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 Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 1:30 pm
"I'll go check it out then. The team probably left and-"
- The tent flap opened.
One red-haired guy that was slightly less red-haired and one-hundred percent less Scottish than Rep bumped right into the visitor outside. There was a long pause.
"You're not a Hunter are you." Slightly red-haired guy squinted. "You look familiar, have we met before? Are you in the accounting department?"
"We don't have a ******** accounting department," replied the other person inside the tent, who was currently mulling over a map on the table. There was a giant glowing doorway behind him, which was the only way to explain the contraption. It gave off the strangest bright blue aura, and seemed to be the source of the electric humming, despite not actually being tied to any sort of generator. Just being near it was enough to make any normal person's hair stand on end.
The shadows had stopped whispering and taunting, but they were being replaced by something else. A comfort and a coldness, a strange chill of power and indifference. There was something underlying here that even someone as sheltered as Rep was could pick up as if he had walked into a different world, and tried to apply his world mechanics to it, but couldn't. Everything took on that strange, almost frightening, surreal edge.
"We do so," replied almost-redhead (Ben). "They're these clerical guys that clean up things, they wear aprons and glasses and suits. Like - like butlers."
Long pause. "Ben. That's one person. The Sun assistant."
"Oh. Oh, that explains so much holy crap. No wonder he kept on giving me dirty looks when I handed him my laundry."
"Why the ******** are you handing the theoretical accounting department your laundry. I thought-"
-"So anyway," Ben interrupted, quickly turning the other way. "Can I help you." It was said in a tone that very highly suggested that Rep should not be here and should most likely leave if he knew what was best for him. Ben making neck cutting gestures with his hand was also helping the suggestion.
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 3:17 pm
Rep froze and stared as he was walked right into, it took him by enough surprise that all the witty things he'd been meaning to say jumbled up into a slack-jawed stare instead. He certainly wasn't in any kind of accounting department, and any attempts to bullshit that he actually was were derailed by the glowing slice of technological sexiness sitting humming in the tent. It looked like a ******** reactor core but unshielded and self contained. He could practically ******** feel the power from where he stood, these guys were part of something else entirely, something beyond any s**t he ran into day to day. This was no shitty PC rig, this was far beyond it, military grade or alien, he understood enough to tell that much. Hunter. It was a term he'd never heard used for anything other than the game chasing sort of hunter. These guys sure as ******** weren't hunting deer.
If he'd been sensible he'd have turned and walked away immediately while the two men discussed him. But all he could think was that here there were no shadows, only that cold power that thrummed on the air and gave him goosebumps.
His life had been a series of risks, he diced daily with the chance that one day the police would catch up to him, that he'd crash while drunk driving, that he'd take too much of whatever ******** drug he was taking at that point or that someone he'd slighted would kill him. He had no family, nothing to ******** lose, and even if he had, he wouldn't have cared, not really. Risk was what he did, he wasn't afraid, even staring down the jaws of death. It was stupid, it was, he knew it as well as he knew he could just go home, shape up and change his life but one day he'd just die anyway.
"Aye." he replied to Ben, ignoring the clearly well advised hints to get the ******** out of there. "I want to know what the ******** happened the other night, what hunters even ******** are and where I can get one of those badass weapons." He stood up to his full not-impressive height and tried to look like he wasn't shaking like a leaf. He'd gotten hired for his current job with just the same amount of reckless cojones, surely it couldn't fail him twice.
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 9:35 pm
"Um, technically," began Ben, evasively, "we hunt like, really, really, really big game. Government secret services. So I really strongly advise that you turn around, look the other way, and-"
- "You don't <******** deserve to know anything." And suddenly someone was staring down at Rep a little impassively. It was as if one moment the other occupant had been pouring over some map and the next he was right there. He didn't look very impressed at all that they had another occupant, and Ben visibly flinched. "If you cannot ******** remove yourself, then I will make sure I come up with a more permanent solution."
"Uh, Caelius- sir? If I can sort of interrupt," Ben began, "he is a civilian, and technically we're supposed to be saving civilians-"
- The other turned around and gave the red-head (of the non Rep variety) a very flat look -
- "or maybe we could use him," Ben continued, undeterred, "for the accounting department!"
"There is no ******** accounting department."
The two of them began sort of squabbling again about budgeting and finances, and some guy called Simon, enough for Rep to make a decision. Stay, take a risk, in hopes that somehow, things would work out, or leave, return to comfort, but never truly understand why.
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Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 10:07 am
Rep was used to death threats, they were part and parcel of his day to day life. Generally in the company he kept, you'd never actually know if people meant it or not. But faced with the guy with the strange hair - who he'd seen the other day with one of those very deadly weapons - he was pretty sure whatever threats he made were genuine. It was the only thing that made him stay silent and resist his instincts to make fun of his appearance and how ******** ridiculously pretty he was compared to the guys Rep dealt with on a regular basis.
He could have gotten away, probably, if he'd decided to, while the other redhead spoke up in his defence. But his mind was made up, he needed to know.
"I'm no much good at accounting, but I did ******** manage to tap your messages? So I dunno how useful that would ******** be. I'm no stupid." Yet here he was. "Maist of the time. I just know if I ******** walk away, it's going to go back to those crazy ******** shadows again. I don't know what the ******** you cunts did when that nightmare t-rex showed up but it broke my brain."
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Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 12:48 pm
"-difference between a butler and Simon anyway- ha! I knew it! He's a candidate!" Ben crossed his arms and gloated.
"...." One could practically tangibly hear what the other wanted to say, but instead, all Rep got was a moment where both stared at him in a clearly withholding information sort of way and then a long awkward silence.
