Why is it every job someones gotta be calling my name.....

[Alisa Donnikova]

What was she doing here. No seriously, what the flying fuck was she doing here. She'd asked herself that multiple times in her life (too many to count really), but now? "Put down the fucking guns you two-timing whore. You fucking owe us twenty times over for that shit you pulled those years ago." A lovely semi-circle of men had surrounded her in the run-down bar she had come into for a shot of whiskey, brandishing their rifles, pistols, semi-automatics... Pretty much the whole range of weaponry that could be purchased on the black market. But hold on, lets rewind just a bit.

+----THIRTY MINUTES PRIOR----+

What a fucking nightmare this was. Here she was, back in a country whose government wanted her very dead, carrying out her last job here ever (at least she hoped). Drachma. Land of the dreary, poor, and fucking corrupted. God how she hated being back here. For the moment, she was trudging through the snow in fitted black jeans, black combat boots, a black three quarter sleeve shirt, her fingerless gloves, and, it being Drachma and all, a coat. A black beanie covered her head though beneath it her hair was pulled back into its usual ponytail. Her hands were stuffed into her pockets as her shoulders hunched against the bitter wind and sleet that was whistling through the streets this particular evening. What a fucking freezing hell.

A bar that she used to frequent YEARS ago rose in front of her amidst those stinging shards, grumbling to herself as she hurried forward to get inside where she could get a fucking drink after the fucking nightmare of a job she had had. God how she needed one right now.... The crowd was sparse, the room quiet except for the murmuring of men playing pool, the crack of the stick hitting the que ball stabbing into the air. "What a sad fucking sight this is..." She muttered to herself as she shook herself off by the door and removed her hat, shaking her hair free while pulling ice crystals from it before they could melt and soak into her skin. The last thing she fucking wanted was to have to go to the goddamn hospital because she caught some flu. "Is that... Putin's beard, is that you Alisa?" The voice caught her ear as her hands battered against her coat, looking up to see Mikhael grinning at her from behind the bar. Chuckling, she strode forward to the counter and clasped his hand in a nice firm grip, "Maybe. Or else a ghost come back to haunt you. How're you ya ol fuck?"

He gestured for her to sit and so she did, glad that she found a friendly face rather than any other kind. Fuck knows who she could've run into and gotten her into some deep shit. "Cold. The Bitch still bites at my ankles. Storms been keeping most away tonight." He answered her with a light sigh, jerking a finger back towards the kitchen where his wife, or Bitch as he called her, was cooking away. Snickering, Alisa glanced again around the room, taking note of the couple of familiar faces... and how most she DIDN'T recognize. The regulars had changed since last she'd been here. It had been several years now, she was hardly surprised. Still.... it made her nose twitch a bit. "Bah. You'll survive. I know your the only fucking guy to get any decent imports in this god-forsaken city. Everyone else deals in that Amestrian piss or some shit." She grimaced and shook her head, her eyes lingering for a moment on the man sitting at the far end of the bar nursing what looked like Scotch. Hell, he didn't even look Drachman. Whatever.

Mikhael laughed a great booming laugh that resounded throughout the room, again drawing the attention of some of the folks about the bar. A couple of them paid for their tabs, bid him farewell, and left. Alisa tensed as the door open and closed for they were letting that fucking cold it. "Ah Alisa... It has been too long. Come, whats your poison tonight?" He asked her, picking up the coins and bills before sliding them away into his safe (shit might as well have been Fort Knox). "I'll just have a whisk--"

The door burst open in a great torrent of snow, sleet, and FUCKING COLD. Many boots thudded against the floorboards as men flooded into the bar, encircling where she sat. "Unfucking believable." .......Shit. Her hand clenched into a fist as her forehead hit her hand, "Are you FUCKING serious..." She muttered just as the man let out a sharp scoff and strutted forward, standing behind her with his rifle easily in grasp. "It's the fucking slut, back to get proper fucked some more. I can't believe you are this fucking stupid. There's women for ya!" He and his men burst out laughing, making the other regulars shift uncomfortably wherever they were in the bar. They knew it was time to leave.

"Oi.... Petrov... I'm surprised you still got any balls left after how many times they've shriveled up from getting your ass thrown in the snow." She spoke as she straightened up and smirked, Mikhael only staring grim faced at the scene before him. He was more than used to scenes like this. Petrov instantly lost his grin as he moved forward and kicked her stool out from under her in an attempt to make her stumble. She only landed on her feet, slowly straightening up before kicking the stool out of the way. "Fucking cunt. The bounty on your head is enough to pay for a Czar's palace. I think your pretty head would look better on my wall." She took a deep breath, remaining facing away from them for the moment as she cracked her neck. There was a moment as she exhaled slowly, suddenly whirling about with her guns drawn, bringing the butt of one down on Petrov's hands while the other whipped him across the face. He stumbled back as blood began to spill from his nose, shaking his hand in pain while grunting at it. Alisa stood tall and still as she stared almost boredly at him, counting how many he had brought with him out of her peripheral.

"Is that so? I think yours would look better if you had a new hole to breath out of." She tilted her head and squinted one eye, utterly unafraid of how many guns were pointed at her right now. "I think right there-"

+----NOW----+

She sighed and slid her Cutlasses into their holsters, rolling her eyes at the chuckle that Petrov uttered in glory at his victory. Victory her tight ass. "Now isn't that a good obedient bitch. Why don't you just walk get down on your knees, right. Now." He commanded her, but Alisa just stared at him completely non-plussed. Pulling out a cigarette, she lit up and inhaled, appearing to slide her lighter back into her pocket. Fucking moron. "Go fuck yourself." He barely got to begin to retort as she flicked the zippo open and lit it, the flame roaring to life as she drew it out and right into his face, chest, and crotch. She straightened up as she took another drag on her cig, watching him run out the door screaming while banging against the glass. His lackeys were so startled that all but two went running to help him out and into the snow. The remaining ones started to raise their guns, snarling curses and threats at her, except she was already holding one of her Cutlasses. She fired off two warning shots just centimeters from their heads. "Seriously? Did you all get dropped on your fucking heads as fucking brats? Get the fuck out."

Their knee's could have been maraca's they were shaking so badly, and so they went off into the bitter night after the rest, the wind washing over her and putting out her lighter. "God dammit ITS FUCKING COLD!" She roared and shivered, flicking her zippo closed before sliding it into her pocket, turning back to the bar to speak to Mikhael except... "Mikhael?" She breathed in on her deathstick and raised an eyebrow, the man was gone. In fact, everyone had gone except for one, single person. The foreigner at the end of the bar with his fucking scotch. What the piss. Sighing heavily to herself, she shook her head, tapped the ash from her cig and walked around the bar to grab the whiskey bottle that may as well have had her name on it. "I don't think he'd mind if I just help myself to this..." She mumbled to herself before going back around to the front of the counter, righting her stool, and flopping down on it. The cap came off quickly and relinquished its delicious contents to her, the whiskey burning fire down her throat and warming her belly. "Thank fucking Christ." Sighing lightly, she glanced back over at the stranger again, looking him up and down once.

"Oi, stranger" He didn't immediately turn. Fuck. Uhhh.... "Hey, Scotch boy." She tried again, taking another hit of that nicotine. "Why the fuck didn't you bolt? Your Scotch that fucking good?"

[Guest]

The sound of gunpowder igniting hit the air twice in short succession - and that was it, everyone was gone. As if by some stroke of irrevocable magic, the bar emptied faster than a glass tipped upside down, even the bartender himself. Clearly not the owner, or he would have stayed to protect his investment. Or perhaps the girl with the dual Berettas just had that much of a reputation as a one-woman army. He figured that was part of it, at least, considering that she'd essentially frightened off a whole Drachman gangland firing squad without even shooting anybody.

With that done, she muttered to herself in a mishmash of languages he didn't understand, and threw her hand over the bar to grab a bottle of whiskey. "Ой, незнакомец." Calvin figured that was directed at him, considering the force of the remark and the underlying direction, but he didn't respond. What reason did he have to? He didn't speak Drachman. She could switch languages, or fuck right off. The black-suited man was just registering the fact that, once more, he was sat in an empty bar with the smell of cordite hanging fresh in his nostrils.

"Hey, Scotch boy." Now there was a language he understood. He flicked his head up gently, setting the half-full glass upon the table with a smack, and let his hand dive down into an outside pocket to fetch his pack of cigarettes. Feeling that she was going to continue, he simply stared at her with that pair of piercing turquoise irises and waited for an addendum. Sure enough, it came - in a language he didn't recognise as much, but it was close enough. "Why the fuck didn't you bolt? Your Scotch that fucking good?"

"Better than your shooting." He murmured in response. Wasn't his place to judge, but a haze of whiskey and cigarette smoke hung over his voice. He had that mindset in place; the post-job 'I'm invincible' tenacity, with a slight edge of arrogance all over the top. He set the pack down on the counter; the embossed, raised lettering glinted in the dim off-white light of the bar. Marlboro. Greatest thing to come out of Creta in the 20th century, if you asked him. "Don't tell me that you walk into a bar thinking you're hot shit because you've got a pair of Berettas, and that everyone would clear the fucking decks if you so much as sneeze on them."

Calvin smirked, drew his matte black Zippo and a cigarette from the pack, propping it against his lips as he knocked back the last of the whiskey. "This is Moscow, babe." Just enough condescension in his tones to get away with it with most. She could pull the Cutlasses on him if she wanted, he didn't really care; those tattoos and that don't-fuck-with-me-I-won't-fuck-with-you attitude she carried around with her would have made most people steer well clear. As was now starting to probably become obvious, the man in the suit did not come under the classification of 'most people'.

"Every foreigner from here to the remains of the Kremlin's probably packing some sort of heat if they know what's good for them." Click. He eased the Zippo shut and took the first crisp drag on that thick, rich flavour. Marlboro Red. Didn't get any better. He set the lighter down upon the table, eased his spine backwards against the cradle of the chair's back, and pulled the thin fabric of his suit open on the left side with his free hand, revealing Viper, one of his pistols, and Dragon, the carbon-bladed Corsair machete. "Don't be shy with that bottle, by the way. Feel free to share it around." "Or, at least, get me my own..."

