"That was the trouble with explaining with words. If you explained with gunpowder, people listened."

― Dean F. Wilson, Dustrunner



P R O X I M O



Artella flexed his arms under the lights of the pit. The crowd loved every inch of him–it made me want to hit him that much sharper.

The faceless' mask held up beyond expectation but I didn't fail to notice that glint in his eye when he jumped before Makayla. What had given me away? I had barely touched her... My stance, my swagger, perhaps just my size over the rest. But he was one to talk. Probably nearer to six foot five by now.

"Are you going to stand there gawking or take your shot?" He drawled with a knowing bite.

I flexed my fingers and rolled my neck slowly as I appraised him. Then I shrugged off the jacket and he glanced at the muscle the Division and several other rulers had forged. Conversations were loud around us as credit bars flaunted figures and bets made.

"There's a lot to hit." I mocked, running a bored look across him.

A blade skittered across the chalked floor between us and Art paused. He nodded at the weapon. "You'll need it more than me."

I didn't hesitate, striding forward and kicking it into my hand. His first mistake was thinking I was for a fair fight. Our personal guard had been forged in such situations–and nothing about fighting was ever fair.

It glinted in my fist as I spun it and the blade and drew it under my forearm. He smiled slowly at the other blade offered from the crowds but ignored it. Another error.

I lunged with a kick to his knee. He raised it and sent a palm to my throat. My head was already gone and my fist sought to run a line up his abdomen.

"Come on–that wouldn't kill me." He growled, punching my forearm under the weapon and making it come loose. I snatched it into my free hand and spun with a jab for his neck.

"If I wanted you dead–you fucking would be!" I spat, ducking his next cross and sending a front kick into his stomach. His hands caught my ankle and he kicked out my free leg. I grabbed his shirt and using the fall to my advantage.

Both my feet hit his chest and rolled me from the ground only to send him to it in a heavy puff of bloody chalk and anger. I strolled away checking the blade as he got to his feet behind me. The noise around us was heavy but the heavier difference was the disappearance of Scorpion herself. And Makayla Xavier.

They could concern themselves for a few minutes without us.

I turned to him and miscalculated his speed entirely–he was at my chest by the time I inhaled and drew the weapon up. It was dismissed as I was thrown against the side of the pit. His forearm took the air from me as I struggled to come up with a rapid response. Those dark eyes were calm and expectant. Waiting for something.

He pressed tighter still and the world started to distort around me. Perhaps Artella was considering my end truly this time–it was pathetic.

I saw the skin flicker in the corner of my vision suddenly and he relaxed his hold. I made to kick out at his legs but he ignored it.

"Funny. I didn't know you had that tech." Art murmured close to my face as he analysed it.

I growled low and sent a punch to his lungs. It may as well have hit iron. Or a Vanguard.

"How–do–you–" I choked out around his skin.

The crowd called out for a finish but Artella wasn't interested in their demands.

"How else do you think I kept an eye on you?" He murmured with a wicked glint in those dark eyes. I slackened under him in realisation. He grinned.

"You... When?" I demanded. Not that I was in a position to but he took my meaning. He dropped his arm from me and raised a hand in submission. The distraught was instant. He was showered in drinks and swearing. It may well have been cheers for the smirk he wore as he nodded to the exit.

I ignored his climb and activated the thrusters under my boots with a short run.

Several onlookers threw themselves aside as I landed feet first out the pit. I tapped the under side of my jaw and my tattoos moved the rest of them from my path. The smoke and air of a cool night greeted me away from the stale one of the Crypt. Artella paused on the threshold and nodded back inside.

"Makayla?" He ventured.

"Is being looked after by the real Scorpion." I snorted.

"I didn't notice her... She must have had a better skin."

I met his gaze with my own accusation.

"And how convincing was your own when you hid in the shadows?" I growled low.

"You weren't aware of the faceless for a long time–you didn't need to know." He answered, walking calmly off into the streets.

I flexed my fingers away from my gun and followed him. He was wordless for some time as we wondered a path through darkened alleys and food vendors. Hooded dealers and black market shifters kept their eyes off us entirely.

