever truly considered home. She had built a pretty good life for herself there. She had been an excellent scavenger, making more than a meager living as so many others did. She was set up, and she kept herself hidden fairly well despite the extreme mutative nature of her eyes. She had even had a few relationships here and there..

”Cassie… what is this?” A sleepy Alex asked, tentatively poking a bread like mass on her plate. A small dish of amber colored syrup sat next to it.
”They’re called pancakes silly,” Cassie giggled lightly as she looped her arms around Alex’s neck and nuzzle her face against her affectionately. ”Listen, I have work to do, I’m meeting a Wing today, wants some information on a drug dealer or something.”

”A drug dealer?” Alex repeated, using her fork to slice off a piece of the quivering meal. Cassie reached over her and poured the syrup onto Alex’s breakfast.

”Yea, small fish trying to go big or something, calls himself Jackson or something.”

”You sure this isn’t going to get you killed someday soon?” Alex asked with her mouth full of the gooey pancakes, ”Sweet jesus these are delicious!”

Cassie kissed Alex’s cheek, stifling her amusement, ”Someday, but less likely than you venturing out into the wastes looking for toasters,” She teased.

”Hpmfgh!” Alex retorted. Cassie giggled as Alex forcefully swallowed the bite she had taken, ”Hey! I do not.. though speaking of ventures..” She said, letting the thought hang as she twirled her fork slowly in the air, as if to emphasise her aloofness.

”Nothing yet, I’ll keep my ears open though. Now listen, I really gotta go,” Cassie said, locating her pants and moving across the room to slip them on. ”I’ll come by next week, cool? I gotta go to Harlem for bit after this Wing business.”

”Alright, I’ll leave the key in the usual place… but I expect more of these pancakes!” Alex turned halfway in her chair, smiling as Cassie finished dressing.

”Fine, but you’ll have to dance for me again,” She said coyly, winking at Alex.

Alex went slightly red in the face at this, ”Deal, See you then.”

”Toodles,” Cassie said, wiggling her fingers.

Alex sniffled, wiping away the glistening memory from the corner of her eye. She turned and looked back out the window, watching the weather reflect her current mood. Appropriate, since she had a hand in causing it, though indirectly. It was a somber kind of mood, one that made her deeply sad. She had such a good life in Russel, even with the day to day dangers of living in Dust. And she had thrown it all away for what?

~”A mental breakdown.”~ her mind echoed, seemingly amused. She wasn’t wrong though. She had been so obsessed with this rumor of others like her gathering. The thought that others would band together to fight the growing oppression and civil unrest against Immortals made her feel much less alone than she felt. Even with her lovers, and her very few friends, she had always felt alone. She had felt alone since she walked out of that god forsaken camp all those years ago. She still felt the scars, the tightness of them on her back. Sometimes when she dreamt she could still feel them burning, she’d wake up covered in her own blood. In the end, she just woke up profusely sweaty, and with a heart that seemed ready to explode.

”You’re such a good girl Alexi, have the others been teaching you?” Greya purred, running her fingers through her favorite pet’s hair.

”Yes mistress,” Alex replied meekly.

”It’ll be such a shame when I have to left you go.. but Ardall said buyers are always willing to pay high-In gold- for girls like you,” Greya said softly, it almost sounded as if she truly felt sorrow.

”I will miss you dearly Mistress,” Alex cooed, looking at Greya with a set of sad, doe-eyes. Alex, at the time, had meant it too. Her heart panged with anxiety with the thought of being separated from her master, yet she knew that she would bring her master such joy as Alex had never brought her before. Her master loved money, that much was apparent from the gold jewelry she adorned herself with. Alex was her favorite, and had piercing to reflect her master’s affection.

”Come now, show me what a good girl you’ve become my little Alexi-”

Alex cringed from the memory, only brought out from it as a splattering of mud slathered one side of the small car she was in, albeit thinly. A bike zipped past, obviously heading somewhere in a hurry. No, rather, Alex was traveling slowly. She turned and looked, watching the landscape pass by slowly. The rain had stopped, this far from Russel, but mud was still present, and the sky was still overcast. It seemed the storm had been larger than she had first expected, though it was much thinner out here. It must have been moving with her. Which means she must be going really slow.

”The fuck am I paying you for? I could have walked there by now!” Alex said, her anger spiking immediately to dangerous levels. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Meanwhile the driver looked back at her, a bit wide eyed, before he smiled a toothy grin and tilted his hand in response. A moment later and the tires spun out long columns of mud as he floored the gas pedal. Alex was rocked back into the uncomfortable seat, which didn’t help her attempts at trying to keep from literally disintegrating the driver.

”He’s weak… easy.. it would be so-” A voice purred hungrily from within her head.

Alex squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out Aeshma’s influence on her. ”I’m not the angry one.. he’s the angry one.. I’m not angry..” She whispered to herself, focusing on the words. It took longer than she would have liked, but eventually she could feel Aeshma recede, and with him the boiling rage that she felt. On one hand she was glad she knew about him, and what he could do. Yet, more sorrow burrowed its way into her as she looked back on what she and done. She had put more blood on her hands, she had attacked Vladimira… she had killed.

She shook her head again, looking back out the window. The large mesa was plainly in view, and quite sizable. She had heard many things about Isolone, but had never actually found a reason to go there. She wasn’t even sure why she had chosen it as her staging area.

”Defensible.. High ground.. the best corner to back yourself into..” Aeshma hummed inside her head. She squeezed her eyes shut once more, forcing herself to block him out, Again. The rest of her ride was spent in remembrance of all the atrocities she had committed. She tried to accept them, but she was also greatly pained by her actions. She used these negative, painful memories as reminders of why she had to change, why she could no longer be the meek little scavenger girl who kept to herself, always thoughtful or amused. She had to be strong, stronger than Aeshma, she had to be in control. She had to become a leader, she couldn’t show weakness, not anymore.

She focused her entire will and being on staying in control, refusing to let Aeshma take that from her. Resisting the poisonous, rage fueled influence he had on her. Ignoring his quips, his remarks, and most difficult of all… his hunger. She hummed softly as she sat there, remembering the painful things she had done.

---

By the time Alex’s ride traversed the steep grade up into The Big Empty, dusk was quickly approaching. She wasn’t quite sure was she was expecting, but she felt a surprising lack of nervousness, or anxiety. For once in the past, she didn’t even know how long, she felt at peace, for the most part. The car rumbled across the rocky dirt road, giving Alex the brief thought if anybody had ever bothered to smooth it out.

Out the window the landscape was pretty droll in her opinion, lots of rocks and boulders. Little ones, big ones, and a few that even looked square. Suddenly she no longer wondered why Isolone wasn’t talked about more often, other than it’s unique position it looked like a pretty boring place. Though, it looked pretty safe in her opinion. There were only two real ways in, and each of those points ended within a mile of each other.

It took about another forty minutes before she realized why nobody talked about Isolone often. Even through the quickly setting veil of pitch black night, it was apparent what had happened her. The amount of death and destruction present made her want to turn around and forget the place. It reminded her too much of what she had done. Every other body was somebody she knew, a mirage created just to make her feel guilty. Yet, their dead, silent faces helped her steel herself as she opened the door and exited the car.

Despite all of the devastation, there was something mildly surprising. Or rather, someone. At the edge of the town a man stood, facing her direction. It looked as if he had been waiting for someone, or perhaps something? He hadn’t even moved when she arrived. ”Is he waiting for me?” She thought idly to herself as the driver stepped out to open the trunk of his vehicle. Alex ignored the man for the moment, it was apparent that he was waiting, and she was still far enough that she could blast him if he tried anything.

Half a minute later and Alex was left standing in the middle of nowhere with two duffel bags, her backpack, and her two weapons. Both of which she hadn’t even felt the need to use in such a long time… she figured perhaps now it was time to be a bit more reserved with her powers. She had been reckless before, careless even, and had very nearly killed herself that night in the abandoned housing complex with…

She shook that thought from her head, ”What’s your deal stranger?” Alex called out warily, walking forward slowly. Normally she would be on edge, nearly bursting with adrenaline, ready to fight. Today, she held both of her hands up in a sign of peace as she advanced. As she got a little closer she started to make out the man’s appearance from that of a mysterious, manly silhouette, to that of a gruff looking young man.

He didn’t seem very threatening, at least at first glance. He came off kind of rugged to her actually; Dressed in fairly average travelling clothing. That is, mixed and matched to wasteland perfection. A dark hoodie, most likely a darker shade of gray, poked out from beneath an almost equally dark green jacket, though the style looked a bit more like something a soldier would wear. That last thought was only complimented by the gear he was sporting. As she drew closer, she noticed a set of goggles resting on what looked like some sort of green scarf, though she wasn’t quite familiar with the style. It was still too dim for her to make out his eyes, and considering her own goggles were hooked onto her backpack, it probably didn’t make much of a difference.

James simply stood there as he saw Alex’s car pull up. He figured it would be best to avoid drawing any weapons, but he kept his guard up. No telling if this woman was about to go hollow again or something. The thought of that actually frightened him somewhat. If it was anything like what had happened before, there was no way he’d ever stand a chance against her in a fight unless he had the drop on her, or some other tactical advantage.

James opened his mouth to say something, but then shut it. He realized he hadn’t really given much thought as to what he would say once he finally confronted her. Then again, did this even constitute a confrontation, exactly? He went through a list of things he could open with, but then Alex seemed to beat him to it.

“What’s yours?” he responded. “Not to sound rude or anything, but I’ve never seen an Immortal turn into a hollow and then back again. What the hell happened today?” he asked, folding his arms. “And furthermore, what is it that you want to gather us here for, Alex?”

Alex was genuinely stunned by his question, so much so that she stopped walking. She thought on it for just a moment, quirking her eyebrow. If he had beaten her here, he must have been following her since that showdown on the road. Though she never saw him during the entire ordeal, admittedly she wasn’t exactly in control. But to know about that and head her off here means he must have been eavesdropping on her conversation with Missand, word doesn’t travel that fast.

At the very least, Alex no longer felt very threatened by him. If he had watched the fight to it’s conclusion, he was probably afraid of her. Not that she could blame him, she was afraid of herself too. She wondered what power he had, or if he could awaken too. No, he probably couldn’t, that’s probably why he sounded so calmly estranged about it. She could probably learn a thing or two about self control from him.

”I’m not sure how long you’ve been following me, but I don’t exactly owe you information. Exactly who are you to be so concerned?” She asked, setting her heavy duffel bags on the ground.

“Well, an Immortal, for one. Mostly I’m concerned about what happened to you earlier happening to me. I would have been happy with that, but your conversation with that woman earlier, Miss… what’s her name. Can’t remember it too well,” he said, scratching his head. “But, apparently there seems to be more at work. Call it curiosity, or just a feeling in my gut, or whatever, but I feel like I need to know what’s going on,” he said.

He unfolded his arms and looked back towards the interior of the town. “Also, I’m not sure if you could tell already, but this place is pretty well sacked. There’s plenty of graveless bodies lying around,” he added. He looked back to Alex to try to gauge her reaction. He doubted that she actually had anything to do with it, but it still seemed convenient that she would decide to go here at such a time.

Alex looked around, her attention pulled back to the state of the town. He was right though, it did seem overly convenient. Though, accusations didn’t worry her, he had arrived her first after all. She knelt down to rummage in one of the duffel bags, her back turned to him. She still felt aware of his presence, but not on edge. She didn’t get the feeling that he was here to attack her. He seemed confused, a bit scared. She could understand his reasoning. She smiled ruefully to herself, perhaps she owed him that much.

She turned, holding two collapsible spades in her hands, tossing one of them into the dirt a few feet from him. A moment later she hefted the duffel bags back onto her shoulders, ”I understand,” She said, with an inkling of compassion in her voice, ”You want information, fine. But there’s no reason to be idle about it, like you said, there are a lot of graves that need digging.”

She left it at that, as she headed into the town, sure that he would follow. The main road led down a ways, surrounded on either side by the broken, burned shells of buildings. Getting a good glimpse of the place, there were bodies everywhere. And given the putrid smell hanging lazily in the air, it had probably been a few days since they died. She headed around the back of the most intact looking building, after dropping off her equipment inside. A few feet out from the building she stopped, pulling her shovel out to its full length and locking it with the pin. She was thankful for one real thing at this very moment, out here by the coast the dirt was soft. She could smell the ocean on the air, but the elevation she was at prevented her from seeing it.

It didn’t quite matter though, the heavy darkness was quickly approaching. The brilliant hues of orange, red, and yellow were quickly fading as the sun plummeted below the horizon. Which perhaps was her second blessing this day, doing this in the heat might have given her a stroke. She pulled off her jacket and tied it around her waist. She still wore a tanktop underneath, but she immediately felt cooler. She jammed the shovel into the earth, and starting the long process of digging a mass grave.

James looked between Alex and the spade for a moment before letting out a sigh. He figured he’d get answers after all this was said and done. He felt bad, simply digging one mass grave, but what more could be done? He would have at least wanted an individual grave for each person, but he was, admittedly, beginning to grow impatient.

He took a pointer from Alex and took off his jacket and backpack, setting them near one of the buildings. He left his hoodie on, though he did roll up the sleeves to his elbows. It was nothing special, just a plain dark grey hoodie, with a couple of tears and patches from past use. He began digging not far from Alex, taking a moment every now and then to spare a glance at her. There was something oddly familiar about her, but he couldn’t put a finger on it.

He ignored the thought and kept digging. He figured they should still have some conversation while doing so, help pass the time. “So, your power, I’m guessing it has to do with electricity?” he asked somewhat offhandedly.

Alex looked down at the shallow dent they had made in the earth together, feeling as if this would never get done. ”It does,” she said simply, throwing a scoop of dirt over her shoulder. The work was easy enough, but they had a long way to go before this night was over. ”Though I’m sure you gathered that much from whatever vantage point you had, you must have been pretty far out,” She commented, casually hinting at her thoughts on the aspects of his phenomena.

James thought about what she said. She was definitely observant, to pick up on that detail. Then again, it’s not like you needed to be a detective to deduce that James had better than average sensory abilities. “You could say I tend to be pretty observant. I could hear someone spit from a mile away, if that helps,” he replied, a hint of flippancy in his voice. Alex looked up from where she was digging, shooting him one of those looks that seems innate for women. James looked up and, upon meeting her gaze, let out a disheartened sigh and resumed digging.

The repetitious noise of the shovel digging through the earth became a plain, monotonous rhythm, adding to the eeriness of the atmosphere hanging over the town. He stopped for a moment and took a look around. By this point there was no sunlight left illuminating the sky. Of course, the stars provided James with enough light that he could still see fine, but he figured Alex was probably not doing so well off.

He set the shovel down and reached into his messenger bag, pulling out a flashlight. He flicked it on and set it on a mound of dirt, pointing it towards the section of earth Alex was digging. “Figured that would help,” he said. Alex nodded her thanks, letting the silence drag on as she focused on the task at hand. James was about to start digging again when he realized he had never introduced himself. “My name is James, by the way. And yes, I have been following you; practically all day. I was with a couple of others; Vladimira and Ivan. I left a note at a bar for them, if they wanted to find me again.” He picked up the shovel and got back to digging. “It seemed like they were going to do their own thing, but who knows,” he added.

Alex paused momentarily, wiping away the sweat dripping from her brow. Even with the onset of the night, it was still warm out for the time being. Perhaps up here on the mesa, the temperature was less likely to become freezing like so many other nights did. Though the weather patterns in Dust had always be odd. Still, she mulled over the thought of Vladimira. A part of her wondered if she was alright, the other worried that she had made a deadly enemy.

”Heh, small world, I know that woman,” She replied, sounding bemused. Though that wasn’t entirely a facade, she still had some naggling worries in the back of her mind; wondering if Vladimira would show up here fully awakened and looking to settle the score.

“Oh, so you knew her?” he inquired. Upon thinking back to the fight, he began to think about what exactly had happened. He had nearly forgotten, but this woman had killed someone. “I couldn’t tell for sure in all the fighting. Did you know the other woman, too? You know, the one you killed?” he asked, his increased temper showing through as he practically spat out the last few syllables.

”I uh..” Alex started, feeling the sting of his words, ”No, I did not.”

“Mmmm,” he grumbled. There was a short pause before he finally said, “Well, maybe it was better that way,” he said, a sharpness still in his voice. He kept digging, his pace quickening slightly after the short argument. Once his temper began to level off again, he considered the thought that she wasn’t in control. Upon thinking about it further, he came to the conclusion that it was probably the most likely scenario. He stopped digging for a second and let out a sigh before opening his mouth.

“I’m sorry. You probably weren’t exactly in control, were you?” he asked, shifting his gaze towards her. Alex looked up at him, her expression thoughtful as she looked at him, he was quite perceptive. “I kinda lost my cool for a second there, it’s just…” He let out another sigh before continuing. “I don’t know. I feel like I need something to blame. She didn’t have to die. I know it probably isn’t your fault, but still.” His eyes shifted downwards for a second before he turned back to the hole and resumed digging.

Alex chuckled, ruefully, sadly. ”No.. it was my fault. You’re right, I wasn’t in control, I was weak,” She said, jamming the shovel into the quickly deepening hole as if for emphasis, ”She got in my way.. and I killed her, like I’ve killed so many others..” Her voice dropped off at the end, and she let the statement hang in the air for a moment. ”You saw what I was, you couldn’t begin to understand what was happening at that juncture in my life.”

James stopped for a moment, looking back at her. He was about to say something else but decided against it. He thought about what else he could say, but when he came back with nothing he simply continued to dig. Silence remained between them for a while, except for the sounds of their shovels penetrating the ground and tossing clumps of dirt onto the growing mounds. Alex stopped digging, setting her shovel on the edge of the hole and pulling herself out.

”I’ll be right back,” She said, already walking towards the building where she had left her gear. A minute or so later she returned with two cans, utensils, and a device to open them. Additionally she held a jug of mostly clean water. ”You said earlier that you wanted to know how I became a hollow, still sure you want to know?” She asked, sitting at the edge of the hole and patting the area next to herself.

James looked out from the hole, seeing Alex go to one of the buildings and return with what seemed like food. Following suit, he set the shovel aside and pulled himself out of the hole before dusting himself off. “Well, if this is going to be a recurring thing, I think it would be pertinent for me to know, yes,” he replied, smart-assedly. He sat himself next to Alex, taking the can and opening it before digging in.