[Alisa Donnikova]

Mmm... nicotine and whiskey... that always made everything so much better. Especially being back in this GOD FOR-FUCKING-SAKEN COUNTRY. Why. Why had she taken the one job there?! Oh yeah, the fuckers hadn't told her that she'd HAVE to come here. Stupid fucking contacts and lack of information....ANYWAYS, dude with his Scotch. He was obviously at least a bit drunk, but who the fuck was she to judge. Though his eyes did catch her notice, her eyebrow raising at him as she took another swig from her bottle, trying to think if she had seen anybody else with an eye color like that. Nope. She didn't have to think too damn hard about it. "Better than your shooting." Her eyebrow visibly twitched as her grip tightened on the whiskey bottle, taking a deep draw on her cigs to try and keep herself calmer. For fucks sake, was he trying to pick a fight with her too? She had better fucking things to do than dodge around idiots that wanted her bounty, and fuckers that WANTED to just edge her into a fight.

The man was drunk. Didn't know what he was saying. Thats right, focus on the nicotine and booze, just focus on those-- "Don't tell me that you walk into a bar thinking you're hot shit because you've got a pair of Berettas, and that everyone would clear the fucking decks if you so much as sneeze on them." Her eyebrow twitched again, but so did her finger against the bottle this time, the itch to grab her Cutlasses' growing stronger and stronger. "This is Moscow, babe." Oh really, she had NO fucking clue it was that. She sat there, quiet, puffing on her cig in slow intervals as she stared at the wall in front of her. Not that he could particularly tell, she wasn't focusing on it though, she was looking past it. In fact, to him, she probably appeared rather bored. "Every foreigner from here to the remains of the Kremlin's probably packing some sort of heat if they know what's good for them."

She sipped at the whiskey bottle, placing it gently back down on the counter as she tapped out her ash, waiting a moment to see if he was done talking. She glanced over, and again, boredly, looked at his weapons. Oooo tough shit weren't you? Pfft. She lifted the bottle to her lips again and began to drink, "Don't be shy with that bottle, by the way. Feel free to share it around." "Or, at least, get me my own..." .... was he finally fucking done fucking talking? Good. The bottle moved away and touched the counter, putting out her finished cig before drawing out another. "Fuck you. Get your own bottle." She stated as a simple fact to him, now turning on her stool to look at him. "You can get your own fucking drink foreigner." And that he fucking was. "You ain't given me a single fucking reason to help you. In fact, just the god damn opposite." Well this was a change, she for once wasn't screaming at someone.

Her zippo flicked back into view and clinked, the flame sparking to life to light the tip of that death stick to its glory that it would give her. She didn't immediately shut it however, instead just watching the flame as she rolled through what other fucking nonsense he had spouted. "I don't give two shits what you think of me and my Beretta's. My Cutlasses have taken down enough people in this fucking hell hole of a city that those that matter know not to fuck with me. If anyone wants a second hole to shit from that badly, then they'll come find me." Ohhhh she wanted to threaten him so fucking badly, but at the same time? She seriously was fucking sick of people always wanting to pick a fight.

Her zippo clicked shut rather loudly in the moment of silence that followed, taking another hit of her fag. She glanced over to him with narrowed eyes, "Don't come into my city and try to tell me what the fuck to do. Not unless your willing to back up your words with your fists."

[Guest]

"Fuck you. Get your own bottle."

Calvin shrugged. "Suit yourself." He retorted, taking his hand away from the lit cigarette, and pushing himself up with the tension in his legs, using the stool as a base, and leaning over the bar. Swiftly - having memorised the location from the bartender's fumbling - he grasped the bottle of Glenfiddich he'd been drinking from thus far, unscrewed the lid, and topped his glass up with a half-smile and a sigh. Nothing better than free booze. And after all, he'd committed worse crimes than simply stealing from an empty bar. The moral weight of this particular action didn't really stand too heavy a burden on his shoulders.

"You can get your own fucking drink foreigner." The professional's indifference was matched only by his apathy, as he shrugged again, before taking another crisp drag on the cigarette. He really didn't care what she had to say. He had his impression of her - she was tough, sure, but there were bigger and better out there. That was the mindset you had to keep in this world - the one that got you through the school playground and the college halls. No matter what you do, where you do, and what you claim: there will always be someone bigger than you out there. So: be prepared to deal for that eventuality. Calvin accepted this fact, and, thus, carried a pistol on him at all times. "You ain't given me a single fucking reason to help you. In fact, just the god damn opposite."

"If you observe, I have, infact, done just that." Calvin gestured calmly to his drink, his voice carrying the slightest undercurrent of sarcasm. He didn't like stupid people; not that she was stupid, from his judgement, just hot-headed. If she picked a fight, he could defend himself, if she settled down, they could have a drink, and maybe he'd put some of that traditional Knox charisma on display. "And maybe I am a foreigner, but..." He cocked his head. "Something tells me you're not exactly Drachman pureblood, either." She looked like she had mixed parentage of a sort. Potentially half Xingese or Aerugese? Maybe Ishvallan. Hell, possibly even Esparian - it was difficult to tell, just that analysis had picked up on the fact that there was something other than Drachman there. Though that accent...

Never mind. Wasn't any of his business, and he wasn't too excited for it to become so. She was either a thief or damaged, and both of those things put him off trying to sleep with her. Too tenacious. Too smart, he guessed. "I don't give two shits what you think of me and my Beretta's. My Cutlasses have taken down enough people in this fucking hell hole of a city that those that matter know not to fuck with me. If anyone wants a second hole to shit from that badly, then they'll come find me."

Calvin shrugged again. He didn't ask for a spiel about her guns, though it was nice to know she didn't care what he thinked. Or claimed so, anyway. Outward hostility, probably for a reason, or something. Shit happens, and that tends to change people. "Don't come into my city and try to tell me what the fuck to do. Not unless your willing to back up your words with your fists." Ugh. The criminal sighed, looking her up and down once more - she was certainly attractive, but he wasn't sure how much emotion he'd let perforate that straight away. This could give him a hell of a headache tomorrow if he woke up and found that she'd disappeared with his wallet before breakfast. He had a reputation for not exactly letting his guard down when he slept, but considering he'd probably drink a bit more tonight? Yeah. Bad combination, alcohol and thieves.

"Okay, look," Probably best to level things out, anyway. "I never told you what to do, and I've got my own bottle, anyway, so we're both fine in that respect." Calvin shrugged. "By all means, babe, you can have a fight if you're that way inclined. Don't think I won't defend myself just because you're a woman." Honour was stupidity, pretty much. Chivalry just got in the way of... efficiency. "But that said, I'm not looking for any violence, so if you want to pipe down and just have a quiet drink, maybe that'd sort things out for the both of us." Maybe she deserved to be knocked down a peg: but rule four of four for Calvin was not to hurt people that didn't deserve it, unless you were going to get paid for it. And since there was no money involved, and she just seemed, at best, frustrated... she didn't deserve anything, yet.

Plus, Calvin's appreciation of the female form did somewhat come into play, and the decadent bastard did think it'd be a shame to see those rather... extravagant... curves all bruised up and lying in a pool of blood. Ruthless efficiency was his double-barreled middle name - well, that was part of his selling point, but the black-suited scotch-drinker seemed to think the same of himself. For now, though, he'd try to stay anonymous, in regards to her: he wasn't going to give her any moniker of his unless she asked.

[Alisa Donnikova]

The words had been said and she was SO ready for a fight. "And maybe I am a foreigner, but...Something tells me you're not exactly Drachman pureblood, either." The hairs on the back of her neck bristled at those words, gritting her teeth even as the rest of her words came rolling out. Leave him fucking be. If he was going to be a fucking prick and try to pick a fucking fight with her, he wasn't worth her fucking time right now. God DAMMIT she hated being back here! It always, always brought this out of her. Taking a deep drag on her fag, she stared down at her bottle for a moment and exhaled in one big puff, a few wisps of smoke rolling out of her nostrils. Fuck. And just like that, she was already over it. She gulped down more of that firey liquid, the cold officially banished from her bones now as the quiet of the empty bar began to weigh down on her a bit. Man, she was used to there being more life in here.

"Okay, look," Alisa raised an eyebrow as she looked over to him, her cigarette dangling from between her lips as she sat there with one gloved hand on the bottle, the other hanging off of the edge of the counter. "I never told you what to do, and I've got my own bottle, anyway, so we're both fine in that respect." She snorted, tapping out some of the ash in the tray nearby. "By all means, babe, you can have a fight if you're that way inclined. Don't think I won't defend myself just because you're a woman." "I think I'm good." She muttered under her breath as she sighed a heavy sigh, cursing as she remembered that he didn't speak her language at all. Whatever, she wasn't translating that for him. Fuck it. "But that said, I'm not looking for any violence, so if you want to pipe down and just have a quiet drink, maybe that'd sort things out for the both of us." A deep chuckle grated in her throat as she took another hit, blowing that smoke out in a single smooth stream. Well wasn't that fucking lucky. "Look buddy, this city puts me in the worst of moods at the BEST of times. Don't add to it, ok?" Her chuckle was off, really off. There was a strain to it she wasn't used to, and she was suddenly very... tired.

Pushing herself up, she left her cig in her mouth as she pulled on her leather coat, the beanie getting stuffed down on her head. "Good luck stranger." She muttered sarcastically before heading outside with her bottle of whiskey in hand. She wasn't about to waste it, thats for sure. The freezing cold wind descended upon her the minute that the door opened, but she did not back down from it. She pressed onwards and let the door close behind her, breathing in that frigid air with another sigh. Fuck this city, and fuck the people she met here. She started to walk away from the bar to go find another one or maybe one of her few remaining friends here when something big heaved her up in its arms and squeezed, her legs immediately beginning to kick as she roared in frustration. Biting down on her cig, she faceplanted into the arms of whomever had grabbed her and let that burn sink in, gathering up the oxygen as she moved away so that the flames grew a bit more and caused more of a serious burn. The man that grabbed her roared in pain and dropped her, reaching down to throw snow on his fresh would.

