Smile. You've Just Been Erased. [Matsu Xiangu]

[Connor Harrison]

The Streets of Rodia
Rodia, Tyrius System
Late Evening

3 weeks had passed since his failed attempt at taking down Blitz, the Black Sun operative, on Nar Shaddaa. And because of that failure he was sporting a rather fetching supportive glove on his left hand to help the broken wrist strengthen and was walking with a slight limp thanks to the gunshot in his left knee.

The wounds had healed and he had of course come to expect such injury, but the fact some half-vamprire, half-woman had tried to eat him alive was disturbing. Trasker made sure she would be investigate and found when he was at full strength.

Trasker was eased back into his work as G.I.A operative by tracing down a gun-for-hire, reckless crazy with a gun willing to take down anyone for any price. He wasn't a soldier of fortune; he was a criminal, a murderer and had to be stopped. His latest victim was a well respected Rodian senator and that call had come through which Trasker jumped on.

Arriving in his GIA cruiser, he had decided the cantina was the best place to start and with a few security images on his datapad, the man wasn't as elusive as he may think.

DC-15s sidearm back at his side where it belonged, Trasker exited the cantina which had helped confirm the mercenary had been here in the last day or so. He walked around the pretty fountain in the middle of the square, which tailed away different directions leading to various sections of the city. A few small hotels, retail units and a number of empty buildings surrounded him all the while under a large dome which maintained a hospitable atmosphere for those adverse to the planet's extreme temperatures.

Chewing his bottom lip gently, he studied his datapad and plotted a course of the square to find any more information before heading for the spaceport if the merc was now off the planet. The merc seemed to be an amateur, and he wouldn't be hard to track down. Trasker was sure of it.



[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=12pt] For Matsu it seemed everything was folding together at once. She found Kesare (and who would have thought she’d ever see that sea-glass wolf-queen again, awakening a heart she’d thought closed to joy), found her niche among a group that seemed to talk the kind of sense she’d always imagined her chosen home would form in her head, and she’d finally found the man that had saved her life on Skye. She hadn’t imagined that in order to climb she’d need to fall so far but every clawing handful she grasped to drag herself up and out of the hole Krius dug for her was purposeful – and successful.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She was more than she’d ever been before.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] But before she could move forward Kesare needed to be taken care of. Her childhood best friend had heard nothing of her parents since she’d been swept away that night fourteen years ago and Matsu had heard just the same. The same morning she’d stood outside Kesare’s house waiting without success for the girl who was usually right on time to explore the streets was the same one that Kesare’s parents disappeared. Their house had been deadly quiet, eerie in its vacancy – hollow. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Matsu had gotten word that Kesare’s father may have gotten himself in to trouble and she’d been chasing the lead through every major city in most of the developed Galaxy since then. Rodia was on her map and since the trouble of a debt led her there anyway she spent the rest of the late afternoon chasing any information she could find. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] And it hadn’t proved fruitless. Matsu had garnered herself a position under her Master with an aptitude for interrogation, a way of pulling facts without even using her admittedly formidable talents in the Force. Whether it was her face or an ability to affect the harmless veneer of a young girl she wasn’t sure but it worked, and it had worked on Rodia. Her mind was buzzing so thickly with all the new information to process – and her day in general, the new contact in her commlink weighing heavy with an anticipation she almost resented – that she almost missed the low slither of ‘danger’ in the Force. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] As a subtle sense of warning started crawling up her spine she kept her already rather languid pace, not wanting to draw attention to herself with a sharp change in speed, and dragged narrowed eyes across the square as she crossed through on her way back to the spaceport. It didn’t take her long to spot the man with a datapad in hand, looking deep in thought, that danger spiking in all her nerve endings (or at least the ones she had left) – ah, got you. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She was careful to stick to the shadows once she started hunting him.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt][member="Ben Trasker"][/SIZE]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

Resting a boot on the lip of the fountain, Trasker hit a few icons on the datapad linking directly to the G.I.A indicating his position and his next move which would be off Rodia and West back towards the Core Worlds. Looking up for a moment thinking what next to identify in his search for the mercenary, he saw a nice tall hologram projector towards the edge of the square. Equator City may not have much in terms of a capital, but it certainly had enough for what Trasker needed.