”By the way,” she added, ”I’m Alex, and I’m not some vicious killer, really.”

James couldn’t help but chuckle somewhat. “Well, I guess it’s nice to officially meet you then, Alex.” He got up and went to his backpack to grab a bottle of water, then returned to where he was sitting before. “So, anyways, do tell,” he stated as he sat down.

”Well..” Alex started, taking a breath and looking out into the starry veil of the sky, ”I’m not sure how much of this you’re going to believe, I barely believe it myself.”

“Please, you made it rain earlier today. How can it get any crazier than that?” he quipped.

”I guess you’re right,” She agreed, taking a quick bite of canned beans, ”I wasn’t a hollow.. well not exactly I guess. As far as I’m concerned all Immortals can do it. It has to do with your spark.. I.. I could never hear mine before today, but.. it’s sentient. I can feel him, in the back of my mind. Sometimes he comments too, but I do my best to ignore that..” She paused, realizing she was was beginning to babble, and looked over at him.

James stared back, a fair amount of disbelief written on his face. He thought for a moment that she may have had some mental disorder. He didn’t say anything about it, but that was the only thing that came to mind. He set down his can before speaking up. “Okay, let’s say that…” He stopped himself as he finished processing what exactly Alex said. “No, wait, I’m sorry, the spark is sentient?” Of course, given how unexplainable any Immortal’s powers were, it wasn’t too far out, but still. He had never heard his spark talk before.

He wasn’t exactly sure how to continue with that. He kept thinking about it, but it really… no, maybe it did make sense. Immortals who were otherwise rational people have been known to go crazy before. Possibly the spark had side effects. But still, sentience? “I dunno. You’re right, I actually do find some trouble believing that,” he said matter of factly. “Well, whatever. Is that it?”

”That’s the least of it.. my spark’s name is Aeshma,” The name rolled off of her tongue awkwardly as she said it, ”I don’t know how to explain it.. but he was in control back there during that fight.. I don’t know what happened. I was kind of having a breakdown, and I could feel this.. hot rage boiling inside me, I think that was his influence on me.. he seems so.. predatory… I mean, I never knew he was there and then suddenly there was this presence clawing into my mind and putting me on the back burner,” She paused for a breath, gulping down some water from her jug.

”You can feel it.. the change.. I don’t know how to describe it. I could control what was happening.. but the other two seemed to be themselves. For months I felt lost, and angry, lashing out at everything around me. Now I know why, I wish I couldn’t hear him anymore, that he would go back and be dormant… but on the other hand.. that rush of power.. it’s unreal.” She looked at her hands, stopping again and thinking back on what had happened, trying to remember the feel of it. Since she wasn’t in control and was busy freaking out, the memory was hazy, but it was there.

”Questions?” She asked, turning to him. He seemed to be struggling with her words, and Alex didn’t blame him. What she was saying was more akin to the ranting of a crazy person, the spark is alive, it’s evil and powerful and murderous. The corner of her mouth pulled back in slight amusement, maybe she was just crazy.

James was still pretty well shocked, but he knew there was a way to confirm this. “Well, if Vladimira shows up, I’ll have to ask her about it. If her story is consistent with yours, then I guess I’ll have my answer.” He ate what was left of his can of beans, then set the empty can aside. He then let out a sigh and took a swig from his water bottle before leaning back and staring up at the stars for a bit. Even though he knew there was never a starless night for him, he never really stopped to get a proper look at it. There was something inherently comforting about a clear night sky, and as that thought crossed James’ mind he couldn’t help but crack a small smile.

“Nice night,” he said, simply, bringing his hands up and placing them behind his head.

”Not for them,” Alex muttered, setting her nearly empty can down in favor for her shovel. She took a quick drink from her jug and dropped back into the pit. Ignoring the ache in her muscles from the day’s activities and strain. James let out a low grunt as he remembered what it was they were doing. They worked in silence for awhile, other than the occasional sigh of exhaustion or grunt of effort. The night dragged on, but other than a slight increase to the darkness nothing really changed much, just the sounds of night and the monotonous tones of digging.

Finally, when the hole seemed to the appropriate size and Alex was busy using the shovel like an ice pick to climb her way out, she turned to her digging companion. ”So.. you got your answers, but I wonder... what’s keeping you here?” She asked, plopping her rump on the ground for a break.

“Well, for one thing, I can’t leave these people lying around here. It’s only right to burry them with some amount of dignity and respect,” he replied, digging himself out of the hole. He set his shovel aside and took a knee a few feet away from Alex. “That and I’m still a bit curious,” he continued. “What are you hoping to gather Immortals here for?” It was a question that was still on his mind, but that was more of a cover for him. He couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow he knew this girl. He wanted to find out why or where from.

”Fair enough.. I’m not entirely sure. Have you seen the new information uploaded to the terminals?” She asked, tilting her head to look at him as she layed back on the ground.

James knew about the terminals and whatnot, but he never really bothered to look at them for anything other than general knowledge while he was studying in Aspin. “Well, I used to live up in Aspin, but I never really stayed up to date on things. I should probably change that now that I don’t have engineers and physicists to talk to all day who know everything about everything.” James sat himself down fully before continuing. “What, exactly, are you referring to?” he asked.

”Not sure how long it’s been up, but there’s a video of something closely resembling what I went through killing that guy who calls himself ‘The Watcher’ … basically his dying words were that we’re all monsters. Things are only going to get worse for us.. better that we’re together before they start rounding us up and putting us in cages,” She speculated. ”I want to separate myself from the standards.. the world is hard enough without their baseless discrimination and fear. I’m sure there are others who feel the same way. Somebody has to take initiative.”

“Is it really that bad?” James asked. “I mean, maybe I got lucky, but… discrimination?” He hadn’t really had a taste of true discrimination. There were a few in Aspin who didn’t like him, but for the most part everyone treated him relatively normally. Or maybe he hadn’t really picked up on it. Who knew. “Maybe living in a city with the most advanced technology and the best scientific minds we know of exposes you to more people who understand that we’re still human. At least, mostly, I suppose.”

Mostly huh? Well, if what Alex had said was true, that wasn’t too far off. If this spark was… sentient, and it could turn an Immortal into what was essentially a hollow… James put his hand to his face. “Man, shit just seems to get worse, doesn’t it?” he asked rhetorically. “I guess I never really knew how bad it could get,” he finally conceded.

”I got a reality check a long time ago, mostly kept to myself when I got to Russell.. but that still didn’t protect me from it. The standards, they get scared easily, scared of us. This unrest has been growing for awhile now.. especially with the Wings,” Alex sighed, lacing her fingers together across her chest. ”Maybe you were lucky.. I wouldn’t expect that to last forever.”

James let out a grunt of acknowledgment. “You’re probably right.” It was pretty typical of humans to be scared of things they don’t understand. Sadly, there didn’t seem to be a line between things and people as far as that went. History proved that time and time again. He shook the thoughts from his head and directed his attention back to the task at hand. “Right, let’s start gathering the bodies,” he said with a melancholic tone, getting up and heading towards the town. Alex sighed in response, her body protesting loudly as she pulled herself to her feet.

It was a short walk back around the post office, which Alex had figured out what the only real building partially intact was earlier when she went to retrieve the food. It wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t small either, though it was hard to tell anything about the place as most of it had collapsed. There was at least one good room, and a partially collapse hallway from what she had seen. The rest of the town was going to take a lot of work.

As she and James walked into the town, the air was heavy with the smell of decay and charred wood. There were bodies everywhere, and in every state of mutilation and death. It was almost like some sick, twisted Forsaken art. James made a conscious effort to avoid looking at the various bodies. Pieces of limbs were strewn about in the street, long swaths of gore trailing behind them. Alex looked over at James, partially jealous at his little scarf thing, she had no such thing to pull up to protect her nose from the pungent smells. She walked to a large, half burned husk of a building, picking up a piece of wood from the ground. It had been a sign of some sort probably, but it was so marred beyond recognition that Alex gave up hope of trying to figure out what kind of building this particular body was halfway out the window of.

She reached over with her gloved hands, gripping the upper torso by its shredded, blood stained shirt and tearing the body from the window. The boards squealed loudly and snapped, letting the body loose in a small shower of broken wood and splinters. The body hit the ground with a wet thud, followed by a wet slap of what Alex assumed were his insides. She didn’t bother looking to check. Instead she grabbed the body by both arms and dragged it behind her, though she could tell from the weight that it was probably only one half. She sighed heavily, putting the thought from her mind.

James had to look away from the torso as it split in half in the frame of the window. He realized he would have to deal with the smell for a while and pulled his shemagh over his face to block some of it. Reluctantly, he reached in through the window and grabbed what was left of the body, lifting it through the window and following behind Alex. “This is going to be a long night,” he murmured.

”It’s been a long life,” Alex chuckled.

On the journey to Russell City, Ivan followed the constant sputtering of the motorcycle's engine as he glided across the swampy and warm earth. The ground hadn't taken very well to the water, and was only now beginning to absorb the liquid to create a soupy quagmire from what had once been dusty and rocky earth. Low to the ground as he was, the mud began seeping underneath Ivan's clothing and splashing all across his front as the mound of earth he slid upon constantly needed to be reshaped. As the small group neared the fringes of Russell City, Ivan heard the motorcycle's engine begin to give out and not long after actually entering the city they had stopped all together.

James abandoned the bike, speaking briefly with Vladimira and leaving it for her to deal with since it had belonged to the corpse she carried with her. James then left in search of the woman that had fled from the fight, the one that had appeared hollow, requesting he go alone which left Ivan somewhat downtrodden as he watched James' muddied silhouette move away. He'd suggested they 'regroup' later, and so Ivan nodded at his departure before turning to face Vladimira. She didn't sound all to overjoyed at being left with everything, though in fairness James had been correct in deciding it best to leave the corpses possessions with the corpse.

It was true that she'd need to haul about the sled she rode, and the motorcycle, but Ivan felt it wasn't really his place to start getting involved in this stranger's business. “The road’s wet enough that everything slips,” Ivan laughed, proving his point by raising the mud beneath him slightly so that he could slide off the mound. “Should be easy enough to move things about," he then commented, hoping to make her task easier without needing to stick around and bother her.

"Anyways, it’s been nice meeting you, Mrs. Kovalik, but I feel it’s none of my business following you about. Enjoy the sky water,” Ivan bid, departing soon as he gave Vladimira a friendly pat on the shoulder, which left a large and dirty hand print. Half stumbling, half sliding, Ivan quickly found the nearest wall and began walking down the street, keeping one hand on the nearby buildings as he hummed a tuneless melody. It had been at least a year since he'd visited Russell City, and the last time he'd ventured this way had been simply to run an errand for someone. There was good value to be found in smuggling things, and Ivan was unpredictable in his routes which a man in Locke City had learned to greatly appreciate. There was no business to attend here though, and Ivan was fully stocked on supplies from his visit to Isolone.

Feeling somewhat lost, the man turned his head up slowly to feel the water falling down upon his face. He'd become drenched by now, and this finally brought his attention to the dryness he felt inside. The feeling churned the uncertainty within him, and as the dryness began to give way to a gnawing sense of emptiness Ivan knew he needed to find a place to think. He'd walked at least a few blocks by now, and looked about as he tried to get his bearings. Before too long he realized such efforts were wasted though, and decided simply to duck into the nearest alleyway as he felt up the buildings on either side.

Above him, he saw faded pools of swirling dust stacked upon invisible platforms which he could recognize as the building's fire escape. In an effort to reach the top of the building, Ivan pushed up a mound of mud to reach for where he could only assume the ladder would be. He didn't know where he was, or if anyone would mind his presence, but knew he needed to get somewhere high up as what felt like a void in his chest began to expand. He cursed as his wrist smashed against the metal bottom of the ladder, muttering unhappily as he yanked down on the rungs so he'd be sure he could climb it. Then from there he hauled himself up the side of the building, groping about and leaving trails of mud as he touched everything he could.

Upon reaching the top of the final platform, Ivan slowly hauled himself up the ladder that had been bolted into the side of the building. Every rung he climbed, he'd lift his hand in the air and feel for what he hoped would be a flat roof to climb onto. If it turned out he couldn't sit at the top of the building he'd need to climb back down and find another tower to scale, this thought causing him to frown as his hand pawed about again. Another rung, and again Ivan felt about for the rooftop but still finding only the wall of the building. Three more rungs later, and Ivan breathed a sigh of relief as he finally had found the top of the ladder. Knowing how far he should expect to reach now, he hastily climbed the remainder of the ladder and began crawling about the rooftop to try and absorb what he could about it.

The building itself was made from something that had started out as stone, or at least a good portion of it was constructed from the material since Ivan could still see the faint outline of the building's insides. Long ago he'd given up on trying to learn why he could and couldn't see certain things, accepting the fact that it seemed he could only truly recognize any natural or pure material. Concrete always came in kind of smudged and off, glass visually just rung hollow, and brick was just a block of floating flakes which would easily change depending on the brick's composition. It didn't mater much, not now at least, as all Ivan needed to know was that the roof was solid and he could sit upon it. The traces of the building's insides were easily ignored, and Ivan instead focused on bringing himself into that same sitting position he always took up; legs crossed, hands in his lap, and head down.

He forced himself to slow his breathing, realizing it had become a little heavier than normal. He never embraced thinking, but liked it all the same as it reminded him of his humanity. That's what he'd come up here to do: think. So he let his thoughts flow freely, contemplating the emptiness he felt as his head fell back and he began to drink from the sky. It had been a long time since he'd felt this way; known the sensations that feeling lost always brought. His mind wheeled towards the man he'd met today; James. He had been kind, and a young soul that had yet to see the truth ahead. Many people never saw what it all meant, but James maybe would figure it out in time. This thought brought a smile to the corner of Ivan's lips, and he gulped as enough water had filled his open mouth to swallow. Where James had gone, Ivan didn't know but he felt he'd like for them to meet again. Who Vladimira was hadn't really stirred much interest, despite Ivan wanting to reflect on her briefly. His mind soon moved on to other things though, like the water falling atop his head, and the unusual hollow incident earlier today. Reviewing his day like this always brought him a sort of comfort, as it gave him a second chance to analyze his thoughts which he always viewed as important. If everyone asked every question twice, there would be more knowledge with less answers. Less regret in the world, and more purpose. Amusing himself with those reflections, Ivan snorted, feeling lost in his own mind but no longer lost with his thoughts. It was a slight change but it made a world of difference, and Ivan took another deep breath as the existentialist within him took over.

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

Ivan didn't know for certain how long he'd been atop the roof, but it had been long enough that someone had found him up there and roused him from his meditation. He felt content now, and at peace with the fact that he might never see James again. The man had good intent with wishing they could 'regroup', but in a city as big as Russell and how easily lost Ivan would get the chances they'd run into each other again were slim. He'd seemed like an interesting character, Vladimira too, but they both had their own agendas just as Ivan did. He'd been heading up this way to reach the northern coast, and look again upon the silt coated and shifting dunes that lay beneath the waves. Perhaps even he might plan to stay there for a while; find joy in meditating by the coast and playing his flute to the wind. For now though, he'd wait out the sky water and planned to do so by getting a drink. He had ammo; just enough left to get him a cheap meal, a drink of the fermented kind, and perhaps some something-something if the bartender would send him in the direction of a dealer.

Still, Ivan ran his hand along the sides of the various buildings as he trudged through the muddied streets of Russell. Most people that were still outside were busy collecting the water as it fell, with some children having escaped their parents to run and splash about. A large truck had been parked in the middle of one street, with enough mud still on it's sides for Ivan to recognize that it was meant for hauling liquids. The presumed owner of said truck was arguing quite loudly with two men regarding the truck's placement. Ivan made sure to duck out of their way, being able to assume from the way the two men talked down to the first that they were Wings. Up ahead the outline of mud covered boots revealed a group of two or three people, hopefully individuals who wouldn't give him a second thought, who stood out in the street with muddy buckets and jugs in hand.

"Excuse me," Ivan called to them, his voice louder than usual after having quenched his thirst earlier, "would any of you know where I could find a tavern or somethin' like it?" For a short while there was silence, and Ivan only stood and watched as he waited for a response. He wished for a moment that he could see their faces, and know maybe what expressions they held.

"The uh, Bitch's Brew is a few blocks that way," one of them said, no doubt raising their hand which remained invisible to Ivan. Sky water. I never really realized how dirty everything normally is, Ivan scoffed mentally, grabbing at one of the pockets on his vest and retrieving his compass. The thing was dirty from the inside out, and even as the rain splashed against the trinket to try and cleanse it the needle and disc within were still caked in dust and grime.

"Sorry, which direction is 'that way?" Ivan questioned, looking down at the compass and orienting himself on which way was North.

"Excuse me?" the man replied, the splash of boots drawing Ivan's attention as the man walked closer.

"Which direction? You know: North, South, East, West," Ivan explained, walking forward to meet the man and show him the compass.

"Uh... a few blocks, East, I guess," the man replied, sounding concerned as Ivan clicked the compass shut and returned it to it's pocket.

"Thank you," was all Ivan had to say to that, walking back to the wall and moving along it until he could turn a corner to go Eastward. Carefully, after walking past one crossroad Ivan began to listen for the slightest sound of music as it would be his only real way of finding the bar in this weather unless they had a sign. Chances are the sign would have been washed clean by now though, and with a sigh Ivan continued with tracing his hand along the walls of buildings. Another block and still the only sound was the drumming of the sky water, and Ivan was beginning to feel it's chill work into his finger tips. It was a chill like that which was brought on by night, something Ivan was no stranger too but still, the cold combined with the wet made him feel worse. He smelled like a wet dog too, but he himself hardly noticed the stench as the water thoroughly worked it's way into every space it could find.