She didn't waste anytime throwing some whiskey on the guy before turning to run. She didn't get very far. Wham! She ended up turn-running right into someone who grabbed her by the collar, lifting her up as breathing heavily in her face. Ugh... they smelled like piss and fish. Who-- "Oh fuck me." "LOOK. LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID YOU FUCKING BITCH!" The man shouted at her, throwing her down into the snow before another of his fucking lackeys came and hit her in the shoulder with the butt of his rifle. OW MOTHERFUCKERS--- Her head was grabbed and tugged upward, her beanie getting thrown off as the man gripped her firmly by her ponytail. She was forced to look at the dead body of Petrov whose burns had definitely delved too deeply into his brain. Served him right fucking bastard. But that meant she had to deal with- "Ah come on Donny. He looks better this way, seriously. Like a fresh-" CRACK! His fist came down on her cheek as hands tugged her wrists together, the taste of iron blossoming in her mouth. Oh yeah, that was a good hit.... Fucker.

"Drag her inside boys. Find the fucking owner." She heard him say, the alcohol combined with the screaming pain in her shoulder and slight dazing from the punch doing nothing for her in ways of getting out of here. She was hoisted up and forced forward, the door getting thrown open before she was tossed to the ground. She rolled and smacked into a stool which only made her shoulder scream more, "FUCK." She snapped at no one in particular, pushing herself slowly up to her knee's as the bar filled with the small gang, about fifteen in total. It would appear that the Doshtevskies hadn't been doing too well for themselves over the years. Staring at the ground, she saw the barrel of a gun get pointed in her face, three more joining it as Donny glanced about the small space. His lieutenants started to explore the other area's. "Donny.... Come on, it was one fucking job that was backwards as fuck. Can't YOU even realize that?" She shouldn't say it, oh she shouldn't--- FUCKITSHEHADTOSAYIT. "I know it might go over Petrov's head, but seriously? You are smarter than him." CRACK. Another punch which only bloodied her lip more, a smirk rising to her face no matter how it hurt. They hadn't bound her hands. Stupid, stupid Donny.

A finger came within centimeters of her nose as he grabbed her chin, pulling her up so she was kneeling in front of him, her chocolate eyes swirling to focus on the man. Ugh. He was so ugly.... and smelly.... Didn't he know what hygene was? "Don't you even dare to talk about my brother whore. I remember when you were a little shit, and I remember when your bounty went out. So sit here, keep your mouth fucking shut, and maybe I won't make it slow and painful." He hissed at her, pushing her down as he let go of her chin and walked away. Oh she'd chill out here for a moment, her hands resting on the ground. Just take a few moments.... She noted how the foreigner wasn't in the room right now, but she couldn't worry about that. She had to take a moment to think of how best to take care of her given situation. There were fifteen of them and one of her. All of them had multiple guns, and they could all be trained on her within moments of each other. At least for the moment, there were only twelve in the room with her since three of them had gone to look for Mikhael and his wife. Alright Alisa, think! What would be the best way....

[Guest]

The next few responses came in Drachman he couldn't understand, slurred and harsh with a sarcastic undercurrent before she pulled on her coat, grabbed her bottle, and quickly left. "Хорошо чужой удачи." Whatever that meant. Fuck, he'd wager that, even if he knew, it'd mean the sum total of jack-shit to him anyway. With that, the bar was truly empty, save for him - and there was a gentle ache in the Cretan's bladder. Cigarette clamped firmly between his lips, he left his alcohol on the table, picked up his briefcase, and made a beeline straight for the toilets, the icon marked above the corridor to the right of the far end of the bar.

The toilets themselves were fairly soundproofed when it came to the main bar, so Calvin didn't hear much of the kerfuffle from the other side, and what he did hear, he simply presumed to be faulty water systems. It wasn't til he heard a voice from outside the toilets that he so much as turned his head, standing at the urinal with the cigarette clenched between his teeth, just finishing his piss, that he suspected something was awry. "Я говорю вам, Артем, там не будет никого там..." Shit. He didn't understood what it meant - but he understood that extra, hulking, irregular weight in the step and the gentle clack of metal on varnished plywood. AK-47. Drachma's greatest import. After that came vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists.

Zip. Well, the cubicle's hinge was broken and there was a fairly visible gap between the edge of it and the door, so that was just backing himself into a corner. Instead Calvin just buttoned his suit trousers back up as the guy thumped his way around the corner, unwitting, propping the battered rifle with one hand on his shoulder, gyrating his head as, finally, his steely, pale gaze fell on the Cretan.

And for a moment, everything in the room fell still. "Huh."

The lumbering Drachman goliath, shaven head and lingering stench of vodka all included, lowered his rifle and prodded it through the air at Calvin. "Руки вверх! Руки вверх!" Great. Just what he needed. Angry, confused, drunk mob foot-soldiers poking AK-47s at him. Maybe he could talk his way out of this.

"I don't speak Drachman." He calmly tried to assert back over the top of the guy's harsh screaming. He repeated over and over again, apparently not having heard him. "I. Don't. Speak. Drachman." Once more, he repeated it. Ugh. Fuck this. Calvin dropped to the floor as the mafiya soldier reared back the rifle, and put his hand upon the dissuading wetness of the tiled bathroom floor for support, spinning his legs in a single, fluid gyration, and slamming the tips of his dress shoes into the man's shin.

His Drachman shouting ceased and swiftly morphed into a yelp as the single strike toppled him, hitting a floor with a solid oof. Calvin pulled himself back up; the man was stunned, but not done yet. As the Cretan straightened his tie, the footsoldier - Artyom, he'd heard - began to spin over onto his back, groggily trying to stabilise the rifle, but the specialist brought his foot down onto the man's wrist. In the moment of impact, something beneath splintered with a sickening crack, and his hand went limp as he began to scream in agony, dropping the gun with a clatter and nursing his mangled hand, bending limply at angles it had never meant to go.

The Cretan wasn't done yet, though. Coup de grace before he could continue. Calvin picked up the man by the back of his head as he rolled back onto his stomach, the unsettling, warm dampness of the bathroom floor soaking through into his cheap shirt and thick, rough jacket. Dragging him over with surprising strength for a man of a smaller frame, he pulled his head up, the man dazed and groaning, by what he could grasp of his hair, before slamming the man's forehead down onto the cusp of the urinal with a deft smash. The basin of the toilet began to seep with the man's blood, and all of his twitching promptly stopped. Either he was dead, or, by the rate that the urinal was filling up with his own liquid, soon to be so.

"Fucking..." Calvin shook some of the blood off his hands in minor irritation and exasperation. Every time. EVERY TIME he came to Moscow, something like this happened. "I told you," He murmured down to the lifeless body apathetically as the head began to gargle in the shallow red mixture of unsavoury liquids contained in the urinal basin, slowly rising higher and higher, some of it trickling down onto the brown, stained tiling. "I don't speak Drachman."

[INITIATE BATTLE THEME]

With a sigh, he washed his hands in the sink and wiped them on the back of the dead man's coat, before picking up the rifle and drawing back the bolt. Huh. Wasn't in too bad shape. He let it release with a sliding click, holding it in front of him in his right hand as he picked up his briefcase - resting underneath the sink - with his left, and kicked open the toilet door.

A quick burst of rounds dispatched the soldier in a thick, navy longcoat on his left flank, the memorable, signature crack-crack of the AK-47 firing those seven-point-six-two cheap brass rounds resounding through the first floor of the bar. And, with that, he'd made his presence known. The third - and final - man sent to scope out the bar for whomever might be there began to rush him from his right. A great, hulking Drachman bull - Jesus, weren't they all? - who, as Calvin spun around, had his arms open, body lowered, ready to grab the specialist by his midriff and tackle him back over the body of the man he'd just slain.

The brunt of the impact jarred his right side, and caused him to lose his grip on the rifle, throwing it off into the room behind him, but Calvin rolled around to the side, letting the charging, hulking footsoldier pass through. Momentum did a brilliant job of ensuring that the man had to still cover a little more ground before he could ground to a halt. The specialist dropped his briefcase, used the top of the doorframe, and pulled himself up and through into a two-footed kick straight into the back of the slowing, bull-like Drachman animal's knee, causing it to buckle and him to fall to the floor.

With that, he reached for the silenced .45 pistol in his shoulder holster - Viper - and drew it, clicking back the hammer as the man, stunned and trying to regain his balance, faltered and began to trip. Defeated by such a small man? Impossible. Calvin brought his foot around once more in a great, momentous arc, up until it made contact with the bottom of the Drachman's chin, causing him to grunt and reel backwards, shattered teeth and a small spray of blood spitting out into the air. This made one thing perfectly clear. The specialist did not mess around.

He leaned down, propped his foot onto the man's chest and clamped it down, making him wheeze, and look up with a deep, purple gaze. Something in those big, titan-like eyes shimmered. Something horrified as they widened and looked on at the suppressed muzzle of the gun, drawing in and getting closer as he slammed his feet against the ground spasmodically, screaming non-verbally in an attempt to do... something. Anything.

Thwunk.

It was too late, either way.

The tappings ceased, but Calvin's trials were not yet over. The man he'd sprayed with a light peppering of rifle rounds, though blood was streaming from his back and matting the fabric of his longcoat, somehow managed to push himself up, stumbling, and draw an antiquated, black-finished revolver, the paint ripped and the framework nicked, a crisscrossed network of cuts where it had been bumped and dropped. Careless user, he'd wager - that would mirror his silent, clinical precision.

As he begun to raise it, Calvin turned from the corpse of the second man he'd felled and broke into a run. The mob soldier clicked back the hammer. He pulled himself down, holding the pistol well clear of himself at his side. He tried to take aim. The specialist moved into a double-footed skid. He pulled the trigger, the bullet flying a good six feet wide and above the Cretan's head - and then things sped up as the bloody bases of his dress shoes slammed into the Drachman's shins and sent him reeling into the wooden-post banister overlooking the bottom of the coiled, square-set stairs below.

The force was enough to splinter them, but not quite break them from their binds completely. Thankfully, the Drachman's already-shredded back made contact and broke part of the banister off, sending it crashing down onto the ground floor below - and handily sending one of the snapped wooden posts right through the footsoldier's lower back, skewering him through the stomach promptly and beginning to well up the carpeted corridor with blood.

