The Vermici family sucked at manufacturing M.

Dorian couldn't blame them too much; that stuff was complicated. He'd glanced over a paper about it written by a Harvard professor who'd experimented with the drug, for what everyone was assured were purely scientific purposes. It was an enlightening read; he'd had no idea how rad it would be to be able to melt stuff with his mind. Sadly, even with the plethora of graduate degrees Dr. Ballou had accrued, he didn't figure out very much that wasn't obvious to everyone already. Most scientific research papers about the X-Gene seemed to boil down to "here's some stuff I did, and I have no idea what in the hell was happening when I did it, but it was pretty sick."

You know what else is "pretty sick?"

People who come down with what the news media has taken to calling "super cancer." Sufferers of this disease very quickly acquire almost every known variety of cancer at the same time, and then each cancer manifests the X-Gene in a different way, usually resulting in swift and horrific death. For example, Dorian heard of a guy whose blood had turned into liquid nitrogen, while his bones turned into something rubberlike, several of his internal organs turned into some kind of crystal, his brain grew a number of thorny tentacles that burst from his skull, and his skin grew a number of tumors that each glowed brightly before exploding into massive fireballs, mercifully ending his life. To top it all off, Dorian heard the story from a tumor that sprouted somewhere on the man's naughty bits, gained self-awareness, and managed to split off into an entirely seperate creature with its own thoughts and emotions before his 'father' died.

The name this tumor chose for himself, unfortunately enough, was Richard. Richard lived in the Sanctuary now; the rest of society simply wasn't ready to accept a self-aware genital tumor into its ranks.

The leading (and thankfully, only) known cause of "super cancer" was the M drug. Or, at least, a particular strain of it that Dorian had managed to trace to an underground lab run by the Vermici family; and even then, it only had around a one-in-five chance of happening to one of their first-time customers, and an even smaller chance of happening to a seasoned user. Not that the media was making this distinction.

As you could imagine, this was terrible for anyone involved in the M business, and it would be even worse if it became a widespread and persistent problem. Which seemed horrifyingly likely at this rate; the one advantage to the Vermici's methods was that they could sell it for an even lower price than the Order's dealers. This wasn't the first time the Vermicis had tried to undercut the Order's business, but this time, they had really messed up. That underground lab needed to stop existing, and quickly.

This lab existed below a building the Vermicis had acquired near Gravesend Bay. Anyone not in the know would think that the building just belonged to a company that made and sold several kinds of airline snacks. This was technically still true, and a good cover for the Vermicis' M operation.

...

It was one o'clock in the morning, and not a single star could be seen in the sky over New York City.

A tall, slim man leaned against a wall in an alleyway, his face concealed by a dark gray hoodie. He heard a garage door open, and watched as a large truck made its way onto largely empty streets. That was the third such vehicle to leave the building tonight, likely taking a few armed thugs with it.

It was a good time to strike.

The hooded man ventured deeper into the alleyways. He pulled out a small prepaid phone and typed a text message. Start now. Keep them away from the back door.

>> Start now. Keep them away from the back door.

The text message shined on the miniature screen of his prepaid phone. Vicente eyed the words and knew exactly what they meant, it was time for him to play the part as the distraction. The assassin smirked a little at the thought since he had the perfect plan to draw out their prey. It would surely be enough to grab the attention of everyone in the building. Normally Vicente might have been a little offended at pretty much playing the part of the scapegoat but for this particular case, it should add up to some fun.

He mused silently to himself as he prepared for his part of this little plan. Vicente had been contacted by the same people that hired him to deface Sebastian’s name. Apparently they liked his results and still wanted him for a job or two. Hey, their money was as green as everyone else’s so why not?

Eyeing the building across the street. Airplane food, he always thought that stuff was disgusting. He definitely did not mind causing a bit of property damage to them. It was all a front of course for some kind of drug operation that was being masterminded beneath the building. Well, it was time to wake them up.

