Slippery Slope of Rust and Steel

The slums.
In any city, it's the place most avoid if they can, and everyone else flocks to because there's nowhere else to go. Most of the time it's just populated by the homeless, but there are also the shady ones, people with guns and cause, the murderers waiting for their moment to strike again.
And down here, in Santa Destroy, you get a lot of that.
It's  a reason why I like going down here. Mostly its just to train with people with more muscle mass than brains, but once in a while you can spectate. Fights between neighbors don't happen down here too often but when they do happen it's quite a thing to see. With more on the lines for each party, they're willing to give up more to protect what they have. People will give their own blood away to keep their boxes to themselves for a coming storm. A few fingers lost doesn't care when it's protecting your food for the next week.
It's just how life is down here. But that also makes it a hotspot for witches and their familiars to gather around here. Usually Eightball has a few teams patrol near by this place every so often to see if anythings up, but he knows I come here all the time by myself at dusk, and stopped sending people here when he knew I could take care of shit hitting the fan myself.
He sees so much in me, I sometimes wonder if I'll fall under everyone else's influence.

I'm just roof-hopping tonight. I don't really want to get anything serious underway, especially with eyes on me from every corner of the Officio. Even Miss Cooldown, oh great and prestigious Callidus Rank Leader, has shown some interest.
It becomes a different style altogether when you know you're being watched closely. You're not looked at as a personality, you're looked at as a Callidus. Pick your fights, win without letting them know what happened, erase the evidence, get out, scout, repeat. It's a by-the-book style of picking fights out here, but apply-directly-to-the-forehead repetition works wonders.
But nobody is out here. I know the forecast called for clear skies tomorrow so no one should be hiding under their roofs, so it's an anomaly when a populated section is devoid of people. Maybe there's some big-bad rolling through town, someone from the UAA?
That's when I feel it; the pulse of magic sending shivers down my spine, and my blinking soul confirms my suspicions.
Barrier.

"Hello Gina~. Needed someone to talk to on this dark and lonely night~?"
...As much as I'd normally prefer someone else, "Orange Flash" is currently undergoing more training, again, and "Silver Ribbon" told me she would be busy tonight preparing for something. What that something is I left to her, which left "Bubbly Tits" the last contact I knew I could trust tonight.
"Where are you right now? This is important."
"Oh, is it something so special you can't say it over the phone? We~ll, if it's that bad you can come down to Crimson Road and throw yourself into my chest as you-"
"ELIZABETH." Curse and praise this woman for all she is... "Its a barrier."
"...Ah." There's a noticeable pause as she takes a deep breath and... I think lies down some paper bags? "Where is it?"
"In the slums, southern section. Nobody here, practically barren."
"ETA five minutes. Let nothing through."
Click.

Right at the barrier, my soul burns brightly. I could open it right now if I wanted, but I'm not risking anything. I was brash way back when, and under these circumstances I would have charged in already, mace in hand and not fearing what was ahead, even if it was two witches in close proximity.
But I think back then, I didn't necessarily care if I died, I just never did.
"This is the entrance." I could hear her approaching from behind me, and turning my head let me see her in her magical outfit for the first time in a while. I remembered the way her soul gem gleamed in her hairband, holding her long blue hair back as it swayed behinder as as she ran. Her light-blue MG outfit, almost reminiscent of a standard blue-collar suit, matches her waving hair like most other girls. Around her waist is her belt of stuff to throw: mostly knives and some tomahawks.
"Has anything been trying to get out?" She skids right next to me already with a few knives between her fingers.
"Not yet. Maybe the witch is preparing up for a bigger spread, and considering the area we're in it has a lot to feed on. We need to act soon."
"Then let's get this over with and report back to Eightball afterwards." She holds out her soul gem with her free hand and concentrates. A cold night breeze passes by as a hole into hell opens up right before us.
"Alright, go time."

Heavy metal. That was the most accurate sound I got as I landed on the floor of the barrier. Most witches have their own twisted visages of how the girl's despair influenced their turn, but one quick gaze makes this seem to... real.
"A, hospital?" Izzy asks with tone of worry in her voice. The normally pristine walls of white are covered in a rust, including the floor and ceiling. The ground creaks under our every step and the air has a heavy tone of death.
"It's too direct, too real." My hammer comes into my hands without so much as a thought. "This witch must be really strong to create this kind of image. Open eyes."
Normally Izzy is the one telling me what to do, but with my own experience catching up to hers, she allows me to call the shots if she thinks I have it dead-on.  I think I've learned more in-the-fray experience from her alone than my callidus instructors have taught me, which makes up for my brash beginnings in spades.
"Stop." We freeze at her command, the steel knives in her hand glinting in the fake light. "Familiars incoming!"

The clanking and screeching of metal made it too obvious when they came. But it was the sheer number that surprised me; unlike most barriers where the minions were equalized in quality and quantity, the... q-tip things with oil and blood on them we're only a child's size but they stampeded through the hallway in countless number, the razors on their feet making a mess of the floor.
"Get back!" I instinctively hopped back as Izzy got knives in BOTH hands and flew them out. The knives straightened themselves into glowing lines; red-hot and directing themselves to the closest things they could hit. Knives pierced their way through a good number of them each time but as their energy was lost they got overrun by the coming horde.
"That isn't working!" Pointing the mace downward and sweeping it back and forth does make them stumble, fall and break apart but they keep coming and coming.
"Then you think of something!" Izzy tries a few tomahawks on them but mostly comes down to one target.
The blood churns in me, power grows from their pain. Maybe...
I think I know what I can do.