Coming away from the fountain he moved to the holo-projector and studied it for a moment, his eyes moving up and around the large projector looking for something - there. A series of digits on the right hand side in basic. Perfect.

Tapping a few squares and numbers on his pad, Trasker smiled and entered the digits on the projector. Effectively this would be a secure link for all GIA operatives to "commandeer" a projector using a cycle to advertise the wanted criminals they were after. Mixed between the pod-racing commercials, latest fragrances and beverages on sale, you may as well flash up a wanted criminal for the onlookers to take note off. It worked surprisingly well.

Trasker worked his way steadily over the datapad making sure to hit the right buttons of information, technology not quite being his strongest skill, and then uploaded the display. He smiled at his handiwork and stepped back a few yards to wait for the projection to see if it worked.

Flashes of blue, red, green; adverts, talk show trailers, city maps. And then it appeared, Traskers own GIA wanted notice.

Galactic Intelligence Agency
Urgent Appeal
0124-4-8P

WANTED CRIMINAL

Mercenary operating in and around the Outer Rim worlds spotted on Rodia, Tatooine and Rhen Var.

Last known location Equator City, Rodia 02:00hrs

Armed and dangerous - do not approach on site

Contact GIA Operative Ben Trasker on direct comlink channel: GIA001-USG - False information will be deemed as a criminal offence and you will be traced and withheld by GIA operatives in the area.

Thank you for your cooperation


It wasn't as punchy as others, but Trasker got the message across. An image taken from Rodian security of the brown haired man, dressed in sandy camo-gear and carrying a rifle on his back circulated the projection. He made sure his public GIA comlink was open for all incoming notifications and placed his hands on his hips. All he had to do now was wait.

Trasker looked for the next projection of the map before seeing the fastest way to the Spaceport.


[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=12pt] Matsu watched him from the shadows, not concerned about the few passers-by – they all seemed to know to look away even as they glanced quickly in her direction. Whether it was fear or because she was exuding something wasn’t clear, perhaps a combination of the two. But either way she had a completely clear view of the display that came up as the man stepped back to look at it.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Imagine the Knight’s surprise when the face of the man she’d parted ways with only hours before appeared on the screen.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] The rage that upticked in her chest was unexpected. She had thought at first – here, here it is! The chance to settle the score, to let Kail go free and warn him people were after him in exchange for the life he’d saved. It seemed a simple enough transaction and then she would be free of everything from that day but the final act of ending Krius. She hadn’t expected to feel so angry, so…protective. She hadn’t expected to feel somewhat distraught at the thought of him being hauled away to answer for something he did, whatever it was. She’d just felt the most easy surge of power she’d known in a while in Kail Ragnar’s presence – she wasn’t about to give that up.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She sized up her prey for another moment or so, considering her options. She could see a number to call scrolling along the display and though it was tempting to call it and lure him somewhere, call in a tip that she’d seen the fugitive, it left her too open to being tracked down after she was finished with him. She wanted anonymity, and in this her slight build and fine face would serve her well. There in the shadows she changed, dropping any of the real Matsu Xiangu and becoming someone else. All the hard predatorial edges and calculating coldness in her black eyes disappeared.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She became the young woman she might have been in another life, on some other path.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] All doe-eyes and shy gestures she made her way across the square, heading off the agent before he could disappear somewhere. Her voice was soft – confident enough as to not seem suspicious, but still fitting to her more demure disguise. (Truly, she was frighteningly good.) “Excuse me? Sorry sir, I don’t mean to bother you but…that man that was just on the display? I was walking to work earlier, and I think I saw him in one of the more abandoned districts.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] No offers to show him where, though she could. She would hide that she was dragging him back to her spiderweb for the last second.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt][member="Ben Trasker"][/SIZE]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

He wasn't paying attention to anything when the young girl sidled beside him, jutting into his line of sight as he walked out slowly to the Spaceport. It was like she just...appeared from the ground next to him and then spoke, with a wide, welcoming smile, eyes bright and hair nice and straight, if a little messy. But Trasker was comforted by such a fresh faced human on a planet where he felt like a REAL off-worlder.

