The Oakmans. From what Scott had gathered, their senior members were all ex-cons.

They’d antagonized and recruited from Oakville’s poorer regions, and had even attempted peddling low-end drugs in them, though it never caught. In one instance, they’d even robbed an antique guns exhibit that was visiting the town.

Despite the compelling evidence Scott had compiled via online boards and even some in-person conversations, the police had little-to-no evidence with which to incriminate the gang.

From what Scott could see, the Oakmans were managing an uncharacteristically sophisticated counter-intelligence operation where the law was concerned. People would have strangely hard times reporting on the gang, with phones going dead and police lines being occupied whensoever they intended to call.

The police, too, would seemingly have similar troubles. They make claims of popped tires, or other emergencies slowing them down, when responding to any Oakmans-related call or making any inquiry into the gang. Either their influence was broader than Scott had first come to assume, or Oakville’s police were corrupt in a manner all their own.

Either way, no matter how many heads this hydra had, or how far their necks stretched, Scott would uproot them all at the torso.

At the very edge of his hearing, Scott hears whispering. Turning about in the darkened, empty hallway of the building’s second floor, he can’t decide just which door it’s coming from.

The fear in this whispering, he’s realised just a moment after it’s stopped. Whatever words had been shared were spoken sharp and fast.

Scott turns again. He sees no lights from under the doors. Not one spackle of luminescent color is gracing the floor, save for that of the moon.

Deep down, Scott felt like walking over to that window and looking to his home. To where his parents must be, worried sick. He prayed his father nor his mother were so brave as to guess where he’d headed and come there themselves.

“What would they think?” Scott thought to himself, “What would they say if they knew I had a whole floor of people scared of me, cowering behind their doors? Would they hate me if they knew I’d just caused a lockdown?”

Scott shook these thoughts off, bringing himself to move his boots once again.

What was he thinking, at a time like this? At this, the very peak of his independence– seeking out justice in the name of his loved ones– and he was worrying what his parents would think.

Scott hardened his hands to fists, and did the same with his gut.

Above him, Scott heard the tromping of a great many feet, all getting further away.

He continued towards the next staircase at the hallway’s end, the ogre’s torch lighting his path.

However many guns were waiting for him, his armor could sponge it. The D30 beneath his plates is military grade, and had just proved its worth a moment ago. He’d be left with bruises, and had already collected some, but it was a small price to pay for Oakville’s safety.

As Scott marched up this spiral stairway, shutting off and holstering the torch, he felt a rising anxiety. Every creak of the old-looking wooden stairs sent worry through his spine.

This was the moment of his identity’s realisation. He’d heard them setting up. He’d definitely be right in their crosshairs by the time he’d hit the staircase’s top. This time, he’d be watching for doorway-campers.

Now, it would be decided whether he was just some dumb kid in a costume, or Oakville’s fucking hero. Either way, he expected he was about to meet some of the Oakmans’ senior members.

As Scott reached the top step, coming face to face with the large green-painted door beyond which lied his destiny, Scott felt a stiffness in his right hand’s fingers.

Slowly and deliberately, after readying his hands for a mass-blinding, Scott rotated the door’s knob.

As soon as the signature click of an opened door sounds, Scott kicks it in!

His eyes scan the room so intently for hidden people, for the shadowed barrel of a gun, that he nearly misses what is obvious in the center of the floor’s lounge.

There, both awash in the moon’s light, Scott sees Ranov.

For what seemed a long while, the two stood silently. Ranov had his eyes on something far past the window, not at all acknowledging Scott. 

In his armor, Scott stood just as tall as Ranov. Given this, Ranov is looking straight ahead when he finally turns to face him.

Scott, cursing himself for being dumbstruck at the man’s solitude, whips up his right arm, facing an open palm right at him.

Against his better judgement and purpose for coming here, Scott opts for the peaceful route. “Down on the ground, and no-one gets hurt, alright?”, he says to the man after a moment’s deliberation. “I’m only after your boss”.

