"Don't use that word. I hate that word." Ash said. In a time before marriage, Kobbers, godslaying, and a lot of other things, Ash didn't have a lot going for him, but he had Paul. Friends bound in rejection and dorkdom, and both overcompensating now that the Change had allowed them to jump about eighty steps in the self-improvement que. Where Ash wanted respect and admiration, Paul wanted accomplishment in the feminine sphere. Ie, he wanted to get laid, and a lot. Neither at the time realized that both had been cursed so that their greatest desires would cause them as much grief as possible.
The wedding crashing went poorly. Paul was mistaken for an assassin and beaten with clubs, while Ash attempted a rescue and ended up falling in a koi pond that was part of the wedding party and getting stuck there due to his over-heavy armor. The supposed assassin victim, Laura Maser, had called off her guards and given Paul a lecture, and when a rather pride-battered Paul had not exactly been polite in his response, she'd used mechanized gauntlets to literally toss him out on his ear. The language Paul had used afterwards had actually worried Ash a fair bit; no one liked being humiliated, but you could truly tell someone's character when they got angry. Christine, for example, stopped being nice and started being 100 percent honest, which was sometimes worse than the rampages some of his other teammates could, and did, go on when they lost their tempers. Himself included.
So of course, circumstances would constantly throw Paul and Laura together, again and again, always with Laura with the advantage. Ash sometimes wondered, just as he was unsure how he had survived so many terrible things where others had not, how Paul had never crossed over a line that there would be no going back from. Ash suspected it mostly had to do with Yumi, and maybe Debera too. Paul had been a rock after her death and Ash's overwhelming, crushing guilt. Maybe seeing how much it hurt to lose someone you respected made the whole idea of chasing after the poisonous kind of respect getting 'revenge' on Laura would bring unpalatable. Between that, how Yumi (or rather, Treasure) had probably also 'helped', in the end Paul preferred to be successful at things rather than shoot himself in the foot working at cross-purposes.
Love was a funny thing. In sweet talk Ash would have told his wife that he loved her from the moment he saw her, but in truth it had taken his feelings a long time and several wringers before they actually became unselfish enough to count as love. Having to work with a female whose pants he desperately didn't want to get into, as it turned out, was a lot better in teaching you how to get women to like you. Especially when said woman was always dealing with the nonsense of people who wanted to take advantage of her birthright for their own sakes. Amazing what some honesty and some swallowed pride could do. Amusingly, there hadn't been any obvious sexual tension; in the lead up to the Twilight Wars Ash had just noticed the two together outside of battle plans and hadn't figured it out until Laura had given him a brief kiss in their presence. Erdrick had gotten material out of his flabbergasted state for weeks.
Curses were meant to cause the most bitter of ironies. Ash's had probably been to drive him towards malevolence, Christine's to make her part with the heart that made her so prized for so many. Paul's was to ensure that the talents granted him would never be tapped and refined, that he would destroy himself and realize how badly he had failed at the end. But...he hadn't.
Ash had loved the idea of the knight in shining armor, the hero on horseback saving the land from evil. Paul had preferred the cool professional, the best in a dangerous field whose name became synonymous with accomplishment and danger.
In the end...it was almost surprisingly easy to get that. All you had to do was survive great danger.
This world was full of danger.
The world was not enough.
----
"...Mr. Rapanga, what are you DOIN-?"
"Shhhhh." Laura said, as the camera view showed Paul stepping out of cover without being noticed and walking to a cluster of men and women on the outskirts of the bazaar. "He's hiding in plain sight."
Joffre's expression soured, though that was a personal belief that such a risk wasn't worth it. Then again, Paul had very limited time and was not an expert in stealth-sneaking like Brigh. Maybe pretending to just be another thug who was window-shopping would work best.
"It is very unlikely they could hear our radio." Joffre said, though he kept his voice very low despite what he'd said.
"I always prefer no chance to a low chance, and no chance means no talking." Laura said, typing at the computer in front of her. Joffre briefly held his gaze on her; that was a control and guiding panel. It wouldn't do anything for the Accuser, so what was she doing...
No time to puzzle it out. The people in Paul's vision were looming close...
---
And they'd noticed Paul.
"Hey. Got a light?" Paul said, producing a herb cigarette. The key, he figured, wouldn't be people recognizing his face, but his clothing, in that his outfit was considerably fancier than what the average criminal should be wearing. Between his ragged cloak and the dust he'd covered himself with, he could only hope it'd be enough.
