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He let his head lean back as the pain melted away, his eyes closed as releif filled his face - before he looked up to her, his gaze serious. "...Do what you have to do - but fast." He said solomnly, as if her sullen, sarcastic telepathy had irritated him more then a little.

Then she called for Joey, and immediately Officer Sweet became the Boss once more. Color grew back into his cheeks, his sweat appeared to stop, and his labored breathing became more steady as Joey burst into the room. "Wat?! Wat is it?!" He cried, looking from the woman to the Boss, who regarded him with a mix of disdain and acceptance of his level of panic, ever cool under pressure. Clearly this undercover cop had serious control over his own bodily functions, to the point where he was able to keep his guts from spilling onto the floor and to stop himself from bleeding to death from two point-blank .45 rounds to the stomach.

Outside in the hall, the exhausted Jimmy puked up into a bin, watching a nurse's a** bob to and fro as she strode briskly past him...

Officer Sweet looked at Hono'o with a touch of disdain and irritance, as if thinking 'this dumb broad doesn't know whats going on here' - but then he saw the look of shock and extreme concern mixed in Joey's face and dull grey eyes, and immediantly decided to follow along. "Yeah, Joey. Dis broad doc here is doin' the best she coulda...but i'mma dyin'."

He raised one of his hands up to rest the back of it against his forehead dramatically, his eyes squeezed shut as she rubbed the gauze against the wounds. "Good lawd, I'mma dyin'..."

Joey was instantly by his boss' side, faithful to the end as he tried depserately to ease his boss' pain. "Nah, nah, you ain't dyin' Sweets, you're de Boss, youse cain't die..."

"I'mma seein' that white tunnel n' s**t, Joey...it's bewdiful."

"S-stay away from dat tunnel, Boss!"

"Swing lowwww, sweet chaaaaariot, commin' fort' ta' carry me home...n' s**t..."

Joey looked dispondantly at Hono'o, worry clearly etched on his troubled face. "I'mma do anythin' for you, doc, anythin! Waddya need, me blood or somethin'? I'll give ya all I got if it means mah Boss stays alive!"

***

Meanwhile, three men walked into the emergency ward through the bay doors. They looked serious, well pressed Italian suits and slicked back hair. Each carried a long white box under the crook of their right arm, the boxes thin plastic opening revealing long stemmed, ruby red roses tightly packed within.

Officer Toomy, the woman who had been gashed apart by Roger, then healed by Hono'o, had just finished helping Randy get into the back of their car. He kept insisting that he was sorry, that he'd get his wife off the smack and get a real job, and for once, Toomy was beginning to beleive him - he had an insistence in his voice that the redeemed carried with them, and his eyes were clear, except for the tears.

She was just about to ask Roger if they should get the guy some food before going back to the precinct - as well as picking up some doughnuts for themselves, cliche as it was - when she saw a car pull up onto the curb, knocking over a garbage receptacle bolted to the ground outside the ER entrance. She watched in bemusement as two well dressed italians scurried out of the front seats to open the back passenger door for a man who was puffing a cigar and holding a tablecloth against his gut, spilling blood onto the pavement as he strolled casually through the doors, the two men eager to keep up.

"Hey, wasn't that..." Toomy went to ask Roger - before noticing another car pulling up at the entrance. This one also held well dressed italian-looking men - but these sat within, talking amongst themselves, and the looks of their eyes as they spotted her and her partner made her itchy.

She always got itchy when she was frightened.

She was scratching something behind her ear as she looked back to Roger, who was looking back to her with worry, the large man slipping into the front seat to nonchalantly punch something into the onboard computer, but in actual fact, was calling for backup. Something was about to go down, this was clear - but when Hono'o's message came through, Toomy's blood went cold and her finger gouged a cut into the flesh behind her ear as the nail dug in, a drop of blood weeping free as she looked back to Roger, fear in her eyes.

"Sweets is in there! Somebody killed the Frenchman!" She hissed to him.

"Wha - what?" Roger looked at her like she was going mad.

"I just got a tele-message from someone in the GSF - Sweets has been shot, and he's telling us that the Frenchman is dead!"

"That's crazy Sarah, the Frenchman - "

"I beleive it, Roger, it sounds too sincere to be a prankster this time!"

Roger kept looking at her in disbelief. Cops were trained to resist telepathic assault for obvious reasons, but even the best let their guard down occasionally. And even then, they were trained to realise the severity of the tone of the message - however, the problem with telepathy is that its typically one message sent to one person, who then has to relay that message back to others. Having your partner telling you this hilarious story about his dog one second before suddenly flipping out and screaming at you that there is a fire two blocks down the street and someone needs to save some woman's kids is unsettling in the least, and made the messenger feel shaken and angry when they got to the scene to find out that the building was the same as usual.

