I'm In Your Way & I'm Not Getting Out Of It! [Nephero]

[Anadwen]

Guns. Always guns... Toshi carefully scanned the weapon in his hands, and sighed silently. Through the helmet on his head, no one could really hear it, but he was fully aware of the sound. Really, he disliked guns. They were systematic, cold weapons without honor or grace, no finesse and no beauty in the make. He'd much rather wield the blade that was sheathed on his back rather than this monstrosity, full of bullets. It was about the only thing he hated about assignments - the request to wield a gun. Man, guns sucked.

Even Reijingusan agreed with him about that. Guns were no good. Too crude. And now he had one in his hands and was pretending that he doesn't mind. He was employed as a bodyguard just outside the apartment of an important officer due to rumors about an assassin, targeting his 'point of interest'. It was an important duty.

And he was sleepy and needed more coffee. It was one in the morning and he was in a desperate need of caffeine. Desperate desperate, not just your ordinary desperate. He'd kill for a cup... Though, if those rumors were true, it might come to that!

He corrected the scarf at his face, and shifted his weight from one leg to the other to avoid any one of them going numb. To stand and watch the surroundings of an apartment was sure an uninteresting, lengthy service, but he was one of the few capable of protecting people from extraordinarily powerful assassins just as well as the ordinary ones. Poison, electrical currents, brute force, high and low temperatures, he could withstand all that and much more. That made him an ideal bodyguard for pretty much anyone and anything that needed an extra high level of security. 

[nephero]

Guns, always guns.

No Son loved them. They were systematic, precise, and given the right angle and right entry, they finished the job with as little effort as possible. Which was perfect, because he was being paid to kill a man, not to brutally slaughter him.

That cost extra.

He stopped in his slow climb, and looked down at the path he had taken. Far below him, the city continued to hum, completely unaware of the person now scaling one of its buildings. Not that he gave them much choice-- his armor was designed to blend, and he had come up through the alleyway, avoiding as many windows as possible.

And he had come quick. He adjusted the grip his fingers had on what should have been a perfectly sheer surface, and had to grin beneath his own helmet. He scurried a little faster, then, and let out a soundless sigh once he reached the rooftops. He immediately darted to hide behind the air conditioning unit, there, a bit annoyed at the presence of a few rooftop guards.

Someone had been opening their mouth, and he didn't appreciate that one bit. Still, it was a simple matter, and after a few minutes of careful observation, he crept forward. The first went down easily enough, and he dumped the body behind the AC unit just in time for the guard's partner to start wondering where he'd gotten to.

Just as the last of the guard was about to call the incident in, No slipped up behind him and cut his throat. Two bodies extra to the one he was going to be making, he wondered, idly, if he should charge more for them. He continued to debate this idea even as he unpacked his rifle, screwed on the elongated barrel, unfolded the tripod and settled into a low crouch.

Nearly five hundred feet away, there was a window in another apartment building. Nearly five hundred feet away, a man strode through his home, his attention held by the phone conversation he was having. Nearly five hundred feet away there was only the faint crack of glass, the tiniest of holes made both in the window and in the man's skull. Nearly five hundred feet away, a body dropped, and No Son grinned.

He took apart his rifle, darted across the roof, and leapt down onto another, smaller rooftop. He tapped his helmet to make sure the feed was grabbed, and in the corner of his vision, a replay of the target's demise cycled on a constant loop.

There was nothing better than an easy pay day.

[Anadwen]

"The decoy has been shot in the lounge."

The voice resonated in the inside of Toshi's helmet like a bullet. So it wasn't just rumors. The man, serving as a decoy in the apartment was cold-bloodily shot. Just like nothing... He knew what to do almost immediately. The assassin might still be near if he will proceed to track him down quickly.

The door was pushed in by his sheer force, and he stormed into the room, passing through the apartment like a whirlwind, followed by the stomping of his heavy boots. He was going to shoot that assassin... And get praise for the head he gets.

