TM prompt 235: Show us where you live

[sylph_fics]

((latest post in the ongoing storyline. All muses mentioned used with stated consent))

Normally, the view around his home was enough to make him smile and turn his head to watch the long grass out here away from the river-side fields sway under the hard blue of the savanna sky. Or it would draw his eye to look for the game that moved in this part of the day; bushback and gazelle and zebra.

If not those, the beauty of this land would draw his eye to pick out the familiar shapes of the acacia and sausage trees--old friends now, and sometimes fought for; to see the tall, dark blue-grey rise of Mt. Elgon and the preserve in the western distance... not today. The savanna went by almost unseen, barely noticed, barring the wary eye kept out for danger.


The thin trails of smoke, dark black but only wisping up sullenly, were visible from almost seven miles out in the flat land around Kitale--to Slade's eye at least; and the leather and metal of the steering wheel under Slade's hand creaked dangerously at the visual confirmation of what he'd already known. Not the first time he'd seen that area smoking, or lost a home built here, but the loss never ceased to make him furious.

His wife's hand settled on his shoulder from the other seat, the touch both a comfort and a warning not to break the steering, and he opened his hand slightly, keeping his eye on the track of the private road that wound towards his home--what was left of it, in any case. Joe and Raven were close together in the back on his side, Rose behind Adeline where she could watch easiest... So easy to sense her fury already boiling under her skin behind him--daughter so much like him, and so much like Lili.

Those last miles went too quickly or not quickly enough, and he parked well back from the house to avoid obscuring any of the tracks, even with dust. He slid out and took up a fast jog over the rest of the distance, reaching the black rubble, scent of the burned wood and charred metal and stone and electrical wire thick in his nose as he found a way in, section where the roof had fallen to the side--and someone had been here already. He dropped to look closer at the faint marks in the ash... a bare foot, hard-callused, and light on it--one of the locals.

Another man might have turned suspicion there, but Wintergreen had had a relationship with the local people that was better than his--and both of them had spent years ensuring that the people of their area had more than enough reason to think fondly of them. No. No matter the unrest in the area, this was not the work of any local group. Wintergreen would have been safe from them. They had given him a wary affection and an almost uncanny loyalty almost from the first months they'd lived here. Wintergreen had shaken his head and patted Matilda and muttered about 'old superstitious claptrap' the one time he had asked, but had accepted it.

He made his way on in, seeing the almost total loss with that fury boiling in his veins again--and the rank smell of blood seeped into wood, then burned hit his nose. No small amount of blood would have left that much scent behind the flames... There was a place where rubble had been moved, the blood-stain was under it. Too much for his old friend to have survived, and the old instinct to scream with the rage hit him hard. He bit it back, forced it down to where it would be fuel for later, and went back out of the house.

He jogged towards the rest of his family--//you brought them here, where they will be in dan--(they were his family, too)// he told that voice in the back of his mind--to see what they had found on the grounds as he searched the rubble of the house.

The savanna could take it, this time. Without his old friend there, it would never be home.

Comments

[silent_jericho.livejournal.com]

Joe looked at his father, eyes holding out the barest hint of hope...and it extinguished on seeing his father's face. He squared his jaw, and turned his own skills to finding out the hows and whos of the attack.

[silent_jericho.livejournal.com]

He strode out, beyond the line that would have held the first warning devices, and began to prowl the land. He had a feeling whatever had struck here had not given Wintergreen any warning, and the destruction of the house indicated high powered rockets, or so his mother's training flicked at him in his mind. He scoured the tough Savanna grasses in an ever widening circle, until he found what he'd been looking for. Three positions, more scuffed than animals would account for.

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

Slade watched his son move and let him handle it until Joe beckoned for him, moving to go to help Addie in her searching.

[silent_jericho.livejournal.com]

Joe learned what he could, that three weapons had been used, spaced out and carefully hidden away from the main surveillance equipment. He found a small button off a uniform, a cigarette butt, and not much else, but the scuffings told him no more than six people. Three firing, three lookouts.

