Zeig Hengner had always been getting into trouble. Trouble had followed him growing up. It Followed him into adult life. But now, he was causing it.Â
The black-haired hyur had joined Scythe awhile back, ready to help the massive Roe change it all by bringing the violence upon the system.
And now, with a gunblade in his hand, Zeig, and his five fellows, were going to raise the hells upon the alleys of Uldah.
Zeig grinned as he heard distant cries. This, this was what he wanted. It was addicting. Many people bitched about things but never tried to change them. Zeig and his fellows were actually doing something to bring about change. Words wouldn't change the world. Violence would. Just as it always had.
The hyur and his five fellows were carving their way up the seemingly deserted road, their steel weapons glinting as the rebels swung them as happily as they pleased.
What Zeig was not pleased with was the sudden appearance that occurred before him as a figure in a blue duster coat stepped out from a doorway and blocked their path.
The miqo'te's flesh was a deep tan and brown hair hung about a narrow face. The eyes were hidden behind reflective glasses, and a brown tail was twitching behind his muscled torso. Smoke from a lit cigarette burned in his lips, shrouding his face in smoke as a twin pair of double-barrel, flintlock pistols rested one in each hand.
Ki Grimsong studied Zeig and his entourage of revolutionaries with a smug look of disdain and he spoke slowly, making sure the idiots could understand him.
"I think we can skip the pleasantries." Ki commented flatly as a gust of wind tugged at his hair; smoke wafting out of his mouth as he spoke as if he was Ifrit itself. "You are all a bunch of brainless idealists; and I ain't here for any other reason but to put ya down on behalf of well payin' parties. So, that said, there are three ways this can end."
Zeig tightened his grip on his gunblade as he glared at Ki, who continued to speak.
"One: you pay me more than what I'm being paid to kill you and I leave you to your fun." Ki paused and, when Zeig didn't take the option, the Miqo'te shrugged.
"Option two is you try to pay me more than what I'm getting paid to kill you, but you fail to exceed that sum, and I still kill you. Or, option three, you shoot first, and I make that the last bad judgement call you ever get to make."
Ki blew a smoke ring and shifted the cigarette to the left side of his mouth.
"Gentlemen, what's it gonna be?"
Zeig rolled his eyes, raised his gunblade, and went to fire.
Ki saw the hyur and his fellows raising their firearms and sighed.
"Why is it always option three?"
Ki threw himself behind a stack of boxes to his left as the bullets from the rebels' weapons began slicing through the air. Several shots ricocheted off the street's surface as Ki pulled his tail around into his lap to keep it safe. The tanned miqo'te set his twin pistols onto the ground and reached into his coat with both hands.
Ki spat out his smoldering smoke as he produced two things from his coat.
The first was a mask made of leather and metal. The lower part of the mask was a metal breathing apparatus equipped with a filtration system that trapped toxins inside a small reservoir tank so the wearer could breath normally in harmful atmospheric conditions. The top part of the mask was a set of goggles sewn into a full leather face covering. Ki shook his head and his glasses flew off into the street. A bullet whizzed past and the glasses exploded as the projectile disintegrated them.
Ki growled and rolled his mismatched eyes, one gold, one black, as he slide the mask over his face.
"Those cost me one hundred gil ya tossers!"
Once the mask was snug on his face, Ki looked down through the mirror lenses of his gas mask as the canister in his left hand. It was a small, metal cylinder with a red stripe painted on it and something written in a language clearly not Eorzean. The miqo'te reached out and pulled a pin from the top of the cylinder and then released the primer handle.
Immediately a thick, noxious, green gas began spewing out the end.  Without a moment's hesitation, the mercenary lobbed the smoking cylinder over his shoulder at Zeig and his allies, who had stopped firing momentarily.Â
Zeig watched as the can landed in the street and bounced up towards them. The hyur growled and went for it as fast as he could, but managed to get a face full of the gas as it spun.
The moment the gas touched his face, the pain began. Zeig felt his lungs contracting and all the build up in his nose turned to a river of snot that drizzled down his face and lips. His eyes burned as if a thousand hot coals had been set upon them. Tears rolled from his eyes and he was trying to scream but his throat was swollen. All the hyur could do was wheeze as he staggered around blindly.
Zeig could hear the agonized screams of his fellow rebels and he was trying to find the edge of the cloud, but the gas was expanding; consuming more and more of the street.
There was a muzzle flash in the green fog, and a jet of blood sprayed Zeig on the face as a body slumped down in his path. Zeig could barely recognize the cadaver before him as one of his allies through his watery eyes and the hyur rebel turned and fired blindly into the cloud around him.
There was another scream. And then the sounds of a struggle. Gun shots. Crunching noises. Zeig heard someone's bone's snapping like twigs and a horrible scream.
Zeig was panicking. He couldn't see and his fellows were dying all around him. He began staggering as fast as he could.
Another scream. More gun shots.