When Ivan did finally hear music he pressed his head up against the next door he found and pushed it open, the sight of him noisily stumbling through the door of The Bitch's Brew causing a few people inside to look in his direction. He was breathing heavily, his clothing weighing twice as much as it usually did on top of the fact that he was cold. Uneasily he looked around, the music having stopped momentarily with his entrance but soon started up again which prompted Ivan to move towards the bar. The man at the counter seemed ready to protest as Ivan lugged himself across the room and into the nearest stool, fairly unhappy with how this stranger had just tracked a large portion of mud into the establishment. The bartender held his tongue for the moment though, Ivan's exhaustion being misperceived for a poor temperament as he threw his arms onto the counter with a wet thud. "I'd like something to eat, and drink. Whatever's cheap," Ivan requested, his tone lacking hostility which let the bartender relax a little.

"Do you know the mess you just made?" was the response he got, causing Ivan to look back towards the door at the practical trail of mud he'd created. Next his eyes moved downward, examining the puddle of dirty, brown water that had formed beneath his stool before he returned his attention to the bartender.

"I'll take care of it on my way out. Dirt likes me," Ivan explained, smirking underneath his hood before he let out a sigh. Even if he couldn't see the mans face, Ivan knew he probably didn't look too happy. In hopes of distracting the man's attention to something else, Ivan pawed at his vest for the pocket he kept stray bullets in. He found it quickly enough, and reached inside to grab the first two bullets his fingers brushed against before he placed them on the counter in front of him. "Something to eat, and drink please," he repeated, trying to make his words sound apologetic in tone.

The bartender replied with an unhappy sigh, plucking the two metal cylinders out of the dirty puddle they rested in. "Sure thing, but I want you out of here soon as you finish," he instructed, Ivan giving him a thumbs up in response. Ivan watched as the bartender moved about behind the counter, after a minute coming back to place a plate and a mug onto the counter somewhat carelessly. Ivan nodded in appreciation before he lifted the bottom of his hood, freeing his mouth and nose from it's confines but nothing else. In a very stiff and practiced motion, Ivan rose his hand and placed it on top of what he quickly figured out was some fairly stale tasting bread. It didn't have any flavour either, but it didn't matter much since all Ivan could taste was the dirty water all over his hands. Between tearing chunks off the brittle loaf, Ivan would reach over to the mug that had been placed near him and take a drink, noting that the beer was kind of watered down. Must not have paid him much, he thought, shrugging as he decided to be grateful the bartender had even served him something.

"Hey uh," Ivan heard the bartender begin, returning from somewhere on the other end of the bar, "your name wouldn't happen to be 'Ivan', would it?" he asked, sounding more curious than accusative.

Ivan stopped eating and looked around himself briefly, not expecting this man to know anything about him. "Why?" was what the bartender got as a response, Ivan quickly biting into the last bit of bread he'd been given.

"I have a note someone gave me earlier today, and they asked me to pass on a message should I see any of the two people he was looking for. Does the name 'James' mean anything to you?" the bartender asked, causing Ivan to stop chewing.

"What's the message?" Ivan asked, trying to sound disinterested as he finished his meal.

"Well I have the note right he-"

"I can't read."

"Oh, well maybe for a bit of lead I can read it to you," the bartender smirked, holding out his hand. "That and I'll forgive you for the mess," he then added, his tune having changed to make him sound quite pleased.

Ivan grumbled, finishing his drink with a few swift chugs before he reached inside his vest pocket again and pulled out another random bullet. He only had a few left now, and was hoping they'd be enough to get him something after this. "Here," he grunted, dropping the ammunition onto the counter top before he moved to wipe his mouth and replace his hood again.

The bartender again plucked the bullet from the muddy puddle before unfolding what sounded like paper, and just loud enough for Ivan to hear read what was on it.

"Vladimira, Ivan, whichever of you get this, I found out where she's going. I don't know why exactly, something about gathering Immortals, but she's heading to Isolone. I'm going to try to head her off and make sure it isn't a trap or something. Somehow I doubt it; she doesn't seem too dangerous right now, but there's no telling when she might go hollow again. Whether you follow me or not, stay safe. The Wings are looking for you two. I'd keep my head down if I were you.

PS. Her name is Alex.

-James"

Ivan laughed, slamming his fist on the table as he pushed himself to stand. "I get to see him again. That's grand!" Ivan chuckled, adjusting his clothing a little before he turned towards the door. "Thanks for the meal, eh," Ivan quickly said to the man behind the counter, walking towards the front door of the bar. As he left, Ivan lifted his arm, calling to him the puddles of mud and sludge as he opened the door to leave. "Have a good night, everyone!" he shouted back inside the building, the mud swirling around his legs as he stepped outside and shut the door behind him. "Isolone," Ivan breathed, inhaling deeply as he walked out into the street and pulled out his compass. "Isolone," he repeated, orienting himself in a southern direction so he could begin walking. It'd be a long trip, but maybe if he rushed himself he could get there some time tomorrow.

They spent some time gathering bodies and hauling them to the hole. Despite the time that it had taken to dig, it still felt early into the night, perhaps just a few hours in. Though, it was hard to tell as the darkness seemed to settle in every corner and crevice. This had the effect of creating a somber kind of atmosphere, depressing and full of unspoken sorrow. For a time, Alex and James worked in resolute silence, going about their work slowly and steadily. The town was in a higher state of devastation than Alex had first realized.

Her boots stuck to the hard, blood stained earth as she trod across it, the congealing trail of blood make sickening suckings sounds as she traveled back and forth from the ruins to the pit. The desolate, abandoned buildings seemed to grin with wicked maws through the darkness. Their rubble strewn bodies collapsed and charred. Alex turned into one of these buildings, her flashlight barely penetrating the darkness as she made her way around overturned furniture and shattered aesthetics. Glass crunched beneath her boots, pulling her gaze down for just a moment. She was standing on the remnants of a broken family photo, poorly taken, but clearly outlining the joyous faces of the former residents. The daughter of which Alex had just finished hauling to the pit from outside the house, all four pieces of her.

A frown pulled at the corners of her mouth, and she looked away. She knew she should feel, sick, nauseous even–any normal person would. Yet, she only felt her cold, steel reserve to finish burying these people, however informally. She wasn’t planning on saying anything afterwards, no hopeful words for the departed. She hardly felt anything, most of the time she was lost in her own thoughts. At least, what thoughts were her own. Occasionally Aeshma would chime in with a snide remark about weaklings, or tasty morsels. The latter thought did make her feel just a tad queasy. It wasn't easy having a presence inside you that literally felt the need to express his desire to consume raw, human flesh.

Alex scoured the house, not finding much in the way of bodies. Plenty signs of looting and destruction, and large smears of blood to enhance the overall scene of the house. Though, she was only able to pass through the common area and the dining area. The rest of the house had collapsed, probably from being set ablaze as the soot covered floors and charred splinters of wood would suggest. As she rounded the corner back out of the kitchen, her flashlight graze across a boot protruding slightly from beneath an overturned sofa. She braced her foot against the upper edge of the sofa and gave it a solid push, sending it toppling over and revealing a large portly man beneath. Despite his bloody, half squashed appearance, it was plain to see was, or had been, the father.

”James,” Alex called out, ”I’ve got a large one over here.”

James had largely disconnected himself, partially out of conscious effort, after the fourth or fifth body, and the last several minutes sort of blurred together. To him it was almost as though he forced himself into a lower state of sentience, simply doing what he knew he should be doing and not giving it any more thought. He stopped keeping count of how many he had laid into the hole, as well as stopped caring about the people they used to be.

After what felt like countless minutes of this, the sound of Alex’s voice snapped him back to reality, bringing his attention the cooked body of a young child. As he fully realized what he was doing, he let out a slight yelp and unceremoniously dropped the body onto the dirt just outside of the house he was in. He took a moment to process the last five seconds, then turned to where he heard Alex call from.

“Yeah, okay, give me a second,” he said, giving the body he had just been carrying a brief regretful look. He came to the house Alex was in, finding her standing over the body she had mentioned. He was, indeed, a big one. “Okay, so, I grab his legs, you grab his hands?” he asked, fairly distraught.

”Sounds like a plan..erhm..” Alex started, positioning herself around the top half of the man, ”Well.. hand and stump.” She grabbed exactly that, what was left of the man’s forearm and his one remaining hand. She gave a grunt of effort, mimicking that of James’ as they hefted the body upwards. Alex’s hands slipped away from their purchase, losing grip due to the half congealed blood his body seemed to be coated in. Her half of the body hit the floor with a wet thud. ”Fuck, sorry,” she said, letting out another grunt as she struggled to raise the body off the ground and keep her grip.

James jumped slightly when the body slipped from Alex’s hands, but his grip didn't waver. He let out a slightly shaky sigh. “Let’s just hurry up,” he said. He had been trying to shut out his emotions ever since he first laid eyes on the carnage, but for some reason now he was finding it difficult, a growing feeling of uneasiness settling inside him. It had been a long time since he ever saw carnage of this degree. He couldn't think of exactly when, but he knew something had happened, several years ago.

He cleared the thought from his head as Alex picked the upper part of the body back up. It took far too much effort to move the ample girth of the corpse, by the time Alex and James reached the pit and rolled the body in, Alex felt just about worn out. She stopped for a moment, placing her hands on her knees and taking large breaths of air. She looked down at herself, barely illuminated by the glow of her flashlight, which was currently laying askewed on the ground. She was covered in blood, and other filth. She felt almost as if she had begun to rot too, maybe from the sheer stench of the all the bodies. She had the sudden, powerful urge to wash herself, but she suppressed it. That would be a deplorable waste of drinking water.

”How about a break huh?” Alex suggested, doing her best to wipe her filthy hands on her shirt, aiming for some paltry semblance of cleanliness. The act wasn’t very effective, it had become very apparent to her that she would be burning her shirt when all was said on done. In fact, she had discarded her jacket to remain with her supplies awhile ago, and was contemplating doing the same with her pants. She decided against that thought upon observation of her trousers, they were lost to the cause as well and would have to be cremated.

”Holy shit, I thought you’d never ask,” he said, letting himself drop to the ground with little effort. He wasn’t exactly physically exhausted, but either way he needed a moment to regain his calm. He would have been fine if it weren’t for the town being a massacre, but that, coupled with his jarring break of focus moments ago, had done quite enough to shake him somewhat. He leaned all the way back on the ground, bringing his hand to his face. He stopped it short when he noticed just how much blood covered it.

He sighed once more, rolling onto his side, staring into the desert, trying to recover himself. This wasn’t like him, and he knew it. He began to worry that he might devolve into paranoia again, but he somehow doubted it. It felt different from how he did before one of his episodes, though the last few hours definitely did take a toll on him. ”Dammit,” he muttered. He kept passively scanning the desert, trying to distract himself.

Alex joined James’ on the ground, placing herself next to him. She shuddered slightly as her hands pressed into the earth, and the loose soil clung to grime coating them. She dried to dust her hands off, but only succeeded in smearing the muck around more, causing her to sigh heavily. ”What I wouldn't give for a shower.. or a river.. hell even a puddle, right about now,” She muttered, mostly to herself as she recline back on her hands, looking up at the sky. Thousands of perpetually suspended lights twinkled as she looked at them, each one separately seeming to contest the others for her attention. Space seemed truly wondrous at moments like this, only brought down with the realization that she would be stuck here. In a world where hauling mutilated corpses was the normal, day to day routine of life.

”You ever wonder if our ancestors did something to cause this?” She started, peering over towards james. She had never been the religious type, she always sought comfort in logic and reason, things she could perceive. Invisible deities had never seemed to help her much. ”What could a person possibly do to deserve a world like this, I wonder,” She pondered quietly, feeling utterly and incomprehensibly small in the grand scheme of things. She sighed, turning her gaze upwards once more, ”I guess it doesn't really matter now.. nothing matters but survival. I think that’s why I'm here, James, survival. I've lived everyday in fear, wondering if it would be my last. Perhaps the wastes would claim me, maybe the Wings, or some back alley mugger would get the jump on me. Living a quiet, meek like.. I know, I don’t seem the type right?” She paused, chuckling. James scoffed slightly at that, rolling himself onto his back as she continued.

”When I was young… I was taken away from the family I can only assume I had.” James had a feeling he knew where this was going and tried to shut out what Alex was about to say. “I lived in a slave camp for years, it was there that I first became an Immortal. I thought that with powers like these, things would be different. Yet, everywhere I turned there was only discrimination and fear.. oppression. Things are getting worse too, you'd have to be blind not to notice it. What would we do if everyone turned against us? When they finally start raising their guns en masse, to eradicate us, one by one. When all I want is to live like they do, with a semblance of freedom in a world that’s already too dangerous for anybody to effectively live in. I want a family, I want a home, I want to live where I don’t have to fear everybody trying to knife me in the dark…. I want to stop being a slave to other people’s desires and emotions.”

Despite James’ best efforts, memories of his own time as a slave came flooding back to him. All the memories he had been repressing for the last several years. Of course, it was hard to keep them from bubbling up every now and then, and it figured it would happen again, now. There were too many triggers all around him at that moment. Countless mutilated bodies, endless desert all around, isolation, darkness, and now Alex’s own recountance. He closed his eyes and turned back over in the sand, a pained expression forming on his face as he actively tried to shut out the memories once more.

Alex stopped suddenly, letting herself fall back onto the ground to calm down. She felt tears glistening at the corners of her eyes, but she dared not wipe them away with the state of filth her entire body was in. ”But I can’t do that by myself, that’s why I sent the call out... I know you don't really know me.. but it would be nice to know that I’m not in this alone,” Alex posed the question softly, as if afraid of the answer. She was so tired of being alone, so tired of living in fear and paranoia. She tired of what the world had made her… a monster too worried about others to show her eyes in public.

She leaned up and stuck out her grimy hand in his direction, ”Would you help me change the world James?” She asked bluntly, an inkling of hope creeping into her voice despite making such a wild proposition to a stranger she had just met a few hours ago. A stranger that had watched her kill another Immortal in the guise of a savage beast. A stranger that would help bury a town for no other motive than it had to be done.

James had hardly registered what Alex said. His mind was too preoccupied with the tempest of tumultuous thoughts and memories that circulated in his head. It was only at the direct mention of his name that he finally turned back to Alex. He tried not to show his distress so much. ”I’m sorry, did you say something?” he asked, relatively nonchalantly.

Alex looked at him, a bit taken aback. This gave her a moment to actually slow down and mull over everything she said, though it took mere moments until she broken down into a fit of giggles. She fell back into the dirt, laughing at the absurdity of it all, the insanity of what she was asking. She wiped away her tears, grimaced at the moist, spongy streak left across her face, and turned back to James. ”I said, do you want to help me change the world?” The question still sounded highly absurd to her, but the tone of her voice made it certain that she was entirely serious.

James couldn't help but be slightly confused. Of course, he hadn't quite gotten the entire context of what she had said, but the question itself helped fill in the gaps. ”Change the world,” James said, somewhat whimsically. He let a smirk crack on one side of his face. ”I don’t know about that, but for now I think…”

He stopped himself short, his smirk disappearing in an instant. He had heard something, something close, much closer than he should have allowed before picking up on it. He bolted himself upright, simultaneously drawing his CZ and cursing himself as he realized his AK was lying with his backpack, several meters away. ”I think we have company,” he whispered, turning his head around rapidly. Alex rolled over onto her stomach, trying to find what James was looking at. James jumped up to a crouch and turned towards the town. ”Wolves,” he said, noting the unmistakable sound of paws hitting the sand. He really wished he hadn't zoned out; they were already in the town, probably preparing to get the jump on James and Alex.

James stood up and reloaded his CZ with his low-grade rounds, firing two shots into the air before switching back to his usual loads. ”Hopefully that will deter them,” he said. Unfortunately, that wasn't so, as was evidenced when a howl pierced the silence and several gaunt, dog-like figures emerged from behind various buildings and debris.

Alex stood, frantically patting herself down. She grit her teeth, trying to stave off the fear that was trying to slowly ensnare her. ”Fuck,” she cursed, ”My stuff is in the post office..” She let the sentence hang as the low growls creeped closer to them. There was no chance she could outrun a pack of wolves, she was defenseless. She kicked herself mentally, she should have recharged back in Russel, but she hadn't been expecting to find Isolone in this state–and without power.

James had taken note of Alex’s lack of weaponry, and from the look on her face, suspected she also couldn't use her power. ”My AK is just over there,” he said, looking at the porch of a house about 30 meters away where his belongings sat. He handed his pistol to Alex before continuing. ”I can get there if you keep me covered, either that or you can keep their attention until then.” He could feel his heart rate increasing. As much as he hated to think so, it was probably their best bet. Given the circumstances; 13 hungry wolves, a pistol with a tendency to malfunction, and no other means of defense, they needed to tilt the odds in their favor. This was their best shot.

Alex looked at James curiously, pulling back on the slide of the gun. She wasn't quite sure what he was bringing to this fight, but she did agree on trying to obtain his weapon. She nodded, satisfied with the condition of the pistol–which was subpar. ”I can barely see without my light.. I’ll try to grab their attention,” Alex said, feeling her leg muscles coil with adrenaline as she inched towards the opposite direction of the porch. The wolves came closer, their eyes glowing a pale green in the dark night. Alex quivered with anticipation as the pack slowly advanced.

”Such tasty morsels.. let me-” Aeshma hissed from within Alex’s mind. She shut him out, putting her entire focus to the encroaching animals before her. Their low growls seemed to echo across the packed, rocky soil, reverberating all around Alex. ”GO!” She called to James, feeling her adrenaline spike as she fired a shot directly ahead of her. She wasn't sure she actually hit anything, her vision too obscured by the darkness. A furious cacophony of barks and howls sounded out around her as she sprinted opposite from James stuff, leading the animals that were pursuing her around the back of the post office.

James made a dash for his AK, taking note of any of the canine predators that went after him. The shots had done a good job of keeping their attention, but as he neared his AK one of them jumped in front of him, baring it’s teeth and snarling at him ferociously. James slid to a stop, a mere five meters away from the beast. From here he could make out the details of the animal quite clearly. It was very wolf-like, but not exactly a wolf. It’s fur seemed more rigid, and it’s ears were particularly pointy, shaped like an arrowhead.

The animal began to approach him slowly, step by step. James held his ground, taking a quick look around to make sure that he wasn’t about to get flanked. Sure enough, there was one more on his right, about to jump. Damn pack mentality. James dodged as soon as it made the jump, leaping to his left and rolling out of it. He evaded the one going for the kill succesfully, but the one that seemed to serve as the distraction tried to go for James while he was still rolling out. James kicked some dirt behind him in an effort to discombobulate the animal. It worked just long enough for him to get up and make it to his rifle.