"You didn't make it easy. You chose a war path for too long." He snorted, glancing over a greasy food stall while it cast his face in orange light.

"And you chose to chase credits on a foreign continent for longer." I snapped, dodging a crowd and glaring down another in my path. I couldn't read his face under the hood it was too mixed in light and dark.

"I said I was coming back didn't I?" He answered in cool calm.

"Just admit that credits are your priority and stop fantasising otherwise." I answered, letting my voice venture back into emotionlessness.

This time he turned his head over his shoulder and met my glare with a smirk that saw through the lack of feeling in those words. Instead of answering he paused by a stand and spoke low to the vendor. He passed a chrome bar across and it scanned. Then he took two packets from the man and nodded.

One was tossed to me and I caught it on reflex.

"It's not going to kill you." He drawled. "Try it."

I ignored him and continued walking. He took my side and started chewing through the packet.

"You should have stayed there." I finally answered, "–instead you what? Track my work with a false face every time it amuses you? Do you have any idea what it takes–"

He stopped my furious stride with a hand and a serious look.

"Stop acting like you're so outraged I'm alive, Dartega."

I opened my mouth to speak but the response was caught. He resumed chewing with a smirk and took the packet from my pocket before dumping it in my palm again.

"You work too much. You need to stop a moment and remember to live." He finished with an easy expression. Like it was truly that simple.

I looked at the dark square in my hands and took a bite. About five flavours of sweet hit me at once and I winced before chewing again and realising it was better than one of the finest made desserts Sector 1 sky tower chefs ever made–or maybe it was because Artella gifted it.

"It's disgusting." I answered anyway.

He boomed out a laugh that startled several people around us before continuing on our aimless walk. How many times had I ever walked aimlessly... I always walked with purpose or flew. How many times did he do things just because he could–because he wanted to.

"We can't all be like Artella Maxim you know." I raised my arms around us. "–carefree and unconcerned with our decisions."

He snorted around a mouthful. "Yes you can. You just don't realise it yet."

"I lead men. I don't have the luxury of free will anymore–"

"That's the greatest lie you've ever sold yourself! It only gives you more freedom!" He scoffed, swallowing the rest and casting me a disbelieving look. "If I told you to fly to the southern continent tomorrow you have the means and ability to do so."

"But not the purpose or reason. Both things that make the real world go around." I stated, following him into a darker passage between buildings. Our voices echoed in the dark.

"It's all perspective, Proximo. Your purpose might be controlling a mega city. That cat's purpose is to secure that rat for its next meal." He answered, glancing at a fast moving shadow in the piles of rubbish. "It's all meaningless until you decide what you truly want from existence."

He turned on me without warning and I froze in place watching that dark expression with barely enough light to make out his eyes.

"Have you decided what it is you want from this existence?" He finished low scanning my face for an answer I couldn't find.

My mind was on the brink of rushing thoughts. Thoughts that were held closely to my chest. Ones that were subdued so I could focus on single courses of action. Limited so I wouldn't explore any other path. Like the dangerous notion of endless futures he offered.

I stepped back instinctively and I saw the dark line etched in a smirk on his face.

"I can see the fear now you don't hide behind a serum." He murmured.

"There is nothing to hide from in this city but a contractor that thinks he is above it all." I uttered darkly back.

"So you admit you took it because of me..." He ventured.

"Why else would I?" I snapped, making us both flinch.

He shrugged slowly and traced his gaze over the high neon signs above.

"It could have been the killing."

"You know me better than that."

He met my gaze quickly and nodded slowly. "I had suspicions my leave changed you. You only confirmed it recently with the combat serum–and of course when I woke up on that hospital floor–"

"I wasn't aware of that–"

"Your lying ability hasn't changed either." He interrupted with a head shake.

I puffed out a heavy breath and crossed my arms tightly.

"Would you just get on with what you wanted to say for christ sake?"

"Who's to say I wanted to make a point tonight? Can you not do things for the sake of the moment?"

"There is no moment. Artella." I growled, closing my fists in my arms. "You left. We changed–"

"It's interesting how you think that. Because nothing about you has... In fact the only differences I saw, were when you were so juiced on combat serum you only had space to see targets."

