Off the Rails (Open)

“Man… double shift,” one of the men in security outfits muttered under his breath. One of the other guards paced back and fourth down the narrow path of the train car between seats full of citizens and weirdos. The unit had been called at the end of the work day to support Agent Nevada on a security mission. It was the first time he’d ever worked with a member of the turks.

“Quiet!” Oswald barked at the complainer with a scowl on his face. The man straightened up his posture and the sergeant turned his attention to Autumn Nevada as she ordered his squat to stay vigilant. “10-4,” he replied as he stood near her, watching with a bit of confusion about the man with the cat in his backpack. With the backpack being clear though, he didn’t think they had much to hide. “You two go check the rear car,” he told his subordinates who rushed to the door and pressed a button to open it, leaving view as it closed behind them. 

On the other hand there was a large woman that took up two seats at the end of the car that was practically wearing a bed sheet with a floral pattern. She was a big lady, but was she really that big or was it a disguise. With hesitation he approached a bit closer, trying not to stare as he tried to tell if she had anything hidden on her person...

The red haired Turk raised an eyebrow as she eyed the questionable figure up and down. She turned a yellow sphere in her pocket absentmindedly as she pushed past the man but she wasn’t sensing anything unusual on his person. She passed by Sergeant Oswald who looked as if he were preparing to interrogate a woman who was sitting nearby. Autumn didn’t suspect her of being a terrorist. Most avalanche members tended to carry materia and she wasn’t sensing anything nearby. Still, you could never be too careful.

Autumn took note of a familiar face as she neared the end of the first car. She recognized Damian Summers. She’d seen him hanging around the Shin-Ra headquarters plenty of times but they’d never really talked. He was in casual clothes and, if he was armed, she couldn’t tell. The Turk was careful not to show any recognition or special attention to the man as she continued searching. Even an off duty SOLDIER could be useful in a situation like this.

She pushed open the door to the next car, doing her best to subtly catch the SOLDIER’s eye as she entered the nearly empty train car. A mascot in a full length moogle costume stood in the middle of the car holding onto an iron bar for support as the train rumbled along. The moogle and the Turk caught sight of each other in the same moment.

The lights flickered.

“Hey!” Autumn barked after the Moogle as it took off running for the door at the far end. She took off after it, coming to the door just as it slammed in her face.

When the red haired turk opened the car door and entered the next car, something about her body language caught Damian's attention. He had planned to wait a few seconds before following her into the next car, but before Damian could stand up a private pointed a rifle at him and demanded to see his ID. Damian released an irritated sigh. Without speaking, Damian grabbed the front of the rifle with his metallic arm and squeezed the barrel shut. This resulted in the front of the gun being flattened like a pancake. Damian then quickly put his right hand back in his jacket pocket. "Remember your training. keep a distance of two feet between you and a suspect when pointing a firearm at them, to avoid being disarmed." Damian chose not to comment about the empty magazine, in order to avoid embarrassing the private any further in front of the civilians. Everyone made rookie mistakes, so he figured he'd cut the private some slack.

While speaking to the private, Damian heard the red haired Turk's voice in the next car as she yelled" hey! " at someone in a slightly aggressive manner. Damian quickly opened the door to the next car just in time to see her chase an individual in a moogle costume. Just as Damian was about to join in the chase, a sergeant managed to subdue the moogle by striking them on the back with a baton. He kept the moogle on the floor by pressing a knee on their spine. It was an impressive takedown.

Damian was kind of annoyed that this suspect had chosen to wear a moogle mascot costume. Mascots were supposed to be source of joy and wonder to children. And this individual had managed to corrupt something that was supposed to make children happy.  Damian didn't want any children to watch a mascot getting their ass kicked, this world was already violent enough. So he began searching for any children in the area, luckily there were only two kids in this car.

While the Shin Ra sergeant held down the mascot, Damian walked toward one of the kids. It was a little girl who was already scared half to death by watching the moogle being taken down. She was tightly clutching her mother's hand. Damian knelt down on one knee in an attempt to bring himself to her height. "hey there, don't worry about Mr moogle over there. He's just a bit scared by his first train ride. That's why he was running around the train a minute ago. But that's not safe behavior now is it?" Damian spoke loud enough for both children in the car to hear him, so when he asked the question both of the children shook their heads side to side and responded with a no.

" exactly. So the Shin Ra agents over there are going to escort Mr Moogle to his seat and calm him down so everyone will be safe. Ok? And I need you to do me a favor, could you two move over to the other car  with your parents, so we can help Mr Moogle?" Damian spoke kindly to the children then he shot a look at the parents of each child, and the parents immediately took their children over to the next car. Once they were gone, the gentle smile on Damian's face turned into a cold look. " Ok sergeant you may begin questioning him. These rats travel in packs. So there's no way he's alone. " Damian spoke while raising his guard, he knew that any of the civilians in this train may be the moogle's accomplices and could attack them at any moment. But atleast the children were gone, so Damian could get as violent as he had to.

What could be seen of Pvt. Janson’s face went pale as the SOLDIER broke the barrel of his weapon. He jerked back and started fiddling with it, trying to pry it back open. “Y-Your,” he started.

