[h1][b][color=5a6b7c]Rainsinger[/color][/b][/h1]

[color=5a6b7c]”Yeah. Homesickness. You could say that. Old town’s a piece of work, but she’s our piece of work. Well, yours, I guess. You get it, anyway, I’m getting old. People retire when they’re old, dunno how much I got left in me. Being out [i]there[/i] so long and not here very long, it’ll make you realize where you went ain’t much far from where y’came from.”[/color] An inhale of whatever he was drinking punctuated the awfully poetic explanation Linus just gave Lady Hel. For all his composed, somewhat standalone-ish nature, he always did have a soft spot for this place. It wasn’t out of memories, hell, he’d never touch this place again if that were the case. It made him [i]him.[/i] The name “Rainsinger” wouldn’t exist were it not for mire of messes and street politics he grew up in. [color=5a6b7c]”Guess I couldn’t stay away from the place’s charm for another twenty…Say, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about Fade, would you?”[/color]

And on they went. Reminiscing about this, that, and everything in between. 

[color=5a6b7c]”Welp- Sweetness. It’s been a pleasure talkin’ with ya, funny enough, but I’ve got other reunions worth seeing to.”[/color] Linus slipped a $20 into the empty glass, not even feeling a buzz from the strong drink as he slid it down to the bartender before standing up. [color=5a6b7c]”Grab me sometime, I’ll be in town a while. We can catch up some more anytime. Oh- and while you’re not busy, might wanna put those Shade Knights on a leash. Shade Knights…Shadow Knights, the guys in the dopey lookin’ hoods. The kook with the scar thought he was gonna spook me. I guess you know who I’m talking about, if you don’t, I don’t.”[/color] What were the odds Hel actually knew any more about them than he did? He felt them pretty high, given he took a life-long vacation. [color=5a6b7c]”Tell your girls I said hey.”[/color] 

And so he left.

Linus left the bar, and proceeded to make his way around Tenebrae, seeing all the old things he used to wake up to every day. From the looks of it, this old city hasn’t changed much, hasn’t aged a day, he thought. Then again, when he and Hel last knew each other, they were nothing but a bunch of squatters hiding from the rain as she put it. The sun was pulling more and more into the sky as he strolled down street after street, block after block, recalling old memories. The time he learned to walk on water, the time he made the whole city blind thanks to Carver. His “death.” The fire. [i]That[/i] fire. It was all enough to make a man of his age sit back and think. 

As he continued making his journey into the city, he saw it.

The old Crane factory.

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A tall, crumbling spine of forgotten days and endings. The building wasn’t really a building anymore, but just a decayed husk kept together by settled soot and gravity. Long-forgotten police tape fluttered in the breeze as Linus stepped around broken glass. At one time, this was a busy and thriving place of work where many came and made something of themselves. That, however, was until Carver and Rainsinger came along. Linus stood in front of the old, twisted mess of construction that he destroyed, pondering the last time those two ever saw each other. The day this factory burned was the last time the man named Grayson ever lived, and the last time Rainsinger was seen in Tenebrae. If he looked hard enough, he could see what was left of the window they were [i]both[/i] supposed to jump out of, in order to evade the cops. Too bad it didn’t work for them both, Carver got caught. Poor bastard. He stayed there for a while, and the sun started to hang lower and lower. It was about time to find a bed. Suddenly, a bag of fur and shiny eyes calling itself “Fauxpaw” was at his side with a message. “7. Where five fingers make a hand. Sunrider.”

Sunrider. That’s a name he damn near forgot…

[h1][b][color=ff6130]Ellie[/color][/b][/h1]

Ellie was already a quarter of a mile away from everyone when things started happening. She wasn’t aware that the Hunters were on Dream’s trail, otherwise there’d be nothing left of them at all. She was zooming down the roads and intersections, weaving through traffic in ways that could only be described as unusually hasty. But then, how else should one feel in her state? Memories were flood back into Ellie’s head that she wanted to bury; Fire. Insomnia-driven nights. Unchained decisions. Danger. Everything Ellie swore that she left dead and buried many years ago. The last - very last - thing she needed was anyone that she couldn’t trust knowing those things about her. It wasn’t a matter of fear, her [i]life[/i] depended on it. There was nothing out there for her to go to if things went south. Last time, she got lucky, that one-in-a-million everyone gets only once in life. There were things building inside of her the longer she laid her floor flat against the throttle, and not the kind of thing that glowed.