He made his way back toward the house, eyeing it with a frown. Dad must not have been able to reach the body. But it bothered Joe to just leave Wintergreen in there. He deserved to be buried properly.

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

Slade looked up from his conversation with Addie and whistled at his son, sharp two-note call to pull Joe away from trying to make it farther inside.

[silent_jericho.livejournal.com]

Joe looked, and jogged over. [His beliefs, Dad...I wouldn't feel right, not having him buried first.] Even as he says it, his eyes are watering, having to actually admit in language that Wintergreen is gone.

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

[If hi--he were still there, I would have seen to it, Joe,] Slade's hands flicked back, signs hard and sure.

[He's already been moved. The locals.] Why they would have taken him farther than out of the house was something Slade still didn't understand. But that was a question that could wait for later to ask. The trail of their opponents was already going cold, even though Addie was right that they would have to make this strike far differently than he normally would, to have it make any difference.

[silent_jericho.livejournal.com]

Joe looked first at his father, then out toward the distant horizon, wondering the same thing. He shook his head, then refocused. [I'm sure I found three firing positions. Tracks indicate one weapon each placement, two personnel on each position.]

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

[Tell your mother,] Slade signed, getting out of the way.

[rose-blade.livejournal.com]

Rose had nothing to say. Nothing to say at all. Anything she might have said was consumed by the black pit of sadness that soon darkened into an even bleaker chasm of fury. Whoever did this to Wintergreen . . . was going to pay, and pay in spades.

[childofazarath.livejournal.com]

Raven stood beside the vehicle, hood pulled up to cover her head as she used its feeble darkness to sheild her from the rage and pain that battered at her from all four members of the family. She had her own anger to face down, but it paled beneath the weight of Rose, Joseph, Slade and Adeline.

And, for now, she would do nothing to try and calm it. It would be too much like telling them she didn't believe they had any right.

When they looked to her, though, she would at least be able to tell them that he had felt no pain. She could see that much.

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

I had not needed the confirmation of Slade's face to tell me. I had already known Wintergreen would be dead.

And yet the blank pain in his expression makes me flinch for the sorrow and the fury under it.

Turning away from him to look in the rubble, lifting debris and shrapnel to examine them, uncaring of the fact that my hands will be burnt from the heat. They will heal. I need the information I can get far more than I need my hands undamaged.

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

Her hands might heal, but his would take less time if the heat even made it through the gloves. It didn't take long for him to join her, help her with the pieces of debris...

He knew she recognized the shrapnel as anti-tank weaponry as soon as he did, and his lips tightened as they broke down the blast pattern, flicking signs to each other as much as they spoke.

At any other time, it would have felt... so good, to have Addie at his side through this, the two of them working in the concert that had made them so very effective.

Now... it was useful. Effective.

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

Wintergreen felt no pain. I am sure he felt no pain. The blast pattern indicates multiple incendiary devices which all hit at the same time. He would have died too swiftly to feel pain.

Knowing that does not help enough.

Slade, I know, is reading the same answers I am: reasonably advanced (expensive) anti-tank rockets, meant to be used for medium-range attacks. Not difficult to get, price aside. Designed for barrage. And just here, slight modifications...

"H.I.V.E. weaponry." I had not been sure before. I am certain now.

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

Slade nodded, seeing the same things in the shrapnel that Addie had. "Confirmation enough."

//Not once, or even twice, but three times you harm my family? Take my son; use my wife, in her madness; and now my oldest friend?//

His blood seethed hot, and he made plans for scorched-earth tactics this time, with the H.I.V.E.. After all, the way to get rid of a hydra was to burn off all of the heads.

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

They will burn for this. I had held back with Grant, permitting Slade to take his own vengeance. I still am not certain why.

I will not hold back for this.

Objective: eradicate the H.I.V.E. entirely.

Problem: multiple targets. H.I.V.E. tactics include offering one or more bases as decoys while simultaneously pulling back to prepare for long-term undercover work, as well as employing too damn many people to shoot.

