Relocating The Sparkflies

The music doesn't stop when Amber leaves the stage, and the crowd only continues to roar as it hears of Ryker's return. As both Nero and Ryker are handed glasses filled with a lustrous blue, Amber taps on the black glass just beyond them and watches it fade into a window outlooking the whole club.

Gazing her bright eyes over the crowd, she speaks through a metal mask that covers half of her face. As she speaks, some of her words cut early like a robot with a static virus.

"I've been waiting a long time to see you, Ikari," the owner of the club states. Ryker nods with his glass tipped over his lips. He takes in a gulp before speaking himself.

"You've got intel on the fireworks, right? Where they're going, where I can find them?"

She watches the crowd again, seemingly checking the people more than their leader standing before her.

"You don't have much time for discussion, do you? You're a busy man, a busy man indeed," she starts to walk towards him, ignoring Nero's curious glances through her fabric. "Why do you come here with tension built on your shoulders?"

"I've got time ticking down. If Nero trusts you as much as he says he does, you should know what I'm talking about," Ryker responds. He checks the band on his wrist as if it were to slowen its ticks.

He has forty-five minutes left.

"Believe me, I know exactly what you're enduring," she brushes her fingers along his collarbone, "Are you sure you don't need a few distractions?"

Her static echoes turn into whispers for the demons prowling beyond the city outskirts. He takes her wrist and pulls her close, keeping keen eyes to deflate her confidence.

"I'm sure," Ryker says, eager to move forward with his work. Amber steps back, holding her arm in her hand, rubbing off the weight of his words with another glance to the crowd.

"It doesn't matter where they are now," she claims.

"How so?" Ryker growls. She turns back to him with narrow eyes of her own.

"The Queen's Tower. No matter what, that is where they will be firing off into the skies. If you can get to the roof of the tower, you can find what you're looking for. We don't need to destroy the explosives while they're on the move. Besides, taking them out at the tower can bring back the same defeat the Council had seen," Amber explains.

Ryker nods. "Yeah, okay. Let me just get to the highest tower of the city where the Queen lives, sure."

Amber glances out to the entrance of the lobby to watch three Reapers slam through the doors. Nero drops his jaw, his glass to follow shortly after, and watches all the same. The three elites stride together through the lobby in their iconic black uniforms to power over the crowd. As the people rise with the depth of the music, the Reapers make sure they stay down.

The harsh music turns into a graceful melody for screams of pain and the bursts of bullets piercing through the innocent civilians like moonlight through silk. Ryker watches as the Ikari he was working to save drop and pile over one another like a grave for an army. The firing is offbeat and the music only distracts from the thuds of bodies and the pleas for their neon souls to keep shining.

"I believe they can take you there," Amber glares. "Just remember the purpose for this feat, Ryker Ikari. Don't forget what happened to the first Guy Fawkes."

Her words fade with the bangs that echo over the sound of solace in the club. The neon makes the blood against it shine brighter, and the broken glass flying around only marks the bodies into a blended sacrifice for justice. The floor holds a treasure for the Queen, and the burial will be treated with ashes.

"They have nowhere to go, they're all going to die!" Nero exclaims, running down to protect what he is losing with each second that ticks by. Amber watches as Ryker steps forward to the glass. Blinded by fear and damaged by loss, he chokes on his words as he watches his family be slaughtered like animals with their souls caged and without peace. He spent years planning a new way for them to find a home that wasn't underground. He spent even longer wishing for them to be accepted even with their beliefs differing from the greater power.

Instead of his actions being for rebellion, they are now weaved with the imbalanced promise for vengeance. Amber had known this whole time they'd be arriving. He turns to her, wondering why she's not at his throat, and sends a violent glare into her eyes.

"Okay," he says, biting the inside of his cheek. He knows that words can't describe his emotions, so he doesn't waste a single breath trying.

"I don't want to hurt you, but you've lost the war many ticks ago. I don't pick sides, but I know which one has the throne. You won't make it in time," Amber states through halted gunshots.

Ryker watches as Nero fires at a Reaper and watches it fall to the ground. As he slides down the platform and toward the other two, he catches a few rounds of his own and piles onto the others as a new carpet to the floor.

Ryker pulls his handgun, still watching the Reapers as they finish slaying the Ikari to oblivion, and raises the sleek weapon to Amber.

"They'll know you're here if you shoot me," she tells him calmly, a silent plea carved in her eyes.

"I want them to," he says.