Toomy looked back at the car with the three men. They were getting out. They had long boxes with them, that all looked precisely the same length as a pump-action shotgun. Was she being paranoid? Possibly. But that didn't stop her from bending down to Roger and speaking in a low tone.

"Crazy or not, double that backup - we've got a war on our hands now."

((OMG I lost it when I read that - you're so cute I could put you in my pocket!!! ))

Joey sat down on the stool, forcing himself to relax and be quiet, watching the woman as she began her trade. He was always on his guard - but being in the same room as the Boss made him feel a little more relaxed. Now, if only he could rely on Jimmy to follow the same work ethic...

He was not one to be squeamish when it came to blood and guts, so he watched the woman's hands move impassively as she dug the first bullet out with her forceps, the slug glistening in the stark hospital flourescent light. The man looked down at the runes she had drawn onto his skin, the crimson symbols glowing, and wondered for a moment...

***

Outside, Jimmy was finished heaving up into the bin, and was about to push himself up when he saw the three men standing in the ER, looking around with their cold eyes. Dumb as he was, Jimmy was a survivor, hardened by life on the street before being snapped up by the Mafia, and he turned quickly to present his back to the men.

"Oh no..." He breathed, eyes darting about ceaselessly...

Joey was beginning to feel woozy, and was happy he'd sat down - but even in his woozen state, he could see something was amiss. "Hey...hey, ain't ya suppos'ta keep dis stuff for da cops ta check or some s**t?" He asked as he pointed to the bloody bullet staining the metal bench beside her. "I mean...we'z all paid up an' stuff, but you'se could at least make some effort, doc..."

"Yer gums are flappin' too much, Joey." The 'Boss' said with a modicum of pain and despair in his voice. "You'se is drowning out da melodious tunes of de Angelic Choir up dere...n' s**t."

"S-sorry Boss..." Joey said, beginning to find his eyes growing heavy...

***

...As outside, Jimmy felt a hand upon his shoulder and winced. However, his guts didn't explode out of his stomach from a twelve-gauge shotgun pressed into the small of his back, and his face unscrewed to look at the hand, which was small, pale and delicate it was from a nurse. "Are you okay, sir?" The young lady asked him, and almost immediately Jimmy felt his stomach loosen from it's knot just a smidgen, a fraction, as he looked into her beautiful brown eyes and watched as she bit her bottom lip seductively.

"Puddin'..." He said nonchalantly, succeeding even though the front of his expensive Italian suit was spattered with regurgitated seafood. "...I think I jus' ate a bad batch o' oysters...I'm thinkin' I might need a bit o' tender lovin' care, ya know?"

The girl smiled sweetly up at him with a well trained facade covering her repulsion. "I'll get you a doctor, sir."

Jimmy watched her saunter away helplessly, feeling too sick to chase her. "yeah, yeah, see if she's cut from da same branch as Doctor Tits in dere...might need da two 'o ya's to administer the right dosage I need..." He called to her, watching her a** bob as she upped her pace. "...Then mebbe ol' Jimmy can give you'se two a dose himself..." He muttered to himself...

Before freezing as he felt a hand on his shoulder. But it wasn't the hand that made him freeze. It was the cold steel pressing into the small of his back through his expensive Gucci coat, and the voice that followed it.

"Jimmy Twotimes. I thought I smelled s**t." The voice, like soft velvet, spoke softly into his ear. "You keep chasin' that p***y, Jimmy, and one day you'll catch it, and then what?"

Jimmy swallowed hard. He suddenly felt like throwing up again, but his mouth was too dry, like cotton. "F-Franco..."

"Where's Sweets?" The velvet voice whispered, and suddenly Jimmy felt his balls grow as cold as his stomach...

Sweets, oblivious to the pain thanks to Hono'o's magic, was watching Joey intently as the man's face scrunched up into a frown at Hono'o's words. Sweets even shot a look of muted concern to her - her words meant nothing to no sense, and both men noticed.

The undercover cop swiveled his eyes down to the gash in his abdomen, seeing the blood oozing from the wound as the metal forceps twisted and turned - when suddenly, with a sickeningly wet yet hollow skwelotch, the .45 round was pulled free from his gut - and, almost as suddenly as it had opened up in his body, the bullet wound sealed itself over!

At the same time, Joey suddenly pitched forward, as if some invisible force had hit him over the head, and he sprawled down onto the floor, unconscious.

