Umbri dragged a hand down her face and flicked the blood off, eyes wide with a complete lack of control. Her escort was being literally torn apart. Fuck, she needed him. That cyberpsycho was her best bet of survival, even though immediate survival looked more like legging it right. Now. Her instincts, which had snatched her by the hair and ripped her against the concrete the entire night, wanted that. She'd already fought her battle and won her prize. This wasn't her business anymore. What would be good for her an hour, a day, a week from now was a blip. Lockdown hadn’t seen her. She was halfway gone.
Dammit.
Dammit.
He was so helpless.
In a situation entirely of his own making, but helpless and dying and probably afraid if he hadn’t already shut off that part of his brain with all the wires clogging his humanity up. Helpless. Dying. Afraid. The voice that pushed her to run was getting quieter, until all that was left was...
Umbri didn’t see this part of herself as anything to value. A hand lowered down to raise others did nothing to lift yourself. And she had to keep climbing. Climb like hellfire was coming after her. She tossed the fire extinguisher aside and pulled something from her pocket that flashed.
BANG.
Red, smoky ribbons spiralled off the barrel of her gun, raised to the sky. She stood in the open. Unlike her gun, her head was down. Her immediate, terrible regret was shadowed by the bangs of her wig. She offered her hand down and was dragged to Hell for it.
Impossible. Now that was the word of the day. So many times she wanted to shout that word and wave her finger, refute everything she was seeing and make it go away. Even if she could shut her eyes and pretend it wasn't happening, the pain kept her grounded in this nightmare.
Seeing him gave her pain.
It took over everything else. Icy pinpricks attacked her ankle and her neck wound, spreading until all her skin was cold with sweat. Her stomach churned and head spiralled with nausea. There wasn't the familiar feeling of acidic heat in the back of her throat. An icicle sat at the base of her tongue. If she moved she was going to hurl up the entire Arctic.
She'd only glimpsed him once before, the man who held her life in his iron hand. When she first approached JAHANNAM for a loan. She'd been young and nervous, and though she was well aware that she was a minnow in a world full of predators, she hadn't learned yet how to navigate that chain. Seeing him on her way out cemented the reality that she could not survive on grit alone, not when that was what was hunting her. She had to get smarter. If she only hadn’t been so desperate then she might have learned that lesson sooner.
The dying shrieks of the snake raked at her chest. It wasn’t fair. It was a predator, proud and territorial, just hungry, it didn’t deserve this. The stinger in her pocket felt less like a necessity and more like a trophy by the second and it disgusted her. But complicit in its destruction as she was - the way he was brutalising it was on another level. It wasn’t survival, it didn’t respect it, it was cruel… and it was her future.
She wasn’t thinking about getting away anymore. The tools she’d collected - the axe, the gun, the extinguisher - she might as well have tossed. He just destroyed the monster that took so much of her to even land a strike on, all without bringing a drop of sweat to his brow. She wasn’t thinking about getting away. She was preparing herself. The poison, ankle, even blood coating her top half posed as new threats to her now - how will she dance like this?
Her morbid thoughts were pushed down as her companion moved away from her, leaving her to balance on her own. Stay here? That chrome junky wasn’t serious…
“No… no!” she gasped as she limped after him, “You said… you said we were leaving. You can’t go. Don’t fight him, please don’t fight him.” She rambled. Her face was pale like it had been painted with lead. She just missed his hand. Shit! She was losing him. It was so hard to stay mysterious and desirable while trying not to piss yourself in fear. She fell against a wall instead and held in a whimper as her ankle flared up.
“I don’t know how to get to Shieldtown,” she murmured, reaching for him with urging eyes, “I don’t know how to… leave Northbridge. I don’t know if I can.”
The snake tilted its head. A low purr came between its jagged teeth, its ear-wings pricked at the static amidst the downpour. Temujin extended both his blades. He slinked out of the shadows, his armour wet and glossy from the water, his jet black eyes staring down the serpent for their final confrontation.
Smoke coiled from the sides of the snake’s maw. A red glow pierced through the scales, building in its throat. It opened its mouth…
An explosion of white vapor hit the monster in the face. In an instant the ninja and snake were covered by a hissing cloud. The hiss cut off - with a solid thud, something cylindrical and red dropped from the sky and rolled past Temujin. A rush of air followed after it. Tendrils of smoke cut through by a flaring pink jacket.
Umbri’s red eyes pierced through the smoke. She moved to grip something in two hands. She launched herself in two steps and swung.
The snake reared back with a screech. Dark smoke escaped through the gash Umbri had slashed through its cheek. Its thrashing parted the white clouds. Umbri stood beneath it holding the fire axe. She hadn’t changed. The only thing different about her were the bandages wrapped around her left ankle, which she stood on, in her clear heels, without folding. She switched the axe to her left hand and shot her right up.
It was wrapped in the same sports tape as her ankle. Talcum powder dusted her palms.
The calculating was over, the plan was in action, pure adrenaline and no thoughts rushed her head as she shouted, commanded,
“TEM!”
Temujin flew past the snake and over the rafters. He shot the wire from his palm, landed on the side of the beam, and pulled - with Umbri clutching the end of the cable. He stepped back, further and further, atop the beam, towards the edge, and jumped. She flew up spinning, her pink jacket flaring out like a dancer’s skirt. The momentum of his dive yanked Umbri higher and faster than before, in time and out of reach of the snake's snapping jaws, until she stopped, dangling from stretched wire… with Temujin ahead of her, their positions balanced between the serpent like weights on a scale.
