Snippet #1852410

"Aquele que luta com monstros deve cuidar para que ele não se torna um monstro..."

The familiar voice that spoke to the woman came from no specific direction--it seemed to simply resound from all around, piercing straight through the ferocious assault of deafening death metal being blasted into her head through earphones shoved firmly into each ear. A voice--a familiar voice, low and deep, one that no one could hear but the woman who never wanted to hear it. It was familiar, but the time had long passed that she could place a name or a face to that voice--if she ever had been able to. That voice didn't seem to say much--not as much as the others. And when it did speak, it said the same thing, every time.

"E se você olhar por muito tempo em um abismo, o abismo olha também para dentro de você."

"E um grande foda-se com você também," Izzie Vieira grunted in responce. But she knew it would say no more. It never did. Just those two lines. And she kept walking.

It was night-time, and the moon overhead cast its ethereal glow down upon the woman as she walked along the path; the early stars, creeping their way into the night sky long before their belated brethren, wheeled overhead casting down a light drizzle of rain that drummed a pitter-patter rhythm against the heavy leather jacket, studded with spikes and chains, her hands shoved into its pockets. Her boots crunched against the loose gravel of the sidewalk as the hard rubber soles met the multitude of cracks and crevices that carved their way up and down the aging cement. Cool night air surrounded her--she felt its chill against the dark, rough skin of her face, the light breeze dispelling the thin wisps of smoke that issued from the cigarette held loosely between her thin, dry lips. From time to time she would reach one hand from her pocket to retrieve the cigarette, parting her lips to expel a steady stream of smoke into the night before the pencil-thin filter returned to its place.

This was what she did whenever she lacked anything better to do. Izzie revelled in the refreshing breeze of the night--at least, she preferred it to her apartment, which somehow managed to be either sweltering hot or frigid cold regardless of the external weather conditions. Guess that comes with living in a cheap-ass tenement, she thought spitefully, eyes narrowing on the path that laid out before her. Either way, having a smoke in the cool air of the night, walking along to the music she took comfort and enjoyment in, that was a lot better than having to deal with the neighbours and the landlords bitch and complain if she so much as stepped a little too hard on the thin-ass flooring or tapped on the walls that were so cheap and flimsy they may as well not have been there at all.

Sometimes, sometimes, she truly wished Chaos would target that damn tenement. She didn't care why. She just wanted to settle the...debate over the thinness of the walls by catapulting the landlord into each and every standing one with the force of a battleship cannon.

And whenever that thought came up, Izzie merely reminded herself that she was doing none of this for a personal vendetta of some kind. What she did for Chaos was for the benefit of everyone. Methods aside--she did what she had to do. The end result once Order's iniquitous intentions were buried at last would be worth it....

The Brazilian woman scrunched her nose up slightly in distaste. The scent was getting closer. Stronger. Had been for most of the time she'd been walking along this path. Someone not far ahead was walking along this same path--and in this part of town, she could assume it was probably some kind of low-life thug, out looking for pitiful dumbasses to mug or innocent, naive (and equally dumbass) girls to have their way with. Except that this scent, if she focused on it, turned it over in her nose as she inhaled and 'examined' it, for lack of a better word, seemed to belong to someone young...probably in their mid-teens. Which didn't exclude them from being a thug, but also meant Izzie wouldn't have to snap a few necks once the punk invariably decided to interrupt the irascible woman's contented evening of smokes and loud music. And it was only one scent, at least in that particular direction...which was also odd. What thug in their right mind, especially one in their mid fucking teens, found it a good idea to go out and about in these parts, on their own...?

It only took a brief second before Izzie decided she really didn't give a fuck.





"Torn away from my state of being, chosen to be forgotten..."

The scent was now more or less almost upon Izzie--or rather, she was almost upon whatever runt was producing the scent. She was paying it little attention, instead murmuring along the lyrics of the latest song the music player buried in the pocket of her jacket was spewing into her ears at obscene volumes. Whatever the kid up ahead was doing was of no concern to her. She had found that whilst the older thugs (older meaning early twenties, since few of Xibalba's lovely young gentlemen lived particularly long) had not a drop of proper judgement in the cement thick skulls encased in their bloated heads, the younger ones typically could tell apart the people who were easy pickings, and the people you just didn't fuck with.