Ranov snorts to himself, a smirk ripe on his face. Bending back somewhat as he moves, he sets a shot-glass that had been in his far hand onto a table behind him.

Looking back at Scott just in time to see that he’d flinched at his taking the glinting glassware out, he speaks in a laid-back yet ominous tone:

“Ain’t no higher power in this building past me, slaboumnyy.”

At this, Scott is again sent to a half-stunned silence. A low rumble sounds from behind a couch by Ranov, though Scott doesn’t have time to guess at what it is.

By the time Ranov’s knelt down, reaching towards something glinting behind the couch, Scott’s already tried to fire his palm-light twice.

The fingers he’d been using to call this light seem to have locked up, their segments refusing to bend.

Scott shakes his hand, feeling these joints straighten out. He isn’t quick enough to loose a shot with his left palm as he does this, though, as Ranov quick-draws and hip-fires a colt walker straight at this arm’s wrist. 

The one bullet impacting this wrist, the ocean of light it looses is thrown off course, being wasted on the floor.

Whereas with one hand Ranov had fired this gun, he’d been working a chain with the other, loosing something from its hidden end!

Scott’s barely recovered from the shock of the wrist-fuckery when the rumble he’d been hearing intensifies to a snarl. In a moment, a pitbull nearly his size is bounding from the couch at him, its teeth bared!

“He’s a pitbull/rottweiler mix,” Ranov brags as the creature vice-bites Scott’s right arm, weighing it down. “Just about the best guard-dog on the market– if you don t count Jorge down there.”, he finsihes, looking towards the door Scott’d come through.

Still nursing his fragile crotch-situation, Ranov lowers himself carefully onto the couch.

“That guy, with the bat? I’m sure you remember– he’s probably the one that cracked up your visor. He gave me a call a bit ago, and told me all about your gear.”

Scott’s memory flashes to a moment ago; imagining that older man with the tuft of hair for a face hiding, watching and relaying as he beat down his underlings on the ground floor.

“This guy’s their boss,” Scott thinks to himself, staring at the man through his visor as he struggles with the heavy hound. “This guy’s seriously their fucking boss?”.

In a moment of crazed drive, Scott draws his baton with his free hand, clicking it on. He drives its blunt end into the dog dog’s lower torso!

The dog seizures in response for a moment, and lets its grip on him falter!

Deep down, Scott felt a mix of remorse for what he’d one to the mutt, but all the same he was now charging Ranov, his baton buzzing! .

Scott’s and Ranov’s eyes were locked so intently on each other, in a contest of dominance as he ran, that both were surprised when a ceiling hatch just above him opened– swinging down and striking Scott hard in the helmet!

Ranov’s face lights up, and he lets out a full laugh as Scott staggers, disoriented.

Scott’s view of him blocked, Ranov is free to just walk up and drive a kick straight into his kneecap!

Scott reels, his groan sounding through his helmet!

“That armor’s not gonna be much help to you when a fella’s just planning to break your legs, huh?”, Ranov japes, bringing himself around the hanging hatch-door.

What was going on? Was Scott really choking this hard at this, the most crucial of moments?

It mattered little to him. This guy had no protection past a shitty hoodie.

Scott swallowed his pains and stepped in for a swing at Ranov, handling his baton like one might a sword as he went straight for the man’s neck!

Ranov caught the baton, but with a bare hand! Scott, seeing that he wasn’t immediately convulsing, flicked the baton’s charge on!

Or– off. Why’d he just turn it off?

Before Scott could try flicking it back on, Ranov pistol-whipped him in the side of the helm with his colt, following it up with a tackle!

This guy’s body is nothing like the bearded man’s, with whatever laid beneath his hoodie being taut and trained, hard and cut. His pistol-whip hit just the right part of his helmet, and he actually felt a twinge of pain upon his head as a result. His tackle was a drive into Scott’s upper torso with his shoulder, sending him spiralling backwards.

As he staggers, still standing as Ranov doesn’t follow-up any further, it dawns on Scott that his baton may just have run out of battery. And, god, what a time for it to do so.

