Easy Money? Not So Much.

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

The first to fall cried out and clutched at her shoulder where the blast of energy had torn straight through and cauterised her flesh behind it. The second was not so lucky. The shot that had taken him down had struck right between his eyes, killing him instantly.

At this point in time the road was completely locked in one huge traffic jam, which had left these criminals nowhere to run without being extremely obvious about it. Clearly, they had chosen to attack pre-emptively, rather than allowing their vehicle to be searched; presumably because there was something illegal stashed within.

No sooner had the first shots been fired than the car's doors burst open, and the criminal scum were scrambling out. It seemed for a moment like they had little to no chance of surviving; they continued shooting as they got out, but the stormtroopers (with the exception of Trevor) had turned to face them as one, and already had their blasters trained on the fools.

They weren't expecting the reinforcements, though. The doors of two more vehicles up ahead had also swung wide, and more thugs were hurriedly leaving those. One of their gang members had even raised his upper body out of the sunroof of the central vehicle – some sort of van-like contraption – and began laying down covering fire. With the 'troopers suddenly on the back foot themselves, the conflict immediately dissolved into utter chaos, with bright red bolts of energy (plus the occasional bullet) flying in every direction, and bystanders screaming as they too fled their cars in their hurry to escape the violence. They were fortunate to have done so; it wasn't long before a few off-target shots hit some of the other cars, and small fires broke out.

Taken completely by surprise as they had been, only Hijiri and Trevor had not immediately reacted to the onslaught, and so – perhaps sensing weakness – a pair from the first car ran straight at them whilst their more experienced comrades were distracted by other fighters. The pair wore shabby-looking grey and white clothes, and one held what looked like a customised imperial blaster, whilst the other had an ordinary handgun.

Trevor contributed helpfully by shrieking in terror and firing three shots: one missed by an inch or so, one missed by a couple of feet, and one hit a nearby stormtrooper in the upper arm, causing the man to cry out in pain and drop his blaster. The first action Hijiri took after drawing his katana was to fling the scabbard directly at Dodson, knocking the imbecile from his feet and thankfully sending the man's blaster flying. This was going to be tough enough as it was; having that fool for backup would have been a death sentence.

Aiming to close the distance between them and hopefully give his foes a shock in the process, he used his ability to lower gravity's effect on his body and propelled himself forward in a burst of speed far beyond what they were expecting. With two of them bearing down on him at once, though, the former Battle Rabbit knew he couldn't afford to go easy on them if he hoped to live. Taking a swing with his sword, he cancelled his ability's effect at the last moment – returning his weight to normal – just in time to slice open the first man's throat.

As a gout of blood burst forth from the wound, Hijiri side-stepped out of the way of the falling corpse and began turning to face the other man, only to see the barrel of a gun pointed directly at his face. He jerked his head to the side just a fraction of a second before the trigger was pulled, and felt the bullet pass him by. It couldn't have been much more than a centimetre – perhaps not even so much as that – from having torn a hole in his ear. Even with his abnormal – almost inhuman – speed, he knew it was luck as much as anything that had saved him there.

The criminal was not so fortunate. Diving forwards the instant the shot was past – knowing full well that he couldn't afford to give his foe the chance to try again – Hijiri rolled the moment he touched the ground, then jumped up to stand with only inches between the two men. At this distance he couldn't really swing his sword properly – he could barely swing at all in fact – but the handgun was pointed past him now, and it would take the man a moment to adjust his aim. Plenty of time.

The Rabbit slammed his forehead into the thug's nose, and was pleased to hear the cartilage break. Stumbling backwards in pain, as blood began to pour from his nose, his foe gave Hijiri the space he needed. Reversing his katana, so that the dull, edge-less side of the blade could be used, he clasped the hilt with both hands and struck out at the off-balance man's knee, shattering that too. The gangster fell. Hijiri kicked the pistol out of his hand, sending it skittering under a nearby car, then gave him a hard kick in the face for good measure.

Whilst he clearly remembered Officer Andreas telling him that members of the EPD had the jurisdiction to use lethal force if necessary, he would still prefer not to do so if possible. It had been his duty to protect humans back in his own world; to go from that to mercilessly butchering them just felt wrong... even if the ones in this realm didn't have 'possession by Ogres' as a plausible excuse for their evil actions.

