Azure: Gunner

“Lost Angels, how y’all doing?”

(silence)

“Yeah, I hear y’all. It’s one of those fucking days, you know? Some days you just really need a Wasted drink. Too bad that never solves anything, does it?

“So I’m gonna make y’all a deal here – let’s all pretend we gave the ol’ bottle a long, hard try. Seven days worth, to be exact. Seven Days in a Bottle.”

- DJ Demophon Kerner, on K-RAD LA, August 23rd, System Year 453

Wolf sat in the bar, nursing his second – or was it his third? – double of E90. The bottle hadn’t been full when he’d started, not that it mattered. He’d brought his own booze, let himself in, and was drinking alone.

There was hardly anyone left at the school to drink with, anyway. Thompson had fucked right out of town with hardly a word a few days before, taking most of the guards with her. The rest of them had gone off with Squad Excel, Arlo, Zenia, and Lydia. Supposedly they’d be off monster hunting for a few weeks and then heading back to LA.

The Academy was deader than poor Westin now. Wolf had been suspicious from the moment they’d returned to find virtually no repairs underway. As usual, when he thought he was expecting the worst he’d found something even darker than his imagination had conjured. He still wasn’t sure that Thompson had intended the kids to be inside the dungeon when it had collapsed, but she sure as fuck hadn’t taken any precautions against it.

Precautions! He snorted at the thought. The only precaution she needed to take was to not send them in… Everyone knew the old man was going to kick the bucket soon.

He didn’t even have a fucking clue what all of this was about. The kids had left the day before, with the Black Razor and entire Wasted Squad of Tier fucking 4s. It had been a long time since Wolf had seen that much firepower in one place. It was almost enough to make him think Az and her team would be as safe as a baby in a crib.

Almost. Except for the minor detail of the facts refusing to add up to anything nice and clean.

Wolf took a slow sip of his whiskey, the magicol burning its way down his throat. It was the good shit – rich, strong, and with only a hint of smoke from the barrels. He hated it when his whiskey tasted like someone had shoved his face into a fucking campfire.

No, nothing adds up about this situation. You send a Squad of Tier 4s to clear out the biggest, baddest dungeons, take down matriarchs, or scout the edges of the motherfucking Wastes. What in the world needs both Tier 4s and not-quite-Tier 1s?

He didn’t like it one bit. He was still convinced that he’d let Squad Hard Limit down. He could have pushed them harder, given them the extra training that Az had practically demanded. He shouldn’t have fucked up the matriarch fight.

The rational part of his brain knew that even if he hadn’t lost control, driving off the matriarch had likely been out of his reach. Let alone taking it out. He was only Level 34 – it had held a five-Level advantage over him to start with. Even Thompson’s pet Tier 4 monstrosity had achieved little more than pissing it off. From what he’d heard of the end of the fight, the combined efforts of the instructors had done little more than slow it down.

The Wasted thing had come, gotten what it wanted, and chosen to leave, trampling over everyone in its way.

Even going back to the quadrosaur attack, his performance had been… marginal. Wolf had been too worried about succumbing to the Rage and not properly focused on the urgency of the situation. And people had died, people that didn’t deserve it. Kids.

He was glad that the matriarch was dead and frustrated that he’d played no part in it. But that frustration was nothing compared to the burning anger warming his stomach in tandem with his whiskey.

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He was furious that he’d been left behind. Arguing with Mason about it beforehand had gotten him absolutely nowhere. With Thompson MIA, he didn’t even have the option of debasing himself in front of her to try and get himself ‘invited’ along.

If nothing else, he’d learned one thing about his Rage in the last few weeks – it wasn’t straight-up suicidal. Not yet, anyway. The presence of multiple Tier 4s was intimidating enough to bottle it up temporarily. At least long enough to find some privacy before he let it loose.

He’d snagged one of the Tier 3 dummies from the training hall and ‘smuggled’ it down into the depths of the fake dungeon. Safely out of sight and earshot, he’d dumped it out of his Inventory and then proceeded to absolutely wreck the thing. By the time he’d come back to himself, it was destroyed to the point even the Enchanter that had created it would probably write it off as a loss.