Anger, bewilderment, embarrassment even. She was mad for reasons she could understand. Why would Rainsinger fake his death, what did he gain from that? Moreover, she felt like an idiot for thinking a man like him could die in a fire, what in hell did she think that for? It didn’t matter, she thought those things two decades ago. He was supposed to [i]die[/i] two decades ago. Where has he been? Here? Somewhere else with a dock? So many things clouded her thoughts that she almost couldn’t think straight, she was going down roads she never went down anymore, towards the south east end of Tenebrae. Ellie passed through old neighborhoods, down cracked pavement and dusty houses. Colson Street. No one lived here anymore, not since anyone found out there was a gang of violent metas living under their noses. Weeds were growing in clumps out of old pavement, unattended to for years. Ellie stopped at a turn to look around the empty place. It’s been years.

Takeda was a ways behind her, she should’ve figured. That didn’t matter, she’d just keep driving. Whatever he wanted didn’t matter. She’d just keep driving. What she didn’t know is she wouldn’t have lost him yet. Even still, Ellie disappeared behind the turn and went straight for a little while long before another turn, and down a dead alley, and up a forgotten road again. She came to a desolate warehouse. Dulled sheet metal on the roof, rusted metal doors, weathered brick. In front of it was the remains of a fallen chain link fence, as if someone had flattened it with something. It lay tangled in overgrown grass, untouched for a lifetime. Ellie pressed on, affected by her surrounding not in unfamiliarity, but nostalgia. Foreboding, uncomfortable nostalgia.

She came to the front entrance, a garage door barricaded by cinderblocks in a stacked pattern, on the door off to the side for workers was a peeling, painted sign depicting a wire frame of a hand. The fingers were all different colors: Blood red, bright orange, faded gold, and navy blue. This was the place Ellie was coming to- the place where five fingers make a hand. 

This was a dead place, in a dead part of Tenebrae, held by dead names. 

And she didn’t even see Takeda follow her in.

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[hr]

Ellie snaked her way under a rusted garage door that let her into the sprawling building. Boarded up windows that let in just enough light. Relic-old shipping trucks connected by boards used for walkways, and what used to be the Gray Dragon’s central base of operations. Ellie’s home away from home. Rainsinger’s real home. Fendrix’s castle. Carver’s lab. Fadeaway’s hideout. Rainsinger…

She continued into the grass-ridden building, knowing the place like the back of her hand. On the other side of this husk was a common space, where they hung like they were normal people discussing which banks to shatter. You know, the usual thing normal people do when they live in decaying warehouses in a city full of superhuman criminals. It felt…like the absolute opposite of catharsis sitting on the same stack of crates again, like she was 15 again, waiting on the sun to poke through the roof; When the rest of the gang would get here after her, after Grayson came crawling out of some unknown part of the building with a granola bar in his hand as he’d say-

[color=5a6b7c]”Hey, kid.”[/color]

That voice. That fucking voice.

Ellie’s whole body nearly fell to fight-or-flight. She tensed up into a stance as her eyes instantly locked onto him. He was roughly 30 feet away from her, walking out from behind a box of retail crates, with his hands in his pockets as if he just woke up 23 to 24 years ago. Ellie’s whole body was frozen, not out of fear, not out of rage, at least not yet. What she was feeling was the feeling you get when you hear something explode out your window. Like being floored, he was dead. But here he was. The one and only. Her face’s expression melted from shock to stand-off as she began to accept what she could see with her own two eyes. Grayson Danvers didn’t die. He simply left.

And now, he’s come back.

Linus stood away from her, at a considerable distance where punching didn’t work. He had an odd look on his face. It was a smile, a patronizing one. It was the kind of smile you get when someone’s trying to make a point. [color=5a6b7c]”Did’ya miss me?”[/color]

[color=ff6130]”Grayson…”[/color]

[color=5a6b7c]”-He’s dead. I go by Linus now. Haven’t used the name Grayson Danvers in years.”[/color]

[color=ff6130]”Like in 20?”[/color] She sounded bitter and angry. She wasn’t either, just anxious.

