bakerstreet | ( quote prompt )

[ Fights like this are easy enough that sometimes, it just starts to feel like a chore. Fill a guy with a few bullets, maybe a shot to the head – it's simple. Painless.

Well. For her.

It probably helps that she's picked up some handy, nasty guns along the way, and so what if a shot happens to melt a dude's face off once it's through his shield? If it ain't broke, don't fix it – and after Marcus introduced her to the finer ways of elemental mods, there was no going back.

Shotgun at the ready, Maya moves in, closing the distance between her and the hectic stragglers quickly and gracefully. She ducks down, slides into cover to narrowly avoid a grenade tossed right overhead, but fortunately for her and Faraday, it flies off into the distance. The accompanying explosion is almost negligible, and Maya doesn't so much as flinch. Leaning around her hiding place, she knocks off a round from her shotgun, the spray spreading wide and slamming into one bandit, knicking a second.

She drops behind a metal crate, glancing Faraday's way with a smirk. ]

So, it looks like I didn't shoot you.

[ By the time Maya joins him behind the crate, Faraday is reloading his gun. He likes his new toy, it seems, judging by the quick, pleased grin he flashes her. The explosion of the grenade does little to faze him, distant as it was, though it kicks up a bit of dirt and sends it in their direction. ]

Doesn’t seem so. [ A bright agreement, though he follows it up with, ] Yet.

[ He gives the revolver’s cylinder a quick spin, though this time when a shoddy grenade comes bouncing past and explodes, Faraday does instinctively guard his head. His shield guards him from the blast, small as it was, and he snorts out a little derisively as he reaches behind him to the digistruct device hooked into his belt.

Apparently, Faraday feels it’s his turn to chuck something explosive. Which he does. And the grenade splits into eight bouncing pieces, detonating after a second or two to wet splatter and gargled cries. ]

Gotta be making a dent by now, huh?

That should be most of them.

[ The number of voices seems to be dying out, the hail of bullets letting up, but...

The sound of smashing comes from the other side of their cover, like something heavy is being brought down on one of the tin houses. That's definitely not something she and Faraday are responsible for, so— ]

I'm gonna choke and stroke your lifeless body!

[ Oh. Okay.

First of all: disgusting. Second of all: why?

Maya's nose wrinkles, her lip curls, and she leans out again to get a look at their company.

A second of pause, and then, ]

Great.

[ The psycho running haphazardly through the town is huge, with a gigantic skull where a mask should be. He's wielding some sort of enormous pipe, and Maya makes a mental note that getting whacked with that thing would hurt like hell. ]

[ Honestly, that sounds about par for the course, as far as these psychos go, and Faraday peers around their cover to spot the newcomer. ]

Badass incomin'.

[ And if it sounds like Faraday is saying it with a grin, it's because he is. Finally, a bit of a challenge.

The bastard is quick – much quicker than his fellows – and the stragglers move to one side to clear a path as the badass charges through the crowd. ]

Drawin' fire.

[ Which is all the warning Faraday offers before he's darting out behind their stack of crates, firing off a few shots at the ugly son of a bitch to attract his attention. The badass grabs hold of an old, discarded car bumper and flings it in Faraday's direction. Faraday slides beneath it, letting it sail overhead, and he lets his momentum carry him into the cover of a tin shack. ]

Stand still! I just want to eat your eyes!

[ If Maya was going to pay Faraday any kind of compliment, she would probably admit that that was pretty smooth. She doesn't have much time to appreciate the maneuver, however, because the badass is following Faraday's trajectory to his next cover – though the way he quickly changes direction seems to momentarily disorient him.

Maya steps out of her own cover to get a good eyeful of the badass, and once again, light sparks off of her tattoos, running down the length of her arm as she summons up another phaselock. The psycho howls with rage, and she can see him trying to flail around against the field – it doesn't do him much good, but he's trying. ]

Faraday, now!

[ She calls it out just as she starts to empty her magazine into the sorry bastard. ]

[ Faraday reloads, listening to the lumbering, uneven steps of the badass drawing close. He’s hardly worried, though, considering he’s got Maya on his side – and failing that, he’s certain he can handle the big, malformed bastard on his own.

It’s a testament to how often they’ve worked together, he supposes, that when Maya calls out to announce their opening, Faraday doesn’t waste time to ask if she’s sure. He merely steps around, spots the target, and lifts up his gun. After a half-second, he focuses in, marking out the bastard’s weak points – in this case, it’s nothing more exotic than his head – and unloads his pistol into that skull mask, the gear cracking under the onslaught.

And with a final, thunderous shot, the mask gives way, and the bullet tears through the badass’s head with a splatter of blood and bone and grey matter, and the bastard goes limp in his little bubble. ]

[ The phaselock goes out, and the badass's body hits the ground with a loud thump. Maya finally lowers her shotgun – though she doesn't put it away – as she takes a few careful steps around her cover. She makes her way over to the psycho's body, scrutinizing it for a moment—

And then she lifts her rifle to put one more bullet into his head, just for good measure. The body jerks once, then goes still as the hissing of green acid eats away what's left of the thing's face under the mask. ]

So.

[ Almost conversationally, she looks up to Faraday. ]

Looting?

[ Faraday reloads his gun as his gaze darts around the little settlement. Any stragglers there might have been are darting out into the wilds, likely terrified that their biggest and baddest was taken down in a matter of seconds, and Faraday is content to let them escape. Disorganized and half-insane as most of those bastards are, Faraday can’t imagine them being much of a threat. ]

Looting.