For a moment, Calvin stood to admire his handiwork, easing back the hammer on Viper with a low snap and holstering the pistol. He pulled his jacket taut around him once more and heard the stamping of feet below as other footsoldiers began to climb the stairs. It seemed that in a few moments, he'd have guests - he retreated into one of the offshoot rooms on the top floor, picked up his case, straightened his tie, tucked in his shirt and tried to wipe off some of the fresher, wetter bloodstains - thus far he'd only sustained a light bruise or two and maybe a nick on the side.

A gentle exhalation. He straightened his tie, pulling the door to with a click, and narrowing his gaze as it fell upon the white framework of the entrance-way to this particular room. And lastly, he adjusted his hair and flexed his fingers, reaching into his pockets and slipping on a pair of black, open-backed gloves, flicking away the cigarette that had hung between his lips the whole time. "Three down."

[Alisa Donnikova]

Alright, so twelve... and Donny. If she used her firebending she could definitely take the four around her out at risk of having booze catch fire. God wouldn't that fucking suck.... Mikhael would never forgive her. Maybe her aluminum then? She thought she could feel some in the ground.....But the problem was they were all staring at her with an intensity worthy of a hawks, the barrels of their guns remained fixedly upon her. If she tried to talk (it would hurt fuckers) it would probably be answered with a pistol whip or a bullet. And she'd rather not have a fresh hole to smoke from, that would be a bit of a fucking downer huh? One of the men returned and shook his head, relaying quickly how Mikhael wasn't upstairs. Knowing that old dog, he'd probably be hiding out in his shelter beneath them with his wife. He.... was very used to Alisa's unfortunate habit of attracting all kinds of trouble every time she came to his bar. Every. Single. Time. It was a miracle he still let her in anymore and didn't just shoot her down where she stood whenever she got through the door.

Everyones head turned at the sound of gunfire, even the men that were surrounding her so, and that was all she needed. Forgoing alchemy all together, her Cutlasses were in hand within seconds, two shots going off as the man to her left went down. She was already moving as he fell, using his collapsing body as a brief cover while she fired off two more shots, another one of the men falling to the ground with a bullet in his shin and then brain. Buuuut they were starting to shoot at her now that they had startled back to the fact that they had two attackers. She supposed that the stranger had just made his entrance into this. Hah! Hope he didn't flounder. Rolling to the side, she swung her leg out to kick the legs out of the third man whose bullets shot into the floor inches from her. BANG! Shot to the face. RAT-AT-AT-AT! Alisa barely had anytime to jump backwards as the rifle's bullets seemed to chase after her. Hands were grabbing down at her, reminding her that there were more of them fuckers.

Arms wrapped around her own and pulled her up, her legs kicking at the air as she let out a screeching roar, bringing her head forward before throwing it back with as much force possible into the mans nose. She heard the satisfying crack of a broken nose, the arms immediately dropping her. Running forward, she shot that fourth man in the foot as she leaped up and over the bar counter, a second bullet finding his brain as she slid and dropped to the floor again. For now, she had cover. Gritting her teeth, the bullets rang out and fired into that wood, but they wouldn't get through. She remembered the last renovation that Mikhael had to make. "Thank god he got bullet proof plating." She muttered to herself with a laugh, leaning forward while opening a sliding door to reveal some rum that he kept hidden. And it was that good Esparian shit too. Ho-o-oooooo Jackpot! Grinning to herself, she took that moment to twist off the cap and take a swig, her laugh cracking and rising into that polluted air. Gunsmoke, booze, blood, it was a regular old party in here!

[Guest]

"Вот дерьмо..." Came the first voice from one of four sets of footsteps at the top of the stairs. Calvin didn't need a translator for the sense of dread and foreboding hanging underneath as the other mob soldier saw his three comrades all rather dead, and an assailant nowhere to be seen. He gritted his teeth as the first individual, same voice, same hands, same weight in his walk, bolted his rifle, and moved for the door. "Прикройте меня!" A subsonic voice hissed to his fellows, closer to the entrance than ever before - presumably all the other doors on the upper floor being ajar and filled with dead Drachmans was a good sign for the fact that there was something, or, more appropriately, someone, hidden behind the single closed one.

The brass doorknob turned counter-clockwise on Calvin's side, creaking slowly. The Cretan specialist stepped to the right side as the door opened, and waited, perfectly silent, perfectly still, for three distinct sounds. Creak. The floorboards on the bar's upper floor were exceptionally old. Creeeaaak. That was two. The black-suited criminal edged silently closer to the door. Creaaaaaaaa- Before the sound even finished, with as much force as he could, the black-gloved thief jerked his shoulder into the door, slamming it against the frame - or as far against the frame as it could go, with a rather fleshy and obtrusive footsoldier in the way.

His rifle clattered onto the floorboards and Calvin pulled back the door before slamming it in once more, hearing something solid smash against the doorframe with a light crack and a pained yelp. Still behind the door, and thus, to the other three soldiers, who were presumably readying themselves, invisible, the Cretan darted forwards and yanked the stunned footsoldier up by his cuff, propping his up and onto his feet as he groaned. Simultaneously, as he did this, the man in the suit grunted, and brought his knee up into the would-be assailant's spine, relentless in his continued assault which he would later, no doubt, pass off as "extreme self defense".

Not a moment after, the criminal slammed the flat of his wrist into the back of his dazed enemy's neck, which was, to break a pattern, seemingly a less-than effective maneuver. However, with a gentle click followed by a sharp whistle, it became clear that this movement was only to apply pressure to what was a hidden button-operated switchblade, strapped to the top of Calvin's wrist. In another fluid movement, still hanging onto the cuff of his prey's jacket, the Cretan jerked forwards and planted the freshly-extended blade straight into the side of the Drachman's jugular, with a subtle squelch, for only a moment, before removing it with a fantastic spatter of blood and viscera from the fresh wound as the mafiya footsoldier slumped down, eyes rolled back into his head and his shirt beginning to taint with the spilt crimson.

A flick of his wrist and the blade splattered a line of crimson dots against the cream-coloured wallpaper, Calvin attempting to give the spring-loaded knife an impromptu cleaning before he continued on his rampage. Reaching back for the briefcase he'd set upon the ready-made single bed in the room, he flicked it open deftly, as if he'd done it thousands of times before - he had - and removed a small, compacted square object, light and constructed mainly of rigid, synthetic polymers, with a small flashlight at the top, at the end of a carrying handle. With yet another flick of Calvin's wrist, the entire structure flicked open, and the enigmatic object's true nature revealed itself: the bottom half folded back autonomously to become a stock, revealing a trigger and a magazine well beneath the chamber and framework of the gun proper, and the flashlight on the top flicked on as a cue.

With another fluid movement, Calvin fetched an extended, thirty-two round magazine filled to the brim with nine-millimetre Parabellum rounds, and with a drawn-out slide followed up by a poignant click, loaded it into the well. A fold-out sub-machine gun, designed as an industrial torch for the purposes of disguise, barrel, trigger, and firing system all hidden when the structure was folded inwards.

In the moments he'd readied his weapon, the Taipan, as he so affectionately called it, the lumbering Drachman tanks had continued to storm their way up the stairs in light of their comrade's disappearance. They stood there, stalwart, waiting for Calvin to emerge - and when he did, he kicked open the door, and slid down, a look of sheer determination and cold resolution on his face and sat in his eyes, his lips neutral and his pallor apathetic. He slid into a two-footed kick and held down the trigger as all three rifles of the foot-soldier erupted, unloading onto the open door and the walls behind a sliding Cretan as the momentum took him through, pumping round after round into the chest of the assailant at the top of the stairs. And in the split-second after his chamber clicked empty, the first soldier's mouth began to redden and well up with blood, the AK-47 in his hand hanging limp as he teetered on the very edge of the last step.

Thump.

Then, Calvin's feet made contact.

Between the lack of balance instilled from having an entire clip's worth of nine-millimetre rounds pumped into his chest, from the smoking barrel of the Taipan hanging in Calvin's right hand, and the force from the double-footed slide-tackle straight into his shins, it was only a moment before the teetering turned to a slow, dreading fall, the Drachman reeling backwards upon the stairs, falling down onto his head and sliding his way down in a great net of limbs, fabric, and plywood as the rifle bounced in front of him. Consciousness faded and the first of the Cretan's new targets quickly fell into the second, and the second into the third, in a great, messy, downward fall, a congregation of flying limbs, splintering crack sounds, and a cacophony of eerily high-pitched curses in their native language.

It's funny how when in times of extreme and intense emotion, even a polyglot resorts to their native dialect for curses and exclamations. And for the agonised footsoldiers falling into broken, dead, clumps at the bottom of the stairs, their necks twisted and mangled at angles impossible by the live human physiology, there was no exception, the last of agonised and pained groans fading away from the splintering, fleshy mass. The blood from the open bullet wounds of the first Drachman seeped out over them in one, united under the torn flesh of a single brother. Hauntingly profound.

Calvin had luckily saved himself from making three four by hanging onto the second or third banister after following through into the kick, having preempted a similar fallout. Three felled in barely a few seconds - that must have been a new record for him, surely? With that, he tossed the unfolded sub-machine gun - empty and practically useless without a spare magazine that was located in the trunk of his car - back into the room behind him, standing up onto the stairs - which suddenly looked far steeper with a great bloody smear down them, and the gentle symphony of nine-millimetre cartridge casings rolling down through the pooling crimson - and straightening his tie. "Now, gents," He murmured morbidly, peering at the fleshy mound of the three dead Drachmans below. "Didn't your parents ever teach you that it's just asking for trouble if you play around like that on stairs?"

He cocked his head and adjusted his suit further as more feet stamped beneath and further gunfire rang out below - some heated mafiya dispute, perhaps, in what they had presumed to be an empty bar? "Eh," Calvin shrugged. He didn't rightly care - they'd started this, and for that, whether one-by-one, or all in a group, they would all die. "No use crying over spilt Drachmans." He murmured, reckoning that the sentiment applied almost perfectly there, as well.

With that, he begun his descent into the bar proper, drawing Viper and easing back the hammer as he slowly moved down the bloody stairwell.

