CnC is greatly appreciated ^^
My story
Spoiler (Click to Show)
The two women were on the balcony. The whole place belonged to some really rich philanthropist that loved travelling the world. And judging by the previously locked doors and windows, he was on a trip somewhere. Why previously? Well, Serena was informed about 20 minutes after their arrival that the place was supposed to be off limits, but Tanya had disabled surveillance cameras and security systems. The banshee did not take that very well, but it was too late for complaining and it would have been a shame wasting this opportunity. So the two women decided to borrow the penthouse for a couple of days.
The past couple of months she got truly pushed to her limits while training with Tanya. The banshee did get a glimpse at what her soulmate is really capable of, and to say that she was amazed would be an understatement. Tanya was truly an incredible person, a force to be reckoned with. The training was intense, and it did allow Serena to elaborate more combos with her powers. But most importantly, Tanya taught her how to use her wakizashi to its maximum potential. Thanks to her knowledge of kenjutsu, the Irish woman was able to elevate her fighting to the next level, making her a lot more proficient with the blade.
The Irish woman was laying down atop a sea blue towel. She was meticulously covered with sun screen cream, her eyes covered by a pair of dark sunglasses and her hair untied from her usual braided ponytail, revealing the full length of her hair. It was roughly a meter long, reaching almost to her knees. But she had taken measures for that, as it was put alongside her, not bothering her sunbathing in any way. She was rocking a gorgeous crimson two-piece bikini which was suggested to her by Tanya. Initially Serena felt very uncomfortable wearing it, also because of her girlfriend constantly whistling at her. Although the whistling earned Tanya a slap across her face, that did not stop her from ‘praising’ her partner.
<
A female voice resounded across the balcony. Serena slowly raised her head, scanning the pool area. She saw Tanya in her amber bikini inside the pool, waving at her with a huge smile on her face. The banshee smiled back, but opted not making any further efforts, as she dropped her head back down on the towel.
“I think I’ll pass. The sun feels way too nice, and I just wanna stay here and chill…”
Serena’s eyes slowly closed, a smile still stamped on her face. Her body visibly relaxed, as her muscles loosened up. She was truly charmed by that magical feeling of comfort.
<
“Why do you have to be so hyperactive? Can’t you just enjoy the moment?” Serena quickly replied.
Suddenly a loud splashing sound echoed throughout the balcony. Instants later, Serena found herself in the shade. As her eyes slowly creaked open, she noticed Tanya’s figure hovering a dozen of centimeters above her. She was still soaking wet, a couple of water drops slipping from along her silhouette, falling onto Serena.
<
The blonde woman had a huge grin stamped onto her face. However Serena did not flinch.
“Honey, you’re blocking the sun.”
With a really quick dash, Tanya repositioned herself from above Serena to her side, laying down onto her purple towel. She began stretching, almost knocking Serena’s head with her arm. A very deep breath followed, which captured the banshee’s attention for a second. After the whole procedure of stretching was finished, Tanya relaxed atop the towel, her head turning towards Serena.
<
As Tanya concluded that phrase, she took a sip from the Margarita that she had prepared earlier. Serena instinctively did the same, without noticing. Then the two women just stared at the sky, the silence broken only by the gentle sound of the waves crashing onto the sides of the pool and the whistling of the cool breeze.
“Perfect indeed…”
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Time quickly passed and the duties of being a gladiator caught up with Serena. Meetings were arranged, training began again and sparrings were scheduled. She was really glad that she managed to take those couple of days off. She was feeling refreshed and filled with energy. And Tanya soon noticed that in training. The banshee’s blows were fast, precise and powerful, and were actually managing to challenge her. Tanya initially thought it was some sort of revenge that Serena was acting towards her. Probably thinking the Irish woman did not enjoy the vacation at the penthouse. But as the sparrings began, that thought quickly vanished. Serena was just very pumped and relentless. The opponents that she was facing barely stood a chance. Tanya’s jaw dropped when her girlfriend defeated her last sparring opponent in merely 5,7 seconds; all she needed was two well assessed Symphony of Force attacks.
Then one day, Serena received an interesting mail from a gladiator in the Rock Hard Tournament. A challenge. The message was very simple, going on something around the lines of ‘I want to fight you’ or ‘I would like to have a battle with you’. But the banshee did not hesitate a moment: she immediately accepted the challenge. It has been a while since she has fought someone, and she was eager to test herself after the intense training done with Tanya. Instantly after accepting the challenge, she began doing her homework: she searched archives, registers, combat logs, everything that could have given her more information about the challenger.
Unfortunately, although Serena spent a lot of hours searching into multiple sources, she did not gather a lot of information about whoever had challenged her. But what she did find out was very interesting. Her opponent was a man named Milo Kotara, listed as some sort of hitman or mercenary for some unknown company. His age, provenience and date of birth were unknown. While doing her research, three things appeared quite odd to Serena. The first one was that whoever this guy was; the RHG Database had little information about him. It appeared he had joined the circuit quite recently. The second one was that outside of the RHG Database, the little information that she had found about him said that this guy hunted people in what appeared to be a random pattern. And whoever fought him did not survive to tell the story. Lastly, the way that he was registered into the RHG Database, compared to the public database. In the latter, he was filed as Milo Kotara, as for the Rock Hard Gladiator Database, the name Seele was added. This initially confused Serena: was she fighting one person or two? She had heard in the past about fighting duos, such as the Suicide Sisters or Rhami and Astor, all four being very renowned in the RHG community. There was only one way to clear this doubt: more studying.
