This could be anywhere in the world

[baby_g†]

Tori took another look around the corner to her right and saw Bryan hurry over to what looked like an AC unit. Turning over to look around the her left, she saw a boy holding a gun and demanding to know who she was. Needless to say, it was pretty clear she was scared, as she gripped onto her axe ready to throw it at him if need be.

She felt like she had finally gone insane. Any time that there had been someone who was going to hurt her, Bryan was there and saved the day. Did he know she was in trouble? She heard him shoot, so she assumed he knew. It would be any second till he came around the corner and shot this idiot down just like the others.

She wanted her blue silky dress back. She wanted to be safe. If he had really wanted to kill her he would have shot by now, right? Instead he wanted to know who she was. Tori wanted to reply, but she didn't trust him. She decided not to answer. At this point, Tori was fed up and really starting to get pissed off. She would have loved to jump at him with her axe and hit him with the blade until there was nothing left, but she knew she couldn't. How was she supposed to fend for herself when she lacked the courage to do anything?

"Fuck you."

Okay Bryan.. any second now...

[Ares]

"Fuck me? Honey, I know its tempting, but I've got bigger, balder problems than you to worry about right now. So unless you'd like to feel what its like to be shot, I'd suggest keeping your mouth shut."

Felix lowered his gun slightly. He didn't want to fight this girl since baldy was still over by the AC unit, with a rather powerful weapon. Aside from this girl, Felix still wasn't sure how the hell he was going to get off this roof. Yeah, he had his Glock, but a Glock versus a shotgun in close range combat was like throwing a baby mouse to a python.

[baby_g†]

"You're disgusting!" Tori scretched as she attepted to swing at the boy with her axe. The very thought of them getting anything on made her almost want to puke. With her free hand she grabbed at ther boys chest, with the intention to knock him over. Wild thoughts were racing through her head as she imaged what it would be like to kill someone. They weren't normal thoughts she should have been having, yet she could help but think them.

"Bryan!"

[Ares]

Felix saw the girl from the corner of his eye make a move. He managed to turn but could not completely avoid the axe as it made a large cut across his chest. The girl's stiff arm to his chest landed square causing him to topple over and land flat on his back. He heard the girl yell, "Bryan!", to which Felix could only assume that she was calling out to baldy. He had no choice. He now realized that his only chance of getting off this roof was to take out this girl and baldy. Felix quickly sat up, raised his right hand, which still had the Glock in it, and fired two shots at the girl.

[baby_g†]

Tori tried her best to take down the boy but it was clear that she had failed. He fired to shots at her, which only one of them hit, striking her in the right thigh. The bullet tore into her as she felt it rip into her body and though it only took a split second, it felt like an eternity. The force of the blow knocked her back, which in turn made the pain even worse. Blood began to soak down her pants, through her fingers which she was trying to use to cover the hole.

She screamed loudly, never knowing she could reach a pitch that high. Tori began to weep uncontrolably, begging Bryan to come help her, grabbing her thigh and rolling on the ground. She couldn't stand and she could barely catch her breath.

[Ares]

One of Felix's shots had found its mark. The girl was still screaming, which meant baldy would be on them any second. The only thing that Felix could do was use the girl to disarm baldy. It pained Felix to have to do this, but it was the only way.

He pushed off the ground and got back on his feet. He quickly made his way over to the girl. He knocked the axe away from her, and pulled her up. He quickly wrapped his left arm around the area between her neck and breasts, while placing the barrel of his gun into the middle of her back with his right hand.

"Look, believe me when I say I don't want to this," Felix said into the girl's ear, "But I need to get off this roof alive."

Felix then slowly lead the girl around the corner of the vents, out into the open where he and baldy had just fired shots at each other.

"Bryan! I want you to come out right now. I've got your girl here, and I've already shot her once. I want you to come out, drop whatever weapons you have. If you make any stupid moves, I'll kill her." Felix said towards the AC Unit.

[baby_g†]

The boy walked over the Tori, picked her up and forced a gun to her back. His lips touched her ear and she felt once more a gagging feeling come up her throat, no thanks to the added pain of the wound of course.

