2023-10-15: Ballad of Fallen Angels

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<Pose Tracker> Vicious has posed.

                ALBA CITY, FIRST VERSE:

        Blood is a bead and a marker, welling, just so, on Mao Yenrai's thumbpad. A man known only as 'Carlos' takes the paper, reading in through his darkened sunglasses -- the darkest part of his light suit. Perhaps it's only fitting for a capo of the White Tiger syndicate to dress this way...?

        "Confirmed," Carlos smiles, looking up from the document. Both men -- both capos, bosses of the Red Tiger and White Tiger syndicates -- stand, and shake their hands; they've cleaned their hands with white cloth, so their hands needn't be stained.

        "To the new alliance," Mao smiles, "and perhaps even friendship."

        "And to success for both of us," Carlos agrees. As he straightens up, he grins, looking out the window. "I had no idea the view from up here would be so breathtaking. Makes me sad to leave..." One of his men places his coat upon him, though, despite his words; they're pleasantries.

        Don't think it meaningless. Many men died to get them to these pleasantries.

        "Next time, you'll have to stay for dinner," Mao offers, pleasant. "Our chef cooks a Cantonese cuisine that's just as superb as the scenery. It's to die for... so to speak." A little joke.

        And Carlos laughs; it is funny. "Heheh... that's quite an invitation," he says, as he places his grey hat upon his head. "I never thought I'd break bread with a capo from the Red Dragon clan."

        "Don't worry," Mao goes so far as to assure him. "The food won't be poisoned." And though the light shines on him from behind, face all captured in shadow, there is some genuine emotion in his voice as he insists: "No more betrayals."

        He really wanted this. It's no more obvious than as he watches the White Dragon's ship take off, once Carlos and his men have left, speaking entirely to himself: "Thank God, I can finally relax... take a little breather." And he gets his breaths: one, two, three. All the way until that ship ascends all the way into the air --

        -- and explodes.

        The horror on Mao's face, teeth grit and eyes wide, is punctured by the cry of a cormorant. Hands grasp his shoulders; a sword sweeps up to pin him at his neck. In the privacy of his suite, he wasn't able to see the corridor full of his dead men, killed before they could scream, before they could shoot.

        A man strolls through it all, and his stride doesn't break. The door slides open, for him. Mao recognises him by his footsteps, as if he were his very own son.

        He may as well be.

        "This won't do you any good," Mao hisses, through a horrifically extended throat, head arched too far back. He turns his head as well as he can, to address the man behind him. "The times have changed! The Syndicates can't survive like this any longer, this endless bloodletting is tearing us all apart!"

        It is not even Vicious who makes the final cut.

        Though... Vicious watches.

        It's only after that slice carves in that the man with wild, pale hair turns away.

        With his final breath, Mao invokes the other man he loved like family: "If Spike... were here... you would never..."

        And Vicious's face splits, in a grin,

        "... have..."

        which spreads,

        "... done this..."

        TOO WIDE.

                ALBA CITY, SECOND VERSE:

        The Ace of Spades led Faye Valentine here. It was trivial for her to negotiate her way up to Mao Yenrai's private opera-viewing box -- and she doesn't think about just how trivial until it's too late.

        And the gun is pressed into her back.

        She bites her lip to stop herself from trembling; she addresses him properly. "Mao-taijin, what's the reason for this?"

        "No need to speak," one of Mao's men say, "Ms. Valentine." And as she turns, shock painting her face, one of those men flash the keys to her Red Tail which she charmed the valet into parking. "We've done a very thorough background check on you... rest assured, it will be held in a very secure location." Her vehicle, that is. "Please. Take your seat."

        It's only when she's sitting beside Mao that she's able to look to him, slowly, slowly -- to see the truth the opera singers can't, under harsh stage lighting.

        His throat was cut. Blood stains his throat, his jaw, his suit. His eyes stare forward, eternal and unseeing; his mouth is fixed in an eternal horrified grimace.

        And someone narrates the shiver which runs through her skin, as she realises she wasn't talking to Mao's men at all: "You're trembling." A man, standing over her --

        Faye jerks, looking back, a frown creasing her eyes. "Who are you?" She demands, and again: "Tell me!"

        He doesn't even look at her, cold eyes on the opera, as he replies: "Vicious."

        Both his name and his title.

                ALBA CITY, THIRD VERSE:

        "Eheheheh..." That's Faye, chuckling through the laser-linked communications. She's all tied up -- and she's not alone. "We kinda got ourselves caught." The camera pans, now, to Lucine Azul:

        Lucine, in comparison to Faye, looks glum, as well as absolutely embarrassed. Also unlike Faye, she's dressed in her usual outfit, like she was going outside for an errand. "... Don't make it sound like we were looking for trouble..." she grumbles, like a sullen teenager.

        "Oh, it's no trouble at all," Faye says, entirely too casual for the situation she's in and entirely too dressed up, "just, they want you to come and pick us up, if you're not all busy already... either you show up at the place they specify, or our lives are over. So, the arrival time is..."

        They're not going to just abandon a pair of pretty girls, now, are they?

                ALBA CITY, FINAL VERSE:

        OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pJlupB_4Bw Seatbelts - RAIN (Demo ver.)

        Over Mars, the clouds are purple. A haze claims Alba City, on the border between day and night; perhaps it's a sign that a kaiju has come.

        (Will never come, thanks to the efforts of so many.)

        It paints everything in a single shade. The cathedral which stretches up is ancient; long-abandoned. The men of Mars have no use for God, and His house now lies in disarray. Broad steps lead up to it, a whole series of them; the entrance is lined by stone pillars, and high above, giant windows filter in the shady twilight. The lights which line the path are unlit; some have long since been smashed. No one comes here, any more.

        You must come here, now, though the bushes cast unfriendly shadows, and stains in the stonework seem almost like tears. Crows circle the top of the towers. Inside --

        The cathedral is not intact. On a broken stone which might have once been an altar, a man perches, katana slung across his shoulder, one leg drawn up to his chest. He has not answered Lucine for long minutes... long hours?

        He is lit all in chiaroscuro, as the remains of the day filter in through painted windows. The doors, slung wide, flood illumination into the blackness of its shadows. Holy men carved from stone stare down at proceedings, clutching ancient tomes and relics.

        He hears them, coming in.

        He stands.

        "When angels are forced out of heaven," Vicious says, "they become devils. You agree... don't you, Spike?"

        The man he was waiting for...

        Don't call his smile warm. The only brother who could wear a smile like that is Cain himself, as his cormorant comes to land upon his shoulder.

<Pose Tracker> Spike Spiegel has posed.


It was a long, long walk for Spike Spiegel.

He knows every step of the way. Every uneven cobblestone under his feet, which seem to feel them despite the heavy soles of his shoes. Every outline of every building on the horizon. Every street corner, every old shop closed up, every darkened alleyway.

