Xanas, Editted

A lady walked up to the bar and asked the bartender for a glass of ice cold water. Most ladies, Jackson would just ignore, but this one caught his attention. He stared after her as she walked to the corner of the bar, near the window panel.

She was a woman of youth, tall, with a slender torso and slim, small hips. She was built like a nordic goddess, Jackson marveled, marble and soft. She carried weapons; an oak bow and arrows to match. Her outfit was made of blue and violet colours, and exposed her arms, abdomen and small yet eager chest. A winged, metal headband framed her small ears and face.

She carried herself straight, regal and free. Jackson was a man to stare, and she seemed to invite it. She presented herself as if she were proud of her fairy attributes. She was flashy, in a cute way, a blue glint of beauty in the urban air. She wanted to be seen.

But her gloves and boots were layered with sharp, metal edges, that could cut, draw blood, and kill efficiently and quickly. They were wrapped tight around her limbs, which hid training and muscles underneath that fair flesh, and there was no doubt those arrows could pierce.

Yes, Jackson thought to himself as he fingered his shiny and very illegal ray gun. This girl was a huntress first and nymph second. She'd already spotted him staring, smiled at him, and in her confident, shy expression when their eyes met he saw a readiness to throw him through the window pane.. and an invitation to talk, if he wanted. The bartender whispered into her ear, and she stared at Jackson with what seemed interest. He had a chance. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and coughed discretely to see if he reeked of liquor (he did not), then sauntered over.

"Hey, you lookin for someone?" He drawled. "Cause I just might be packin what you need." He knew it was stupid the moment he said it, but he knew that if they'd laughed, he had an in.

"Really? You just might. You're pretty cute, but I usually need a little more than that." Her voice was soft. "I heard you've got a special gun that can do magical things." Whoa, score! Jackson thought. She was smiling at him with that shy, flirty smile. "I'd like to see it."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Jackson said. "A little forward there, aren't we?" He was getting way too lucky, and he knew it, but he was just going to run with it.

She stepped up close to him. She was tall, for a girl that slender. Her face was fair, and her eyes sharp. She spoke clearly, "I want to see your gun." He could feel her hands touching him. One of her hands was on his neck. The other was on his hip, moving around. She was gettin a little close to his holster. Oh, hell, he thought. It's a little early in the day for this, but go for it. He slid his arms around her and grabbed her ass. His fingers moved through the see-through, frilly half-skirt that covered her; the cloth was fine to the touch, not rubber like he expected. He was surprised by how ROUND it was.


Jackson wasn't sure what hurt more, the impact through the glass or the sidewalk outside. He was cut up badly, but he'd had worse, and those mutagens were already closing up cuts around the shards of glass still stuck in em. A dozen stinging sensations rang out from his body. He needed to thank Frankie for that mutagen operation the next time he saw him, he thought. He struggled to make the world stop spinning, and palmed the ground, looking for his gun. His eyes were glowing green with that damn mutagen. He hated when they did that. Where were his glasses?

Her knee was suddenly on top of his chest, pinning him down. He grunted and grabbed at her knee, onto to stab his hand on her boots. He screamed and pulled his hand away, blood spreading onto the pavement as the girl slid her hip over his belly and pinned his torso down with her knees. If she wanted to, she could jab those edges right into his belly.. He stopped fighting, holding up his hands. "Hey! Hey! Sorry!"

The girl held up his gun, turning it over. It was a strange design; DeFrank had claimed it was from an alien world. As far as Jackson knew it was just a shiny silver gun right out of the 50's idea of the future, but the few test shots HAD shot bolts of light that burned right through the targets. That little baby had cost him a pretty penny, so he wasn't too pleased that the little lady was manhandling it. DeFrank owed him a favor for dealing with that private investigator, but warned him if that the gun found its way out of his hands, Jackson was as good as a dead man. "Who sold you this gun?" She asked.

"I'm not telling you that." He said. She punched him in the face. "OW! Lady, enough with the violence! People are staring!" He didn't know if that was true or not, but she didn't bother checking. Instead, she found the settings on the gun and inspected them.

