Olex froze in place, and like an animal staring into the lights of the vehicle that would shortly kill it, his eyes bore into the  small gleam he could see radiating from the blanket of shade over the ally, before muttering a series of expletives and reaching inside his shirt for his gun. His fingers wrapped around the grip of his pistol, whitening his knuckles with the force, but as he pulled the gun out, one of the silhouettes had bounded forward, and the glint of a polished cybernetic hand shined in Olex’s eyes, with the augment taking full grip of his wrist, pushing it against his chest, and the shadow’s face only half illuminated by the beam of light. The force pushed Olex into a wall in the alley, away from the crowd that was already drawing to the commotion, and made it difficult to breathe as he struggled with the force from the assailant’s brute power. He responded in kind, his left hand going straight for the assailant’s neck, with his right arm snapping taught as the dueling motors of either augment roared against the other’s force, the whining creak of metal rubbing against metal bouncing off the surrounding brick walls. Punctuating the fight with a deafening pang, the assailant’s hand caught Olex’s before he could get his vice grip on their neck. It was only as he began trying to crank his wrist to point his pistol, even with his arm pinned to stomach, that he slowly became cognizant of the assailant yelling his name, and it slowly became more and more perceivable until he was looking straight up at the half-lit face of the would be assassin.

[color=darkkhaki]”Don’t, Asahi! Don’t shoot, it’s me!”[/color] A woman’s voice rasped as her dark brown, wide eyes stared into Olex’s own blue ones.

Olex continued to struggle for a bit longer, feeling his own arm whir as his grip loosened, having almost crushed the gun in his hand. It took a moment, but the familiar voice combined with the use of an old nickname made him snap out of his craze, and fully observe the details of the face in front of him.

[color=darkorange]”Wha- Who the fuck? Is that you, Grail?”[/color] His voice was incredulous, but he craned his neck backwards to get a more complete look at the woman’s face, and it indeed was one he hadn’t seen in a long time. In an instant, he could recognize the small star tattoo at the corner of her forehead, the shrapnel scar across the left side of her face. It was Grail, coined so after the “Holy Grail”, in reference to her ornate and beautiful engravings with inlaid gold she kept so immaculately clean, covering all her augments, which, now that he was paying attention, Olex could see still shining brightly in the small ray of light that hit them. Her eyes looked scared almost, but he knew the woman that currently had him pinned to a wall seldom ever felt actual fear. 

[color=darkkhaki]”Yes! Yes, it’s me, Oleksandr. Just calm down, we aren’t here to hurt you. Let go of the gun, and I’ll ease up on you, alright? Put it away.”[/color]

[i][color=darkorange]Us?[/color][/i]

Finally breaking his eye contact with Grail, he shifted his view over her shoulder, and could see a much younger man, with a crazed look in his eyes, his one solid black arm of gunmetal and titanium training a gun on Olex’s head. He could tell, had the young man’s arm still been made of flesh and bone, it’d be shaking violently, with a look on his face that was that of a fish out of water.

Grail felt the tension in Olex’s arms release, and she relaxed in kind, looking up at his face to see that he still hadn’t looked away from the young man behind them, and she craned her head to look behind her. Light flooded her eyes, and through squinted eyelids, she could make out the form of her partner, who was still pointing his pistol at the man in front of her.

[color=darkkhaki]”Put the gun down, kid!”[/color]

The young man hadn’t broken his stare with Olex either, and hadn’t even moved since the scuffle had begun. Slowly, Olex began to bring his hand to Grail’s shoulder, and gave her a gentle push away from him, to his side, so that nothing stood between him and the young Tinman. He took a step forward, and the young man responded by taking a step backwards, gunarm still jutting forward, finger on the trigger. Grail began to protest, but Olex hushed her, and put his arm up to keep her from getting in between.

Another step forward, another step back, the pair of men maintained their icy cold stares, the young man’s pupils having contracted nearly to the size of pinheads as his eyes were stuck wide open. With every step, Olex and the man moved forward and backward respectively, until the man was now the one with a back against the wall. All the while, Grail had been more and more aggressively telling the two men to calm down, while also trying to clear the small crowd that was watching from the end of the alley.

With the gun still jutting out between the two men, Olex finally took a step too close, and the young man’s entire body tensed in reaction. Grail noticed, but in the few scant moments it took for her to begin yelling and bounding forward to try to get between the two men, Olex’s hand flew up from his side, violently and sharply slapping the weapon from the man’s hand. The crash of metal on metal made the few remaining spectator’s jump, and then they further fled as the handgun found it’s flightpath right through the middle of the crowd, crashing into a crimson brick wall across the street, breaking into a few pieces. The last of the crowd finally scattered, leaving Grail to finally jump between the two men. Even as she gave Olex stern shoves to try and create distance, he had gotten a tight grip on the young man’s wrist, who now fought hard to try and wrestle away his one robotic hand.

[color=darkorange]”When you’re this close, you never just keep your hand out! Bring it in close to the body!”[/color] He yelled angrily over Grail’s protests. Finally, he let go of the young man’s wrist, and was sent a considerable distance back by the powerful force of Grail’s advanced augments.

[color=darkkhaki]”Asahi, fuck off, and chill out!”[/color] Grail exclaimed as she finally separated the two men, then turned to the young man. Surprisingly, she gave the man a slap across the face, seemingly waking him from his stupor as he finally looked down and acknowledged her.

