Gotham Witch wrote:Twice as much car theft without nearly half as much guilt. I can't say I'm not a little jealous though, but she seems a bit... unstable?

PS: Nemesis, if it were up to me, we could switch alternate universe twins if you wanted. At least yours seems to have some degree of inner peace.

Hannah wrote:Reading the other Hannah’s journal, perhaps I project a bit too much. That’s why I reacted so strongly when Matt deceived me. Hopefully that’s all cleared up now.

Hannah wrote:I do agree with her that it’s important not to have too many hidden truths rattling around and to tell too many lies to keep them hidden. While it may be necessary in the short term, too much of it can do some bad things to a person. So Matt, if you do ever feel like you need have some truths that need to get out, I’ll be happy to listen.

Mini-Mel wrote:“They should have been here fifteen minutes ago.”

“You know how traffic is in downtown Montreal.”

“I’m going to be all jitters by the time they –do- show up.”

“The amount of coffee you drink isn’t healthy.”

“Neither are the bullets that regularly whiz by us.”

I took another sip of coffee as I waited for some useful piece of news to come about on my earpiece. One of the things that hadn’t changed since Nemesis Day was coffee shops in Quebec staying open to an ungodly hour. This is good – otherwise this stakeout would have been long and boring.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Asked that little voice in my ear – I’ve taken to calling her my conscience, if only because it annoys the hell out of her.

“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked as I glanced up briefly from my newspaper across the street. Aside from a few passing vehicles, most of the traffic were hip young Quebecois out for a night rather than cars. At least spotting our target wouldn’t be too hard.

“Well, that concussion you took a couple weeks ago…”

“I’m fine.” I repeated with a sigh. Had it been anyone else, I’d have told her to buzz off. Instead, I muttered, “…but thanks, Conscience.”

“Why do you call me that?.” she asked as I glanced back down to my newspaper, reading a headline about another shooting near the provincial border - One that, surprisingly, we were not involved in.

“Why not? You’re the little nagging voice in my ear that tells me when I’m being a bad person.” I said in an almost cheerful tone.

“Even though you never listen to me.” She huffed.

“Clearly I’m not that awful. Otherwise you wouldn’t be willing to be partnered with me.”

“As needs must. The Lord knows lives depend on us too much for spats to get in the way of our work.”

“See? You always remind me what a great crusade we’re on. That’s why you’re my conscience.” I murmured into the mic with a grin before I saw a vehicle pull up. Blue Camaro, Ontario plates - That was our boy – And I use “was” on multiple levels here. That double crossing bastard.

“Contact.” I whispered, “He’s grabbing the handicap spot in front of Galipeau’s.

“Finally” I heard my conscience say. There was a brief pause before I heard a sigh, “Black sedan is coming up with federal plates two blocks off from you. It looks like they tailed him in.”

“Fucking Fantastic.” I muttered. There was originally supposed to be about a ten minute window between ‘our’ man showing up and the Feds he was snitching to. It seemed we were instead down to mere seconds before trying to play whack a hole might be too risky.

As I watched, our man – short, blonde, and nervous looking – was getting out of the vehicle. At any point I was expecting the report of gunfire as what little grey matter that snitch bastard called brains splattered the storefront of what appeared to be a decent French restaurant. There was a good 10ft of space for my conscience to put an end to this problem once and for all.

Much to my surprise, the shot didn’t happen. He was halfway to the restaurant before I whispered, “What are you waiting for, a written invitation?”

I nearly jumped as there was an electronic crackle before a dead hiss of white noise. I tapped my headpiece a couple times before watching the little weasel make his way into the restaurant.

Half a second later, I heard gunshots – clearly fired in another direction.

“Darcy?” I asked pensively. No response.

Shit.

My first instinct was to check on her. But I remembered we had a job – a rather important one at that.

My conscience was a bit of a modest badass anyway. I’d catch up to her soon enough – or so I hoped.

Putting my newspaper down and standing up, I glanced both ways before crossing the street. The Fedmobile hadn’t turned the corner yet, so it stood to reason that they couldn’t see me heading towards the restaurant. I got a few looks for apparently being too lazy to use the crosswalks; If I were not in a hurry, I’d have flipped them the bird or something polite like that.
I stepped into Galipeau’s just as Charles was getting led to a table. Some snooty Hab asked me for my reservation.

“My date is right there.” I explained with a cheerful smile pointing to the nervous little shitface. The host was about to object before I budged right by him, my hand slipping into my coat pocket.