Trasker smiled and did a quick once over, a force of habit, noting her metallic arm. A small pang of sympathy hit him as he returned to her gaze. She was small and looked so petite, it was only the limit of his imagination that could picture what led to her having that cybernetic limb - a brutal robbery, an attempted homicide, a traffic incident? Such a shame to have something of yourself replaced by something so artificial and cold. But, it was like she didn't even care.

He pulled out his datapad from his inner jacket pocket and nodded as she spoke, bringing up a smaller, clearer image off the mercenary. He turned it with his thumbs and showed it her. The eyes narrowed slightly and she nodded.

"Thank you miss."

Fingers slowly tapped in some information and he sent back a possible sighting back to the G.I.A and to await further confirmation. Amber alert for backup in the area. Holding his hand out, Trasker beckoned her to walk with him in the warm city.

"I'm Ben Trasker, Special Operative with the Galactic Intelligence Agency. This man is a wanted criminal on two systems now, so you're lucky you didn't get in his way. Can you show me the area if it's not too much trouble?"

The DC-15s sidearm was tucked into his belt, off-side on his right hip.


[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=12pt] It took all she had to reach out and take his datapad, smash it in to component parts, and use the jagged edges to tear him open. She was capable of giving so much pain without lifting a finger, but sometimes in moments of rage she had a fleeting glimpse of that violence she’d used to resort to without a thought. But not right now. This would be slow – this she would savor.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She had nodded confirmation – an easy one, as Kail was truly the man she’d seen – and studied him as he worked. He was relaxed; she could sense no upturn of his heartbeat and as she probed gently around the back of his skull she sensed no fear. Good. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She however, feigned fear very well when the agent told her the man she’d seen was a wanted criminal. (Oh…oh, just imagine if I’d gotten in his way. What do you think he’d do to me, Ben Trasker, Special Operative of the GIA? Shoot me, stab me, throw me off the top of one of these swampy buildings? Personally sir, I’m hoping for a stab. But really, you didn’t SEE him…glorious. Such potential for a power unique to the Galaxy, a propensity for a violence staggering in its indiscrimination. You don’t understand.) ‘Her’ face rearranged in to something hesitant, in to something that had been wary before but was now on the brink of refusing in light of the danger that fugitive posed. She’d escaped passing him in the street once – who was to say that she would escape him again? [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] A moment’s thought. A glance at his gun, as if reassuring herself that a man like him could handle the situation.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] “No, not too much trouble. Um…this way,” she said, waving him along. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She glanced at him as they walked back the way she’d come earlier, catching his attention and pointing at her arm. “I couldn’t help but notice you looking. Don’t feel bad, everyone does. I got it back here, another morning of walking to work. There aren’t a lot of humans around here, you get noticed…”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] More threads in the web, more lies to make this girl she was pretending to be real.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] It was only a few more moments of walking before she chose the same building she’d parted ways with Kail from. Apt. “Right in there,” she said, pausing a good distance from the door, too far for anyone without some type of advantage to sneak up behind him if he went in first. “He came out from inside.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt][member="Ben Trasker"][/SIZE]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

Trasker followed, arms by his side, holding the datapad and keeping a steely gaze ahead as the girl led him through Equator. She seemed very eager to help, and it was a shame there weren’t too many others with the shred of decency like this one had to try do their part in keeping the light of good and decency shining.

He only sucked in his bottom lip and offered a sympathetic nod of the head when she picked up on the noticing of her arm, but she handled it well, obviously not bitter about such an awful incident. A few more steps away from the square, they came to a derelict building that seemed to be midway through either demolition or refurbishment. Some steel bars rested outside, and boarded up windows took away the invitation to enter; a perfect place to hide from prying eyes.

Trasker stepped back a little and surveyed the area. No notable modifications, links to the main square and also away to the Spaceport, limited interest from passers-by. He brought up his datapad, his only companion to the outside world, and keyed in his location. He hesitated a second, deliberating about calling it in, but he thought better. If the mercenary wasn’t here, there was nothing no-one could do. His location would be enough.

