Ascension Chapter 4- Muzzle Flash Reverie

In the increasing downpour, Helm and Delek stood with the girl between them as they heard the sounds of insanity coming from behind the Manor. Men screamed in utter fear and gunshots sounded off, ear-shatteringly loud and unmistakable, echoing off into the forest. Delek had the girl's arm tight behind her back, but she offered little resistance.

"What the hell's going on back there?"

"Hell if I know. Should we check it out?"

"I dunno. I think I value my life a little more than-"

Without warning, the girl drove the back of her head into Delek's face; The sound of which was disturbing, to say the least.

He howled in pain and the girl used the opportunity to break free, and just like that she was running. She took off across the courtyard, with all the grace of an athlete.

"That bitch!" Delek's voice was nasal and choked with blood, as he clutched his ruined nose. He hastily yanked his pistol out of his leather holster and started running after her with a drunken wobble.

"Delek, wait!" Helm Medrik's hand was forced; He drew his pistol and took after Delek and the girl.

They chased her for several hundred yards; Delek panted noisily with effort, but the girl showed no sign of slowing down; In fact she seemed to be gaining speed, even in the downpour.

There were several times when Helm nearly ate it, but he kept running after them. He knew what Delek was going to do, but couldn't seem to catch up to him to stop him.

"Fuck this!"

It was then that Delek stopped running, planted his feet firmly in the ground, and took aim.

Oh gods, please don't do this.

He did. Delek adjusted a knob on the side of the pistol, and from twenty feet away Helm could hear the gun's auto-aim mechanism churning.

He fired.

The bullet caught the girl in the back and she fell onto her knees on the entrance to the mountain road, her hands splashing into a puddle.

Time felt as if it had crawled to a stop as Helm tackled Delek into the mud; They went down in a tangle of arms and curses, as Helm tried to wrest the eerily straight-pointed pistol from Delek's grasp. Delek's fist connected with his chin and Helm saw stars, lost his grip. Delek delivered another blow to his face and Helm rolled over and groaned, tasting the coppery tang of blood.

As they looked on, the girl stood up shakily, and, incredibly, started running again. Blood ran down from the entry wound, diluted with rain water.

Helm couldn't do anything now; He could only watch as Delek fired another round into the girl's back.

Only then did she seem to slow down; Her sprint degraded to a stagger, and she fell on her knees once more. She collapsed into a crumpled heap in the mud.

There was a moment before Helm could register what had just happened.

"Delek... What did you do?!"

"She took off, so I took her down. The Queen wanted her dead anyway."

Helm pushed himself off the ground, swayed until he found his footing. He gripped the collar of Delek's uniform and held him inches from his face.

"Who told you that!? Queen Armaea herself!? You fucking idiot!!!"

"Medrik, calm down. You're getting hysterical."

"Hysterical? That guy in there is going to flay us and drape our skin over the hood of his car! Do you have any idea what you've just done? He said that girl was an asset to the Queen. You killed her. You!"

Delek glanced at the girl lying dead in the road, his bloody face now a mask of worry.

"Shit, I didn't really think that one out."

"Nooo... You think!? You've really fucked us over here Delek. Also, thanks for the shiner. Fucking prick."

"You're welcome."

Helm found his arm moving of its own accord, and before he knew it his fist connected with Delek's cheek. Delek staggered back and dropped the gun, and Helm was on him in an instant, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and trying to throw him to the ground.

It was then that they heard the hum of an engine, and noticed they were illuminated in headlights.

The headlights glared at them, illuminating the corpse of the girl on the road through a screen of raindrops. It was a red car with tinted windows, fairly inexpensive from the look of it, and quiet for its size. A rental, perhaps?

Shit... Did somebody forget to lock the gate back up?

A woman in black stepped out, and Helm felt his bladder let go when he recognized her. His hands which held a furious grip upon Delek's uniform let go, suddenly feeling old and weak.

It's that woman from the airfield.

She first glanced down at the body with eyes as cold as winter, the rain soaking her black locks into a tumultuous mess.

