Same Old, Same Old

Mission 1
Soul Man - Blues Brothers
Nikki~

I give the cabbie a friendly nod and hand over his money, and then nearly stumble as I bend my tall-ish frame out of the car. I really, really, need to learn to sleep more before heading out on a mission. The cabbie is gone quickly, and I can't blame him, this isn't exactly the scenic part of Miami, and "tourists" like me aren't supposed to see the sunny city's dirty side. The street is empty except for me, just standing there on the side walk, and I resist the urge to laugh as I realize I must be heading this section off on my own. We have got to find a more members for the organization; I'm getting sick of traveling across the country every other day. The pay off, however, is more than worth it.

I take a deep breath, casting my normal gaze around the street, but spot nothing out of the usual.

"Gonna make this difficult for me, huh? Well, Nikki is sleepy, so let's just get this over with..."

I take one more deep breath, then close my "good" eye, the left, and open my "bad" eye, the right. The once gray, empty street instantly explodes into all the colors of the rainbow as I stare around at all the residual aura trails swishing this way and that. I instinctively hunt for the angry mix of dark purple, bloody red, and seething black that tells the tale of a pride demon's presence.    I spot the edge of one trail at the end of the street, and I jog towards it, taking care not to trip over anything in my bleary, sleepless state.

"Heh, got you now!" I snarl under my breath.

The trail gets fresher as I move along it, and I put my hands nonchalantly behind my back so that I can pull Vivere and Mori out of the remnants of limbo quickly.

The trail breaks apart and stops by a shabby apartment building, and I cast my eyes up to the windows warily. Not even a curtain twitches, but a breeze blows lightly down the side street.

"Alright kiddies, come out come out wherever you are!" I call in a sing song voice, but of course nothing answers.

I keep casting my eyes around the street slowly, until one of the stupid creatures makes the mistake of shambling into sight, 3 other demons in tow. I sneer at them before summoning Vivere and Mori and running pell-mell at them before they dully realize what's about to happen.

The first demon has no time to even try to block me, as I bring Vivere and Mori both down, cutting through its skull and mid-rift before it crumples and disintegrates. The other two demons get the picture after I hack through their buddy and ready their scythes, but I slash at their legs in a low to the ground spin which stumbles them. I stab Vivere through one chest and Mori through the other, pinning them but not killing them. I grab one demon's scythe and swing it wide across both of their necks, sufficiently beheading them with their own weapons.

3 demons down, 10 more to go. I pull Vivere and Mori out of the ground where they stuck after the demons fell to nothing, and prepare to head after the next 7 demons making third way towards me coming down the same street. Sadly, this time they won't be as easy, since they just saw me take down 3 of their comrades.

Ah well, they're still just pride demons, slow and shambling and easily beaten.

I hold Vivere and Mori out to my sides, crouch, and then launch into a fast run down the street. They have their scythes up and ready to block when I reach them, but I use my momentum from the running to twist into a fast spin that knocks the front 3's weapons nearly out of their hands, before I lunge forward into one demon's chest, shoving him back into his counterparts and stumbling them for a moment, before I whip Vivere and Mori up to knock the other front 2 demon's scythes completely out of their hands.

Sadly, I misjudged how hard I had pushed the front demon, because one of the demons in the back brings his scythe down within an inch if my arm, only missing me because I had just lunged to the side to put Mori through on demon's skull. The brush of the scythe knocks me to the side, and I fall into the demon I had just stabbed in the eye.  Mentally shake myself, annoyed at my in-attention to all the far-from-deadly demons, and I finish off the demon I had fallen into.

"Alright, damn it, I just want to get this over with already..." I grimace, and pull out Nefas and start shooting at the demons to slow them down as I grasp the sapphire blue amulet, Salvus, around my neck and whisper the activation words. Within seconds, after having taken down 1 more demon with Nefas alone, a comfortable cooling sensation spreads from where Salvus hangs around my neck and envelopes my entire body in a gentle blue shield.

5 more demons to go, and then I can go take a nap in a hotel again. I use this to force the last of my laziness out and lunge forward, Vivere and Mori once more ready at my sides. I whirl and slash as fast as I can, knowing I had only 20 seconds before Salvus's effects wore off and I had to be careful again.

"One, two, three, four, they allll fall doowwnn!" I sing to myself as I cut down one demon after another.  I feel Miami's warm air wash over me again as Salvus's effects wear off, and I'm left staring at the last demon, who groans and stares at me, his scythe held unsteadily in it's brittle, bony gray hands as it shambles towards me. I'm garishly reminded of a zombie from the Walking Dead before I lunge forward, yank its scythe out of its hands, and sever its head from its wasted body.

The demon falls into a pile of dust and ash that is quickly blown away with the slight breeze blowing down from the West.

"Heh, let's make it worth my time next encounter, huh?" I snort and toss the scythe to the ground, where it to crumbles into nothing and vanishes with the wind.

I carefully place Vivere and Mori into their place in limbo, and stuff Nefas back into its holster on the inside of my jacket before pressing my hand to my mother's amulet.

"Gets better every time, right mom?" I roll my eyes at myself for good measure, and then start walking down the street. There's no cab in sight, but that's okay, I can just call up Sophia and tell her to come and get me. I pull my cell out of my pocket and dial her number, shifting my weight to one leg.

"Head of the orange eating department, how may I help you?"

"Sophia.....what the hell does that even....you know what, it doesn't matter. Can you come get me please? I don't feel like walking back in to the city to find a cab or a us. And I'm tired. So."

"Aye aye, cap-i-tan, be there in a few." Click.

Heh, same old same old I guess.