“The Iron Demon!” an excited voice said behind him, it was the other security officer having emerged from the car behind them. “Wow, can I have your auto-”

“Get down here!” Oswald demanded while he was tearing off the head of the moogle uniform. He threw the head on the ground next to him and the two security officers rushed to the sergeants call. The one with the working weapon kept it pointed at the moogle, while Janson drew his own baton and stood at the ready as Oswald let up some of the pressure and picked the man up by the scruff of his fluffy uniform after her spit on the ground. He pulled hard enough to make the man choke.

Oswald ripped the mascot uniform open from the front and little green orbs began to fall out of the fluff of the uniform. He kept searching as well and found a bag full of vials with little X’s on them. They were hypers, a prescribed antidepressant that slummies tended to abuse.

“What’s this?” the sergeant demanded.
“Not mine,” the man finally said with a gruff voice. “Suit is a rental, must have been someone else's.”
Oswald took his baton and dug it into the right side of the man’s temple, grinding it left and right to make him squirm.
“Police brutality!” the man yelled through the car.

Oswald sighed and looked back at the others. “He’s got to be trying to sell, I wonder if the buyer is in one of the cars…”

---

Damian Summers Autumn Nevada

“Thanks for the assist.” Autumn nodded to Damian Summers as he passed her on the way back to his seat in the other car. She started gathering up the materia and other contraband for processing. His ID looked real enough to pass through the automated scans but it didn’t hold up to close inspection. She could faintly see the outline of where the picture had been changed out.

Autumn wanted to check the rest of the train. She was certain this man was supposed to be meeting with AVALANCHE but there was no telling if they would know the enemy even if they brushed their shoulders. They’d caught a break with this guy and she didn’t want to press her luck. She needed to get… she looked down at the ID… Clyde to HQ and interrogate him.

The train continued rocketing towards the Sector 8 station. “Get him up and ready to move.” She ordered Sergeant Oswald, “We’re getting off this train.”

The lights that lined the aisles flickered and popped, leaving the car in total darkness. Autumn drew her weapon and ducked down into a gap between the benches. She heard the familiar sound of a bullet impact although the rumbling of the train or a silencer had masked the majority of the sound.

In the other car, Damian would hear heavy footfalls above him as the assailant clambered onto the roof of the train. The lights would flicker back on to reveal the prisoner bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound.

Damian had just taken his seat when the car suddenly became dark. Then he heard the faint sound of a surpressed gunshot, upon hearing the gunshot Damian instinctively found cover. Sadly, the sound of the panicked  passangers mixed with the sound of the train moving made it impossible to determine which direction the gunshot came from. When the lights came back on again, Damian quickly took inventory of his surroundings.  Nothing had changed and no one was dead in here, so Clearly the shot was meant for someone in a different car.

Seconds later he heard loud footsteps on the roof of the train. Damian instantly got up from his cover and began following the footsteps he heard from above. He made sure to stay right  beneath the stranger on the roof by perfectly shadowing them from below. But while he was focused on following the stranger directly above him, Damian heard another pair of footsteps on the roof. The second pair of footsteps were much softer than the footsteps he was currently following, which meant the second person on the roof of the train was quite far but they were approaching .

Once the person above him stopped moving, Damian used his elbow to break a nearby window. He then squeezed through the window and started climbing the side of the train as stealthily as possible. Luckily the speed of the train resulted in a loud roaring wind, which covered up most of the sound produced by Damian's movement on the side of the train. Eventually he had climbed high enough to briefly see the silhouette of the assassin on the roof. While the assassin focused on the private, Damian slightly shifted sideways and continued climbing.

By the time the suspect had finished shooting the private off the train, Damian had already finished climbing and had stealthily positioned himself behind the suspect. Due to having the element of surprise on his side, Damian managed to quickly deal with the stranger's firearm the moment they turned around to face him. He grabbed the firearm with his metellic hand and bent the barrel sideways. Damian then stepped back in order make sure he was properly balanced and then he took on a fighting stance. "make this interesting for me." he tried to shout, but his voice was barely audible due to the loud roaring wind and the sound of the train moving. Hopefully the stranger on top of the train with him would understand what he meant, by observing Damian's battle ready stance.

The man that Damian had intercepted had an aged weathered look to his face, he struggled to hold onto his weapon as the SOLDIER grabbed and bent his gun. Realizing it was useless he released it and bounded back as the weapon fell to the ground. He quickly retrieved a serrated blade from his coat and held it in front of him in a threatening posture. His salt and pepper hair blew in the wind, and the right side of his face was heavily scarred by burns. He looked old enough to have fought in the war, and by the look of him he might have even been from the other side.

“%#@$ you, Shin-Ra pig,” the man said as he stared Damian down.

-

Meanwhile back in the car, Oswald was staring at the train console. The code to open the door worked, but the security scanner seemed to be disabled. With a frown he started to look at the route schedule. He was able to gain access to a view only map, and it appeared the train’s destination had been modified to go beyond the sector 8 section.

“We aren’t stopping at the station,” Oswald called to Autumn. “Don’t know why, but it looks like our destination is under the bridge on Loveless Avenue. I don’t know anything about computers, but my password isn’t working.”

-

The insurgent pulled his coat off, revealing a vest strapped with blinking lights attached to explosives. He threw the jacket and it flew off of the train.

“You took everything from me,” the man said as he lunged towards Damian with the knife, attempting to stab him in the chest.

---

Damian Summers NPCs are fair game to share outside of staff run events, but I don't mind.