Frank
reached into his coat.
Bren didn’t think after that. Years old
instincts kicked in. She felt the glove evaporate as the gauntlet activated.
She saw the gun under Frank’s coat before he
started to pull it out, but even then she wasn’t fast enough for him. He fired
three times, letting the recoil of the gun carry the barrel up for each shot.
She stumbled backwards, but was
already swinging the gauntlet through the air. Frank stepped back, but not far
enough; the fingers extended into beams of white light and sliced through him,
ripping his shirt to shreds and turning his skin to ash.
He fell backwards, coughing and
wheezing, trying to bring the gun up again. But light continued to burn through
him and soon he was gone, the tattered remains of his clothes fluttering to the
ground. Bren wheezed, lungs failing to retain air. She coughed and brought up
blood. She looked down and saw three holes in her shirt.
She turned and saw another assailant
approaching; this one pulled a gun and fired. Bren brought up her gauntlet, but
this woman stepped aside as the whips of light flung past. The woman fired
again, and Bren felt the impact like a punch on her shoulder.
Bren rushed forward, throwing out
her gauntleted hand with a sideways motion. This time the whips of white light
caught his legs and pulled the assassin down. Bren pulled her hand back and
they pulled the assassin forward at the same speed. Bright light enveloped her
and, soon, only a few finger sized scraps of clothing floated down.
Bren looked around, trying to see if
anyone else had shown up. She regretted having had to kill both of them before
finding out who exactly had sent them. Their reliance on guns meant that they
could have been Bricklayers, but she knew the occasional Strifepalm to pack a
firearm, and she wasn’t sure if the Greys relied on such weapons either.
She thought back to the Scanners and
thought that while they had the occasional trick up their sleeve, they wouldn’t
come after her in force. Or at least not as deliberately.
Frank had clearly been a ploy to
lure her into some area to die. He might very well have been successful.
Bren stumbled back towards the
street, but she knew she was losing blood quickly. She’d been wounded too much
for the gauntlet to be of any use. She tried to pull out her cell phone, but
her fingers were shaking and she stuck it back in her pocket before she could
drop it or break it on the pavement.
She found her way onto the road and stepped
back as a car drove past. She fell down onto the sidewalk, shaking, feeling
cold, and then warm.
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