"This gun's a modification of a Rikti pistol. Where'd you get something like this?" Her lips were tight. No smiling now.

Shit, he thought. If she wasn't bluffing him, she knew more about the damn thing then he did. "Not telling."

"We'll see. What are the modifications to the pistol?" She tightened her legs around his torso, squeezing him. He cringed as she began to dig into his skin. His poor shirt. He pressed his hands against the outside of her thighs, trying to relieve the pressure in return.

"Don't know what you're talking about. My pistol's all-natural." He half-chuckled out of habit. The lady raised her fist, but paused. She smiled, and shook her head just the littlest bit, and didn't hit him.

"Is that so?" She relaxed her grip on him, sitting atop him. "I'll have to see that." She pressed one of her hands into his chest, leaning down with a sultry grin. "Tell me what this thing can do and I won't cut your hands off. Can you regenerate that?"

Jackson became acutely aware his hands were still pressed on her hips. He took his hands off. Shit. DeFrank was going to kill him. Unless.. "...it's a normal pistol. It has some kind of biomechanical thought.. alloy registry. I'm the only one that can fire it. Maybe that's from the Rikti."

"So if I were to shoot you, it wouldn't work for me?" She slid one hand onto his shoulder and leaned down, pressing his gun into his other shoulder. Her face was very close. He could see faded white marks on her lips.

"No! It'd explode and kill us both!" He sweated heavily, watching her. Several long moments passed. Her eyes stared into his. He felt like he was being pierced by arrows right into his soul.

Finally, she relaxed, and so did he. Then he found himself being lifted off the ground as she dragged him bodily into the nearest alleyway, and pinned up against the wall. Her very sharp wrist blades were pressing into him. He grabbed hold of her arm, pulling to no avail.

"Easy, easy.." He breathed hard. "We don't cut throats over... questionable gun modifications do we? I haven't done anything. Haha.." Well, that was a lie.

She seemed more annoyed then anything else. "Rikti modifications are dangerous. Someone out there is selling very dangerous alien technology. I'm going to put a stop to it. You don't want to talk? Fine. Do you want to be part of the problem or help me stop it? Think fast."  He started to relax, and then she punched him across the jaw. She pressed into his body and released some of the tension on his neck.

He touched his lip. Blood. He grinned as much as he was able. "You're not going to kill me."

"What makes you so sure? I might." Her eyes narrowed.

"Call it an intuition." He gritted his teeth over her wrists digging into his neck. "But you saw me healing. I think you're only being this rough because you know I can take it. I don't think you can kill me." His eyes glowed a bright green, and his grin grew wide.

She headbutted him, leaving a bloody welt on his forehead. He yelled and collapsed, clutching his head. "Enough already! Fine! Jesus, lady! I'll help you! Just stop hitting me!" He held up his hands to show his surrender and looked away.

"I was starting to think you were enjoying it." She adjusted her gloves. "Name of the man who sold you this."

"Look, I.. can I just take you to where it was sold? Will that be enough?" He slowly stood up, hands still in the way. "I don't want to name names, but if you get the operation taken down, that's good enough, right?"

"That'll do, if you're telling the truth. What's your name?" She pushed his hands away from their cowering position and looked him over, pulling him to his feet.

He cleared his legs and body off, looking a bit tattered. "Jackson. My friends call me Action Jackson." He assumed a slight swaggering while standing still, which is pretty impressive.

"No, they don't."

"Yeah, they don't." He admitted, sighing, but Xanas was already gone. She'd walked over to a motorbike parked nearby the bar, where the broken window was already being replaced with a pre-made sheet by two young men. Jackson followed her with some reluctance, the urge to use the moment to bolt tempered by a healthy dose of fear and the fact he'd good as given his word.. and either this girl or DeFrankie was going to kill him.

The bike was SOME bike. It was silver chrome, sleek with heavy wheels. Xanas swung her hips over the seating and leaned forward to reach the handles, pulling them up and turning the bike on. She turned to look at him, and reached to her metal headband, flipping a dark visor down over her eyes. Clearly amused at Jackson's awe, she grinned and gestured with her head. "Come on!" She gave the bike a rev for good measure.

