Easy come, easy go. Whoever she thought was supposed to have her back went their own ways, the two gunners setting up camp to flush any Imperial sod down nine more levels of Hell. What she had to show for it now was being stuck with some white-haired twink and a knife that’d give her tetanus if she wasn’t careful. Not the greatest lineup, but she’d gotten out of worse with less. Come to think of it, maybe the twink wouldn’t be so bad; Less person means less to hit. [color=03daed]Corporal[/color] told her to watch the grenades, but Ines could give a damn. If that armored car wasn’t chasing them into the building, they’d sure as hell make a hole for it. They’d need explosives for that, and explosives always whatever brave soul was commandeered to make the march was the one who’d need covering fire the most. With how [color=f52713]Silverhead[/color] and [color=ffa500]Corporal Scarface[/color] laid down firestorm after deafening Hellstorm into what was left of the street, if they were smart, they’d be making their way around and through that back way. That left them with a backroom full of shelves who’d all seen better days. Those shelves were probably about as old as the Levesque family bloodline, and built to outlast it, too. Nothing resounded to a room like an artillery barrage, and to that disastrous cadence, they had a lively jig to tempestuous even the original owner wouldn’t know what was left where, but with how this place was kept, Ines didn’t imagine the last occupant of this place exactly was doing ledgers for the East Edinburg Trading Company. But, a little maze was just what she needed. [hr] [center][i]January 12th, 1912[/i][/center] [color=7653A4]“Sshhh…”[/color] he went, trying his damnedest to speak the obvious in the heat of the moment. Every goddamn time, Ines wondered why she kept around a piece of trash like Cedric. Deep down, Cedric would be hopelessly lost if his girlfriend didn’t unfuck every single spider web he casually walked into, and that’s likely why Ines bothered taking pity on him. Didn’t hurt he had the hold of her promised share. The goon right in the doorway let out his little whistle as he took in the sights and sounds of a worn-down paper factory. “What a dump, huh?” Machinery dangled from the wall in every shape and contour, pipes weaving like vines atop the ceiling while they pumped out white frosty powder long after they were decommissioned. Conveyor belts couldn’t even be called them anymore; They were more like strands of fabric bolts thrown loosely over mechanical wheels with holes aplenty. “A dump”, it was, and Berangers weren’t known for their biting insights. Berangers. Lively little crew, them. Probably had the biggest cut in the black market trade out of everyone in the port side. And they didn’t just have a gang. Fernand Beranger had a private army working in and out of the Ostend seaports. Hell, if everything came crashing down and Fernand decided he wanted to make Ostend into his own private country, the Federation might not even decide it was worth it. Fortunately for the pair, the Berangers were the ones Cedric decided to steal from this time. Street fighting superstar or not, the Berangers could have gave a fuck about Ines. They made money ten thousand different ways, and a Darcsen screwing up their chance to rig fights was strictly small-time to them. Ines wanted to make sure that remained the same. And then Cedric came into her life with half-baked, barely-explained and even less thought-out plans, and all of that flying under the radar may have been blown wide open. [color=7653A4]“When I say so…”[/color] Cedric whispered, still hiding underneath an old processing station. The idea was stupid. Cedric was stupid. Ines was stupid for following him here and agreeing to this whole stupid plan. She was the real idiot for believing in him to begin with. [color=4682b4][i]“Why the fuck did I agree to this...why the fuck am I here...why the fuck am I with this asshole...how did I get here...why is it always me…?”[/i][/color] [color=7653A4]“...ready…”[/color] Ines knew her place. She was a disenfranchised ring-fighter, not a stickup kid working corners. Mobsters or a crowd of Darcsen hunters, Ines felt her fingers quiver along the trigger. It made her sick. She promised herself she wouldn’t kill anymore. She hated herself for going along with it. Hated why she was here. Hated the man who brought her into this, and hated herself for not saying anything about it. [color=7653A4]“...now!”[/color] A single shot could shatter an eardrum with how close everything was, packed together in here. From two desperadoes firing everything they had, inside a trap they weren’t even sure if they were caught in? Cold as it was outside, Ines’ ears were fine. She hoped the shots drowned out every last scream and every last shout, and hoped it drowned out the guilt of not finding her way out. [hr] [b][i]KRAKAKAKAKAKAKAK[/i][/b] Machine guns sounded off the perfect cover for her shot. She felt the kick of the carbine, the flash of the gun, posed right out the window and into the party. One fell to their knees, clutching something, somewhere. But as he caught his fall down with his only spare hand, Ines ducked back down, realizing she had missed. She almost sat frozen, ducking behind the concrete barrier. On her back, while her hand ran across the bolt, Ines felt the punching stings from the bullets hitting the wall, each reverb running down her back. Every little hiss of bullet colliding with