Her target got moving, and quickly too. It scampered hither and yon through trees both real and plastic. The overgrown mall was a good place to go hunting. They both knew the area well. Azusa repositioned for a better angle.
She fired off another few rounds, each missing by less and less. Her target broke visual contact and emerged from some underbrush not far from her.
Gods, this thing was fast. She unhanded her rifle and let it drop. The sling would catch it and she needed both hands free to gain some distance quick. She turned and sprinted along the overlook wall, then on, up, and over it, leaping up to the next level of overlook.
She was turning around and aiming her rifle before she fully cleared the wall. Three more shots rang out, three more near misses, but at least there was some vertical distance now.
She rested against the overlook wall for a moment, then smirked, pulled the pin out of one of her concussion grenades, and backhanded it over the wall to the floor below.
Instead of an explosion, she heard a clunk. The top half of her grenade had been thrown back at her, the bottom half appeared to have been bitten off. She sighed and, almost absentmindedly, put the pin back in it. She drained the mag in a downward burst. It had been almost empty anyways, and she was a little annoyed.
She breathed through it while swapping magazines and cycling a round. It was a simple bet, but the stakes were high and she had her pride, professionally and otherwise.
It was fast. It was feral. It did unexpected and unusual things. Like challenging her to a wager. "It's simple", it had said with a smirk. "If I can disarm you, I get to kiss you."
She'd been too shocked to really consider it, had agreed without thinking, on the presumption that some kid wouldn't risk a bullet just for that. So her first few shots had been just to startle and scare.
No kid she was almost double the age of would be able to disarm her, she was fairly confident of that, but as it kept coming she got more irked, started shooting for real.
An hour later they were entangled deep within a deadly game of hide and seek. They were equally matched on uneven footing. It couldn't safely get close, she couldn't manage to put it down. One of them would have to get sneaky, mean, or lucky.
Azusa smirked. She was used to making her own luck by being sneaky and mean. She stood still, made herself an easy target, lowered her rifle. It came for her, and right on the cusp of physical proximity she flared her wings and glared her halo. It skidded to a stop, stunned and momentarily blinded.
She raised and aimed her rifle at its head, drawing the irons across its face. She hesitated as she took in the details up close. It was rapidly blinking its eyes, trying to regain sight. Cyan and Orange, she thought, and it was kind of cute, all helpless and aflutter.
Suddenly, it was on her. She growled in frustration as it shouldered her rifle out of the way and slid close, and then around.
They pulled her backup pieces at the same time. She was more experienced, better trained. She had it dead to rights before it could wrangle its purloined pistol into an accurate angle... but that wasn't the game.
She swore and lowered her hand instead of firing. It grinned ear to ear, holding her pistol like a prized trophy. "Be careful with that," she growled, and then added. "Let's just get this over with."
It smiled, stood on its tippy toes, and kissed her on the cheek.
What was left of the pyramidal glass rooftop shattered inward. Doors blew off their hinges, weakened walls collapsed, and a heartbeat later every single place or position an armed combatant could possibly enter from was disgorging gun-laden goons.
No one had been shot at yet but with this many guys with guns a firefight was inevitable. She glanced at the kid, then nodded at the nearest source of goonswell. "Think they're here for you, or me?" She asked with a wry grin as she readied her rifle.
It shrugged, adjusted its grip on her pistol, chambered a round, smiled at her, then turned and opened fire. Azusa smirked. She didn't care either. She tucked some of her backup magazines into its pockets, patted it on the head, then turned and began picking off targets.
It was disappointingly easy, but they only had so much ammo and they went through it fast. They were standing back to back again, it pulled an empty mag out, showed her and shrugged sheepishly, offered it up back to her.
She holstered her reclaimed pistol and Reacted. Angelsight had shown her a dark twist of fate. She changed it, grabbing the kid by its shoulders and pulling them both out of a torrent of gunfire's reach.
It was a moment that lasted forever. She looked down at it, into its eyes, as it stared back up at her. She had spent half her day trying to kill this thing, and here it was, gazing up at her with trust and adoration.
She sighed with disgust. "Close your eyes, and hang on." It stepped into her arms as her wings unfurled. She held it close. Closer than she had to. Squeezed it tight enough to hurt. Until it whimpered. Then she blasted the entire area to celestial smithereens with a crack of her halo.
The kid only got burned a little bit. Her wings protected them both well enough. And it wears the scars with such pride.
