[@Lasrever] [hider=Get well soon!] [hr][h1][center]Renegade[/center][/h1][hr] Lasrever coughed into her hands as a car sped past her seat on the sidewalk bench, scattering dust and exhaust as it broke the speed limit by about 40 miles per hour. Rubber screamed against asphalt as the driver rounded a corner like he was reenacting a movie chase scene, except no one seemed to care enough to chase him. It was just as well, she figured, since she’d much rather see the bastard crash and burn before the police could save him. Would save her the work of killing him herself. Sitting on a bench was supposed to have been therapeutic (more than slamming lecherous faces against unforgiving hardwood counters at least), but here she was wondering how many ways she could kill that asshole of a driver before nature ran its course. 12, she decided. There were 12 satisfying ways and 37 unsatisfying ways given her current equipment: a half-finished latte from Peet’s Coffee, car keys and temporary apartment key, fake ID, the knife strapped to her left calf, underneath the flared hem of her slacks and upside-down with an easy-release latch, smoke grenades in an inside pocket of her thick wool coat, and her G43 pistol nestled snugly in the shoulder holster. Thoughts to entertain her wandering boredom while the target sauntered through the city at some unknown intersection, completely unaware of the hit that had been ordered. How could he be, after all? He had done nothing wrong. By all accounts, he was a generous man who donated often to the local soup kitchen and even volunteered to help in his spare time. Saintly, really, and entirely too good for this world. How a rich philanthropist and his burgeoning presence in politics managed to piss off the more corrupt elite was a question with an obvious answer: by existing. For a man who could give Jesus Christ a run for his money, the hit ordered was quite spectacular. They wanted a crucifixion with trails leading to the local bishop so they could wash their hands of two influential problems at once. “Make it look like a falling out and an extremist reaction” they had requested, and it couldn’t just be the usual suicide bombing with an unwilling participant. No. It had to be sensational. Something to get the public riled up and ripe for the reaping. Fine, she supposed. But that costs a hell of a lot extra. Half now and half later, they had promised, but she wasn’t born yesterday. She had overcharged them to make sure the first half was the full price she normally would have charged. Lasrever had no intention of collecting the second half. No doubt by now a second assassin had been hired to kill her, with little information to avoid any leaks. “Isn’t that right, buddy?” she had asked exactly 13 hours ago from the current 8 PM, standing over the young man’s broken body while he wheezed and gasped up at her. Two days. She had two days before they noticed his lack of communication, because two days was her time limit to take care of her own target. But these fools really had to stop making themselves so obvious, even though communications had been through a proxy and never in person, either. It wasn’t exactly hard for her to figure out who would benefit most from the untimely demise of one politician and the following public fury at the bishop. She was waiting in front of the man’s apartment complex. The bright building was a swanky place filled with guards and gates and overpaid dog groomers preening the animals to perfection. Her real target’s apartment was the penthouse suite, because decadence and moral decay seemed to walk hand in hand more often than not, in her experience. She smiled to herself at the judgment—as if she had any right to speak on moral decay, given her profession of choice. But he would soon sneak out of his own accord, because she had left him the incriminating photographs of his various under-the-table affairs with his fellow corrupt. He wanted the negatives? He’d step outside alone. Anyone else within a mile of him and the negatives are sent to the largest news network in the nation. Right on time, the tall Adonis of a crook took his leave, fearful blue eyes scanning the road for anything suspicious (and deciding the unassuming woman tapping away on her phone across the street was perfectly innocent) before walking down the sidewalk as ordered and turning the corner towards a crosswalk that led to the nearby eateries and brand-name boutiques. Lasrever waited until he had fully turned his back, then stood up and walked in the opposite direction. The people who hired her always assumed she worked solo, but she liked to think Mary and Jane would disagree, their weights comfortable against her calf and inside her shoulder holster. Once she was clear of the complex’s external security cameras, she circled around the block, darting into the nearest alley that opened towards the road lined with expensive stores. He would be waiting behind the Fear of God outlet, which she had decided was an appropriate place to kill him. As promised there he was, though Lasrever held