Dance with the Devil[pm only]

[Patrick O'Connor]

Theme

Patrick stood on the edge of a pier, looking out towards the ocean. Looking longingly he admired it's vastness, feeling as if he was just on the cusp losing him self in it, all of his pains, problems, the endless cycles that he seemed to be caught in. However close he felt though, he was always one step behind. One step too far away from getting there, breaking the never ending cycles he seemed to be caught in. Patrick sighed, taking a sip of whiskey from his bottle, at least he had a beautiful view of the sun setting on the ocean.

The was a pier in the Hermosa beach area, by some docks in an industrial area that had been abandoned for the time being as the suddenness of war shut down their labor. Officially, Patrick was here to scout out the area as for the time being it was not under Barker's direct control. It was Patrick's official job to check and see who, if anyone, owned the area, what was here of significance, who else was eyeing the area, etc. Unofficially he was here to meet his handler. This spot was chosen specifically for the lack of Barker's forces in the area, as well as anyone in particular.

The only ones that would be here were to be Patrick and his handler. This was for safety reasons as a face to face meeting was highly dangerous. Normally Patrick contacted his handler by way of drop boxes that were never the same, nor too frequent as well. Usually Patrick didn't have any contact from his handler purely for safety reasons. It just wasn't worth it anymore. There was no longer a specific thing they were after. It was more of an end goal. That being the case there was not too much of a need for Patrick to be updated on objectives because they were always the same generic thing. It was not worth it because Patrick had worked too long and hard to get this deep, only to have his cover blown by a message sent to him that he already knew. Not having any outside contact, from one of the two people, that he was aware of, that knew he was not really one of Barker's pawns, that didn't bother Patrick. He was used to being in a deep cover like this, having no one know your true intentions while the very people you were trying to help saw you as an enemy.

This job was different though. This was far bigger then he ever could have imagined. Patrick had originally thought that Barker was simply a bad dude. A bad person running experiments on 259 students or anyone with a qi. How could he possible conceive that Barker's real goal was the control of the world, much less that he actual had the means to do it? And that a few months before it happened he was just asked to go look into it? Now, Patrick was a hated figure, in not only southern california but the world. While he could care less about people hating him, he could not get over the sneaking suspicion that he was being set up. So what if he was the key reason that Barker and his forces were able to be defeated? The public wouldn't forget that he was instrumental in leading the initial attacks, amongst all the travesties he had and would be apart of. And because of that he was no shining knight. He was a monster. And a monster couldn't be the reason that Barker lost. It wasn't palatable.

So much for we'll take care of you huh?

OOC: statless

[Mr. Kaar]

Leon walked onto the wooden planks of the pier, normal shoes, a pair of blue jeans, a black wife beater, and the blue bandana over his hair. His multitude of scars out for show now. He kept silent for the entire walk to the spot Patrick was standing. Leon couldn't believe the things Barker had planned to do. It was so far out of the spectrum of problems he had suspected of happening Leon wasn't even sure if it had completely sunk in yet.

Once there Leon would pull a stick of pokey from his little red box and start chewing on the end of it.

"I'm sorry Patrick."

[Patrick O'Connor]

As Leon was walking up to him he would see some of the scars that Patrick was revealing by wearing his black tanktop, particularly the ends of the wing shaped scars on his shoulders, carved into him by a knife four years ago. The Irishman used to hate the scar on his face the most, however that tune had changed as the wings were his reminder of his descend into the madness that he was in now. Other visible scars were of course his facial scar and a series of lines on his left forearm left from a MAC-10. Funny story about the MAC-10 scars, those were merely scratches from when Patrick reached his arm around a door and literally blew the guy's head off at point black with a 12 gauge shotgun. The scratches were from the guy just trying to shoot the gun out of Patrick's hand. Not too funny? Maybe you just had to be there. Anyway the rest of what Patrick was wearing was just a pair of black tactical pants and black fingerless gloves. He of course had his weapons on him, a Kalis and a four inch fixed blade knife, even though the territory was unclaimed Patrick still had to come prepared.

Patrick heard Leon walking up behind him. He was quiet, but Patrick heard the creaking of the wood on the pier. As Leon approached him Patrick wasn't sure what he was going to say to him. A mix of emotions rumbled inside of the normally stoic Irishman. Upset simply didn't do justice to what Patrick was feeling. Rage, anger, fury, betrayed, hurt, hell even righteous fury fit in there. How the fuck didn't Leon know what was going on, what Barker was planning? Sure he had said that he didn't but who the fuck could honestly say that something that grand, that big didn't pop up on the radar of someone you were supposed to have been watching for the past, who the hell even knows how long? It was a good thing that Leon couldn't yet see Patrick's face, dripping with murderous intent.