With the wire in one hand and a blade above the other, Temujin swung. Green light staked behind the ear-wing and scorched a glowing scar into the skin. The serpent's tail lashed out - but Temujin was already on the other side, swinging past its head, sparks cast from his palm as he stretched the cable to its limit.
Umbri’s heels skipped across the wall. Her eyes tracked the deadly tail as she ran. She almost slipped as she lost momentum but launched herself off, bringing her legs up over her head, putting her entire weight into the swing. The axe swung at the back of the beast’s head, this time harmlessly bouncing off the scales. She danced through the air past its retaliation, every movement designed to keep this pendulum swinging. “Pin it!” She shouted.
Temujin grunted. He did not savour taking orders. Words and lines flashed in his vision whilst he took in their surroundings. As he reached the apex of his swing, the cyber ninja slashed a beam above him - twice -, planted his feet against a nearby wall, stabbed the length of metal, and wire-slung right back into the fray with a mighty kick, ripping a chunk of the beam in the process. The new weight had Umbri jerking back with a stomach-dropping severity and flying up. Wind rushed past Temujin at near-blinding speeds. He flew over the fins, jumped over the curve of black coils, and - with his eyes on the target - chucked the steel beam as a javelin. The rectangular slab spun through the air, between its coils, arcing high until-
A clean hit. Metal lanced into flesh and pinned the tail against concrete. The serpent’s rattling wail drowned Temujin’s vision in static and sent Umbri’s ears ringing. She let go of the wire. It whipped out of her grasp over the rafters and dropped after a falling Temujin. Her hand slammed onto the beam in its place.
“!” The ninja flailed, dropping twelve feet back-first onto the ground. His wire slithered through the air, snapped back inside his palm and tucked beneath a clenched fist. He looked up. She’d pulled herself up to crawl along the rafters. It was all on her now. “Go for him,” she whispered. Watching the thresher twist, its head turning to the fallen ninja. “Go. Go get him.”
Temujin rolled to a knee. He ignited one arm blade, with a glow and hum that the serpent associated with its quarry. He rolled, dived, and struck, lobbing scrap and detritus to agitate the beast, with a veil of aggression over evasive actions.
With a gasp she fell.
Both hands grasped the axe as she twisted through the air. Heels found purchase on scales and skidded down to ground safely. With legs far apart, she hauled the axe up.
Glowing blood splattered her face as the weapon crunched down. Then a second time. With a third frenzied swing the stinger finally separated. Her hand plunged down to seize the prize and thrust it above her head.
Water pooled on the floor of Umbri’s apartment, trickling down from something wet and shambling dragging itself in. Mindlessly, swinging at the air and anything to lean on, pushing forward against the groan of a bone that could no longer support this perseverance. She threw herself, from wall, to cabinet, to a door frame. A fluorescent light flickered on automatically, blaring down on a bathroom, about the size of an elevator shaft, with tall white walls stretching up to an unusually tall ceiling. A few tropical fish darted around in a small aquarium. It hummed. The lights buzzed. Umbri threw herself at the toilet.
She retched and coughed, choking on the fluids rushing out of her throat. Her hunched figure warped in the glassy eyes of the fish. Chunks of the bugs she’d eaten earlier splattered and swirled around the bowl. Then the purge was complete. She staggered back up, the glaze on her eyes lifting, and looked around, confused - for just a moment - by how she had gotten here.
You need to stay here. Stay and hide, the cyberpsycho had said. She didn’t listen. Of course she didn’t listen. He didn’t know what she had to run from. The kind of danger she was really in had nothing to do with the beast he fought now. She had to pack her bags and be ready to run again the moment he came back with the…
Umbri gingerly brought a hand up, watching herself in the mirror. A vein of neon green had coiled around her neck and stolen her attention. She winced as her fingers nudged the wound. They came back, tips coated in a radioactive green that tingled.
“...”
This was the stuff that was going to kill her.
That stomach-churning thought wouldn’t go away. She wanted to not think about it. She wanted to pack her bags and be ready to go and just let somebody save her. But she didn’t trust the Rogue who had set out to do that. Didn’t trust him, didn’t believe in him. She smelled burning rubber when he held her. Seen the smoke rising from tears in his synthetic muscles. He won’t come back. He won’t come back for you. He’d either be too dead or too cruel.
If he doesn’t, she thought, If the poison shuts my body down…
A fragile memory. Pulling back curtains to gaze upon a girl, her little face hidden under the tubes and mask keeping her alive, disappearing into the sheets of a hospital bed.
Umbri lurched over the sink and grimaced, shaking her head. She groaned as she fought off the memory, but in her head, she couldn’t stop the drag of her feet against the tiled floors, bringing her closer and closer to her nightmare. “No,” she whimpered under her breath, then slammed the side of the sink with a frustrated shout. "No, no! Fuck!"
IT CAN’T.
Her painted fingers stretched out to her reflection, dragging a line across the nose.
And she can’t rely on a cyberpsycho to ensure that it WON’T.
She stared at herself, huffing and sick and dressed in its venom like warpaint. She knew that she had to go. She was so scared. She KNEW that she had to go. Her body wasn’t hers to let die.
She packed. Slower than she wanted to move. Every time she put weight on that ankle now she wanted to scream. Photos, clothes she didn’t look at, her hologram gear, wigs. Talcum powder. Sports strapping tape, from days she sommersalted around poles instead of danced against them. Almost everything she had in a single backpack. Before she left she pressed her forehead to the tank and bid it, “I’m sorry.” A whole open tube of fish food floated to the bottom and settled on the aquarium gravel as she left.