[Alisa Donnikova]

"WHERE THE FUCK IS SHE?"
"Sir, I don't-"
WHAM! THUD!..... *shhhhhkbump*

Alisa couldn't help but smirk as she could hear Donny furiously ordering his men about the relatively humble establishment, more running upstairs after who she knew to be the stranger from before. Gone were the feelings of frustration and seething tension that was always present in some form or another in her being. Gone was the dwelling on the obnoxious city that she loathed so strongly. No, now? There was just the fight. There was a scrapping of feet against floor, her grin growing as she rolled herself to the right and aimed upwards to the left, her finger tugging on that trigger. The mans brains went splattering across the bar, his body collapsing onto the counter as his rifle clattered to the floor. She could have reached to grab it, but she didn't. As much fun as rifles could be, she did love her Cutlasses more. Time to make those piggies squeal.

INITIATE

She wasted no time as that fifth body fell, gripping the mans shoulder as she pulled him up with her, jumping on top of the bar counter as the rifles went off. Their bullets bounced into their dead comrade, those gleaming Beretta's peeking out beside his arm as she fired off two more shots at the three that remained. Both buried themselves into one of Donny's lieutenants, the other two already moving to get in front of him. She gritted her teeth and heaved, tossing the meat shield at them before leaping forward herself, holstering one of her Cutlasses' to pull out her lighter. Time to make these bitches dance. Flicking the zippo open and lighting it, she blew that oxygen forwards towards the two lieutenants, the flames seeking out the O2 greedily. Her face grew hot as those tongues of flame caught upon them, eating up into their clothes which sent them screaming and flailing. It was amusing how people never EVER remembered to drop and roll. Fucking idiots.

Donny was backing up towards the door with his pistols drawn, firing at the ground where she had been, but she was already moving to pursue him. Those chocolate eyes were alight with how much hate she held for him, remaining low until she was five feet away from him. Letting her zippo dropped, she gripped his wrist and jumped upwards, her knee connecting with his chin as he went tumbling to the floor. Oh he tried to bring his other gun around, but per usual, Donny was never fucking fast enough. "You fucking bitch-" Her right foot came down on his wrist, effectively pinning him to the floor as her knee continued to dig into his chest. She was completely dominating him, and she only kept grinning as she remained for a few more seconds to enjoy it. "Get your fucking hands off of me!" Suddenly she leaned forward, inches from his face as the grin was gone and only a murderous aura remained to overbear him. Her expression was calm, her grip was iron, and she narrowed her eyes at him. "I don't think you are in a fucking position to fucking bargain Donny boy." She hissed at him as the barrel of her Beretta hung inches from his face.

"You wanna know why I left your fucking men to die in that fucking idiotic war? Because they were fucking pussies. They just wanted to fuck around and hold old grudges, and they fucking paid for it. Take two fucking guesses as to why I'm still here." She pressed harder into his wrists and chest, ignoring his grunt of pain. "Don't you--" "Shut your fucking trap you fucking fuck. I let you live the last time, but I was a child then, and I was fucking stupid." He tried to spit on her, but she jammed her beretta into his mouth and fired right up into his skull, his blood splattering across her body as he went limp. Alisa didn't move for a moment, her teeth gritted against each other as her breaths almost came in pants from containing her anger. Donny Dick was finally fucking dead. Taking a deep breath, she pulled herself off of his disgusting corpse and paused to stare. Her head tilted just before her Cutlass raised one more time to shoot him in the dick, her expression completely unreadable.

She started to walk back to the bar, picking up a handkerchief from one of the corpses to wipe Donny's spit from her gun before holstering it as well as her zippo that she had dropped. Sighing heavily she righted her stool and sat back down, pausing to stand on it so she could reach over the bar to grab the rum she had left behind. "Ah fuck... Now I gotta clean off..." She muttered to herself, lifting that bottle to her lips to gulp down that delicious liquid. It clacked against the blood slick bar, tilting her head back, wincing in the process to shout up, "Oi! Foreigner! You still alive up there?" She could hear his footsteps against the stairs which only made her smirk, pulling out her smokes to slip one between her lips. "I can hear that you are." She muttered while lighting up that deathstick to take a nice deep draw on it. It made her lip and cheek smart from where they had split her skin due to all those fucking punches, but she didn't care right now. She wanted her smoke, and she wanted her drink.

[Guest]

The gunfire continued downstairs and after poking his head around the corner, Calvin thought it tactile to stalk back the way he'd came, folding the frame of Taipan back up, letting the empty magazine slide from the well and clatter against the floorboards, before tucking it into the suitcase neatly and shutting his luggage with a series of resounding clicks. As he did so, the cacophony downstairs ceased, aside from a few muffled lines of angry-sounding speech in Drachman, a pair of sequential follow-up gunshots, and then the oh-so-memorable wheel of a battered Zippo lighter clicking a few times before snapping shut. "Oi! Foreigner! You still alive up there?"

Huh. So she'd been busy, too. "Define alive!" He called back down with a tut, straightening his tie and dusting off his jacket. Breaking apart the banister had caused a liberal cloud of sawdust to launch upwards into the air, covering Calvin in a considerable dusting of the stuff. With a deft movement, he yanked the briefcase up and began his second descent into the bar proper, leaping over the last stair with a grin on his face and a morbidly energetic spring in his step.

"I can hear that you are." With a low, quiet whistle, Calvin ventured into the bar proper, regarding the aftermath with a slow pivoting of his head, counting nine corpses to the seven he'd left upstairs. Shit, she'd been busy. One of them was lying in a pool of blood, half of his head having been mysteriously turned into the shredded remnants of a nine-millimetre exit wound, and a particularly poignant bullethole in what appeared to be his groin. The smell of charred flesh hit his nostrils and he took a deep, familiar draw, almost grimacing. He wasn't afraid of murder, but he was no sadist - and the smell of burning human skin wasn't exactly familiar to a steak frying on the grill.

With a crackle, the flames smouldered, and the embers continued to fizzle out as he looked down at the other end of the bar. Alchemy, he presumed. There she was, sitting on the stool with a particularly apathetic aura hanging about her, and a trail of corpses to only further reinforce that. Calvin sighed and cracked off a grin in her direction. "Damn," He murmured. "That's brutal." An effective summary of the scene. The Cretan continued to walk on, carefully stepping over corpses and puddles of blood as not to stain his expensive new shoes - especially after that pathetic pianist had ruined the last pair - and deftly keeping his footing in and amongst the strewn collage of dead bodies and torn flesh.

Halfway through a stride, a low, pained, gurgle came from below, and Calvin looked down to a man on his back twitching ever so slightly. He arched an eyebrow and looked to her, going to the other side of his jacket with his free hand to draw Cobra, his silenced SIG pistol. The Amestrians were always fairly pragmatic and adept when it came to these sorts of weapon-crafting affairs. He cocked his head, drawing back the hammer, lowering the barrel down to the wounded footsoldier's head - halfway there anyway - and gazed coldly at Alisa with the makings of a smirk on his face. "Missed a spot." Thwunk. And that was all she wrote.

Sheathing the smoking gun, he continued over the maze of dead flesh and spent cartridge casings she'd left, a veritable path to where she now set, clambering over the last final bit to get to the stool next to her. He set down his case, adjusted his jacket, and sidled up onto the chair. "Well, I've got to say," He murmured, looking at the remnants of his liberated bottle of scotch over on the other end, apparently eviscerated in the firefight, and leapt over the bar to grab the nearest, biggest bottle he could find. When he lifted back up, he'd produced an old bottle of Rémy Martin cognac. The reserves, it seemed. Consequently, Calvin brushed off some of the grime that had caked to it, and smiled, nodding his head. Things appeared to be getting better.

Next, he pulled himself a small measures glass up from behind the bar - having idly memorised the positions from where he'd been sat before, for fun - and poured himself a liberal portion of the golden-brown liquor. "I thought I'd done a half-decent job with taking out one of those fuckers using a urinal, but on sheer body count, you appear to have beat me, fair and square." He rose the glass up in an impromptu toast, pushing the bottle aside for the moment. "To new beginnings." He murmured with a smile. "And cannon fodder." As a cheeky little addendum.

After that, he retracted his hand for a quick sip of the liquid, smiling as it burnt its way down his throat smoothly and settled in his stomach, warming his blood right up. That was the spirit. Would help, anyway. The air outside was colder, to use a technical term, than a witch's tit. "I think I was wrong about you, y'know," He muttered, gesturing towards her with a single gloved finger. "I underestimated you. You, uh," He shot another look at the aftermath of her little "misunderstanding" with the footsoldiers, before turning back to her with a humble smirk. "...might actually be hot shit." In both definitions of the word. She was rather... appealing.

Calvin smiled, offering his hand over as he set down the drink. "We got off on the wrong foot. I apologise..." He cocked his head. "...Miss...?" He lead off, hoping for a name. It'd help. He offered that charismatic Knox smile - infact, he had been wrong. She was strong, she seemed to be decent company, and, he'd admit it, she'd intrigued him by leaving behind more than half a dozen dead bodies on the warpath in the space of only a couple of minutes.

So... a fresh start. That'd be... nice.

[Alisa Donnikova]

"Define alive!" Alisa only smirked, the barest hint of a chuckle escaping her as she downed another gulp full of that Esparian rum. Fuck if she knew which one, it was just good old rum. She swore, her two faithful companions aside from her Cutlasses, were whisky and rum. Fuck everybody else because.... Argh, whatever. No reason to get all fucking thoughtful now. Especially not when she had finally managed to reconcile with Spade. The whistle rang out too loud in the fresh silence of the bar, her back remaining turned to him as he examined the shit she had had to deal with. She did, however, turn her head slightly towards the charred bodies to look at them out of the corner of her eye, half thinking to cut off the flames supply of oxygen, but there was no need to right now. "Damn that's brutal."