Most of the criminals ignored Paul, though one opened up a lighter with a grunt and lit Paul's cigarette. Another was giving him a cold look; Paul figured it was best to play ignorant.
"Thanks." Paul said, taking a puff and walking on. He severely doubted he could just pick up the Pea Soup containers and walk out, but if he could actually GET to them without a fight, it would be a start. He even had something resembling an exit plan, based on something he'd spotted when he was walking around doing general assessmen-
"Hey! Hey you!"
Paul stopped. Yeah, it figured.
"Yeah?" Paul said, turning and looking in the direction of the yell. It was from the people he'd just left; one apparently had gotten a whiff of her (actual, real) cigarette, or 'joint' as the old term had been.
"You got any more of that shit?"
"...Think so." Paul said, walking back over. Calm. Be calm. Forget being in enemy territory. Forget the tight time limit. Panic made you sloppy, and even if you kept it under control, he wasn't like Valse, or that nutcase Ash insisted on keeping on their team as their nuclear option. He couldn't just plow through masses of enemy forces on a whim and come out smelling like a rose. Act like you belonged, and things just worked out better. Heck, he'd gotten so good at acting like he'd belonged that Laura fell in love with him. Surely compared to that this would be simple.
"I don't have any more papers though, I guess I could just give you what I have left and you could find some yourself if you don't..." Paul said, reaching under his coat.
Then he saw lots of dancing colors without the aid of any drugs, as one of the cluster slipped behind him and slammed him in the back of the head with his shotgun. Paul tumbled to the ground, even as he heard Laura utter a low curse in his ear. He didn't hear Joffre, but he pictured the older man face-palming. Look what the 44 member did in his brilliant attempted trick.
Guns were drawn, cocked and aimed at him. Still dazed on the ground, Paul slowly withdrew the small baggie he had actually been reaching for.
"It wasn't a damn gun, assholes..." Paul said, trying to play the put upon victim.
"Not the problem. Rapanga."
The woman who'd stepped around some of the others wasn't someone Paul recognized, save for one thing; she hadn't been with the original group. But she'd been close enough to make him, and smart enough to get him to walk into an ambush instead of just sounding the general alarm. Fuck.
"I don't..."
"Would you at least respect my intelligence, Rapanga?" The woman said, and Paul found himself being stood up, his guns stripped from him, even as the woman thrust her hand into his coat, withdrawing the metallic pendant cast in the shape of a flickering tongue of fire. "Your 44 medallion lit up our sensors like you were holding a sign."
"...These things are cloaked."
"Not well enough any more, I'm afraid." The woman said, smiling, a look that spoke of broken knees and knives through necks.The wonders of ever advancing technology and spellcraft. Lucky him.
"We going to shoot him?" One of the men said.
"I don't know, I'm tore between blowing his brains out or ransoming him back to Oriam for even more toys."
"We could do both." Another woman said, aiming at Paul's knee.
"Technically, that's not where my brain is." Paul said,
"Yes, we have to aim higher." The woman said, drawing her own firearm and doing so. Eeek.
"Also technically, those dots all of you have sprouted might disagree with you."
A half second of staring from the woman, and then a check.
No dots on them. No snipers here. Paul was alone...and he'd needed to break their focus.
In the moment they'd given him, he whirled around behind the man with the shotgun, grabbing him and his weapon. Paul couldn't actually access the trigger, but he didn't need to: the symbol on the inside of his gloved hand lit up as he yanked the weapon up and the gun fired. Misfire on command. Sometimes a useful trick. The woman who had I.D'd him never had a chance to realize how things had turned around before her face was turned inside out.
Alas, only one shot in the gun, as he'd had no choice but to fire both barrels. Fortunately, his puppet also had a handgun at his side. And UNfortunately, for him, his peers didn't bother with any attempt of hostage rescue and immediately shot him repeatedly trying to get to Paul.
Don't panic...that just makes you shoot, you need to AIM-
Four swift gunshots. Two to center of mass, one neckshot, one headshot. Enough in all four cases...except Paul knew without even looking that now the entire bazaar was either looking at him, freaking out, or otherwise noticing that several people were now suddenly dead. By his hand. Which had one gun with a partially expended clip. Even IF some just thought it was a disagreement, he knew others would assume the worst immediately and try and ventilate him. And the corpse he was now holding would not hold up to a barrage like that.