They're places where he walked with Julia. They're places where he fought, back to back, against Vicious. They're the stones that sharpened a half-Jewish, half-Chinese kid -- and, in important ways, a kid who wasn't Jewish or Chinese -- into a gangster. They're the rocks he was dashed upon and rebuilt himself, piece by grueling piece, into a Cowboy.

They're the place he knew he would come back to. They're the whirlpool that was always pulling him back in, no matter how strong he swam against the current. They're the stones soaked in his blood, but they're all dry now.

He hasn't talked much. He confirmed this is where they are. This is where Lucine is. They go in expecting a fight.

A fight, he knows, doesn't begin to describe what this will be.

He walks through the front doors of the broken cathedral. His eyes scan -- over the dark spaces in God's abandoned house, where he shouldn't see people. His right eye, darker than the left, though, seems to catch each of Vicious's men. Each, in turn, is seen.

But his eyes settle on the pale-haired man in the center aisle.

He walks in, heedless, and comes to a stop as Vicious speaks. His trenchcoat rustles about him, his hands in the pockets. It's almost lazy; it's almost lax. Like there isn't a care in the world.

It isn't careless, though. It's just resigned.

"I'm just watching a bad dream I never wake up from."

<Pose Tracker> Vicious has posed.


        "I'll wake you up right now," Vicious promises, still as the stone standing vigil astride. He was always as sturdy, watching Spike's back. But now...

<Pose Tracker> Spike Spiegel has posed.


"What's the rush, Vicious?" Spike lifts his chin. There is a smile on his face -- but it's the same resignation as before. What did Kaworu tell him? This would end badly. "After all. It's been a long time."

<Pose Tracker> Vicious has posed.


        Vicious laughs -- a deep, sonorous chuckle. "... are you pleading for your life?" He remembers Mao and his hurried words. His wisdom never reached him, but then, Vicious has never cared much for respecting one's elders.

<Pose Tracker> Spike Spiegel has posed.


"Hardly. Pleading doesn't work on you," Spike says. There is a certain knowing there; and, for the first time, there is a certain anger. When Mao Yen-rai died, there two sons who lost a father.

Spike's voice doesn't falter. It doesn't lose that resigned tone. But there is an anger to it, a bite, and it's clear, then: Spike Spiegel didn't come here for Lucine. He didn't come here for GGG's mission.

"Even if it's coming from the man who took you in and made you what you are."

He was always going to come here, for the man who took him in and made him what he failed to be.

<Pose Tracker> Vicious has posed.


        "Perhaps," Vicious smiles, eyes as sharp as his lips, "but he was a beast who lost his fangs. That's why he had to die, Spike. And that's why you have to die..." It is an intensely intimate thing, his statement; he does not look at Liam, nor Jana, nor Lina. Call it a matter of family, framed through crime or through blood: it's personal.

        And he has the same breathless apathy to him as Spike, when he speaks. Nothing matters -- except, maybe, this.

        But they are not alone.

        The hostages, too, are here -- and a man places a gun to Lucine Azul's head, with a steady smile. "Now," he tells them all, "we'd like you to drop your weapons and put your hands up... slowly. If you don't comply..." ... he leaves the implication trailing there, like so many entrails, a promise of what could soon result. Faye, beside her, grimaces. (It's a mixture of 'thank God that's not me', 'holy shit, is she dead?', 'what can I do right now', and 'don't shoot her right there, I don't want that all over me!')

        He's not alone. The whole church is full of those men in their suits and their guns, pressed behind pillars, hiding behind stoneworks, shadowed beside mosaic windows.

        It's time to make a choice.

<Pose Tracker> Spike Spiegel has posed.


Spike turns. It's intensely personal, but he never stopped being aware -- aware of Jana, Liam, and Lina behind him. Aware of Vicious's people. Aware of Faye Valentine; aware of Lucine Azul. He turns, and the smile is gone. It is the cold, hardened expression of a killer on his face, as he looks at the suit-wearing man.

Spike doesn't speak to him. He doesn't speak to Faye. He doesn't speak to Lucine. His lighter left eye looks at her and doesn't blink. His hand swings up from the pocket, the fastest draw in Alba City, and brings up his pistol. He points it at the man.

His darker right eye narrows.

And just as the man opens his mouth, Spike fires. The bullet rips through his skull, splattering blood across Lucine's face -- dropping his corpse, and leaving the pillar behind him splashed with the remains of his head. Spike whirls then, and fires two shots into the man on his left before he dives for the pews.

"MOVE!" he shouts to his comrades, with a voice like a coiled spring finally let loose.

<Pose Tracker> Lina Lombardi has posed.


         Of course Lina had to come. Not only was one of their own in danger, but she knew Spike well enough to know that he'd probably get himself killed without someone to watch his back. She also knew he was too proud to ask for help directly. She had followed behind at a reasonable distance, keeping discreet in a black turtleneck and shoulder holdster. Well, as discreet as you can get in Alba City without screaming that you're GGG.

         At the cathedral, she takes point by one of the outer windows, keeping an eye on the situation through a broken panel as she readies her weapon. A gun fires. Spike shouts.

         Lina moves.

         She dives through the window, bodychecking a Syndicate goon to the ground and popping shots into two others' legs as she slides in between two pews. Ducking down, she pops up to fire at various pillars, some shots going through and hitting the men hiding behind, and some shots serving to startle others out of their hiding spots for an easier shot.

         "Gotta say, they just don't make these guys like they used to!"

<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.



         "You definitely have your father's eyes."

         The video call was part of the deal; Lucine wanted to see the man's face before she met up with him, as well as confirm some details.The man was definitely her father's age, with the same weariness that spoke of a hard life. Bags under the eyes, a certain glint of iron to the eyes, teeth that looked a little too white when he smiled.

        ".... I haven't seen him since the invasion."
        "I'm sorry to hear that. He was an old school cowboy. Your dad... I met him when he was hired to spice up a few of the crafts. But he also thought not just about going fast, but catching prey. Man could take a junker and turn it from a geriatric alley cat to a tiger in the prime of its life. He also didn't care what company he kept, once he was out of the public eye. But, it was different times, back then...."

        They talked, and the more they did, the more Lucine wanted to meet this man. After all, the only way to confirm if anything was the truth, was to meet him in person.



        The door swang open after a few urgent rams; most of the defense it had was already made moot by the violence committed to it earlier.

        What Lucine saw was exactly what her senses told her, and more; the dying man, grasping for air, blood bubbling from his neck. The shock of her Newtype senses feeling that brutal pinch of a life being snuffed out had obscured all else, including reason.

        A groan, and the candle flame that was that man's life is no more; his memories, and whatever he could have told Lucine, sink into darkness, never spoken.

        *********
        
        'Kit Azul... you have his eyes.'
        'Yes... it's always a woman, leading men to think they can leave. As if his blood were not tainted...'
        'And d here you stand... living proof. As that blood drips from father to daughter... here you are. All tangled up...'