He snatched it up, taking a moment to get it in his hands before turning around and opening fire on the two that he assumed were pursuing him. He fired three shots, but the two had broken off, possibly to try to flank him again. He listened closely to their movements, hearing one of them move to the other side of the building next to him. The other had gone a few buildings down, probably to head him off. He broke away from the building and ran towards Alex, firing on three of the wolves that had gotten close to her. They went down fairly easily, and it seemed like Alex had wounded another.

Alex’s legs pumped furiously, her feet nearly losing purchase in the dirt as she flew across it. Close behind she could hear the vicious snarls of the beasts. She squeezed the trigger of the handgun, aiming blindly behind her. One, two, three rounds, but she didn't wait around to see if she’d struck any of the wolves. She rounded the corner of the office building, sliding through the dirt as she tried to maintain her velocity. The wolves barreled around the corner after her, a hand's width behind her as she rounded another corner, heading for the front of the office. One of the beasts snapped at her, catching the rear of her pants and tearing away a chunk of the material as Alex pushed forward against the pull of the wolf.

The others seemed to scramble over themselves to get at her, their ferocity scared her, but spurred her adrenaline to greater heights. Still, she didn't feel she was going to make it, just a few feet from where her gear was stashed. The hollow crack of a rifle range out, and Alex could audibly hear the impact the rounds made against the flesh of her pursuers. She thanked James mentally, diving through the ruined window of the office. She hit the cool concrete in a roll, sliding to a dusty stop as she scrambled for her gear. Even though she was practically blind within the building, the paltry light coming through the window barely enough to illuminate anything, it only took her a handful of seconds to dump her stuff on the floor and secure her knives.

Glass crackled as an ash gray bloodhound leaped through the window, it’s rather large body breaking off jagged edges of glass from the window frame. Alex whirled around, rolling back as the beast soared towards her. Both blades plunged into its skull from beneath the wolf’s jaw, and as Alex rolled back she used her feet to propeel the wolf over her, rather than on top of her.

As the wolves pursuing Alex came to a bloody halt in the ground, James returned his attention to the two who were no doubt following him. He heard one of them behind him, making a leap at him. He spun around, the butt of his rifle hitting the wolf in the head, knocking it unconscious. It hadn’t deflected it, however, and it still hit James pretty hard, knocking him onto his back. He tried pushing it off, and while it wasn’t too heavy, he had bigger problems converging on him.

He pulled his AK out from under the beast and leaned backwards, putting the muzzle of the rifle into another one of the bloodthirsty hounds’ mouth and firing, sending a globule of brain matter out of it’s skull. It collapsed in a heap as he spun the rifle around and shot another just before it tried to pounce him. He checked around and, seeing no others in sight, pushed the unconscious one off of him and shot it in the head. He brought the rifle to his shoulder, taking another quick look around. The wounded wolf began to make a run for it, along with another that had witnessed the carnage. Eight down, five to go.

Alex pressed the hilts of her knives together, locking them into place as she turned the two weapons into a single entity–A bladed staff of about five feet. She felt the familiar weight of the weapon as it whirled through her hands, it has been some time since she had felt the need to use it. She crouched, peeking out of the doorway of the building. The wolves seemed torn between their targets, but a few seemed set on Alex. One of them advanced, growling as it and Alex circled slowly in front of the office. She kept her eyes strained, scanning the very edges of her vision for movement, knowing that bloodhounds never directly attacked, not when they had backup. Sure enough, a pure white mongrel charged at her from her side. The bladed ends of the staff whipped around her as she spun the weapon, one tail end of it gouging a narrow line through the dirt as she brought it around and cleaved open the side of the beasts face. It howled in pain seconds before Alex whipped the other end of the staff around, fully decapitating the wolf and cutting off its strangled cries–literally.

James knew that the fight would likely be over soon, having heard two more of the hounds die at Alex’s hands. Only three left. One was inside the post office, probably about to try to get the drop on Alex. One was trying to sneak around behind the collapsed inn, and the last one James couldn’t hear. He ran over to where Alex was standing. ”There’s only three left. One is…” James stopped, lining up the sights of his rifle on the second floor window of the post office and firing twice. A yelp came from the window, followed by a thud. ”Make that two more,” he corrected himself.

Alex flinched as the hound’s body hit the ground next to her. ’He’s a damn good shot in this darkness..’ she thought to herself, keeping a watchful gaze on the remaining two predators. One of them feigned forward and Alex responded by whipping her staff towards it, causing the wolf to emit a snarl and back off. They circled around her cautiously, all too aware of how quickly their brethren had been gunned, or cut down. The one she had been watching, a midnight black wolf, feigned again but Alex flinched backwards, trying to remain aware of the wolf behind her. She shot a glance over her shoulder, turning slightly as the one in the rear let out a snarl, giving the first wolf all the opportunity it needed to launch itself at her.

As the final wolf made it’s presence known and began circling Alex along with the other, James brought his rifle up and took aim. This was a typical tactic, Alex would attack one wolf, leaving herself open to the other. Still, after taking a moment to gauge Alex’s behavior, he could tell which one she was going for, and as the wolf she had turned a blind eye to leaned back for the kill, James fired, splattering a mosaic of gore onto the dirt next to the bloodhound. It’s body turned into a rigid corpse mid-leap, causing its lifeless body to fall to the ground and tumble into Alex’s legs. She yelped as she tumbled backwards over the wolf, prompting the one she had been watching to leap into action.

Alex didn’t bother trying to recover, rather she braced one end of her staff against the dirt, pointing the other towards the final bloodhound. The upward end of the weapon pierced through the middle of the beast. Its jaws snapped furiously towards her as it slid down the shaft, close enough that Alex could feel the heat of its foul breath. Aeshma roared from within Alex’s consciousness, tearing away her control. She let out a howl, her hands curled into claws as she gouged the wolf’s eyes out. The creature wailed pitifully as she attacked it with the same ferocity it had shown her. She took its jaws in both hands, feeling the creature’s sharp teeth cut into the palm of her hands as she twisted with all of her absolute, rage fueled might. The hound’s neck snapped loudly, to which Aeshma receded back into his dark corner of Alex’s mind.

”Fuck Me!” She exclaimed loudly, rolling away from the bodies of the bloodhounds. She knelt on all fours, trying to catch her breath as she stared down at her bloodied hands from between the bloodstained locks of hair dangling around her face. James lowered his rifle, taken aback by Alex’s outburst of pure, instinctual bloodlust. ”Shit, are you sure it’s dead enough?” he chimed in, sarcastically.

”The Spark.. my spark.. he..” Alex gasped. She stopped, trying to settle her nerves and maintain proper breathing. ”I.. am fairly certain it’s not going to get back up,” She replied, standing as she did so.

James looked between Alex and the corpse for a moment before simply bringing his hand to his face and sitting down again. ”Well I guess that’s that,” he said. “Two of them made a run for it. One was wounded. I doubt we’ll be hearing from them again for a while,” he continued. He let out a sigh, setting his AK on the ground next to him and laying down, still breathing heavily from the short battle.

”You’re a damn good shot James, I mean fuck, what did you say your power was again?” Alex exclaimed, turning to look at him and failing to make him out clearly through the darkness. He was a blotchy silhouette to her, but the way he had gunned down those wolves, it was almost as if he could see clearly.

James look up at Alex briefly. ”Like I said, I've got really good sensory abilities. Sight, hearing, feeling, everything,” he stated in between breaths. ”If I hadn't been distracted and caught off guard, I’d have heard those bloodhounds long before they reached the town.” He mentally reproached himself once more for that, knowing he could have easily dispatched them long before they were a tangible threat. ”Hell, who's to say we wouldn't have been completely ambushed if I hadn't heard them when I did?” he retorted.

”You’re probably right,” Alex agreed, ”Luckily neither of us were alone when it happened.. even armed I almost didn't make it.. so I mean, Thank you,” She finished king of sheepishly, a feeling of familiar meekness washing over herself.
”Speaking of which, can I have my pistol back?” he asked.

”Er.. here,” Alex said, holding the gun out into the darkness, ”I think there’s something stuck in the slide there.. some piece of hardware you got,” She scoffed.

James took the pistol, noticing the stovepiped casing in the ejection port. ”Shiiiit. Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t need another shot,” he said. ”Yeah, it’s not great. I bought this pistol a while back. Thought I was getting a bargain for it, but it turned out to have a faulty ejector. I would have replaced it, but parts are hard to find, and I’m not good enough at metalwork to make one myself,” he finished, sighing as he pulled the slide back and let the spent casing fall into the dirt.

”Heh, remind me to get you a new one when I get some hardware in.. going to need a lot of it for what I want to do,” She said, carefully retracing her steps to clean up her stuff inside the office.

James chuckled slightly at that. ”Yeah, will do,” he replied. He sat back up, picking his rifle up and putting it back with the rest of his things. It was then that the smell of the many other dead bodies returned to him. ”Ughhhh… we still got work to do,” he said, grabbing his things and hauling them to the post office.

”Hey..” Alex started, stopping in the doorway as James dragged his stuff closer, ”You never answered me…”

James stopped at that, recalling the question she had asked before the attack. It seemed a strange thing to ask, to “change the world” as she so put it. He wasn't even sure how he or she would go about doing so. ”I really don’t know,” he replied truthfully. ”I mean, if I knew more about you and what you had in mind…”

He sighed once more, tilting his head upwards. ”’Changing the world’ sounds like a tall order to me. I mean, for now, I guess I’ll help you however I can. If it’s like you said and things are really as bad as you say they are for us, there’s no point in going back to Russell City,” he stated, matter of factly.

Alex smiled at him, sure that he would see it, ”We have a lot to do, then.”

Tick...





Jon's thumbs twiddled obscure patterns around themselves; his hands slick with sweat as he watched the round clock's hands travel slowly across its face. Time dragged on for an eternity when you weren't doing anything, even more so when you were waiting for something. On top of that, this something was so potentially exciting, and dangerous; Jon was filled with a mixture of adrenaline and fear, the combination of which almost make him nauseous. Though, he was lacking a good measure of fear. Worried, perhaps, but it had been a long time since Jon had felt real, heart clutching fear.

During his training for the Winged Guardians, fear was something the instructors relentlessly tried to beat out of you. Along with mixed signals about shame and humility. Jon's mind wandered as he thought back to one of those particular moments, he had been young. Young, and afraid. Dark waves of fear thinly veiled beneath his demeanor of hope, for a better life. A life that would mean something.

...Anything..

”Goddammit Jon! What are you waiting for! Crawl your worthless piece of shit! CRAWL!!” Drill instructor Havvit screamed, his face face and covered in a mixture of dirt and sweat. Seventeen year old Jon was frozen, on his belly, still a foot away from the barbed wire that he was supposed to be crawling under. Thin muddy channels ran beneath the wire, forming shallow trenches between the stakes holding the obstacle up. Though Jon saw none of that, he only heard the roar of gunfire. The instructor yelled at him again, but the words fell on deaf ears. Ears covered by Jon's hands as he whimpered pitifully.

He was about to give up, to decide he couldn't do this, about to go home. A wrenching pain seared through his gut, doubling him over around the instructor's boot. ”What?! YOU PATHETIC LITTLE TURD! YOU WANNA GO HOME? DO YOU!?” Havvit roared, as if reading Jon's mind. His screams over the gunfire were only met with pitiful sobs, emphasized by the tears coursing down Jon's face.

”Listen here you little fuck,” Havvit began, crouching low next to Jon so he could be heard, ”Do you think the forsaken are going to wait for you to get your shit together before filling you full of holes!? Do you think the hollows are going to hesitate before tearing your little brother and stringing him up by his entrails?! CAN YOU NOT PROTECT YOUR FAMILY? ARE YOU JUST SOME STANDARD, WAITING FOR THEIR NAMED TO BE SIGNED ON A DEATH REPORT? TELL YOU WHAT YOU LITTLE BITCH, I'LL HAVE YOU BROTHER MAN UP AND DIG YOUR GRAVE WHEN I CARRY WHAT'S LEFT OF YOU HOME! MAYBE HIS TEARS WILL SOFTEN THE GROUND SO IT WILL BE EASIER TO DIG, IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT YOU WHINY LITTLE SHIT?!”

”Sir! NO SIR!” Jon squeaked, uncoiling from his position and wiping his eyes. Havvit was right, Jon didn't want any of that.

”WHAT DID YOU SAY? I THOUGHT I HEARD MY DAUGHTER FOR A SECOND.”
”SIR! NO! SIR!” Jon bellowed, diving headfirst into the mud, crawling furiously as live rounds ripped through the air above him.

Jon smiled sadly to himself. Havvit was long dead, beheaded during a forsaken raid out in the sandy dunes of Forsaken territory. Jon had never had anybody give him that kind of real talk in his life, and he was thankful for it. Havvit hardened him, prepared him for the real world. When Jon came out on the top of his class, Havvit had laughed so hard he was brought to tears. They shared a drink afterwards, Havvit still chuckling to himself, amused.

”Looks like my little whelping turned into a man after-all,” Havvit had said back then, toasting his drink to the night sky.

Jon looked up from the gunmetal bench he was hunched over as the door opened, signaled only by a slight hum and the quiet rush of air. ”We're ready Jon,” Dr. Addison said, turning and leaving just as quickly as she had come. Jon knew where he was supposed to be going by now, Grayson had damn near given him the full tour. The thought of Grayson made him smile, he was so proud of his little brother. No matter what Jon did in his life, the advancements Grayson was making would affect the world for a very long time.

Jon stood, stretching his stiff muscles. His heart was beating as if he had been sprinting. ”Perhaps I too, can change the world, huh bro?” Jon asked the empty locker room. It only took him a moment to shed his clothes and change out into a patient's gown. He was feeling kind of breezy in the back, but that much was to be expected. If something went wrong, and didn't kill him, the doctors would need quick access to his body and the gear he normally wore wouldn't allow for that. Still, without some form of firearm, or knife, or lethal object on his person, Jon felt kind of naked, regardless of the gown.

Jon familiarized himself with the weight of Arthur, his tactical brass knuckles. He was about to set it in the locker when the door quietly hissed open again, and a familiar voice spoke.

”You should let me hold onto that for you, for luck,” Grayson said sheepishly, his young face brightened by his boyish smile.

”Sure little bro, for luck right?” Jon asked bemused, smiling as he passed the weapon to Grayson.

”Erm, right. I actually came here to wish you that... Good luck, I mean,” Grayson replied, stumbling over his words. It was very apparent that he was really worried.

”Hey bro, you remember that time in the foothills?” Jon asked rhetorically, recalling their favorite memory of their time together growing up.

”The foothills around Dresden? How could I forget such a thing!” Grayson beamed, ”I was stuck in a dead-end path, trapped by a wicked looking two-headed snake! And you just walked over, and picked it up like it was domesticated or something, and tossed it aside, cursing at it as it slithered away!” Grayson retold, chuckling towards the end of it.

”Remember that,” Jon started, placing a hand on Grayson's shoulder, ”I ain't afraid of nothin', it's everything else that's afraid of me. The boogeymen checks under his bed for me at night. Hell, the Reaper once came for me when I was shot once, I kicked his ass all the way out of the hospital wing!” Jon boasted, full of mock bravado. He knew just how to ease his brother's worries, but there was only so much he could do in a situation like this.

Grayson replied with a fit of giggles, ”Yea? Ok, Hah!” Grayson remarked, wiping a mirthful tear from his eye.

”The point is little bro, I'm the manliest man around, and ain't nothin' gonna take me out of the fight before I'm good and ready, and that will never happen! I'm never gonna die! Not today! Not Tomorrow! I'm going to live a thousand lifetimes of whooping ass!” Jon struck a pose at the end of this, flexing his arms with a leg on the bench.

Grayson giggled some more, before abruptly hugging his brother. ”You better...promise?” He asked in a quiet tone.

”I promise,” Jon said, his heart skipping a beat as he hugged his brother. ”Now c'mon you little twerp, stop getting emotional on me. There's work to be done! MANLY WORK!” Jon cheered, marching from the room melodramatically.

Grayson watched him leave curiously, a bit perplexed. Apparently his brother had never learned that his manly bravado wasn't as quite effective as he hoped. Grayson smiled still, his brother was always being weird, at least in private or among friendly company. He had been pretty thankful that Jon hadn't embarrassed him like that in front of his bosses. He chuckled to himself as he left the locker room.

”C'mon you slow ass,” Jon teased, walking backwards as he motioned for Grayson to catch up.

For the next few minutes they walked in silence, with the occasional word uttered here and there, or a playful nudge. The corridor looked just as pristine as when Jon had arrived a few hours ago, he wondered if this was an inherent ability of the material or if there were some very stealthy janitors. The floor was cool against the bottoms of his bare feet, much cooler than he could remember ever feeling. Hell, he barely remembered what ice was like. He could remember having it a few times in Dresden, but such commodity had been hard for him to come by as a Wing. Ice cubes weren't exactly a pressing concern when you were on patrol or filing paperwork.

The floor actually made him shiver as he walked across it, causing him to be quite thankful when he entered the operating room. Not because the cold receded, in fact the room looked very much like the hallway other than the equipment in it, but rather because of the operating gurney. This room looked much like the observation room he had been looking at a few hours before. Seeing the same room, and having such vivid memories flashing through his mind made him realize exactly what it was he was about to do. The look of pain on that man's face as he burned alive, the sadistic smile from the rush of power. It made him slightly worried how such an experience would effect him mentally.

In fact, he was suddenly starting to get the feeling that this was a bad idea. It was very likely he could die. The scientists had explained there tests, but that hand only been a handful of people. What if he was the one in ten that would die? What if he became a hollow? Extreme scenarios played out in his mind, and for the slightest of moments he hesitated. Halfway between the threshold of the room and running back the way he had come. For a single heartbeat, a fear he was unfamiliar with had stopped him in his tracks. A fear that he was trained to ignore, yet it's icy fingers slithered around his heart.
”C'mon you slow ass!” Grayson chided, playfully nudging his brother into the room. They chuckled together, Jon's worries washed away as he looked upon Grayson and remembered all of the things, all of the people he was trying to protect.