Catching himself just before the stairs, Scott resolves to take a risk. If there’s even a chance this guy’s their boss, he’s got to punk him now, and hard. He had to make sure this guy was de-fanged in a way he couldn’t recover from.

Slamming his empty hand’s arm into his side, he flips his palm-light to its stronger beams. This guy’s skin was already some shades darker than Scott’s, but a bit more tanning couldn’t hurt.

Holstering his baton, Scott raises this arm towards Ranov, palm open, taking a step back as Ranov does not cease his slow advance towards him.

Scott makes to fire straight into Ranov’s face, and his fingers don’t lock this time. Sadly, something in the light itself likely does; it doesn’t fire.

Scott brings the seemingly broken thing to his face for a moment, trying to ascertain just why it hadn’t fired– and, in this moment, it does. Right into his visored face.

Scott’s visor was specially fitted to deflect these beams, but receiving a point-blank serving of this intensified variant was still enough to send him off-balance!

In his panic he trips, his back-stepping foot landing squarely on one of the well’s wooden stairs. It creaks loud enough to be mistaken for a whale-call, and breaks!

Scott falls backwards just as his vision focuses, seeing Ranov’s amused expression.

His leg caught in a sea of uneven wood, Scott is left struggling as Ranov kneels down just before him. He holsters his colt. 

“You’re done, slabak. A buddy o’ mine advised I just throw you outt’a the building, but I think I’ll have some fun first.” Ranov says to Scott in a low, smooth tone.

Scott attempts a light-shot into Ranov’s face, his leg falling in further as an arm stops supporting him, but Ranov grabs his hand by the back and slams it into the floor, palm-down. It’s like he’d sprung at just the right moment to stop him; as if he’d already been raising his defending hand to do something akin to stroke his chin.

What the hell was going on?

“I’m gonna de-shell you like a crab, then I’m gonna cut you. Find out who ‘you workin’ for, and scare’m so bad he forgets all about my Oakmans.”

Ranov sees as Scott adjusts his other arm, drawing it back somewhat as he continues to hold his hip just a bit above the wooden maw holding his leg.

Recognition flashes in his eyes.

“Try it.”, Ranov goads.

“But I ain’t getting flashed by anyone but my chica today, ‘pal.”

Scott fires this arm straight at the cocky prick’s face, dropping deeper somewhat as he does.

Ranov raises his other arm, lightning-quick in his defense, ready to bring this palm-fire too into the ground. But, Scott’s arm doesn’t stop! He doesn’t open his palm, driving a hard, plated fist straight into Ranov’s face.

“Son of a bitch!”, Ranov bellows as he falls back. 

Meanwhile, in Ranov’s bathtub on the top floor, an elderly, robed and shabby figure sees Ranov get slugged on one of their surveillance-screens. They gasp raspily, and after a moment’s hesitation, their banadged left hand is inching over towards a glock by their side in the tub.

By the time Ranov gets up, having reeled back upon receiving this face-bruise, Scott is already working with both arms to tear himself from the splintering aperture.

For a long while, Ranov is grasping his face where he’d been struck, covering his eyes at the same time. His breath is heavy with restrained rage, though it’s obvious on his face, with his brow now resembling the surface of an apricot.

Above him, even past the sounds of his leg-plating tangling with the plank-branches holding him, Scott can hear the heavy scuffling of many pairs of feet.

“Lucky shot.” Ranov finally manages to fume, now re-drawing his colt walker with clenched teeth, removing his hand from his face.

“Now, you’ve got me in an experimenting mood–”, he says, his breath shaking with enraged satisfcation.

“That armor’s bulletproof. That helmet, though–”

The Mk-1’s visor reflect’s the gun’s barrel as Ranov starts to fan the hammer right at him.

“I doubt it can stop me ruining you with concussions.”

Bang-CRACK! Bang-SKOP! Bang-CRASH! Bang! Bang! BANG!

Three heavy-hitting rounds clap against top-right of the helmet as Scott cringes, seeming all to hit the exact same, splintering spot and shattering a chunk of it to bare the D30 underneath to the air!

