Chapter 26: Duel x Storm III

The dirty white jacket she’d brought with her was now dyed blacker than the night sky itself, some hints of red and purple here and there. All the fallen Phantoms she’d wasted, all the time she’d spent just to try and catch that… thing. She could not let it be in vain.

She had to hurry and end that mess fast. He shot at her five more times, three of which wound up hitting right home, but she refused to slow down any more. Seeing he could not keep her away with bullets anymore, he gave up on shooting and instead jumped down a few more floors, even further below. She followed him, though she remained one level higher, keeping him in sight. Though she’d fallen back a few feet, she could still feel the pesky stench of the barely visible smoke from the handgun’s barrel in her nostrils.

Just like her, he probably knew that area. The northwest corner of the Urban Center was one of the few places in that sector that still housed small businesses, and as such, it had noticeably lower buildings when compared to the rest of the UC, with even more unorthodox structures and narrower alleys than even most of the Social Neighborhood itself.

She could only assume he was trying to lose her by moving at ground level and hiding in the middle of that maze of a street whose lights brought into view the dirt in their soles every time they leapt from one building to another.

Fool. He underestimated how well she knew those streets. He would pay for that too.

The criminal abruptly jumped down, deeper into the shrinking alleys ahead of them, and she followed him from above. He was now at ground level, slowing down significantly as he kept running in a straight line. Probably getting tired again. His overall stamina was remarkably poor, she thought. Regardless, that would be her chance. She sped up and jumped further down, aiming to grab him.

They were nearing the far edge of the Center. Past that were the northern Hoods, and much likely, that was precisely where he was headed.

She dropped down to ground level as well, closing in as fast as she could, and each step she took now propelled her four, five, six meters at a time in a frantic sprint more akin to flight.

Just a little more. The girl stretched out her arm, aiming her claws at his scrawny back. Just a few steps more, and…

He instantly shot forward like a bullet, all but as fast as one of his own, and the gap between them widened enormously, now even longer than before as he effortlessly evaded her grasp without even looking behind and headed toward one of the many minuscule corner exits straight ahead, leading to yet even smaller, more squalid lanes.

The girl grit her teeth. He’d been trying to play her all along with that maneuver. It would take her too long to return to the roofs as there weren’t any proper vantage points she could use, forcing her to rely on walls to balance her jumps. And yet, she couldn’t keep chasing him from the alleys either, as they were far too cramped for her to read his movement and predict where he could go in advance, the moment he made a sudden turn like that one. He could easily be waiting on the other side to ambush her, on top of all that.

So, begrudgingly, she decided to go the slower route and climb up one of the tight walls, leaving large cracks in each surface her claws and soles messily dug into.

In less than thirty seconds, she was back on the spacious tops of those tiny edifices, anxiously turning to one side or another.

(He bluffed me like a freakin’ amateur. Where is he!?)

She looked down, surveying the area, but there was nothing. The dirty alleys were empty. Even if she jumped around looking, she was sure she wouldn’t be able to spot him again, no matter how fast she moved. He had vanished into the darkness of the night.

She looked around the progressively shrinking streets between the small buildings, if she could even call them that anymore. They were likened to insignificant crevices on an old, worn clay floor. An endless labyrinth made up of hundreds of different paths and strange burrows she couldn’t even properly visualize as she stood in the middle of it all.

That was it. Her eyes wouldn’t be able to spot him no matter how far she stared, how long she ran around in search.

He had tricked her real good. She smiled, eyes squinting as she surveyed the area again, despite having thought it to be useless.

“...”

Now, though, she’d caught on to something else. Her lips had stretched into a childish grin as she looked down.

Soon enough, the girl had found herself tittering. Slowly, faintly. At everything. And at nothing in particular.

Such was the nature of the flight and fight game in that city. One wrong move was all that it took to end it all. That was why, seeing someone just leisurely play around with the rules like that was amusing in its own way. She liked the feeling. It felt wrong, almost unnatural. Inhuman, to be precise.

She was amused, alright, because that game had been an interesting one. However, it wasn’t over yet. She kept on chuckling to herself, no louder than a whisper, as she walked slowly along the concrete roof, and quickly sprang into a sprinting jump towards the next concrete surface a few meters ahead.

No, it was not over. Far from it. She hadn’t lost him yet.

All due to a simple mistake. One that would cost him his escape. Indeed, one wrong move was all it took.

She sniffed the air around her as she moved. After a while, the faint scent of smoke returned to her, and she followed the trail the stench left behind with her nose as her sole guide. She understood the fact he had somehow erased his own scent.

