Hunting Season RPG

Ball and Chain moved through the fog to where Longshot was with Umbra. His body had a few new cuts from the Hidden's quick and well aimed slashes. He had moved quicker than he had seen even Longshot move, tearing through his lime green jacket and even the plain white t-shirt underneath, exposing the toned muscle underneath that almost seemed to be constantly flexed. Still the bullet lodged in his brain was the worst. It had stopped bleeding during the fight and the blood that had flown down his neck onto his chest had dried like a bloody nose. The new slashes on his barrel chest and arms more than made up for it with more of the fresh crimson liquid oozing downward. Umbra started to speak to laugh. Had somebody said something? The jumbled buzz of Marco's messed up mind was distracting him.

Now the team knew what this had all been about. Old ties Longshot had long severed coming back to haunt him. Ball and Chain doubted he would understand what it felt like to let go of one life to build a better one and then have remnants of the old try to test and destroy the new.Umbra spoke up again and this time he was able to hear him clearly. "Whatever it takes Longshot, I'll help you against Horizon and we'll all stop them together." BC was about to chime in when he realized something. The Nameless had run off, but couldn't be too far. Just out of sight. No witnesses. He slowly backed away, disappearing into the quickly dissipating fog.

Seconds later, a block away the Nameless darted across the rooftops. He grasped his throat, desperate to keep what remained of the the precious liquid in. It had all been going as planned! He`d made sure the members hardest to kill, the immortal martyr and Black jacket (people with the gift of flight usually being extremely evasive) on the team were out of the way. Sending them to find Decoy, another member who he`d informed the police of, his abilities would have made for a very difficult operation. The Nameless searched for how he had failed. How, HOW? Had he took too long? Had he been too careless with the precautions he`d taken for Longshot? He pushed the thought to a small corner of his mind. He had a more important task right now. The Nameless had to rush before his life-support failed. Not that he particularly wanted to. Brixby did not take failure lightly, especially when that failure was so personal. Torture came to mind. The Nameless had been trained for such things, but Brixby new just the right places to... override his training. As he ran, across the tops of buildings, with speed and grace going beyond most acrobats, the lights from below on the city streets flash brightly off his hard metal mask. He cursed himself for being so visible, so weak. What was worse was he could feel his life-support failing. The assassin fought to keep his eyelids from closing on him. Where were they?! Then the distractions all came back and bit him in the ass at once. The fading in and out of consciousness, the wandering of his mind all played their part as his seemingly flawless movements failed him. The Nameless used his powerful yet lean leg muscles to propel him over the ledge of a building, a repetitive task. It should have been perfect, he should have been perfect. It would have been, had he not been attacked. A fist appeared with the speed and force of a pickup truck smashing into his jaw.