 Though Scott doesn’t see it, being thrown into delirium by the splitting these shots put his skull to, the two remaining shots miss as one more, coming from behind Ranov, runs straight through the thin of his left cheek!

Ranov turns, with fury and pain, both further intensified by this bleeding gash on his face, mixing in both his expression and his pained grunt.

It’s Yaga who fired the last shot, wheezing as if they’d just run a marathon. Their uneven teeth are bared in a satisfied, disturbingly-wide smile. They continue pressing on the glock’s trigger, but it doesn’t go down all the way once more.

Almost as if it was jammed.

“Worthless bitch! Bitch!” Ranov yells, doubling over some and bringing his eyes to the floor as he grips his new wound. “It’s nearly worn off already?!”.

His eyes whip back up to Yaga.

Ranov chucks his empty walker at Yaga as they’re slapping the malfunctioning sidearm on their thigh desperately, sprinting at him. 

Ranov’s face is warped with rage as he snarls loudly, socking Yaga so hard in their bony jaw that they’re knocked head-first into a wall to their right. “Fuck you and your advice!”, he yells.

Ranov runs off down the hallway Yaga’d come down as they fall.

Scott swears, snarling in a similar manner to Ranov as he finally feels the rotten wood holding his leg begin to splinter.

A moment after Yaga’s slid down the wall to a sitting position, their two dice come falling back into their upheld bowl. Yaga’s eyes focus on them, his breath rattling as they finally settle.

Double-sixes.

The dilapidated stair cracks in two as Scott finally forces his sawdust-strewn leg from it.

He hustles, shaking off a pseudo-concussion, to the mouth of the hallway down which  Ranov’d run.

The gang leader was nowhere to be seen.

Swallowing his frustration, Scott bends down to tend to the fallen, shaking– old person.

“Hey– you alright? You might’ve saved me there.” Scott says, seeing the elder’s lip to be split and bleeding, with the area around it bruised.

Yaga looks down the hallway for a moment, their eyes returning to their bowl of dice with defeat in them.

“Kill him.” Yaga grumbles to Scott.

Scott is taken aback somewhat. “Uh– what?”

Adjusting their jaw with an audible sound of bumping bone, Yage speaks a tad more clearly:

“You can’t really end him, not now. Just- hurt him if you can at all. If it’s an undeniable eventuality, all the causal favors in the world can’t stop it. You have to try, damn it, because he deserves it.” 

The last part Yaga says through gritted teeth, clenching their bandaged hand into a trembling fist.

Scott, obviously, had not a clue what this one was talking about. Somehow, though, deep down their words appealed to the sense of rising strangeness he’d had since his fingers had locked up and prevented his first palm-shot.

“Could you explain a bit better?”, Scott posited, not really knowing what or why he was asking. All he knew is that fighting that man made him feel hopeless; like he couldn’t possibly win. Like something unnatural had taken control of the situation.

“For a person to impersonate a police officer, they must steal a badge-number. This fools the powers that be, and gives the impostor a quart of the state’s power. Ranov, the man who just stuck three bullets in your helmet, has done this with god.”

“You– you’re–” Scott stutters, standing up. “You’re stalling for something.”

“No.”, Yaga growls. “As much as your primal mind wants to save you from it, you face an unwinnable situation. This man has taken what the powers above use to identify their servants; their blood. Whereas god controls all causality, those that represent him would, by extension, have causality’s favor. Nothing bad ever happens to angels, yes? Not unless they collide with another angel, or with god. To an extent, in everything they do they find a measure of success. God, being like the law in all his blind favor, recognizes Ranov as an angel because he has drunk the blood of one, and it courses within him.”

As Yaga explains, Scott finds himself, looking past the hammering in his skull, to actually be hearing this. He attempts to massage the bruised portion of his skull through the de-shelled portion of his helmet, finding that there indeed were three thick bullets still embedded in the D30 there.

At Scott’s silence, Yaga sighs somewhat.

