[center][color=f6989d][h3][u][b]    Ｒ Ａ Ｃ Ｈ Ａ Ｅ Ｌ    Ｍ Ｏ Ｒ Ｔ Ｏ Ｎ    [/b][/u][/h3][b]...ｉｎｔｏ ｔｈｅ ｆｉｒｅ[/b][/color][/center]

Air is quite a peculiar element that both exists in the world and yet it is also nothing at all. Not many people would think twice about the invisible substance except when they felt the wind blow, where it created a perculiar combination of pressure and sound. This ghostly blend lashed over Rachael's body as she rushed her way along the magrail track, sending sounds of speed into her ears and pressing against her body. She could feel it flow through her hair, tugging it behind her head, waving it around like a flag announcing it's surrender. It was one of the few experiences she could feel that was similar to what everyone else felt. An element that did not require the need of sight.

Rachael stretched her arms out to the sides, opening herself up and pushing her chest forward in order to take on the full force of the wind that pressed firmly against her torso. She let one limb begin to drop as she entered a gentle swooping motion, lifting the arm back up to continue the sway from one side to the other. A technique that in her younger years would have attracted the desires of unsavoury men and women. A hypnotic dance, a mindless trance, a muscle memory movement of meditation and relaxation; all in order to push out the thoughts and memories that plagued her fragile, tortured mind.

Those very thoughts and memories she was trying to push out were of those she serviced, the ones that sexually abused her and the ones that cherished her intimacy. It was like a disease in the brain, constantly reminding her of what she had done, how she had gotten to this point, and how she would never again feel that childhood innocence that was taken away from her at such a young age. She had lost a lot of her identity over the years by playing the submissive part that oh-so many people wanted, just so they could get their jollies off, just to appease their personal hunger and thirst. A cash payment for whoring your inner self out to the world itself.

[i]What kind of person was she originally destined to be? It was a distant dream that would never again be reached.[/i]

Gaze stopped swaying back and forth as the faint smell of the slums entered into her nostril. A disgustingly foul odour that was a harsh reminder of the home of where she once lived. The smell of smoke, of alcohol, of sewerage, of a rotting city that was left to crumble, it was a place that would never leave her past no matter how far she ran away. This night however she was venturing back in to find Elisha, to do as Julius ordered, to kill that little bitch and place a bullet in her god-damn-bra...

>Network Connection Lost

Rachael was completely ripped out of her zen like state with the digital voice that abruptly announced in her ear. She placed her hand over her wrist and tapped the problematic device, listening to the error filled buzzing sounds of a gadget that wasn't obeying her commands. Something felt off about this change. There was no reason why she wouldn't have a signal, especially around the rail network. Gaze let her visor drop down in front of her eyes intending to use it to peer down at her communicator, to see what was causing the technical glitch. She hadn't even reached that point when she saw the horizon around her.

Ash, carnage and fire; all doused in a downpour of depressing rain.

The grainy images fed into Rachael's broken brain through the cameras, lacking the colour range of a normal eye but filled to the brim with intensity and emotion. The glow of burning buildings filled the district skyline, a destruction that was spreading with very little effort. It was demonstrating how fragile this unclean ecosystem had become, how Rachael had received a front row seat to the premier screening, how her day could turn from shit to cataclysmic.

[color=f6989d]"I don't... understand?"[/color] It was a query that offered no answers at this point in time. She didn't want to believe what she was seeing, what she was experiencing. How did she come this far into the Slums and not realised something was amiss? She looked down at her watch and checked the time, noticing it would take at least 20 minutes to get back towards Neon.

A sudden explosion, followed by a harrowing screech of rubber, rang through the through the empty streets below. It pulled Rachael's attention away from her own concerns and back to the harsh, unfair reality. With intense haste she skated over to the side of the magrail and shot her attention downwards only to see a Hunchback flash past her vision in the alleyways below. She had seen Hunchbacks before and it didn't seem out of the ordinary to see one in the Slums, but it was the other being that caught her attention. A blue, glowing humanoid that howled to the moon like a werewolf.

The ambient sounds of the Slums shifted as more and more of these demon like howls could be heard. Their noise sent a cold, spine tingling shiver through Gaze's body, an unusual feeling into her hands and legs, causing her to feel the beginnings of a sickening numb sensation. The beginnings of fear was only aided when a body crashed into the rail beside her. Her view instantly turned back to the direction in which she was travelling from, only to see the lumped corpse of an Advent thrashing about on the tracks. It had clearly attempted to side tackle her but due to her speed she managed to escape it's mighty lunge.

Paranoia began to sink in with Gaze's breath quickening to account for the unneeded panic. With each intake of air she noticed another creature climbing up onto the magrail, rushing for her, attempting to bring her down. They were trying to kill her?! They were blood thirsty and targeting her, like an animal, like she was prey. No, she was prey!!! She had dropped to the bottom of the food chain and these "things" were going to be her end. They looked as if they wanted to rip her to shreds, tear her limb from limb, leave her screaming in pain, begging for dear death!