back, keeping herself hidden behind the nearby dumpster. As expected of amateurs, he was looking towards a distant window like he was waiting for something. Probably hired a sniper. Who did this man think she was? She was motherfucking Lasrever, the terror of Uzbekistan, the wraith of Syria, and the scathefire of Egypt--the woman responsible for plunging the world into a third global war. Taking on easy side jobs was just a personal preference and this small fry? He thought one sniper was all it took to kill her after the armies of Syria had tried and failed. It was insulting, she thought, as she threw a smoke bomb and heard him panic immediately. Pretty fucking insulting, she reaffirmed mentally as Mary’s razor edge slit his throat and arterial spray arced across the nearby wall. He put up a good struggle, as any man his size and physical fitness would, but no amount of stamina staved off blood loss and though she took a flailing elbow to the head, Lasrever wasn’t worried about the cranial damage just yet. It would set in later, but not now. Now she could still finish her job. And she certainly wasn’t done with him, yet. While the smoke hid the area and garnered the attention of local law enforcement, Lasrever put her knowledge to use in record time, tearing through his clothes with deft precision and a trusty knife. Piping and a telephone pole let her scale just high enough to tie his arms to either side of the alley with the knotted, elongated lengths of shredded clothes. His body hung in the center of the alley when she was finished in less than 3 minutes, naked and bleeding out just like a crucified Jesus. The blaring of sirens in the near distance was her cue to leave, and Lasrever took off, throwing the stained wool jacket into the dumpster and wiping off the flecks of blood on her face with the scarf, letting it join the jacket in the trash as well. It still wouldn’t do to head out in public now, but with the police attention on the thick cloud of smoke in the still night air and the growing crowd around the area, she was free to take a quick detour into the open back door of a nearby restaurant, shocking the part-timer washing dishes there. The gangly teen’s eyes widened at the bloody smears on her face, and Lasrever placed a finger to her lips curled in a conspiratorial smile. When he seemed ready to turn away, she pulled the gun on him and he froze. “Good boy,” she whispered, keeping the weapon trained on him as she stepped quickly into the employee bathroom while the head chef seemed to have run out to the front of the store with the rest of the customers, no doubt staring at the noisy scene two stores down. She escaped through the bathroom window and down another alley, leaving the scene behind quickly. By the time the police force began searching in earnest for the killer, Lasrever was long gone, her getaway car tearing asphalt as she sped down the highway out of town, feeling the first signs of a headache coming on. She decided if the driver from before had been speeding after delivering justice, she might forgive him. And, really, she’d deal with it all later, after the exhilaration wore off and she was far enough away that no one would notice until it was too late. It was funny, she mused as she popped off the cap of a prescription bottle with one hand and swallowed two pills of codeine dry, how she always managed to make the victims fork over ridiculous sums of money for their own demise. Sepulcher would pass it off as a different source’s hit and their reputation would rise. She would get her own warped ideals of justice. A win-win for all involved. Well, all who mattered. Never let it be said she left loose threads hanging, though. She had already sent the images to every major news site in the country, and uploaded them to various websites around the internet for good measure, all from the throwaway phone now smashed to pieces and buried in the dirt beneath a bush on the side of the road. Let people come to what conclusions they would, but it looked now like an internal affair gone wrong. Her specialty, after all, wasn’t killing people [i]per se[/i]. It was manipulating the blame with minimal effort. But she’d revel in her latest country-enraging work later. Now she wanted a quick nap on the side of the road before continuing on her way, because an outlaw’s work was never finished and rumor had it the kingpin of Russia’s mafia would be visiting a nearby town soon. An old memory hummed in the back of her mind as the concussion finally overpowered her senses just as she parked the old Mustang alongside a desolate stretch of road. Someone had once asked her what she would do to make things right, and she thought of freshly brewed coffee and a policeman’s failing resolve. “I’d set the world on fire,” she had answered. [/hider] Cheesy one-liner: Check. Edgy things: Check. Reference to concussion: Check. Something something justice and whatever: Check. Hopes Las doesn't get anime amnesia from her rugby concussion: Check. Misses Zoe's brutal verbal beatdowns IC: Check. Notice me, senpai: Check.