”Got the jitters, Mr. Diederich?” Dr. Addison commented as she walked in behind him.

”Are you sure you're not like a medium or something? I swear all you scientists and doctor types know exactly when we're least expecting you,” Jon retorted.

”We have watches Jon, did you not get the memo?” Dr. Nevvo said plainly, following in behind Addison.

”Must of missed it. So we're all on time, now what?” Jon asked, walking into the middle of the room and sitting on the edge of the gurney. Dr. Addison and Dr. Nevvo separated to separate workstations on either end of the room, both of which were on wheels.

”Now? We kill you,” Dr. Addison replied bluntly. Grayson's face went pale, and it seemed as if he breath had caught in his lungs.

”Please, Dr. Addison, no need to be so dramatic,” Dr. Nevvo said, irritation creeping into his voice.

”We're going to tie you down, drug you, and fill the room with a gaseous compound that's going to turn you into a Popsicle. All with a homicidal creature we know next to nothing about in the room with you,” Addison quipped, seeming to ignore Dr. Nevvo.

”Oh well, if that's all..” Jon started, but the humor seemed lost to everybody else in the room.

”Jon..” Grayson started solemnly.

”I know, I know... I'll be fine, alright?” Jon said, trying to console his brother. Jon laid back on the table as Dr. Addison walked over, a needle held in her hand.

”This is a sedative, it's going to-”

”I don't need the full brochure package, Doctor,” Jon said, cutting Dr. Addison off. She frowned at him, shooting him a steely glare as she pressed the needle to his arm.

”Good luck, I'll be up in the viewing port with the general,” Grayson said, looking slightly squeamish as he turned to exit the room.

”We're scientists Dr. Grayson, we don't believe in luck,” Dr. Nevvo corrected, sounding as mighty and pretentious as ever. Grayson nodded in response as he exited the room. Jon was about to open his mouth to reply, when a sudden wave of numbness hit him. He tried to lick his lips but he felt literally paralyzed.

Dr. Addison laid him back, and began strapping ties around his body. ”These are to ensure you don't go on a power trip when you wake up.. and well.. to keep you still if the numbness wears off.” Jon, even though he felt very compelled to, couldn't formulate a response, or even make a face, as she strapped him to the bed. He was stuck looking at the fluorescent light hunkered in its little glass dome attached to the ceiling. Dr. Nevvo leaned over into his vision, waving his hand and smiling at Jon as darkness descended across his vision.

”Ah, Mr. Grayson, here to enjoy the show?” General Paxton Bradley asked, chuckling heartily between puffs on the cigar he always seemed to have clasped between his portly fingers.

”I'm not sure about enjoying it..” Grayson replied meekly, standing at the window to watch Addison and Nevvo prepared his brother's sleeping body.

”You're brother is a lot smarter than he comes off young man, he's tough as rock too,” Paxton commented, through yet another cloud of swirling smoke.

”It's just.. is this really safe?” Grayson expressed, his worries eating away at him slowly. He was proud to be able to help his brother, even more so that Jon reciprocated that feeling, nothing made him feel warmer inside. Yet, they didn't know enough about these creatures, and this one in particular seemed a lot smarter than Nevvo gave it credit for.

”Proven and repeated results seem pretty solid to me lad,” Paxton said, setting his glass of whiskey down. Grayson grimaced, looking over at the General. A wise, and battle hardened man, of some size, but Grayson felt him detestable. Always smoking, always drinking, as if he had to fill the void in his life with those vices. And now, risking his brother's life for some idea that he could create an army of Immortals, the idea itself was the very definition of dangerous science. Not dangerous because of the risks, but because of what people would do with it. Grayson had a book on “The Manhattan Project” which had changed his outlook on science. Humankind was always going to abuse and use progress.. but.. he was just some lowly acolyte in a world of supposed masters. He could only help them destroy the world, again.

”Seal the room and let our friend out,” Dr. Nevvo commanded, striding into the room and breaking Grayson's thoughts. Grayson looked at him, as Nevvo took his station at the view port. Grayson truly detested this man, he was a pompous ass and a fool who made a mockery of what science really was.

”Opening the vault now,” Addison stated, her fingers tapping away on the keyboard of the terminal. This room was an exact replica of the other one they had watched a man nearly burn alive in. Though, that one was being cleaned at the moment.

Grayson watched as the most terrifying, and fascinating creature he'd ever seen was forced out of its hiding place. It screamed in protest, its cries shattering the stillness in the room. It had always been a curious thing to Grayson, the way its voice carried over the intercoms even when unplugged or unpowered. They had figured out that as long as there was a connection its voice would emit, it seemed to speak in a thousand radio frequencies. It flashed across the room, impossibly fast, its body becoming a blackened blur of what seemed like smoke as it transition from one spot to the other. It stopped in front of the window, it's faceless form seeming to stare at Dr. Nevvo.

”Hello beautiful..” Dr. Nevvo cooed, placing his hand on the glass almost lovingly, sickeningly.

”I'm starting the process,” Dr. Addison said, though it didn't seem as if she was looking for confirmation from Nevvo. Grayson grimaced as he watched the scene, they were like twisted parents experimenting on their children–In the name of science. A part of him was glad neither of them actually had children, though he wondered what kind of twisted little monsters they would have grown up to be. A large, calloused hand placed itself on Grayson's shoulder, and he looked up into the grizzled face of Paxton.

”Your brother is about to change the world,” Paxton said a bit awestruck. Grayson didn't answer him, instead he continued looking out of the window as the room filled with an ethereal, teal gas. It settled across every surface, except for the preparation tables which had been wheeled after Jon was ready. The room began turning a shade of light blue as patches of ice began to form on the walls and floor. Jon's body immediately began to dim into a deathly, pale white. His lips rapidly turned into a bruised colored purple as the sheer cold worked its way into his body. A patch of ice formed on Jon's arm, but the spark didn't move.

”It's not working!” Grayson exclaimed in a panic.

”Patience young man, we haven't met the criteria for bonding yet,” Nevvo explained coldly, his attention never turning away from what was happening in the other room. The spark continued to stand still, it's wispy form hued in black unmoving, unflinching. Jon's body was rapidly deteriorating, becoming even paler with a hint of a blue tinge to his skin.

”You're going to kill him!” Grayson cried out, pounding his fist against the glass in horror as he watched his brother die.

”That's what we need! Your brother knew the risks!” Nevvo snapped, shooting an icy glare at Grayson.

”He's flat-lining,” Dr. Addison commented, monitoring Jon from her terminal. Yet the spark didn't move.

”C'mon you bitch..” Paxton said through clenched teeth.

”Don't let him die..” Grayson pleaded, tears streaming down his cheeks as he fell to the floor. He looked up to find Dr. Nevvo staring at him open mouthed. The spark too, seemed to be turned towards Grayson, ”Please..” he begged pitifully.

The spark let out a screech, its formless head thrown back as it assaulted the ears of those watching it. ”Its disrupting the system!” Dr. Addison cried out, as the screen of her terminal erupted in a spray of electricity and shattered glass. She crumpled to the ground, her face peppered with the green tinted shards of the terminal screen, her face staring out in open horror.

”Oh my god!” Grayson cried out, falling back and scooting himself to the far wall of the room.

”You are.. so tremendous..” Dr. Nevvo said, watching as the Spark flashed over to the gurney, crouched above Jon. It looked one last time at Dr. Nevvo, before bonding with the chilled body of a dying man.

The intercom in the room exploded in a display of fire and smoke, just as a piercing siren resounded throughout the complex. Paxton moved over to the door, trying to pry it open after it failed to do so automatically.

”It's jammed!” He exclaimed, the butt of his cigar falling from his mouth and hitting the ground in a shower of ash and sparks.

An angry look came over Nevvo's face as the warning siren continued to blare, ”You.. bitch..” He said, betrayal evident in his voice as he pounded his fists against the glass. ”You're not going to destroy me! All of my work! All of my progress!” Nevvo cried out, barely audible as an explosion rocked the facility.

”Hey! Over here you mongrels!” Paxton yelled at the workers fleeing down the hallway. Grayson whimpered in complete shock and fear, his ears were still ringing and he was still huddled against the wall.

”You BITCH!” Dr. Nevvo screamed, a second explosion throwing him from the view port and sending him to the floor, where he came eye to eye with the still body of his dead assistant. ”It.. it was too smart for us.. this whole time.. it could have.. it just..” He blubbered, crawling towards her, his hand outstretched towards Addison's face. A third explosion hit the facility, causing part of the room's roof to collapse directly onto of Nevvo.

Paxton, seeing the opportunity, wasted absolutely no time, ”C'mon Grayson! We're getting the hell out of here!” He declared, yanking the boy to his feet. Paxton half led, half hauled the sobbing boy up the rubble.

”But! My brother!” Grayson cried out, pulling against Paxton's hold on him.

”We can't help him now! Don't be a fool soldier!” Paxton roared, overpowering Grayson's resistance and dragging him up the broken concrete to the floor above. They scrambled up into the hallway as yet another explosion shook the compound, knocking them to the floor.

”Mother of God..” Paxton breathed, staring at a wall of fire quickly funneling down the corridor.

---

By the seventh explosion, Jon was fully conscious once more. He groaned as he tried to roll off of the gurney. His entire body felt like it was frozen, and on fire at the same time, he felt sick and a plume of dust was raining down on his face, yet he was still strapped to the gurney. He blinked, trying to clear his vision, trying to ignore the ringing in his ears, or the splitting headache continually slamming against his skull. Something was evidently, terrible wrong. He struggled against his bindings, feeling suffocated and claustrophobic, but they wouldn't give way. He screamed with effort, feeling the tightness in his chest increase, feeling his lungs struggle to pull in oxygen.

His body turned blue, icy blue, as a layer of frost permeated his skin. The straps across his body began to freeze, the thin layer of cloth shattering in its frozen state. Jon fell off the bed, gasping for breath as the ice on his skin subsided.

”It worked..” He whispered hoarsely, he could hardly believe it. It glanced upwards, towards the viewing window. The observation room had a plume of smoke escaping through a collapsed ceiling. ”Shit..” he said, nothing could ever be simple and easy. He gathered himself and got to his feet, looking for a way out. He was still sealed in the room, but he could feel the tingle beneath his skin, the tingle of the phenomena the spark must have given him. He stretched his hands towards the door dramatically, trying to focus on the tingle beneath his skin. But nothing happened. Jon looked down at his hands, which from the wrist onward were a bright pink. It suddenly occurred to him that he couldn't feel his hands, yet he still had muscle control over them. He had trouble grasping the foreign concept of being unable to feel his hands, which caused him to exhale in frustration. A frosty cloud exited his lung, dotted with tiny sparkles of frost.

He raised an eyebrow curiously, exhaling a bit stronger than he had last time. Another plume roiled from his lungs, tiny ice crystals suspended in the air. He filled his lungs to their limit, and blew out a breath as hard as he could. The cloud of frost washed over the door of the room, audibly freezing it. Jon smiled to himself and kicked the door as hard as he could, shattering it into large, frozen chunks.

”I just froze and broke a steel door.. holy..” He started, but that thought escaped his mind as he looked into the flaming corridor before him. There was a definite bump in his plans, seeing as he couldn't feel his hands, but at least he wasn't useless. He took another breath, letting a plume of frost drift down the hallway from his lungs, the sheer coldness of his phenomena leaving an icy trail down the hallway. He tread across the surface carefully, but found that his feet acted like impromptu magnets. He walked across the thin layer of ice, his feet crackling as the soles of his feet stuck to the ice, without slipping. Though there was a moment when he lost concentration due to a door erupting off its hinges and followed by a plume of fire, but other than that he made it down the iced over floor without much trouble.

He found himself back at the locker room, and only partially damaged. A water main had burst, but one good lungful of oxygen froze the stream solid. Jon felt it better to change now, while he had the chance, than run around half naked. It was very difficult for him to work his hands, without being able to feel them he was constantly losing his grip on something or dropping it. It didn't help anything that something, somewhere in the facility had blown up again and sent another adrenaline spiking shock wave through the complex, causing Jon to lose his grip on his pants once more. He cursed under his breath, this was taking far longer than he would have liked.

Sometime later he found his way to the upper level. He had found out along the way that he could do the same trick with his boots if he focused–sticking to the ice from the fire he had to put out. As he descended higher, signs of civilization returned to him in the form of pained wails and panicked screams. He looked around frantically, trying to help where he could, but found most sections had suffered far more damage than those below.

”I can feel them! I ca-” A voice cried out, ending off in a strangled cry of pain. Jon sprinted towards the voice, a few doors down the hallway he was in an inside what seemed to be, well Jon didn't exactly know. Every room was kind of the same to him, full of test tubes and computers. This particular room held the mangled, bleeding body of a scientist trying to say something, but only succeeding in uttering pained gurgles. Multiple slashes coated his twitching body, and his eyes were rolling back into his head.

”What happened!?” Jon asked, feeling stupid for doing so. It was obvious the man couldn't speak, yet Jon knelt next to him anyways, trying to offer some form of comfort. The scientist's eyes went wide, as he pointed up towards the ceiling. Jon looked up only to see the busted hatch of a ventilation shaft.

”I don't know what you're pointing at,” Jon said, desperately wanting to help the man. It was then that he heard the skittering sounds of something in the vents above them. He looked up once more, eyeing the opening suspiciously. A small creature burst from it, hissing viciously as it impacted Jon's chest. Jon moved his hands to fend the creature off, only succeeding in the thing biting his hands multiple times. He flayed his hands around desperately, unable to use them effectively as the creature tore into them, though his hands didn't bleed. He took a breath and exhaled, freezing the creature slowly as the icy cloud covered its body. It flipped over onto its back, its legs curling in towards its torso.

Jon rolled the thing off of him, getting to his feet as the frozen creature shattered against the floor. He looked at his hands, covered in what seemed to be like bullet sized holes, though he felt nothing, and there was no blood. Hell, with his luck the thing was probably venomous too, but he felt nothing, which kind of made him lose all hope of ever regaining feeling in his hands again. He knelt down near the broken pieces of the creature that had attacked him, struggling to pick up the pieces. He dropped one, and it shattered into even smaller pieces, provoking an angered string of curses from his mouth as he fumbled a second piece.

He almost had the third piece, but the scientist issued a loud gurgle of pain, causing Jon to drop that piece too, and let loose another string of profanities. He stood, defeated, and looked at the scientist, who was currently spasming. Jon was halfway to him when the guy's chest exploded, releasing what must have been thousands of tiny little insects, and not just any insect to Jon's great displeasure. Spiders. He blasted them with a wave of frost, but there were too many for him to effectively stop all at once. He dashed for the exit, reaching back to close the door and frowning in anger as his fingers fumbled the handle. He cursed again, leaving the door and heading further into the compound.

He could hear them all around him now, the skittering legs of the little black spiders, or the big black spiders. He wasn't sure which, he hadn't seen anymore... yet. He felt his breath come in ragged gasps once more as the walls loomed all around him, seeming to press in close. Panic built up inside him, causing him to fall to his knees. He held his head cradled in his arms, breathing in rapid, short breaths of air. As he rocked back and forth on his knees, the walls seemed to slowly recede to their previous positions and size, no longer threatening to close in around him. He gathered himself and stood, looking around nervously, as if the walls were baiting him into a trap.

”I need to get the fuck out of here,” He said, to nothing but the sounds of the skittering spiders in the vents. He made his way further down the hallway, or was he heading up now? He wasn't sure, he only knew there was forward. A few minutes later and her came to a stairwell, which he knew from memory lead up to the ground floor, where there was a nice large exit for him to go through and be free of this place. He took the steps two at a time, rushing up the flights up stairs, eager to free himself of this prison. He smashed through the ground floor door with his shoulder, its newly frozen hinges giving away easily under Jon's weight.

The ground floor was absolute pandemonium. Squadrons armed with guns stood backed up against one wall, their muzzles flashing without pause as hundreds of the larger spiders advanced towards them. Some, no a group, of the little beasts took notice of Jon, and he turned and left without another word. He sprinted down to the floor below, hoping to find another exit as he dashed down the hallway. This wind of the complex seemed rather intact, other than the gore streaked across the floors and the what Jon assumed were fresh layers of web spun throughout the corridor. He continued on, only pausing when a sign caught his eye–“Armory”. Now that sounded good to him.

Even better than the thought of somehow manipulating a gun, Jon eyed the cart Grayson had used to show off his new, fancy equipment. The thought of Grayson filled his heart with sadness, but if he had any hope of ever finding him again he had to press on. Jon walked up to the cage the gear was locked behind, freezing it with an angry exhale and shattering it with a solid kick. He used the same tactic to break open the cases, only now feeling the use of his power straining his heart. He gasped, struggling against the pain as his heart beat furiously in his chest.

It took a few moments, but eventually he recovered. He looked out at the gear spread out before him, the weapons, the ammunition, and the suit. ”You are gorgeous..” He said, looking at the wraith armor, only know what it was because of the clear label put on it. It took him some time, long enough that the explosions stopped and he no longer heard gunfire, but he managed to suit up fully. He found that he had much better control of the armored gloves, feeling through the frost coating the inside of the glove, rather than his hands themselves. It was still weird, and exceptionally awkward to put into practice, but it was manageable.

By the time he made it outside, the orange hue of evening was stretching across the horizon. He had found a blown side of the building, exiting just up the slope of the mountain. There had been a rather large fire, but that was quickly, and carefully dealt with. Jon didn't want to over exert himself again. He stood on top of a rather flat boulder, his gun resting in his unfeeling hands, yet he could feel the weight of it pulling against his arms, and in an offhanded way, Jon could feel himself holding the gun. If he maintained focus, he could do the same bodily freezing trick, but with just his hands, and he could feel them through the ice, somehow. Everything was an enormous mystery to him at the moment. Especially what had happened to the science facility, lying in a state of flaming ruin below him.

Even more so than that, the biggest question of all was what he was going to do now. Not with his new life, or powers, or even the search for his brother. He felt his sense of duty flare up inside him as he stared out over the roiling wave of creatures, exiting from the shattered maw of the building. Thousands of them plowing across the desert, heading west, towards Russel City. At the rate they were... skittering, they would be upon the residents of Russel in a matter of hours. Jon wasn't sure if anybody was aware of what was happening, or if anybody was prepared for such a thing. Jon had never even heard of such a thing happening before.. this horde of bloodthirsty creatures.

