Numbered and Factions

Chapter 21

 The walls are lined with dim lights, boxes and crates lay scattered around haphazardly with all sorts of faded and non faded labels. Glitch emerges from a watch face on the floor, she holds her arm and stands up as her form catches up to her. A man stands across from her, a tall, black studded leather jacket, necklace with a piece of metal, black pants, black boots, a diamondback head. He looks at the girl with an unchanging expression, reptilian.

"What took you sssso long." his voice is deep and airy,the girl cracks a smile.

"I was ownly hawvin fun" she smiles, a trickle of blood runs down her face

"You look like hell." he tilts his head slightly,

"Im fwine. Beswides, He did what he was suppwsed to dew." she giggles and looks up at the ceiling,

"Ssso we know where one of them isss at all timesss now?" he flicks his tongue

"Fowr now, I downt know if they'll figure it owt or nawt," she looks at him,

***

A day later, Anbu sits in the library alone. They sprawl out in one of the over the shelf cubbies and stare at the ceiling. It's been better since Lavender healed thier chest, but it wasn't. She said she couldn't find the bullet itself no matter how hard she tried. It felt like a normal bullet though, they've been shot before. Why couldn't she find it? They sit up and mess with the bell on thier mask, the little jingle is calming. They lift thier shirt slightly and look at where they were struck, right over thier hip near thier intestine. The fur on thier stomach parts at where it hit, the soft white makes way for a slightly pink scar where the healing stopped. They sigh and pull thier shirt back down, it should be fine. Or will it? The odds are saying it's fine but.. Whatever, they'll figure it out.

They look to thier side at the book they'd brought up with them. The cover is scratched up and well read, pages lay bent and crooked from being dropped god knows how many times. Spark had given it to them when he first started as thier apprentice, a surprising parallel of how the two of them work now. The main character being a fox spirit who decided to team up with an archer from the sun to take on the clan who trapped them both on the Earth through a contract.

They flip through the pages a bit, there's a couple illustrations in between chapters. Styled like something off a medieval Japanese script, the fox and the archer standing back to back with the clan around them. Anbu chuckles and closes the book, thinking about the many times they and Spark stood like that.

***

It was dark that night, the two of them were on a hit out in Woodwood. They were called there for a basic take out on a business man. No reason was started but that was per usual in the business, you want someone gone, talk to the Ringing Bell of FoxFire.

Spark stands up and draws his bow around a corner as a shot is fired his way. So much for stealth. Anbu hops up on the wall and darts ahead. There's two other people there, both with rifles. Anbu hops behind them in a pincer and growls, in the rifleman's vision a grotesque monster of hellish origin grows around the small fox. The men turn and one screams, the other raises his rifle and takes a shot. Anbu ducks out of the way and uses an arm of the creature as an illusionary cover to pounce on him. Spark fires at the other man in the knee, dropping him to the floor. Anbu grabs the neck of the one they had and snaps it around. Spark approaches and picks the man up, he growls at the boy to be met with a spiral of light in his face.

"Where's your boss" Spark pulls the man over him,

"Not talking you Monster." he retorts

"Oh, no need to call me that, yet at least" Spark smiles with a swirl of light coming off his light eye, the man growls again. Anbu comes over with the illusion fading around them.

"Get away from me, freak." he growls. Spark throws him to the ground in a fluid motion, he gasps as Anbu throws thier foot on his breast.

"Speak.. Or end.. Like.. your friend.." Anbu rasps,

"Get.. off me.. You.." he snarls, Anbu puts more body weight on him.

"Your.. boss" Anbu growls,

"No" her growls and tries to throw the fox off, Anbu stays stable and stomps on his chest. The man howls in pain and curls, Anbu stands next to him and growls ominously.

***

I find myself walking alone near the wall, the day is nice and cloudy. Great weather for me atleast. Weirdly the spirits and voices are quiet today, usually they're more persistent in thi kind of weather. The grasses are soft and healthy under my shoes, there's a few pieces of trash, and the occasional article of clothing from god knows what.

I walk for a bit as something catches my attention, a patch of grass lays uneven and unnatural. I come up on it and look down. I take a step back with my heart rate spiking for a second, bones. A skull and an arm, just laying there. There's no scent to it, no meat is even left on it. Just bones. Bones. Goddamn. Idiot you've seen bones before. I look back at them, they haven't moved, as I thought. They better not have moved. I stand there just staring at them. The empty sockets stare back, and an ant skitters across the arm and into the grasses. Why am I standing here staring at bones? Keep walking. I find myself moving on past them.

I wonder what happened to that person, maybe they were Numbered? Or maybe a Non-Numbered. Maybe they got attacked by a maneater, or maybe they took thier own life jumping the wall. Maybe they got lost and starved. Who knows. Just keep walking. I look at the wall.

There's a large bit of graffiti there, a pair of wings surrounding a phoenix with a three headed figure behind it. I smile slightly at it, it's our three heavy hitting leaders after all. You have to have some pride seeing a tagger depict what is basically your family now. Harmoninea, the wings. Piper, the phoenix, Cerbi, the three headed figure.

I look at the graffiti again, the colors are bright. It must be new. I look down the wall as someone hops it. They seem to bounce and laugh about it. Wouldn't hurt to investigate. I approach a bit as the person notices me. They bound up and before I know it I'm on the ground facing them. They smile and laugh as they pull me to my feet, I can see thier face and its Rabi.. For some reason.

"Hiya!" her smile is wide,

"Oh, Rabi. What are you doing out here?" I tilt my head,

"Oh, y'know walking.. Talkin... uhhh" she smiles and looks away

"Why were you crossing the wall?" I blink and look at her,

"Uhhhhhh....." she looks away again,

"You did something didn't you" I cross my arms trying to look slightly bigger.

"Yaknow I gotta go" Rabi thumps her foot and gets ready to run,

"Alright... stay out of trouble" I look at her, Rabi just smiles and bolts off.