Look, believe me when I say I don't want to this.

Bull shit. If there was something Tori was used to hearing in her life it was how a person "wished" they didn't have to do something, then did it anyways. It was a complete bold faced lie to say something like that and it ment nothing. It's like a kid saying 'sorry', but not being sorry at all.. more so just because they got caught than anything. This was no different. She might as well have been back home with her mother yelling and screaming at her as her father stayed back saying "I'm sorry, but blah blah.." No! They weren't sorry! They were never sorry! Sorry is just a word a person can say to help justify to themself that they can now move on in a situation because those two words were said. It doesn't make what happend go away... and it doesn't get rid of the pain that other person might be going through either.

Sure, he might have wished he wasn't doing it, but does it change the fact that she still had a bullet in her thigh and losing more blood by the minute. He didn't have to shoot her and he damn well didn't have to do it twice. All the thoughts that might have been racing through her mind before where no replaced with her just wanting to wrap the wound and get off the roof. She wanted off more desperatly then the kid.

Her tears filled her eyes making it hard for her to see. She couldn't wipe them away since both hands were on her side soaked in blood. Where was Bryan? She wished she could see him.

[Cyco†]

Bryan went to retreat back behind the AC unit in response to the two shots from the other boy's pistol, but not quite quick enough. He felt an intense white hot pain shoot across his right shoulder, and immediately threw himself back against the metallic box with a dull thud (which muffled the pained grunt). He held the SPAS-12 by the handguard with his left and craned his neck over his shoulder to see what had happened, but he had a feeling he already knew. One of the 9mm bullets had grazed him, deep at that, but it was lucky that it hadn't been lodged in there instead. A trail of blood spilled down his arm.

"Sonofabitch," he spat, slamming his palm against the metal panel beside him and pumping the shotgun spastically. That really stung like hell. He froze as he heard Tori call his name. He had to act fast and get out there, before--

--a tingling sensation shot up Bryan's spine and shut out the pain in his arm momentarily as he heard two more gunshots. A wave of panic set over him, and he scrambled around the corner again hoping to God that Tori had put a couple holes in him. That probably wasn't it--the SMG would have sounded different, closer together--but at the moment all he could think of was his name ringing in his ears.

He only progressed a single step around the obstructing box before stopping dead in his tracks. The familiar intruder had Tori around the throat, as a human shield. There was of course no way he could hope to plug the fucker without hitting her, but it seemed he'd beat her to it anyway; Tori was bleeding from a spot on her right thigh. Bryan's grip tightened furiously around the shotgun, and his teeth clenched until he felt like they would break. He could feel the vein up on the side of his head flaring.

Without a word he complied, thumbing the safety off in a second and tossing the shotgun down against the side of the AC unit with a clatter. Slowly he stepped forward, holding his hands out in front of him to show he had nothing up his sleeve. At all. He had been beaten. His breathing was heavy, and his bottom lip trembled with pent-up anger, but all he could finally bring himself to say was "Ok, let her go" in a strained voice, desperately trying to be diplomatic. Tori's life depended on it.

[Ares]

"Actually, hold on one second. I've decided I want that shotgun. Nice powerful weapon like that, why should it go to waste. Shotgun and ammo, in your bag, for your girlfriend. Seems like a fair trade. I'll let you keep your food too."

This arrogance was a strange feeling for Felix.

It's strategy. Just strategy. I need all the firepower I can get to win this game.

The thought ran through his head a million times per second, it was his own way of justifying that this was all a good thing to do. The girl would live, Baldy would get his girl back, Felix himself would get a shiny new weapon, and Baldy could keep his food and water. It was a fair trade for sure.