        They traded words, but the bubbling wound on that middle aged man's throat had made her less brave than she wanted to be. The fact is, they only needed one hostage.

        And then, Vicious waited, trapping them with his silence.

        It was just her, and Faye, trapped here with a man waiting for something unnamed.

        There's only one or two other people that could be connected, but only by virtue of being Martian themselves. But. There is another connection: Faye herself.

        "...... You're waiting for him, aren't you."

        It's a guess, and undefined by choice. But, she eases, and sighs, closing her eyes. She hates to believe in it, but, people will come.
        
        *********

        She stares with those same yellow eyes at the four coming in.

        Her eyes linger on Liam's face for a long moment, then to Spike, as he holds the gun.

        Lucine wonders: .... is it only now that she's realized his eyes were actually two shades of brown? Or is it just the light here?

        .....-

        Even if she's ready for it, the shock of someone's life being snuffed right next to her is like a punch to the gut, delivered courtesy of that pesky Newtype sense. Yellow eyes blank, and she stumbles forward, a stray bullet ringing past, whipping up a length of blue teal hair.

        She turns, looking over her shoulder. "Faye!"

        They have to make a run for it.

<Pose Tracker> Jana Cektru has posed.


It does not take a telepath to realize that Spike is not just here for 'the mission' after he begins talking. But Spike is not Jana's focus in the moment. In the moment, her focus is on Vicious, as she reaches out to his mind, attempts to read what it is that he intends, his nature. Vicious is unlikely to detect at first--but he doesn't have to. His sheer cold-bloodedness is a shock, when she understands what it is he's thinking.

Dr. Cektru's eyes widen in surprise, staring at him, standing beside Liam. "You--"

BANG. 'MOVE!' She realizes, in the moment--he went straight for the man holding her. If he'd missed...

No time.

Dr. Cektru has no weapon out to drop. She doesn't really believe in them, in situations like this. This may be a mistake. It remains to be seen. But she moves, faster than a person has a right to move, towards one of the goons with his guns. She moves straight for him, and her hand snakes out, one blue sleeve billowing as she reaches for his shoulder--

There is a psychic crack as she overwhelms the first with just that hand, knocking him unconscious in an instant and whirling towards the next. The first crumples to the ground, and the second falls as easily, just beside his ally, their guns clattering against the stone. She doesn't pick them up.

Instead, Jana continues moving, staring one down as she starts to sprint to the next--

BANG.

Jana's next step stumbles, as the bullet sinks into her side, and then another sings right past her, and a third likewise. She's in blue and white--the blue at least makes the spreading stain of a different blue from her side less obvious, until some drips down from her jacket. Some of the thugs might have a scare as they realize she isn't human.

"Ghk!"

Jana jerks for a moment, and the man lines up his shot to take a second, which misses as she waves to the side. A slam for his hand and his wrist CRACKS audibly, Jana catching his gun and ejecting the clip before she slams the butt into the back of his head. "Liam! Go to her! This man would kill all of us just for a chance at Spike!"

She ducks behind a pillar, and takes a breath--before diving back out and going for the next.

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.


        The table in Liam's quarters is set for dinner. Two place settings with forks, napkins, plates, chopsticks. Two glasses of water. A big serving-bowl of homemade beef lo mein that's long since gone cold.

        He was on the Hermes when the call came in, and rushed to receive it, fully expecting Lucine to tell him she'd be running late for dinner. He hadn't gotten more than two seconds into the messaged before he realized she was a hostage. (The woman from that one party in Tsutsujidai, too, but Lucine dominated his mental calculations.)

        The emotion left him like air from a breached cockpit, replaced by the cold, hard vacuum of calculations.

        Liam walks at Spike's right flank, every motion slow and deliberate and practiced except the saccading of his eyes. That, too, is practiced, in its own way. His pale scalp shines dimly in the same streetlight that stretches his long shadow across the cathedral floor. He could easily be someone Spike grabbed to act as muscle--in civilian clothes, a green hoodie and jeans and work boots, he doesn't look like a gangster. He certainly doesn't have Vicious' sense of style. A perfectly normal service pistol sits in a holster hidden beneath his hoodie.

        His gaze meets Lucine's, and he sees the fear there, and his own fear is smothered by a tide of cold rage. Lina and Jana might well sense the change. This isn't the screaming, flailing, desperate rage of a young man presented with something horrible and out of his control.

        In his mind's eye, he sees the world go white as an explosion engulfs both Eva-00 and Bardiel. Rei's last words cut off abruptly, her gentle 'Sayona--' echoing in his ears.

        In his mind's eye, he hears Shinji screaming as Eva-01 takes the Entry Plug in its jaws, and bites. Reddish fluid spills from its maw. Is any of it Asuka's blood? There's no way to tell.

        In his mind's eye, he pulls his wanzer's pile bunker from the shattered cockpit of a Zaku II. It drips red. Hephaestus congratulates him.

        And that's one last Zeon terrorist. Congratulations, Puppy, you're a real man now.

        This is the mind of an assassin, a young man who is more than ready to kill. Anticipating it, even.

        'But he was a beast who lost his fangs. That's why he had to die.'

        Liam looks at Vicious, then, the very picture of restraint as a man puts a gun to his beloved's head and tells him to surrender. One wrong move, and Lucine dies. Then maybe Jana dies, or Lina dies, or Spike dies. Or all of them. His eyes dart sideways, and he sees the micromotions of Spike's draw.

        Good, he thinks, even as the buried part of him starts to reel and quake, sickened.

        Liam watches a man's head come apart with only the slightest flinch. In the next heartbeat, he blurs forward, throwing a straight punch at the solar plexus of the next-closest man to Lucine.

        At once, it takes tremendous effort and no effort at all. Liam is incredibly strong, but he keeps that strength leashed out of necessity. His eyes focus as he lets that part of himself off that leash, and then a CRACK splits the air, the sound of breaking bone. The smaller man goes flying back, half his ribs broken in a single blow. Liam follows through the charge, taking his neck in the crook of his elbow and dragging him between his body and the people who will certainly try to kill him.

        His other hand reaches for Lucine, but he's not looking at her. He's already watching the enemy, calculating his next move.

<Pose Tracker> Vicious has posed.


        "Right!" Faye barks out a reply, as she scrambles away from a man now more occupied shooting at Spike than her. She has to pull up -- a little scrambling -- to stop herself from running into a bullet coursing for Liam. "BE CAREFUL!" She yells, very much to her captors, before Spike brings one of them down in front of her, body all collapsed at odd angles. She makes a face, and keeps running. If she's sticking by Lucine, well -- it's just because it's easier for their dashing heroes to rescue them together. Nothing about whether she thinks they'd really come for her.