She took the apartment's fire extinguisher in the corridor. Used its butt to smash in the glass cabinet holding the axe. Then she moved up. Up to the very top floor, out onto the rooftop, to look for blooms of fire and green light.
…
There.
She knew that she had to go. Her body wasn't hers to let die.
Umbri was really out of it. She was so out of it, it looked like her legs had disappeared. Whatever had stuck her in the neck was gone but the ghost of it remained, and it burned. She still needed to throw up. Purge herself of whatever poison that was making her so ill.
The thresher slithered through the park, its head low and searching. Steam trailed from its mouth as it opened and flicked its tongue through the air. As it came closer, Umbri’s body tensed and she almost cried into the Rogue’s hand in alarm. Her knee shifted, and the air warped around it, revealing the faintest outline of an object there. It can’t see. Her eyes came swiftly into focus, double vision merging onto one track - she was invisible. They were invisible. Her head scrambled to make sense of it. What kind of technology was this? Was it magic? Don’t be stupid, robots can’t do magic.
Even with the assurance that the beast couldn’t see her, it came closer. Yellow eyes narrowed and its long form followed after their glare towards them. How, Umbri sweated, How? She caught the flicker of yellow beneath her as the snake reared up over them and observed… not them. The rippling colours in the puddle beneath them.
It can see our reflection.
Umbri’s stomach plummeted with the realisation. The Rogue hadn’t noticed it yet. He wouldn’t still be trapping her in place if he had. Against his warning, Umbri pulled out the gun.
The air distorted slightly as her arm moved, ever so slowly, raising her arm straight towards the snake’s head. It came nearer, hissing, closer to the puddle, closer to them, until the barrel of her gun was a ruler’s length from its eyes. A fiery glow pierced through the scales of its throat. The ripples in the puddle began to relax into a smooth mirror, and Umbri’s trigger finger twitched -
A loud clang and an animal’s call jerked the thresher’s head. With a shake of its fins, it bared its fangs and dived after it. Its massive length rushed past and sprayed them with water. Umbri stayed very still, gun aimed the way it went, until the hisses and the rattle of its movement had faded away. Her arm collapsed.
Umbri waited two beats after the shadow of the monster passed over her head, following the Rogue. Then she pulled herself out of the vent.
Like HELL was she sticking around, waiting for the return of a robot programmed by a psychopath. He’d drawn the thresher’s attention from her, now wasn’t the time to hide, it was time to go home. Jahannam would eat her alive once the ‘big guy’ realised she wasn’t coming, and she feared being devoured by that gang more than the monster.
She hobbled her way across the roof to the fire escape ladder. The view down stretched and warped in front of her unstable feet. Shit… she couldn’t make it down the ladder. Not with two of her limbs compromised. Her hand clenched over the dislocated arm, scrunching the jacket. Slowly her eyes trailed to it. Her palm shifted to a few positions until she settled on one. Her breath sped up, whistling through her nostrils. “Mmf,” she cringed, her voice slipping out and protesting what was about to happen. “Mmmghh…” She made her move. A crack split the air.
“Eyaaaaaghhhhhhhhh!!!!”
Thud. Umbri’s heels crunched back down to earth. She let go of the ladder, which she had slid down with two working arms (though the elbow of one still throbbed like a bitch) and went back to limping as fast as she could down the street. She could still hear the thresher’s shrieks, distant as they were. She couldn’t see it, but when she looked up, the smog lit up with distant flashes of fire and laser green. The robot was battling it alone. Don’t look.
She turned her third corner when the uneasy groan of metal pulled at her. Like an old ship, wailing before it keeled. Umbri slowed to a stop, watching the skies uneasily. Something was preventing her from pressing forward. Back. Back. Go back. A rumbling grew closer. A beam struck the ground twenty feet from her. The writhing body of the snake cut through the smog, tumbling with a water tower cleaving its path down the skyline.
The boom of impact almost toppled her. The water tank smashed over the building on the right, sending a spray of shrapnel, but found its resting place through the condemned apartments on her left. The ones she leaned against. Water sloshed over the streets and lapped at her ankles. Suddenly, it was quiet. Dead? She almost looked.
FWWWWWWOOOOOOOSHHHH. Fire blasted against the walls. They melted away, curling, an orange glow spreading like magma from metal so hot it turned white. Umbri pulled her hand away as pieces dripped off and the heat sapped all moisture from her face. It is not dead it is NOT dead not dead NOT DEAD! The stream of fire cut off with a hiss.
Umbri flattened herself to the wall, slowly, slowly inching herself towards a corner to slip behind as the monster’s head poked through. Its neck extended up above her, putting Umbri in the perfect blindspot she was not going to take for granted. She almost fell over as she reached the corner, but caught herself and lowered in a controlled manner to the ground then pulled her legs in after her. She was an injured flea hopping around in the middle of a fight between David and Goliath, and she had almost survived it. She had to be careful now... Something brushed her leg. A long tail explored beside it, stretching out, feeling, and wielding a nasty, dripping stinger.
Umbri instinctively jerked her foot away.
Mistake.
It reared up like a second head and shot out, whipped around her left leg before she knew it and YANKED her. Her scream echoed into the night.