[Slayer†]

Right on cue, indeed as if it were scripted, two loud pops were heard from directly behind Felix, bullets from the Walther P38 flying towards his back. Seth Mattlock had reached the roof a short time before that, but he had been hiding in the doorway in which the stairwell resided until he could get a good enough shot. Regrettably, that shot required Tori being grievously injured and taken hostage by the sick fuck before he could line up his sights. When he did though, he squeezed the trigger without a second's thought. He was very dizzy, as the entire world seemed to be shaking and spinning, and his mouth was coated in recently released vomit as blood was still all over him, and his right leg (where the thigh was mostly missing, covered by a mass of bandages) trembled as he walked out from hiding.

 "Leave my friends ALONE, asshole!"

 Despite his trembling, somewhat sickly appearance, as indeed he was sick at the moment, his booming yell was very powerful, befitting a gang leader. It'd surely get Felix to turn around if he didn't drop outright from Seth's bullets. Once Felix turned around, assuming he survived, he'd face even more gunshots from the enraged gang leader, as he pulled the trigger again and again.

 Nobody, and I mean NOBODY hurts my friends!

OOC: Short, I'm sorry, I just had to get this in quickly. Have to get up early tomorrow, too.

[Ares]

Two of the bullets hit Felix in the back. He pushed Tori away, as he dropped to his knees.

Well, this certainly makes things interesting. He thought as he felt his blood run down his back.

Spinning around, Felix quickly fired three shots at the boy who had fired at him.

Hmph. I half expected Rob to be the one who shot me.

[Slayer†]

In the movies, when a hero or his friend was shot, the entire scene usually went by in a sort of slow motion. Seth Mattlock always hated that cliché, as he had been in enough gunfights with the Fists and with his father's Mafia friends, not counting paintball games (of which he had played several), to know it never worked that way. Everything always moved by so fast that you couldn't even tell what was happening until the shots subsided, and it took literal physical effort to just wrench yourself out of whatever you were using as cover to fire back. Nothing ever happened in slow motion, you didn't even have time to be scared until it was over.

 However, as his opening shots hit the boy in the back, forcing him to release Tori, drop to his knees out of either reflex or pain, and start to turn around, it seemed like the movies were right. Knowing the boy was about to return fire from sheer instinct, Seth started to move to his right while the boy spun to face him, everything still seeming to move at a crawl. This caused two of the bullets to miss, hitting the closed door of the hotel stairwell, but as he returned fire, squeezing off four shots at Felix, one hit him right on his left side. Everything seemed to stop as he felt the bullet rip through skin and muscle, crashing through and shattering his rib as it lodged itself in the edge of one of his lungs. The bone fragments inside him were almost like a grenade, tearing up his heart, lungs, diaphragm, and even parts of his kidneys and liver. Still firing, he screamed in pain and felt himself falling backward to the hot roof of the hotel, breath coming out in slow unsteady rasps while his final shots went wide and the gun fell out of his hand. He hit the ground and knew there was no way in hell he was gonna beat the ten count, grasping for his gun but unable to reach it as the sky continued to look as if it were spitting, and he vomited up a mixture of blood and bile. The liquid ran down his chin and cheeks, and out of his chest, pooling up on his bare chest and the ground.

 All of this happened in exactly six seconds, between him coming out the door and the punk shooting him. He just hoped some of the bullets he fired before being hit found their mark, and that Bryan and Tori would put said punk out of their misery. He had never felt this much pain before in his life, it would be over in a few minutes at most, but it was still excruciating. He did not cry though, his face remained strong and angered. Anger at Felix, anger at himself, anger at Walter. Most importantly, though, anger at Danya, thanks to whom over one hundred people were now dead. Not just people, school children, who should have been enjoying summer break, hanging out with their friends, sharing kisses with the ones they loved, maybe finding a job. So much potential wasted. Seth, for one, wanted to have at least seen his Senior year.