He was at the other end of the room, but still she only drank her rum. Brutal? This? She wanted to laugh at him, but it wouldn't have been some haha-thats-so-freaking-funny! laugh. It would have been more along the lines of are-you-fucking-serious? The groan made her ears perk up, pausing after her cig left her mouth, the smoke swirling before dissipating up into the air. Huh. Well then, guess she had only mostly killed one. Shame. "Missed a spot." "Figured you might have gotten bored." Damn she was getting lazy. Her father would have slapped her upside the head for not being thorough with her kills. Least it came out in sarcasm. The quiet settled again for the moment and it made her finger twitch, tapping out the ash into the nearby tray on the counter. She didn't particularly care that it hissed as it came into contact with blood, still staring low at the floor until she felt a fresh moistness rolling down the side of her lip. Ah fuck.... Her lip had split open again. Sighing in slight frustration, she was about to reach up to wipe it when the foreigner spoke again, "Well, I've got to say," Her eyes barely turned towards him as he reached over the bar and poured himself a glass, making her wonder why he didn't just chug it like he had the whiskey. What the fuck had changed except for the label and make? Alcohol was fucking alcohol at this point, and beer was still god damn piss.

"I thought I'd done a half-decent job with taking out one of those fuckers using a urinal, but on sheer body count, you appear to have beat me, fair and square." She snickered at the thought of the urinal death he had given some of Donny's men, only raising a single eyebrow at his mention of the body count. "Thanks." It wasn't... quite sarcastic, there was mostly sincerity in there. Mostly. "To new beginnings." If he said so. She raised her bottle, "And cannon fodder." Heh, ok, she would raise her bottle to that. That was right, Alisa Donnikova didn't raise glasses, she raised bottles. Because fuck glasses thats why. Another gulpful went down her gullet, leaving her warm and a little bit befuddled. Aw man... her whiskey was still out in the snow... Shit was probably all gone if the bottle hadn't broken in all the chaos. Ah whatever... She'd finish off this rum, and whenever the hell she left, she could see if it was still there. Nothing like surprise whiskey.

"I think I was wrong about you, y'know," Her eyebrow raised again as her head actually turned to look at him, "I underestimated you. You, uh," A low chuckle started in her throat at his expression at the bodies laying around them, taking a deep draw on her cigarette. "...might actually be hot shit." The smoke blew out in a big stream, feeling quite proud of herself for swallowing her comments for the moment. The man was making progress, and while she really REALLY wanted to be as sarcastic as he had earlier, not the time. She did, in fact, know SOME manners of the world. His hand came over towards her, "We got off on the wrong foot. I apologise...Miss...?" She glanced from his hand to his face, unable to not smirk as she saw the smile was there. "Donnikova." She clasped his hand in her own, firm and maybe a little bit warmer than usual still from her alchemy. Meh, whatever. "Alisa Donnikova." Her hand slid away from his to take a swig of her rum.

Now wait a minute. Wait a fucking minute, how was it that she ALWAYS met these attractive men in bars and some shit ALWAYS had to go down? Seriously, what the fuck was with this shit. Spade stumbled and fell into her when he was a drunken mess, King had been brandishing his shotgun before then proceeding to try to tear her apart with words, and now this shit? "Perhaps we did. So who the-... I mean, who are you?" Right. Mending bridges rather than burning them down....

[Guest]

"Donnikova." Huh. That name... "Alisa Donnikova." Where did he know that name from... pensively, he looked off into the distance and drew his half-smoked pack of Marlboros, tugging one from the box and snapping open his Zippo, still within an arm's reach as he made himself comfortable on the chair, wiping a few specks of blood away from the bar's counter. Click. Click. He paused.

"Mercenary, right?" He gestured at her, questioningly. That's where he knew the name from. "Moscovian rumour mill. Some of my clients have mentioned you." He shrugged with a half-laugh, returning to light his cigarette before he snapped the lighter shut. "Usually for a fear of you turning up on one of their jobs, but, hey," With a snap, he pressed the Zippo down on the table. "I don't do much work in Drachma, so thankfully our first meeting was on... relatively good terms." After a make-up, anyway. Not that he no longer reckoned he could take her. She was a fast draw and click with that alchemy - he could see from the aftermath - but he was a blur with a sharp object and close-combat. If he got within a couple of metres, it would be over, or close to it, in a matter of moments. But from afar? There was a decent chance she could turn him to Creig cheese with those nine-millimetres if he wasn't having a particularly good day.

"Perhaps we did. So who the-... I mean, who are you?" He'd noted the initial hostility in her voice before she settled down. Either a hard-wired instinctive habit when talking to new people, or she was still going to remember for a little the way that he'd flippantly cut her off. He hadn't minded in the first place - but now the pair of them had had a chance to cool off and let loose, her in her way and his in his - both, unfortunately for the mafiya soldiers, violent - things could get slightly more pleasant between the pair of them.

He opened his mouth and for the first time he could remember in weeks a sound hadn't come forth from it immediately. Calvin knew inside that his responses were usually sharp, witty, sarcastic with a flirty and charismatic undertone, but above all else, everything he said to another living soul had one common factor. He replied fast. And here, he hadn't.

Why? Because, initially, he'd considered lying to her. As he had to two dozen people so far this week. And it was only Thursday. As he did every time some scrutinising barman or shady retail mechanic tried to. As he did, every time that he dealt with a lower client who had approached him under the moniker of "The Specialist" as opposed to his true, given name. For only a fistful of people knew Calvin as Calvin. Much like anything in his life, he used and recycled names that were disposable. Peter Thomas. Michael Ellis. Bobby Benjamin. Dan Bradley, Charlie Frederick, Zach Bruce... just about anything he could pass off. They all had one thing in common - they were drawn from a randomised bank of two first names. An allusion, a subtle hint, a connection, and even a challenge for anyone smart enough to align the puzzle pieces, but thus far, in five years, none had.

Lies were fun, and giving people aliases or his more famous nickname was usually his way of dissuading followers and any other more suspicious individuals who wanted to take him on. Like any proper villain in this world, Calvin had fake passports to back up six or seven different identities. Three as Cretan nationals, one as a Creigman - he did a smashing accent - and the final two or three with dual citizenship from a mixed bank of Amestris, La Cerise, Esparia... it was all for the purpose of illusion. Keep people happy. Avoid the question of your name for long enough and people get suspicious, they back off because they're scared of what you might do - for instance, what the Specialist actually did - but affirm them of a false moniker and a few bullshit stories you can back up, and, hand-in-hand with that daring charisma of his, everything manages to sew its way together.

But she was different. There was zero percent chance of her going to the police or the Czar, that was for sure. She was bitter enough with any of his potential enemies that she wouldn't shed any dirt she had to them, and, hey, it was the start of what could be one real friendship in a sea of fake ones, begun in cursing and violence, and quite possibly would end with it - hopefully the pair of them against another group, but, still. Maybe it was the alcohol. Or maybe some sentimentalist parasite had finally gnawed a whole through his brain. And just maybe that tiny cold rock that he held inside his ribcage and mislabeled a "heart", just for a split-second, decided it'd let Calvin show just a modicum of emotion outwardly to another human being.

Finally, there was a connotation that came with this name that put almost everyone off. Knox. That was the name of an infamous 1960s drug-dealing criminal cadre who had succeeded through the eighties before finally being cut down a few years ago by the ruthless Dresden twins. A drug-dealing criminal cadre he was the sole heir to. That said - Alisa Donnikova, as she called herself, was most definitely not 'almost everyone'.

"Knox." He'd reply in the same fashion as she did, his voice smooth as the smoke rose up in light wisps. Calvin spoke quietly and sighed after saying just the one word, taking a drag from the smoke and lifting the glass of whiskey up to his lips, knocking it back before moving to pour himself another. He almost found himself regretting it immediately after the syllable had ushered itself from his mouth - but there was no stopping there. "Calvin Knox." And, finally, as a smirk curled up on the corner of his mouth? "Some people call me the Specialist."

[Alisa Donnikova]

Ah fuck, he paused.... He wasn't secretly here to kill her or something right? No, that was completely fucking stupid cause he had plenty of opportunity to before. Besides, there was a simple fact that she was forgetting. She was a rather distinctive person in behavior, looks, and speech. If someone were coming for her, they would have known who she was immediately and attempted to take her out. Not exchange pleasantries like fucking civilized people. No, it would have been an exchange of the underworld; bullets and blood. "Mercenary, right?" Her eyebrow raised, but she nodded once. "Thats right." But he HAD heard of her apparently. From where--"Moscovian rumour mill. Some of my clients have mentioned you." HAH! She tried to hold back her burst of laughter, instead snorting and chuckling with a shake of her head as she lifted that delicious rum to her lips. Of course! Of course that would be where.... If he was freelance himself, it was hard to miss names or at least other distinctive (and competant) people in the field. "Usually for a fear of you turning up on one of their jobs, but, hey," she was hardly surprised, it came with the territory of being herself. Yeah she had friends... but she had way more enemies. "I don't do much work in Drachma, so thankfully our first meeting was on... relatively good terms." She scoffed quietly before taking another puff of that cigarette, shaking her head a bit, her eyes gazing at the wall of booze in front of her. Not... that her eyes were particularly FOCUSED upon it however.

"I haven't taken a job from this city in at least a year, and even before that I avoided it like the fucking plague." She commented, her lips tightening a little. "I hate this fucking country. Fucking hellhole." Sighing heavily, her next glug on that rum was a bit longer than the previous ones, taking a deep breath before exhaling it sharply. Though that did leave her wondering, who WAS he? She would have heard of someone like him before if he were a merc like her. She might avoid her fellow compatriots for the most part, but that didn't mean she lived in a hole. She always did her damndest to stay aware of what the fuck was going on in this circle of hell that she called her own, though she knew that plenty was also lost amidst the cracks. There was just no getting around it. When she wasn't working, she was painting and when she wasn't doing that, she was traveling (and not necessarily legally). He opened his mouth to speak, but then appeared almost perplexed as no sound came out. What, had the cat caught his fucking tongue? Oh for fucks--He wasn't some short term memory loss fuck or whatever the hell that thing was called, was he? Cause she would up and leave now. She had had enough experiences with memories being messed with that she never wanted to deal with that bullshit again.