There was the body, shot straight through the head and spilling blood onto the white carpet. Shielding his head with his forearm, Toshi bent down to trace where the bullet could have been back at the time of it being fired. A crack in the window's glass, if aligned with the position of the bullet, could create a line that would allow him to track down the position of the gun.

And there it was.

His own gun was aimed at the window, and shot it into bits, creating a large enough hole for Toshi to push himself through. He stuck his body up to his waist through that hole, and aimed the gun at the dark shape on a nearby roof.

His hand was steady when he pressed the trigger. And his aim was accurate.

[nephero]

So, they had a good shot in the apartment, too. No Son watched the spray of bullets from his position on the smaller building's roof with a little sigh. He really did need to have a word with his client about all this. But hell, sometimes a little chase was fun, and he didn't mind it much.

A device on his hip buzzed, and he looked down at the timer present there. It wouldn't be long until the hologram decoy gave out. He didn't have much time left, not if someone was already on his tail. Which, by the sounds of it, they were.

He bolted across the rooftop, even as bullets continued to smash across five stories overhead. His decoy generator gave one final buzz, and then went silent. The hologram was gone, and he only had himself. No Son picked up the pace, leapt across to another adjacent rooftop, and made for the fire escape attached to that building.

He didn't have time to be quiet about it, either. He gripped onto the sides of the ladder and slid down, hopping from one platform to the other with loud thuds of boots on metal. When he hit the ground, he looked skywards, and sure enough, some poor sod didn't know when to mind their own business. His helmet shifted the light spectrum, highlighted the curious old woman's head, and he barely had to aim his pistol to assure she'd be put down as well.

There were no other onlookers after that, and he bolted down the alley, taking the winding back roads towards the sewer grate that was his exit.

[Anadwen]

What he was shooting at was just a decoy... Dammit! Toshi swore rather obscenely into the inside of his helmet, and with a kick of his knee to the rest of the glass shattered the window, pushing himself onto the outer windowsill, and launching his body up, to land on the opposite roof.

He could still follow the trail of the assassin, as long as some particles remained in the air after him. He could track that down... And if he would find any kind of mechanism, that would help him, too. Even something so small as a heating and cooling system would work.

He pulled one glove off on the run, and let his fingers trace down a series of cables.

There he was. The assassin was obviously not as fast as himself... Though, Toshi, bolting at the speed of almost one hundred miles in an hour was on a different level than even his pilot coworkers.

Run, run, you piece of shit, before I blast your head off, he thought, watching the figure of the assassin draw near. It was going towards a sewer...

He threw himself off the roof he ran on by now, hoping to land before him and block his way, shooting after him in mid-air.

[nephero]

Well, now, they just pulled out all the stops for this little venture. No Son's jaw tensed in agitation beneath his helmet, already warring with ever-present paranoia. Had it been a set-up? What the hell was even this kid coming at him? There was no possible way a human being was capable of catching up so quickly.

Or at least, from his understanding of humans, there was no possible way. Maybe it wasn't human, he thought idly, even as he ducked and rolled to the side to avoid another hail of bullets. He pulled his pistols back out from their holsters, and returned fire, more to get the other to flinch than any real attempt to hit.

Either way, No wasn't doing another damn thing until he got some solid answers, or a very large paycheck. Still, the more this one continued to harass him, the more he considered a temporary redaction on that particular policy. It was all No could do to keep moving, darting this way and that to keep the guard's aim off anything vital.

He found quick cover behind a nearby dumpster, enough to yank a cylinder off of his belt. He pressed a button at the top before tossing it towards his attacker, the device giving a quick series of beeps before exploding into a supernova of dazzling light and dancing colors. The flashbang one hell of a distraction, he took the opportunity to book it, keeping low to the ground as he dropped down the sewer grate.

Almost immediately, his vision adjusted to the dim lighting, and he leapt across the river of muck to the other side, and down one of the many branching pipes that lined the main waterway.