Moving on from that man, he could see that the first car had been cleared entirely, and the man in the sunroof of the second vehicle had also been slain. Several more dead and wounded – thug and stormtrooper alike – lay on the pavement. Remaining in place for a moment or so as he focused on the hand gripping his weapon, to bring forth the energy he required for what would come next, Hijiri then sprung forward through the air, turning as he did, to build up some momentum.

He landed directly in front of a woman whose teeth had been filed down to points. She wore the same grey and white clothing as the others. She'd spotted him almost the instant he had darted at her, though, was holding a blaster in each hand, and had already begun turning to point them his way even as she tried to jump backwards to put some distance between them. It wasn't enough, of course; she was quite fit for a human, it was true, but she was hardly a match for his speed. He had landed mid-turn, and so already had plenty of momentum behind his next swing. On top of that, he released all the power he had gathered thus far; boosting the strength of gravity around his hand and sword, to significantly increase their weight. Still using the back of the blade, his katana struck her elbow with more than enough force to shatter bone.

To her credit, the woman's only response was to grunt in pain. Landing and rolling backwards even as one blaster slipped from limp fingers, she ended her roll kneeling on one knee and with her remaining weapon aimed his way; barely even seeming to notice her severe injury. It was a much, much more efficient response than he had been expecting.

Hardly pausing to think – he didn't have time – Hijiri jumped straight up; far higher than she could have anticipated. Four bolts of energy darted out after him, but her aim had yet to adjust properly to his sudden change in speed and altitude, and all four were off the mark... though Hijiri couldn't help but notice that each blast came substantially closer than the previous one, despite there being only milliseconds between each shot.

He had underestimated this one quite severely, it seemed, and now – reaching the apex of his leap – he was losing momentum; slowing down even as her accuracy was improving. This instinctive move to jump out of harm's way may not have been such a good idea after all.

Just then, a shot from one of the stormtroopers which was either amazingly accurate or miraculously lucky blasted the gun straight out of her hand, melting most of the barrel in the process.

For a moment she seemed stumped, and didn't react at all, but then the gangster leapt to her feet, cursed in frustration and charged the shooter, pulling a small knife from her belt as she did. Not allowing her to intimidate him in the slightest, the 'trooper calmly, methodically levelled his gun at her chest. It was blatantly obvious to anyone watching how this confrontation would end, yet the woman showed no sign of fear.

And then Hijiri landed. With an arm already outstretched and having come to rest practically right behind her, all it took was one swift motion for him to crack the pommel of his sword into her temple. Before she could even begin to turn and face him, the woman collapsed, sprawling limp and unconscious on the pavement. He nodded at the stormtrooper who had helped him – who had saved him, if he was being honest – then turned to see how many more remained, only to notice that the fighting had ceased.

Their patrol had originally numbered fifteen, whilst their attackers – he did a quick head count – seemed to have had eighteen fighters. Of those, five stormtroopers remained standing... well, six, after Trevor realised it was over, shoved aside the corpse he had been hiding under and got to his feet. None of the gangsters were still on their feet.

“You two, secure the captives!” Davion yelled, gesturing towards Hijiri and the 'trooper who had just helped him out.

“You and you,” he pointed at a couple of the others, “do what you can for our wounded.”

“And Dodson, you slimy piece of human excrement, you're with me!” going by the sergeant's word choice, it appeared that Hijiri was not the only one to have noticed Trevor's cowardly actions. “We're searching those cars and taking whatever they have that could be of value to the Empire!”

The former Battle Rabbit and his partner gathered up a few sets of handcuffs from the other members of the squad as they went about their tasks, then set about checking to see how many enemies had survived the firefight. By the time they were done, they had a grand total of seven captives, though three were so badly injured they were unlikely to survive the next few minutes. Laser guns, it seemed, were not exactly the ideal weapons if one was seeking to take prisoners.

He had just finished passing those numbers on to Davion when one of the would-be medics approached, having also finished his rounds.

“Six wounded, sir. Two of those in critical condition. Three dead.” he stated succinctly.

The sergeant grunted non-committally. “At least most of us got through it, I suppose. This could easily have gone much worse. I've notified command, though, so just hold tight for now, they'll be sending us a transport, so we can head over to the nearest barracks soon. In the mean time, help me unload these damn suitcases.”

Davion and Trevor had already begun raiding the two cars and the bigger vehicle between them, and had so far dragged out three huge, padlocked suitcases, with more still to come, it seemed. Whatever their new prisoners had been involved in, it seemed pretty big.

Word Count: 1963, according to OpenOffice's word counter.
Total Word Count: 5660/5000-10000.