---

Somewhere within Russel City, beneath the pouring rain under the cover of a Winged Guardian's outpost, a radio crackled to life. The bored, on duty sentry yawned, taking hold of the device in his hand and pressing the button.

”This is Sky Watch One, who is this?” The Wing said lazily, watching the rain clean the boots he currently had propped up on the wall of the tower.

”Sky Watch, This is Papa Bear,” The Guardian sat up suddenly, focusing on the radio transmission, ”Divert all assets towards the Eastern Perimeter.. I want.. everybody,” The voice demanded. The Guardian set the radio down, feeling partly in shock as he raised his binoculars. He didn't see anything but a roiling cloud of dust heading towards the city. It could have been a dust storm.. unless it was a large mass of..

”Holy... shit...”

He turned around. Why did he turn around?

'Because I forgot'. Arcus muttered to himself. Luckily he hadn't walked far away from the city, and there was still plenty of daylight. The object of his forgetfulness was Tilli- his sister. He had fought to not think of her while he was in Russel City- he knew it'd get the better of him, ultimately- where Tilli lived, but now he was fighting almost every step with hesitation. Tilli would not ever forgive Arcus for killing mother, and she shouldn't. That all felt so long ago, though, as if it were a distant dream that Arcus struggled to remember. Almost like it was another life. The last time he had seen Tilli, she was just a child, but he heard that she's married now. Arcus had given her an opportunity to forgo Forsaken life and she took it; years later, Arcus found himself doing the same thing. If only Caden were here.

Now back in town Arcus was unsure of where to go, or where to even start looking for Tilli or her alleged husband. He remembered she liked watching fights- but here in Russel City there was no arena. Maybe turning around wasn't such a good idea, after all. Not that Arcus was incredibly confident in it from the get-go, anyway.

'Well, looks like I'm here for the night. May as well wander a little- maybe I'll find Tilli.'

That was a stretch, but anything was possible. Arcus wandered and lingered around the bar he had been in earlier- could still hear the two men talking that he'd heard the rumor about Isolone from earlier. Heard a few other voices, too-

One of them was familiar.

"Look, miss, iss' not safe out 'ere in the rain. Could catch a draft and get sick." A man drunkenly said; he held a bottle and was dressed in sparse, soaked rag.

"Let us take ya' in for a while." He and a similarly dressed fellow were cornering someone in an alley near the bar- a woman.

"No thank you, I don't live too far away." She shyly replied, backing away and shrinking into the corner. Through the rain, Arcus caught a glimpse of her face from behind her hood and colorful rags. It was his sister.

"Aw, c'mon! Lemme' be nice once an' a while!"

"I said I'm alright!" Tilli yelled, lashing out with her arms. A bag fell into the mud. She yelped as the man shoved her while half-bending, half-falling over to take her bag.

"Seemed to 'ave dropped this, Miss. I'll just take a finders fee..." he reached a muddy hand inside.

Arcus laid the sawblade of Brute flat on the man's forearm.

"If I were you, I'd put the bag down. Right now."

The drunk man was silent for several moments and kept glancing at his friend, as if he was expecting him to do something. His friend, in turn, kept glancing between Arcus and Tilli.

The drunk man had terrible hand-eye coordination, and Arcus was willing to be it wasn't all from the alcohol. He learned this as his shoulder dug into the man's ribs as Arcus dodged his slumbering swing of his bottle. With a pleasant thud the drunkard landed in the mud and Arcus heard the bottle break behind him. The now-writhing man's friend hesitated, but also swung at Arcus, who swung back. The two blows connected at the same time; the aggressor on Arcus' shoulder, Arcus' on the man's face. Arcus shrugged it off while a second unconscious man plopped into a puddle. At least he didn't hit his wound.

Retrieving the bag from the mud he took a few steps towards Tilli, who was no longer shrunk in her corner. She looked cautious but thankful.

"Here you go, miss." He gently slung the bag around Tilli's shoulder. "No finder's fee needed." They both smiled.

"Thank you, sir," she replied, "but at least let me buy you a drink." She adjusted her hood and Arcus got a better look at her face- as beautiful as ever- dark curls flowing down to her shoulders. Still kept her freckles, too, even though she must be nearing forty. He felt his heart flutter; even after all these years, Arcus could still recognize his sister among all these people. Heart of gold, too.

Arcus thought about declining, but Tilli didn't seem to recognize him. He longed to talk to his sister again, see how and what she was doing in life, and now may be the only opportunity he'd get.

"I'll take you up on that." He said quietly, turning back towards the bar. Tilli grabbed his shoulder, chuckling.

"Not in there. Let me take you to a nicer place."

Arcus was nearly in tears, and he knew he wouldn't be able to look at Tilli without smiling. Averting her eyes, he replied with "Lead the way."

--

"Well, sir, all I know is you're an angel sent from heaven. Still can't get over that you look familiar, though."

Arcus smiled and stared down at his drink- it was certainly better than the cheap crap he had, earlier. Not that this bar was much fancier than the other, just down the street, but at least the alcohol tasted better. Who knows, maybe it was present company that made everything better.

"I do my best to help out, miss. Winged Guardians seem to have their plate full, nowadays."

"Yeah, well, you've been more helpful than they are on a good day. You'd be surprised how much of that type of stuff goes unnoticed. Names Tilli, by the way. And its Mrs."

"Alright, then Mi- erm, Mrs. Tilli." They shot smiles at each other as Arcus took another gulp of his drink.

"Don't think I ever caught your name."

Arcus hesitated for a moment.

"Evans. Most people 'round here call me Evans."

"Around here? What do they call you everywhere else?"

Warlord. That was Arcus' first thought; but he was a different man now.

"Some call me Angel, I guess."

Tilli chuckled and flipped her hood back up before standing from the booth.

"Well I think that's a beautiful and fitting name. But sadly, Mr. Angel, I should get going. It's almost five o'clock."

She kissed Arcus on the cheek on the way out and he felt himself blush- something he's not sure he's ever done. But he felt his heart swell- even though he had lied to Tilli, ultimately it was for the best, and both were leaving the bar happy.

--

Arcus noticed something tense in the air as he wandered the streets looking for a place he could afford to stay for the night. People were glancing at him, some pointing. Others grimaced and muttered harsh words under their breath. They seemed focused on his eyes- the only thing explicitly identifying him as an Immortal- it was easy to discern where their mistrust was. But why the sudden change? He'd been here for a while now and he hadn't been getting any hateful glances such as this.

Arcus could easily shove off glances, he'd gotten used to those, but when a man ran up to him, screaming how he'd "doomed" them, Arcus was infinitely more confused. Had the two men he defended Tilli from near the westside bar been men of importance? He doubted it, those two seemed hardly worth a bullet.

No, this was coming from something else. Perhaps it had always been there and Arcus was only now catching on, but something was causing unrest and tempers to bubble, and it was about to burst. Arcus could feel it. The odd bit was that he discerned it was particularly at his Immortalis status.

Crossing into the eastern side of the city was difficult as what Arcus assumed were patrols of Winged Guardians were talking among themselves and taking up a lot of space on the road as they moved east. More than once, Arcus had to shove himself past them. He was becoming more anxious- something was off. He could feel it in the air- a sense honed by his years of service in warfare. Something was about to happen, and everyone seemed to be growing more anxious by the minute.

Averting the eyes of those around him Arcus tightened his grip on Brute and Sam. His eyes caught a clock next to a sign on a building-

5:15

3:56 PM

Vladimira sighed heavily as she trudged through the streets of Russel city, dragging both the bike and her makeshift sled behind her. It was slow going, and tiresome, and she didn’t know how long she’d be able to keep it up before she had to call it a day and resume her search tomorrow. Nobody had known who the woman was, or recalled seeing her, and any others who might’ve known had fled at the sight of her arms and eyes.

She spotted a small cluster of people up ahead and figured she’d give it one last try before calling it off for the moment and sleeping… somewhere.

She walked up slowly and did her best to seem as non-threatening as possible, “Um, hi? Do any of you recognize her?” She pointed back to the body on her sled-thing, “I’ve been trying to fi-”

She was cut off as one member of the group shouted, “Gah! Fuck! Get away from us, freak!” The others turning to look before they all bolted in the opposite direction.

Recoiling slightly, she sighed again and turned back, this would’ve been so much easier if her goggles and gloves were still intact. Or the rest of her clothing in general.

She looked grimly at the corpse on her sled before grabbing a hold of the sled and the bike and dragging them along once more, this time in the direction of the Bitch’s Brew.

---

4:07 PM

She pushed open the door, shuffling through it and relieved to be out of the rain, if only for a short while. She’d thrown a tarp she’d found somewhere over the bike and sled to stop them getting any wetter than they already were. Several heads turned towards her in idle curiosity as she entered the building, and curiosity satisfied, just as quickly turned back to whatever they’d been doing beforehand.

A sigh drew her attention and she turned to see someone she assumed was the barkeeper with his head in his hands. “Not again,” he sighed, “stop making a mess in the doorway, you’re the second person to do that. You want to make a mess in one of the beds, fine, just not in the doorway.”

“Sorry, what?” Vladimira asked in confusion, turning back the way she’d come and noticing the rather large puddle she’d left behind, “Oh.” She stood awkwardly for a moment, “Uhh, I can do something…?”

“Just buy a drink and I’ll forget it happened.”

She sighed this time, taking a seat at the bar, “Just give me some water, I’d like to keep my faculties.” She rummaged around in her pockets, pulling out a small handful of 9mm ammunition and handing over the appropriate amount.

The barkeep handed her the drink, commenting idly, “By the way, someone left a message for you, I’ll assume your name is Vladimira, not a lot of women running around with eyes like that.”

She looked up at him suspiciously, “Yeah, can I see it?”

Wordlessly, the bartender slid a sloppily folded piece of paper over to her.

Vladimira, Ivan, whichever of you get this, I found out where she's going. I don't know why exactly, something about gathering Immortals, but she's heading to Isolone. I'm going to try to head her off and make sure it isn't a trap or something. Somehow I doubt it; she doesn't seem too dangerous right now, but there's no telling when she might go hollow again. Whether you follow me or not, stay safe. The Wings are looking for you two. I'd keep my head down if I were you.

PS. Her name is Alex.

-James

“Isolone, interesting…” She murmured to herself, Isolone was out of the way for her maybe she’d go there at some point, but not now. The Wings didn’t concern her, and keeping a low profile wasn’t exactly good for finding whoever had known the body outside. On that topic… “Since you’re not trying to kill me or run away from me like everybody else I’ve asked, you wouldn’t happen to know anybody who knew a woman with red hair, like, a giant shock of it? I’ve got this feeling someone knows her and it didn’t seem right to leave her body in the desert.”

“Oh yeah?” The bartender raised an eyebrow, “This broad got a name or what?”

Vladimira shrugged, “Don’t know, she was killed before I had the chance to actually speak with her. She had a bike though, if that helps.”

With a grunt, he Bartender paused for a moment, putting about half a second of visible thought into the vague description before snorting, spitting into a shot glass and wiping it clean with a rag at least two decades older than he was. “This broad,” he set the glass down, and moved his hands to his own chest, pantomiming what had to be the practiced action of grabbing breasts, “she have big knockers?”

Vladimira raised a skeptical eyebrow, “From what I could tell when dragging her body over here, in the same way you might call a dust storm a bit of sand.” Pausing for a moment she took a sip of water, “Why? That ring a bell?”

The Bartender grinned, “Maybe…” He knocked on the wood of the bar, “You know, information ain’t cheap, miss.”

“True.” Vladimira replied, fishing around in her pockets and pulling out another few loose 9mm rounds, “Now, information?”

Giving a tip of a non-existent hat as he pocketed the dirty ammo he shifted his gaze over to a gap in the wall of curtains, “Sounds like someone I heard the purple stripper talking about once--” He scratched his balding head, “Name’s Octavia. Immortal broad, got a nice rack too,” He gave what might one day be known as the creepiest wink in all of recorded history to Vladimira before finishing, “She can help you out.”

“Your generous act of philanthropy has saved a kitten somewhere, I’m sure.” Vladimira snarked back, “Truly you are a monument to human kindness and selflessness.”

She made her way over to the curtains the bartender had indicated, peering between them. With a somewhat apprehensive glance around the room, she slipped between them. “Eh, hello? I’m looking for someone named ‘Octavia’?”

Immediately noticing the presence of an outsider, a rather large unpleasant woman who had previously been fanning herself with pages torn out of the bible moved to intercept Vladimira before she made her way any further into the lounge.

“And whut dew yew wont with Gabby?” Her accent was as thick as the molasses that appeared to dribble out of the sides of her mouth.

“Well, I was planning to speak with her, if you don’t mind my intruding upon your little sanctuary back here.” Vladimira replied, raising an eyebrow and muttering under her breath, “Пизда стараыа…”

She looked back at the woman, “If I’m right, she’ll want to see me.”

The woman, whose overstretched tube top had the words ‘Big Bertha’ imprinted in mismatched sequence, shook with religious fervor. Or perhaps she simply gasped in a way that caused a rippling through her layer of blubber. Either way, she proceeded to place a hand over her apparently constantly agape mouth and, with effort, performed the motions of the cross over her chest.

“Baby Christ in heaven save us!” She practically threw the fan in the air, “Now that girl ain’t been here a day and y’all sodomites already…” Straining, she leaned to whispering distance of Vladimira, “...want to do that with the poor girl!” She gave another gasp, “The bible says it is an ABOMINATION for woman to lay with woman!” She pointed to a random passage on her fan, before giving a hefty sigh. “I suppose it’s only right… y’all ‘Immortals’ ain’t nuthin’ but the Good Lord’s abandoned no matter. Abominations will commit abominations…”

She gave a sad look to Vladimira before turning to yell ‘GABBAY!!’ further in the stripper’s lounge and returning to masticate. After a moment, hastened by flames emitted from the soles of her feet, a young woman with skin and hair tinted purple flipped into sight. Landing with the poise of a gymnast between ‘Big Bertha’ and Vladimira, she seemed to instinctively the red-eyed Immortal woman had summoned her.

“Hi! Would you like a private dance?” She asked without missing a beat, with a perky enthusiasm equal parts genuine and force. “My rates are 140 assorted for an hour, 70 for half; fire is an extra 30. Non-negotiable!”

Recoiling slightly at the sudden appearance of Octavia in front of her, it took a moment for Vladimira to recover. “Em, no, sorry, I think.” She paused, “Not sure how to say this, but I just dragged a body here from the middle of the desert, and the barkeeper thinks you know her. I didn’t want to leave her out there so I’ve been going around the city trying to see if anybody knew her.” She paused awkwardly for a moment, shifting uncomfortably, “She’s eh, got red hair and a massive… chest. Ring any bells?”

Octavia’s eyes went wide. Tits McGee? The drifting doctor was the first person to come to mind based off that description. She had just seen Evelina with Miss Castalia earlier that day, had she not gone with her to the fashion district? As thoughts raced through her mind, Octavia managed to force out a squeak of a reply, in a noticeably dampened tone, “Umm… maybe?” giving an awkward shrug, the woman laughed meekly to fill the now heavy air, “Do you… still have, I don’t know… it? I mean, um… hers? Or rather, Evelina’s body?”

Giving a simple nod, Vladimira then jerked her head towards the door. “She’s outside, under a tarp and such, I did the best I could to keep her out of the rain while I came in here.” She paused, so her name was Evelina… She shook her head to clear it, “I take it you knew her, then?”

A weak laugh, “Hardly…” Octavia, moving past the curtains, began heading for the door, “She helped me out when I broke my leg once upon a time. It feels like ages ago…” She sighed, melancholy tinged nostalgia, “I saw her again for the first time in years just this afternoon! I guess she and the heiress were an item or something, because I’ve never seen Miss Castalia that happy before.”

Opia shot through her body as Vladimira’s eyes met her own, “She was a drifter… I don’t even think she really had anybody else… but… she was a really good person.” Outside, the pitter patter of rain meshed with the music of the golden bar. Octavia stopped just shy of the door. Sincerity and a registering of the red-head’s possible death bringing down her mood, “I just hope it isn’t her, y’know?”

“I’d be somewhat concerned if you hoped it was her, from what I’ve heard. If it is her… well, if it is her then the world lost someone it really needed not to lose today.” She stepped in front of Octavia, opening the door and stepping out into the rain. She made her way over to the bike and sled thing, concealed under the tarp.

She sighed, killing Forsworn or bandits was one thing, but if this woman really was who she’d been told… shaking her head again, she scattered the morose thoughts for the moment, slowly pulling the tarp off. “Well?” She asked simply.

Octavia didn’t know what she was expecting-- she recognized her bike before Evelina’s badly bloodied face was even fully exposed. As she stood, staring at the corpse of someone who might have eventually become her friend, she didn’t experience a loss of words, but instead a loss of action.

As in, she knew what it was she was feeling, her life in Serenity hadn’t been without its loss-- but she wasn’t quite sure how to react to this information. Was she supposed to cry? Octavia almost felt as if she wanted to, but simply couldn’t. It really wasn’t that she was numb to Evelina’s passing, but rather the reality that she simply didn’t know her that well. Octavia felt the pangs of sadness deep within her gut; she frowned, she sighed, she brought up a hand to cover her mouth-- but despite the sympathy-- despite the sad but all too common reality of the world’s loss of another bright light, she really couldn’t bring herself to do much more than look how she felt. A little melancholic.

It was okay, though. She supposed the sky was crying for her.

The novel sensation of feeling the wetness falling from the sky came secondary to Vladimira’s question. Octavia realized she had been standing silently for several minutes by that point. “That’s her alright...” In the rain, Vladimira’s glowing red eyes seemed almost mechanical, “I really wasn’t much more than a patient… but I’m probably the closest thing she’s got to family left…” An idea came into the forefront of her thoughts, “Well… I guess there’s also…”

Vladimira slowly walked back over to Octavia, putting her left arm around her shoulder. “Sorry.” She said simply. This really wasn’t her area, she’d spent her time trying to find someone who at least recognized the woma- Evelina, and hadn’t thought of what she’d do once she found them.