        And Vicious is still, as the bullets fly. Focused one one... particular... man, he all but disappears into the heat of the battle, blood too cold to detect. His thoughts are smooth as glass, with no shelter or even ragged edges to grasp onto: Jana would know the folly of condemning men as sociopaths, but in this case, the label fits. He thinks of how predictable it is Spike's surrounded himself with a new gang; he thinks of how much easier it will be to flush him out, with so many lives to threaten. He does not think of Liam's anguish, and he does not think of the woman who has come to observe all this. (And Jana may note, in his thoughts, how she is reduced to the woman.)

        Jana, unlike Spike, fires no bullets. She reaches out with a hand, and as her fingers press into his shoulder, the man drops. It is too quick for him to be shocked. The second has time, though -- just enough to jerk his gun up. Not enough to fire.

        Unfortunately, he's not the only one with the idea. These men are trained killers; no one has any complaints with killing an unarmed woman, particularly one with these unexplained martial arts. (Is that what they are?) The bullet scores in; the blood...

        "What the fu," the man gets out, before --

        Lina manages to surprise the man she lands on, and when she takes aim at the legs of the man threatening Jana, she scores a clean shot through his shin. Jana doesn't have to strike him with his own gun to send him down; he drops past her own swipe.

        But the cover of those stone pillars protects the men sheltering behind them -- if not the legs of another man who ran for cover and didn't quite make it. This much is clear: they're not rabbits to be startled and flushed out of cover. They are wolves on the hunt.

        Though... wolves have also been hunted, by determined men.

        And no man is more determined, perhaps, than one fighting to protect someone he loves. As a man turns to try and end Lucine and Faye's efforts (and their lives), he finds himself turning into not a bullet but a punch. "Ghk--" he chokes out, as he's thrown back with a cyborg's full strength.

        He goes limp, in Liam's arms. He's not dead -- not yet -- but they've trained for this; it's devastatingly common for the Syndicates to use human shields. He's supposed to make it difficult, for Liam. Even so, the bullets hit the man from the Syndicate, first.

        And blood is warm.

        Another man shoots at Liam, but aiming at his side, not the front he's protected with one of their own -- and Lucine may note that he has no desire to save his comrade, in the process. He's only thinking of what's most effective, bringing down a cyborg like that.

        A third yells, "Another woman! She's got a gun!" -- and he and his fellow peel from their cover to shoot at Lina, with only the pews to protect her. She might be able to take them both down, but it will take a real trick-shot to do so without killing either of them. ... or something special from GGG's bag of tricks, because the guts which gangsters believe in tend to be far more visceral.

        The man who goes for Jana doesn't say anything -- but his thoughts are loud as day. FREAK, all in bold letters, all underlined. Those things that aren't even human--!! His anger is underpinned with an edge of panic, though -- and she might be able to exploit that to get close, if she can cope with her own pain.

        Meanwhile, Vicious...

        ... he's not immediately clear, to Spike, in the light-and-shadow of the cathedral. What is clear is the men shooting at him from the balcony, using that height to cover themselves. He seems to be attracting special ire from the Syndicate, for some reason -- an awful lot of bullets are coming for him.

        A man even dives out to stand at the top of a staircase, firing wildly at him with both of his guns just to keep him from claiming that high ground himself. Jumping out of cover like that...

        ... if it's for the clan, any one of them would do it.

<Pose Tracker> Spike Spiegel has posed.


"Lucine, go," Spike snaps at her, icily, when she seems to freeze up. He ducks down behind a pew -- a bullet hits near his head, sending up a spray of wood chips. "Liam, get her out of here!"

He makes brief eye contact with Faye. He doesn't have to tell the sometimes-crew member of the Bebop. She needs to run.

Then, he sees a shape slam down amidst the pews nearby. Bullets start firing.

"Lombardi," he says, voice tight. "Get to the other side." They need to spread their targets out, or they'll invite someone to decide the fully automatic setting is a good strategy.

He can't quite follow Jana with his eyes. Spike is too busy tracking the Syndicate's enforcers and the lines of firing. He hears her, though, as she cracks a man's bones with a single blow. He hears her get shot, too.

No time to flinch, certainly none to regret.

Vicious has vanished. It doesn't mean he has left -- no, like a snake, he is hiding and lying in wait. Spike hears the gunshots behind him, knows that must be Lucine, Faye, and Liam. He sucks a breath in, and then looks up at the balcony.

The pews tear apart, so many splinters and chips of wood flying, as Spike dashes for the staircase. He rounds a column, chips of stone flying from a bullet, and then the man firing with two guns shoots. A bullet slashes along his left arm -- Spike hisses, momentum briefly stopping, before he corrects himself.

If he stops, he dies.

He takes aim with another quick, smooth motion. He fires twice. The first shot rips through the man's knee -- and he falls into the second, which hits his neck and sends a spray of blood up towards the balcony.

Spike ducks low and charges, before he reaches into his coat with his wounded arm. He draws a grenade out -- and hurls it, far from Jana and Lina on the other side of the pews. But, he aims it behind some of those shooting for them. He also aims it not far from the balcony.

Another distraction, as it explodes into a fiery blast -- shredding through what's left of the pews and sending that fireball up in the face of those on the balcony.

Which is when Spike goes darting up those stairs, still crouched low.

<Pose Tracker> Lina Lombardi has posed.


         Lina takes cover behind her pew and assesses the situation. Spike yells at her to cover the other side. Yeah, that's a good idea, but right now, she needs to get rid of these two guys. With her free hand, she rummages through a pack on her belt. She had taken the liberty of bringing a number of small GGG gadgets with her, hoping that one would come in useful.

         "Aha!" She pulls out a small metal cylinder, about two inches long and one thick. Coiling the muscles in her arms and legs, she simultaneously hucks the cylinder under the pews, letting it roll out between the two pillars her attackers were using for cover, and makes a break for the opposite side of the church.

         The two men jump out, thinking to take advantage of Lina's coming out of cover, but the cylinder rolls between them, sensing their movement, and shoots out an elastic cord from either side, wrapping around each thug's ankles and pulling back to bring them colliding into each other and onto the ground. Lina manages to make her way to another row of pews closer to the front of the cathedral, looking back to check on Spike.

<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.


        Spike's one word is enough to snap Lucine out of that cold disconnect; it's telling it wasn't the fear of Spike missing that shot, the hard weight of the gun to her head, or the ice that coats the gaze of Spike, as well as Liam.

        It was the exact moment of death.

        And another. And another, and another, each blunting the effect of the one before it a little more, until it fades into noise.

        "Faye-- no, not th--" The bullet jostles right by Faye, who manages to flinch back just in time, making Lucine's warning thankfully moot.

        She tries to make her own move, but is helped by Liam, who manages to snag her.

        And for a moment, she's not sure if this made her any safer, as she fully realizes his state of mind.