Nobody got in my way as I marched the 15 paces over to the corner table. I spared a brief glance around, both as precaution as well as curiosity – the place was nice and clean, the food smelled good, and the crowd was a good mix of old and young. In another lifetime, I’d have loved to have tried this place.

Instead, of course, I was walking in step with a party of four Quebec City to blend in, apparently avoiding the notice of a Fed who had sat down and decided to have himself some ratatouille. He glanced around behind his square black shades before going back to his meal – guess he hadn’t spotted me.

I of course didn’t take chances. As there was just enough din in the room that everyone in conversation with one another wouldn’t hear much away from their tables, I murmured a brief spell, before giving a subtle gesture towards the Fed. The man gasped weakly, before freezing in place, mid swallow of his food.

If he was lucky, it’d wear off before he choked – I rather hoped he wasn’t so lucky.

“Darling, you’re here already?” I asked with faux surprise as I finally stepped away from the party of four, sporting my best français québécois – my parents had thought that it was a good idea to speak the local lingo. Hate to say it but they were right for once.

“Huh?” came the brilliant response from Charles as he turned about, speaking in his best French Canadian, “I’m sorry madam, but I think you have the…”

There was a look of shock on his face as he realized who I was – about half a second after six inches of polycarbonate were buried in his guts. Ignoring the collective gasps of everyone around me, I grabbed his shoulder and levered the blade upwards, twisting it about a little bit to make sure I hit everything I could, before ripping the edge out in a sideways action with a flick of blood and bites. Finally, I reversed my grip on the weapon before flicking it nice and straight across his throat, a small spray of blood striking some very shocked Montrealers.

You might think I was being vengeful on poor Charlie for turning peel and trying to get us killed. I like to think I’m just very through.

I fished something out of Charlie’s jacket pocket, before letting the poor dying sod hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, I felt getting out of there was a good idea as everyone started screaming. Murmuring a brief spell, I flung a hand at the ground as a cloud of smoke rapidly filled the restaurant. Barreling my way towards the kitchen, I only had to fling one or two waiters out of the way – the rest got the clue that a chick with a bloody knife wasn’t someone you wanted to tangle with.

Mini-Mel wrote:I got outside from the side door and looked around. The Fed sedan had parked itself outside of the restaurant, and I heard shouts as Feds made their way inside. Remembering that my conscience might be in trouble, I hopped up to grab a ladder on an old fire escape, pulling myself up before making my way up towards the roof.

I was already hearing the ring of police sirens as I made it roofside, pulling out my binos to look about. It was late evening, so it was a bit hard to see much. My conscience wasn’t at her post, though I could see her rifle laying there untouched. Considering how fond she was of that thing, that wasn’t a good sign.

Murmuring another spell, I made a run for her position, boosting my jumps between buildings a bit with a little help from the wind. Fortunately, most of the rooftops in this section of Montreal were pretty close together. So it wouldn’t take long to get to where she last was.

As I made my way over onto the roof she had been on, I nearly tripped over the mostly headless corpse of a fed. There was a big entry wound where his face was, with the contents of his brain pen missing. It looked like The Angel had gotten a shot off. That was a good sign.

I moved over to where her rifle was sitting. Her headset was on the ground, the wire severed. More disconcerting was the large gouge in the brick and mortar next to her, as if something big and sharp had taken a chunk out of it. At least there was no blood – I’d never forgive her if she got herself whacked.

I heard a few more gunshots nearby. Pulling out my binos I glanced around. Two roofs down, I could see my conscience run-and-gunning as something with two large things with wings were pursuing her, one of which swooping at her and taking a large stretch of tarred roof with its claws as it narrowly missed her.

I really should have known this wasn’t going to be easy.

I hefted Darcy’s rifle as I knelt down and tried to be real steady, making an attempt to play the heroine. Sniping is not really my forte – but they were awfully big targets, and I had a telekinetic hand in stabilizing the rifle. As one of the gargoyles tried to swoop in from behind my conscience, I lined up a shot and fired.

At first I thought I missed. I’m used to things getting hit by .338 going splat. The bullet hit with more of a thud. Better news was it was near the wing, which caused the bastard to hit the roof behind Darcy with a loud crash. It likely wasn’t a killing shot but it was enough to give my conscience an opening to bolt.