Jackson carefully got in the back and found the second person seating to fit him quite nicely, although he didn't have much to hold onto- well, except Xanas. "Don't spose you have a helmet for this thing?" All he got in return was a laugh as the bike took off, causing him to quickly swing his hands around Xanas to hold on for dear life. As soon as his heart calmed down, he very slowly lowered his hands and grip from where they'd landed. Xanas, for her part, didn't say anything.

"You trying to kill me?" He grumbled.

"Just testing you." He couldn't see her, but he knew she was grinning.

"You're crazy."

"You seem to like it." She was right. He kind of liked it, in a strange, adrenaline-fueled way. The buildings of the city rushed past him with a speed he'd never known they could reach. It was exhilirating. He could die.

"Where we headed?" He could hear Xanas ask.

"9th Warehouse District, near the ferry docks." He said. "You'll have to pass through the old warehouse districts to get there on bike like this. You know what means, right?"

"Sure. It's not a problem."

The problem was that the old warehouse districts were overrun by gangs and organizations of the vilest sort to the very rotten wood. It would be no exaggeration that every one of the buildings housed some innumerable hordes of minions, but those were not the danger- they never came out unless threatened. No, it was the ones that hung around in the corridors, gambling, messing around, that would be all too eager to latch onto any hero to pass by.

Jackson couldn't tell what Xanas was thinking as she guided the motorbike towards the old district. "Do you have some kind of plan?" He yelled out.


Xanas blazed through the dirt and road as the horde of Freakshow, crazy psychopaths who'd implanted themselves with metal bits and pieces, replaced their limbs with long scythes and massive hammers, chased after them on their own cars (and some of them were part car). "Should have figured it'd be the Freakshow that came after us!" He yelled. "They love fighting AND technology. You and your bike must have been too good of a target to let pass by!"

"How many are still after us?" Xanas screamed back to Jackson. He glanced backwards, counting at least seven vaguely gun-like things being waved in his direction. His breath caught a bit. They were passing through a patch of The Family- who wisely got the hell out of their way.

"TWENTY!" He yelled. "TWO TANKS!" Tanks- freakshow who were more metal than man now- walking vehicles of destruction. Parked cars were smashed aside, debris was simply knocked away. Some of the freakshow even flew, powered by eletric devices implanted in their very bodies. It was those who were the real annoyances- electric bolts and discharges coming every which way. Xanas weaved between them, glancing over her shoulder.

"This is no good!" She yelled. "We have to lose them!" She made a sharp 90-degree turn that nearly threw Jackson off, leaving a pile of dust in her way. The sharp turn slowed the Freakshow down (replacing your limbs with metal doesn't do wonders for your turning reflexes) but they were still after them, cackling and laughing through the sheer excitement of it all. One of them plowed straight forward, unable to stop. There was the sound of screaming and a small explosion.

"We lost a tank!" Jackson said. "But the rest are still after us!"

Xanas tensed up beneath him. One of her hands reached around and grabbed his wrist, forcing it onto the seat beneath her. "Grab the sides of the car and keep balance as good as you can." She said.

"Oh, shit." Jackson let go and grabbed the sides of the car, wavering. Xanas turned around, placing one foot on a steering handle, and the other on her seat, reaching behind her to pluck arrows and letting them loose on the Freakshow behind them. Jackson couldn't see anything but the frill of her skirt, and the blur of blue. His eyes strained upwards. There was golden-silver hair wihipping past her face. It was so long in the wind. She looked mad and majestic. He could hear the crashing sounds and explosions behind him, but the buzzing noise rushing past his ear let him know she hadn't gotten all of them.

Xanas gave the handle a kick, and the wheels almost collapsed to the ground- the bike began to grind in a very wide 180-degree circle. Jackson screamed as his face came within a foot of the ground, and Xanas was keeping her balance perfect on the damn bike, like some kind of elf. Why was it so cold? He could swear snowflakes were landing on his skin. He dared to open his eyes, and the second thing he saw, past the nauseous blur of buildings, was ice and snow coating the intersection.  What the hell?

