Wrong Side Of The Tracks
I liked it, i felt though a bit more history and darker description about the place could of been integrated in but i thought some clever writing was in there.
The title to the story dont quite tie up just yet for me unless i read more. It could of more easily of been "Wrong part of Town" or "The Slums of Devil Island". If its a title for a chapter then something in the story could of been used like "Candy for Gold".
I am so far guessing that Tenebrean is the Stalker. The Goldbrickers perhaps dont even know hes about despite a man down (The Arachnos know about it first) and so have no reason to be on their guard and take to some foolish prank with the girl. Whatever Tenebrean is upto i am expecting Sally to meet him again. He left her as a witness so his identity cant be an issue.
For me the story is about the girl and i am suspecting she will meet that stranger again, maybe something could of been left as a reason so as the story doesnt seem so ended or complete.
Hope to read more though.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
To be honest I wrote it as a one off; but thinking about it, I could make it something of a series...just have to be careful to not make the lvl 13 Ninja Blade / Reflexes Stalker out to be too much of a good guy. Though something like this actually happened in game.
Sally was out late, but her mother probably wasn't back from work yet anyway. WSPDR kept her busy. Wherever her dad was, he was probably working late too. There wasn't enough money around to just work a normal shift.
For all of her eight years of life, Sally had lived on Cap Au Diable, growing up in the shadow of the horns. Her mother had steered her clear of the chanting of the Luddite fanatics, demanding the disuse of technology and the discarding of modern luxuries; she had turned her away when the Arachnos footsoldiers of Lord Recluse had come to blows with the Gold Brickers, the thieves with their technology and jet packs. She'd been taught well, and yet there she was; in Haven, way past her usual curfew, scurrying home after a trip to the store.
It was a trip she wouldn't forget. A group of Arachnos soldiers were outside, taking notes over a fallen Gold Bricker. One of Midas' criminal soldiers, it appeared, had been murdered.
"Tenebrean's work," one of them had said in a dismissive way.
Now as she walked home the sight of the body bothered her. She was a taciturn child, and bodies didn't usually concern her - she had seen her first at the age of six and barely batted an eyelid. Now, though, as she clutched a candy bar in one hand and a bottle of milk in the other, she wasn't so sure she was really as tough as she thought.
She caught a look of herself in a broken window as she passed it, a glimpse of red hair, freckles, blue eyes and glasses, braces hidden behind tightly closed lips. Her jacket was dark, the better to not draw attention to herself on most streets.
Unfortunately, it wasn't quite good enough.
She went around a corner - the last corner - and came face-to-face with a group of three Gold Brickers, loitering around the back of a small office building. Two of them looked around, fearful for the intervention of Arachnos forces; then when their eyes settled on her, they smirked.
"Hey look...candy," one of them said. He was a swarthy type. She didn't like swarthy types.
"You remember what Midas said about taking candy from a baby?" a second interjected. This one was flabby, ugly looking; it put her in mind of a frog.
"Dare you," the third said, ratlike and nasal. "Dare you to."
She took a step back. She didn't get much pocket money. She'd bought the milk out of it - she needed it - and had had enough for one candy bar, one only. It was hers. She was going to treasure it. She wasn't ready for some thieving Gold Brickers to [censored] it away purely out of spite.
"Hand it over," said the flabby one, stepping forward. Ratty followed just behind him, smirking evilly; the first, the swarthy sort, hung toward the back. Soon he was hidden from her view by Flabby.
"No," she murmured.
"Don't be stupid," said Ratty with a little giggle. "Give him the candy."
"No," she repeated.
The dust behind them shifted in the streetlight, coiling in a strange pattern. She saw it. They, apparently, did not.
"Last time, kid," said Flabby.
"No," she said finally.
He reached out, but was stopped by Ratty, who gripped his arm and made a little choking sound, looking back at the coil of dust. Flabby turned around in a slightly lumbering way, and peered back at Swarthy.
Swarthy wasn't there; or at least, no living being was where Swarthy was. Now Swarthy was clearly dead, and had died silently and without struggle. A single neat hole was pierced through his jet pack, which was bubbling over with blood, pushed through from a pierced lung emptying of air.
The two remaining Gold Brickers stared in horror at the body. She looked up at them, took half a step back, ready to run when she got the chance.
The dust moved again.
There was suddenly a blinding flash of light, as if the streetlight was caught by the edge of a blade that slashed out of nothingness and clear through the chest of Ratty. It speared in, and Ratty made a choking sound as the invisible edge pierced something vital; Flabby tried to scream in shock, but didn't get the chance. The blade - its wielder slowly revealed as the shadows peeled away from his form - twisted and hacked, cleaving straight through Flabby's neck. An arc of blood followed the blade, the merest splash flicking from the point and splattering against her cheek as the sword point stopped scarcely inches from her face.
Ratty and Flabby dropped to the ground at the same time, very dead.
Sally took a breath and clutched her candy bar tighter as she stared at the creature that had appeared out of the dark. Very tall but only slightly muscular, his chest was bare and covered with red tribal tattoos; his hair - arranged in a top knot - was the same colour as dried blood, the same colour as his skull-shaped shoulder pads, his cargo pants, his hand wraps and his gas mask. His eyes were bound with bandages, dark red splotches over each eye that had long since dried. Over the bandages, a coil of barbed wire further covered the figure's eyes, and for a moment, Sally wondered if what she was looking at was human.
There was silence for a moment as the thing stood, blood dripping from his sword; then he sheathed it, fast enough that she couldn't make out any detail on the blade. He stooped to the ground, touching each of the bodies, then settling on Flabby and patting him down, looking for something.
She knew there was no way his eyes could see through that bandages, that was even if those blood stains could be passed off as merely for show. Maybe he didn't even know that she was there. Maybe if she was very still, he wouldn't even notice her; and she might just get home alive.
Finding what he wanted, the thing, the assassin stood upright, turning a plastic card over in his fingers; it was the same size as a credit card, though it featured no numbers or names, only the logo of the Gold Brick factory.
Seeming satisfied, the card vanished into a pocket as the thing turned, took a step over Ratty's body, then stopped dead. She wondered if she'd made a noise, and held her breath, knuckles white where she clenched her fists.
His head turned just a little, as if he was looking over his shoulder, an eerie motion when the thing had no visible eyes.
The voice was something she hadn't expected. While the vision of the figure was awful, the voice was worse; horrifying not in any way she could easily describe, but perhaps so scary to her because it sounded just as if he was politely asking someone in a library if they could let him pass. It was inoffensive and placid and very, very quiet, a whisper amongst whispers.
"Go home."
Then he vanished, as the shadows all around him flexed, grasped and embraced him; for five whole minutes she stood, trying to understand just why she wasn't dead, then she ran for home as fast as she could.
By the time she got there, the blood had dried on her cheek.