[Anadwen]

As something was tossed at him, Toshi instinctively threw himself aside, and it was a good decision, as the explosion tore off the part of fabric, covering his jaw. A part of his face was left exposed, his pale skin showing from the visor almost to his neck. A growl escaped him at that, and he stood up from the roll he landed in almost immediately.

Clearing his visor, which was only slightly cracked by the explosion and fortunately undamaged, he attempted to track the man down by scanning the environment's infrared spectrum. The only thing with a higher value was the sewer... And when he rushed to it, it was open.

Scaling it down as quickly as possible he followed his target. As he came to a place where the ways parted, he halted for a moment, but the infrared vision once again helped him, and he bolted forth the sewer again.

[nephero]

Well, this one just didn't know when to give up, did he?

No Son was torn between being impressed and pretty damn annoyed, and kept swinging back and forth from one to the other until he was fairly sure he suffered from emotional whiplash. His spines were firmly pressing against the padded fabric of his shirt and vest, and with each slow movement he could feel them being pulled, so caught up in the woven threads as they were, and getting worse the more aggravated he became.

Okay, now he was torn between impressed, annoyed, and just plain hot an' bothered. He gnashed his teeth a bit, just enough to prick at his own gums and get his head back in the game. And what a game, if it took only this long for one of these precious delicate things to actually catch up to him. Catch up, and very nearly catch him.

Oh, yes, No Son was getting good and pissed off. But as much as he would have liked to maybe see just where that amount of agitation might have gotten him, all he really wanted was the paycheck at the end of the road. Plus, in that brief instant before he through the flashbang, it didn't seem like his pursuer really had that much to them in the meat department.

It was like someone trying to pass him a fishbone when all he wanted was a steak. Sure, it might do in a pinch if he was starving, but when beggars COULD be choosers, he definitely had his preference. But hell, he'd been surprised before.

Okay, seriously, he needed to get his head outta his pants and back to the situation at hand. This was getting stupid. No Son squeezed his way into a smaller tunnel, set more towards the ceiling of the sewer a good ways up. His helmet flashed on the sides of his vision, picking up the not-so-subtle pattern of footsteps on murky ground.

With every tap-tap-tap, No Son's spines pressed harder against his shirt. He was sure the entire back padding had to be full of holes, and not even in the fun way now. No, he was firmly angry at this point, and as he shimmied his way across the tunnel and into the adjacent reservoir, he pretty much decided that in lieu of collecting payment, he was just going to collect his "employer"s heads.

This was getting freaking ridiculous, and he stifled a hiss as he jumped from the walkway and down into the filthy water that ran beneath it.

[Anadwen]

Toshi's patience was about to run out. This assassin didn't know when to just give up on running away. He wasn't letting him escape, he was a hound and he smelled his prey, and once he was at its tail, he'd never, EVER let go! He would be praised greatly for catching a dangerous criminal, whoever it was. He could even get closed to a raise.

The sewer he ran into next was narrow... It was a bit difficult to squeeze himself through, but he managed - somehow. The gun that was in his hands till then was swung back and he pulled out a small caliber gun. The thudding of his heavy boots was like thunder, echoing between the walls. He brisked up even more, pushing himself to the extent of his own abilities. If he didn't have the armour, he could sure run faster, or if he was in open air, but it was a little hindrance to something like him.

He always thought of himself like a weapon... Times like these he had to fire... And even though he didn't like it, it was his duty.

The way narrowed even more, and Toshi had trouble squeezing his armour through... He reached to his shoulders, and simply ripped a part off. Now that was easier! He slipped through the narrow way like a snake, climbing up into the reservoir above it. The sound of splashing water alerted him almost immediately, and quickly scanning his surroundings, he moved over to above the water, shooting at something dark that moved through the water.

If this whoever-he-was would stop trying to escape, he might feel merciful and let him remain in the shape of a man even posthumously.

With a loud crash, his slender figure landed in the filthy water. He kicked into it and pushed himself forth.