"I'm sorry Patrick."

"Sorry?" Patrick would ask, angered indignation being the emotion to come out, "Sorry is, 'I stepped on yer toe'. Sorry is, 'I broke yer shit.' Hell, Sorry could even be, 'I fucked yer wife!'"

Patrick's tone steadily rising from contained to outright furious until it had reached the peak of its crescendo, but no, Patrick wasn't done yet, "I think setting up the guy giving ye information that ye need on Barker's operation is a little fuckin beyond "I'm sorry" don't ye think?"

Patrick still had not even looked at Leon yet, unsure if he could keep his intent as just a thought if he even looked on the so called Dragon...

[Mr. Kaar]

Leon let Patrick get the words he needed to say out of his system, he doubted if he tried to stop him if it'd work anyways. Leon simply stood and waited, looking at the man on the inside, the man in the dark... The man who was stuck in position.

Leon didn't like failures, failing in promises, failing in protection. He'd cough a few times before he decided to say something.

"I didn't know it was going to be this big. I knew he had secret bases in a lot of places, I knew he was raising a small army, but this? Not even Asiv was able to predict it, not even me."

Leon was no optamistic fool, he knew the way things where going and what was going to need to be done about it. Leon didn;t think Barker could be stopped anyways. In the initial attack he knew the best that could be done was damage control, and not even that was done. Now even making a safe place would only work for so long, onceBarker had more control he could actually focus his forces. Which is when he would be esspecially deadly.

[Patrick O'Connor]

Paranoia. It was something that was commonly left out of people's amateur attempts to diagnose Patrick. Commonly left out as when compared to his other mental ailments it seemed much more like a symptom then a full blown problem in of it's own right. Perhaps the psychosis, substance abuse and the extreme emotional detachment were far more flashy in their own rights then the constant looking over the shoulder and scanning people. Other then seeing those actions for what they were people generally seemed to thing it was just him picking out a new victim or looking out for people that were very genuinely after him. With the amount of people that wanted the irishman dead it was easy to dismiss paranoia as you had to ask the question, "If there really is someone out to get them then can you really call their actions paranoia?" In some cases that paranoia was a strength, careful to always check your surroundings, watch the doors, make sure no one was paying too much attention to what you were doing. It was that care, that attention to detail, that had kept Patrick alive. In this case though, it was not so much of a strength. It was keeping Patrick from trusting his one true ally that had his back. While the facts that he were seeing certainly had some validity, they were the only facts he was really looking to. Looking to prove his paranoia. The paranoia that people forgot was the most core part of his personality, forged over a lifetime of trying to escape death. It wasn't brought on with the appearance of his other illnesses, it had been there since the beginning, though there was no denying its spreading influence.

"I didn't know it was going to be this big. I knew he had secret bases in a lot of places, I knew he was raising a small army, but this? Not even Asiv was able to predict it, not even me."

Patrick looked at Leon for the first time, betraying what might have been hidden intentions. Disbelief now spread across the irishman's face, not buying a word of Leon's, "Do ye think I'm fuckin stupid?"

Venom dripping from his words, "He's got the entire world in his grasp. How do ye fucking miss that? Ye really expect me to believe that in yer, who knows how long ye were watching him that you only suspected he had a "small" army? I worked for him for three months and I figured it out. Sure I didn't know the extent of it's "thoroughness" but I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen."

And now here came the suspicion, Patrick turning to fully face Leon, "Ye know what I think? I think ye had some idea yerself from the beginning, only ye didn't know the full plan, all the details. Ye knew that ye needed someone on the inside to find out, to be a sleeper to flip at the right time. In my case at the time ye through me it I was dying. It was perfect. I wouldn't be around long enough to tell the whole story. Before I died I'd give ye everything I knew, almost everything on Barker assuming I'd done my job right, which I have. Because I didn't need to worry about safety, since I was about to die anyway. I give ye everything ye need and die before anyone notices it. Ye save the world and I get swept under the rug as one of the most heinous of Barker's monsters. I never talk and no one sees how willing ye and yer people were to stoop to his level to get the job done. Ye get to keep yer morality intact and Barker stays the only monster. Perfect really. Only one problem. I ain't dying any time soon. Barker fixed that. I'm the problem. The man that ye need and the problem that ye need to sweep under the rug. And now ye just can't figure out when."