Umbri’s face hit the pavement. She kicked against the tail with her good foot, stamping her heel into it. The powerful tail surged upwards, throwing her onto her stomach. She tried crawling away but it wrapped around her, dragging her by both legs through the flooded street. Its stinger glinted above her thrashing body.
Agony burst from the nape of her neck. Her vision flashed white. The world lurched. What… There was nothing she could do as the tail coiled around her body and took her.
Umbri hunched beside the wall, her gun bobbing between actors on the scene she’d played witness to. The collapsing, headless prey and its demonic hunter. The hunter did not breathe. Umbri caught breath for the both of them...
The fight that had stood between her and death was an oddly quiet one. The monster growled and flailed against a completely silent opponent. The blows that landed on it held no weight, gliding through the thresher’s tough flesh that even a bullet could barely penetrate. Umbri’s eye couldn’t keep up to her defender. It was as though the monster were fighting a phantom. Her head jerked up as it landed on the wall above her. Green rings lit up from the shadows, revealing the vaguest outline of a demon’s face. Her body flinched in fear. Against all logical thought and reason the idle thought solidified - it is a phantom!
But phantoms weren’t made of the metal she now saw glinting in light. The hunter stood before her wearing sculpted, tight-fitting armor - no, those were synthetic muscles shifting underneath the red plates: he was a robot. She subconsciously looked for the brand or name of his make, the cyberware company he owed allegiance to, and came up with only the name: Temujin.She knew that name.
It was grumbled over games of poker she was privy to from her seat on the lap of a gangster. Said in hushed tones in the corners of Hysteria, usually accompanied with admiration or fear. His name had only recently been known among the Rogues of Northbridge, but the path the demon had cut through the settlement had been so bloody and ruthless it was known to every Northbridge citizen with even the slightest darkness to hide - that was everyone. Umbri didn’t know he was a robot. Then what corporation was behind him? Who had programmed him? Questions that would never be answered as he was shredded to pieces. A gruesome, bloodless death.
And she was back to the way she'd been, alone, but torn out of the peace she had made and the memories she’d held like her childhood blanket to ferry her into her final sleep. She wobbled up onto her feet, pushing herself upright with a hand on the wall. What a horrible, pointless way to go.
Whoosh.
Her back smacked against the wall with a gasp. Down tumbled the monster’s head. About as big as the one used as a BBQ pit at that satay shop in the markets. A fresh bounty of prime meat cuts Northbridge could only dream of followed it down.
Umbri was shaking and sweating a fever, looking like she’d gotten caught in a freezing rain. The nerves screaming "danger!" were not calming down and she couldn’t tell, as the aim of her gun switched between them, if it was from fear of the monster rising from the dead or if it was him. Her mind retraced her steps to a memory of fire.
Her gun lowered.
“There…”
She limped a step from the wall, further into the street light. Her make-up was melted, mascara running from her eyes and mixing with glitter, joining the state of her blue lipstick smear. The lingerie showed off every scrape and bruise she’d earned running. Even the pink jacket couldn’t hide her limp, overextended arm, nor her clear heels disguise the swelling of a broken ankle. She swallowed down the impulse to scream as she tried speaking again.
“There were two of...”
Words that almost faded as something took his attention above her. A dark coiled shape, rearing up. Segments lit up along its serpentine, almost aquatic body, red and neon green, starting from its tail and curving up to its mandibles. It lit up the street with its glow. Click click click click… It opened a fanged mouth, looking down, its entire body taut with the intent to strike. Its throat swelled up with a red hot glow.
“... them.”
The snake snapped forward, unleashing a cone of fire down at them.
The doors burst open and Umbri's image shattered, scattering to every mirror of the dressing rooms. Hoots and cheers followed her in and she ran away from them, heavy with bracelets and necklaces of clat bequeathed to her by a grateful audience which she now tore off with the ferocity of pulling free from a web. She dumped it all at her dresser, pausing just a moment to catch her breath. The sweat melting off her body glitter was turning cold. The next act gave her stash a jealous side-eye as she sashayed out to the stage. Umbri eyed her in the reflection until she'd left the room and she was alone, then locked her eyes upon herself.
"And don't you dare think about giving us the slip."
Her hand clenched over the strings of clatter.
The club was eerie after hours. The lights had dimmed but the smell of their clientele remained, giving the impression someone was still leering over your shoulder. Girls scoured the floor and picked up what their audience dropped; be it clat, alcohol or personal artifacts, anything could be of use to someone in here. Patricia wiped down the bar. She wore a bdsm-styled bunny mask she'd pulled from the back to hide her nose. She moved sluggishly, the pain of her injuries catching up to her now that the rush of the evening had come to an end. Umbri stood five feet from the bar in her jacket and held out a string of clat.
"Hold this for me back there," she said.
Patricia's hand stopped. She looked up at her. "Stash it?" she asked evenly. Umbri nodded. Patricia tilted her head, getting a look at the rest of the clatter still dangling on Umbri's chest. Umbri stood solid, glaring Patricia in the eye with a determined scrunch in her nose. Patricia shook her head.
"Please," Umbri insisted, lurching a step closer. Patricia backed away.
"No fucking way."
"I'll be in tomorrow night. If I'm not there, you keep it. It's just my rent."
"Like hell it is. You said you worked today. This is about pulling a fast on them."
"Patricia -"
"NO!" Something wet accompanied her bark, spraying the inside of her mask. Patricia coughed and pulled at the back of her head. She unstrapped it and dumped it on the bar, and Umbri got a good look at how her injuries had developed. Black, blue, mottled and congealing, a trickle of fresh blood running between the gaps of her teeth. "You don't have a right to pride, Umbri."