Shouldering the rifle (she had been down to one bullet) and telekinetically picking up the case (actually for a Cello – my idea), I ran in her direction, patting myself down for something that could hurt a stone demon. A couple anti-personnel grenades, while tempting, seemed like a bad rescue choice while Darcy was in kissing range – besides, I couldn’t throw as well as she could. My conscience probably had some heavier loads on her, but without her rifle on hand, that didn’t mean a whole lot, currently dealing with a large volume of shots off of her Glock – fat load of good they seemed to be doing, but I can respect her trying.

The gargoyle made another swoop at her, trying to take her head off with granite talons. Deftly, she leaped over the damned moving statue, putting a couple bullets in its face to blind/annoy it, before running back towards me. Taking that as a signal, I tossed her an unpulled grenade, watching her pluck the pin and hock the explosive in a gentle arc to land right at the gargoyle’s feet.

“Got your rifle.” I said cheerfully, ignoring the loud explosion bits of stone demon went flying.

“Thank you, but we need to leave, now.” She said hurriedly as she grabbed her weapon, pulling a box magazine from a pouch as she reloaded it on the run, me following close behind. In the sky from the direction she had come from, I could see several more flying silhouettes; it seemed that Montreal was a less hospital place for us anglophiles than normal.

“What about Charles?” She asked as she worked the bolt action.

“He’s looked better. He lost weight.” I noted as I drew my revolver, checking the load.

“Rest his soul.” I heard Darcy murmur before she spun about, lining up her shots before pulling the trigger.

Unlike when I tried to be the heroine, my conscience could, you know, aim. Also, unlike that dull thud I was getting as the bullet barely penetrated, the head of one of the gargoyles literally exploded mid flight, the corpse striking the ground with the crash of shattered granite.

Less positive was the echo of a chopper nearby. Looking up, I could see a black chopper coming from the horizon, a sniper likely ready to try and put us down. I wasn’t sure if Darcy noticed or not – I heard her fire another shot, accompanied by the sound of stone cracking in half. Whatever she was firing now kiiiind of made me cringe.

“Chopper, Red.” I noted, taking a couple shots of my own at a gargoyle, just to feel like I was being meaningful.

“And cops on the street; this isn’t good, Mel.” She said as she chambered another shot. Darcy always had a way of keeping cool under fire – I could barely read that she was worried at all. I think we both knew, however, that this situation was going to end badly the longer we stayed out here.

“I have an idea, if you’re crazy enough to jump off of a building with me.” I said as I watched the approaching aerial units. My conscience looked at me as if about to ask me why that was required, but an errant bullet striking the roof about four feet away from us probably answered that for her.
Thank god the Canadian Feds are terrible shots, huh.

My conscience shouldered her rifle, before wrapping an arm around me. Winking at her, we both leaped off of the building.

You’d think that something as insane as jumping off of a six story building would be crazy. Without hocus pocus, you’d probably be right. Shouting the words during a fall wasn’t so bad – it was the gesturing that was a little tricky.

About a split second before we struck the ceiling of a taxi, we halted in mid air, only about four feet away from pavement. That was apparently close enough to scare the taxi, which screeched to a halt as we deftly landed with a light plop.

Not wasting any time, we ran ourselves into a nearby alley, ignoring the sound of sirens in the distance as Darcy packed her ‘instrument’ away in the cello case. Montreal wasn’t exactly an unfamiliar stomping ground, and we knew we were close enough to the La Ville Souterraine to lose our ‘friends’ in one of its seven Metro stations.

My conscience and I didn’t stop to catch our breath until we had grabbed the train at Bonaventure, and made our way to Laval. As the doors closed and the train started to pull away, we looked at each other briefly, before managing a weak chuckle.

It was a few moments before my conscience went back to being somber, before asking, “Did you find what Charles took?”

“Sort of.” I answered as I opened my coat just enough to reveal a DVD that I had pilfered out of Charlie’s bloody rags.

Darcy nodded before leaning back in her chair, her hand wrapped around her cello case. There was a pause before she asked, “Why do you think he betrayed us?”

“Because he was an asshole?” I suggested with a snort before giving a shrug, “Maybe he didn’t like the odds of us winning. Sometimes I wonder if he had ever been on our side at all.”

“I wish I knew.” She said, before saying confiding, “I hope we never have to do that again.”

I hmphed softly in response, but I have a feeling my conscience knew that I agreed. It was one thing taking on the Feds and minions of darkness. It took me a lot of mentally preparing myself for the task to gut someone I had known for years – the fact he nearly got some of us killed near Ottawa a few weeks ago had made the task of disemboweling him a little easier, though.

Still, I wondered. If you can’t even trust your side to stay loyal, what hope was there for us?