Patrick would pause, dark intent now unavoidable in his eyes, "I can see through all yer lies. This blood, it's on yer hands. Not mine."

[Mr. Kaar]

Leon let Patrick talk, but when he spoke his theory and how the plan had came crumglong down, Leon smiled, coughing twice into his hand, waiting for him to finish, only to hear that he had been cured of his life threatening illness. Leon pulled a smile from the thoughts. A genuine real smile. Not cocky, not evil, just happy.

"I'm glad Barker fixed you."

Leon didn't know if Patrick could remember or not, but Leon was also dieing when they talked in the hospital. Leon chewed a bit more on the stick before continueing.

"I've only been monitoring California and two five nine. By the time I got your drop information on what was really going down there was little to nothing I could do... I dont see us coming out anywhere close to victory from this war, I dont see Barker going down anytime soon either... Asiv is dead for all I know, and very soon my heart will fail. When I asked you to do this it was a desperation move, and you where the only one qualified to do it. Yes I knew you where dieing, but I also knew Barker would stop you from dieing with his experaments. He stopped me from dieing ten years ago when he expiramented on me, but I never stopped my path and so my body rejects me once more."

Leon would chew down more on his pokey stick.

"If anything, I accidentally put you in the one safe place to ride out this war."

[Patrick O'Connor]

Patrick took a drink out of his bottle when Leon said that he was glad Barker had fixed him. The irishman saw no lie from the dragon, nor any sign that he was lying. Patrick was not too sure what to make of this. This seemed strange, even in his theory. The idea that he'd live not being a temporary and easily expendable asset shouldn't make Leon pleased, should it? Or was it that he needed Patrick alive longer then originally planned, and so this was a good surprise to be dealt with later? Though there were few with the capacity to deal with Patrick now, and one of them, being Leon, didn't seem like he'd be around too much longer either. This seemed to cast doubt on Patrick's paranoia. Patrick decided to dismiss it for now, in light of this thought and later in Leon's upcoming spiel. He had only one real option anyway, regardless of whether he believed in the plan or not he Patrick had to push forward in the plan.

When Leon gave his little spiel Patrick got out a cigarette, still from the same pack of the kid he killed and started smoking. Paying attention to Leon's talk was not the most fun thing Patrick had ever done. In short it was frustrating, almost to the point of causing fury. Asiv was presumed dead? Even after the warning that Patrick had risked his ass to give him? And Leon was dying shortly? Who the fuck was he supposed to help then? Without a handler he had no connections to the outside. No one to trust even with taking Barker down, not to mention Leon didn't think it was possible, even before the madman was able to focus his forces. Although, the part about being in the same place before Barker fixed him was funny. Not because Leon was dying but because Patrick had slowed down at all either. Hell, he had even picked up smoking.
"If anything, I accidentally put you in the one safe place to ride out this war."

"Ride out the war?" Patrick asked angrily, "I don't want to ride it out, I want to end it. End Barker. If I had killed him in the beginning like I said we should we wouldn't be in this mess. I don't like doing this, I'm too good at it. It's too natural for me, that's why I tried to end it at the school. If ye wanted to know what happened between the reformation war and then it's simple. I lost everything, then with no foundation I lost my morals, then my soul left too. If ye want to know what happened in that period of time it's simple to sum up, I made a lot of corpses. Killing's as easy as breathing and I don't want to anymore."

Patrick paused, taking a drag on his cigarette, "This job, it's taking me back to those days, before I had any guidelines on who and how I killed. To do it I have to be that person again. That person isn't a cover for me, he's a real part of me, my identity. I don't want to be him again. I'm afraid of losing touch."

"And riding out this war," another drag, "what do ye think will happen? Experiments will be never ending, he'll strengthen his control with an army that will never rebel or question what their doing. Hell they don't even have minds as it is. No resistance could have a fighting chance under the iron grip that's coming. What kind of a life is that? Even if I'm at the right hand of the devil?"

"Now ye tell me that yer dying and my only other possible handler is dead?"

"What the fuck am I supposed to do? I have no chance of killing Barker, or more importantly his freak Mitsoumi on my own. Who am I supposed to give information to?"

"Sounds to me like we're fucked and the people who are supposed to have a game plan have none."