The taller of the two stepped forward. His hair seemed even more immaculate up close, as if he had walked right off the set of Peter Jackson's film trilogy about rings and maybe some lords but mostly immaculate haired elves. "We don't owe you anything. Not a single piece of information, not any obligation, not even time. Blackmail is the reason you are here and I can assure you you don't belong here. You don't deserve to belong here, and you will remain forever chasing shadows because you are powerless, because you are ignorant enough to think that somehow interrupting something significantly more important than your little lie you have told yourself will somehow make you important."
And then Rep was on the grass. It only took less than a second and he fell, no, was tossed backwards almost effortlessly, landing heavily. The taller of the two took a few more steps forward. "Get the ******** out of my sight."
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Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 1:17 pm
Rep blinked at Ben slowly, processing what the hell it could actually mean to be a candidate, beginning to assume it was to do with the creeping shadows that had started to pursue him more and more the last few days when he found himself confronted with an immediate wall of silence. He frowned, just a bit at the look they were giving him and was about to fold his arms petulantly and argue further when suddenly the guy with the great hair was ******** scolding him. Scolding him. The ******** guy who no teacher in the history of ever had managed to tell off successfully, and he was actually ******** intimidated, and furious at himself for it.
He was sent backwards as if he weighed nothing at all, the air knocked right out of his lungs with the fall. Despite the fear that woke in him, a raw animal reaction to pain, danger and imminent death, he remained defiant. It was a reaction he was well practised in, in his world if you showed fear and submission when someone had you on the floor, they would be guaranteed to metaphorically or literally rip your throat out. Grabbing ragged breaths whenever he could to regain his composure, he snarled. "Blackmail's as good a reason as any to be anywhere."
Powerless. He was powerless compared to these guys, but to him that had never mattered, compared to the rest of the world he was a small and powerless creature, pathetic and alone. The trick had been and would always be to never, ever let the rest of the world know that.
"I'm no going back to those shadows. I don't go backwards, only forward. I've found the ******** answer and if you don't want my help then just ******** finish it right here and now."
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 2:19 am
The guy allegedly called Caelius, who's name pretty much belonged in a movie about elves and lords and maybe some rings, took another step forward, but thankfully Ben quickly intercepted. There was a sort of underlying danger that Rep was oblivious to, a divide between their world and his current one.
"He has balls," Ben tried, stepping in front of Rep. "I'm sure Sun could use him. They're, you know, they're all about fighting for rights. And they have a great butler."
"Ben. Isn't there a team you were supposed to meet about five minutes ago."
The other held up a hand to interject, opened his mouth, paused, and then closed it again. He managed to give a sort of sympathetic look towards Rep, as if to say 'I tried'. "See you on the other side kid." Wry grin, and the other red-head, the non Scottish one, was picked up a bag of supplies and left.
That left Rep with the greater of two evils. They didn't move from their spot. "And yet you spend most of your time hiding. You haven't fought for anything, not even for yourself, all you have done is come here, demanding answers, and hoping for some reason, that someone will acknowledge how ******** up your entirely backwards life was from start to finish. I don't want or need your help, and if you feel so adamant about not going backwards then you would do yourself an act of moving forwards and finish what you started. Insignificant from beginning to end. Death comes easily for people like you."
He turned around, but not before dropping a weapon right next to Rep. A long dagger, with strange glowing blue runes at the end. The weapon was clearly meant for one purpose only, but who was Rep to deny an opportunity?
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 5:56 am
Rep was sorry to see the other man go, he'd stepped in more than once in the last few minutes in his defence, apparently keeping the chillier man in check. He appreciated it, even if his personal code of tough guy ethics prevented him from doing anything but glaring to acknowledge it.
Left alone with the far more volatile and vicious of the two, Rep couldn't help but feel the uncertainty and fear building in him, this guy seemed more than capable of murder and now there wasn't even a witness present to stop him. Even despite the bull-headed stupidity that embodied almost every decision he'd ever made, he was smart enough to realise that he was potentially in deep s**t.
He couldn't help but flinch despite himself at the cutting comments, the accusation that he'd never fought for anything cut deep, attacking deep buried and harboured insecurities that he had never fought for his mother, that he'd never protected her, that she'd died because of him. And deeper still hurt that he'd never stood up to the adults who bullied him as a child, he'd learned to put up a front and avoid fights, to only backstab or engage when the numbers or odds were weighted heavily in his favour.
Death comes easily for people like you.
If only it did, he found himself thinking grimly, there had been so many times where he'd felt like the easy way out would just have been to wake up dead or to fade away, that somehow the world would be lighter without the toxic blight that was William R Reid. But it was never that simple, survival was burned into who he was, crawling out of the pit he'd come from, he persisted because it was in his nature.
He picked up the dagger and eyed it, in length and heft, it wasn't too far off of the machete he so typically wielded. It was razor sharp.
It would be easy if he wasn't such a coward. Unwanted no matter where he went or who he went to, he should have known nothing was ever as easy as simply handing over one's entire self to a cause. Offering someone his everything was the same as offering them some tattered ruined and possibly diseased thing, like ******** they'd want it.
He clenched the dagger in his hand, there was only and had only ever been one way to prove himself in his life. If he was going to die today, he was going to die in exactly the way this guy said he had never lived.
Rising to his feet, he set his jaw and made a valiant attempt to swing the runic dagger at him.
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 10:20 pm
It was that easy.
And Rep's fall went just as easily. There was pain, there always was, it was almost expected at this point, and then there was something slamming him with enough force to make a moving truck look like a passing fancy. If these were the same people who could take on monsters, then ordinary men were absolutely nothing.
The last thing Rep perhaps saw was someone picking up the dagger. He would feel something slam against his head and then the world went blissfully dark.
Dark, but free of shadows at last.
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