Zeig burst from the fog cloud and gasped.
Fresh Air!
Zeig staggered several paces from the cloud, sobbing for breath.Â
One of his men screamed behind him and there was a horrible crunching noise. The scream went on and on before the report of a gun blast silenced it.
The hyur could hardly see a thing, his eyes stung so badly and tears would not stop welling up in his burning eyes.
He had to cant his head to one side to get any visibility. The wall of green fog before him shifted and rolled. Shapes and shadows moved but nothing solid to see.Â
Then there there was a flash of blue at the cloud's edge.Â
Zeig spat in pain and aimed as best he could as he fired his last two rounds. Both bullets went wide. A moment later, Ki Grimsong burst from the cloud bank like a nightmare straight from hell.Â
The miqo'te's hands were empty of any weapon but blood was dripping from the left appendage like rain from a tempest, and it was clearly not his own.
Zeig tried to swing his weapon at his charging foe, but the burning gas had constricted and cramped his muscles and the attack went wide. The unaffected mercenary ducked under the clumsy blow with ease before slamming into Zeig with enough force to send both males tumbling to the ground. They rolled and scuffled as Zeig dropped his gunblade and began biting and kicking like a mad man.
Ki stopped the roll by pinning Zeig beneath him. Ki's left hand was wrapped around Zeig's throat and the hyur felt as if an anaconda had found its way to his wind pipe. Zeig flailed wildly, punching and clawing at the arm and the horrible, masked face with the reflective lenses. Zeig's eyes were starting to clear, and he could just make out his own swollen, purple face reflected in those horrible mirror lenses hovering over him, when the hidden blade from Ki's wrist shot out and into the hyur's throat, severing the artery and spinal column nerve endings.
Zeig shook uncontrollably as blood began filling his throat. He gargled and foamed and the last thing the hyur ever saw was his own dying face reflected back at him in those merciless lenses.
Ki watched Zeig breath his last, though it came out as a bloody gargle. The miqo'te grunted, his breaths sounding like the respirations of a blasphemous abomination through the gas mask.
The mercenary slowly rose to his feet as he slid his wrist blade free from the dead man's throat. Ki pulled out a rag with his right hand and began to clean the blade as he looked back.
The gas cloud was dissipating and the remains of the other five rebels could be seen now, all lying in various poses of death, their blood polling around them as they lay still.
Ki flexed his blood drenched left hand and the glove that covered it cracked as the leather stretched.
"You know...." Ki said through his respirator piece as he admired his handy work. "I -really- need to be charging more for this."
The black-haired hyur had joined Scythe awhile back, ready to help the massive Roe change it all by bringing the violence upon the system.
And now, with a gunblade in his hand, Zeig, and his five fellows, were going to raise the hells upon the alleys of Uldah.
Zeig grinned as he heard distant cries. This, this was what he wanted. It was addicting. Many people bitched about things but never tried to change them. Zeig and his fellows were actually doing something to bring about change. Words wouldn't change the world. Violence would. Just as it always had.
The hyur and his five fellows were carving their way up the seemingly deserted road, their steel weapons glinting as the rebels swung them as happily as they pleased.
What Zeig was not pleased with was the sudden appearance that occurred before him as a figure in a blue duster coat stepped out from a doorway and blocked their path.
The miqo'te's flesh was a deep tan and brown hair hung about a narrow face. The eyes were hidden behind reflective glasses, and a brown tail was twitching behind his muscled torso. Smoke from a lit cigarette burned in his lips, shrouding his face in smoke as a twin pair of double-barrel, flintlock pistols rested one in each hand.
Ki Grimsong studied Zeig and his entourage of revolutionaries with a smug look of disdain and he spoke slowly, making sure the idiots could understand him.
"I think we can skip the pleasantries." Ki commented flatly as a gust of wind tugged at his hair; smoke wafting out of his mouth as he spoke as if he was Ifrit itself. "You are all a bunch of brainless idealists; and I ain't here for any other reason but to put ya down on behalf of well payin' parties. So, that said, there are three ways this can end."
Zeig tightened his grip on his gunblade as he glared at Ki, who continued to speak.
"One: you pay me more than what I'm being paid to kill you and I leave you to your fun." Ki paused and, when Zeig didn't take the option, the Miqo'te shrugged.
"Option two is you try to pay me more than what I'm getting paid to kill you, but you fail to exceed that sum, and I still kill you. Or, option three, you shoot first, and I make that the last bad judgement call you ever get to make."
Ki blew a smoke ring and shifted the cigarette to the left side of his mouth.
"Gentlemen, what's it gonna be?"
Zeig rolled his eyes, raised his gunblade, and went to fire.
Ki saw the hyur and his fellows raising their firearms and sighed.
"Why is it always option three?"
Ki threw himself behind a stack of boxes to his left as the bullets from the rebels' weapons began slicing through the air. Several shots ricocheted off the street's surface as Ki pulled his tail around into his lap to keep it safe. The tanned miqo'te set his twin pistols onto the ground and reached into his coat with both hands.