Then her gaze lighted upon the two of them, and Helm was certain he would die right then and there.

"Which one of you did this?"

"Who wants to know?"

"So I'm guessing it was you. Delek Argland, was it? Lance Corporal of the 18th Special Operations unit?"

There was a stunned silence, and Delek's jaw almost hit the mud.

The two of them stood staring, as the rain beat down on the hood of the car with a gentle tempo only played by nature.

Delek reached for his other gun.

The woman drew hers much quicker. She aimed dead at Delek with a silenced pistol, and with a sound similar to a girl modestly sneezing, it went off.

Delek jerked back, his right eye suddenly nonexistent. He stumbled a couple paces, one moment's terror eternally etched into his features.

He fell square on his back with a splash, and Helm stared in shock as a pool of dark blood seeped out from behind the horror that was his skull.

A revelation came to Helm and shook him to his very core.

Before they had got on the highway, Fire Team Charlie had stopped reporting in. Helm had tried to get them on the horn several times, but they never heard so much as a whisper.

The Queen's assassin had waved it off with with nary a shit given, but Helm had felt a rock forming in his gut the entire time. When he had seen the flames shooting out of the alley Dreslim and his olive R-model had once occupied, he knew this wasn't just some routine visit with one of the Queen's handpicked lords who had gotten himself in some trouble.

No, this was something much more sinister; That the Mayor and his ilk were being taken outside to be shot like dogs was indicative of the fact.

She's been hunting us from the very beginning. She wiped out Charlie.

"And you must be Lance Corporal Helm Medrik."

Helm then turned and saw that she was aiming at him. His legs gave out and he collapsed into the mud on his knees, and held his hands above his head. He dropped the pistol and it fell half submerged in mud.

"Please! Leave me my life! I had nothing to do with it! I tried to stop him, but he went rogue! Please! I'm just a conscript... I don't want to be here! I didn't even want to join the military! Please..."

She stared at him with all the solemnity of hell itself, kept her pistol trained at him.

Then, she lowered it.

"Fine then. I'll leave you your pitiful life. Gods know they'll execute you for a deserter anyway."

Helm felt his chest heaving, his breath became ragged and he started to sob with relief.

"Oh gods... Thank you... Thank you..."

***

Mara watched as the lad took off running down the mountain road, and vanished behind the treeline. She sighed with disgust, and knelt down before the prone form of Lapis.

Gently holding her shoulders, she rolled Lapis over and held two fingers against her neck.

Her carotid artery pulsed, but weakly. The girl was alive. As if Mara really had to check in the first place.

Her attention turned to the Manor, which seemed to radiate chaos, black like the ink of an octopus. She heard a commotion from within, and checked her magazine. Thirteen rounds; Three had found their way into Fire Team Charlie back in the side streets of Marta, and another had kicked Delek Argland out of the realm of the living.

She was definitely going to need more.

She gently hoisted Lapis onto her shoulders, ignoring the mud caked on the girl's frontal features. Her prosthetic right arm whirred with effort; it allowed her to carry many times her own weight, but it didn't refrain from bitching about it. The rain wasn't helping either.

Mara laid Lapis on the backseat, and closed the door. Next, she opened the trunk, and inspected the weapons laid within.

A G-24 semi-automatic rifle, with a red dot scope and a blacksteel compensator attached to the muzzle; A double barrel shotgun, which became a liability as soon as it had to be loaded; And lastly, a DW-24 light machine gun with a box mag and collapsible stock.

Whoever fastened that on such a notoriously unwieldy gun was either an idiot or a bear-kin... Mara hoped for the latter, though her human frame would make it difficult to wield such a weapon.

She took three magazines of ten millimeter ammo from a satchel in the corner and closed the trunk.

Waste not, want not.

***

They slammed the back door and barred it, running full speed into the foyer. The Mayor coughed, and spoke in a voice choked with pain.

"Aurin... Let me down."

It wasn't until they laid the Mayor down on a sofa in the foyer that Angela and Aurin noticed his shirt had a dark spot slowly growing on it, like a flower blooming in the night.