Vicente climbed into a rather non-descript, black van and revved the engine and casually drove around the corner until he was able to turn back around and point the front of the vehicle to face the building. A glance in the back seat and he saw the single drum of gas, its top open and filling the van with its thick scent. He then stepped out of the van and rigged it so that a heavy brick would hold down the gas and some sturdy lines would keep the wheel in line so that it was pointed forward. The resulting crash and burn wouldn’t be enough to catch the building on fire, but it would force all the men out to settle the blaze. After all, he doubted they would want the police or fire department to arrive and poke around.

Nah, they would handle the blaze on their own.

So, with that in mind, Vicente checked to make sure that he had his blades and guns handy before he reached into the car. Igniting a lighter, he tossed it onto the floor of the back of the van, lighting some of the gas that had already spilled. He winced at the roar of the engine, and the heat on his face as he grabbed the shift and finally just put the van into “Drive”. Quickly he removed his arm before it was pulled off.

With a screech, the van roared forward. It clattered across pavement, spilling more gas and lighting more of the van on fire. Within seconds it was a brilliant fireball that suddenly slammed into the front of the building hard enough to shake all the windows.

A smirk on his lips, Vicente adjusted his leather coat as he marched forward, melting into the shadows, and waiting for his playmates to open the door…

Boom.

That was the sound money made after being very well spent. It was followed by a flurry of profanity from within the building, some of which was surprisingly creative.

Dorian opened the lid of a dumpster, which contained a large number of things, only two of which were of any interest to the Orderling. One was an unconscious human being; a Vermici thug whose head earlier had the misfortune of finding itself in the way of an invisible golf club. The other was a backpack, which Dorian now took the opportunity to sling over his back before moving on to

Wait.

Some loud, creative profanity was coming from that direction, and it was getting closer. The mime froze. Thinking quickly, he lay down by the wall and used his backpack as a makeshift pillow, hoping any passing thug would assume he was just a homeless person who'd been sleeping there earlier. Said thugs ran by him moments later without a second glance.

They had bigger problems to worry about than idiots taking a nap in their alleyway.

Once they'd rounded the corner, Dorian stood up and continued his progress to the rear entrance of the building, backpack in tow.

Vicente grinned as he remained still, in the shadows, watching as the men began to pour out of the warehouse. The blaze that his van has caused seemed to be just enough to cause everyone to rush about haphazardly, grabbing water and anything else to stop the blaze before the fire department rolled in. These silly people and trying to keep their secrets from the rest of the world, it was just utter insanity for them to think that they could have remained in hiding.

But, ah well, such closed minds worked perfectly for the assassin. It made them predictable. That was why, hiding in the shadows, he knew that they were would nearly spill out all their ranks to get the fire to stop blazing. He glanced over that the front door, wide open, and smirked as he waited for the perfect opportunity.

A pair of men ran out of the alleyway nearby, screaming and cursing to themselves about this situation.

“What the hell is going on?”


“Who would do this?”

“Falcone?!”

“Nah, the Triads! They know!”

Vicente shook his head. He would have been all to happy to let the men keep guessing and rile themselves up to a point that they would wanted to slaughter one another. But there were more pressing matters at hand. He needed to keep them distracted in order to give that silent man time to run inside the building and pull off whatever it was he was supposed to do. Vicente didn’t ask. So long as he was given his money, he was fine with anything.

Stepping lightly out of the shadows, Vicente casually made his way over to the front door just in time to see one panicking man run out with a large bucket of water. The two nudged into one another, causing the water to slosh and spill its contents. This left a rather sizeable stain of glistening wetness on the ground. The man he had startled paused and let his eyes roam up Vicente’s massive form.

“Who the hell…?”

Vicente smirked as he suddenly wrapped his thick arms around the man’s throat and roughly pulled him inside the building, unseen. He growled as he flexed his muscle, keeping the man’s oxygen supply dipping until it was finally gone. The flailing weakened as the assassin carried him into the shadows of the interior of the building and, once he stopped, he dropped him roughly to the ground. One down...and many more to go.

