It was odd witnessing such a spectacle of patriotism perpetuate itself year after year; as Haban glanced up over the side of the fan-powered cooler, he could just make out the chancellor's weedy frame a midst the burgundy sea of officers huddled before the plasma screen - their eyes fixated to an unhealthy degree upon each rigid smile and half-hearted jest. The man had such a plastic personality - molded by the tenuous connections of politics, muddied by spots of degradation and wasteful indiscretions, and worn to the breaking-point by the typical stresses of the Brahneian elite. It was almost amazing how a concept so fundamentally corrupt could receive any level of reverence at all, let alone the bulk of an entire city-state...but, thus was the way the winds of time blew.
“Causality defines Reality...”
Haban flashed a familiar smile as he emptied a strongly scented coffee pot into the once transparent vessel in his hand, now possessed by the tenebrous body of a rich burnt umber; intoxicating aromas wafted up from within the piping liquid’s stout depths, transfixing him in a haze of idle memories: He regaled himself with recollections of the rebellious nature of his generation’s youth, of the adventurous exploits of renowned ‘Sky Captains’ young and old that he’d idolized in years bygone, or the prosperity influenced by the city’s boom in military infrastructure. All those moments brought with them a surreal sense of pride and wonder...all buried by the misery and torments of war. The smile on his clean-shaven face faded as quickly as it’d come.
It was little wonder that the motley of officers behind him looked up to their superiors like so many devoted goats, with over half of them not even surpassing his own age. What remained of generations “X” and up had stamped a firm lesson into the families of the survivors: no gains ever came without a cost, and rarely was the cost ever worth the gains. The burning spirit of old Brahaenya had snuffed itself out through the smothering weight of its own ambition...and where once had been radical progress and a fast and untamable will for change, there now stood an iron shield of secure familiarity; safe, certainly - but who could ever see the radiance of the sun while cowering behind the shadows?
Maybe that was sick...maybe it was fair - he didn’t particularly care either way at the moment. He took a final tilt of the cup and hurled it aside, returning from his isolated reality at the chime of the crumpled vessel rebounding down into the adjacent waste bin; right now, he needed to relax. With a steady gait and a tempered eye, Haban made for the wood paneled arch of the doorway...
...Yet, for the short space between the dining table and the doorway, a sickening wave overtook him. For a microsecond, the air flashed hot, then cold, and a supernatural force propelled itself through his chest as a violent gust erupted throughout the room. The world spun on its axis as glass and wood and a plethora of office accessories manically fled in front of, around and into him - the roar of a thunderclap tore after them, scorching stone and ripping flakes of paint off of the walls in its wake...and then in an instant, he recognized the split-second nature of these events.
...A dull silence overtook the remnants of Outlook 15; it would not have long to cherish this morbid serenity.
Aches and groans arose from the conscious survivors - those lucky enough to have been shielded from the blast by even the thin walls separating the ground floor from the rest of the building. Though staggered, with a heavy ringing in his ears and a burning torment in his heart and across his face, the floored cripple tried his utmost to regain control of his senses. The room, not to mention the building itself, was completely trashed - the only light to see by now were the rays streaking in from the blown open front wall staring down the street. His tongue felt bruised, and the taste of iron escaped through the corner of his lips. He was lying on his side, cane gripped in a deathclutch in one hand, and everything smelt of ash; the only system left to fully check was that of his hearing.
The crackling of glass underfoot was more than enough to confirm the attentiveness of that receptacle.
Reaching for his pocket, Haban quietly retrieved his pipe, springing the previous vial with a trained efficiency as he loaded in a new, slightly different pill into the metal shaft. Then, he slipped it between his teeth and waited, quietly, as a pair of footsteps drew closer to the room. By the time he could make out their weight, they’d entered the ‘breakroom’...or what was left of it - coyly ignoring the doorway in favor of the half-shredded sidewall that’d previously separated it from the main room. Small to medium sized due to the light nature of their steps, the intruder padded further in as they examined the damage; they were four meters away...then two...then...
It’d only just now occurred to Haban that his mechanical eye didn’t have an eyelid - which probably explained why the soft-footed hunter had decided to stop and admire the scenery just above him. The popping of knees and the creak of taut clothing fibers gave away the stranger’s inquisitive streak, as he knelt to examine the stiff glare of the glowing red pupil beneath him.
Well...no one ever said curiosity was good for the cat.
With a sudden jerking motion, Haban hurled himself onto his back and gave the pipe a hard BLOW, spewing forth a noxious cloud of vapors across his victim’s face; caught off guard,“He” retched a horrified scream, hurling himself back, then stumbling, clattering to the floor. With all the speed he could muster, Haban pulled himself to his feet and bolted past, briefly glimpsing the flurry of fingers clawing at the agonizing man’s own disfigured visage; the chemical reaction was swift and unstoppable - he doubted there’d be much left to see in a few minutes...if there was anything left of the flesh at all. Stranger still, however - he thought he recognized the attire to be-
Haban stopped short of rounding the corner, the figure of a man hurling himself towards the officer with unrelenting speed and ferocity. A short, curved knife glinted briefly in one of his hands - ragged attire and a host of tattoos coated this offender’s stampeding body...
-...Azurei. Ignoring the slow pace of his organic eye, Haban shifted his weight laterally, using his newfound positional advantage to swat down the overreaching swipe of the blade with a powerful rap of his cane. With his weapon arm preoccupied, the assailant attempted a quick roundabout with his freehand towards Haban’s head, but was again denied as the latter raised his retracted forearm to catch it. Then, in one savage motion, the officer reached towards his mouth and to the all-too-brief surprise of his adversary, unsheathed the pipe from within itself, revealing a short spike where the mouthpiece had once been. With intuitive accuracy he shot the blade point-blank into the Azurei’s eye, forcing the man to reel in pain from the gouge; but Haban hadn’t finished, and with another serpentine strike he lashed out at the unwary foe’s larynx, puncturing a bloody hole where flesh was normally more appropriate to see. Using his bodyweight to shove his neutralized opponent onto the dusty remnants of a three-legged table, the rapidly breathing officer resheathed the pipe and glanced back up over the ground floor.
Four more Azurei had retrained their attention from the wreckage to him...and he wasn’t exactly keen on sticking around to see what they were looking for. With a brief glance back behind him, the bald, mid-twenties war veteran took off for a side door, rapidly hobbling over corpse and officeware alike as he struggled to maintain his initiative over any possible attempts at pursuit. Within seconds, he’d busted his way out the door, lungs screaming and wild limping leaving a trail of dust in its wake as he practically pogoed his way across streets, ducking around shops and through bewildered civilians, before crashing to a rough halt down the start of a nearby alley.
“...Come............on...”
The man leaned wearily against the sandstone entry, one eye closed from an irritation of dust and the other trying madly to record every ounce of detail retained within the depths of the passageway. His resplendent burgundy livery was matted with dust-stains and scorch-marks, his tan face hung heavily with exhaustion and sported patches of singed flesh and a speckles of fresh blood. His mechanical leg gleamed through several ripped layers of a pant leg, and rested part of its weight through his use of a smooth wooden cane. A dim metal pipe hung haphazardly out of his mouth, and lent to the mutual feeling expressed throughout the whole of his person:
Utter disbelief.
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