Vocalia

Fateful Convergence

Not daunted by Isaac's opening act, the woman simply flew up just high enough to completely avoid the spikes while looking unimpressed. Seeing that he had finally started the assault, she opened up her hand and called forth a spherical, glowing mass. With a swift swipe of her hand, said glowing mass dispersed into several light arrows, hard enough to be a solid object and sharp enough to act like a bullet at the speed they were moving at. "Isaac, watch out!" Hayley coarsely shouted out, now forced to watch as a helpless spectator.

Fateful Convergence

"Fair enough. I do prefer men with a solid principle and you haven't disappoint. At least, not yet," the woman replied and calmly stepped forward. Out of the blue, she unbuttoned her suit and took it off, nonchalantly discarding it on top of a growling Hayley's bloody body. Shifting around to look at what was about to be a battle, she noticed that her strapless top had a low back cut, unusually low for a strapless top. She also appeared to be unusually calm as she opened her arms, as if waiting for something to come down from the sky.

Then came the sight that made her tense jaw slack.

Light began to surround her body as if the sun's ray was pooling around her. Clumps of bright light gathered around her back and manifested into a pair of white, angelic wings, large enough to carry her effortlessly, that seemed to grow out of her own body like a part of herself. Her bright green eyes shifted into a glimmering pair of blue orbs, her auburn hair gained a white streak from the roots down her braid, white glowing markings sparsely covered her skin and what looked like a ring of light floated just behind her back like a halo. "You're not the only one blessed with power beyond human comprehension, Signore Isaac. I have the heavens on my side!" she said to him, now ready to fight with him on equal ground.

Fateful Convergence

"Sì. Signore Vincent, is it not?" The auburn-haired woman replied calmly, seemingly unfazed by Isaac's presence or intimidation. "I'm quite aware of what your amico could and would do. After all, video records of him making a fool out of that foolish rock head are already out and about within my circle. I can't afford to let you two go, but I would be very merciful towards you. If you consent to being my servant, I'd be more than happy to take you in." Glancing at the bleeding blonde, she shot her a dark gaze and said, "The girl, however, has to die. She's becoming too much of a pain to keep around."

"Guess the ringleader finally thinks I've outlived my usefulness, huh?" Hayley snarled and furiously glared at the woman as she nonchalantly replied, "To be quite fair, you're becoming too expensive to pay anyway. That fiasco you caused finally gave him a green light to get rid of you. I'm just working for the best interest of the business. Don't take it personally."

Fateful Convergence

"Isaac...? Isaac?! What the fuck are you doing here?!" Hayley shouted, fear and anger in her cracking voice, as the woman discarded her useless gun and looked at Isaac in the eye. From the smile on her face and her confident posture, she clearly didn't fear him as much as her men did, evident from their panicked murmurings and skittish body language. "Buongiorno, Isaac Ryder. It appears that intel's words on you are no exaggeration," she said to him, then asked, "What business do you have with Signorina Hayley? Don't you have other priorities to attend to?"

Fateful Convergence

Panting heavily and losing her consciousness from gradual blood loss, Hayley was forced to stop after the pain of her wound became too much to ignore. She could hear the auburn-haired woman and her men now closing in on her. Trapped and with no escape in sight, she tried to push herself despite the pain and wavering vision, only to feel another searing pain as one of the men spotted her and shot her in the arm, narrowly missing her chest. Now with two gunshot wounds, she fell to the ground as her assailants had her surrounded, blood seeping to the dirt under her body. The auburn woman wasted no time and pointed the barrel of her shotgun at her head, her finger twitching on the trigger.

"Addio, Hayley Summerland."

Fateful Convergence

Panting and feeling her body beginning to slow down, Hayley leaned against a wall as she listened to the noises and jumbled Italian now reverberating in the building. She had taken a refuge inside one of the many empty open rooms and precariously used two adjacent walls to heave herself up close to the ceiling. "Fuck! This is bad," she muttered and looked around like a prey animal seeking an escape she could run into. A glance to her side gave her the view of a skeletal staircase and, after waiting for the men to leave that particular floor she was hiding at to the ones above it, she climbed down and tip-toed her way down, trying to make as little noise as possible.