It was late afternoon of a day of May. June was one step closer, but the temperatures outside gave the impression that it was August. Serena had to abandon her cool apartment in order to go to the library and study some reports that she had requested about her challenger. This also meant leaving Tanya alone at home, which would result in cleaning duties by the time that she came back. But at the moment that wasn’t important. She had to focus on the task at hand: find out as much as possible about Milo Kotara before their inevitable fight.
The hours flew by. When Serena arrived, the Rockerfeller Library was packed with people, majority of which were students revising for their final exams. But by the time she had finished the reports, the library was almost empty, only her, the librarian and a couple of students that fell asleep remaining inside the building.
Although she didn’t manage to gather much information, she did understand a bit more about her opponent. His main weapon is a handgun, but a couple of things were weird about this fact. First of all, every single report stated a different gun: one said it was a Smith & Wesson; another that it was a Glock; another that it was a WW2 German Luger and the list went on. Secondly, some reports said that the murders happened indoors, but all the doors leading to the crime scene were locked and there were no signs of burglary. Thirdly, one of the many reports had a very interesting thing written within: according to witnesses, Milo Kotara was seen and heard shouting and arguing with his M9 handgun. All reports agreed on two very specific things: there was absolutely no trace of shells or bullets on all the crime scenes, neither on the ground nor inside the victims. And there were two distinct types of impacting points; one being the regular 9mm shell bullet marks. But the other one was special to say the least: although across every crime scene the marks were different from the previous one, all of them were pitch black. But probably the most gruesome detail came from a couple of reports: they stated that the victims were found with their chest opened up and their heard ripped out. The organ was nowhere to be found on the crime scene, which left to speculation. Whoever this person might be, he is definitely not a conventional human being.
Suddenly Serena’s phone buzzed, gently crawling across the wooden table. Slightly surprised, her arm reached for the device, unlocking it with one swift swiping movement. It was a message from Tanya. It read ‘I’m getting pizza for dinner :)’. The banshee did not fully understand how those devices worked, but her girlfriend stressed the fact that it would be a lot easier to communicate and a lot more ‘socially acceptable’. So she got her one of those fancy smartphones. Apparently it was called iPhone or something, and according to Serena, it was a futile waste of money and a distraction. But as time went by, she learned how to appreciate technology. It helped her with her gladiator duties, planning training sessions and even buying groceries. She took her time replying to the message. Even though she only wrote a smiley face, it took her a couple of seconds to actually punch the symbols in.
She carefully placed her phone back on the table, subsequently leaning back on the chair and taking a deep breath. Her eyes instinctively looked at the library’s clock: it was 10:22 in the evening. As she was resting on the chair, she looked around the library. At this point everybody had left, leaving only herself and the librarian, whom was about to fall asleep as well. It was time to leave.
She silently stood up, trying to not make the chair loudly slide across the wooden floor. With slow and composed movements, she gathered her reports and began heading towards the exit. As Serena passed next to the librarian’s booth, the two exchanged a quick glance and a smile.
<
He politely said. Although Serena couldn’t vocally reply, her lips mimicked the words ‘thank you’, to which the librarian limited himself to a smile.
As she was walking towards the big wooden doors, the banshee’s eyes glanced around the library. The building was huge, entirely filled with books. If she had to give an estimate, she’d say that there were about 30 thousand books or so. As her eyes dashed around, she noticed that the corridor shelves were decorated with mirrors on their sides, making a rather interesting reflection effect. As she passed close to one, her own reflection greeted her: casually dressed with jeans and a shirt, amber eyes and dark long hair. She was still getting used to seeing herself wearing casual clothes on a daily basis.
She kept on walking, childishly peeking into the next mirror, greeting her reflection with a smile this time. For some reason that entertained her. She even stopped a couple of moments more, taking the time to look at herself. In her opinion, she looked exactly like one of those college students, carrying a massive pile of notes accumulated throughout the semester and revising everything just before the final exam.
By the time that she was approaching the third mirror, she was quite excited. She was having a lot of fun for some reason. When she was close enough, she leaped in front of the window, almost dropping the huge pile of reports that she was holding in her hands. Initially she was smiling, but the smile slowly faded into an expression of confusion. Even though she had a happy face at the beginning, for some weird reason her reflection did not. Her eyes quickly scanned the mirror and the image displayed by it. The first detail that she noticed was that her reflection was not holding anything in its hands. It had a very rigid and composed posture, sticking its chest out and having a blank expression on its face.
Terrified, Serena began to slowly back away from the mirror. She freaked out when she noticed that her reflection was not getting smaller. Suddenly, her reflection smiled. But it was more of an evil grin than a cheerful smile. The image contorted itself violently, changing appearance: the banshee’s reflection had mutated into a person. It was a man; green eyes, dark hair with a green and silver coat and black pants. He was slightly shorter than Serena, but his eyes were menacingly staring at her. She quickly tossed an eye behind her, hoping that it was all a stupid prank or something. But as she saw what was behind her, she snapped to reality. There was nothing.
<
A voice came from in front of her. She slowly turned her head towards the mirror. Although she was still slightly scared, she had regained a bit of lucidity. She understood that she was in danger. As her eyes spotted the mirror, the figure had changed stance: the man was now holding a gun, and it was pointed right at the Irish woman.
<<…I have come to kill you. Goodbye. >>
Everything happened in a split second, but to Serena it felt like an eternity. The man’s index finger slowly pulled the trigger. The banshee’s reaction was instinctive: her muscles twitched all together, her body began leaning to the side really slowly. It felt like being in a Wachowski brother’s movie. Her arms flinging the reports in the air, attempting to protect her face from lethal damage. Then the gunshot came. Moments after the deafening sound echoed throughout the room, Serena felt excruciating pain coming from her shoulder. Serena tumbled on the floor, pushed back by the strength of the impact. A quick glance at her right shoulder confirmed the obvious: she was shot.
Another loud gunsho