However, her acute sense of smell was not to be underestimated. Even something as small and insignificant as the faint trail of smoke from his weapon’s barrel would be more than enough for her to track him down.

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Truly, what a fool. Such a massive oversight would bring about his doom.

She followed his tracks down the small alleyways.

Streetlights in that area were starting to become fewer and far between as she headed deeper and deeper into the maze of slums. She’d been sure she knew all of the city's sectors fairly well, but she truly hadn’t expected this place to be so hard to navigate through. On one hand. On the other, though, it could only be expected of such an unorganized and poorly managed area.

It would be the perfect hideout for anyone planning to overtake large powers such as her within Seagate, though they’d never been quite able to determine a possible hiding place for that criminal around there.

That guy was as much an ant to her as she was one to the board, wasn’t he? The main difference was, he’d had the element of surprise, and decided to waste it playing games. She would not make that mistake.

The darkness was starting to take over the path below. If he hid, she wouldn’t be able to see anything down there. She would have to rely solely on her other senses, then. The smoke track was becoming thicker, stronger as she advanced, indicating he should be somewhere nearby.

“…Here?”

She stopped at the edge of a building slightly taller than the others, and glanced down to the path below. There wasn’t much to see there, no lighting whatsoever in that particular corner, but she was sure the scent couldn’t become any stronger than that. The place was a dead end, with only one possible exit, though seemed decently enough hidden from all the streetlights that one would consider it a serviceable blind spot while avoiding pursuit.

She could also hear a faint, but defined rustling noise from between several obscured waste containers, piled up garbage bags and many broken pieces of what quite probably used to be abandoned furniture that unceremoniously presented themselves in the brightest areas, closest to the only exit. Most likely, he’d grown exhausted once again and hid in the middle of the shadows down there to take another breather.

The hooded girl was sure there would be some kind of trap over there he’d desperately set up to gain time, but didn’t mind it. Whatever it was, it didn’t change the fact that he was now too weak to fight back, having nearly run out of supplies.

In a swift motion, she plunged into the blackness, landing on the narrow alley’s feeble-looking cobblestone flooring to which her soles certainly didn’t do any favors to.

She then took a glance around that filthy mess and… nothing. Nobody jumped at her with a knife, nothing blew up in her face, not even a snide comment. Just weak rustles. And the smell was even stronger than when he’d first fired the handgun.

Now she was certain. He should be there.

“This little game of tag was fun while it lasted, but now it’s time to face the facts, boy!”

She cautiously walked around, looking for the source of the rustles as well as the smoke while turning on her disposable cell’s flashlight function for more visibility. It was an astounding battery waster, but she didn’t really mind. She’d have to get rid of it by the end of the night, anyway.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are…”

Pointing the light all around her, she turned a full angle, and yet still nothing. She checked the walls, the floor, the sole exit out of the corner. But the whole place seemed entirely devoid of anything living. He couldn’t have possibly managed to run off on her when she arrived, could he? She would’ve definitely sensed that kind of movement.

She gave a few more small steps around the place. More rustling. Hastily turning around, in search of its source, the girl pointed the light at a couple of rubbish-filled sacks, slowly approaching it as silently as possible.

Behind the large pile of waste, there were a few dozens of sizzling rats, running back and forth along the filth. They were hideous, larger in size than any rodent she had seen in a long time, fighting amongst each other for flimsy pieces of what she assumed to be rotten food leftovers scavenged from the site.

Some of them, the bigger ones in particular, had seemingly given up on finding scraps and instead resorted to attacking the other, smaller rodents around them, holding them and biting them as they helplessly squealed in pain. The sight felt somewhat familiar, though she didn’t bother much with it.

No matter. She was wasting time, he could’ve already escaped with her so easily distracted over there. Why should something as inconsequential as rodents bother her so much? She turned around and resumed her search, nosing the air around once again. The strong smell of garbage and spoiled food was unbearable, but along with it also returned the familiar scent of smoke, likewise intense as ever.

So he hadn’t moved. Surely anyone would’ve noticed her arrival from the clatter of her landing alone, not to mention the flashlight, so that meant he really was too weak to move, after all.

The girl gave up on trying to hear him, and instead relied on her nose, and her nose alone. The smoke came right from the middle of the wide alley end. She pointed her cell toward it and…

Her hand clenched into a tight fist, slightly cracking the device. There was nobody there. There was no one anywhere at all. She could only curse herself, of course. In the midst of that filthy back alley lay only a faintly smoking, rust-covered handgun, abandoned over the moss-covered stone footing about ten feet from where she had landed only a few seconds prior.

“Damn it…”

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