 And to think...we were supposed to be at a special sex ed seminar before being let out until Junior year rolled around, the teachers happy to see us go, pretending to hate us but knowing how much they'd miss our antics. I was gonna go treat all the Fists to all the pizza and coke dads friends would let me pay for with their money, maybe have a few bags of pot that night. Alex wanted to negotiate a truce between our gangs, that would've been a strong alliance. Maybe I'd finally take Thomas Diftre up on his challenge to an arm wrestling match. he thought this bitterly, but with a small grin. He was starting to get cold, the edges of his vision darkening, but still he let out a wet, defiant chuckle. We may have broken the law a few times, Danya, been in the odd fight or two, but we were just fucking TEENAGERS, you fucking prick! We had hopes, motives, dreams, friends! Some of us were just saving money to get out of that gang filled shithole! You think you can play God with us, decide who lives and who dies?! FUCK YOU!

 He tried to get up to a sitting position, but he could not move too much, especially not without massive pain. He compensated by moving his right hand in the direction of a camera he saw near the door to the stairwell, lifted it a bit, and raised his middle finger up high. Despite his defiance, it was obvious Seth Mattlock was dying.

[Cyco†]

Felix's trade proposal was suddenly interrupted by none other than Seth Mattlock. Needless to say, Bryan was dumbfounded at both his impeccable timing and the fact that he was here at all. The few days since he'd last seen the boss must have been real hell, Bryan figured, considering the fucked-up state Seth was in. He looked like hell.

Within a split second, both of the shooters had been hit, and Bryan had spotted a fraction of an opportunity to save Tori. He took it, making a beeline towards Felix (forsaking the SPAS-12) the split second he let her go. The knowledge that this asshole had certainly just sealed the boss' fate fuelled the fire burning in him tenfold, and he let out a quiet grumble that crescendoed as he pumped liquid rage into each running step. It took mere seconds to reach his target, but it felt like forever.

Finally he was close enough. Planting one foot heavily down in his final step towards Felix, he pushed off with every ounce of raw energy and adrenaline he could muster. As his gathered momentum pitched him forward like a bat out of hell Bryan pulled his knees up to his chest and extended his legs out in front of him, throwing his upper body back and making him nearly horizontal as he just cleared the three-foot-high vents. He was airborne.

[Ares]

The newcomer fired a few more shots at Felix. His sporadic firing only managed to land two shots. One shot was a surface wound similar to the one he sustained at the hands of Bryan, the other however planted itself into the lower part of his ribcage. Blood started dripping off his shirt on to the roof. Felix quickly remember that he still has Bryan to worry about.

Fuck...

It was Felix's only thought as he turned back to face Baldy after watching the newcomer go down. It was perfect timing on Bryan's part, as both feet we're planted into Felix's chest. The force knocked him through the air, landing about a foot shy of the edge of the roof. Whie Felix did land short of the edge, his own momentum worked against him and sent him off the roof.

Felix's body did a 180 in the air, causing him to face the sky as he fell. As he looked at the sky, the fall seemed to go in slow motion. The only thoughts he had were about killing Jackie, then taunting John Matthews before outright shooting him. No matter what he told himself, he was a player in this game. He had survived this game almost to the end.

Almost..

His thoughts were cut short by the sound of shattering glass. Felix had fallen through the glass atrium of the main lobby. The glass cut into the entire backside of his body. It did hurt like hell, but the pain only lasted for half a second, as Felix's body finally came to a violent stop. His fall was ended by the tile of the lobby floor. His head cracked violently against the tile, while the rest of his body did its best impression of an accordion. Felix's head suffered a massive laceration to the back of his head and a cracked skull. Felix lay there dead on the hotel lobby floor, blood pouring from the back of his skull. Now he had been a player and a damn good one.

B31 - Felix Travertil - Dead

[Cyco†]

Bryan landed hard on his back across the vents. His field of vision had shot straight up on the moment of contact, but the sound of shattering glass told him that Felix was now on the ground floor. Taking a second to shift and grunt in discomfort, Bryan sat up and slid his legs over the edge of the duct, pushing himself onto his feet and immediately kneeling down to scoop Tori up. He didn't know the first thing about gunshot wounds, but he was fairly certain that a 9mm slug in the upper leg wouldn't be too serious as long as they could dig it out stop the bleeding. He pulled her into a sitting position.

"Are you ok?" It really was a stupid question, but she would probably appreciate the sentiment.