Once she made it to the lower floor, she immediately looked for a way out, only to feel a flash of searing hit on her thigh, causing her to crumple to the floor in great pain with a scream of agony. "Well, look who came back~!" Hayley growled and turned around to look at her assailant. "You aren't very smart, are you?"

A woman with a shotgun now stood behind her, dressed in a white strapless top, scarlet suit and matching pants with a pair of sleek black pumps with broad heels. Her bright green eyes looked at the injured blonde with a sadistic glee and her long auburn hair, tied into a French braid, gently swayed behind her back. "Now, let us not waste any more time. Stay still and I shall send you to the other side soon." Hayley, still defiant despite her injury, crawled on the floor and retorted, "Huh, I don't thi- Isaac?! What the fuck are you doing here?!"

Believing that her other quarry had found their location, the woman turned to where she was looking at and pointed the barrel of her gun, but then quickly found out that the blonde had tricked her. By the time she turned her attention back to her, Hayley had taken a plunge of faith out of an open gap reserved for windows to the ground below, landing on a pile of sand that broke her fall. Gritting her teeth in anger, she shouted in Italian and continued her pursuit while Hayley, with buckshot fragments inside her bleeding thigh, hobbled away in search of safety.

Fateful Convergence

Despite having told herself that she wanted nothing to do with his personal issues, Hayley had to admit that she had grown fond of his company and having to cut that off herself made her feel somewhat guilty. Nonetheless, she decided to favor her own welfare and let them work on their own life. "See you," she replied as she turned away to the direction of her home. She now had a litany of things she must take care of lest retribution came knocking on her door.

----------- One Month Later -----------

"Shit shit shit shit shit shit!!"

Hayley made a mad dash for the path in front of her as the noises of soles against the asphalt road crept closer towards her direction. In the month she had spent resuming her solitary life, she learned that the fiasco she, Isaac and Vincent caused at the underground fighting arena had ruffled the feathers of several parties, one of which had both the manpower, money and willingness to eliminate them for their antics. The deafening noise of a gunshot paced her to run faster, evident from the way she was hastily leaping over any fences or objects on the road. Making her way to an abandoned building, the blonde promptly used the empty skeleton of concrete, steel and abandonment as a hiding place with her pursuers on tow. As she ran into the building, she could hear a feminine voice yell out with a heavy hint of Italian accent.

"I don't care if we have to reduce this place to rubble. I want that zoccola brought to me, dead or alive!"

Fateful Convergence

"To be fair, those things are the least of my worries. I've survived on my own for years by now, so I'm not going to let them drag me down." Hayley stopped herself and thought further about what she had in mind. However, recalling the flurry of insanity she saw in his eyes and the glint of sharp, iron claws that almost severed her neck, she decided that it would be best for both of them to part ways for now. "Not to sound rude... but I agree. I really need time alone. As much as I like you, I'm not ready to carry all these baggage on top of my daily struggles, not to mention your crazy other self. It's best if we go our separate ways for the time being."

Fateful Convergence

"You don't expect me to easily forgive a man who nearly butchered me, right?" Hayley retorted with an angry frown, not intending to simply 'live and let live'. "Still, thanks for letting me know. Next time I see him, I'll just kick his ass outright." Sighing and rubbing the back of her neck, she looked at the sky and muttered, "I'm heading home... I'm gonna need a new SIM card tomorrow and I'm gonna need a new job. Those people underground don't take it very kindly when someone messed up the match and they'll certainly put a nice bounty on my head."

Fateful Convergence

"Ah, that makes sense," Hayley replied, quickly accepting his explanation with her own common sense. After all, it was very hard for her to find other explanation to what had happened. "I guess someone in the audience wants us to live and fight another day, huh? I must've lost consciousness from shock, fatigue or both, so I'm not entirely sure of what happened..." Taking a deep breath, she remembered what happened before the whole fiasco and looked at Isaac. "Now then, can you explain why you let your other personality almost turn me into mince meat? And your powers too... What's with you and that rock gorilla?"