Umbri's tight grip on the clatter faltered, her hand lowering. Patricia leaned over the bar with a sigh and beckoned her, pulling up a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses. Umbri watched warily as Patricia poured the shots and knocked one back followed by a pained hiss. The tequila splashed over the rim as she poured herself another one. Umbri sat.
"You think a skunk cares how much it stinks when it sprays you?" Patricia spoke up after the second shot and gestured Umbri to take hers. Umbri curled her fingers around it but nothing else. She shook her head with a shrug. "I don't think possums care about looking stupid when they play dead, either." Patricia swirled her third shot, staring into the light refracting from the glass. "It's not just prey. Even lions. When a new lion challenges the king, throws him out, kills his kin, do the lionesses reject their fate? Band together, fight him off like it's some fucking Disney movie? No. They roll over and do what they have to do." She took her shot. Umbri shifted upright, deeply uncomfortable. Patricia's eyes were old and sad when they laid on her.
"Do what you have to do, Umbri," she said bitterly, her whole heart and will poured into those words. "Creatures like us, we aren't big enough for pride."
Clatter.
Umbri's string of coins was left behind, smacked down defiantly beside her untouched shot. Patricia caught a streak of pink leaving the club.
This would be the last time they saw each other.
Umbri got about ten steps down the street before she heard shoes dragging through puddles on the concrete. She slowed to a stop, wincing. A whistle commanded her to turn back. She faced the shadow of Ganta strutting towards her with arms outstretched and his bodyguards in tow.
"Did you forget about us, doll?" He crooned with mock-hurt. Umbri was frozen, eyes large and heart pumping like a scared rodent's. Ganta's hand lifted a necklace of clat away from her chest. He bounced it in his hand, feeling the weight, and whistled. "You're lucky you're pretty, dollface. Do you get a kick, showing these off?" He ran his thumb over the coins and leaned into her space and sang, "A shiny, pretty coin for every man who's thought about fucking you."
His last words growled. Umbri jerked out of his grasp, her breath shuddering with anger. Her eyes flashed a warning that Ganta only smirked at and she tore off all her clatter, throwing each piece at him. She shoved the last string into his chest before tossing around. She barely began to storm off before click.
"The big guy wants to see you."
The cocked gun pointed directly to the back of her head. Umbri's blood was ice. A menacing silhouette flashed before her mind's eye.
"If it's not enough, I can get you more. Right now," she insisted as soon as she pushed through her stutter. Ganta scoffed.
"It's not that. You did good, pet." He walked until his gun was an inch from her, threads of her wig floating up to meet it. "I told you, didn't I? He's ready to cut his losses. Let's be real here," he nudged her, "No dolly's pretty enough for a debt like yours."
Umbri shut her eyes. Her breath escaped her in a thin whimper. She didn't mean for her voice to come out, but right now, everything was threatening to. Ganta nodded to his entourage and they flanked her. Canary gestured her to move with her shotgun. "Come consciously," Ganta commanded, "We don't want to carry you."
Nobody was out on the street to help her. Not that anybody watching would. Ganta poked her in the head with the gun again, forcibly enough to jostle her forward. Slowly, she walked towards her fate. The three members of Jahannam escorted her out to a black vehicle parked on the street. The quiet swordsman opened one of the back doors, and Canary 'helped' her inside. The door slammed with a loud THUD and the tinted windows muted all colours from outside.
Umbri was alone, cut off from all sound and light. Trapped with nothing but the wet, snivelly sounds of her own fear. She pressed her palms to her eyes with a little gasp, and they pulled away damp. This was it. Anything could happen to her. She could be forced into labor, sold, killed, tortured... anything and everything a creature like her had to fear. Absent of the terror of a gun pressed to the back of her scalp, all she could do was think about what came next and weep in the dark. In an hour or less, something terrible and nebulous was going to happen to her. Something she might not even survive.
But nobody came to take her to it.
Her soft whimpers and tears came to a confused stop as she realized. She'd been left alone in the car for about five minutes. Nobody had come in, nobody had even locked the doors. She brought a hand over her mouth, forcibly quietening herself. The car was sound proofed, likely to hide the screams of Jahannam's victims being ferried inside, but if she strained her ear... shouting. A thud. A... rumble. Machinery? Umbri's hand hovered over the car's handle. She swallowed and let herself outside.
It was unnaturally quiet out here, for the commotion she'd made out from inside the vehicle. Something was snuffling, digging around. She couldn't see it. She moved in a crouch towards the hood of the car, but was halted in her path as a pair of bloodied hands crawled into her vision. The torso of the silent swordsman dragged after them, huffing and moaning.
"Kite?" Umbri whispered his name. His eyes locked with hers and Umbri saw the stare of a crazed, terrified animal. His hands clawed against the concrete desperately.
"No no NO NO FUCK!!!" He shrieked, and was yanked back. Umbri looked up and took in the creature that rose above the car. Far, far above it. Twenty feet up. She'd seen monsters like this before. Dead and chopped and ready for consumption. Her lips hung open in awe and disbelief - it wasn't supposed to be here. They weren't supposed to be in Northbridge.
Kite's body flailed in the air, tossed around in the monster's maw. His sword flung uselessly before flying out of his hand. The silent swordsman was screaming. The monster shook its prey, and Umbri heard the bones breaking and sinew tear. Viscera and Chrome rained down on the street. Kite's torso hit the hood of the car and folded it in. The monster swallowed down his lower half with a snap so powerful it made the air pop.