        "Liam, _Liam_." Lucine tries to call out Liam's name, trying to get him to center himself. In lieu of a plan, it seems like the best, especially as Liam is pulling her along for the ride. "... We have to get out of he-"

        Her eyes widen. "--*Left.*" Turn left? Dive left? Move left?

        Newtype foresight doesn't leave a lot of time for explanations.

<Pose Tracker> Jana Cektru has posed.


Jana is... concerned, to be sure--by Liam's approach to this. His emotions suppressed, taking on the 'mind of an assassin', it strikes her as very much unlike the gentle young man she's come to know. But she understands, too, that this is part of him. ...Perhaps not the 'best' part of him, though--not the part she would encourage.

The part that might hurt him badly, in the end.

She cannot help him by doing nothing, though. Nor can she help herself that way.

Jana sees that the men with guns will not extend her the same courtesy she does them. In pain, the Doctor has to take a moment to consider whether she will continue to be so nonlethal.

...She must. These are still humans, after all.

Jana can track each person here by their thoughts--Lina and Lucine and Liam and Spike and even Faye--but in the din, she can no longer pick out Vicious, a heart so very closed. In this way, she can rely on more than her eyes. So the man who comes after Jana, her mind open, considers her a freak. He doesn't know.

She locks eyes with him, and shares her pain. His panic should leave him open to it; the pure sensation of the gunshot wound should send him reeling for just long enough--

She bleeds more, even as one hand presses over the wound to try to squeeze against it to slow. Her other hand reaches out for her assailant.

A grenade goes off, and she ducks down as she senses the fear of it from the others, suddenly behind another pillar, closer to the exit.

"Liam!" Jana calls. "Go!"

Then she rushes, nearby--but toward Faye, rather than Lucine. "Come," she says. "Let's get you out of here." Jana is still obviously bleeding, one hand on her side to try to hold it all in, but she reaches out for Faye anyway.

If she can just reach the exit with her...

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.


        Liam grabs Lucine's shoulder and hauls her to her feet. He takes a moment to glance at her, intense focus in his eyes as he meets her gaze. Both of his arms are occupied, now, and his human shield is still breathing. It's a dispassionate observation that in turn spawns relief (he didn't kill him), disgust (how could he do that?!) and more of that cold rage. It doesn't last long. Bullets slam into the man's body, and he jerks in the crook of Liam's arm. Warmth splatters against his torso. The cyborg's eyes dart in his captive's direction--

        What is he doing!? (He's doing what he has to.) This isn't right! (This is what he was made to do.) Why is he doing this?! (If he shows them the slighest mercy, Puppy, they'll kill her.)

        Assassins, as it turns out, are people, too.

        Liam's face twists. His guts clench and cramp. He realizes that he heard Jana cry out, and didn't so much as look at her. Alive, for now--she spoke to him, and he heard her. He can't bear to lose anyone else, even in potentia.

        Lucine screams his name. Tears prickle at his eyes as the balance keeps tipping. He can't keep it locked in. He can't, he's going to lose it and then someone will die, again, just like Hephaestus told him

        HE CAN'T LOSE ANYONE ELSE

        Liam whirls about the instant he hears the gunshot. The bullet traces a bloody line across his side, ripping through skin and fabric, but doesn't pierce through to his organs. He drops the man he was using as a shield--alive? dead? what matters to Liam in that moment is he's not going to shoot him, or the others--and hefts Lucine in the crook of his other arm, half-dragging, half-carrying her behind the altar. There's people between them and the exit and even he can't stay out of cover.

        "Trying!" Liam shouts. His hand darts beneath his hoodie, finding a metal cylinder clipped to his holster. Liam pulls the grenade free with a 'click', snaps the pin out, and counts to three. He hurls the grenade to the floor, and it pops open, spewing thick, black smoke into the air.

        "Hold on, Lu," Liam says, and he charges forwards into the cloud. His blood smears all over Lucine's shirt.

<Pose Tracker> Vicious has posed.


        Don't stop. It's real black logic, set against this blue tableau, but it remains no less important.

        The man at the stop of the balcony stopped to shoot Spike, after all, and look where it got him -- falling into a bullet which finishes the job. His body falls, even as Spike ascends.

        If angels who fall from heaven become devils, what happens when those devils rise up from the bowels of the earth?

        There are grenade blasts to contend with, now, and it's only thanks to Spike's thoughtful positioning that it's the Syndicate who has to contend with them. The men caught in those blasts are given no mercy but death, sometimes four or five at a time -- and Lucine hears them, as they scream out. Their horrors are unspoken, their hearts cratered open to her. They did not want to die.

        The men contending with Lina are given more mercy than that -- tie-bindings wrap about their legs, and send them crashing down. "Tch!" They spit, but the problem she'll face soon becomes clear: they don't need their ankles to shoot. "Get us free!" The man who barks that command lays down covering fire to make Lina's life more difficult, as his forced companion cuts at the elastic cord with a knife he pulls from his boot.

        So, too, the man exposed to the psychic pain of a gunshot wound. Jana is lucky enough to make him stagger -- but soon enough, grasping at his side, he realises that he isn't hit. "You!" He barks, teme in all its arrogance and scorn; it's only Jana taking advantage of that grenade's explosion that saves her from another bullethole, as he fires at her again.

        As he thinks: as if I've never been shot--!! Damn you!

        Liam's human shield drops, and -- at the very least -- doesn't shoot at him for the trouble. (Dead? Alive? Some twilight middle, hovering between life and death? No... he's not the one balanced, there.) The smoke grenade he looses at least gives them a shroud, there on the lower level -- an opportunity to escape.

        For Faye, as well, as she coughs in the smoke. If her eyes widen, seeing the blue between Jana's fingertips she's trying to hold inside her, she doesn't linger on the question. "Dh--don't have to tell me twice!" She manages to get out, as she lets Jana grasp her, and hurries for the exit.

        Getting out of here, in the end, might be the best solution for avoiding bloodshed -- because these men were shod in blood, and they walk through it like rain.

        As that smoke rises, up to meet...

        A cormorant cries out. It is the only warning Spike will get.

        At once Vicious is here -- at once Vicious is upon him; he did not bring a gun to this fight, but his sword is no less sharp, stabbing and slashing with deathly intent. Call their movements a dance if you like, but it misses some detail, because Vicious is not graceful -- in lurching stops and starts does he move, all power, all force, always, always wielding his sword to kill.

        It is a mercy, perhaps, that he is up here, and not down there.

        Spike has never been given much mercy.

<Pose Tracker> Spike Spiegel has posed.


Spike isn't moving for the exit. He doesn't afford a look back, even as he hears Jana call for Liam to go. Good, he thinks. They need to get out of here.

But he isn't moving that way.

No, he knows where this leads -- where it must lead -- and that he can't well turn tail and leave. Vicious wouldn't tolerate that. But, for that matter, Spike would never do that.