She paused, unsure of how to ask what she had in mind, “There’s also… who, sorry?” She muttered somewhat awkwardly. Human interaction was difficult, machines were easier.

“No…” Octavia’s downcast gaze didn’t leave the body, “That would be a horrible idea…” She let the sentence drift into her thoughts, an ethereal silence grew as she thought, the odd static of rain became background noise to Octavia’s rapidly shifting mind.

This was gonna suck!

“I guess I’ll take her body… ummm… somewhere, I guess? She deserves a funeral, and she really didn’t have anyone else..” Octavia turned to Vladimira, “Thank you. Seriously. You’ve already done more than like, ANYONE I know would do for me… I mean except my parents!” An uncomfortable chuckle, “But… And I hate to ask this… but there is something else…”

A horrible idea? What would be a horrible idea? Vladimira raised an eyebrow apprehensively, but decided not to ask. “Put it this way, if someone you know dies, you tend to want to know how and why. I can’t provide the why, but…” she trailed off, shifting uncomfortably. “What do you hate to ask, exactly?” she paused, “Does it involve this… horrible idea?”

Pulling the tarp back over Evelina’s face, Octavia sighed before addressing Vladimira directly, “Maybe just a little bit?” Another mirthless chuckle, “I mean, I’m curious, but I don’t know that it’s even my place to ask whys and hows… But I do know that it’s the place of my employer to ask… I’m pretty sure Tits McGee here and Miss Castalia were at least… I don’t know? Intimate?” She shrugged, “I mean, I just saw them together a few hours ago-- they were definitely on friendly terms. She’d probably want to know… but… I don’t know how smart it’d be to tell her, really….”

Vladimira’s eyes widened. This… Evelina, had been on “friendly” terms with one of the Castalias? She didn’t know a lot about the crime family, but she did know enough to know they were a big deal. “I’m torn.” She finally admitted after an uncomfortable pause, “On the one hand, I think she should be told, if only on principle. But on the other hand, I don’t want to think about what might happen if she were told. Is there… I don’t know, something you could tell her to convince her she just… went somewhere, or something?” She paused again, “There’s also the matter of her bike and the rest of her things… what am I, or you, or somebody, supposed to do with them?”

Octavia tapped her chin for a moment, “I can deal with her things… she’d probably want to donate them to a charity or a hospital or something corny like that.” She grimaced, “I mean, like as far as Miss Castalia goes, I guess someone could just tell her she… drifted off somewhere? To handle some healing emergency? I mean I’m pretty sure that’s what she did for a living…”

Of course-- if that were to work, though, she’d have to lie. A skill which she’d never quite gotten the hang of-- and on top of that lie to Lucania ‘Bloody Sleeves’ Castalia. Her employer was an intimidating woman, especially knowing the fact that she just spent what must have been a decade tracking down the man who killed her last girlfriend.

“Umm…” Octavia gulped, “Umm, well just…” She laughed nervously, eyes going doe-wide, combined with her soaked hair she must have looked absolutely pitiful-- which probably helped her cause. “Well, y’know… I can handle her stuff… so like, I don’t know… maybe, this is just a suggestion, but, uh, maybe, y-you could…” electricity jolted through her being. She couldn’t lie to Miss Castalia! She was such a dope she couldn’t lie to herself! Octavia’s entire figure moved in a motion similar to a bow--

“UhhI’mreallybadatlyingsoIwaswonderingifmaybeyoucouldpleasebetheonetotalktoLucaniaImeanMissCastaliapleeeaaaaaasssssee?”

She took in deep gulps of air after she made her request, not relenting from her prostrated bowing position, awaiting Vladimira’s answer as the rain continued to pour over her.

Vladimira wasn’t sure what to say. On the one hand she was somewhat capable of lying, but by no means a master at it- which was probably a good thing. On the other hand… lying to a high ranking member of the Mafia about the recent death of someone who was apparently her girlfriend just didn’t seem like it was something that’d be good for her health. If Evelina really had been a healer, saying she’d gone off for some healing emergency might’ve worked, if the one she’d be telling it to wasn’t a member of the Mafia.

“Чыорт возми…” she hissed, “I’m going to do this, aren’t I?”

She sighed, whipping her head up to look Octavia in the eye, “I’ll do it. I don’t know how, but I’ll do it. Where is she?” She paused, “And she has some ammunition on her, and a gun, I noticed. Perhaps I could give those to ‘Miss Castalia’? That might help… somehow?”

“Thank you!” Octavia immediately straightened up, a perkiness renewed as she addressed Vladimira’s other points, “From what I know about her… and, I mean, I’ve only met her a few times… she’s kind of a… romantic? Is that the right word? So yeah, I guess a gesture like that would go over well?” She shrugged, “-- honestly though, you should take some of the ammo for yourself. Y’know, as like a payment for all you’re doing... Miss Castalia is rolling in the stuff after all.”

Vladimira nodded, “Fair enough, I suppose. I’ll think of what to say when I give it to her, let’s hope I can think of something good to say, I’d prefer not to die horribly.” She walked over to the sled, quickly rifling through Evelina’s bags and pockets to pull out the ammunition and her gun, she didn’t mind looting the bodies of bandits or their ilk, but this just felt… wrong. “I take it you’ll do something with the bike, too? And her sword, do you want that?”

She paused as a thought struck her, “I don’t actually know where ‘Miss Castalia’ is… ehm, could you tell me where she might be?”

Octavia shook her head with a frown, “I couldn’t swing a sword to save my life! And I haven’t the slightest clue where she could be… I’d ask the Bartender, he tends to know theses things--”

Instantly, as if possessed by some otherworldly force, Octavia’s eyes shot wide open, her some expression gave way to a mechanical deadpan, in a fraction of a second she her face became as neutral as granite-- she leaned closer to Vladimira and whispered, “He always knows.”

And just as suddenly as her demeanor had changed-- it went back. As if she hadn’t noticed what she just said, Octavia continued, “But yeah, if you want the sword, take it-- otherwise I’m just gonna donate ‘em to who needs them most!”

Raising an eyebrow at Octavia’s commentary on the Bartender, “Well, I haven’t definitively proved that bartenders are part of a well organized pre-apocalypse information network dedicated to keeping them up to date on everything, but I’m pretty sure it’s the only plausible explanation.”

She paused again, removing the sword from Evelina, “I suppose I’ll take it, could do with a little symbolism of my own I guess.” She grabbed her rucksack and started strapping it to the side before stopping, somehow it seemed like it’d be a bad idea to be caught lying to a high ranking Mafia member about her dead girlfriend while carrying said girlfriend’s sword. “I don’t suppose you could keep this here for me for a bit? At least until after I’ve spoken with ‘Miss Castalia’, it probably wouldn't be a great idea to have that when I'm talking to her."

Octavia shrugged, “Yeah, sure, whatever you need, man.” Handling the sword with a clumsy, she dropped the heavy metal rod of death on Evelina’s cadaver, “I’ll just be here, disposing of the body of my now deceased distant acquaintance in a respectful manner.”

Vladimira shifted awkwardly in her place. She didn’t really have any reason to stay here other than to ask the Bartender for directions, but she wasn’t sure what to think about just leaving Octavia here with a corpse to deal with. She opened her mouth to say something then decided against it, remaining silent for another moment before coughing awkwardly, “Well, ehm, guess I’ll see you later, then? Name is Vladimira, in case you ever need it.”

She walked back into the building, leaning against the bar and rolling another few loose 9mm rounds across it, “I’m looking for a ‘Miss Castalia’, I need to talk with her.”

At the mention of his employer’s name, the Bartender, who was amidst his generic motion of cleaning the seemingly infinite pile of dirty glasses with his rag, paused. The fear of some vengeful God seemed to flash across his eyes, before slowly, he restarted the repetitive, generic motion of cleaning the mismatched glasses and addressed Vladimira, an edge to his voice, he grunted, “Which one?”

Vladimira raised her eyebrow, “Didn’t know there was more than one ‘Miss Castalia’,” she leaned in closer, rolling a few more 9mm rounds across the table, “but I’m going to assume the one I want to talk to is the one making you sweat like a sinner in a church.”

“Heh…” The Bartender’s nervous gaze shot down to the rapidly accumulating pile of bullets in front, “Well her drunk sister’s on her way to Serenity as we speak… You’re probably looking for Lucania.” With a pained sigh, he pushed the bullets back to Vladimira’s side of the bar… were those tears in his eyes? Whether they were or not, became irrelevant as he spoke, “And you’ll need a lot more than this to get me to squeal, boss-lady doesn’t want no one knowing where she is…”

She sighed, so a few rounds wasn’t going to cut it then. She quirked an eyebrow, “Alright then, what do you want in exchange for ‘Lucania’s’ location?”

“I’m a simple man, with simple desires… uhhh…. Vladimira? Right?” He didn’t give her a chance to respond, cracking his knuckles, he continued his spiel, “I’m The Bartender!” And then, there was silence. The bar went quiet upon hearing such words leave the man’s mouth, it almost felt as if everyone was watching the two. The band started playing a haunting tune on stage, the two-bit singer they currently had went silent.

He broke in again, this time in D-minor;


Grabbing a bottle of golden fluid, he jumped atop the bar;


Vladimira stared at the Bartender and the surrounding patrons incredulously. “You seriously went through all that effort -I don’t even want to know what it took to train your little musical friends to respond to whatever signal they did- and sang a song in time with them, to see me pull my shirt off?”

The Bartender processed the words silently, visibly deflating as a look of sheer horror spread across his face, “Oh my God, you’re right…” Still standing atop the bar, the man rested his cheek against his hand, “All that effort… and for what? A glimpse at breasts that can’t possibly live up to this fantasy I’m envisioning in my head? It’s just a couple of areolas and nipples! Why would I spend hours dedicating myself to getting unsuspecting women to expose themselves to me in such a manner!?”

The Bartender, now speaking louder, seemed to pose the question to the whole room of bar-goers, “A power trip? Is it less that I, The Bartender, receive some instant sexual gratification from an unwilling woman exposing parts of her body to me and more that I take pleasure in the fact that I wield the power to convince women to expose themselves for me-- that I can view their bodies as objects and then make them act upon my own twisted visions of what they are!?”

The band stopped playing, for a second time, all eyes were on the Bartender, now fully orating to the room atop his soap-box bar, “Why do we do it men? Why do we objectify women in such a demeaning manner? Why do we take pleasure in a woman stripping for our pleasure when we’ve got wives at home? When we could seek a more personal, intimate, and ultimately meaningful experience right here in Russel City-- Hell, and all over Dust!?You know what?! Women too! Everyone!! Why do we allow sex and the assertion of power over others to be so closely linked-- why do we seek to demean others for some arbitrary cause? Why do we repeat the mistakes of the past-- when we can respect each other as equals, and create a brighter future!!!”

Dead air. The Bitches Brew became as still as a Dead End whorehouse as patrons realized what they were being told. It may have felt like days passing in the minute after the Bartender finished his speech, and each patron and employee appeared mortified.

But then, a woman stood. A middle-aged stripper who had been previously sitting and giggling on the lap of a Gaen businessman. Heads turned to her as she stood, mouth agape, tears in her eyes.

She clasped her hands together once. Then again-- starting slow, she eventually enticed others to join in, first a few Castalia goons, a stripper here, a band member there, then a drunk woman dressed like a middle-schooler with a hat that was far too large for her head... eventually the whole bar found themselves in an uproarious applause for the man… no, --The Bartender.

People soon left their seats, surrounding, Vladimira, and the bar The Bartender was still atop-- the crowd wouldn’t stop cheering. The Bartender had said what they were all thinking, but were too afraid to say.

The TRUTH.

This was a man they would all follow to the ends of the earth-- a true visionary. He saw what was wrong with things and wanted to speak out about them, all with a cold one by his side. Applause changed to the chanting of the name, ‘BARTENDER!!’ People from other parts of the bar joined in-- filling the main room and prompting an exit into the raining afternoon of CHANGE. Like an Old World rockstar, the crowd eventually lifted the man onto his back, and carried him with their collective strength, like royalty that was too pure to touch the ground.

Before the crowd carried him away, however, he shouted down to a dumbfounded Vladimira over the cheers and chants of the crowd with a smile on his face, “SHE’S IN THE FASHION DISTRICT!!-- A PLACE CALLED ‘LA PETITE NOIR’ OR SOMETHING! I THINK IT MEANS SEX IN FRENCH! I HOPE THAT HELPS!” Just before the crowd, carrying their lord and savior, The magnanimous Bartender, left the Bitches Brew completely deserted, the Bartender shouted back to the still completely in place Immortal Russian, “I DOUBT I’LL EVER BE RELEVANT TO YOU AGAIN, VLADIMIRA-- BUT STILL, THANK YOU!! I HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY AND A GOOD LIFE!!”

And then, the crowd was gone. Everyone was-- literally everyone in the Bitches Brew left to help the Bartender spread his new religion. Even Big Bertha.

Vladimira was completely alone, again.

She stared after the impromptu mob, still utterly dumbfounded. “And to think,” she muttered to herself, scooping up the ammunition she’d lain on the table, as well as looking behind the counter for any more and pocketing that, “that I’d’ve just pulled off my shirt if he’d asked. Walked around the building without it, whatever.”

She glanced around the empty bar, taking the chance to pilfer as much of the half decent vodka as she could fit into her rucksack. Spoils of… something. “Must’ve rolled a natural 20 on a speech check.” She paused, looking at the empty building again, “Or he did. Or we both did.”

She slung her now considerably heavier rucksack over her shoulder, making her way for the door. “That was definitely… something.”

“I don’t know, Vladimira...” Octavia leaned against the frame of the opened door cooly, “I like his points on systemized misogyny and misandry, but his lack of experience in dealing with the unique problems regarding Immortal discrimination-- especially us Immortal women-- really turned me off, you know?”

Raising an eyebrow, Vladimira replied, “As opposed to turning you on and making you want to bang him?” She walked through the door and leaned on the opposite side of the doorframe, “It all started with him wanting to see my chest, and then… I’m not sure. Something happened.”

“Wow, that’s pretty silly!” Octavia looked off in the direction the crowd marched in wistfully, “What a forward thinking, unique and completely irrelevant character.”

Watching the crowd stampeding off, Vladimira snickered to herself, “I get the feeling he’s going to turn up again.”
“Pfft! No way!” Octavia turned to head inside, “I’d bet a million bullets no one ever hears from that guy ever again!”

---

5:01 PM

Vladimira sauntered down the street with her recently acquired anti-everything rifle slung across her back. Some place she couldn’t pronounce at the moment, that was where this “Miss Castalia” was. She was mildly curious about what a Mafia family member would be doing at a French… place, of all things, but it didn’t really matter much to her right now.

What to say, what to say? She thought to herself, grumbling and shooting hostile looks at anyone who got too close.

She stopped in front of a building that matched the Bartender’s description, the words, La Petite Morte clearly visible. She stood and stared at it for a while, wishing she didn’t have to walk in there before taking a deep breath and moving for the door.

Lucania blinked her eyes over and over, she felt both an intense dryness and moisture that would not leave. Blinking did nothing. From where she stood, in the lobby of the French woman's... business... the art that she had been lead back to after her makeup was over came into focus. Everything seemed so much more fuzzy-- the painting, which before had been a beautiful mess of vibrant colors, now seemed but a dim mesh of browns. All of her being dearly hoped this sensation in her eyes wasn't permanent-- apparently they were centerpiece of the French Woman's makeover for Immortals looking to adopt a new appearance.

Contacts.

"You will adjust."

"I suppose..." The voice from behind her drew Lucania's attention to the Francophone devil, her 'makeover' complete, Lucania now awaited her Windcaller... who was... somewhere? Lucania turned to the voice, recognizing the blurry silhouette of the small lady, "How soon, do you think?" Lucania brought up her arm to rub her eyes and was met with another slap.

"No! No touching ze contacts! Your eyes still need time to recover after the treatment!"

Lucania’s reply bemoaning the indignation of being treated like some furry housepet was put on hold-- a new player entered the scene. With now imperfect eyes, Lucania made out the silhouette of a tall, probably muscled, black haired woman with... odd glowing goggles? Or perhaps glasses? Or maybe they were red eyes? The garb Lucania could make out seemed from out of town, but with the current dismal state of her vision, she really couldn’t tell… although, with the speed the French Woman left Lucania for the woman, she’d have bet that she was an Immortal looking for a quick disguise. It all seemed to be of little consequence to her.

The French Woman practically sprinted to where Vladimira was standing, suddenly all smiles, “Oui! Welcome to La Petite Morte! Which of our services can we offer you?”

“Fine!” Lucania, still rubbing a red check from across the room yelled, “You’ve got your ammo! I’ll just find my manservant on my own! Blind as a sand bat!” Grumbling, she began to feel her way around the lobby, using the wall as something of a guide.

Vladimira recoiled instinctively as an overly energetic French woman appeared in her face, asking her something about services and offering them. She carefully backpedaled, “Look, eh, I’m not interested in any ‘services’ right now, maybe later. She slowly crept back through the door with her eye on the woman. “I’m just looking for a ‘Miss Castalia’ right now, I think her name is… Lucania, or something of that nature?”

She looked around the room, seeing Lucania and not recognizing her, she made her way over, “Ehm, hi, you wouldn’t happen to know where I could find a ‘Lucania’ would you?”

Anxiety?

She was loathe to admit it, but in that moment that woman approached, asking for her, Lucania couldn’t help but feel an acute anxiety tinge all her actions; her sight was already blurred beyond convenience-- all for the sake of eyes that didn’t shift through a myriad of colors the instant she felt anything! Now beyond that she found her breathing labored, her legs locked in place, and even the typically routine task of thinking became strained. She had difficulty analyzing the situation due to her overwhelming fear. She was like… a desert caribou beast in the headlights.

Had the Wings really send an assassin? In broad daylight?

Vladimira paused, looking around the room, “I uh, I have something someone I met a good ways outside Russel wanted me to give her.” She glanced back at the French woman nervously, “She’s not going to force a makeover on me, right?”

“Merde! I might!” Tossing her arms up in exasperation, the French woman wandered off, muttering expletives in a language that was probably French, but not before turning in Lucania’s general direction and yelling, “She isn’t an undercover Wing, you paranoid wop-- you can spot those asshole from a kilometer away.”

