Smoke, not the pleasant kind either, but the kind that had that off metallic tang to it, that kind which was an amalgam of metal and something else burnt, singed right out of it and thrown up into the air. It was copper, iron really, because it was blood tainted. That was the taste, the smell, the feel of it. It was a sickly cloud of the stuff in yet another alleyway that could use more lighting to avoid this and by lighting, the man's racing thoughts did not mean more neon. The zone was choked with the stuff, just like the damn corridor was with the nasty smoke.

Metal plates slapped all over the body did a lot to stop bullets, as did plaststeel or even good old kevlar, but there was still meat under there and the dead boosters down the trench knew it now. Would have at least, assuming there was any part of them still functional in there. They got tore up, chromejobs or not, because armor-penetrators were the real equalizers on the street and someone was blowing through them. That was why he hugged the wall after sprinting through cover, oversized handcannon leveled vertically, finger off the trigger. Sure it wouldn't fire if the safeties weren't both depressed at the same time, trigger and tang, but he wasn't taking chances. Accidental discharge? Get a hail of actually aimed bullets back, or so went the worse case scenario, then end up like baldy was, now face down in some putrid, now bloody water, having an electrical spasm. So instead of joining them on the street in a similar pose, the man peaked around the corner, barrel leading.

The optic did more than amplify the darkness for someone like him who could already see in the shadowy underbelly, lack of sun or not, making the place feel like daylight as long as he kept both eyes forward, paying mind to the dot and sure as hell, one needed that advantage here. Anyone blasting off that kind of ammunition wildly, the stuff that tears up metal and concrete, was probably better equipped and prepared than a hunter. But Theron had no choice but to step over yet another body in pursuit of the source, given it being the first real lead and all he had. Guns like that, here on this side? Only one man had them for a minute and those things vanished in days, if not hours. Now all the weapons were gone and so was the dealer. Said dealer being the person Theron needed, alive if possible, and if that meant dropping a few less than lethal holes into some other solo, primarily his pricey tech, to get him to spill his guts on anything he knew so be it. That was just how the street was, especially when the Combat Zone just leaked into anything else like this.

Reaching another corner, glancing down to see some junkie with too many pointed bits stuck to his exterior, it was clear he was getting closer. The blood and its scent was getting stronger, something your average nobody wouldn't have noticed, let alone the typical hunter, but Theron lived the title inadvertently. All of him at something just around six foot was a street predator, the type of ambusher who just blindsided you, took the goods and left. Usually alive, but sometimes things got hairy, like now. So he waited and listened for a moment and heard an all too distinctive battery of bullets open up. The firefight was still alive and it sounded like he was closing in on it; whoever this ronin, samurai, corporate thug was, these gangers wanted him dead. Dead enough to send a team of like ten guys after his ass. Unfortunately it seemed they had sent too few [i]good[/i] guys because they were getting flatlined by just too many bullets and being too hyped up for their own good; half of the ones Theron had seen died just running after the gunfight.

Sweeping the corner with pistol readied, clearing concrete corners and corridors of old, decrepit building foundations, he kept on it. Pausing only at the opening between a courtyard on over to what was an overpass, maybe a few decades ago at least. The squatter city propped up under it was dead empty, no surprise, and the chatter of way too small of guns retorted back to a much larger one. It seemed like it never ended up to now - does the damn thing never reload? That question was answered when Theron looked around. [i]Drums[/i], big box drums, ones that would have been full of caseless rounds, hundreds of them packed neatly inside. Crouching down, picking one up while keeping the handcannon leveled generally toward the threat, he glanced over it. Not that he disbelieved it or any bunk as that, but looking for just what was being shot, aside from the obvious holes all over the place.

Harden tungsten penetrators, the sort of stuff that even frames couldn't tank for long if they got showered with it. The hunder did not even have to wonder why these guys got carved apart by a few bursts. Tossing the plastic bin aside, the thing making a distinctive "tonk" and skid before it stopped, Theron shook his head. He peeked once, then twice across the street and bolted diagonally in dead sprint, not directly to the area where the shooting was taking place under the old roadway or by all the scrap city, but rather another alleyway. He was going to flank and rely on a small building's worth of decaying brick, steel, and concrete to soak for him, assuming any bad news came his way. Hopefully that was not even the case and as he peered around the edge once, he saw the mark. Some typical psycho, hulked up on who knows what, with some silvery veins, all too much metal for legs, and some much too expensive specs'. Leveling the barrel down at him, boot toeing the wall and forearm bracing on it, the ambusher cross-cut his target, putting the dot over the man some thirty meters away who kept his firing of that oversized machinegun in one direction.

The synthetic frame snapped back and the first shot went off, one armor-defeating round firing in retaliation to all the craziness going on in slum city. Whatever it hit on the geeked out gunner made him flinch and stop, his entire body contorting, but the attacker did not stop there; a few more shots snapped back the slide, venting the gas operated weapon and loading yet another round in. The problem with all this?

Lieutenant Davison's "friend" only got more angry.