Finches: High Voltage

Electric Funeral: Part 3

Counting from three down, Richard didn't allow himself to hesitate once he reached zero, throwing himself completely over the log in one large jump. Though he had aimed towards the closest noise, his vault had come up short, landing him directly in front of a gruff looking, older man, his dark hair already graying considerably at the temples. It was a brief moment of silence as the soldier attempted to register what happened, which gave Richard just enough time to smirk before his whole arm began to radiate vividly.

Though many Arcanes, like Jace, looked completely normal both when using, some, like himself and Sophie showed visual tells of theirs when they did. Her eyes, like his arm currently, changed, turning into something too unnatural to be normal or human. Though while hers surged with electricity, his always seemed to glow red depending on what body part or function he was enhancing. In this particular case, that being his fist.

Pulling his arm back, Richard heard first the crack of the gun from the second soldier, milliseconds before the bullet whizzed just barely past his ear, missing him by a hair. Yet, he hardly had time to care as within the next beat, his fist had connected with the older man's stomach, sending him rocketing comically backward into the forest. Though he had sent the soldier so far back that Richard could no longer see him, the sickening crunch of his body hitting one of the trees was easily heard by both himself and the remaining officer.

"Atom fuck!" the CORP soldier behind him shrieked, wasting no time in firing off three more rounds in rapid succession, two going impossibly wild while the last managed to graze Richard's cheek just as he dove to tackle the human. Wrestling with the Arcane, a battle he was apparent he was losing, the man called Moore instead focused on his com, slamming his hand into it before Richard could stop him. "10-33! 10 fucking 33!" he bellowed, the next numbers cut short with the heavy-handed, enhanced hit to his face, breaking not only his nose but his jaw and the majority of his teeth.

"Damnit," Richard hissed, rolling off the soldier quickly, knowing that now the others would be converging on his position even faster since Moore had called for help. Not thinking and rather acting on instinct alone now, he grabbed at Moore's combat boots, taking a solid hold of his ankles. It was only a little bit more use of his power, his torso glowing just as his fist had, to fling the man unceremoniously off the side of the cliff, hardly being remotely compassionate about his life. Richard had never been one to care about humans, regarding them as dangerous annoyances. He wasn't as volatile towards them as some of the others in the Resistance, nor was he as afraid of them as many he had met were. Rather he had learned a long time ago that if he kept to himself and minded his own, they tended to do the same. Though that mentality only worked for civilians, those who chose to go into CORP were another story entirely. While an average human would sell him out in a heartbeat, it was the soldiers that he had a strong vendetta against, the soldiers that he would watch burn and rot with a smile upon his face. Their lives were worthless to him, repeating the old Arcane adage that the only good CORP soldier, was a dead CORP soldier. He would kill as many as he could get his hands on, none were innocent, even the cadets on their first day into the academy. CORP was not built by drafts, instead, it got it soldiers via recruitment or willing participants. Any man or woman that was currently, or aspiring to be one of the soldiers in black and gray, had chosen to do so, willingly agreed, most times excitedly, to hunt, torture and kill any Arcane they had the misfortune of finding. They had each sealed their fate upon joining CORP and for them, Richard held no mercy.

Sliding behind the trunk of the fallen tree once more, diving just out of sight in the next second, Richard narrowly missed the spray of bullets that erupted from his left, pelting the bark behind him full of holes. As more shouts came from his right, he realized he was stuck. It was one thing to take on two humans at close up and another entirely to try and fight a full squad at range. He guessed he could probably make it to one group before they could hit him only, though, that would only leave him in the open for the other squad to easily cut him down. There was no going forward either as he doubted he could make it to the tree-line in time and even if he could, there was no use in it. He was supposed to be protecting Sophie and even if he could lead him away, he couldn't guarantee that they wouldn't be back. CORP was thorough and given he had just killed two of their own, Richard knew that they would indeed be back to recover the bodies. As the cliff wasn't exactly an option either, he was steadily beginning to curse himself for not bringing a weapon or at the very least looting one from the dead soldiers. He was doing his best to think but it wasn't going well. Richard was just as much as a soldier as the men firing upon him and he preferred it that way. He didn't mind being the muscle, the brawn over the brain and he didn't mind taking someone else's orders as usually the ones that they came up with were infinitely better than anything he could ever think of. Jace was remarkably excellent at battle tactics, looking like a savant to Richard with how he knew just what strategy to implement based on where his opponents' weak points were. Had Ekart not disappeared, the Resistance leader's exit plan would have gone incredibly smoothly.