Pocketing the pad, Trasker turned to the girl, watching him with a curiosity he’d seen before in people watching something about to “go down” when the law was around.

”Miss, you’ve been a great help. I’ll take it from here, there’s no need for you to lose more from your day, thank you.”

Stepping forward to the door, he placed his hand gently on the metal frame, cautiously looking in from outside. He stopped and turned back to her once more.

”Sorry, could I take your name please in case I need to contact you again? You’ve been very helpful, and I appreciate it.”


[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=12pt] She could feel her power rising as he looked away and in to the building, his hand around the frame of the doorway. Her breathing was slow and even despite the increasing buzz in her head, a high-pitched screaming that got more insistent with each passing second. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Could I take your name…you’ve been very helpful…[/SIZE]​

​

[SIZE=12pt] She blinked, and when her eyes opened again they had changed to a dark amber.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] “No,” she said simply, raising her hand and letting out a wave of her telekinetic power so fierce she sent him flying backwards in to the building she’d drawn Kail in to her web within only hours before. She had the lay of the land, the homefield advantage as she stalked forward through the empty room. She had to hand it to him – he was strong and back on his feet in seconds, his blaster pointed towards her in an impressively short amount of time. Regardless she kept walking forward, her face wild and her eyes roiling as her lightsaber ignited in her fist and rose to deflect his shots. In her rage she was almost unstoppable, yanking the blaster out of his hands and crushing it in on itself before tossing it away.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She threw her lightsaber, guiding it with the Force and letting it slice right through his right thigh and in to the wall behind him, pinning him there momentarily before pulling the datapad she’d watched him using from his within his pocket, letting it fly right over in to her hand. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] It was, as would be expected, password protected in some way. Whether it was his fingerprints or some kind of pin she couldn’t tell but she couldn’t access it without him. She could simply destroy the thing when she was done with him…but she wanted Kail erased. She wanted him out of the system. “You can tell me how to access this, or I will take the information from you,” she said quietly and in contrast to the violent efficiency with which she'd pinned him. She looked over at the officer between the few feet that separated them. There was no trace of the girl he’d seen – she was replaced entirely by the cold, hard woman that would extract what she needed and then snuff him faster than he could contemplate how he’d allowed it to happen.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt][member="Ben Trasker"][/SIZE]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

He didn’t register much except the fall backwards into the building, like he was yanked back by an invisible wire into a large pallet of what looked like wood and metal, thankfully covered with tarpaulin to help ease the impact. Not a lot, but better than nothing.

The dust swirled up around him. Trasker clenched his teeth in pain at the dull ache in his ribs, coughing slightly and blinking quickly to adjust his disorientation at the attack. DC-15s in hand, he let off a couple of wild shots as he sprang to his feet, the eerie hum and glow of a lightsaber ignited. His eyes went that little bit wider, his heart raced that little bit more.

Ambushed, by a Sith!

But before he could move again, the blaster flew from this grip and sparked in her grip. Whatever this woman was, she had roped him in and was now moving for the kill. It seemed the mercenary had friends in high-places.

God dammit back-up, where are you!

Stepping back to gain composure, the blade swung hypnotically and it shot towards him, embedding itself in his thigh muscle, straight through to the pallet behind him. The pain was unlike anything he had felt before; the penetration through the muscle threatened to drop him, but the smell of burning flesh and blood froze him to the spot, not allowing himself to fall on the energy blade now pinning him back. One wrong move and his leg would be severed.

Trasker couldn’t be sure if he yelled in pain or not, but the adrenalin was surging through his body, looking for anything to use against the monster before him. He didn’t even know how she had caught his datapad, but there would be nothing she could do. And he was staring death in the face with no way out. There was nothing to lose.

”No deal, you psychopathic freak.”

Resting his arms on the metal behind him, Trasker leant back to ease the growing pain, trying not to move. He summoned up the resolve inside him to face her down, not to give up and give her the sick satisfaction. Every breath caused him pain as his body moved gently up and down; the glowing saber cauterizing and destroying the muscle and tissue on his thigh each time he did.


