[b]Scene Title: Scorched Past

Characters: Gregory Zivaku, Rose Remercyan, and a few "Influenced" (mooks) from the Condemnedverse of Metro City.

Context (Situation): After a strange trip to Atlantica, Greg has a rather violent run in with a familiar Interference before helping her to calm down. This takes place after "Wish I Had An Angel" for Greg and after a later temporary imprisonment in East City for Rose, as well as after six months in this universe for the latter.[/b]

[i]Burnback Alley, Metro City[/i]

Decrepit. Bloodstained. Not a lot going for this place. The addicts of various sorts were not here at present, or at least not here and alive.

A pile of corpses in the center of a light on this area with its broken in wooden roof, its cement walls and floor.

Gregory Zivaku was tense. He held a metal bar that had once been a handrail in his left hand, and had been stalking his target for some time, just trying to follow anyone. He had his clothing, but not his Etherspace pouch, and not his weapons. Crouched behind this concrete pillar, he saw the corpses, watched as the denim-jacket wearing vagrant with his two-by-four with nails ran into a dark corner to look for something, jumping over the corpse of a trespasser with a bulky brown coat and backpack on the way.

Silence for several seconds. He had to wait, to see if he could get by, avoid the police if possible unless they would be peaceful.

This was not a good day.

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Darkness. A comfortable place.

She lurked within the shadows, waiting for someone that might threaten her, because they were out there. They were just waiting for her. They had been for so long. Must stay alive, nothing else mattered but living.

There. One of those denim-wearers. Perfect opportunity.

The crowbar was raised and brought down with frightening speed and impunity, embedding itself into the skull of the Vagrant before being pulled out and then slashed across his throat. With a sickly gargling sound, he started falling towards her, but she shoved the new corpse away before climbing a nearby banister, bringing her precious things with her. Soon, she was out of sight...but not before scoping out another one, a man. Armed, but he looked cleaner than the rest. Interesting. Follow? Best idea.

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Greg heard the death gargle, the sound of a body falling, of a grunt as someone pushed it away, of running. He had to follow.

The Keeper's Hand was quick about it as he heard more Influenced coming his way. Somersault through the next way across to the dark area, stand, sprint. Flatten back against a wall as a few with bolt-holding two-by-fours come, beating each other to death. No reason to fight them. Still, he held out the metal bar around the corner, trying to get something off of the reflection. Maybe he could find who had killed that man? Uncertain, but possible. So he spoke as the corpses finished being collected, feeling a pain in his head, a buzzing.

"Come out quietly and peacefully and this can end well. I won't hurt you if you don't hurt me. If you can hear me, respond."

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The buzzing. Oh, god, the buzzing. It reached out to her, told her to kill, to maim, to shed the blood of any threats. Then her little voice of reason spoke up.

She clung to the little possessions she had, whispering sweet nothings to one that couldn't respond. The buzzing almost drowned out everything else in her surroundings until she heard another voice. A male. Threat? Most likely.

No response came. More sweet nothings were very quietly whispered. But she was tense, lurking still within the shadows that gave her what amounted to comfort as she waited to see if the other came closer.

"Don't worry, the shadows are nice, they help us, they'll protect us and I'll protect you, it'll be OK, I promise...."

Greg could hear her. He could hear the mumbling, the words to someone he could not see. This was a woman, a voice he could remember... was it?

"Rose... Rose, is that you? This is Greg Zivaku. I just want to talk. Just come out unarmed, and we can talk." He waves the handrail out to his side, not moving out, but dropping the weapon. Against a wall, he could see a golden disc, like a smoke detector with a blinking light in the middle. He did not know what it was, but it didn't seen normal.

The woman just gasped as the man spoke again. She barely heard his name - Greg, was it? - before the clanging. It briefly overtook the buzzing, and she gasped at that, too. She put one thing down before her grip tightened on another, the crowbar. She remained in the shadows. They were nice, they were comfortable.

The buzzing came again. So loud. It told her to attack, but she waited. She couldn't blindly attack this one. Too predictable, he was too smart. Needed to surprise him....

He was more urgent, but did not move. "Rose, please. Please say something. I... dammit, what is this thing...?" He held his head, though the handrail was still out. "I'll drop my weapon, and you can come out. Please answer me."

Now.

She silently lunged forward, out of the shadows. Then, grabbing Greg's arm, she yanked him down to the ground with a banshee-like wail, looming over him, the crowbar raised high.

It was Rose, all right. But she was clearly in a dire state of affairs.

Her hair had lost whatever luster it had, and one of her contacts had come out, making one eye brown and the other red. She looked like she had not slept, or not slept well, in quite some time, bags under eyes set within a gaunt-looking face alight with murderous anger. Her clothes had bloodstains on them, and her t-shirt and jeans also had several small tears, showing the pale skin underneath. There seemed to be two rather fresh-looking scars on her, one on her right forearm going horizontally, and one just above her right ear, barely visible thanks to her hair.

Rose growled with an almost animalistic rage before yelling as she brought the crowbar down towards Greg's shoulder, with quite the windup so that she was easy to predict and stop.

The Keeper let out his breath as he hit the ground on his chest, rolling to look up at her. He did see the state, one somewhat better than Azumi's in at least some cases, but not enough to count. Still, he did know what he had to do.

