excerpt from gio's separation from the syndicate

As I rounded the corner, I saw what must've been the final line of them. I clenched my jaw and kept my pace. One foot after the other. One breath in, one breath out. My footsteps were clapping lightly compared to the rain coming down around us. He probably didn't even hear me coming.

I reached back to my belt and gripped a long cylinder with a pin and a side clip made for gripping tightly. When released, they exploded in five seconds. The particular grenade type at hand was the "wolf killer". Designed specifically for use against any resistance faction currently being incubated in Portside. They saw us all as infants, and if I'm not mistaken, incubated was quoted from their field manual.

It held three separate chambers, each surrounding another, save for the outer shell. The center was gunpowder, tightly packed in with a small pinhole leading to the ignition charge under the handle. The second was a layer of ball bearings, fitted into small grooves, forming a grid of small half-moons across the surface. On top of that was a layer of a type of acidic gel that was only harmful to human skin after contacting the trace amounts of oxygen in the air. Thanks to Portside's humidity, the catalyst would be no problem.

The best way to use them is to time it so that they explode over your enemy's head. The explosion will umbrella over the top of them, giving them plenty of time to become coated and also to react. What you have as an end result is a small, acidic meteor shower.

Which is what we soon had on our hands on that very night. "Wolf Killer--the new Claymore". It's a wonder what a beast can do if a wolf takes a man's knife away and clutches it tightly in its teeth. We're lucky wolves can't learn that. The Alboranian government was unlucky that we could.

It was a beautiful, silent lob. Such an arc that they were completely unaware until they saw the flash of a green light directly above them. After that, a small bang. And shortly after that still, acid-covered ball bearings tearing straight through their visors, fixing themselves in my opponents' jaws and cheekbones.

After being that unsure of whether they'd gotten to Elly or not, it was truly a sight for mine sore eyes.

Mean Streets

Another Scorcese.

Definitely Badass.


Making up for lost time is kind of fun.

admittance

first you sigh.
to let out all the stress.
then you trace your finger over the black lacquer of an acoustic guitar.
inhale exhale what's the difference.
time reverberates about your head.
your hair falls over your eyes.
your lips are wet.
your voice cracks and breaks a bit, so you don't sing.
your fingers hurt, so you don't play.
you just trace along the frets.
decisions scrape against each other in your mind.
and you're torn. inhale exhale.

if you were a little further away from everything, you'd be content.
you'd be closer to the sea.

we act like they don't, but they do. (happen)

Maybe it was the time that she took my hand. Or the first time she looked me in the eye and smiled--but not something I let pass--I mean the moment she first caught my gaze, held it, caressed it, and indulged in the moment itself.

Only these things don't happen anymore.

"I feel it in my bones." she said. It's amazing the way she works the words. The way she shapes them and guides them with those gentle, angelic lips. The light only allowed me to see the right side of her face that night. Portside wasn't exactly the most well-lit place in the world, but seeing that angle--that one specific angle.

God damn.

The hair fell over her left cheek when she tilted her hair forward. She was standing there in that dark coat, with those boots and that shadow. I guess... well, you could say something changed in me that night. I guess I realized what it was to really feel for a person. I realized in that solitary moment all the things I'd thought I'd known were bullshit.

"Cold night, yeah?" I sounded like a fool. I was shaking. She replied with such a beautiful remark. And those lips forming those words. More of a sight than I anticipated, in reality. I couldn't tell at that point, however, if it was the cold or the nerves causing the tremors. It was probably just the way she shaped those words.

And her eyes.

They were like two cat-eye sapphire derelict asteroid-ish twist competitions, battling for the dominance of your focus. O, which one to look at. And the only taste on my tongue was cold coffee from two days ago. Stale. Cottonmouth, but it was definitely her smile that made me salivate. That made me finally snap out of that daze. Her eyes were amazing, and that was simply that. I could tell she'd been up for at least a day, but it didn't take away from her glow. No matter how tired she was, she was still beautiful.

And that's why I left her name there. Enshrouded in that history. Under all that oil-based paint. There, for no one but myself to ever see. That secret that I made. That legacy that I left behind. Painting over her name was the only time I punched a wall since the last time I broke it. That time I didn't try to break my hand, though. So, therefore, I didn't break my hand.

I just stood there with that despondent look in my eye.
Waited.

Then I snapped back to reality.

I just watched Taxi Driver.

I would like to say that it is the shit.

Thank you.