He slipped back into hiding and smirked, waiting for the next one to dash inside the building…

Jordan was finally starting to feel like he was getting somewhere with all of this ‘spying’ he’d been attempting to do. It had become clear to him that just filming the grunts pushing the goods in the alleys and street corners just wasn’t going to cut it any longer. He needed to get some serious leads, and he needed the footage he got of those leads to not be an hour of under exposed, grainy garbage.

The best lead he’d found thus far was this warehouse. He knew enough of the regular dealers had been making trips in to this neighborhood, so he’d been waiting and watching for a sign of something sketchy.

That something sketchy was Pete.

He’d dealt with Pete on a few occasions. The M he’d gotten from him was usually pretty weak and not worth the price, and unlike many of the other dealers he’d encounter, Pete was one of the few who offered very little in the physically intimidating department. In fact, Jordan was pretty sure he could beat the piss out of him if push came to shove. As a result, poor Pete was someone Jordan didn't feel was as risky to follow. He’d been the one he’d managed to trace back to this neighborhood, and seeing the scrawny addict walk into this particular warehouse confirmed that too be the building. He was bound to find a few interesting shots in there.

He was quite dressed down compared to normal, loading up on the black clothing head to toe. His only possessions at the moment were his two cameras and two doses of M, in case things started to get a little… heated. He’d managed to track down a back entrance that Pete had slipped in himself. Popping in unnoticed was never something he’d expected to have any difficulty doing, though. It was going to be keeping it that was that was going to be the tricky part.

Boom!

“What the hell?” Jordan whispered to himself. Some kind of explosion had happened at the other end of the building, and the resulting chaos had caught him a bit off guard. So much so that he didn’t even hear the man who ran up behind him and slapped him on the back.

“Grab a bucket!” he shouted, not paying too much attention to who it was he was shouting at. Jordan forced a few steps in pursuit of the man sprinting down the hall before stopping and turning back the other way. He had no interest in being near an explosion.

He put as much distance between himself and the fire as quickly as he could while still trying to stay quiet. There was enough shouting in the distance that it was probably irrelevant, but he didn’t see it helping him to run the whole way. Unfortunately though, it was becoming clear that this hallway was going to loop itself back around to the front where the fire was likely still burning up. He spotted a door with a staircase picture on the outside and decided to take that; he was a fan of the higher ground anyways.

At the top of the stairs was an office of sorts, over looking the larger, open warehouse style room below. He could tell that the fire was happening on the other side of the wall, but fortunately it hadn’t penetrated the walls yet. He took out his camera and started grabbing a few shots of the building, hoping something might be useful later on down the line. It was mostly useless, but he didn’t want to make this trip a complete waste.

Much to his surprise, however, he could see Pete sprinting across the floor, awkwardly carrying a large bucket of water that certainly exceeded the weight that he could comfortably carry. As he rounded the corner to head out the side door, he was met with a very large man. There was a brief exchange between the two that Jordan couldn’t make out from behind the glass, but the sudden assault by the larger man implied it hadn’t been a pleasant one.

Jordan zoomed his camera in. Watching the event on a tiny little 3 inch screen somehow made the reality of the event he was watching seem less, real. Once the beast of a man dropped Pete’s limp, lifeless body to the ground though, the severity of the whole situation became pretty clear.

“Oh s**t, oh s**t…” he whispered, dropping to his knees beneath the window. What had he gotten himself in to?

The back door lead into an empty stairwell, which was entirely lined with concrete, and did an excellent job of making Dorian's footsteps echo through the entire thing no matter how hard he tried to be quiet. Thanks to his accomplice, this wasn't a problem. Everyone else in the building wasn't busy trying to stop the building from burning to the ground. The double doors across from the one he'd just entered would lead into a large, warehouse-style area. He didn't want to go there. According to his informant, the lab was somewhere on the second sub-level. Dorian raced down two flights of stairs, then burst through the door at the bottom.

This was a very stupid thing for him to have done. At the other side of this door was a very nervous, wiry man who very quickly decided to point his handgun at him.