Landing, he had noticed the buzzing getting worse, the pain worse, his vision blurring. He was closer to the disc, too. Maybe that was the cause?

First things first. Quickly as he could, the depowered angel raised the handrail, hearing the clang of metal against metal and doing his best not to grit his teeth at the shaking arm. Still, he had to defend himself, albeit non lethally.

The young man twisted, trying to trip her up with his feet, and jumped to them, heading for the disc, the emitter for whatever frequency this was making the pain. With that one step, he felt the agony multiply. He just hoped he could get to it before she came at him again.

Raising the handrail, he swung, hoping to take it out in one blow.

The Sonic Emitter broke upon impact, breaking into a few pieces as it clattered uselessly to the ground. Greg had just saved himself a little extra trouble from Rose. The entire time, though, the crazed Black Tear Warrior was still hunting him.

She was tripped up by Greg's footwork, but soon got her own footing back and lunged towards Greg right as he broke the Emitter, this time aiming for his back. No specific part of it, mind, as her swing was again wild, and she again preceded that swing with a banshee-like scream to let Greg know that she was on the warpath.

Greg was unprepared this time. He was aware, yes, but not prepared to turn on a dime. Speed was Isaac's forte. His was defense, and he was busy stopping... okay, the buzzing had stopped as the emitter broke, but the crowbar hit him in the back, causing him to fall on hands and knees, the handrail out of his hands now. He grunted as he did this, coughing a bit in pain, but spoke again.

"Rose... Rose, stop... I'm unarmed... stop...."

Rose just spun him around so that he was on his back and raised the crowbar, ready to strike a killing blow. But the buzzing was gone. She wasn't told to kill. A little voice crept up on her mind and said "He's a good guy." The crowbar shook in her hands as her eyes went from showing wild rage to showing what was really happening inside Rose's mind.

Fear.

She was scared. The world had turned her into a nervous wreck. She was not used to someone actually trying to help her, be nice to her. As such, she was actually unsure of what to do.

So she dropped the crowbar down to both of their sides.

"Greg...Greg...," she muttered, saying the name multiple times, trying to remember where she had heard the name before. It had been so long. New...something? She had faint memories of him helping her, and that was enough for her to feel something else: regret.

"Oh, my god, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to...I thought you were...," Rose rambled until, finally, part of her cracked. She threw herself onto him and actually kissed him on the lips, mainly out of relief. Quickly breaking it, she cupped his face in her hands.

"Oh, my god, I can't believe it, someone I know, I never thought someone I'd know would ever come here," Rose said, her arms, torso, almost her entire body shaking as she started to ramble out loud. "I've been fighting here ever since I almost crashed, trying to live, trying to survive, can't put my guard down, everyone's fighting, have to hide or have to fight, always moving, never stopping - "

He was, of course, shocked by being randomly kissed, but the feeling didn't go anywhere. Just a little weirded out. He wasn't exaggerating when he said he only had feelings for his girlfriend. He let her hold him, putting his own hands on her waist as he spoke to cut her off, whispering. "Rose... Rose, it's okay. I'm here to get you out of here. I can talk to the police if you stay calm and if we really need to. Just... listen, okay? I've dealt with something like this before. Just let me know if you need anything, and... and we can take it with us if it's not too big."

Rose instinctively cried out and flinched as Greg put his hands on her waist, not used to human contact like that, but very marginally relaxed upon hearing what he had to say. Of course, all that she registered was the fact that he could get her out of this hellhole. She just stayed there for a few seconds before somewhat erratically nodding her head.

"OK...OK, OK, OK...," Rose muttered as she put her hands to her forehead, repressing an urge to hit him again. She slowly reached over and grabbed her crowbar, but held it in a way so that she couldn't attack with it, and just looked towards Greg, her eyes pleading to him to move so that the two could get out of here, hopefully so her ship could get repaired.

"Gotta get ship repaired from near-crash, can't leave until that's done, gotta move, can't stay here...," Rose continued to ramble.

Greg nodded, standing as she got her things, rubbing his back. It wasn't hurt too badly, nothing he couldn't handle, so he also picked up his handrail again. She looked at Rose, taking a breath. "Lead the way. I'll keep an eye out. I'll be right behind you."

Rose didn't like the idea of Greg taking up the rear of their little group, part of her fearing that he'd attack her from behind, but she was probably not going to convince him to do otherwise. She resigned herself to this with a held-back scowl and began to walk shakily and steadily towards where she had been hiding from him, to the darkened corner, feeling around for...yes!

She pulled it out of the corner. In the rather dim light, one could see that it was a beat-up teddy bear, about a foot tall, with part of its left ear appearing to be chewed off. There were also two small holes, one in the left arm, one in the right leg with a little bit of stuffing showing, and the teddy bear was also missing its left button eye. It was also quite dirty-looking, like it had been in a dumpster or two. Still, Rose hugged the bear very close to her, petting it and even kissing it on the head.

"It's OK, Pooky, the nice man will help us, he'll get us out of here, don't worry, we're finally going home...," she muttered into its remaining full ear, petting its back as she just blankly stared off into the distance.