“Perhaps you can,” Lucania scoffed. Still, the woman’s words did serve to put her mind at ease, even if only slightly. This person could still want to kill her, but private assassins were much more easily bought than Wings, and breathing a sigh of relief, Lucania tried to regain her poise.

“Well, you’ve found her.” Straightening herself, Lucania faced the woman with a patented confidence… only to be greeted with a slightly less version of the red bespectacled stranger. Leaning closer, Lucania squinted, gaining some clarity as her ‘new’ eyes shifted between the subtle browns of confusion and dying fear, “May I ask the name of this ‘someone?’”

Vladimira raised an eyebrow at the exchange. Undercover… Wing? The woman in front of her was apparently Lucania herself, which solved the problem of finding her, she supposed. “Oh, right, it was… uh, Evelyn? Evelina? Something like that? She wanted me to give you this.”

Slowly, with her empty other hand in plain sight, she drew out the pistol, holding it by the slide to make it clear she had no intention of using it. She nervously offered it grip first to the Mafia woman, “It was something about not really needing it but hoping it’d help keep you safe, or something.” She shifted awkwardly, “I can’t really remember what she said, sorry.”

Lucania was at a loss for words. “Evelina was her name.” Gently plucking the gun from Vladimira’s grip with two fingers, she very briefly considered throwing the thing across-- of course, knowing her luck, she’d damage the one thing in here she couldn’t afford to replace. Instead, she opted to looking down at the blurry thing-- it was cool, heavy and looked like some formless black letter v in her hands. Where was Evelina going that she didn’t need a gun? Why would she think she’d have any use for it? Lucania’s grip tightened, she could feel the silent frustration seething. She knew what this was.

Her grip loosened, she needed to remain focused. So Evelina didn’t posses the gumption say any of this in person? Well then, it was probably for the best, Lucania didn’t need another coward in her life. Looking back to Vladimira, she let the gun slip from her fingers and fall to the ground. “And who are you to her?”

“An acquaintance, I suppose?” Vladimira replied, “She was fighting a Hollow, she looked like she could’ve done with some help, so... I helped.” She shrugged helplessly, “All I know is she was going somewhere, where exactly I don’t know, it was something to do medical… stuff, I believe.”

Medical stuff?

With narrowed eyes, Lucania tilted her head, “Medical stuff? You mean to tell me there was a medical emergency so pressing she couldn’t even be asked to come and say goodbye? And what-- it obviously wasn’t a medical emergency there, lest you’d be far more specific about it... ” Lucania frowned, “I thought she wanted to pursue something…” Lucania rolled her eyes, “What kind of loser sends someone they just met-- while apparently fighting a hollow-- to break up for them?”

Vladimira shrugged, “I don’t know.” She looked at Lucania in mild concern, this wasn’t what she’d wanted to happen. She should’ve thought this through more before barging in and running her mouth with the first thing that came to mind. Perhaps the truth- or some derivative of it- might’ve been the best course of action after all. “I don’t know what was between you two,” she began before sighing helplessly, “all I know is that she wanted me to give that to you, and that she had somewhere she needed to go. There was a Hollow, I helped kill it, she asked me if I could do a favor, beyond that, I can’t say.”

“I apologize.” Lucania relaxed her posture a bit, heat brained from her face as frustration and aggression became annoyance and resignation, she was probably looking too far into it. “Alright, the point is, ‘she’s gone.’ No point in shooting the messenger.” She fished around in her purse for a cigarette and lighter, her eyes shooting to Vladimiras, “And what is the name of that messenger, if you don’t mind my asking? You already know mine.”

“Vladimira, Vladimira Kovalik.” She replied, heaving an internal sigh of relief as Lucania relaxed, at least she wasn’t likely to have her killed now. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to make it out of the city with the Mafia after her skin. Quirking an eyebrow, she continued, “Why do you ask?”

“No reason.” Lucania smiled cheerfully, “Call me Old Worldly, but I think names carry an importance, both for oneself and one’s family…” Lucania trailed off, following a thought, before returning to the conversation a few seconds later, “Yours in particular, for instance! Vladimira, carries with it some sense of Russia’s Old World strength! And Kovalik…”

Kovalik? That… sounds quite familiar, actually…

“Actually Vladimira, speaking of names-- does the name Andrei Kovalik mean anything to you?”

Vladimira started, her attention riveting on Lucania in a fraction of a second. “It. Does.” She stated evenly, showing no emotion, “What about him?” Her mind turned, if this really was Andrei… she thought he was dead, eaten by some angry thing in the desert, or a bleached skeleton grimacing into the sun, the thought that he might be alive… she wasn’t sure if she’d rather punch him in the face, or hug him. Maybe both. Keeping her voice even, she continued, “If he’s the one I’m thinking of, he’s my brother.”

“Ha!” Lucania clasped her hands together, “You’re the Tsar’s sister? He never mentioned a sister!” Lucania shook her head, “I should have seen the family resemblance earlier!” She squinted, “Although I will admit my vision isn’t it’s greatest right now-- but as I look closer they’re becoming more and more apparent. What a small world we live in…”

Although she might not go so far as to label him as a ‘friend,’ Andrei ‘The Tsar’ Kovalik was something of a powerhouse in the city of Wolfwater. He was the leader of Moscow Echo, a gang-- or as he often corrected her an organization-- out of the Wolfwater city-state. She considered the distinction a moot one, in a similar vein as the difference between ‘Castalia gang’ and ‘Castalia crime family.’ Still, she tended to abide by the preference, as it was of the lesser of the man’s numerous eccentricities-- unless she wanted to fluster him.

Moscow Echo specialized in “completely legal” arms dealing and “private” protection, things the Castalia family needed deary as found themselves expanding into the well-oiled Wolfwater walls, under her direction. The deals she brokered with Andrei eventually gave birth to the Wintergold Conglomorate-- an “above-board” subset of both gangs organizations and families, designed specifically for the pursuit of anything in Wolfwater that might turn a profit to both parent gangs organizations and families that dealt in their combined strengths. Lucania considered the alliance and expansion into Wolfwater one of her proudest achievements, no doubt because it was one made entirely on her own.

Wintergold was hers.

... Well… more or less… it was… half hers, with Andrei as an equal business partner.

Which, still, that was more than any Castalia had achieved on their own in decades. Suffice to say, while she might not have considered the lanky, Russia-obsessed weirdo a friend, she definitely considered him a comrade.

Which possibly marked the first Italian-Russian alliance in history, as far as she could think of.

“Hmm,” Lucania snapped from her thoughts with the lighting of her cigarette, “So, Vladimira, apparently Moscow Echo’s Tsar’s big sister; Is the obsession with Old World Russian paraphernalia genetic? Or is he just eccentric?”

Vladimira’s mouth hung open, “He’s the… the what? I thought he’d died years ago! Some skeleton in the sands or whatever. You’re telling me he’s the head of a criminal organization and…” she trailed off, asking after a while, “You know him?” as an afterthought, she added in a slightly embarrassed tone, “And I have no idea, but it’d seem the former. Father collects Russian literature, what little of it there is, mother made Russian styled jewelry, and I’m packing a small Russian arsenal.” She blushed slightly, “O боже, it is genetic.”

“Wait, Russians wear jewelry?” Lucania blurted out, “I mean, I knew Russian fashion wasn’t completely barren! The first time I met Andrei I work a statuesque Soviet dress-- and then he asked me how much I’d sell it for-- but I didn’t know Russia was known for its… Jewelry… that’s interesting…” She shrugged, “Regardless, I do know Andrei! He’s a sweetheart, despite practically ruling Wolfwater. We’re partners in a joint business venture down there-- you should look him up sometime, I’m sure he’d be happy to see you.”

Vladimira raised an eyebrow, “Yes, there is such a thing as Russian jewelry, even in Russia wasn’t exactly known for it, my mother would’ve been able to tell you more. I know more about their weapons.” She was silent for a little while as she processed the information Lucania had given her. “I think I’d like that…” she murmured, “I mean, I’d like to see him, then probably punch him in the face, then probably hug him.” She leaned against a wall, watching the opposite wall in what seemed to be fascination, “To think the personable slacker has an entire criminal organization now. Makes me wonder what the hell I’ve been doing hiding in a hole this whole time.” She looked over to Lucania, “You wouldn’t happen to be looking for anyone to follow you around and be scary, at least until you next hit Wolfwater, would you?”

“Wow,” Lucania’s eyes betrayed her feelings of being impressed, as she tried to maintain a neutral tone, “Straightforward and perceptive. How could you even know that?” Her face became serious, “I suppose I am looking for someone like that… Do you have any qualms with killing people?”

Vladimira raised her eyebrow again, “With a few exceptions, such as myself, no. What exactly would be the circumstances of this potentially needing to kill people?”

“Oh you know, the usual; Mindless bandits looking to make the fortune of a lifetime, Wings looking for a promotion in killing a fugitive, bigoted Immortal hating vigilantes, normal crime hating vigilantes, someone looking for some type of revenge, hits put on me by people in public office, or rival gangs, or my OWN gang…” She sighed, counting by holding up fingers for each threat, “The list goes on an on! Honestly, not asking too many questions about who might be trying to kill me is always a bonus. I imagine my new appearance won’t stop all the assassination attempts…” Rolling her eyes, she finished, “Que sera sera, I suppose. Although I must ask why you seek to follow me until I reach Wolfwater? You’ve got more weapons with you now than I’ve ever touched in my life, I don’t doubt your capability-- why follow me? The pay?”

Vladimira shrugged, “Honestly I’m not too concerned. They’re all going to be using steel weapons I’ll bet, and, well, it’s a lot harder to attack someone when your own weapon has turned itself around and is buried in your throat. Another excellent way to avoid death by gunshot wounds: body armor.”

She pushed herself off from the wall, looking directly at Lucania, “Honestly? If you have money that’s great, but all I’d be doing otherwise is sitting in a hole and telling myself I ought to do something, like head to Wolfwater. The truth is, I’m bored.”

“Bored…?” Lucania’s hand came to her cheek as she parroted the word back to herself. Ennui? Was that all it took to drive a person to suicidal lengths? To seek some meaning within a life felt wasted? Of course, Vladimira also wanted to see her brother-- she could be overthinking it, perhaps she just needed more time to steel herself for the encounter? Either way, she doubted that when she did eventually show up in Wolfwater Andrei would be happy to learn that she’d met his sister, only to leave her in Russel City.

Comrade of my comrade or something like that.

“I can empathize.” Lucania returned Vladimira’s gaze, “Okay, yes, absolutely! ¿Por Que No?” She walked over to Vladimira, initiating a handshake, “Once our Windcaller shows up, we’ll get out of here.”

Can you not feel their approach.

On the wall, between ridiculous impressionist paintings, an equally post-post-modern clock struck told counted down another minute. The time was 5:15.

TICK

TOCK

---

4:32pm

Ivan grumbled, peering down the muddied alleyway to see a pair of dirt caked boots up against a wall, a familiar plastic flower adorning the side of each. Ivan had come here after having run out of options, unable to find any other dealers out on the street no doubt due to the sky water. Unfortunately this left him with 'Lily' as she liked to call herself, the only dealer in Russell who Ivan personally knew. Knowing her, Ivan had been right to guess that she'd be stubborn enough to be outside still trying to sell in this weather.

She sold Mary J., and her boss, Noah, was the sole provider of it in Russell City since it was hard for anyone to grow the stuff outside of Gaen territory. While Lily herself wasn't that bad a person she was very loyal to her boss, Noah, and Noah wasn't too fond of Ivan considering what had happened last time he'd been in Russell. It had been a stupid set of circumstances, and it had ended with Ivan being practically robbed; left without bullets or herb. Not to be made a fool of, Ivan managed to find the bastard's home and blow a hole in one of his walls. Then he'd simply stolen what he believed he was entitled to, and disappeared from Russell for a few years. While the idea of his bullets eventually going into Noah's pocket made him regret needing to buy from here, Ivan wanted to have something other than that fungus he'd picked up in Isolone for the purpose of mixing things up. It had also been a long while since he'd had the herb, and seeing Lily again would be a bit of a bonus.

"Oy, Lily," Ivan called out, walking down the alley towards the pair of boots. Silently he prayed it was her, and not some random person who was hanging out in the same alley she'd always occupied.

"Rag-man?" was the response Ivan got back, the still familiar but now older voice sounding somewhat startled as Ivan watched her boots shift slightly.

So it is her, Ivan thought to himself, recalling the nickname she'd given him the first time they'd met. "Yeah, it's me," Ivan replied, drawing closer to find she was standing underneath some sort of overhang to keep dry. Feeling somewhat nostalgic, Ivan gave an amused huff as he let himself fall into the side of the building, leaning only a short distance away from Lily. Now that he was closer, Ivan could see that her clothing still had a fair amount of dust and dirt on it indicating that she was relatively dry, though her head was completely invisible meaning she'd either gotten better at keeping clean, or she'd been caught out in the sky water for long enough to wash away what was on her face. She was still fairly young, and though now was probably in her early twenties she hadn't visibly grown or changed much. She was incredibly thin, almost unhealthily so, and hardly had any curves which she always tried to cover up with baggier clothing. Sure she was a bit taller now, but that wasn't saying much considering Ivan still had to look down a fair bit to meet where he assumed her face was.

"Rag-man, s'been too long," Lily laughed, the faint outline of her arm lifting up so that Ivan could meet her with a fist bump. "Man, last I 'eard of you Noah was screamin' 'is 'ead off 'bout wannin' ta put 'is boot up yer ass- that was years ago, I 'aven't 'eard from ya since. Yu just up an' disappeared," she then went on to say, near the end sounding like she was trying to scold Ivan almost as if he were a misbehaved child. The two of them were what you could have called friends, one of few Ivan held in this world, but their friendship was almost wholly centered on getting too high to speak which made things a little hollow.

"It's nice to see you too Lily," Ivan replied, chuckling a little before continuing. "And yeah, I know Noah is probably still mad but one of his boy practically mugged me- I wasn't gonna take that. He probably just told you I robbed 'im though," he then remarked, sounding somewhat grim.

"Rings a bell," Lily told him, sounding somewhat thoughtful as the two of them were left in a somewhat awkward silence.

Clearing his throat, Ivan broke the quiet before he reached into the pocket on his vest to retrieve all the bullets he had left. "Hey, uh, how much will this get me?" he asked, holding out the fistful of bullets towards Lily. There were only three of them left, each one a different size with the largest belonging to what must have been a fairly heavy caliber gun. How much they were worth Ivan didn't really know, but he trusted Lily enough to give him a fair deal.

Lily let out a short puff of air from her nose, something she always did when cracking a smile, before she grabbed the bullets from Ivan's palm and examined each before putting them in her pocket. "'S'at the real reason ye came ta see me?" she asked, her words sounding heavier compared to before.

"When it eventually crossed my mind, I'd have come by to say hello regardless. You're the only person out in this weather still selling shit though so it's a two birds, one stone kinda thing," Ivan explained, trying to sound as sincere as he could. While it was for the most part true, he'd all but forgotten Lily up until he'd remembered her as his last option. She didn't say anything, being silent as she reached inside her jacket and pulled out a somewhat dirty clump of plastic that no doubt contained a gram or two of weed. Ivan sighed, not yet accepting the little package as he crossed his arms somewhat sternly. "Lily, I know you're not lookin' at me. I can't see yer head right now but I know you ain't lookin'. I want you to know that at any other time, this would have been a better reunion but believe it or not for once I have somewhere I have to go," Ivan stated, his voice having adopted a far more serious tone. This caused Lily to stir, her body shifting to better face Ivan indicating that'd he had her attention.

"I know what happened to make the sky cry like it is- I saw it, and I know the man who said he knows where the person responsible is. Things get a bit complicated, and I'm not sure I want to get mixed up into it but it has to do with the immortals. I need to know more; I feel like it's a responsibility I need to take care of, ya know?" Ivan explained, his words very stern as he felt almost like he were giving a lecture.

Lily laughed, it sounding genuine enough even though it still carried a dampened undertone. "Jus' take yer weed 'nd go, Rag-man. The desert's callin' yer name," she sighed, clenching the clump of plastic in her hand so she could give Ivan a light punch in the arm. When her fist connected she opened her palm, and Ivan unfolded his arms to catch the little nugget before it could hit the ground.

"If we're both still alive, I'll see you in another time. Stay safe," Ivan told Lily, lifting a muddied arm to give her a quick pat on the shoulder before removing his backpack so he could put away his newest ray of sunshine. It felt even more unpleasant than normal now that he was wet, and Ivan shuddered as he put his pack back on. Unhappily he rolled his shoulders a few times, trying to rid of the sensation that removing his pack always brought about.

"Enjoy the sky water," Ivan huffed, breathing deeply as he turned away with one final wave of his hand. As he left the alleyway, Ivan took another look around the street he'd emerged onto before retrieving his compass again. After having direction once more, the lone man began trudging through the muddied streets towards the southern exit of the city. On his way, Ivan began to notice the streets beginning to become more active: people shouting, throwing bottles, and a few times Ivan had needed to rush off the street to avoid an oncoming vehicle. There was an air of panic in the voices he heard, and Ivan muttered a short prayer in hopes that whatever was happening people would be alright.

Eventually, Ivan reached the outskirts of the city and pocketed his compass, standing tall as he felt the water begin working it's chill into his bones. "I better get somewhere dry before nightfall," he breathed, speaking to himself as he slowly raised his arms. Ivan began walking, the mud around him bubbling in protest as it began to get dragged along behind him. Slowly Ivan picked up his pace, lifting his arms further as the ground beneath him shifted and began to try climbing up his legs each time they touched the ground. Then, with the built up momentum Ivan gave a short leap, snapping his arms upward as a surge of mud rose up to envelope his lower body. His legs completely encased, Ivan leaned forward as the rolling mound carried him away from Russell city. Underneath his hood Ivan gave a smirk, feeling quite proud of himself as his focused his efforts on keeping a steady pace. Traveling like this in no way hid his immortal status, but it was far faster than walking or gliding and Ivan had enough practice that he could keep it up all night if he had to. Once more, Ivan retrieved his compass, adjusting his course to a more South-west direction as he referenced the map he held in his head. "Isolone," he huffed, a smirk on his face as once more his focus fell on the shifting earth beneath him.