"Who the hell are you?" he demanded.

Dorian stopped dead in his tracks. He took a step back and held his hands out in front of him. Most people would think his body language was saying 'look, I don't want any trouble.' Most people would be sorely mistaken.

"I said: who the hell are you? I won't ask you again." The pistol was now aimed at Dorian's face.

The Orderling took another step back, and he did something that the other man would find very strange. He fell into the sort of stance a fencer would take, seemingly pretending to flourish an imaginary foil at him. The gunman raised an eyebrow, shrugged, then pulled the trigger.

Another pigeon had run in and Vicente was quick to dispatch him. This was getting far too easy that it was almost like shooting fish in a barrel. His blade flew from his coat as he slashed one throat, or seized a man with his bare hands and felt the crack of bones. Soon he was going to have trouble hiding all these bodies. So far he had a nice little heap already hidden in a dark corner but he needed to keep quiet and give his associate as much time as he needed. He really didn’t know how long that was going to take but he hoped that it was soon.

He paused hauling another body over before suddenly hurling him off into the dark. It was just as that was happening that he heard footfalls. He barely turned around in time to see a very large silhouette suddenly lunge at him, a massive crowbar in his hands.

Vicente grinned as he quickly stepped back, feeling the whoosh of air as the crowbar tore through empty space. The man was caught off balance just enough for Vicente to take advantage of the man’s momentum. Snatching his arm, Vicente twisted it cruel as his prey lost balance and continued to stumble forward. A sickening crack and snap echoed in the air as Vicente successfully broke the man’s arm. With a firm kick, he sent the off center man sprawling through the ground, his crowbar skidding far away from him.

The assassin narrowed his eyes as he advanced on him. The man, in absolutely agony, growled as he moved onto his feet and slowly began to back away towards a staircase.

“W-Who are you? Who sent you!?”

Vicente shrugged as he pulled a pair of blades from his trench coat and gleamed in the light. “I’m just delivering a message.”

He swiped! But the man proved to be just quick enough to duck down and away from the blades. He scrambled as he hauled his half-broken body up the stairs that led to the overseer’s office. Vicente only grinned as he began to follow.

The steps seemed like they went on forever (at least for the injured man). He half hopped/half crawled his way to the very top before he suddenly collapsed into the office. But just as he did, he paused, in shock, as he stared at the man that was cowering underneath the window that looked out over the warehouse. He arched a brow. He was just about to open his mouth to quest the man’s presence here when…

CRUNCH!

A heavy boot crushed down onto the back of the man’s neck. A pool of crimson seeped out onto the floor and Vicente looked up to see the second man in the office. His lips twisted cruelly as he twirled his blade in hand. This job was turning out to be a lot of fun…

It took a moment for Jordan to snap out of his panic-induced daze, stopping his twitching and mumbling for a moment to collect himself. A few deep breaths later and he was peeking out the window again, trying to get a look at the beast of a man below him. Unfortunately that man was no longer in sight. Slightly unsettling news, at least until the sound of the door to the staircase opening up rattled just outside the room. That’s when it became downright terrifying news.

He grabbed at the two doses of M in his pockets, his last two. He was hoping he wouldn’t need to touch the stuff tonight, but now that this had probably become a matter of life or death he figured he’d probably have a better chance with a little bit of a power boost. As the sound of the surprising slow approaching thug got louder and louder, Jordan quickly took one of his two doses and leaned back against the wall as he waited for the drug to kick in.

It never kicked in fast enough.

The door to the room was closed, but he could see that someone was fiddling with the knob, and a quick glance around the room revealed that was the only door out of the room. He slowly inched his way along the windowed wall away from the sound until he found himself in the corner of the office.

The door came flying open as a different man collapsed through the entry, landing face first on the ground. The stranger shot him an extremely panicked and shocked look. Jordan returned what he could only assume was a nearly identical gaze. The man started to try to get back to his feet when the goon made his appearance at the doorway, stomping on the poor guy’s neck.