Solution: change tactics. Slade prefers to hit personally. Now is not the time for that.

"Can you get me any and all data on H.I.V.E. locations?" Flick of my head to look at Slade's face. "I cannot guarantee that what I recall is still accurate." But some of it will be. I remember the changes I made, fortifying defenses and making strength look like weakness.

I remember, too, that I had retained enough good sense to leave back doors.

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

"What we don't have, we can get. Jesse'll enjoy the challenge. And Raven and Rose have Tower access, if we absolutely need to go that route for any of it."

He'd rather not, with Stone there. Stone kept too close an eye on the Tower databanks, part of him as they were--and he would rather not have to deal with some of the Titans' idiotic varieties of nobility in the middle of this. But it was a resource if there was no other way.

He had more faith in his hacker than to think it would be needed.

"What are you thinking?"

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

"Kill them all."

It would be a good start.

"Your normal tactics, while satisfying, won't work. We do not have time nor resources to hunt down and decimate each individual base. The others will go underground first." I am not telling him anything he does not know, but Slade is rarely rational when he is so blindly furious. "The easiest way to destroy the H.I.V.E. entirely is with a strike to each base as close to simultaneously as we can get." Shift of my body, laying myself open to attack, the easiest way I can think of to say that I am on his side. "I left weak points deliberately, when I was Mistress there. I didn't trust anyone then, and I was certain that sooner or later I would need to kill them."

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

They were definitely on the same page there.

Slade nodded, listening to Addie as she reminded him of the H.I.V.E.'s usual M.O. He read her body-language with a faint smile--her scent and her blazing fury already said that she was on his side in this, but the obvious move was another reassurance.

The reminder made his lips tighten, but he nodded again. That Addie had already trapped the foundations... that was useful, and more than.

"This is going to take more than just the five of us." He snorted. "But they have more enemies than friends, in the business. The right offer should gain enough hands."

He hated sharing this out, but he wanted them finished more than he wanted to keep this entirely to his family. As few others as possible, of course, but...

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

"It will." I tilt my head towards Joseph, Raven. "Not the Titans." They would object to our way of doing business. "The remnants of Searchers, perhaps. Does anything of Frannie's organization remain? Or Lillian's?"

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

He didn't disagree with her opinion on the Titans in the slightest.

"Most of Searchers went to--to him. They already want blood for this, I know. Some of Frannie's people did the same. A few of Lili's girls came through that all right, but most of them retired afterwards."

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

I had built Searchers well, and Wintergreen would have only made it better. It will stand through this, at least long enough to be useful.

"Most of Lillian's girls, some of Frannie's people. Not all?" Easier to use Lillian's people, who would help for Rose's sake if nothing else, or Frannie's, who would come over if, at not Slade's name, *mine*. Lillian had numbered a few rather esoteric groups among her contacts. Frannie had simply been damn good at what she did.

[silent_jericho.livejournal.com]

[Mom, did you catch that? 3 firing positions, two man teams, one weapon each position.]

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

"Yes." I had known Joseph would see it, too. "Familiar." If he disagrees, I will rethink my surety. Joseph, too, knows the H.I.V.E.

[silent_jericho.livejournal.com]

He nodded, face grim. [Two for effect, third for surety.]

[rose-blade.livejournal.com]

Rose hadn't bothered to say anything, still trying to reconcile Wintergreen's death. She had quietly listened to her father, brother, and father's ex-wife plan their vengeance against H.I.V.E. However, she was finally inclined to speak at the mention of her mother's former associates.

"I can track them down. I'm still in contact with some of them."

She clenched her fists tightly, enough so that they broke the skin of her palms.

"Whatever it takes . . ."

She didn't need to finish that sentence. Everyone present knew what she meant.

[silent_jericho.livejournal.com]

Joe moved to her side, one arm settling along her shoulders, as he held on to her in support...for them both.

[rose-blade.livejournal.com]

Rose held Joey, returning the embrace. It helped . . . to have someone to hold onto, to be her anchor.