"KITE! SON OF A BITCH!" Canary hollered. The BOOM of a shotgun stole the monster's attention. It roared and twisted, whipping its tail out and catching the vehicle. Umbri brought her arms up to shield herself as the car was swatted past her, crashing into a building in a smoking heap of metal that could have easily been her coffin. Now she could see everything. Ganta, his butt on the ground and scooting back from the monster, cursing and sweating and shaking too violently to take aim. And Canary, approaching and unloading all her ammo into the beast with wicked fury. She dodged the creature's bite, prosthetic legs glinting as she jumped between vehicles and walls to get above the creature and strike it from the back - the tail. Canary was cut-off mid battle cry. The tail hurtled through her and pinned her body to the wall, the deadly tip spearing her head. Her feet dangled ten feet above ground, her body fell limp. It slid down, leaving a messy streak as it left her cranium behind.
Umbri watched it all and didn't move. The air shook more violently than it ever had. A persistent ringing was in her ear since the crash of the car.
"The sound was like... you know, a train? When you hear one coming. Not just that horrible scream of the wheels, the tremble of the air around you."
A bullet fired into the monster's leg, halting barely an inch into its monstrously tough hide. It's glowing eyes turned to the flea that had dared. Ganta squeaked.
"You know there's no stopping it. No matter how far away you are, when you hear it coming, everything stops for just a second, and you are on those tracks."
"Shit. Shit! No, get away from me," Ganta blubbered as the monster prowled towards him. Umbri's acrylics dragged over the concrete. The ringing was so loud she couldn't hear him beg for his life. The monster's quills spread out and it reared back with a snarl.
"It was that kind of sound."
Ganta's gun went spinning through a red splatter, whipping it into an arc. It skipped across the pool of blood to Umbri's feet. She snatched it.
If this were a movie, when she grabs the gun and goes, her reflection on the puddle beneath her would stay. Like, symbolically. Can't write that in there because it'd read like she literally has funky mirror magic. Also, BLAST THAT TRACK
The sound of her heels pounding the pavement turned the monster's head. It snarled and barreled after her. Umbri spared it one glance when she heard it coming, caught the claws splitting the road with every bound, and behind the beast - a flood of fire from something she did not see, drowning out Ganta's screams. Don't look. She turned her gaze back. Her pupils dilated. Feeling left her legs as she moved. Inside her chest, metal contracted and pulsated. Blood rushed around her head so fast, the world turned slower.
She skidded, taking a sharp left into an alley. The monster followed, shoving its head in after her and slamming its body against the narrow passage. The buildings rattled as it threw itself after her again and again and rusted metal shook loose, before it roared its displeasure and bounded another way. Even without it right on her back Umbri ran, only stopping a second to paw at her ankle.
"Come on, come on!" she whispered fearfully amidst curses, her acrylic nails getting in her way. The monster's roar echoed through the labyrinth, coming from everywhere and shaking the corrugated metal. Umbri abandoned the idea of taking off her shoes. She banged against her heart, muttered "Come on," a final time, and fled. Leaving a bloody smear behind on the poster she'd leaned her hand against, a half torn down advertisement for Ares Laser Technology.
Umbri dashed through the miserable back alleys of Northbridge, crunching over broken glass and splashing through inscrutable substances past shanties made of shipping crates. The clicks and rumbles of the monster never too far behind. Hunched figures slinked back into shadows as she passed them, others looked down from the safety of their homes. Lights flashed past her, blasting from billboards advertising products and lives nothing like the muck she ran through. Cushy jobs working for the upstairs Corpo Estates, the next new Chrome implant from Menagerie Tech, and glamorous products nobody could afford sponsored by the Halcyon Horde. It all just blurred into a stream of colour to her. Bile slickened her throat like oil, her insides were hot and burning and all thoughts seized by instinct, thinking wouldn't help her, JUST MOVE!
She burst out of the shanty town into the markets. The chatter and foot traffic was long gone as she sprinted through - when her clear heels stumbled to an abrupt stop. The pick-up truck that had made today's delivery was still in the middle of the street. It rocked violently side to side, as the beast perched upon it dug through its load and gorged itself on the flesh of its brethren. Burning eyes locked on her and the giant lizard raised its head, bloody sinew stretching between its teeth and its meal. It launched itself off the truck and charged.
BA-THUMP BATHUMP THUMP THUMPTHUMPTHUMP - Umbri's heart hummed with energy that exploded through her limbs as she turned to run. With a gasp, her pupils dwarfed the reds of her eyes and locked onto an approaching flagpole. The monster's breath washed over her back. Umbri jerked out her hand.
It grabbed the pole. Her body followed, violently flinging out as she was jerked back by her own strength. Something in her arm popped. She whipped around in a flurry of limbs, biceps and thighs bulging with hidden power as the momentum carried her up to the top of the flagpole. She didn't stop to watch the monster charge past and roll as it tried to correct its course with a frustrated bellow. She'd already thrown herself off the pole and onto a rooftop under her.
She skidded down the slanted roof to the next street, before falling and tumbling into a pile of trash bags below. One arm was out. Limp and unable to move from the elbow. Didn't matter. Couldn't feel it. MOVE. When she did, an unbearable pain shot from her left ankle up her leg, like being stuck with a pike. Her ankle was purple and swelling - broken. She slammed her fist on the left side of her chest twice. "COME ON!" she roared, and ran. Ran through the agony until it too melted into the white-hot rush of adrenaline with everything else that DIDN'T. MATTER. She ran until she slammed against her final obstacle.