His heart rate was through the roof, which must have helped speed the M along. He could feel that familiar tingling sensation of the wonderful drug finally kicking in as he slid his back up along the wall, eyes locked on the armed man who now seemed twice as large as he had when he was down below. Then everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

Jordan lunged towards the desk that happened to be right beside him, grabbing hold of the corner for a second, praying the M had worked it’s way into his system enough. He made sure to leave the table between the two of them. After a moment of hiding with the other man closing in, Jordan pushed the desk across the floor with all his strength. Combined with the lack of friction it was currently experiencing, the desk went flying into the thug, knocking him back towards the windows.

Without a second thought or a glance to see what the man’s status was, Jordan sprinted as fast as he could towards the door, jumping over the limp body that lay in the entrance way.

The bullet crumpled and stopped several feet away from Dorian's face.

Normally, when you shoot a gun at somebody's face, the bullets don't do that. They hit people. In the face. The thug stared at the bullet for a confused moment, his mind racing to determine why it would misbehave in such a way.

Dorian sidestepped and lunged forward. Soon, there was a hole in the thug's neck, and the mime's rapier had become partially visible; one could get a vague idea of the blade's outline from the flecks of blood that now lined its surface. It had gone all the way through. He used the momentum from the thrust to get in close and knock the pistol to the ground. The gun's owner and the invisible blade soon followed.

Problem solved.

He took a look around. There were several long tables lined with glassware and labels he recognized. Stuff you would expect to see in an M lab. One thing bothered him, though: there was an incubator full of trays of agar dotted with colonies of bacteria in the corner of the room. Furthermore, he couldn't find any of the fancy equipment that, as Dorian's friend in Faust Pharms had explained to him, was necessary to make the specially engineered retroviruses that carry the X-Gene into the human body. Or something like that.

He opened the incubator and carefully placed a single, carefully-covered tray of the bacteria in his backpack. He'd been asked to bring back some of the Vermici's materials, just to see if there was anything useful to learn from the mob's monumental screw-up. Super-cancer or no, they had to be doing something special if they could charge even less for it than the Order did.

Then, he pulled from his backpack a small, gray brick with a smaller black module attached to it. He placed it in the incubator. There were a lot of those in his backpack.

They were expensive, but it was money well-spent.

Vicente sneered at the man who looked like he was in a panic at the corner of the room. He looked like a rat cornered and by a very large, and very angry looking animal. The assassin could only grin that he was giving this man so much terror. Normally the assassin didn’t take so much pleasure in his work but, honestly, he just couldn’t help it right now. Lately his jobs had been awakening in him a sincerely enjoyment of watching these lesser people suffer under his might.

That was not to say that he had any kind of god-complex, far from it. Instead the assassin was simply pleased with the fact that he did have as much power as he did. The gift to take life away from another, whenever he chose. It was godlike, yes, but he was a mere mortal. Unlike most serial killers and various other monsters of the world, he understood that.

But, enough thought. The man was in his way and witnessed something that he shouldn’t have; that, of course, meant that it was time to end his life. Cracking his neck to the side, the assassin smirked as he just started to make his way towards him.

Then, suddenly, his cornered rat grew a pair and bolted for a nearby desk. The assassin smirked. It was going to do little to protect hi—HURK!!

Vicente gasped as he felt the dig of a desk being hurled against his stomach. The assassin was so caught off guard by the gesture that while he normally could have easily knocked the desk away, this time, he took it full force. With a growl he stumbled backwards until he felt, for a fraction of a second, the thin layer of fragile glass; it was the window that looked over the warehouse.

For a moment he felt himself slow down. He was going to rip that man’s head off! But, before he could conceive of the most painful manner for achieving this, his back suddenly cried out with the sounds of shattering glass. Vicente gasped as he felt the pulls of momentum and gravity pull him deeper into the window. With a snarl Vicente gasped, falling backwards head over heels. That desk was certainly heavy and with how much force it was thrown, Vicente began to reconsider his target. Was he a mutant?

