Death stalks the city

[runmakitarun]

Sometimes Bahamut doesn't look like a city at war. Today, for instance, the snow is fresh and clean, yet to be churned up by the tread of running boots and the tracks of krawls.

It's one of the many calms between storms, when the city seems at peace because everyone is taking a deep breath in preparation for returning to war. Even n these deceitfully quiet times, though, Bahamut is still a warzone. Soldiers from both sids tread lightly and carefully through the bombed out buildings and burnt bodies, looking for chances to kill one another.

Today is no different.

Comments

[runmakitarun.livejournal.com]

Her voice snaps from burning anger to cold command in the blink of an eye, "Curse me on your own damn time, Yarka. Now take that shot!"

[theredstars.livejournal.com]

Oh, for--

"All right, already!" Yarka slaps his forehead. God save him from little girls.

"Anything to shut you up!"

She'll turn out a good commander, if any of them live that long. But any krawls he doesn't have a P.P.R. for go on little Makinoshka's head.

He loads up and pulls his red enhancer-sight down over his eye, grumbling under his breath as he lines up the shot. "I'll show that scrawny little cockroach some shooting." The circles in his vision tick and rotate, lining up, closer, closer --

"Breathe..." he exhales to himself, letting his body go still. "Slowly..."

[joiningyousoon.livejournal.com]

The sorceress stops.

Her arms swing down by her sides.

[theredstars.livejournal.com]

"Come now..."

There we go. Much easier.

"Pretty sorceress..." The dials click, the target sharpens, and he's almost got a perfect lock. "Stand... still... for a moment--"

"Yes."

His trigger finger tightens.

[nearzero.livejournal.com]

The problem with being a sniper, in Kyuzo's opinion, was that they didn't teach snipers any peekaboo protocols. It was a damned shame how both sides lost more good snipers that way.

Let the 'kasters kill from far away; on the ground, he needed to feel death in his hands, hard and bucking in your wrists as the breath choked out and the lungs caved in from the careful, sharp jabs his knife left, slick between each rib, precise like gears on a bike.

In the end he impaled the man on an overhanging loose steel beam and bent it back to keep him there awhile. He left the gun where it fell; he had no use for it.

That would teach a few 'Gorkas the price of pointing their toy guns at a Major.

[runmakitarun.livejournal.com]

Makita's not really a sniper, but she's had some training. Watching the witch through her borrowed field glasses she knows Yarka has a perfect shot. And he's not taking it. Still messing with her?

"Now," she yells into the comline, "Now! Yarka, take the damn shot!"

Nothing happens. "Yarka! Come in, Yarka, damn you!"

Silence. No gunshot, no response...

Who is this witch, and what the hell does she have keeping her alive out here? Mouth twisting in disgust Makita hands Dushka his field glasses back and turns to stalk out of the gun emplacement.

[theredstars.livejournal.com]

"Makita?"

Dushka frowns at her as she turns away.

"Where are you going?"

[runmakitarun.livejournal.com]

He can't see it, but her eyes are flat and dangerous. She doesn't stop moving.

"I'm finished trying to rely on anyone." It means so much more than the obvious, and there's a heavy, final quality to the words.

"I'll kill her myself."

She stalks out of the emplacement. Dushka calls after her, worry and fear in his voice. For her, for himself, she doesn't care. She ignores him.

She's got a witch to kill.

[joiningyousoon.livejournal.com]

Up above, blood drips down a pair of battered gray boots, hitting the floor with soft patters.

Down below, the lone sorceress stands still (http://joiningyousoon.livejournal.com/5449.html) in the wreckage, her coat whipping about her legs.