Paul dropped his human shield and dove behind some thankfully metal crates, bullets slamming into them less than two seconds before he was under cover. Paul rolled onto his rear, briefly looking at the blood all over his front. The bullets had been stopped between the corpse and his armor, but so much blood...
Blood...death...
---
"Look at us." Ash mused. "The great heroes of the Twilight War, the Godslayer and the God of Guns...trying to not puke our guts out because some people just wouldn't get a clue."
"You fool." Paul said, in that unique way he did, making it a silly little jibe instead of an actual insult. "That's what you get for eating such a big breakfast."
"Says the one with the greenish tint."
"I'm just commiserating with you." Paul said, looking at the dead men who had forced their hand. Just a brief, normal journey, interrupted by brigands, whom Ash and him had swiftly stomped into the ground. That hadn't been enough, as it turned out: they'd played defeated until the pair of them had dragged them into the nearest town to get them properly arrested, at which point said brigands broke free and tried to burn the whole place down as a distraction. Buildings were bad enough, but when they went after the fleeing people with said fire attacks, the gloves came off. Ten seconds later, there was one less band of murderous scumfucks in the world.
And despite all that, Ash still felt queasy. He could tell Paul did too. Life was funny. Once upon a time, both would have thought the complete and utter destruction in such a short period of time of such men would be a point of pride, a showing of their talents and skill and how far they'd come, how strong and tough and powerful they were. Great warriors...except, as both had found out, in the words of another fictional character Paul was fond of, wars did not make one great.
You should always feel this way.
"Maybe so, Erdrick, but I could do with feeling it with less intensity." Ash said. "How do you feel, Paul?"
"I'm all right..." Paul said. "I'm...learning how to handle this."
"Maybe I should join your class."
"I dunno if it would help you, Ash...it's really just...well. To paraphrase him, I don't like to kill. But I take pride in doing it well."
"...I suppose in this world, that's the best way you could look at it." Ash said, looking at the drifting smoke in the air. "It's not the license that matters. It's the check your heart and soul cut every time."
"Better us then people who don't."
"...as better as such things can be."
----
Time to be that better.
They were trying to kill him. They were dead anyway, with the Accuser blast inbound. They would not extend him the same courtesy, even if Paul could somehow sit them down and give them lessons on the benefit of it. It was time for Paul Rapanga to go in the box. It was time for the gunslinger, the super-soldier, the one man army, the 44 member. The great warrior, because sometimes war came for you whether you wanted it or not.
"You have less than five minutes, Mr. Rapanga." Joffre said in his ear.
"Yes, thank you for that! If you're going to tell me the odds next, FORGET IT!" Paul yelled, cringing down as firepower was poured into his position. This was no good. Even if the boxes held up, it would be a very short time before the killers and criminals rubbed their two brain cells together and flanked him.
"How much ammo do you have?"
"NOT ENOUGH!" Paul yelled, though he did draw the clip. Eight bullets. Well, could be worse.
"Fortunately for you, sweetie, I can rectify one of those problems." Laura said.
"What?" Paul and Joffre said in near-sync. It was around then that Joffre, whose attention had been focused on Paul's issues, noticed the incoming signal that was showing on the radar scans of the bazaar. "Miss Maser, I did request you inform me of all your pre-preperations."
"So one slipped my mind. Sue me." Laura said.
"I take it that's not a missile."
"Yes and no." Laura said. "Paul, incoming."
"From where?"
"Uh..." Laura said, as she rapidly checked her last coordinates. "North and in your general downward directio-"
"OH SHIT!" Paul yelled, his voice echoing through the room. Laura pressed a button.
In the sky above the rocky mountain flat, the fired projectile appeared in the sky and descended for two seconds before it broke apart, as the bazaar-goers suddenly found themselves under attack and ran for it, pieces of metal raining down and crashing through the bazaar. There was a brief moment of quiet as the criminal forces regrouped and tried to figure out what had just happened. Missiles were supposed to explode, this one had just sort of...fallen apart and onto them, for minimal damage.
That wasn't the point of the missile. That was just a bonus. The paycheck was what was in it.
"Orbis non sufficit." Paul said.
"You've got four minutes, Paul." Laura said.
"I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them." Paul said, as he centered himself, even as the weapon that had fallen into his hands had the last pieces slot and arm into it. "I shall use my time."
"Flatline, online. Armed. Licensed."
"Sorry, gentlemen. But I'm afraid you've had your six."