Izzie liked to think she belonged in the latter category.

"One so distant from where I was conceived--a heaping mass of fear is what we hold dear..."

The cigarette she'd been smoking had long since burnt out. And then the one after that. And now the one currently held in her mouth was rapidly dwindling away as well. Her lips pulled into an only too-familiar scowl: she only had a few left in this pack. Certainly not enough to last her the night, at least into the hours in which she could buy some more packs. And, she realised, she also craved a stiff drink, though Izzie was only too familiar with the kinds of assholes who frequented the 'establishments' of Xibalba. All it took was a little alcohol and just one douchebag drunk off his ass siddling up and flirting sloppily with her and the next thing Izzie knew the night had ended with said douchebag hurled right through the bar's front window and into the street. As refreshing as it felt to humiliate yet another irritating jackass in front of his drunk-ass buddies (and the expressions on their faces were priceless. Priceless, I tell you), it was sure as hell not worth having to deal with the police afterwards. That one'd been a tricky one to manoeuvre out of. In point of fact, she was pretty sure getting out of it had been in no small part thanks to the outside influence of...the one for whom she worked.

At the very least, Izzie was relatively sure the steady stream of insults, curses, and all-round obscenity she had directed the entire time at the police in the process of arresting her (in three different languages, no less, which she was immensely proud of) had probably not helped to prove her innocence.

The path up ahead merged with another that ran parallel to the one Izzie was leisurely walking along--and not far ahead, the aforementioned 'runt producing the scent' came into vision. Her enhanced vision easily discerned his form from the enveloping folds of the drizzling darkness--and it struck her that this kid wasn't a thug. In point of fact, he was wearing what looked rather clearly like a football uniform (wait, they called that soccer here, didn't they...damn them Americans)--which, suffice to say, wasn't standard attire of the gangsters of Xibalba.

No sooner had Izzie come to this conclusion than the kid had turned his head over his shoulder, and looked right at Izzie. "Who's there?" he called out cautiously, her ears picking his voice apart from the thunderous din of death metal in her ears. "If you're following me, don't bother. I know how to defend myself and it's not worth your time..."

Izzie raised an eyebrow, reaching up to brush aside a drenched dreadlock of faded black from her face. 'Knows how to defend himself'? This kid's just asking to get his ass kicked by one of the thugs out and about around here... Izzie figured she probably should've called up something along the lines of 'I'm not following you, moron' but seeing as how freaked out the kid seemed to have gotten just from the fact that she was walking not far behind him, it gave her a bit of twisted amusement to put a scare in the kid.

Then, all of a sudden, he took off running, something falling from his hands as he began to run along--a ball. Izzie reached down, her fingers clasping onto the wet rubber of the checkered ball, before glancing up to see the kid's retreating back. "Hey," she called over, quickening her pace a bit. She knew how this went--she decided to put a scare in him, and then the damn kid took off and ran right into an actual gang. Well, hell if she needed that happening. Committing murder and mass destruction on a consistent basis did not mean she was in a hurry to let some kid get his ass kicked or worse (that logic made more sense the less she thought about it). But all she got in responce was a dreary sigh of "Who is it this time..."

"I'm not following you, estúpido," she snapped, patience rapidly diminishing. "Fucking hell. You dropped your friggin' ball." She caught up with the kid, keeping her distance so that he didn't think she was trying to mug him and start fucking screaming or something. "Now stop running before you end up with your face being used for a punching bag by some brainless thug with nothing better to do." Once (if) the kid had calmed the fuck down, Izzie held the ball out with one hand, eyes falling on the kid. He was a good foot shorter than she was, and by the looks of him, pretty scrawny in build. Glasses, too, so he had kind of a nerd-geek look to him. In other words, the very definition of 'easy pickings' for most thugs out and about in Xibalba.

So she told him as much. "What in the hell are you doing 'round here anyway?" she gruffly inquired, voice tinged with an accent more or less indicative of her heritage. "This ain't best route for taking home from AYSO game, kid."

[[I used google translate for most of the Portuguese. So if you actually speak portuguese--forgive me for the abomination since it probably doesn't mean remotely what I intend, but if you put it into google translate, you'll get what I intended...so it works. As long as you don't actually speak Portuguese. And I'm pretty sure nobody needs a translator to figure out what 'estúpido' means.]]