Dead end.
Umbri tried jumping. She flailed to reach up to something with her good arm. A sickening crack came from her ankle as she landed and her legs went out from underneath her sideways. A series of low clicks rumbled behind her, emanating from deep within the monster's throat. Umbri slowly turned to look at it. It prowled out from the shadows of the alley, shaking a mane of spikes. Expressionless eyes like fire fell down on her. Umbri must have looked much like Ganta in this moment. On her ass, back to the wall, nothing but a gun between her and a monster a story tall above her. But for a strange reason, unlike the gangster and despite her terror, Umbri's aim did not shake.
Her heart could not beat any faster if it tried. Such an alien, metallic noise, thrumming through her body. Something she never adopted as a part of her despite being buried deep in her tissue. As the creature loomed above her and death drew her in closer, the Chrome in her chest went silent.
Ba-thump.
And in her memory, she heard another heartbeat.
Ba-thump.
Something familiar. Something that was hers. Something she now held close to her ear, nestled against the chest of another.
The pair of shiny shoes took two steps, paused. A flicker of orange caught on their armored surface in tandem with a click and a fizzle. Embers scattered around golden heels, flashing before crumpling into ash. The shoes resumed their stroll inside.
"H... Hey! I said we're closed!" Patricia stammered, regaining her confidence as she reached under the bar. Her hand didn't get far when a streak of yellow followed the intruder and the barrel of a shotgun aimed right between her eyes. Sweat trickled off her clenched jaw, the barrel so close it was an unfocused blur. Smoke from the freshly fired weapon coiled around her neck. Slowly, she pulled away from the bar with her arms up and hands empty.
"Sorry about the excitement, doll." The first intruder mused. Another one marched through the door and took a dutiful stance at his side, hand draped over the hilt of a katana. Mr. Shiny Shoes tilted his head back as he puffed a cigar. The smoke hissed through the gills of a metal neck. "We would respect your business hours... but we saw that your Marionette was in. Old pals. You understand."
All heads turned to Umbri. Patricia mouthed at her - what? How do you know... and tossed a frightened look at the leader. More specifically, the word emblazoned in gold across the back of his jacket: JAHANNAM.
"We won't be a minute," the leader said and flicked Patricia a clat. Despite being held at gunpoint she scrambled to catch it. "I've got a headache. Fix me a pick me up, will you."
They approached. Threeofthem. Armed. She knew their names. She knew what they were here for. She knew she didn't have it.
"We haven't been seeing you, Umbri," the leader remarked as he loomed over her. He held his gun like it was just an extension of his hand, gently slapping it against her cheek. Her head rolled, eyes low and guilty, but he knocked her around until he had her attention. "No, don't look down. Don't look down. What's been happening, huh?" Umbri could barely focus on him. Her tongue was dry and void of an answer. "Tch." He batted her head away. "I forgot dolls can't talk."
He tossed around with a thin inhale of his cigar, locked eyes with the woman holding Patricia hostage, and gave her a little nod. Patricia was in the midst of pouring from a strainer into a martini glass when the shotgun was removed from her face. But there was no time to be relieved about it as a hand seized her by the hair and SLAMMED her face into the bar. The glass shattered under her and Patricia whipped back up, holding her hands over the damage.
"MMMMMMMMFFFFFUCK?!?!" She squealed. Blood flooded from under her palms. "MYNOSH! UMBRI, YOU DUMB WHORE! WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?! Fuck! Fuck!!"
"Agh, Canary," the leader exasperated, gesturing with his gun Patricia's way, "She spilled my drink. Get on that, please." Canary stoically lifted the shotgun back at her.
"Make it again." Patricia drew her hands from her face, shaky. Heavy bruising was already spreading out from her nose and eyes.
"No. No, I'm not gonna..." she started to protest.
"Make it again, bitch."
Patricia resumed bartending, her nose whistling when she breathed. Her hands were shaking almost too much to do anything and she was fighting back sobs. They could have chosen a nicer hostage, but something about watching them play with her pain and fear for their entertainment... it stung Umbri's eyes.
"Ganta, stop it!" She broke. Frozen in fear as she was, there wasn't a tremble to her voice. The leader turned back to her. She could feel all the violence in the air train on her and threaten to snap like a tightly drawn string. "I had to get my Chrome serviced. That's it. You'll have last month's money by the end of the week."
"And we want to believe you, doll," he drawled, "But you've got a bad track record. I'm not feeling a lot of trust here." The gun trailed from her chin to tap against the left side of her chest. "You've got... some pricy equipment tucked away in there, haven't you?"
He burrowed the cool metal between her ribs until they groaned. Palms torn open and turned up to the sky. Smeared blood across a face she tried with all her strength to push away --a familiar face-- Desperate beasts, one fighting for survival, the other rampaging for a fix. She screamed and screamed, murder! MOTHER! As SHE tore at her, straddled the chest in a mad frenzy to -"It won't cover your interest, but the big guy's about ready to cut his losses."
"I wouldn't. It's not hers," the man in Ganta's shadow murmured. Ganta did a double take.