He hears another grenade go off -- he sees smoke billowing up, though he can't see Liam and Lucine dive into it. He doubts that Vicious's men would use smoke grenades, though. He runs up the stairs, past the body of the man he killed.

He breaks up onto the balcony, smoke billowing around him. And around Vicious, who bursts from the smoke. His katana swings, the first slash catching Spike's trenchcoat but not his body. Fabric is cut open. The second slash hits his pistol, which Spike swings up.

Sparks fly as steel meets steel, and Spike swings his pistol around. He fires a shot for Vicious, as he steps backward -- not to keep him away, but to not be pinned down.

There are no words, but they say brothers only need a look to communicate. It is a hard look indeed in Spike's mismatched brown eyes.

<Pose Tracker> Lina Lombardi has posed.


         Okay, the snare was a good start, but they're getting up and they're firing back already! What the hell else is in this bag...She pulls out an orb that fits neatly in the palm of her hand. That'll do!

         Smoke fills the cathedral! Even better! Lina uses the cover to peek out, using the muzzle flashes from the two to figure where their guns are, and fires two shots directly at the pistols, hitting them with enough force to hopefully force them to drop it. With her other hand, she hucks the orb into the air, firing a third shot at it when it's above the two and causing it to release a net that drops down over them, driving four stakes into the ground to anchor it in place. And unlike the cords, the dense carbon fibers of the net shouldn't find themselves so easily cut.

         With most of the cathedral seemingly cleared out, Lina turns over to the balcony, pistol up and at the ready. "Spike..."

<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.


        The clouding of Liam's thoughts, as Lucine calls his name, brings Lucine to the realization that she is *not* helping.

        In that moment, she gives Liam a teary kiss on his cheek, her tears smearing the ghastly blood splatter on her face. ".... Do what you need to. I trust you."

        It's a release, and a decision to hand over control to him, rather than be alarmed.

        When he departs, Lucine realizes that, in the chaos, her hands are *literally* still tied; it's not as if she or Liam have had time to do much about that part.

        --I don't want to die.--
        --I didn't want it to end like this.--

        It doesn't come to her as those exact messages, but in the language of emotions, each a twist of a knife underneath her ribs. Lucine shuts her eyes against the intrusive last moments; not to be callous to them, but for her own survival. She can't freeze again; it was a miracle she wasn't shot dead in those moments she stumbled free from her captor's already dead grasp.

        She tries to open her mind to other things; Faye, still alive, Jana, shot but still going, Lina, still charging ahead like a bright star, heading up the stars, Spike, already up there, Vicious--

        A glint of metal upstairs, foreboding. Lucine's eyes widen.

        The cormorant cries.

        Vicious is closing in, but Spike's readiness negates the need for a warning. Spike didn't get this far on luck alone.

        In the meantime, Lucine tries to hook her ties to something she can pull, trying to do anything that will weaken their hold.

<Pose Tracker> Jana Cektru has posed.


At least Liam answers this time; that's a good sign. Jana for her part remains pinned down for at least a moment, as she reaches out to Faye. She narrows her eyes, at the thought of the man.

She thinks to him: If you want to live, you'll stop firing.

But Faye can ask questions later, if she wants; the important thing is that she's going for the exit. It probably is the best solution... Because Jana remains unwilling to kill these humans. Even as her friends do.

Jana keeps her head down and tries to move out further, using Liam's smoke to disappear as best she can, in a move toward the exit. And if that man keeps coming after her...

She holds it in reserve, but there is one thing yet she can do.

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.


        'Do what you need to. I trust you.'

        Liam squeezes Lucine tight against his body, as much to reduce her profile as to feel that she's there, she's warm and breathing and alive. "Hold your breath," he hisses out, and he inhales sharply, the gash on his side stinging. Pain blossoms on his shoulder as he dives into the cloud; another close call from another well-trained killer. More of his blood splatters Lucine.

        With eyes closed, Liam relies on his other senses to navigate--gunshots echo off what must be nearby walls, and a rough map forms in Liam's head. The room is long and thin, a branch off the main nave. Footsteps approach, from the side, hurried. Liam stops in his tracks, waits, and swings out with a left jab at roughly chest-height. This blow hits home. Liam feels cloth, and he feels the flesh give, slightly, beneath it. He shoves past the winded gangster, feels fresh air on his face, and takes a breath. He opens his eyes.

        They're not in the cathedral anymore, but where are they? Are they safe?

<Pose Tracker> Vicious has posed.


        Vicious's men, indeed, don't use smoke grenades.

        Just like Spike's grenades don't throw off smoke.

        There's one orb here, though, which isn't a grenade. The men pursuing most of the party -- are they party to each other, now? -- summarily find themselves tangled, the shot they thought went wide instead hitting exactly what it meant to. Lina's gambit tangles them up, and they land, mercifully, under the shelter of one of those hardwood pews. With all the bullets flying around, that's the kind of attention to detail that keeps them alive.

        Jana's pursuer is caught in the net, just the same; GGG looks out for their allies. There's one man who managed to escape that net, though -- and he staggers, in the face of Liam's punch. "Nngh--" he grunts, and he's the one who grasps his knife for the short-range altercation, and lunges, after a dazed moment.

        But Liam has already pulled Lucine to safety, outside the cathedral. The person he's lunging at... it's Jana.

        And outside the cathedral --

        They're safe, out here; Faye looks back, before she scampers away. (She calls for Jet, once she's wriggled her hands free... for all the good it does.) But Lucine can tell there's still a great and terrible danger...

        ... in there, and long ago.

        Vicious is not the sort of person who would blink, were he hit. War did not make him a hard man; a hard man went to war. His movements don't change -- he doesn't blink. He doesn't... stop... smiling. Finally he lashes at his face, but it's a ruse; he's aiming to force him down to the ground. And so he comes at Spike, katana plunging down to meet his heart -- but if there's one person who knows him, it might just be the man he's trying to kill.

        If there's one person who could stop him in his tracks...

        Pinned and pinned, all lit by the light of the central mosaic window, Vicious's lips twist back in that horrific grin. "You should see yourself," he grins, with no care for any audience he might host. "You have any idea what you look like right at this moment, Spike..?" His head lifts, fractionally, in prompting. He goes on: "... a ravenous beast. The same blood runs through both of us. The blood of a beast who wanders, hunting for the blood of others..."

        This is a wolf pack, hungry and hunting.

        And a wolf cannot mind the sheep -- no matter what disguise he wears.

<Pose Tracker> Spike Spiegel has posed.


Spike can't hear Lina from the balcony. It's much too loud. He certainly can't risk a look down there when he faces Vicious. He is cut off from her.

But he is cut off in ways beyond the physical, at the moment. His fight with Vicious is one that happens here, in the same place, and yet somewhere else entirely -- it removes him from everything else.

It almost, almost takes him back to the man he used to be.