Her eyebrow began to raise more as he sat there, thinking like some fish out of water, so though she had glanced over, she looked down now at her bottle. It... was actually starting to concern her how things always DID happen at bars and with men. It had gotten her in trouble with Spade to begin. Before that.... Shit, what the fuck had she even been like before she met him? She couldn't even remember now. You weren't soft. Thank you voice-of-my-father. But she wasn't soft now, she was still just as strong, just as quick as she had always been thanks to his teachings. But you also were an impenetrable wall. You didn't have that thorn that sucks away at you still. Now that...... she couldn't quite dispute. She wouldn't have known love, nor that fucking pain of loss again, nor... Shit. Everything that had been plaguing her ever since he ran off in North City's hospital. She wouldn't have painted what she knew was probably one of her best works ever, she wouldn't be as sorta open to people as she was now. Ah fuck, she was starting to sound her like her fucking mother.

Taking a deep breath, she exhaled slowly, telling herself yet again to stop thinking so much. Ok, so Spade was the catalyst for her growth just like King had been. Everyone inbetween? Fuck if she knew. All she DID know at this point was that she had managed to mend that broken bridge, and.... was... er... What the fuck WAS she going to do except what she always did? Meh, anyways, back to the handsome tipsy man in front of her. "Knox." It was her turn to pause as her brows immediately furrowed, looking at him with a sudden intensity that would have startled most other people. But he was just like her, he had lived in those gutters caked with blood and gunsmoke their air. Yes... he wasn't like the general public. She had heard of that name, taking a puff as she wracked her brain as hard and quick as she could. Knox.... Knox...... "Calvin Knox." OH SHIT. Her mind clicked just as he said his full name, her lips tightening as she tapped out the excess ash from her cig. Fuck. Well, least he wasn't firing at her nor in close proximity. "Some people call me the Specialist." "I'm well aware of your existence and your fami--" She paused and scoffed ever so slightly, touching her cig to her lips, "Well... I used to know your family. Dresden Twins really did a number, didn't they?" She murmured quietly as she took a glug on her rum, frowning as she looked at the bottle. Fuck. Almost empty.

"Don't mean anything by that. Just saying." Though her socializing skills might be lacking for the most part, she still knew that would probably be a tender spot for him. So how the fuck did she change subjects? She turned on her stool to face him, the alcohol slipping and sliding through her brain in the most delightful of ways as she stared at him evenly. "Anyways," She had an idea, "You got a safe house here? Mine have either been compromised or destroyed. Seems to be a problem with my face and people wanting to add another hole right here," Her index finger came up and tapped right between her eyes, smirking although there was a hint of darkness to it despite how she had seemed to lighten up from before. It was true, she didn't have any secure safe houses here anymore which made her relieved that she had moved anything of value out to other ones so they wouldn't be endangered. Though... that did mean she was in this uncomfortable position of asking him for his help when she had just met him. If his price was a fuck then fine, whatever, it wasn't like she had been laid in a while anyways. She just didn't want to have to travel on the trains back out of the country in her current state. That was asking for her hide to get skinned.

[Guest]

"I haven't taken a job from this city in at least a year, and even before that I avoided it like the fucking plague." Huh. Bad blood, he guessed. Moscow wasn't exactly the friendliest of places; fuck, Drachma wasn't exactly hospitable, weather and people. It was a brutal, defensive country, home to what Calvin viewed to be a brutal and defensive race of people. "I hate this fucking country. Ебля адскую бездну." Seemed their views weren't that far apart.

Calvin smirked, pouring himself a fresh, tall measure, feeling the tingling of the alcohol - it had started to kick in, three glasses later - in his movements. He was jovial, at best, at the moment, unsure of how much further he wanted to progress. Too much alcohol - wasn't always - but could be dangerous. For a moment, a reflection of his turquoise eyes lingered on the edge of the glass pensively - he didn't want to let those guards down... but when did he ever?

That all out of mind, he rose the short glass and grinned outright in another faux toast. "To the shitholes of the world," He tilted his head ever so slightly, peering past Alisa's shoulder off into the middle-distance for a split-second, before re-aligning them. If anything, Moscow's skyline, when finally silent, could be... beautiful. "Giving people like us..." He jerked his free thumb to the bodies strewn across the floor of the bar. "...well, jobs like these."

"I'm well aware of your existence and your fami--" Ah. Well, that stung. He hadn't ever really known his father in entirety; but in spite of his notorious reputation... he'd heard that James Knox was a good man. "There are b-bad men in th-this world, Calvin," He'd always taken that to mean that his father, no matter what, didn't count amongst them. Jacob was perhaps a different story; alone, it was true of the adage that absolute power corrupts absolutely, but the pair of them had never really got a chance to talk that over as adults. Considering- "Well... I used to know your family. Dresden Twins really did a number, didn't they?"

His fist balled up almost instinctively at his side and he let a steamy jet of breath exude from between strained lips. Victor and Selina Dresden. Particularly the former, he had a bone to pick with, but the latter was just as detestable a human being as her twin brother. London's greatest kingpins. And everything he stood against. Messy. Callous. Imprecise. And, well, they'd murdered his uncle and taken what rightfully belonged to him. That never helped.

Slowly, he let the boiling pit of sulphur within bubble down from a roaring fury into a simmering disappointment. That was another story for another time; the muscles in his fist loosened, and Calvin, after but a moment of letting it slack, shook it all off with a smile - it hadn't been too long a window, but he wasn't sure how perceptive this particular mercenary was. Just as he'd feared: for a moment, just a tiny fragment of a minuscule split-second, Calvin Knox had let down all the emotional guards he'd erected and shown something utterly true. Vengeance.

Perhaps it was him, perhaps it was the drink, perhaps it was her, or perhaps this had been coming some time; he'd not been in a situation like this before. Most of the girls he picked up were ditzy chicks, drunk or coked up off their heads, whom he never told his name and who he never let in. Cheap fucks. The quick, steamy, drunk bathroom sex. Nothing that ever lasted. No attachments. Didn't suit his lifestyle after all. But she was perceptive. Viciously aware. The world had chewed her up and spat her back out harder, stronger, and more imbued with a growing flame than ever before. "I suppose you could say that." He tilted his head and murmured coolly, before taking another sip of the scotch.

"Don't mean anything by that. Just saying." Of course she hadn't. It was just a topic of conversation; and she was callous enough to breeze past it without realising that it was the only thing Calvin had ever allowed himself to get truly angry about. But enough of that. He nodded, "understandingly", and tipped back the last of his drink with a sharp exhalation. That burning in the throat and the stomach never got old. Never got boring for him, no matter how much he repeated it - and some would say, abused it. "Anyways, you got a safe house here? Mine have either been compromised or destroyed. Seems to be a problem with my face and people wanting to add another hole right here." She tapped between her eyes. He smirked. Safehouse, eh? Seemed like she wanted to turn in for the night.

Once more he looked her up and down. Bodily? Sexually? Most appealing girl he'd seen in months. Personality-wise? She was dangerous. A high-risk commitment. She already knew too much to become an attachment he could just shed. And sex could make or break the whole thing. "Yeah..." He murmured, looking back up to meet her gaze. "Few minutes' walk from here. And unless another group of your mates have bombed the place out in the past hour or two, it should still be completely intact." That said, he leapt down from the chair, ignoring the half-full bottle, and picked up his case with a sigh, jerking his head towards the door. "Shall we, then?"

Calvin was still undecided on whether he'd "engage" her or not. The risk here was certainly formidable to his way of life; but what's the worst that could happen? She knew the problems with working under-the-radar, just like he did. And he knew she wasn't going to just expose him out of some mutual self-interested. Freelancers were a wanted breed in Moscow, the Specialist in many senses of the term. But a fuck was a fuck at the end of the day; and so long as he could get up and move on the next day... he didn't really care.

[Alisa Donnikova]

Alisa glanced over to him as she saw him swaying, noticing that he had lifted up his glass-- Holy shit, were his eyes turquoise?! Her brows furrowed as she stared for a moment, her lips twisting a bit pensively. Damn. That was kind of hot...Argh, STOP. "To the shitholes of the world," Now THAT made a grin rise up onto her lips, snickering as she raised her bottle to that. "Giving people like us..." Her eyes briefly glanced towards the bodies scattered about them, "...well, jobs like these." "Fucking amen." Man, if she didn't have random events of violence like this, she would probably end up murdering an entire town or something. Well... maybe just Moscow. How many people did she need to kill in this city to get back at all the shit it had given her? Fuck, she'd lost count years ago. Whatever, she was bumbling her words now.

It was obvious how she had struck a nerve, those chocolate eyes watching him carefully. She noted the fist, the burst of air between his lips, the tension that crawled over his entire being like a swarm of beetles. Oh yeah, that was about as raw a nerve as the subject of parents was to her. So she lowered her eyes and drank from her bottle, putting out her finished cig in the ashtray. She let him have a moment, it wasn't easy to simmer out of a rage like that, and you never ever got used to it. You were always just so damn ready to set the whole fucking world on fire... His smile did nothing to cover it up so she didn't react to it, there was no point in it. It was just a false front trying to hide what you didn't want to be seen. Fuck that. Masks of niceness? Useless. Lies. Sure some people were sincere, like Shula. That was a genuinely kind woman. But how many people were actually like that in this world?

Yeah... fuck masks. They had never done her good, and they had never done good to her. "I suppose you could say that." Least there was that. Now, what was interesting was how he looked her up and down. AGAIN. Her eyebrow raised slowly at that, turning on her stool more to face him. What, was she some prize horse or dog to be examined? Stop using your fucking eyes and say what the fuck was on your mind because she wasn't fucking dumb. She was used to men doing that to her except she had had significantly less clothes on. All she wanted was a place to stay. "Yeah..." Eyes up, good pup. "Few minutes' walk from here. And unless another group of your mates have bombed the place out in the past hour or two, it should still be completely intact." Even better. Her eyes rolled a little bit at the reference to her "mates," pushing herself off of her stool as she drank the last of her bottle. Mmm.... now there was the swimming warmth that she knew and loved. Oh yes, there was no denying that Alisa Donnikova was an alcoholic.

