Board Thread:Role Plays/@comment-5999656-20190205035159/@comment-26571677-20190722075454

In her line of work, very few things were clear.

Her employers usually liked to keep their airs of secrecy; something she could hardly fault them for; given the nature of death and discretion that her post provided.

It was thus that a hitman’s dream was for everything to someday be clean cut; no masks, no disguisers, no surprise op in the middle of a jungle, no wading through miles of swamp just to get one good shot.

So what bitter irony for her that though the situation was finally clear to her; she was stuck in a nightmare.

There were not minutes to spare before they would be torn to their deaths, and the amount of seconds left were counting down quickly.

Out of the corner of her mind, she registered the agitated yells of Diaboli; the other corner of her mind rapidly realized that she did not care one bit, and the rest was screaming at her to run already.

Yet she held; her knuckles were white; fist clenching the grip of her weapon so hard she thought she might break it. Her eyes ached from the unblinking stare and the influence of apathy impacted against her brain like a dull hammer; each blow squeezing in the feeling of a vicelike hold on her very fibre.

A few more seconds, that’s all she needed.

“Dust. The moment I say, stop shooting and use whatever ice dust you have left on the wave and get ready to do a grav lift; something tells me that Mr Grumpy isn’t going to wait.”

“Wait what? Wave? What wave!?”

“You’ll see.”

“What about the other two!?”

“We hope they’re fast.”

“Wh-“

But it was too late; she was already sprinting backwards towards the shoreline.

“Ah shit.”

---

The gravel and sand he stood on was littered with casing after casing; the frequent silvery magazine laying amidst the pebbly rocks; like a smorgasbord of spent munitions for whatever came later to savour.

Thankfully though, he was having some effect; the rats were spread thinner now, with what had previously been a coating of black, furry bodies now only a thin smatter.

Then there was the cracking of ice, and his attention shifted as the robot lizard abandoned its post and began to run towards the boat.

The doors could hold no more, and burst open at the seams. Then too, was his hope of holding back the tide shattered like the ice that flew through the air.

They oozed through like a viscous flood of darkness; the evil gleam of what must have been thousands of beady red eyes pouring forth; pestilence personified, by his reckoning.

“Now.”

Had he turned back a few seconds later, there was no doubt in his mind that all that would have remained was a pile of ashes, and perhaps his guns. The moment the gunslinger swiveled; his eyes were filled with a much different vision of light; searing orange and tinted blue; like a concentration of a gas fire congealed into one luminescent mass of molten fire and metal.

He dived to the ground.

The first experience was the searing heat that phased through his body; beginning with the tip of his skull and slinking its way down until it left him pressed against the cool ground once more. He thought, though his eyes were barely open; that he could see the brown tint of his aura flash along with it.

The second experience was the wobble that passed through his body; blunt and heavy like his insides were being rearranged. It followed the blast of wind and the sting of flying gravel, as a vestige of a whirlwind blew through.

The last was the opening gleam of light that blinded him; like a camera flash, except that his eyelids had been shut. When he opened them, sight left afterimages; of Hazel looking at him and with her mouth open. Then another, of her mouth closed. Then another, of the shockwave behind her, and the two figures weakly following; one on the shoulder of the other.

He remembered.

The wave.

And as his eyes swept over the coast; barely able to recognize moving images; he understood.

The blast of her weapon had swept back the tide; and though the inky black water had already begun flowing back in, the curve would be perfect.

Perfect for a ramp.

He gripped a revolver wheel of turquoise coloured shells from his hip and threw them into the sea; just before they disappeared from view, he fired off a shot, activating the crystals within to frost over the sea; freezing over the water and forming their escape.

Slinging his rifle over his back, he pulled out his revolvers and flicked them; changing the flames that etched the sides from the fiery red of brimstone to the shimmering purple of the void.

Moving towards the assassin, he motioned for her to get a runner up; blasting her feet just before she left the ice with a pulse of purple; launching her up and towards the lonely vessel amidst the waves.

As he looked down; he noticed a large hunk of previously chrome metal, now charred black, split and warped with an orange glow. It barely held his attention though, as the chittering behind him indicated that the grimm were rapidly surmounting the crimson hues of superheated rock; sheer mass climbing over the burnt and congealing bodies of their fallen and boiled comrades.

He supposed it was some kind of cruel mockery of duty that he waited for the other two; he was first at the auction, and from what it seemed, would be the last to leave. Even so, the smile on his face was unerring as he greeted the final two alive on a desolate and sinking den.

“Good to see you, Jett, you look like hammered shit. You too, Miss whoever-you-are, though might I say, much better looking than our little friend you’re helping.”

The screams of the rats behind him failed to diminish his wry grin.

“Now, keep your arms locked tight and legs bent! I hear the landing’s killer on the knees.”