[ And he repeats it back as a form of agreement, spinning his revolver and tucking it away into his digistruct device. He looks around again, thumbs hooked into his belt. ]

Can’t imagine we’ll find much worth takin’, though.

[ Maya banishes her gun back to her digistruct, resting a hand on her hip as she casts around the area. ]

Maybe just a little cash, but I wouldn't get my hopes up for much.

[ She nudges the badass with the toe of her boot one more time, but seeing as all he had to offer was that gnarly pipe, she's not too interested in checking over his body. ]

Where's that safe supposed to be?

Basement of one of these lovely abodes.

[ And he says it with a grand gesture, encompassing the shacks and the dilapidated prefabs. ]

Couldn’t tell you which, though. They all seem such viable options.

Helpful.

[ She considers the little buildings around them, thoughtful. ]

Divide and conquer, or do you want to pour through this together?

Together, I suppose.

[ He stretches his arms overhead, tilting his head from one side to the next to stretch out his neck. ]

Might still be someone hidin’ around here. Don’t wanna get taken by surprise all by my lonesome.

[ And more to the point, the little bastards that jump out of crates and boxes give him a small heart attack every time. If that happens, he’d rather share the experience. ]

[ She doesn’t quite grin, but it’s close. ]

It would suck for you to get shot after we cleared them out.

[ But she nods towards one of the shacks. ]

After you, cowboy.

[ He huffs out a breath, a hand resting against his sternum. He presses his lips together, his expression twisting a little so that he almost looks moved. ]

Why, Maya, I never knew you cared.

[ But that’s about as far as he takes the act before he’s stepping into the shack Maya directs him into. It’s unimpressive with little to recommend it, save for a sleeping bag and a cash box, which yields only a modest wad of cash once Faraday kicks it open. After that, they move through the rest of the cluster of shacks with more or less the same results – with the occasional modestly modified weapon for flavor – splitting the cash as they go.

Faraday, apparently, is a fair hand at it. In another life, he might have made for a decent bankteller.

And with anyone else, he might have been taking more than his fair share, slipping a bill or two into his own stack when he figured it wouldn’t be noticed. These days, his coffers are well-stuffed, and he doesn’t feel the need. And more than that, he thinks that if Maya caught him at it, he’d definitely get popped up into one of those extra-dimensional bubbles, which is not a ride he’d like to try.

It’s as he’s counting out another wad of cash, holding Maya’s share over to her. ]

Prefabs next, huh?

[ Maya is fine following Faraday’s lead, letting him poke through things, pick out what’s worth taking. She keeps an eye on him, but some of her suspicion has started to wane over the repeated jobs they’ve been on together. She trusts Faraday not to shoot her in the back, and she trusts him not to try cheating her out of whatever they come across – especially since she’s not fighting him on their sixty-forty split.

She reaches out to take the cash offered out, tucking it into her stash. ]

Might as well. I’ll be pissed if this guy was lying about his basement.

[ Because, come on, they could have found other shit to do that didn’t involve knocking off a handful of bandits. ]

I dunno.

[ And he says it chipperly, tucking his own wad of cash into his digistruct. ]

Maybe the real prize in the basement was the friendships we made along the way.

[ And with that perfectly flat tone: ]

What friendships?

[ As she starts to lead the way towards the prefabs; the sooner they get this over with, the better. ]

Oh, I dunno. [ Drawled out, as he follows lazily behind her. ] Like the iron bonds forged between you’n’me. That ain’t nothin’.

[ The prefabs are as much of a mess as their shabbier cousins outside, covered in dark, rust-colored splotches that’s probably bloodstains, stinking of sweat and booze and iron. More cash, more ammo to split between them, but the first building proves a bust.

The second building, apparently, was housed by some sort of budding artist, and Faraday pokes at some art installation consisting of still bloody bones and scraps of cloth. ]

Can’t say these folks lacked for imagination, I guess.

[ Maya considers the low-hanging fruit of a dry retort, but, you know what, she'll let Faraday have this one.

She tosses a distasteful look towards the collection of bones and arguably artistic arrangements of what used to be flesh – something passing for decoration? Maya will stick to bookshelves, thanks. ]

It's the same guys who say they're gonna make hammocks out of eyelids or whatever, so, yeah, I guess you could call that "imagination."

[ Or "psychosis." Six of one, half dozen of the other.

She knocks over some shockingly meticulous stacks of bones with her boot, letting them scatter across the floor as she peers around a corner. A second of scouring, and then— ]

Is that a door?

[ And she points down at a half-concealed latch in the floor by a back corner, messily and haphazardly covered by what (probably) is meant to be carpet. ]

[ The clatter of bones earns Maya a flat, unimpressed look, one that asks, “Was that really necessary?” But at her question, he looks in the direction she prompts, and sure enough, there looks to be a poorly hidden hatch. ]

Seems that way, don’t it?

[ And Faraday kneels beside it tugging at the carpet – except it seems to be stuck in place, soaked through with blood and viscera and probably a few other fluids Faraday hesitates to name. He grimaces for all of a second before pulling out a knife and cutting away at the material, revealing the hatch properly.

And because Faraday has never been a cautious man, he throws open the door with little warning, revealing a sort of inky blackness. That, at least, gives him pause, and rather than jump straight down, he frowns a little. ]

Don’t suppose you’ve got a light on you?

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