A subtle jab at Leon came along with another drink.

[Zack Asiv]

"Thats about the jist of the situation."

Leon would say then he'd cough a few times. He wasn't thinking very hard, his face had grown too soft for something like that, it was more he was trying to say something.

"Find out who Barker's follow ups are before making a move against him. Remember why I said we couldn't take him out back then? He's got lackies for back ups that are more than capable of continueing this."

Leon did have a plan to fuck Barker's world up, but it would undoubtedly be his last stand in this conflict.

"My son mite be able to help you. He isn't as strong as me." ~Look at me lieing through my teeth, that boy has already surpassed me.~ "But he can get the job done. He hasn't developed into seeing moves ahead of the game yet, like you or me."

Though Leon figured he'd share what he could right now.

"As far as I can tell from your information, Barker doesn't make mistakes, his plans are perfect down to the letter, and he knows it. I think we can use that as a weakness, get him comfurtable and see if he slips up. He doesn't seem to play by any real rules, and a show of force only makes him scoff. But he likes to personally be present to certain things like promotions or big expiraments."

Leon would say before passing his own personal combined info on his monster pet.

"Mitsoumi's abilities rely heavily on his Qi, when I was in the facility with him, I could sense the change between him just sitting there and using his abilities. Take away the Qi, take away the monster."

Then finally the boot.

"From all your gathered info there are nine captains including yourself in california. Find out who their handlers are and you'll know who will be taking over for Barker when he gets takin out."

[Patrick O'Connor]

Leon confirmed his assessment and Patrick blew a puff of angry smoke. Fuck this. Fuck this whole thing. Patrick was half tempted to walk away right now. Wouldn't be the first time he had faked his death, assumed a new identity. Fuck it, it wasn't even the first time he had lived under a different identity. He had no connections. There was nothing to tie him here. Not a goddamned thing. Patrick looked at his feet, plan formulating in his head already. Paul James Walker. Sound good to him. Fuck, maybe his ghost would finally let him sleep. He hadn't in a long, long time. A grin spread across his face as he started to look upward. The grin was gone just as soon as his eyes leveled out.

Standing behind Leon. Standing behind Leon was everyone that Patrick had killed since he had started working with Barker. There were about ten to fifteen bodies pre-259 and then there were many more after that. The irishman viewed them in their final moments. They were all bloody, some with holes in their faces, others throats cut, others injuries indescribable. The only thing they had in common was their reason for being in the other world. But the biggest look of shock, the biggest look of shock came from the woman that had protested to Patrick's actions the most. Zea Heart. The specter that protested so vehemently against him going in to do this. Now her hand was up, pressed against his chest, keeping him from walking away. The Fuck? That was pretty much the only way to express what Patrick was feeling. The cigarette he was holding, he dropped from his mouth.

"You're not walking away now Patrick," Zea said to him plainly.

Still unable to look her in the face his eyes veered to the right, out to see, "Didn't ye want me to walk away from this in the first place?"

The kid Patrick had shot in the face for the cigarettes laughed, walking up to him, "It doesn't work like that buddy."

The kid patted him on the back laughing, before grabbing him by the throat, getting Patrick's full attention, growling the kid continued, "You've got too much blood on yer hands to just walk away from this. Your fists are bloody. Your fists are heavy. You have all of our blood and weight on them. You may have entered this with the right intentions. You know, whatever bullshit you go on spouting, for the greater good and all. I really don't give a shit what you said, say or are saying to justify your actions. But. You took away all of our dreams, our hopes, and our wishes. As much as you claim to want to absolve yourself from our blood on your hands, you can't. You can't take it back."

There was a pause before the pier filled up with all of Patrick's victims, filling the pier entirely, "You carry all of them now. All of our dreams, hopes, and wishes. You're fists are far heavier then you could ever possibly imagine bud. And our final wish?"

Another pause...

"For you to kill that parasite. To destroy everything that he's created. Don't get us wrong, save what lives you can, but everything else? Well everything isn't much clearer then that now is it?" The kid paused, letting go of the irishman's throat grin appearing on his bloody face. The cigarette he put back into Patrick's mouth, before saying in a friendly tone, "Smoke up buddy, you'll need it."

OOC: interpret the cigarette action however you feel like it. Literally however.

Stunned, well that was the least of what you could say of the emotions swirling around Patrick right now. He had seen one or two different ghosts before, but all of them. Well, all of the one's he'd killed? That was a different story entirely. But fuck man. He'd never even thought they'd endorse his actions, though endorse may not have been the right word. All the same there was an irony in this situation. They never seemed to want Patrick to do what he wanted.