Even with being a mace it does have a few pointy ends, mostly at the tip where it would be easy to pig-stick people. But without a second though my left hand scrapes along it quickly, sharp pain following the blood flow.
The blood is power, its my life, my pain. It forms like my shield does around my mace, protecting it from damage, but its other function is what they'll get from it. It pains my hand as I grip it again by the handle and raise it all the way up, then bring it down right back to the rusted floor with all my might. The shield pops; waves of grey-blue lash out across the waves of enemies and cut them down. They slowly dissipate into the barrier, leaving nothing but the thrown weapons of Izzy on the ground.
I barely manage to catch myself as the sudden change in balance nearly throws me off having put all my strength into that swing. Izzy catches me from behind, making sure I'm balanced with a "you ok?" then going to pick up her tools of the trade.
"We need to find this witch quick." She says lending out a hand to me. "I don't know if we can take another wave like that."
I grasp her clean hand with my bloodied one, beginning to heal a bit. "Then lead on, my fair teacher."

Despite the chaotic battle only a few moments ago, the rest of the hallways are dead empty, only the heavy atmosphere of the dying hospital giving any weight on my shoulders. Izzy too still looks disturbed by the scenery around us.
"You're not liking the feel of things around here either?" I ask holding my healing hand, only going a bit faster by my magic.
"It's just... strong." Her eyes scan the room, her face stern yet faltering to her inner emotions. "Witches don't just embody the sorrow of the girl they're born from, but also whatever makes her crack. In this downtrodden area, it's a good chance she lost it from coming here."
"Wasn't there something you told me before?" My question comes out after looking through an open door to an empty, rusty room.  "The eighth has only room for three types of girls; the insane, the crazy and the already dead?"
"I still hold to that." Her voice now falters too; softer than her in-the-zone tone of voice but nowhere near her normal speech. "I was taught that myself, but I failed in finding out which one I was among them."
"...I think I know which one I am now."
------
We come to a stop at our first set of double-doors, rusting away and already a crack open. There's no hiding whats on the other side.
"On the count of three, and no slower." Izzy grips the door by the frame while I hold back, waiting for the charge in.
"One, two, three!"

Part of me was expecting the witch to continue the trend of the damaged/destroyed hospital theme but no amount of preparation would have been enough for this. The... aberration in the center of a giant auditorium is scrounged up of countless medical machines. In its center lies an EKG, showing a heart-rate speed not meant for humans, its limbs littered with scalpels, needles and knives connected by tubes and wiring to its back. Its eyes are the only non-metal there, but just being ripped-out pieces of cotton being held together by tiny strings to its head seems like torture to itself.
"That's... it." It takes me a moment to stop the shaking in my hands, readying my mace and entering the room. It wastes no time turning to me and letting out a few electrical hisses as a threat. "Get in here and split up, keep it occupied at two different angles!"
As I bolt out to one side Izzy goes and circles around the room in the other direction.  The witch had its gaze on me until it started getting hit from the sides and back by my companion. Some... fluid thing began to drip on the floor and churn the ground to rust.
Shiiiit. We had to end this fast.

"Izzy, conserve yours shots! I'll get you openings!" I yelled at her from the other side of the room as I charged in at it. A shield was already formed around myself for safety as my mace collided right with it on the sides. As expected a splash of fluids ejected itself from the side I hit it and started to rust the floor. Already some of Izzy's knives were becoming useless from the witches concoction and she soon realized it.
"I'll do more power strikes, just keep the witch on you!" Izzy started to channel her magic into one tomahawk, but as much as I wailed on it the witch eventually took notice and threw -something- at her.  Said thing got split and half as a white-hot streak of magic flew right through it and nailed the witch in the chest. Izzy froze after the shot having split a scanner in two; the pieces sticking into the wall right behind her.
The witch writhed in pain as the axe hit her, not to difficult for me to finish off. I scattered what parts fell off of it across the room and didn't stop until a second shot from her nailed it right in the EKG. The witch cried out, the world we were in wavered and I could see the dark of night.
And in the center of a cement path was the blackened soul of a former colleague.

"Nicely done my bitches! Not even my other top-girls noticed that one comin' in!" Izzy reveled in Eightballs compliments while I stood off to the side, keeping the grief seed to myself.
"Well, to be fair, Gina was calling all the shots in there. I don't think just because I'm much more experienced that I should be giving all the praise~." She was also back to her normal self; it would be hard for some to think of her as a cold-hard killer only an hour ago. But I've known her for a long time, and hell, this is the eighth. We're known for that.
"Right, my rising star! Why don't ya hand over the loot over 'ere? It ain't gonna do much shit just bein' looked at ya know." With a light sigh I just tossed the seed over to him with him catching it with his ear-extension-things. Whatever the hell they're called. He'd probably call me on it if I asked him the name for them.  "A fine piece of work here. Just gotta see who might've been knocked off from the list. Bitches gotta know their place right?"
"Yes sir." I reply with a grin, standing up from my chair. "We are the eighth, the assassins. We take our job seriously and with the utmost caution. But above all, we got the fucking job DONE, even if it means throwing common rationale beside and doing what needs to be done."
Izzy looks at me with a surprised expression while Eightball starts laughing. "Now that's my girl."
Yea, I think I really am starting to go crazy...