"Not hers...? Get out. You're still paying off Menagerie?" Ganta's grin grew unsettlingly wide. He barked with laughter and squeezed her cheeks. "Oh, dollface. You're fucked." He whispered. Like she didn't already know. For the last time Umbri had her head knocked back and he was off her. "We're going to be right outside. When you get out tonight, you're going to give us every piece of clatter you earned in this dive, then we'll figure out this little problem from there. And don't you dare think about giving us the slip."
He looked over his shoulder from the doorway with an alligator grin. "From my understanding, your sister isn't Menagerie Tech property, hm? Just... flesh and bone. See you after the show, Marionette."
He left with a renewed pep in his step, his stoic bodyguards quick to filter out behind him. Patricia collapsed over the untouched drinks she'd made and grabbed onto the bar. "What the hell, Umbri?" She wept. Umbri looked over at her, her feet still sealed in place. A minute passed before the weight of Jahannam's presence lifted enough that she could walk over to the bar and get Patricia ice.
Nine-inch heels cast a dull reflection on the dingy club floor. Umbri was swallowed in darkness as she stepped inside, then ever so slowly began to glow. The threads of synthetic hair, the jacket, her metallic bikini, it all bounced the light in the room. It took a moment to adjust, but the club was washed in neon colour, like a coral garden in an underwater cave. The jacket slid down her arms as she strode into her element, unsheathing a metal spine.
"Is that it? That the fit?" A grouchy judgement was flung at her from the bar, regarding her gold but admittedly plain lingerie. Umbri cast her eyes back at Patricia, the bartender and only other person in the club with her. She looked young, but her voice was crunchy with age or some kind of substance. Right now the glasses she was cleaning were forgotten and she was hunched over massaging her temples. "Any night in here could be the most important night of your life, you know. Just takes the right pair of shiny shoes to walk through that door."
Umbri rolled her eyes with her neck and threw her jacket across a seat with a heavy whomp. She jumped up onto the main stage and approached the pole. A cool blue light spread from under her palm where she gripped it, lazily swinging herself around. A few more drowsy warm-up swings, and suddenly every muscle in her body flexed. Pupils dilated with a sharp inhale. Her abdomen hardened and skin drew tight as she flung her legs above her head. She climbed the pole, hugging it with a knee, then an ankle, before dropping her legs in an upside down split as she spun. The pole flashed like lightning.
Atop HYSTERIA, sparks flew and tech sputtered as it was brought back to life. A hologram of Umbri was projected dancing on the rooftop, two stories high. Then it flickered out a mere moment later when she strayed off the pole.
"A bit early to start advertising yourself," Patricia grumbled as Umbri approached the bar. She poured the dancer a glass of water and Umbri leaned her back on the bar, elbows tucked up on it. "I don't wanna deal with the crazies knocking before security gets here... ahhhhhh, fuuuuuck. My head." Umbri took a sip of water, side-eyeing the woman as she rubbed her temples and cursed. She passed the glass her way and Patricia almost smacked it out of her hand in response. Umbri considered backing off and leaving her alone.
"... What's with you?" She spoke up instead. She offered the glass again. "You're hungover."
"Oh, she speaks? Piss off," Patricia grimaced. "No, I'm not hungover. It's some stupid... it just started like two hours ago and won't stop. I don't know what's up. Some stupid bug or whatever. I'm not the only one who's got it. Cherry called in sick, now Juno's asking for a cover... you're not gonna be able to catch your breath tonight." Despite the killer headache, Patricia declined Umbri's water offer again and instead reached down her shirt for a little contraption she brought to her lips and blew a cloud of fruity smelling smoke with it. "Not like that'll be any different for you. You usually clear house," she grunted.
Umbri's gaze was vacant as she looked out at the empty club, recalling the state of Northbridge on her walk over here. The headache the world seemed to share. "A bug," she repeated softly. Her skepticism was obvious and held in the silence that followed. Just two words acted as a hook to drag the truth out. Patricia glanced over at her, troubled.
"Did... did you hear it?"She whispered.
"I was working." Umbri drank her water. "Heard what?"
Patricia bristled. "Alright, it wasn't, just two hours ago out of nowhere. It's weird," she blurted, coughing on her own fumes. "There was like, a breeze. Then a sound. It sounds crazy, but my head hasn't been right since."
Umbri tilted her head back. The scowl on Patricia's face went soft for just a moment, distracted.
"The sound was like... you know, a train? When you hear one coming. Not just that horrible scream of the wheels, the tremble of the air around you. You know there's no stopping it. No matter how far away you are, when you hear it coming, everything stops for just a second, and you are on those tracks. It was that kind of sound." She buried her head in her hands. "It's like a train ran through my head."
Umbri played with this information. Rolled it around in her head like she swirled the ice cubes in her glass. She hadn't ever seen hard-knock Patricia look unnerved like this. She knew exactly what she was talking about, that feeling when you hear a train. That kind of sound. It was dread-inducing, but numbing, as there was nothing she could do about it. Always something odd happening in the UnderCity. She forced it down with the rest of her water. "Hm."
Knock. Knock.
A thudding at the door. Patricia pulled her head from her hands and shot a premature accusatory look Umbri's way. "You locked that, right?" Umbri nodded. Patricia sighed in relief then reared up to shout, "We're closed!"
Knock. Knock...
... BOOM.
Patricia shrieked and jumped back as a hole was blasted through the locks. Umbri's glass slipped from her hand and shattered by her feet. Her clear heels mirrored the shards of glass and multiplied them into the thousands. She couldn't move an inch from the swinging, broken door, even as her breath grew sharp and quick and told her "run." There was a tremble in the air like a train coming.
TheRockening