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[b][ Liverpool, England ]
[ January 24th, 11:00PM ][/b][/center]
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[colour=RosyBrown]”I suppose so,”[/colour] Fourteen replied, bearing a warmth with her words to vaguely mask the dissonance in her tone. She let her head tilt towards the sky, peeling her sight away from the dirt and grime of the city streets, and losing herself in the abyssal night above them. On days and ventures like these, rarely did she return the man’s simple comments. React she did, but what verbal responses she allowed herself were few and uncommon on the best of evenings. The two of them, wandering out into the dark and cold, on the hunt for something to assuage her depthless hunger - up until the meal itself, Fourteen did not take pleasure in the activity. 

To look up into the sky, starless and infinite, allowed reprieve for a time: from the fractured world that called itself their surroundings, and from the equally starless, infinite hole of her yearning. It had been a few weeks since her last Emergence - the time left until her next ran thinner with each passing day. Kill and eat, or succumb. Neither option was desirable, but the former always managed to find itself the lesser of two evils. To distract herself from that, if only for a moment, was something Fourteen sought at each and every juncture. To be elsewhere for as long a while as was available, rather than hunting ne'er-do-wells in dismal streets, in her own skin.

Her gaze was forced downwards once more and fell upon their obstacle, as her Handler stopped his onward march. The ones that stood in their way were ragged, chewed up and spit out by the world at large. Unkempt, uncivilised, they had lived through the end of the modern world, and to Fourteen the damage was more than obvious. The hair of their forerunner, the filth that once belonged to the city clung as a veil to their flesh. Though she herself had never had to experience the squalor that was all these people knew, Fourteen read the pain and loneliness of such an existence like delicately printed prose. And on a baser level, The Hound considered how the build up of grime would alter their flavour.

In the evening chill and midwinter winds of England, the pink-red ribbons and billowing black fabric sleeves of Fourteen’s attire took to a gentle flutter. Through the first days of her station the nighttime cold had worn on her, but time passed, she grew accustomed, and rarely now did she have a need to wear much anything to shield her skin from its bite. As her Handler spoke, she found herself watching his own outfit - his clerical attire, his rosary, his hair. He talked, and she listened, to both him and them, not for their words but for their meanings and intents. For many, these would be the last words they ever heard, last emotions they ever felt, and last actions they ever took. And invariably, she thought, all these young men would be dead before daybreak.

Compared to an announcement of the beauty of the night, the commandment of death was a much simpler task. Nothing as grand as words, merely a gesture. A nod of the head. Her discontent surrounding the scenario vanished, and Fourteen took to a sprint with the element of surprise at her disposal, as fast as her genetically modified speed could carry. At first directly towards the bat wielding individual, but then to the right, deviating to the side and towards the first gun wielding member in range. Her hand whipped out towards his armed hand, twisting and snapping his wrist, and taking control of the firearm. Weapon in hand, Fourteen flipped it right-side-up in his direction and pulled the trigger, firing a single bullet from below the jaw into his head.

Before the corpse could crumple to the muck, she fired a second volley, targeting the other firearm wielding individuals with lethal intent, using their hesitation at watching their own die to rapidly pick them off. Followed closely were those with close quarters weaponry - they would receive less mercy. Any that ran would be shot dead, but those that remained would be hit in the arms or legs, just enough to incapacitate them. At the centre of a circle of corpses, and bloodied, dying children and young adults, Fourteen looked back towards her Handler.

[colour=RosyBrown]”Did you want to talk to any of them, Father?”[/colour] she began, licking a number of blood splatters from the back of her hand, and gesturing to one of the fallen, surviving youths with the barrel of her gun. Her gaze flicked between the bodies, studying intently the rapid breaths of the soon to expire, and the steady spread of fresh blood across the mud-laden street, [colour=RosyBrown]”Or can I start… cleaning this up?”[/colour]