A cry and she snatched a hold of the sill of the window, clinging on as glass cut through his fingers. At the moment he didn’t care though. With the amount of equipment below, if he had fallen, his injuries would have been far worse than he could have imagined.
He shook his head quickly to dislodge any leftover glass before he hauled himself up enough to peek back into the window. It was then that he discovered his target was gone. He growl and spit contemptuously as he managed to haul his muscular frame back in through the window. Tiny cuts and piercings of glass were stuck on every open part of his body. Blood trailed down his muscles as he turned to face the doorway.

Oh, he was so not done with this game yet!

Picking up his fallen knife, the assassin stormed out of the office in pursuit…

“****! ****! ****! ****! ****! ****! ****!”

Jordan was spouting every profanity he knew as he bolted down the staircase trying his hardest not to trip. Every inch he could put between himself and the big man probably wasn’t enough, but he still had to try as hard as his un-exercised legs could. He heard the sound of glass breaking behind him, and he was praying that would just be the end of it, but he wasn’t that stupid. A man like that wasn’t going to die from a one-story fall.

Backtracking to where he’d come in seemed like the safest bet, so it’s where he took off to once he’s exited the stairs. The wrapping hallway seemed much longer this time around then it had on the way in, and he didn’t feel like he was getting anywhere fast enough. The profanities continued to pour out in a muffled mixture of terror and wheezing, but all he could hear was the clearly enraged monster hot on his tail. He was in no kind of shape to be doing this type of thing.

As he rounded the first corner of the hallway he was surprised to see a group of three other men running in his direction, all three armed, one with a gun, the other two with pipe-like clubs. With the exception of the gun wielding one, they weren’t a particularly intimidating looking group. The big guy looked like he could handle himself, though. He actually looked a little familiar too. Perhaps he was one of the various dealers he'd encountered before?

Regardless of who he was though, he was in his way, and he didn't look too happy to see him.

“Who the hell are you?” The gunslinger shouted, aiming his weapon to Jordan’s chest as his group slowed down their pace. Jordan really wasn’t in any mood for anymore confrontations that night. Without hesitation or second thoughts, he just kept running, shouting at them.

“We got trouble coming right around the corner!” He yelled as he stormed past the group like he was just another henchman. His voice had just enough urgency and terror that all three of the goons raised their weapons, inching towards the corner where the beast man was in pursuit, completely forgetting about the man running in the opposite direction.

Soon, various glass containers lay smashed on the concrete floor of the dimly-lit lab, their contents, mostly clear fluids, lay in puddles at the mime's feet. Those small, gray bricks lay all throughout the lab. Most of them were attatched to a concrete column in the center of the room.

Dorian's heart was bursting in his chest. He didn't know whether to thank the adrenaline, or the fact that he'd just finished completely wrecking this laboratory and filling it with explosives as fast as he could. It was probably a mixture of the two. Either way, now would be a very good time to leave.

Before he could get to the door, the room was engulfed in a blinding, white light.

When it subsided, Dorian was not alone in the room. Another man – perhaps some kind of teleporting mutant or M-user, had appeared in the middle of it. His back was turned to the Orderling.

Thinking quickly, he held his hand up over his head menacingly and charged towards the man, as if he were going to stab him with an invisible knife. "Motherf-" Before the teleporter could react, Dorian had tackled him to the ground and was stabbing him in the throat.

The blinding white light came back.

"-ound the corner!"

Now, Dorian and the dying teleporter were in a hallway. There was a man running towards them, and another three goons pointing their guns at a stairwell. The mime jumped to his feet, keeping his blade between himself and the man running towards him as he started to back away. It had enough blood on it that one could tell it was a knife, and Dorian had enough blood on him that wasn't his that one could guess he'd been killing people today.

>> “--corner!"[/color]

Vicente could hear the panicked voice echoing down the hall ahead of him. There was a variety of options to explain who he was talking to. Either he was on the phone calling in his last rites or there was actually someone up ahead that could pose a problem. While Vicente entertained the idea that the interloper was calling someone, the stark reality of the situation was more than likely that he ran into more goons. The majority of them were outside, still trying to put out that gasoline fire but there were probably still a few within, mulling about and trying to secure the facility as best they could.