Well fuck it, he figured. Might as well get his head in the game.

Same thing huh? Couldn't kill Barker without making sure another wouldn't step up to take the place of him huh? Damn. Patrick had his ideas on that though. He had long thought that he should/might have to take the throne himself and dismantle the grip that Barker hand on the world, bone by little bone. That option, of course, never had been ideal but it was an option. The other option, well substantially more difficult but perhaps the best course of action, strategically pulling out the stones forcing barker to be the capstone. Then pulling out the capstone would cause the rest of the structure to crumble. Anyway, it would have been easier if they could just off Barker and be done with the whole mess.

As for his loss of a handler, Leon had an idea. As he explained Patrick could tell that Leon was lying though. Well, tell, not exactly. No one could ever be certain, but Patrick was almost certain that he was, credit given in much part too Barker's fabulous eyes. "He isn't as strong as me". That was not the truth. Not the full truth anyway. Why Leon would lie, now that was a harder, and generally more important question to answer, but that couldn't be answered, even with Patrick's special eyes. The one thing that Patrick could be almost certain of was the fact that Leon's son was as strong or stronger then the lightning dragon himself. While the existence of Leon's son had never been revealed to Patrick that wasn't importance here. The most important thing here was the last part of Leon's description of his son.

"Well, even if "He isn't as strong as you"," Patrick said, mimicing Leon's voice almost perfectly, "It really isn't any use to me if he can't think one move ahead let alone the uncountable number he should be able to. Ye should know better then almost anyone else, it doesn't matter how quickly ye can react in a fight. How fast ye are, how strong, how durable, none of that matters if ye can't think three moves ahead of yer opponent. How else are ye supposed to work an opponent into a trap, or work yerself out of one? I'm sorry, no offense to yer son or yer training of him, but if he can't think of how to get to end game with me then I can't trust my life to him. I can trust the blood of all those that I've killed to get here, to someone I don't know for certain can act on information he's supposed to act on and look the other way and allow me to massacre the people I have to massacre for the sake of me cover. Some times ye gotta make tough calls. Some people gotta live, some people gotta die. I trust that he understands that about the men he may or may not be commanding, but does he understand it about the innocents? If he can see his way to end game and all the pitfalls, then sorry, I have another possible lead. And if not, I can wait until someone shows up.

Leon's next bit was redundant really. And unnecessary. Sure it had to be said but it was something that Patrick knew. Patrick had a few vague ideas but getting Barker out in the open, it didn't matter unless he could kill him. It didn't matter unless, like stated before someone wouldn't step up. And even then, so many moves had to be played, that even thinking about it was still too far away.

Leon's next two suggestions, those had a little bit more that Patrick could give input on.

"Ah, Mitsoumi," Patrick said, "I had a plan about him exactly along those lines. In fact yer little escapade that got rid of all the guns gave me that idea. By the way I lost my two favorite pistols, they'd been with me since the beginning, from 552. But anyways, if we could weaponize a method of getting rid of weapons, could we do the same with qi? It would seem like it would have to come from a qi user of course but still the original question remains? Just so happens I run a facility that can properly entertain that question. Sounds like something Barker would at least like to see the answers of those questions. Funny, he may fall on his own sword.

The last part though, as it had been so well put before him, that was in fact the boot.

"Hmm," Patrick thought, "I had always figured that Barker was the handler. He usually communicates to me directly, so perhaps he has his hands in a few pies but leaves the rest to Mitsoumi, or someone else. That's troubling though. If there is another handler, or handlers then we need to find out who. And that's a question that seems a little too touchy to simply poke around and keep loyalty."

A pause as Patrick could find no other ideas, "That makes it simple really. I guess I just have to advance to the "captain handler" position."

As Patrick talked and conversed he attempted to skillfully guide his way away from the elephant in the room, or on the pier as the case may be. The fact that he had a psychotic break earlier, usually he was able to hide them, simply not respond, to the behest of his "ghosts" or more as the case happened to be not have them at all. Who knew why one had happened here, and now. More over why he hadn't able to brush it aside. Maybe it was the magnanimity of the situation, maybe it was the growing feeling of trust Patrick had with Leon, maybe it was a little of both. Patrick was just crossing his fingers and hoping that Leon wouldn't notice, and that, was anyone's guess...