plate reminded her of how close she came to paralysis, and each little nudge urged her closer and closer to the ground, until the woman came to a crawl, marching on toward the back of the room. As she marched on all fours into whatever crevice the big girl could fit herself into, she had to start weighing her options. Hard to do with a squad about six, maybe seven strong high on her heels. The air around her even seemed like it was going away. No matter how hard the Darcsen pressed her head against the back of a cupboard, she couldn’t suppress how heavily she heaved and huffed, almost like she was giving labor in the middle of a battlefield. [color=4682b4][i]“Focus, Ines. Think...you can do this…”[/i][/color] Self-talk for the disparaging soldier, Ines noted, [color=4682b4][i]“You know where they’re coming from...one way in...one way to point their guns from the outside...just...wait…”[/i][/color] They were muffled, sure, but the screaming told her what their plans were; Two on the outside providing cover fire, the rest were going down the rabbit hole. If any of them had grenades, they would have lobbed one through the window earlier. That made Ines a bit better, as if she somehow convinced herself having to fight only half a dozen people was somehow better than exchanging fire and grenades through a windowsill. [color=c9413a]“...Heinrich, take point. Becker, left flank.”[/color] Ines leaned down, peering through a slight crack in the cupboards cramming to get a better look on the advancing squad. Three so far. Had to be a few more behind them. She could seem them all coming around, funneling right into a hodgepodge Y-intersection made of broken building and old storage wing. The tiny opening just ahead, not even a few meters in front of her, that’s where she saw her move. Creeping forth, Ines kept a hand alongside the cupboard display. In her right hand, she pulled a grenade from her back belt, pin and fuse still intact. From then on, it was a counting game, peering an eye around the corner. [color=4682b4][i]“One…”[/i][/color] They were trudging along. Four people, guns up. [color=4682b4][i]“Two…”[/i][/color] [color=4682b4][i]“...”[/i][/color] [i]*Ping!*[/i] [color=c9413a]“...OH FUCK, GRENADE!”[/color] The whole place shook while everyone scraped on to what they thought was cover. Ines darted behind her, pressing her body up against the cupboard. She drew her rain-rusted trench knife, leaning around the edge-... [i]*BOOM!*[/i] The Imperial around the corner dove behind the cupboard. Ines helped him, dragging the soldier by the neck while she introduced him to a blade. It came quick and easy, putting a hole in his throat like that. Shouts from the corner of where he died echoed through the maze, signalling Ines’ mad dash from around the corner and into the frenzied array. And just like that, the royale was on. [color=c9413a]“You BITCH!”[/color] his comrade screamed at the top of his lungs, [color=c9413a]“You’re about to DIE subhuman!”[/color] Boy had legs, that was for sure, but with how he held his rifle at his waist, all Ines had to do was get ready. She was still low to the ground, sure, but maybe he hoped to pin her head atop his bayonet like a skull on a pike. He thrusted his rifle forward with his whole body leaning in, and all Ines had to do was push right. Then, his whole form broke. Collapsed. Shattered in an instant. He was flat on his stomach, and made easy pickings. Had Ines not bothered to catch herself off of the momentum of a falling body, she wouldn’t have had much else besides a loud grunt in a battlefield full of exertions to notice the knife swinging at her. Streaking silver filled the sight over her head, and whether Ines tilted back, or he just made a wild swing, she couldn’t tell in the heat of the moment. But a wide swing left him open, angry enough to grind his teeth to the bone, and that’s when Ines threw her riposte. When it came in contact with his head, she felt her fingernails raking the back of his ear, like she could feel his skin peel with her strike, but her clawed grasp gnarled itself onto the poor bastard’s ear all the same. He winced, thrown to the side while he grunted, but that wasn’t even the worst part of the Imp’s mistake. No, Ines had a lot more punishment in mind for his fuck-up. She had her thumb right over his eye. His little, half-open, shiny hazel eye. Eclipsing over his tear ducts, she did what came natural to her. She did what was necessary. Ines took her thumb, and dug. Hard. It wasn’t clear what she perceived first; some sort of sense like she was popping some sick little pustule dug deep in rotted meat, or whether this poor sod was Crying Kara from the agony of losing an eye. The worse it got, the deeper she got, the more it felt like she was digging into the fucker’s brain, and when she got to some sockets where she wasn’t sure what was what, it made her wanna retch and puke. Her hand slid up, clean through the bastard trying to recover the eye he didn’t have, and slid the knife’s edge straight into him. Ines tumbled forward, still in shock from the impact around her. Without a helmet, she probably would have been finished then and there, and for the time being, it looked like she’d need to do without one. As she turned, the sight of an Imperial, rifle in the air like it was some great war club was her rise and shine for the occasion. From down where about she was, he towered over her, and from upright, he had to have a few centimeters on her, too. But no, he