He felt the bike jerked upright and sliding, heading straight for the water's edge. Xanas' butt slammed into the seat and he quickly held onto her hips. Freakshow behind them tried to turn, only to find the ice too treacherous for them- crashing and sliding right on by with yells and screams. Only that tank that was still following them had the traction to stay on task, and it was the only Freakshow left, a screaming torso surrounded by two tons of metal bearing down on them. Massive cutting scythes jutted out and forward, chomping together.

They were headed for an ancient wooden dock, no boats in sight.

"wE'RE HEADED FOR THE WATER!" Jackson shouted. "TURN!" Xanas seemed to ignore him. "TUUUURN!" Xanas was definitely ignoring him. Well, shit. Jackson considered grabbing hold of the bike, but grabbing the handle would put his arms right next to her wrist blades. He could swim if it came to it.

The bike kicked up on the docks. The tank's brakes were kicking in, screeching horribly and giving off the stench of oil. It wasn't willing to play this kind of chicken. Xanas drove straight onto the dock and pulled around just in time to stop the bike from going off.

She stared at the Freakshow, who stared right back, unable to move onto the wood of the dock. After a moment, he held up his scythes and grumbled. "Alright, you win." He began to turn, slowly treading away. Xanas waited until he was ought of sight, then revved up the engine and drove back onto solid ground, heading for the warehouse- now only a short distance away.

"You're insane, you know that?" Jackson muttered, fear burned out of him for the moment. The bike rolled over to a dark corner and came to a stop. They were only a short walk away.

Xanas looked back at him with a serious expression on her face, flipping her visor back up beneath the headband. "If something as simple as being chased bothers you too much to go on, you're not going to be much use to me." She slid off the bike and stared at him.

Jackson exhaled and closed his eyes. "..alright. You're right. Sorry. I'm just not a staring death in the face guy. You know?"

Her eyes flashed. He didn't know how to read that, but she had a tight grin. "Yes, I know the type. It's alright. You'll grow out of it." She began walking, leaving Jackson alone for a moment to stare.

"..goddamn, she better put out." He muttered.

Jackson ran to catch up and quickly pointed out the exact warehouse to Xanas that DeFrank was hiding in. He couldn't make out the scene, but Xanas flipped down a coloured visor.

"Two guards dressed in Crey Corporation colors." She said, taking a deep breath. "I thought so."

"Crey? Those guards weren't there when I was here. Why is Crey here? They deal with medical and business stuff. Big humanists and fighters for universal healthcare and rights. Not guns."

"Right. That's their public image. They have a huge PR department. Truth is, if your dealer is taking orders and selling their private stock to common scum, and their private stock happens to be highly illegal.. well, let's say it wouldn't be unusual." Xanas sighed. "Makes this harder. Crey's got good alarm systems and trained security. They aren't just your run of the mill dealers."

Frankie was mixed in with powerful people? Jackson thought to himself. That didn't make sense, and yet now that he thought about it, all those things he knew never to ask about were making sense. DeFrank's connections, his arms. "Wait, did you call me..?"

"This is where you come in." Xanas turned to Jackson, adjusting her headband. He caught a peek of a widow's peak. "I thought Crey might be involved. You know your dealer, so you can ask to be let in to see him. Make something up. They'll be suspicious, but they'll let you in. And they won't raise much of an alarm. Probably just a raised guard.. unless.." Xanas looked around the warehouse edges.

"I'm going to go in through a side way. You go in through the front alone. We'll meet up inside. Is there an elevator?"

"Uh, yes, but-"

"Good." She patted him on the shoulder. "If you run away, I'll turn you into a pincushion. Good luck!" She ran down the warehoue alleyway, circling around to the other side of the warehouse. Jackson watched her moving- and felt like a farmhand peeking through bushes at a frostbidden beauty.

He was alone now. He was sure he could, if he wanted to, escape. He fiddled with his gun. Would he?