It had helped, for a few hours. But he was no closer to answering the question of what to do next. Mason had politely told him to fuck off. Thompson hadn’t told him shit. Maybe she was expecting him back in LA, maybe she wasn’t. Either way, he doubted anyone would blame him if he took Mason’s ‘suggestion’ and got lost for a while.

The only question was what direction he should ‘get lost’ in. He could certainly make his way back to the city and disappear into one of the seedier districts for as long as he wanted. His funds weren’t in great shape after the unexpected purchase of another prosthetic, but one advantage of living in the middle of fucking nowhere was a lack of spending opportunities. He had enough, if that was what he wanted to do.

The problem was letting go. Letting go of his pride, and worse, his guilt. He’d almost lost control when Azure had hugged him goodbye, the trust and gratitude on her face stabbing at his heart. He had a great deal to atone for.

Wolf raised his glass again, only to find it empty. That was quickly solved with a generous pour from his bottle. The sharp bite of the E90 magicol cut through the air – a little bit always evaporated when you poured it. This particular bottle was strong enough that just inhaling those vapors would probably knock out anyone without a Class.

It was also definitively strong enough to get him drunk. Hells, he was on his way already. If he was sober, he wouldn’t be thinking so hard about the smiles on the kids’ faces when they’d waved goodbye. Even the recently grumpy Tara had found what he thought was a genuine smile for him.

If only she knew. If only they knew. He’d been an especially piss-poor advocate for the Gleason girl. Of the entire group, both Az and the Defender certainly had more cause for hatred than gratitude. Wolf had largely waved off Yuri’s behavior until it was nearly too late.

Morosely, he admitted to himself that he’d been more interested in his petty feud with Blur than in protecting Tara. What did he care about another Wasted rich girl? She’d been just another snooty trainee. He’d used the time in front of Thompson more to try and score points off Blur than to effectively push for the kind of punishment that might have actually deterred Yuri.

It was only after Tara had thrown her lot in with the Guild that he’d realized how he’d underestimated what Yuri had put her through. Undoubtedly it had started back in LA, but he should have picked up on how badly she was hurting sooner. The girl had signed herself up for five years in the Guild and a not-insignificant risk of death just to get away from that asshole.

Fuck me, that’s another layer to this whole Wasted mess that is on my shoulders. Tara and Az might be safe from the Kalmárs as long as they’re with the Black fucking Razor, but how long will that be? What if this bullshit of Thompson’s is over in a couple weeks and that little asshole sends out a team to snatch them up or just bury them?

All it would take right now is a few Tier 2s… He could find a dozen guys that wouldn’t shed a tear over those kids in five minutes on the streets of LA. Fuck!

Wolf slowly raised his glass, admiring the rich brown of the liquor in the glow of the mana lamps. He swirled the whiskey slowly, contemplating his choices. Then he toasted the empty bar and drained the rest of his drink.

With an expletive, he hurled the empty glass at the mostly-empty shelves behind the bar. It shattered explosively against a bottle of tequila, the E0 liquor gushing out as shards of glass rained down. Gale, the bartender, had cleared out everything he could carry the night before. Only a few bottles of the cheap shit remained.

The stench of the liquor was overpowering to Wolf’s sensitive nose. He hated tequila. Nothing good ever came of drinking that crap. It burned going down and twice as bad coming up. Burn it, the Rage seemed to whisper to him, as if it shared his prejudice.

Burn it, Wolf thought. Burn it all down. No one will miss it. No one will miss those kids, not really. No one will miss you. Fuck it.

He stood and strode over to the bar. His hand drifted out, hovering palm down over the puddle of tequila. Ignite.

FWOOSH

The liquor caught immediately, blue flames racing along the stone floor. The fire leapt up the wall, following the dripping line of tequila to the shelf, where it exploded out to either side. A grim smile formed on the Ranger’s face as he watched the destruction.

He staggered slightly on his way back to the table, snatching up the bottle of E90 and storing it away. He had some packing to do, and a trail to catch before it got cold.