There was too much going on, she couldn't process what she was seeing, her mind was moving at a speed she couldn't control. Rachael instinctively reached for her injector, no second thought, no desire to fight through this without her high. She grabbing it off her chest strap, holding onto the chrome cylinder for dear life, gripping it the clammy hands that wanted to fumble it out of her fingertips. The addict held out her scarred left forearm and plunged the injector into her ravaged skin, pushing hard in order to ensure that she got the dose that she wanted, listening to the gentle chimes that it voiced. All she had to do now was wait...

[color=92278f]"Beep...

Beeeep...

Beeeeeeeep..."[/color]
[center][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy_QQW1sDq8]♫  ♫  ♫  ♫[/url][/center]
The very second Gaze pulled the syringe away from her arm she could feel the world begin to slow down. It would take her a moment to adjust as she felt the chemical concoction enter her body; travelling round her veins, dulling her senses, reducing the heighted psychosis that her mind had decided to cultivate. One poison to counter another.

[color=f6989d]"Focus on what you do best, what you've trained for, what he expects you to do..."[/color]

Her own words were reassurance that she had to survive, no matter what it took. The damsel reached behind her back and placed her hand on the long black case, clutching a soft grip, squeezing it hard, and finally giving it a slight tug. The metallic case immediately opened up, folding back it's protective sides to expelled it's deadly contents; a collection of wires, steel, ammunition and explosives. Gaze could feel the jerky motion of the Tarkus as she flourished it out before her body, still transforming, still aligning up it's corresponding pieces. If god could create life on the world in seven days, Gaze could create death in seven seconds. Each click signalled that it was getting closer to killing time, that her time as the prey would shift to that of a predator. That she would become the one most feared.

The hunter took one last view at her surroundings, analysing both exactly where she was positioned and the lane she was travelling in. She needed to rely solely on her instinct, her memory, her time spent on the magrails within the slums. The visor lifted up, sending her artificial world back into the darkness that she knew so well, all before rotating round and choosing to travel along the rail network backwards. A decision to fight her enemy face to face.

The Tarkus rifle was raised up to her eye, granting her the ability to see her glowing targets as clear as day. It made it easier that they couldn't hide their luminosity within the cold, wet night. Every being had a weakness and this was one of them, something that could be used against the monstrous beast themselves. Gaze lined up a shot within the cross-hairs, sighting down the gun, focusing on the one that needed to die... and pulled the trigger. The gun exploded with fury, sending three round flying down towards the enemy, hitting the target, downing the body, but regrettably she could not confirm a kill.

The Advent flailed on the ground, rolled over onto it's front and attempted to get back up to run after Rachael. Luckily for her she had created some distance between the two, but with more of these blue beasts coming after the human, it was in essence a bitter-sweet victory. Gaze took a shot, and another, and another. With each shot round she targeted a new creature, trying desperately to make sure she didn't miss, but also frantically finding out if she could kill them, if they were in fact mortal. 

The gradient of the mag rail began to shift indicating that the female needed to quickly scurry to a safe, adjacent lane. She leapt the small barrier, entering the vehicular designated section just as the personal lane she was in branched off to one of the exit ramps. It was too dangerous to exit the rail network at this current point in time, she needed to build up some more distance, needed to ensure her safety. Rachael gave a quick sprint, boosting up her speed before turning back for round two. She didn't have much further to go but at this point in time it was a matter of [i]if[/i] she would eventually make it. 

The Advent kept coming. With each one that she took down, another two would appear. It felt like a never ending onslaught that was playing more and more against her with every passing minute. They were getting closer, clawing at her, reaching a few meters away from her body. Rachael felt a sudden burst of air pass her, causing her heart to stop beating in fright. Quickly she whipped her gun sight over to see an upturned car, an unexpected object that she narrowly missed. It was that moment she fully understood that if she made any mistake, any minor mishap, she would become mince meat. A silver haired dinner for the hungry ferals.

Rachael felt a shift in her plane of existence, it was that point she was waiting for, that saving grace moment. Steadily the ground began to rotate anticlockwise, pushing her body up slowly into a position that would eventually end up parallel to the earth below. She could see in her sights the creatures making a final leap for her, unaware that the angled ground would affect their trajectory. With one last hurrah Rachael lined up her launcher towards the middle of the hungry hoard and pulled the secondary trigger, sending a package of explosive death into the crowd.

The grenade hit it's mark, a fireworks display of limbs and bodies that rained across the magrail, scattering their fleshy mass in every possible direction. 

Rachael breathed out heavily as her oddly orientated body whipped it's way between two narrow apartment blocks. She could feel the adrenaline and sedative fighting against each other in her system as she held her gun behind her back and let the case reabsorb it into it's protective cocoon. The visor dropped back down as she reached for the injector in order to analysed it, pulling it off her chest and checking the indicator gauge on its side. With a slight huff she realised that she may have made a mistake.

[color=f6989d]"I double dosed... didn't I?"[/color] she expressed wearily, realising that she may have been a bit too aggressive with the amount that she took. An error that could cause a problem if she was to get into another unnecessary fire fight. It wasn't the most difficult position that she landed herself in, but it was far from the most desirable.