His power, and thus, his memories, within Hono'o would be a heady bouquet of a lifetime of violence, and the subtle realisation that this was simply how the world was. Joey was not a bad guy, as it was - he was simply a man who had no regret in what he did. Kill a family including the dog? Yes. Torch a diner for not paying protection money with tenants in the apartment above? No problems. Joey slept well at night because once the deed was done, it was done, just like when his father beat him half to death for dropping a beer during the superbowl, and he killed his mother for trying to protect him. There was no changing it, and if society called him a monster, then that was their problem, not his.

He had a woman. She understood him. He was no longer a man, he was a force of nature, and he could be as passionate as he could be violent. He had a child. The boy knew right from wrong. He had to. His father told him so.

He was a primal man with modern social standards. A sociopath of the highest order. Killing a humanoid or a human was like swatting a fly to him - there was no difference.

As all this assailed her, Sweets sat up from his position on the bed and grabbed her wrist, his voice deadly serious. "You're not a doctor. Who are you?!" He questioned sharply, his grip like iron.

Outside, the wash of horror Hono'o was sensing was escalating at an alarming rate - and underneath it all, was the warm, ebbing radiation of something more.....something she had just begun to taste.

A psychotic calm which brewed within to be revealed only when the victim's senses, heightened by adrenaline and the need to survive, zeroed in on it and watched as it bloomed like a rosebud made of flaps of skin dripping with gore.

Something very, very evil indeed. And with that evil came a power unlike most others - the power of utter freedom. Freedom from societies tethers, freedom from morals or conscience. Joey was only a fledgling, still human but knowing exactly what he was - whatever was beneath that feeling of horror knew it was a monster and simply did not care. Perhaps....never did.

((Sorry for taking so long to reply, was trying to think up something cool. Hope this satisfies! ))

The undercover cop watched in utter amazement as the woman went from someone who had been quite beautiful in a muted sort of way to utterly stunning, her hair cascading down her shoulders as her body was revealed, her lumpy sweater drawn off like a sheet to reveal the beauty contained beneath. She was sultry, seductive, and utterly captivating.

He was at a loss for words, feeling her fingers on his skin, those fingers that had only moments before been deep inside him, and now thrilled him....until it finally clicked together. "I know who you are..." He whispered breathlessly...

HonoRaven

"You are so good to me Sweety!"

Outside the room, Franco's nostrils flared as Jimmy whimpered a little - not only was the boss in trouble, but he was gonna get killed whilst ******** the hot doctor! How was he going to explain this to the Boss' dragon of a wife...? The fact that he could die at any moment by having his guts sprayed onto the floor and walls by a shotgun's blast meant little to him compared to that.

Luckily, the man holding the box of roses didn't seem to care about Jimmy anymore. He shoved him forward and stormed to the door, pulling the box apart and pulling the shotgun out at the same time, long stemmed roses spilling all over the floor in a cascade of leafy green stems and petals like blood drops. The other two men also pulled their weapons out of their boxes, the pretence over, and they each turned to watch the opposite sides of the corridor.

"Freeze police!"

A scream.

What happens next....

Franco cared little for police. He cared even little for their orders. To him, they were less then bugs in his path - they were flotsam in his wake as he flowed through life.

Even as the lights in the hall dimmed and went out, Franco's companions looking up at the lights automatically as they span to level their weapons - and the police took their shots.

In Gaia, you only get one chance to surrender. And LCPD, whilst not hardwired up the a** like the DCPD, still had a few quirks unique to them. Like charms they keep on their badge necklace to give them nightvision, no matter what the darkness.

So as Franco kicked the door in and sighted Sweets lying on the bed, raising his shotgun to his shoulder without a word to take aim, Roger and Toomy took a knee at the same time, took aim at the same time, and fired both at the same time, their gunshots sounding like one as their bullets flew out of their guns to drill neat little holes into the foreheads of the shotgun weilding mafiosa that ballooned out like a burst bubble of brainmatter and skull fragments out the back of their heads. Thus was the effect of a 9mm hollowpoint bullet to the braincase.

Whilst Hono'o had told him to lie still, Sweets was not one to just sit back. He gripped the edges of the table he was lying on and flipped himself over the edge as Franco kicked the door open, pulling the table with it to slam into the floor with the table still beneath him, and as Franco's aim followed him he fired, the shotgun's pellets creating a massive dent in the stainless steel bedpan behind Sweets as the room reverberated with the sound of the shotgun's report, which was loud outside, and sounded like a cannon inside the little room.

"Die salaud!!" Franco roared, pumping the slide of the shotgun to eject a smoking shell from the breech and load a fresh shell into the chamber, putting it back to his shoulder as he walked into the room, oblivious to what was behind him as he pointed the shotgun at the back of the table, looking for a fresh kill...