But that man is dead. And almost is not enough; there is no going to back to him. Spike ducks back from the slash at his face -- it cuts across his cheek, another splash of blood on the ground. The feint works, and he gets slammed back to the ground.

His back roars with pain; his shot arm is fire at his side. He ignores those both, as he looks up at Vicious, and hears those words. "What?" he asks.

And he grins, too; a rictus of a grin, like a wolf on the hunt. He is, for a moment, almost that man again.

Vicious's answer comes.

His gun lifts -- parallel to Vicious's katana. His gun up against Vicious's shoulder, Vicious's down blade against his shoulder in turn. Behind them, the stained glass looks over them, silent and impassive. Spike's grin fades. The wolf has gone to the woods, alone.

"I've bled all of that kind of blood away," he says.

<Pose Tracker> Lina Lombardi has posed.


         Lina backs towards the door of the cathedral, gun still pointed up and trying to keep Vicious in as much sight as possible. Her hands are trembling. She would fire, but at this distance, with her aim as shaky as it is, it would do more harm than good.

         Jana and Liam are making their escape with Lucine, and by all means, Lina should be joining them. As she reaches the door, she has the instinct to just start running, but she can't.

                           GGG Charter
                           Article 5, Paragraph 14

                           A GGG member must, in a dire situation, make it through by supporting one's comrades.

         Jana and Liam had Lucine on lock. It laid to her to see Spike through. "DON'T YOU DIE ON ME, COWBOY!"

<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.


        Lucine clings to Liam as she takes a large breath of air, and she holds onto it, her face pressed against Liam's chest.

        There's not that many more that can die, at least. She feels the rush of air against her side and the impact of a bullet-- not on her, but on Liam's shoulder.

        She'd warn him, but it'd require taking a breath; she has to rely on Liam's senses instead of supplying her own, even if she feels the battle around her. And that, by itself, provides a sort of map, even if it is quickly dimming.

        Lucine gasps out as she feels the cool air outside, her eyes are still closed, as she tries to concentrate on the building they've just left.

        ".... I feel... none of the others moving. The ones still conscious, I mean. That, or they can't move. A net? Ah... " She sneezes. ".... Jana and Lina... still inside. Faye, she's outside. Traveling away. Vicious..."

        A kaleidoscope of colored glass, katana against gun. Teeth bared.

        The air brings ill tidings. Pain. It's coming.

        Lucine's eyes open wide, stained the same color as her father's own. ".... Something bad's going to happen to Spike." She reports it calmly; it's not simply her fearing for Spike's safety.

<Pose Tracker> Jana Cektru has posed.


Jana will have to thank GGG's supply department later, along with Lina's quick thinking. There are people who will survive today because of it, not least of which them.

But at short range, that knife comes. Jana, slowed by her injury, cannot dodge in time, and this might hit something vital. She understands, in a flash of less than an instant, that this time it is her or this man. And she decides--

It will be painful, when he drops. The sheer, overwhelming psychic noise that Jana inflicts on him is a blast from which he may never recover, that may hemorrage in his brain and leave him bleeding when he falls. Even if he lives, he might never awaken. And all it takes from her is a flash of her eyes, a stare of intent--

Life is so, so very fragile.

At least Faye has escaped. Jana stumbles outside right after, her breath heavier now with exertion and injury and distress. "Lucine," she says. "Are you all right?" She says this even as her hand is on her own wound, bleeding blue. "Liam?"

Then, she shakes her head. "We can't help him by going back in there. ..That man," Vicious, "He's sure that Spike will endanger himself to save any of us who are in there. He's counting on it, to give him a chance at him. I saw..."

Jana shakes her head. "I've never met a human like him..."

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.


        Liam's head whips back and forth, his eyes scanning the increasingly-ruined church. He smells dust and blood and smoke and the chemical mixture of spent explosives. He sees flame licking at part of the structure, and two tall figures through the glass. They're moving towards the big window at the front of the cathedral, and Liam starts to lead Lucine in that direction. No one's shooting at them.

        "...Are you all right?" he asks Lucine, and now that no one's shooting at them, the terror and pain finally springs out. He holds Lucine tight. "What did they--"

        Liam's head jerks to face Jana. "Jana!" he cries, his eyes darting to her injury. "Are you--" He trails off. He stares. He's given no time to do anything else, because then, he hears voices, the sounds of a struggle.

        "SPIKE!" Liam shouts, Jana's words echoing in his head. Is that what they wanted for him? "DON'T LET THAT BASTARD WIN!"

<Pose Tracker> Vicious has posed.


        This happened then, or is it happening now? The one place it can't be is in the future.

        Dead men don't belong there.

        The future... is something Vicious will craft alone.

        But that was then, and this is now, and NOW it is almost possible to imagine it was then, before the woman, before it all went wrong. When they hunted together, Vicious was alive. Hunting Spike, now -- Vicious is alive.

        (The man who Jana touches with her mind, he is not. His human brain could not comprehend the sheer totality of what Jana pours into him; blood bursts, and it is, at least, quick to take his consciousness. A few moments of delirium -- he seizes -- and he is overwhelmed. He wonders what chance humans have against such alien might, in the seconds he has; what chance did he have? ... he had none.)

        Is Vicious aware of their audience? Perhaps, in some sense, he is; he is not an ascending star of the Syndicate for his lack of skill. He knows when a gun is pointed at him, even when it's trembling. But his world is this window, all illuminated in painted glass. Nothing extends beyond it.

        But Lina demands Spike not die, and the answer Vicious has for Spike is this:

        "THEN YOU SHOULD BE DEAD!"

        His words come with a jerk of his katana -- but that gun, buried in his shoulder, fires at the same instant. He grunts, staggering back, and Lina might think she has an opportunity to shoot --

        But for the way Vicious LUNGES forward, missing scarcely more than a beat, to grasp Spike's face with his broad killer's palm. In this way he lifts him, and he grasps; as his fingers tighten, his lips split wider, wider, too wide and too broad and too, too vicious, name and title and existence, eyes scarcely more than pinpricks all framed by his wild hair. Scenting blood, he thrusts his hand --

        -- and THROWS Spike through the window, shattering the mosaic which sheltered them so many times.

        Something bad is happening, yes.

        No matter Liam's cries... has Vicious really won?

<Pose Tracker> Spike Spiegel has posed.


Spike hears Lina. His jaw sets -- his eyes narrow -- as he looks up at Vicious. He isn't a member of GGG, but he is their comrade.

Spike hears Liam. A call to not lose. This is something that goes beyond winning and losing -- and while Spike is no Newtype, no individual with an awakening to the world beyond their eyes, he understands Liam's meaning in that moment.

Spike hears them both. It just may not seem like it at first.

Vicious gives his answer -- and Spike fires instantly. A moment later, he screams, the katana stabbed through his shoulder, blood pooling on the floor. Spike starts to inch backward, and then Vicious lunges like a maddened beast. His eyes are wide -- he shouts, wordlessly, as Vicious's fingers grip him tightly.