Ki spat out his smoldering smoke as he produced two things from his coat.
The first was a mask made of leather and metal. The lower part of the mask was a metal breathing apparatus equipped with a filtration system that trapped toxins inside a small reservoir tank so the wearer could breath normally in harmful atmospheric conditions. The top part of the mask was a set of goggles sewn into a full leather face covering. Ki shook his head and his glasses flew off into the street. A bullet whizzed past and the glasses exploded as the projectile disintegrated them.
Ki growled and rolled his mismatched eyes, one gold, one black, as he slide the mask over his face.
"Those cost me one hundred gil ya tossers!"
Once the mask was snug on his face, Ki looked down through the mirror lenses of his gas mask as the canister in his left hand. It was a small, metal cylinder with a red stripe painted on it and something written in a language clearly not Eorzean. The miqo'te reached out and pulled a pin from the top of the cylinder and then released the primer handle.
Immediately a thick, noxious, green gas began spewing out the end.  Without a moment's hesitation, the mercenary lobbed the smoking cylinder over his shoulder at Zeig and his allies, who had stopped firing momentarily.Â
Zeig watched as the can landed in the street and bounced up towards them. The hyur growled and went for it as fast as he could, but managed to get a face full of the gas as it spun.
The moment the gas touched his face, the pain began. Zeig felt his lungs contracting and all the build up in his nose turned to a river of snot that drizzled down his face and lips. His eyes burned as if a thousand hot coals had been set upon them. Tears rolled from his eyes and he was trying to scream but his throat was swollen. All the hyur could do was wheeze as he staggered around blindly.
Zeig could hear the agonized screams of his fellow rebels and he was trying to find the edge of the cloud, but the gas was expanding; consuming more and more of the street.
There was a muzzle flash in the green fog, and a jet of blood sprayed Zeig on the face as a body slumped down in his path. Zeig could barely recognize the cadaver before him as one of his allies through his watery eyes and the hyur rebel turned and fired blindly into the cloud around him.
There was another scream. And then the sounds of a struggle. Gun shots. Crunching noises. Zeig heard someone's bone's snapping like twigs and a horrible scream.
Zeig was panicking. He couldn't see and his fellows were dying all around him. He began staggering as fast as he could.
Another scream. More gun shots.
Zeig burst from the fog cloud and gasped.
Fresh Air!
Zeig staggered several paces from the cloud, sobbing for breath.Â
One of his men screamed behind him and there was a horrible crunching noise. The scream went on and on before the report of a gun blast silenced it.
The hyur could hardly see a thing, his eyes stung so badly and tears would not stop welling up in his burning eyes.
He had to cant his head to one side to get any visibility. The wall of green fog before him shifted and rolled. Shapes and shadows moved but nothing solid to see.Â
Then there there was a flash of blue at the cloud's edge.Â
Zeig spat in pain and aimed as best he could as he fired his last two rounds. Both bullets went wide. A moment later, Ki Grimsong burst from the cloud bank like a nightmare straight from hell.Â
The miqo'te's hands were empty of any weapon but blood was dripping from the left appendage like rain from a tempest, and it was clearly not his own.
Zeig tried to swing his weapon at his charging foe, but the burning gas had constricted and cramped his muscles and the attack went wide. The unaffected mercenary ducked under the clumsy blow with ease before slamming into Zeig with enough force to send both males tumbling to the ground. They rolled and scuffled as Zeig dropped his gunblade and began biting and kicking like a mad man.
Ki stopped the roll by pinning Zeig beneath him. Ki's left hand was wrapped around Zeig's throat and the hyur felt as if an anaconda had found its way to his wind pipe. Zeig flailed wildly, punching and clawing at the arm and the horrible, masked face with the reflective lenses. Zeig's eyes were starting to clear, and he could just make out his own swollen, purple face reflected in those horrible mirror lenses hovering over him, when the hidden blade from Ki's wrist shot out and into the hyur's throat, severing the artery and spinal column nerve endings.
Zeig shook uncontrollably as blood began filling his throat. He gargled and foamed and the last thing the hyur ever saw was his own dying face reflected back at him in those merciless lenses.
Ki watched Zeig breath his last, though it came out as a bloody gargle. The miqo'te grunted, his breaths sounding like the respirations of a blasphemous abomination through the gas mask.
The mercenary slowly rose to his feet as he slid his wrist blade free from the dead man's throat. Ki pulled out a rag with his right hand and began to clean the blade as he looked back.
The gas cloud was dissipating and the remains of the other five rebels could be seen now, all lying in various poses of death, their blood polling around them as they lay still.
Ki flexed his blood drenched left hand and the glove that covered it cracked as the leather stretched.
"You know...." Ki said through his respirator piece as he admired his handy work. "I -really- need to be charging more for this."