“Angels are lucky, because god loves them, and this means that every action taken towards disadvantaging them is less likely to go unhindered . Ranov has taken an angel’s ID, so god now sees him as an angel. The more of this angel’s blood he drinks, the luckier he becomes. He’d probably had only a small amount in him when you fought him just now, so–

Yaga makes a gesture of throwing a hand up flimsily, as if to say “no chance”.

“In a moment, he’ll have emptied the halo. He’ll have drank all of the angel’s blood. The bone-dice have called it–”

Yaga looks into the bowl, drawing Scott’s eyes to the double-sixes. He sees that the bowl’s bottom is spackled with something dark and red.

“–the next person to enter this building will be just what Ranov needs. Such is what his new luck will be.”

“Okay, explain this now.” Scott says, pointing down at the bowl. He knew this was stupid, he knew it could all be a trick, but he felt as if he couldn’t stand to face that man again after what had happened just now. He crouches down closer to Yaga.

“I can learn things about all those who have, are and will enter this building with my bone-dice, among– other things. Not going to say how I learned to. I can’t figure anything else about Ranov’s deus ex machina without the rest of my equipment upstairs. Damn it, I thought the blood’d run its course as soon as I saw you punch him over the feed. That’s the only reason I came down here!”

 “But– your gun jammed. Because he still had that god-favor or whatever.”, Scott offers.

“Yes, now you’re starting to get it.” Yaga says, fingering a loose molar on their lower jaw. “You’re a smart boy. Ranov’d benefitted the whole of the Oakmans for years by using just small doses of the angel’s blood–allowing it time to restore. For him to do this– to jeopardize the whole of his empire– you must’ve either made him very desperate, or what’s more likely–”

Yaga looks Scott in the visor, raising their bandaged hand for him to see.

“–very angry.”

“So, what then? What’s there for us to do?” 

“‘Us?’” Scott thinks to himself. Was he really coming to trust this one so fast?

“You will go after him, but you must not do it directly. You must not find yourself dealing with both Ranov and his savior at the same time.” Yaga posits. “Ranov won’t come down until he feels very ready, and he won’t let any of his men come down until he’s made a statement with both of us. I’d know, I’ve worked very closely with him as an– advisor.”

“Advisor! Great!” Scott yells, exasperatedly, in his head. In every fiction he’d ever known, any powerful person’s advisor turned out to be a fucking snake.

Yaga is sticking two fingers into the side of their mouth.

“So, it’s the police that’ll be coming first, I’m guessing. That’ll be a– problem.” Scott says, worrying again about his family.

“Nho,” Yaga says through an open mouth, grunting hard in agony as they yank their loose molar all the way out, making Scott withdraw in shock.

After a moment of frenzied recovery from the pain, Yaga catches their breath, and continues:

“They will doubtless be responding soon enough, but–”

Yaga trails off as they drop the still-bloody molar into the bowl, shaking it and the dice around in it.

“But what?”, Scott says, trying to avoid whatever the fuck was going on with the tooth.

“…we also ordered pizza.”, they finish, almost bashful in their expression and tone.

“Wh– the police’ll get here first, and Ranov would be more lucky to have them. Pizza’s not gonna help him much.”, Scott objects.

“We can’t be sure what’ll help him most, just as we can’t see the invisible hand of fate. Another thing you may not get, that I’ve become very familiar with–”

Again, Yaga looks at Scott dramatically.

“Pizza always arrives faster than the police.”

Frustrated again, Scott is beginning to find the idea of a repeat fight with Ranov less unappealing.

“All right, “, Yaga whispers, interrupting Scott’s thought as they stop rolling the dice and tooth around in the wooden bowl.

“I rolled the bone dice with one of my own teeth, so that their roll would indicate the favour in my future, and by proxy– yours.”

Scott looks down into the bowl. “So, uhh–” he drones, pointing into it.

“–what’s that mean?”

Yaga follows his gaze into the bowl, biting his wounded lip as he sees its contents.

“Ukh.”, he says, as if in distaste, or worry.

Within the bowl, the tooth lies shattered in many small parts, though the dice lay unharmed and properly rolled.

The first has landed on a one. The second, on a five.