Spike goes flying back through the window. He shatters one of the huge panes. Many colored shards of glass go flying out each way, but as they -- and as he -- enter the purple, dreary Martian sky, they seem to lose their brilliant color.

And so he falls, cuts all along his neck and the back of his head from the shards. He goes flying back from Vicious, his expression almost blank -- one of resignation, it might seem.

Don't you die on me, Cowboy.

Something bad is going to happen to Spike.

He's counting on it, to give him a chance at him.

Don't let that bastard win.

OST: Green Bird - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL7e5XrzanA

His hand slips inside his coat. And with a flick of his wrist, he sends it flying: a grenade, which falls through the broken window -- and then falls down, with a clink and a clank, next to Vicious's feet. The pin falls away from Spike, as he falls, lost amidst the shattered glass falling with him.

Spike descends, in a tumble. Memories flash through his mind. Gunfire amidst a bouquet of roses. Petals of torn roses falling from a window, to a street corner in Alba City. Gunfire tearing through his body.

His back against Vicious's, as they fight together -- looking back at each other and grinning -- before both fire both of their pistols. Waking up next to Julia, the sheets pooled at his waist.

Stumbling, his finger struggling at the lighter, as he walks down a street wounded. Blood running down his chin, as his feet give out. Falling at Julia's door step, as she runs to him.

And then the grenade explodes. The rest of the stained glass window shatters as the fireball explodes out of it -- and explodes inward, washing over Vicious. Spike sees the fireball rise into the violet sky.

And darkness takes him, when the fall comes to its inevitable conclusion on the cathedral's grounds.

He lands in a bloodied heap and does not rise. Though, when they come, he breathes, if shallowly.

Through a gap in the violet clouds, a single star can be seen shining.

<Pose Tracker> Lina Lombardi has posed.


         Lina can't even think before she starts to run. Not out of the church to relative safety, but towards the back of the cathedral. She knows that getting closer to that monster is bad, but all reason leaves her mind as she bursts back out through the window, just in time to avoid the epicenter of the explosion. The force of the shockwave still sends her forward, hitting the ground with a tumble and a grunt. She pulls herself up, scraped up and covered in glass and grass, and crawls over to Spike.

         "Spike...I know you're better than this. Get up! Come on! Get up!" She shakes his body. "Get up..." Her voice weakens and the shaking slows down as the stress, exertion, and wounds finally begin to overtake her. Her hands slide off of Spike's side as she collapses onto the grass.

<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.


        Liam asks, and Lucine's answer comes quickly. "--I'm okay." The answer is too simple to be completely true, but it doesn't feel completely false either.

        She and Faye are both relatively uninjured, despite their lives being in the most danger.

        Jana comes, and Lucine turns, and startles, for just a moment.

        .... It's not as if Jana has ever said she was 'human', at least, that boundary where Lucine's subconscious bias draws the line, but Jana wouldn't be the first person to prove Lucine's assumptions as nothing but.

        She then nods. ".... I felt it too, Jana. He..."

        The glass cracks, and then shatters. A man falls. The danger that Lucine felt came to pass, but she's still surprised at having to look up. ".... No..."

        Down, down, down, in gravity that has cruelly been tailored to be like Earth's.

        And what is that feeling? These are not the feelings of a man about to die.

        Lucine can't see Spike's thoughts; time hasn't slowed down for her quite like it may feel for Spike. But there's a sense of something, of a man's mind being elsewhere, lost in memory. Nostalgia? Melancholy?

        Then, dark.

        She forces herself to not look away, but the sound of the impact forces the air from Lucine's lungs.

        There's a second thud in the grass, drawing a startled flinch from Lucine. She had been so focused on Spike-- ".... L-lina?"

        And the world seems to resume, as Lina shakes his body.

        "--... He's still alive," Lucine numbly says, as if she didn't quite believe it herself. ".... We... need to get everyone to the hospital. Spike, Lina, and you two." Jana and Lina. "... Faye and I... I think we're mostly uninjured. Did... did the kaiju attack happen yet?"

        How long was she and Faye stuck there, in that church, with that man?

         "We need to contact Guy... and..." She doubles over and heaves against the pavement, shaking.

<Pose Tracker> Jana Cektru has posed.


Jana sees Lucine startle. "Apologies," Jana says to her, but Lucine also felt it. and then--

Jana hears the shouting, and the break of the window. She looks up, though at first her view is blocked by her arm, instinctively raised to protect her face from the glass that does not hit her. "Spike!" she calls, when she can look again, and staggers towards him. She kneels down, to ensure that he is breathing, even as she sees Lina fall next to him. "Lina..."

Jana grits her teeth, then. Liam and Lucine may need her to be resolute, now. Especially with Lucine shaking that way...

"it's all right," Jana tells Lucine. "They're both stable, I think; I'll check. We'll get them help as soon as we can." A pause. "...I'll be fine, though." She opens her bag one-handed, and pulls a first aid kit from it. "If you can help me bandage this wound I can treat it properly when Guy gets us some assistance." She tries to give her something to do, to focus her--if she can't, then Jana will just handle it herself. "Faye escaped."

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.


        "Later," Liam says, to Jana. "Spike's--"

        Glass shatters. The cyborg's head snaps up, his eyes widening. His mouth opens, but no sound comes out. The grenade goes off, and Liam flinches away, shielding his eyes from the rain of shrapnel. A few pieces pierce his sleeve, but none get through to his flesh. But part of him registers the church as dangerous, even as time starts to slow.

        His feet stay rooted for a crucial moment before his instinct to help overcomes his fear.

        He's too late. Spike hits the pavement, and all Liam can do is put a hand above his mouth to see if he's still breathing. "Spike," he says. "Lina. Hold on." He meets Jana's eyes. "I can carry one. Both if necessary. Just tell me what--what you need." He knows what Lucine needs, right now. Liam rests a bloodied hand on her back and stays there until she can stand again.

<Pose Tracker> Vicious has posed.


        The explosion engulfs Vicious; when the dust fades, he's gone.

        Spike surely knows better than to think it means he's dead.

        The upper level of the cathedral is decimated -- but thankfully, the Syndicate members who Lina tangled up on the lower level had cover, thanks to those hardwood pews, so they weren't killed in the process. They will prove to be uncooperative prisoners, but the Alba City police will be glad to take them in, soon enough.

        (Whether a few are released, later, is... well, it's politics. But some of them lived to see another day, and that's a victory, in such bloody conflict as this.)

        Just as Jana notes, Faye escaped -- and she's at least courteous enough to call back to the group, again, to get them an evac out. Help is coming, soon, and Liam will be needed to help everyone out then. Until then -- Jana can direct them to what aid they can offer.

        But that Vicious man...

        ... why was he so willing to go this far to kill Spike, under the shadow of Jupiter boiling?

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