He cracked his knuckles as he pulled another blade from its sheath and continued on after the man who was running. But just as he was about to round the corner where the man disappeared into, there was a sudden flash of blinding white light.

Vicente hissed and momentarily closed his eyes. He had absolutely no clue what that could have been but he did not like it, whatever it was. He crept to the corner and peered over…only to find the mime there, his comrade, standing in the dumbfounded way, covered in blood.

He could always plead the fifth, the assassin snarkily thought to himself. But there was time for jokes later. Instead, his eyes narrowed in on the man he had been chasing. Apparently that flash of white light and the sudden appearance of a blood covered mime had distracted everyone. Perfect.

Twirling blade in hand, Vicente took a deep breath, growled and suddenly rounded the corner, stepping into view. A flick of his wrist and an angry shout later, and his first throwing knife went soaring through the air, aimed directly at the most dangerous target—the man with the gun.

Vicente was an excellent knife throwing so he knew that his aim was true. Whether or not it would be a killing blow, he didn’t know, but it should prove enough of a distraction to pull their attentions away from the mime. After all, his job was to keep that mime alive to complete his own task; and Vicente was going to make sure he did so.

First knife through, he momentarily locked eyes with the mime before he turned to the other two attackers brandishing pipes. But, the assassin’s eyes drifted past them and to the man he had been chasing all along.

He grinned as he eyed him, almost willing him to keep running. After all, Vicente enjoyed a good hunt…

“Holy-!”

Jordan didn’t have time to figure how in the world a bloody goon had suddenly appeared in front of him. Before he had a chance to comprehend the situation his mutated reflexes kicked in sending a jolt of increased friction down to his feet. This, when mixed with his natural reflexes to try and stop, resulted in him hitting the brakes a little too hard, flipping head over heels and landing hard on his back.

He was lying there with his eyes closed and ears ringing for a moment, rubbing his temples and trying to orient himself again. When he sat up though, his panic returned as strong as ever. Right in front of him was a man wielding some kind of knife. The man was staring directly at him, trying to hide the weapon, but it was clear he had it. He was covered in blood as well, but not his own and there was a mangled corpse between his legs as he backed off of it. That image alone was all he needed to see to know for sure this guy wasn’t on his side.

Both of them had their attention drawn away by the sound of a gun shot back at the corner of the alley. The gunman went down a second later, knife hilt sticking out of him. Jordan’s best guess was some kind of reflex had caused the man to fire, because he was surely dead where he laid.

One of the other two pipe wielding thugs ran to the fallen one’s aid while the third member of their party nervously jumped in fear as the beastly man from earlier whipped around the corner.

“****” Jordan murmured as he hopped to his feet, eyes back on the knife man in front of him. Then he realized he was missing his camera. He didn’t know for sure where’d he’d dropped it, but it couldn’t have been long ago; it had been in his hands earlier in the upstairs office. However, the sound of men dying behind him was enough to severe any attachment he might have had to it.

He started taking a few nervous steps forward, but all he could think about was how it would take nothing shy of a miracle to get him out of this one alive.

When it became apparent that the man before him wasn't a threat, Dorian stopped caring. There wasn't anything more important for him to do at this point than leave the building. He tossed the blood-covered, mostly-invisible knife at the scared-looking man's chest. Dorian was not good at throwing knives, nor was he particularly interested in injuring him; the invisible blade would likely be hitting this guy's chest with the handle or the flat end, and perhaps leave a bruise in the process. The mime then flashed Vicente a wide-eyed look of what Dorian hoped sir trips alot might perceive as terror, then ran away.

Getting into fights and trying to kill people was risky. Feigning fear and running away, however, could turn witnesses into a non-issue. Besides, Dorian had stuff in his backpack that he'd rather not break.

Vicente could probably take care of the poor idiot if he wanted to, anyway.