[color=5a6b7c]”Easy there, Sunny. Your furball told me you were lookin’ for me. By the way, Hel says hey-“[/color]

[color=ff6130]”Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you for real this time.”[/color]

[color=5a6b7c]”Who am I again?”[/color]

[color=ff6130]”You’re supposed to be dead!”[/color] Ellie shouted, her exasperation was showing. She was uncomfortable with the fact that he was here. Irrationally so. [color=ff6130]”You burned! You just vanished!”[/color]

[color=5a6b7c]”Well, you’re half right.”[/color]

[color=ff6130]”Why?! Why didn’t you stay dead?! Gone?! What do you want?!”[/color]

[color=5a6b7c]”What, you think I came back for you? Take a knee, Sunny.”[/color]

[color=ff6130]”That’s not my name!”[/color]

[color=5a6b7c]”Right, lemme guess, you went and redeemed yourself. Got good, got right with yourself, and now you’re scared I’m gonna throw you out there, outta the kindness of my heart.”[/color]

Ellie didn’t have anything to say to that, because he was right.

[color=5a6b7c]”And you think I sailed all the way back to little old Tenebrae because your old friend Rainy had some sorta- karmic vendetta on the one who scattered the herd a whole generation ago? Your hand’s showing.”[/color]

[color=ff6130]”I…How…”[/color]

[color=5a6b7c]”Take a deep breath, kid- You think I’m gonna rat out my own runnin’ pal? Me?”[/color]

Ellie seemed speechless and disarmed of her anxiety. The more the thought about it, how would he make any dirt on her count after so long…

[color=5a6b7c]”There it is. See? Why don’t we start over…Ya miss me?”[/color]

Now that Ellie was thinking a bit more clearly, she took a more abrasive mindset, similar to the kind she had when she first met Takeda. Only now, it was with a hardened criminal rather than who she thought was a criminal.

[color=ff6130]”Grayson- Linus, whatever- what the hell are you doing here. You fake your death, leave without a trace like a ghost for 20 years, and come back for what exactly?!”[/color]

[color=5a6b7c]”Heh, I guess Hel says I’m homesick. Felt like seein’ the old place again. Tenebrae ain’t getting any older, no time like the present.”[/color]

[color=ff6130]”Yeah, right. I don’t trust that for a second.”[/color]

[color=5a6b7c]”Would I lie to you?”[/color]

[color=ff6130]”Don’t start with me.”[/color]

Of all things, Rainsinger laughed. One would swear this man made a hobby out of acting like an ass around dangerous women.

[color=5a6b7c]”Hey, come on. This is me we’re talkin’ about. Your old buddy, the Rainsinger. Oshus, Tenebrae’s Trident. Been meaning to swing by and say hello for a while, but things happen. Relax, kid. I ain’t like that no more. I didn’t come here to rob a bank. Doesn’t look like you do that either, am I right? You clean up your act?”[/color]

[color=ff6130]”Did you?”[/color]

[color=5a6b7c]”What kind of question is that? I got out, I moved up. Haven't I always told you that's what I wanted? Just to get better? Hell, we're standin' in what used t'be my house, now I got a boat and enough cash to retire like some Florida Keyes tax expert or whatever."[/color]

[color=ff6130]"And you just happened to come back to this, with all that? You hated Tenebrae."[/color]

[color=5a6b7c]"Yeah. Hated. It's easy to hate a city when it's full'a things ya don't have."[/color]

Ellie was at a loss for words. In the old days, the man who stood before her was known for his capability to flatten the city with so much as a wave of his hands. He was unpredictable, unreadable, and the only person who stood a chance again the bane of every normal person's life. And now, he stood here saying he was stopping into town because he was homesick. Nothing added up, it was like he was a completely different person, and she was dumbfounded. It made her uncomfortable, knowing he was here.

[color=5a6b7c]"Anyway, you invited me here. What's the word?"[/color]

[color=ff6130]"...I had to see you for myself, I didn't want to believe you weren't dead."[/color]

[color=5a6b7c]"Yeesh. That bad huh?[/color]

[color=ff6130]"What?"[/color]

[color=5a6b7c]"Must've scared you pretty bad, huh?"[/color]

[color=ff6130]"Look. Y-"[/color] Ellie heard an out-of-place noise behind Linus. Something knocked over, someone spying on them.

[color=ff6130]"Takeda?"[/color]