It sent the Nameless plummeting into an alleyway. He grunted as he hit hard, cold pavement, not saying a word about the snapping sound he heard coming from his leg. He hoisted himself up and felt his mask. He could feel a deep imprint had been made in the metal from the punch, twisting the metal and deforming it. The Nameless quickly drew out a pistol. It was low on ammo, but if this was who he thought it was only one was needed. The sight of the gun quickly went to his eye which pointed upward to where his attacker had been. The Nameless let his senses flow. His ears picking up a the traffic, the mob, a man singing Elvis songs in the shower, but no footsteps. His hawk like superb perception degrading the shadows to a light shade, still no sign of movement up top. It all came down to his acute sense of smell. The Nameless took the air in through his nostrils, taking in every strong sent the alleyway had to offer. Pizza, several kinds of alcohol, Marijuana, a moldy sandwich, human feces, the strong smell of rust. The smiled underneath his mask despite the crippling pain. The one thing that gave the man away. Instantaneously The Nameless pivoted around to meet the green and purple behemoth with a quick pull of the trigger. an insane expression on his hidden face. BAM!, CLINK! The assassins expression changed to confusion at the after noise. The behemoth still loomed over him, one arm up. Ball and Chain seized his chance to grab the Nameless quickly by the hand and squeezed. A metallic snap was heard as the gun in his hand crumpled followed by the crackling of his bones being grounded into powder. On the positive side Nameless got a good look at what had stopped the bullet. A metal cuff on BC`s wrist that he had moved quick enough to block the tiny piece if hot metal. Interesting. The Nameless had at first concluded that the ball and chain was made of iron, but the cuff had taken the bullet and was still in perfect condition. A kick from a large steel toed shoe put him on his back and out of breath. ``Well. This. Is. Interesting.`` his digitized voice rang out in the silence. ``You. Kill. Unlike. The. Others. I. Didn`t. Have. To. Frame. You``. The Nameless paused, as if waiting for something that didn`t seem to come. `That`s. Why. You. Came. Alone.... No. Witnesses. No Longshot``. Ball and Chain walked took a few steps towards the Nameless, letting in some slack on the ball and chain cuffed to his arm. Then with no warning he brought his right arm up dramatically high, the ball and chain reaching for the sky then bringing his arm and weapon down slamming the weight of the heavy metal ball, gravity and force down on the Horizon agents head. With a deafening crush the Nameless`s helm was turn into a flat metal pancake on the pavement. There seemed to be no blood, unless you counted the life support fluid that the Ball and Chain had used to track the Nameless as blood. He stood their over the limp, broken body for a few seconds, enjoying the calm. The feel of a rather horrid day ending in this very moment. Then he walked off to rejoin the team and after that get Marco to a Hospital.

Later

Incoming transmission

From: Horizon Field Operative Cleaner
To: Horizon Command
Location: Unknown
``Sir``?

``Yes``?

``We have secured The Nameless as you requested sir``

``Good``

End Transmission...

ONE WEEK LATER

Cameras flashed and the sound of dozens of reporters squabbling over places to set up for the right shot. Boston City Hall was alight with the pandemonium of the announcement and every news station, every paper, was in a mad rush to cover the story. Police held everyone back and suddenly, they arrived. All the world was watching as Longshot walked across the steps of City Hall, taking his place at the podium. Almost as if they had spawned from the night air itself, his team stood side by side behind him. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for being here." he said. "I know in the past weeks, there's been a lot of talk about my team and I. There's been a lot of misunderstandings and we need to clear the air. When I brought this team together, I didn't want us to be in the public eye. There's been too much pressure on the superhuman community and the last thing we needed was to add another organization to the panic. I wanted us to stay in the shadows and defend the public without risking any mistakes. I've always worked alone. I'm not accustomed to being thanked and neither are any of the people on my team. We give because it''s all we know hoe to do. The press was alerted of our existence due to a saboteur. From there, he continued to sully our image. The murders in our name can all be traced back to him. Last week, he made his final move, but we sent him packing. I am not a perfect man. I give what I can and I'm not giving up that easily. We'll continue to protect the world and take out the trash. Say what you want, but we will stand strong. You want see us, but we'll be there, on the front lines, always watching. We aren't the heroes you want, we aren't the heroes you expect us to be, we aren't the perfect makers of a perfect world." Longshot held out his arm and the crowd looked overhead as a hawk soared just above them, taking perch on his arm. The bird now wore a leather flacon hood, but with a red eyepiece reminiscent of Lontshot's wired into the hood. "Deal with it."

Longshot listened in close over the frantic crowd and picked up the faint crackle of a radio saying, "Take him down." He quickly drew an arrow and fired to the rooftop across the street. The sniper's scope shattered as the arrow hit, stopping just an inch from his eye. He lowered his bow and looked back down at the crowd. "You ask why I didn't want to be in the public eye. This is why." With that, he turned to his team. "We've got work to do." he said, firing a grapple up to the roof of city hall. With a strong flap of its wings, the bird took flight alongside him. As they took off, Longshot listened back to the crowd and amongst the voices of judgmental reporters, he heard cheers. They were few, but people cheered them on. He ran off into the night with a smile on his face. His team not far behind, Longshot raced into the night, his burden lighter then it had felt in a long time.

Later

ONE WEEK LATER

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