Aurin touched it, and his fingers came away bloody.

Angela held her hands to her mouth, her eyes as wide as the moon.

The Mayor smiled feebly, reached above his head to touch Angela's face. "I'm so sorry."

"What for?"

"I'm sorry I got you involved in this mess. I had tried to get you out of Marta for years... For you to... Take tutelage at the University of Anhelion, or perhaps somewhere farther... It seems like I was too late."

"No! Don't say that! It's not too late! You're going to be fine, dad."

"Angela... The last time I was shot, I only lost my legs. I have somewhat realistic expectations this time." He coughed, and blood bubbled on his lips. "Aurin, you need to take her and go."

"With all due respect, Your Honor, you can take a jog down the mountain with that bullshit. I'm not leaving you here to die on your sofa."

"Damnit boy..." The Mayor broke into another fit of coughing, blood pouring out of the entry wound on his chest. Aurin could hear air escaping from it with a soft wheeze. "I'm done. It's about time I went to meet my wife, and my children..."

Angela broke into tears, clasping her father's hand with the ferocity of grief. "No... I'm still here!"

The Mayor smiled. "I know."

He stopped coughing then. His grip on Angela's hand weakened, as his gaze drifted up to the ceiling and he said not another word.

There was silence between the two of them, and Aurin thought it best to close the Mayor's eyes. In death, he lay in utter repose, having made his peace with his life at the last moment.

They heard Abaiss' men bashing at the back door; Glass shattered, and angry shouting resonated throughout the Manor.

Then, Aurin stood up.

"W-where are you going?"

"I don't know, Angela. Probably to die out there, like I was supposed to."

"Sparrow... I mean... Aurin." Angela thought to object, but then she thought of the moment when she had given her life up to fate, when they stood before the firing squad. When ice had slain their transgressors, and Aurin had saved them. She knew it was him, even if she didn't know how or why.

"Kill him. Kill that son of a bitch."

Aurin came into the kitchen from the side entrance, and crouched, waiting. Waiting for the first unlucky Galthirian dog to come through that back door.

A hand reached in through the broken window, and grasped the wooden bar that held the back door shut. Hastily, it lifted the bar and it fell with a clattering din on the tile floor.

A man with a scarred face and apathetic grey-green eyes stepped through, his gun pointed forward. His insignia bore the rank of Corporal, and his name badge said "Wellmar".

Aurin stood up and tackled Wellmar like a wild animal, adrenaline and pure rage seeming to lift his feet for him.

Wellmar noticed Aurin at the last second as he came crashing into him. Aurin grappled him by the neck and with the weight of his own body slammed him against the counter and cabinets; The cabinets splintered and ceramic dishes were heard to shatter. Wellmar fell to his knees and his gun clattered onto the floor.

Wellmar scrabbled for his gun, but Aurin kicked it away. It slid a few feet away under a table.

"Oh gods, not again."

Aurin kicked him savagely in the temple; Wellmar went out cold, falling back against the countertop and then sagging unceremoniously onto the floor.

Aurin looked outside into the grey expanse of the evening, and heard a gunshot from outside. Two, to be exact.

Then a third, much closer to his current position. He felt the wind stir next to his face and felt a momentary heat; Then a smoking hole appeared in the kitchen wall facing the back door, ten millimeters in diameter.

Abaiss was still standing under the gazebo, with the bodies of his men nailed into the ground about him. He had discarded his frozen gun, and at a great cost it seemed; The hand holding a scavenged gun dripped with blood. He adjusted the auto-aim on the pistol and made ready to fire again.

Aurin leaped out of Abaiss' line of sight as the gun went off and the auto-aim found a new target at the last second. Wellmar's head jerked as a red flower erupted from his temple and splattered blood and bits of bone upon the cabinets.

Aurin slid under the table and grabbed Wellmar's gun; The gun felt heavy in his hands, probably due to the auto-aim mechanism built into the rear sight.

This is it. I'm gonna make you pay.