[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=9pt] She smiled when he when he said there was no deal, the stillness of his leg despite his pain indicating he was no idiot despite how she’d managed to pull the wool over his eyes. She had been there, blind until the last moment. Perhaps if she left him alive he would learn from this experience. But there didn’t seem a point in allowing him to draw breath once she was done.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] “Alright then,” she said with the same prompt efficiency she had treated him with thus far. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] She reached out, finding the place in his skull where the pain was strongest and driving a white-hot shard down in to his brain – distraction first. Once he’d started screaming she followed the pain down, grasping at his neurons and slipping in to his thoughts. She met resistance, the kind of walls rarely felt in someone without the Force, and as she tore through them (soft, like flesh, like ripping through him with her bare hands) she let out a gasping laugh, overwhelmed with the ecstasy of pulling apart his secrets. “Yes…fight me,” she breathed, her cybernetic fist clenching and unclenching as, with a final shove, she grabbed him and peeled back his mind like an onion. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] When she let him go she took a deep breath, sounding sated as if she’d finally had something to drink when she desperately needed water. “Was that so hard?” she asked, not even bothering to glance at him as she brought the datapad back up and keyed in his pin. Within five clicks she’d erased the wanted file and anything else pertaining to Kail she could find in Trasker’s mind. Whether this deleted the mercenary from the system entirely she couldn’t be sure, but she’d covered enough of the tracks to give him time if it didn’t.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] And with that she broke the pad, crushing it in her cybernetic fist and dropping his line to the outside world in pieces on the floor. And then ripped her lightsaber to the left through his right thigh and then through the left, severing his left leg and leaving most of his right hanging by an inch or two of muscle. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] She walked towards him lying severed on the floor, and for a moment she saw herself. She was surprised to feel nothing as she ran her eyes over the cauterized flesh of his legs.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] “How long do you think it will take you to die if I leave you here like this?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt][member="Ben Trasker"][/SIZE]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

The girls voice coupled with her calm stature didn’t give the immediate impression she was a psychotic, but then again Trasker had come up against many low-lives in his time serving the CSF and GIA; thugs, rapists, drug barons, deranged Mandalorian warriors and even the odd vampire cultist. But none of them had positioned him in the way this girl had. Devoid of armour and support, she was doing more damage than numerous gun wielding criminals had ever done before.

He felt the talons of fire inside his head, but with keeping his balance up with both arms propped up on the pallet to avoid submitting to the burning saber in his thigh, all the operative could do was fight as best he could with a means he didn’t know how. Growling in anger and pain, Trasker gritted his teeth, frowning in brow tight and tensing his muscles to shake off the grip he could feel pricking his mind.

It was uncomfortable, exhausting and terrifying as visions of his career flashed before him each time he screwed his eyes shut to block out the nightmare.

Using datapads…
… firing shots at a smoking cruiser above…
… falling before a vampire lady attacking him…
…riding a transport with a Jedi Master…
…laughing with others in the breakout room…
….being devoured by the girl before him…

“No!” Trasker shouted in a delirious fever, sweat collecting on his brow and strength weakening with the invasion of a mind and soul he once called his own.

Watching her work with the information she had lifted with pleasure, Trasker took deep breaths and started to accept that this situation was getting worse and more helpless with each passing second. It was then the pain returned more-so as the lightsaber immediately tore through his thigh muscle cleanly taking off the left leg and cutting into his right as he collapsed onto the floor, draping down the side of the pallet.

A desperate cry rang out as the smell of burning flesh and intense pain tore through him. His hands dropped to his hips, clawing at nothing and the leg that was now cauterized and lying useless on the floor beside him, surprisingly with only a few sprays of his blood considering his mortal wounds.

Eyes wide in disbelief and shock, he looked down and felt the horror in being able to move his legs, but nothing being there to move now. The right thigh was gruesomely bludgeoned and he daren’t move for fear of disrupting the fragile muscle that had been reduced to pulp.

His breathing intensified and his steely determination not to submit intensified in the face of death before him, looking like she had simply cut a slice of warm bread for supper rather than take the limb from a human. Shards of metal bars, brick and cloth surrounded Trasker, covered in blood and cutting into him as he propped himself up as best he could against the material. Bloodied hands clung to his thigh, his eyes bore into hers.

