[u][b][i]Andy and Selena Royal[/i][/b][/u]

Leave it to the professional. Andy was happy to acquiesce-he was down to three bullets, after all, and there was more to be gained. To Andy now (in the nights and years to come, it would be different, but for now) there was no empathy or compassion for the people running for cover, screaming and trying to pull away from needles and blades and bullets. He simply viewed all this as it related to Selena-the Fiends were only a nuisance insomuch as they threatened her. He admired her composure, although Andy questioned her methodology. She unloaded the shotgun (eighteen shots, 12 gauge, buckshot) into the Fiends, ripping flesh from their bones and sending them down. Selena muffled a scream from the alley behind him, and Andy vaguely considered things such as psychological trauma. There was a remarkable risk for civilian casualties with weaponry such as that, Andy noted. Furthered his suspicions about NEST, and cemented the rather grave feeling that this temporary alliance would prove very costly. However, Selena would be safe. The agent had agreed to that much. Andy stayed pressed against the wall, scanning the area around them for threats as Michelle focused on the lightning-thrower.

"Somebody named Khan," Selena muttered, clutching a hand to the side of her head.

"What." Andy asked, pistol leveled towards Michelle's blind side. A Fiend came around a corner and Andy paused only long enough to confirm it was an enemy. He squeezed the trigger coldly and the Fiend dropped some seven or eight feet from the vendor. Double-tapping preferable, but unsustainable given ammunition reserves. Two shots remaining.

"Somebody named Khan, I heard on the radios. And..." Selena turned, furrowing her eyebrows and looking at Michelle. "They're bringing in some lady called the Director." She glanced up at her older brother, a moment of silent understanding passing between them. There was now a very real risk of discovery. Andy did not care. 

"She's finished them. Come with me." Andy grabbed her hand and continued to shield her with his frame, unintentionally but mercifully guarding her eyes from the eviscerated remains of the Fiends Michelle had killed. Selena kept her eyes firmly on the ground, trying to block out the screams, the motionless kids and women and dads strewn about, the smell of gunpowder and smoke...

Andy paused long enough to tuck his pistol into the front of his belt (something which would run the risk of blowing off certain sensitive organs on most individuals; this risk did not pertain to Andy) as he picked up a sawn-off shotgun from a fallen Fiend. Double-barrelled. Horribly inefficient. Handle wrapped in duct tape. Barrels removed crudely, poor accuracy and irreparable damage to the firearm. But serviceable. Andy cracked open the barrels with the idle ease of a professional and checked the barrels. One round remaining; three shots toatl. Ugh. 

"What is our next move?" Andy asked, pushing Selena down behind the cover of the vendor with a gentle but firm hand. He knelt as well, gripping the shotgun in one hand and the pistol in the other. He demonstrated, unconsciously, rather remarkable firearm safety. Both weapons were aimed at the ground, fingers off the triggers, muzzles clear of any living people. Selena eyed Michelle's hardware, chewing her lip and hoping for an opportunity to present itself. Had she wiped its records? Maybe she had some other recorder on her-she'd heard cops were starting to get more and more body cameras. Footage of Andy would be...bad. Really bad. Grr. The NEST chick would have to get distracted soon, right? Until then, Selena divided her attention between the radio frequencies buzzing in her head and the bullets buzzing through the air around her.

[b][i]Anastasia Lytvyn[/i][/b]

Oh, Samuel. Anastasia recalled a bit of philosophy-Chinese, she thought, or perhaps Japanese. One of her old WLC squadmates had been fond of the stuff, pushing Sun Tzu on all the new guys and trying to hook them in further as it went. Thought-provoking, if nothing else. But she'd always been fond of one little aphorism of his-be the lightning, not the tycoon. If Sam wanted to be a hurricane, that would be just fine with her. Lightning was more her style-and they'd never hear the thunder, either.

Anastasia tightened the straps of her backpack, making sure it clung fast to her chest, and turned the opposite way, seemingly running from the combat. She grimaced, hoping that Fiona kept her ass still in that dumpster for a moment. She jumped up, flowing from the ground to the top of the rusted green steel in one smooth movement. She crouched, absorbing the impact with practiced grace, and turned her eyes to the ledge above her. The girl was small, but she'd always left her comrades in the dust on leg days-years of running and gymnastics rose from slumber as she burst upwards, clutching onto the shingles (they scorched her fingertips in the intense summer heat, but Anastasia forced it from her mind) and swinging up and onto the roof. She crouch-walked to the roof beside the alley, dropping and pausing for a moment. It'd taken about four or five seconds total, and she wasted no time in swinging off her pack, drawing out a small duffel bag which she gently lay on the ceiling beside her. She tugged on a pair of shooting gloves and a mask, again with experienced quickness, and then set to assembling her rifle, a task that took under a minute. Anastasia was good-the well-maintained machine almost purred in her hands, the receiver snapping into place. She hooked her leg around her backpack and swung it before her as she turned, resting the rifle on the bag, staying prone to minimize her presence. Anastasia hummed softly, stilling her nerves and calming her breath with the practiced birdsong. She dialed in the rifle and found Sam-or, perhaps more accurately, a vague zone of Sam- sensing his wake moreso than him; she saw the branches sway and knew where the wind was. A Fiend fell to unseen hands, and Anastasia turned her rifle a good thirty degrees away from there. [i]Samuel, darling, you really are going to get shot one of these days. Let's hope it's not me.[/i]

The rifle didn't make any noise as she dropped the first two Fiends, the disposed brass falling into her cupped hand. She curled up around the SVU, attempting to stay clear of where Sam was operating and avoid killing any bystanders in the process. Easier said than done-no one was standing still, and in the chaos of the surging, panicking crowd, the room for error was very minimal. She'd silence them, giving the Fiend who was halfway through a word or sentence pause-just long enough to make them stop, see a look of confusion wash over their face as they tried to determine whether their sudden aphonia was the result of an overdose or-

Their skulls split open and they hit the ground. Anastasia felt some vague sadness about all this, but she simply hummed softly, and the emotion like her heartrate calmed back down. She swiveled back to the right, leaving Sam's little alley of bloody mayhem clear. Once, a bullet kicked the edge of the roof near her, and she took swift vengeance on the shooter. With his kneecap shot out, another Fiend scrambled to drag him to cover, showing unusual camaraderie for a gang of addicts. Made sense-with the whole world against them, they really couldn't afford to be against themselves, too. Still, it didn't earn them any reprieve from Anastasia. 

She ejected the spent magazine from the SVU and reached for another within the bag, trying to figure out howw much longer Sam wanted to keep this up. She hadn't come prepared for a fight-only one magazine for the GSh and ten more shots for the Dragunov. And there were so many of them, violently green syringes glowing in one hand and handguns and machine pistols roaring off in the other. Disgusting. So crude. She drew back the slide and sighed, emptying her lungs of air and her heart of hesitation.

[i]Good night.[/i] The muzzle flashed and the slide racked back without so much as a whisper, cutting off a Fiend whom she suspected was dangerously close to running into Sam. Another Fiend had dropped with no visible cause, and this particular tweaker was curious as to the cause, a look of comprehension and fury dawning on his face. [i]NEST. KINGFISHER. Always a flair for the theatrical. America's always got something to prove like that.[/i]