zombie_dog
in
aoc_lj
Ubi pt 2
('nique's chase started here.)
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, letting my buzzing nerves calm slightly. If I was dealing with a pro, and I didn't want to go back to being a pro, I had to act like a pro.
I knew nothing about this man, and he knew all too much about me. While I would have liked to assume I had any kind of edge over him, it would have to be in raw skill.
"All right," I muttered. "Let's play."
I closed my eyes and let my etheric senses expand, feeling incidental auras pour into my mind. It started with the ones nearby: the guilt, shame, anger, madness of the destitute and desperate. Violence done to others and the self. Moving on to the sidewalk, the hurried, wary walk of hundreds of ordinary extraordinary people in a dangerous neighborhood.
Soon I was saturated with the psychic-thaumatological resonance of the area and ready to bring my focus to a needle point once again.
I couldn't follow the trail any more, because he'd scrubbed it using what had to have been a combination of techniques. The initial erasing blast was probably a magically-jarring instance of self-harm; a blue-battery stungun to his own skin would probably have done the trick. At least a few minutes of meditation would have followed, to balance the mind into a different state of resonance.
That meant that he couldn't be more than a few blocks away.
I narrowed the scope of my search, then set about emulating his mind's state to find its color. A tense, forced calm. Panic, tied down quickly by rote techniques to control the brain. I smirked a little in my trance; this one should be easy to pick out once I found it.
Sure enough, it only took a minute. My mind gave it a sickly yellow, and I saw its path find its way out of the building. I leapt into action.
Winding my way through the empty rooms of the building soon found me at another fire escape. The aura drew a hazy trail up the wall of the opposite building.
"The hell he do that?" I asked no one, incredulous. My eyes wandered for a moment and saw an open window, just too high to reach, that looked straight into the stairway of the building across from me.
I set my jaw, braced one foot on the fire escape's railing, and leapt as high as I could, lashing out with both arms. I caught my full weight on my fingertips, clinging precariously to a window ledge as my torso slammed against the wall. I drew in a breath, then hauled myself halfway through the window. Bracing my weight on my midsection, I peered the seven feet down to the stairway's landing. Fucking gar.
A few awkward contortions turned my body around; I dangled from the opposite side of the ledge and let go. I hit the ground and folded, my breath forced out as I fell into a compact squat and rolled onto my back.
I was to my feet and moving again in moments, leaping the stairs in threes toward the top of the building as quickly as I could. At the top of the staircase, I once again clambered through the window, over another ledge and to the roof.
A hurried run took me to the opposite end of the roof, and a short fall landed me on the fire escape. The aura was bright now and my heart rate was up, my consciousness flooded with a heady feeling that was at once nostalgic and nauseating.
I looked down the dizzying height to the alley below. He was there, sitting cross-legged, his breathing steady and slow.
He was scrubbing again. He knew I'd made it this far. I gritted my teeth and began a near-silent descent down the fire escape.
When he opened his eyes, it was to the site of my Waki Nine's barrel, aimed straight between his eyes.
"You lose," I said. "Bitch."
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, letting my buzzing nerves calm slightly. If I was dealing with a pro, and I didn't want to go back to being a pro, I had to act like a pro.
I knew nothing about this man, and he knew all too much about me. While I would have liked to assume I had any kind of edge over him, it would have to be in raw skill.
"All right," I muttered. "Let's play."
I closed my eyes and let my etheric senses expand, feeling incidental auras pour into my mind. It started with the ones nearby: the guilt, shame, anger, madness of the destitute and desperate. Violence done to others and the self. Moving on to the sidewalk, the hurried, wary walk of hundreds of ordinary extraordinary people in a dangerous neighborhood.
Soon I was saturated with the psychic-thaumatological resonance of the area and ready to bring my focus to a needle point once again.
I couldn't follow the trail any more, because he'd scrubbed it using what had to have been a combination of techniques. The initial erasing blast was probably a magically-jarring instance of self-harm; a blue-battery stungun to his own skin would probably have done the trick. At least a few minutes of meditation would have followed, to balance the mind into a different state of resonance.
That meant that he couldn't be more than a few blocks away.
I narrowed the scope of my search, then set about emulating his mind's state to find its color. A tense, forced calm. Panic, tied down quickly by rote techniques to control the brain. I smirked a little in my trance; this one should be easy to pick out once I found it.
Sure enough, it only took a minute. My mind gave it a sickly yellow, and I saw its path find its way out of the building. I leapt into action.
Winding my way through the empty rooms of the building soon found me at another fire escape. The aura drew a hazy trail up the wall of the opposite building.
"The hell he do that?" I asked no one, incredulous. My eyes wandered for a moment and saw an open window, just too high to reach, that looked straight into the stairway of the building across from me.
I set my jaw, braced one foot on the fire escape's railing, and leapt as high as I could, lashing out with both arms. I caught my full weight on my fingertips, clinging precariously to a window ledge as my torso slammed against the wall. I drew in a breath, then hauled myself halfway through the window. Bracing my weight on my midsection, I peered the seven feet down to the stairway's landing. Fucking gar.
A few awkward contortions turned my body around; I dangled from the opposite side of the ledge and let go. I hit the ground and folded, my breath forced out as I fell into a compact squat and rolled onto my back.
I was to my feet and moving again in moments, leaping the stairs in threes toward the top of the building as quickly as I could. At the top of the staircase, I once again clambered through the window, over another ledge and to the roof.
A hurried run took me to the opposite end of the roof, and a short fall landed me on the fire escape. The aura was bright now and my heart rate was up, my consciousness flooded with a heady feeling that was at once nostalgic and nauseating.
I looked down the dizzying height to the alley below. He was there, sitting cross-legged, his breathing steady and slow.
He was scrubbing again. He knew I'd made it this far. I gritted my teeth and began a near-silent descent down the fire escape.
When he opened his eyes, it was to the site of my Waki Nine's barrel, aimed straight between his eyes.
"You lose," I said. "Bitch."