“Coward – come on. You don’t - want to leave me here.”

Each word ached to speak, but he wasn’t done yet.

“Finish it. Face me and – and look me in the eye. See what’s going on – as you turn the blade. That’s what you want. Get your sick pleasure – prove you’re not a coward - ”

His head lolled back against the pallet, his hand moving to prop himself up on the floor. His life was draining away quick and he needed out.


[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=9pt] She tilted her head as he spat venom back at her, narrowing her eyes and looking as if she were trying to understand a language not her own.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] Kneeling down in front of him she offered him a smile (as if she hadn’t just taken his legs, as if she hadn’t just thought again of propping him on what was left and taking his arms, letting him spend the last few minutes a limbless monster screaming for help make it stop!). She ignored his comment about being a coward – she had no need to prove herself to a worm despite the entertainment he’d graciously and unexpectedly provided. She looked him in the eye just as he requested as she reached up, dragging the sharpened edge of one of her steel claws along the side of his face, seeing him split open out of her peripheral. “You flatter yourself – this was merely function.” She lifted the claw she’d dragged along the side of his face to her mouth, running her tongue over its edge and tasting him before shifting her gaze back to him. “I doubt you’d like to see when it’s pleasure.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] In all honesty she would have killed him had he not asked for it. All this was to protect Kail, The only way to ensure he was safe, at least for a good while, was to kill this agent. But he had taunted for mercy and Matsu was not in the business of giving it. And the more she thought about it the more the man – half a man – in front of her seemed small in the grand scheme of things.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] Let him live.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=9pt] If he could survive this, let him come after her.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=9pt] And then she would destroy him.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] She watched him a moment longer before stabbing her metal fingers in to the point where his chest met his shoulder, ripping through skin and muscle until she felt his clavicle and arm pop and move away from each other so he couldn’t drag himself on two arms. (One. One arm. Let’s see.) When she pulled it from his muscle she brought the claws in front of his face, flicking her fingers outwards and letting his blood spatter over his face.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] She pushed herself up from her squat in front of him and adjusted her shirt, making sure it fell correctly before looking down at him with disinterest. “Maybe I’ll see you out there,” she said, turning on her heel and letting the blood dry on her claws as she walked out and left him.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] Irony.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt][member="Ben Trasker"][/SIZE]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

Wanting to take the shard of brick and metal by his hand and embed it in the side of the girls face the closer she got, Trasker could feel it between his fingers, but his blood loss was now crucially crippling him and he had no energy to.

His eyes flittered, fighting to stay open and fight until the end – defiant and resilient in the face of evil, the very sort of evil he gave his life to fighting and destroying, only now it seemed the table had turned in the guise of one built from sharp, twisted metal blended with her soft human flesh.

Trasker saw her metallic hand come up, and he felt the smooth and burning sensation as she drew what felt like a razor down the left side of his face. A groan of anger came from him, but there was no pain as he fought his erratic breathing to stay calm, feeling the blood trickle down his face and not wanting to imagine the horror of how he looked.

Hold on… back-up will be here and they’ll patch you up. Hold…on…

The second her arm shot through his flesh, bone and muscle in his upper chest, Trasker bolted back against the pallets, a shot of searing pain and agony hitting him again and forcing blood to come from his mouth, spitting it out and fighting the cry of agony that came from him. He could feel the disgusting sensation of his bone being broken and detached from the socket, a sickening feeling of helplessness and fragility with his now useless body.

His body was done – he gave up and the useless arm gave way to him and he slid down to the floor, his arm crumpled awkwardly beside him.

Trasker was going to sleep now, he needed the rest. He just watched the guise of evil before him and her bloodied face, remembering her voice and each feature for when he would meet her again…somewhere…in the other world…

You did well, Trasker. Be proud of your service…

One eye closed, he rolled the other up to see her look down on him and say an inaudible word or two before she turned and walked out as if leaving a caf bar without a seconds hesitation.

He was tired, and alone. He was done.

Trasker swallowed with a dry, bloody taste and settled his head down to find some peace away from the nightmare as the darkness took him.



[member="Matsu Xiangu"]