[color=darkkhaki]”And you! The next time I give you a direct order, you [b]will[/b] listen, you understand that? You fuckin’ hear me?”[/color]

As Olex watched the woman grab the man by his face, and turn his eyes into his, Olex had finally noticed how small the man was in comparison. Not only was the man considerably young, but he was also of smaller stature, looking almost like a terrified child being disciplined by Grail. 

[color=khaki]”Y-Yes ma’am.”[/color] The young man quietly muttered.

Seemingly in unison, the group all took a deep breath collecting themselves, and before it seemed like the two Tinmen were ready to continue, Olex spoke up.

[color=darkorange]”Alright, what do you two want? Finally come to take me out, or what? I know you’ve been following me for years, how and why did you finally find me?”[/color] Olex demanded, rubbing the sore area on his torso, red and tender from having two metal hands forced into it.

[color=darkkhaki]”No, Olex, look… We’re not here to kill you. We’re looking for one of ours that’s gone AWOL. His last known location was here, in the Reclaim. We’ve been here for almost two weeks, looking for leads wherever we could, damn near a door knocking campaign.”[/color]

Olex interjected. [color=darkorange]”Why look for him yourselves? Why not just hire some P.I firm? People around here aren’t exactly eager and willing to help out Tinmen.”[/color]

Grail let out an exasperated sigh. [color=darkkhaki]”Look, technically, he’s not supposed to be here. Tight-lip contract, top secret bullshit. APEX-”[/color]

The young man quickly interrupted, taking a step forward. [color=khaki]“Ma’am! You can’t just tell hi-”[/color]

Grail simply hushed the young man by putting her hand in front of his face, giving another sigh, giving his protests some thought, and realizing he was probably right.

[color=darkkhaki]”Look. Long story short, it’s a confidential contract, but he stopped responding to communications. He’s been radio silent for too long, and we want to keep this as quiet as possible. We were acting like we were just looking for a lost friend, but once people finally started talking about a man with shiny, fancy cybernetics, it ended up being you they’d seen around, not our man”[/color] She took a moment to compose herself further before she continued. 

[color=darkkhaki]”The guys have talked about you here and there for a while now, Olex. How you just vanished, how you got cut off by your family. After we heard that they’d sent the Hounds after you, we all figured you were dead. But now, here you are. We go looking for our man and find you instead. For someone on the run, you’re actually not that hard to find after all, pal.”[/color]

Olex scoffed, looking over his wrist for any sort of scuffs or dents, then looked up. [color=darkorange]”Yeah, well, after eleven years, I figured either you guys had given up at this point. Either that or I’d shaken you. Either way, you guys aren’t here to kill me apparently, so I guess it’s worked out this far. What exactly is it that you want from me?”[/color]

It took a few moments before Grail began to speak again, as she simply looked Olex up and down, a strange sense of weariness and nostalgia washing over her. 

[color=darkkhaki]”I guess I just wanted to see an old friend, is all. It’s hard to believe it’s really you. You were just a kid the last time I saw you, and I thought for sure you were dead, but yet, here you are. After all these years.”[/color]

[color=darkorange]”Yeah, that’s real nice. Real, real nice. How do I know you aren’t going to go blab to your fucking CO as soon as you get back? I know you were always a lapdog for command, and yeah, you didn’t find your man this time, but you sure did find something else.”[/color]

[color=darkkhaki]”What, no love for an old war buddy, Asahi? It’s like that?”[/color] Grail smirked, a mixture of surprise and disappointment in her voice.

[color=darkorange]”I never liked you in the first place, Grail. You were a cunt, always playing junkyard dog for command over the smallest shit. A sniveling little shit who never had the balls to stand up for herself, only brave enough to bully the young ones. Now, here you are, a decade later and you’re still a pain in my ass.”[/color]

Grail simply sneered, as the younger man walked past her, trying his best to put a look of intimidation on his face as he confronted Olex.

[color=khaki]”What about you, asshole? How do we walk away from this whole thing knowing you won’t tell anyone what happened here?”[/color]

[color=darkorange]”Who the fuck am I going to tell? I work for a grey market intelligence courier in the middle of shit town. I’m not exactly popular with the enforcers. If you two stop walking around the Reclaim like moron out-of-towners, asking where your big, shiny metalfuck friend is, maybe it’ll all stay under wraps, you ever thought of that? I’ve got more at stake here, tell me why I shouldn’t leave you both dead in this alley.”[/color]

[color=darkkhaki]”Because you can’t.”[/color] Grail growled, pushing the barrel of the pistol she’d drawn in a flash up to Olex’s head.

[color=darkkhaki]”Disregarding the fact that you don’t have the ability nor talent to kill my partner or I, there’s nothing in this for either of us to kill each other. You kill us, that’s the Hounds right on your trail again, and this time they [b]will[/b] find you. We kill you, that’s the Enforcers [i]and[/i] and your little buddies at the office on our asses. Not that it’d be a big deal, but that’s a lot more trouble than it’s worth when we’re trying to find someone in this shithole city. So how’s about we both agree to keep our mouths shut and go on our merry ways, huh?”[/color]

With tense fists and eyes full of hate, Olex stared down Grail, taking everything she’d said into consideration. He didn’t like it, but the two parties seemed to be at an impasse, with neither having anything to gain from violence, even if every impulse in his body screamed for him to kill them, like a crazed group of spectators thirsting for blood. His chest rose and fell, and he finally craned his neck to the side, moving his head out of the way of the gun.

[color=darkorange]”Fine. Fuck off.”[/color]