kept himself moving, and Ines tangoed with him. Butt of the rifle just a hairline fracture away from her face, Ines barely rolled out of the way in time. Instinctively, she reached over to the gun, wrapping her rock-steady hand around the grip of the gun, the two’s hands touching, even. One last mistake, she found. And, boy, oh boy, the look on his face while he looked up the barrel of his own gun. His blank, dumb, face may have been marred by a 7.62 to the head - of which, he kept about half of - but while his eyes twitched, it took the sorry fool a moment to register he’d had his brains blown out. Slowly, his lifeless, fleeting body crumbled down, finding it nice to rest alongside Ines. [b][i]BANG![/i][/b] No rest for the wicked. The shot of the KAR ripped through the maze, but with how close everything wedged themselves together, it was impossible to really tell where it came from from Ines’ beautiful view of the dilapidated storage room ceiling. Sprung back to life, hopping off the support of her left arm, there were two of them, stacked up in formation. One cycled the bolt, but the one behind him stood there, hesitating. They were both aimed at Ines, sure, and what Ines had was about 5 meters, a turned-over table that they used as cover, and a Big Empty of bodies and bricks. She had a second to act, to make a plan that’d save her or kill her. The only benefit to her plan was that it was so stupid that nobody would have even considered it to be an option. Like a puma out of a mad sprint to dinner, Ines bolted forward into what the Imps conceived could be called cover. And for a bit, it worked. The one behind the pointman broke, doing the right thing and turning around and running like hell. Pointman’s hand racked forward, chambering the round with a smack. Ines kept her head up and charging while she huffed and heaved. Pointman couldn’t help but look down, just making sure his hand was in the right place. No automatic reflex? Just what Ines wanted. An explosion shook the room as he fired off again, and Ines could feel the bullet swipe clean through her hair. She felt the sonic boom kiss her ear, like the old, abusive boyfriend trying to get his girl back. A mad Darcsen diving through the air with nothing to lose and a death grip on yesteryear. That’s what the Imp had to look forward to while the table flung back, and he flung back with it. Rubble and rubbish hitting the bastard’s head was nothing compared to the fury a repressed Darcsen had in store him. Ines didn’t even give herself a millisecond before she unleashed her flurry of punches on top of the man, nevermind bothering to question whether the Imp in front of her deserved any mercy. Any question of forbearance was thrown out as soon as he fired the first shot. If Hell had no fury like a woman scorned, Ines was the paragon of femininity. It was two strikes, then three, four, five, six, to the forehead, nose, ears, eyes, ripping, clawing, gutting, hooking, and tearing, right down to his throat. And with each and every rip, he slammed his head, just a tiny bit, into a little brick’s edge, just behind his head. Every little tap, another bore into the back of his head, until it broke the skin, broke the blood barrier, broke the bone. Again and again and again and again, until there was some husk of a face torn apart like a forsaken animal right below her. And then, there was her. Only one remaining. Couldn’t have been older than 16, 17, out here without a friend in the world left and at the mercy of some subhuman with a crazed look in her eye like she was some sort of slumdog angel-of-death. What they played Ines up to be was what she saw; Some angry Darcsen who didn’t know right from wrong hell-bent on destruction. And for the moment, they were right. Ines wouldn’t know right from wrong if one Imp gave her a million francs and the other killed her mom in cold blood. Maybe there was supposed to be this odd act of mercy you only saw when the both of you had seen too much. The lighthead looked pretty calm, collected. Almost sorrowful, really. Just with how the two looked at each other, not word dared be exchanged, but deep within their eyes, they could return their glances and go, [i]“Was this how we had to meet?”[/i] Maybe she’ll think of Ines when she’s all alone, or when she’s in that big battlefield up in the sky where the grass is green and things actually made sense. Maybe there was some sort of odd irony behind everything she was doing, like out of a mindless killer she was supposed to give it all up and, like in one of those motion pictures, the two would set aside their hatred and realize they were both cogs in the giant war machine, and they’d hug and kiss and the audience would all swoon and cheer. Maybe Ines was just a giant softie after all. And maybe, if she asked nicely to go their own ways, Ines would say, [color=4682b4][i]“Maybe.”[/i][/color] Ines flicked her head toward the door. No longer pointing her gun at her, she tilted her eyes out way when in the great big hole of Amone. The Imp, almost confused, but thankful through that gaze of frowning horror, turned her back, slowly heading out back to square one. It was almost impossible to make out what her lips made out to say amidst the growls of gunfire and acrimony of armored automobiles, but Ines read lips pretty well. Ines looked across her maze, her territory. Her vestige and slaughtering grounds, across the wonders she had wrought. And amidst all the carnage, Ines made herself sick.