"I am different." I stated, willing it to be true more to myself than to him.

"Cold, hard killer with tattoos running down his face... Very convincing." He drawled, clapping slowly before me.

"What does it take for you to fuck off these days?" I asked slowly.

"Honesty." He retorted instantly. Seriousness was etched on every line of his face. "Then I'm gone."

I appraised him, hood and all. He read my thoughts and pulled it back from his face, dragging his hair over his head as he did. I watched him drop his arms to his sides carefully and the dull purple light cross his skin before he spoke. His words were calm and simple.

"Tell me, Proximo. That nothing can be the same and all of the feeling in you is gone for me. For what we are now in this moment. I don't care about the past. I'm only interested in the now. Give me that answer and I won't be a faceless presence or a real one–I will leave Merridian."

I stared at him.

He stared back.

The force of his words hit me like a burning fusion round through the chest. I knew what that felt like so the comparison was favourable. No more games. Nothing to hide behind. He said what he thought and demanded the same. Nothing else was enough for Artella Maxim. All or nothing until the end. True to himself.

And true to the man I had hidden from for years.

"I'll take your silence as an answer." He drew his hood back over his empty eyes and turned. His boots slapping a puddle as it echoed around the cavity in my chest. I let the lightest breath leave me and shouted at his back.

"Like hell you will!"

He slowed but didn't stop. Only an answer would stop him from getting his truth from me.

"I can't tell you those things because it is the lie I told myself to bury you ten feet in the ground. If you were dead to me Artella you weren't a threat." He stopped now listening to the hard words I forced from the darkest pit of me. "–yet here you are. Taking poisoned blades and telling me you kept tabs on me with faceless tech. I took combat serum for years. For eight hundred and three days to be specific. Because those are the number of days since you fucked off to make a name for yourself."

He whirled and faced me.

"You want honesty?" I snorted and gestured at him. "I chose feeling nothing gladly so I didn't have to face what I felt for you."

"And now?" He demanded, ignoring the warning in my glare. He retook the steps back.

"Now you're just another fucking problem for me to fix!" I shouted, pressing him back with a glove. He slapped my hand aside with more rage on his face.

"Just tell the truth for once in your life! Do you still know how?" He snarled.

I grabbed the front of his shirt and tried to control the flames tearing through my head. The lines that were so well trained between threat and feeling were blurring. The betrayal yet familiarity.

"I don't know myself near you anymore! My answer is the truth!" I growled back.

"Then why do you sound like you're convincing yourself and not me?" He shot back. "Answer me, Proximo!"

I released his shirt and tried to retreat. But he was not through with me. Not yet and not after the words that had spilt like a betraying wine on a white floor. His hand took my shoulder hard in a grip that was harder to throw off.

"All or nothing. Proximo. Tell me and be done with it." He finally said.

I closed my eyes off from his and took a steady breath.

"Yes." His hand didn't loosen on my shoulder at my words. "Yes. Maxim. I will spell it out for you but it makes nothing better save for the target on your back." He waited silently. I opened my eyes to look at him with my own resolve. I may as well before someone took aim.

"–What we had is gone. But all the feeling remains like a god damn anchor on my leg. I knew because even when I was as juiced up as you say–you kept crawling into my head regardless. Tearing away my focus from a drug that is supposed to hold it. I can't be this good–this unbreakable with you in the picture. You will ruin what I've become and the worst part is I can't even find it in me to stop it." I growled, breaking his hold and taking a step away. "So there is your truth from me. You can do what you fucking will with it–"

"I think I will." He interrupted simply, giving nothing away. "I don't think I'm going anywhere."

I paused trying to calm my breathing. It all felt too much at too many different angles. I could handle an assault to my nerve endings–but emotional assault was exhausting and chaos all at once. I shook my head to clear it.

"I need a fucking drink."

Artella broke the silence with a laugh. "You need to get used to this."

"And what is this?" I asked, fearing the answer.

He drew up his comm and typed in quickly without an answer. Then turned on his heel and marched for the streets beyond. His hood was back in place over his head.

"Picking up where we left off, Dartega!" He answered, his words bouncing off the walls to hit me from several different angles.