"Shall we, then?" Nodding, she gave Donny's corpse one last kick as she pulled on her jacket, pausing as he continued to the door. "Yea, just one sec." Walking back over to the bar, she dropped a few hundred bucks down for Mikhael, knowing that he'd need it for repairs and clean up. "SORRY ABOUT THE MESS! LEAST THEY WON'T BUG YOU ANYMORE!" She shouted back to wherever the hell he had gone, turning on her heel and heading for the door, patting Calvin on the shoulder as she breezed past. The wind stabbed down on them the instant they went outside, sleet stinging at her neck and face. "Motherfucking whore..." She muttered, hurrying over to where they had beaten her down to look for her whiskey bottle. Her hands dug for a moment or two until she felt glass, picking it up as hope beat within her chest.... YES! SUCCESS THE BOTTLE WAS INTACT! Grinning, she let out a cackle to the sky, hurrying after him to his safehouse.

***

He was right, it did only take a few minutes to get there, and by that time Alisa had slipped back into her normal, relatively calm state. Staring around at the place, she nodded her head a little, eyes lingering on the man that was her host. And without warning, she approached him and backed him up against the wall, one hand pressing into the wall as she leaned close to his face. She smelled of cigarettes, gunpowder, booze, blood and death, her chocolate eyes narrowing a bit as she stood there nose to nose with him making sure he didn't move. "So what do YOU want Calvin Knox. You still debating if you want to fuck or not cause I've been watching that thought process slide back and forth ever since I walked in the damn bar." She whispered at him, her voice a little gravely for it being so low. The whiskey bottle hung by her side in her other hand, her gaze surprisingly sharp for one whom had had as much to drink as she. A wicked smirk twisted her lips as she leaned a little closer, centimeters from him now, "Might wanna be careful, might not want anything else afterwards." She hissed before pulling back and away as suddenly as she had approached, turning away to take a glug of her whiskey.

The cards had been thrown down, again. What was he going to do?

[Guest]

The safehouse was ample. Sizeable yet humble. It could be found at the back of an apartment building in a fairly decent part of town (for Moscow) and consisted of four rooms; a master bedroom with a single, well-made double bed; a lounge with a plasma-screen TV pinned up against the wall; a kitchen-dining room hybrid, and finally, a small, modernesque toilet in the corner. All in all, the structure of the place itself seemed to present itself as a small, sleek, white box. Utilitarian, no bigger than it should have been; clean, and most definitely hiding something beneath the surface. Though that was another story for another time.

Almost completely suited to what one would imagine of the Specialist. Once he'd hurried himself and Alisa in from the cold outside, dusting a few specks of snow off from his jacket, the whiskey truly warming his belly now, he locked the door behind them. "So what do YOU want Calvin Knox. You still debating if you want to fuck or not cause I've been watching that thought process slide back and forth ever since I walked in the damn bar." Guilty as charged. She was completely right. Ever since she'd crossed the threshold into that now-ruined establishment, he'd been scanning her up and down like another of his cheap bathroom fucks. But this would be something different.

He now found himself backed straight up to the wall with her lithe, slender gloved hand up against his chest. Calvin grinned down at her as she spoke, and shook his head ever-so-gently, remaining silent before he prized her hand away from his shirt. He wasn't going into anything this well-equipped. That had happened before and not ended badly. As morbid as he could be, bleaching down blood splatters and gagged, screaming, red-soaked women were not his idea of a "fun night". So, instead, he changed the subject. "One moment."

He set the suitcase down against the bathroom counter, and slowly began to disarm himself. Mostly, anyway, slamming one item down after another in a continual cycle. Fibre wire. A case filled with his etorphine syringes. The karambit sheathed at his right ankle in a small holster. The Iguana pocket knife in his inner jacket lining. Lizard, the switchblade he'd already used, coated with a slick of drying blood, complete with a wristband-strap. The Cayman special forces knife, black-bladed, sheathed and pinned to his thigh. Each blade made a distinctly heavier clunk as it set itself down on the counter. The next, he had to untuck his shirt and pull up his jacket for - the removal of two opposing ninjatou sitting right next to each other. The Alligator Twins, each complete with their own thinned and hollowed economic lightweight scabbard. Clunk. Clunk. A pair of sunglasses, seemingly nondescript, if a bit bulky for the otherwise definitively sleek man.

Finally, the piece de resistance came just a moment later, with a twirl of the criminal's wrist; in spite of it still being inside its scabbard, the amount of dexterous control that Calvin held over the blade. Seventeen inches. Carbon frame. Steel edge. Black sheen. Perfect and subtle curvature. Slowly, the Specialist lowered it to a deadly stillness, pressing the sheathed blade for a moment outwards into the air, running his eye across the length - before finally slamming it down, turning back to Alisa and murmuring. "I like knives." He spoke, plainly.

With that, he cast aside his jacket, tossing it onto one of the strategically-placed coat hooks on the back of the front door, and returned to Alisa. He was still mulling it over, putting the decision off. She wasn't the usual sort; but somehow that made it... all the hotter. A change of pace, a palate cleanser. Something to get the bad taste of seven years of mindless debauchery out of his mouth. "Where were we..." He murmured.

She jerked forwards. Whiskey and cigarette smoke on her breath. Cold turquoise eyes stared into those deep brown pools with a subtle, Calvin-sized smirk on his lips. So pleased, so inwardly content, so unable to let his guard down for anyone. "Might wanna be careful, might not want anything else afterwards." With that, she spun backwards and took another gulp of the whiskey. Jesus, was she part Creig or something? Even he couldn't take back straight spirits without at least some ice.

"And how can you tell that?" Calvin murmured in response, smirking back, the alcohol hazing over his words and his gaze. "You've only just met me, Miss Donnikova." For once, the smirk turned to a grin, and the Specialist let the full extent of his contented nature swirl onto the gambling table. "How could you possibly know what I might and might not want?"

[Alisa Donnikova]

Honestly the decor was something Alisa didn't care about at the moment, cause as long as she could rest her head without fear of some small mob descending upon her head that would be fucking fantastic. Right now, she wanted her answer from him, sipping again from her best friend; the bottle of whiskey. "One moment." What-- Fucking seriously? Her eyebrow twitched as she strode further into the room, glancing around boredly at the decor. Yep, typical Drachman shit. Here, have your shitty box with its shitty appliances that may or may not work. Oh, and don't forget that its also all TINY AS FUCKING HELL. Leaks, whistles, creaking, snapping... All of it. She slowed to a stop in the "living room," about to kick lightly at the couch with her foot when she heard the suitcase touch a hard surface, turning to see where it had come from. The bathroom. Cool beans she guessed, about to take another swig when she heard a quiet thunk after thunk.

She knew that sound. She just hadn't quite... expected so many thunks. She was half-tempted to lean over to see what it was that he was putting away, but instead she just chose to stand there dumbly and stare in the direction of the sound. Ok, maybe she took a few steps closer so she could see what it was that he was putting away exactly, except she didn't get a good view from her angle at all. How many fucking weapons did he carry?! Seriously! "I like knives." Clearly ya damn fuck! Well, Alisa WANTED to say that out loud, but instead she merely raised an eyebrow at him. When he pulled off his coat, she did too along with the beanie on her head, slipping them onto another wrack, having to place her whiskey down for just one moment. Once that was done, it was back in her hand and getting sipped at again. "Where were we..." Oh sure, NOW he was going to fucking answer her. She made her second comment at him, growing increasingly unhappy at how she was feeling more and more sober despite how much she had had to drink and was STILL drinking. Mother fucker.

"And how can you tell that?" Alisa's eyes narrowed as no trace of a smile or smirk could be found, "You've only just met me, Miss Donnikova." She twitched at being called that, her empty hand tweaking to the side just a bit before hanging back down normally. Somehow coming from him, despite his tone, grated on her REAL hard. "How could you possibly know what I might and might not want?" Off came the cap one final time as she chugged the rest of the bottle, almost throwing it down on the ground except for once she listened to her better nature and didn't. He had to be one of THE MOST infuriating people ever. "Then don't go staring like I'm some bitch to fuck if you're going to make comments like, 'oh we just met'." She snapped at him, shoving past him to the living room where she flopped down on the couch. Her anger had flared up quite obviously again, her mind a whirl with too many things, too many words said, too many images.

She scoffed as she shook her head, slamming the whiskey bottle on the ground, shaking her head as she ran a gloved hand through her hair. There was a moment of quiet before she turned her head in his direction, eyes staring down at her wet, booted feet on the couch. "I sincerely doubt you've changed anyones sexuality after you've fucked them." She muttered quietly, leaning back with her hands behind her back as she sighed heavily in frustration at.... fuck. Too many things.

[Guest]

"Then don't go staring like I'm some bitch to fuck if you're going to make comments like, 'oh we just met'." Calvin arched an eyebrow. Right, clearly something he'd underestimated. If they were going to get down to it, she wasn't one to mess around in the department of puzzles and little logistical challenges. He should have predicted this; with such a fiery and absolute nature, it should have been that he could preempt such a response to his messing around. Internally, the Specialist kicked himself and figured he'd best turn things around.

"I sincerely doubt you've changed anyones sexuality after you've fucked them." That was maybe another story for another time, involving two bottles of Jack Daniels, half a pack of cigarettes, a hot tub and a botched job with not too bad an outcome, but not the sort of thing he'd bring up now. The Cretan tilted his head behind Alisa and loosened his tie. She wanted to play this straight? Straight, he could do. Simple. But he played fastball. Anything else and she was swiftly going to lose track of the game.

"Fuck it." Calvin stated absolutely, stepping forward and undoing his tie completely, throwing it off onto the couch opposite Alisa. "I should have seen this coming. Figured you'd get pissed off with me beating around the bush." Sometimes coming clean was the best course of action. "Yes, Alisa, if you can't already tell, I find you attractive, but you're not my... usual sort of girl." As in that she had more than two brain cells to rub together. "So I'll be as above-board about this as possible."

Calvin could often represent two sides of the same conversational coin. Charismatic with an ideal that simply enjoyed going in circles, winding people up, and utterly bemusing them, for his own twisted joy in the whole facade; or brute bluntness to rival even the lovely Miss Donnikova. Which was show here. "So, yeah, I'd very much like to take you in to the bed over there and fuck." Like rabbits. The Specialist shrugged. "I like to mess around, clearly, you don't, and honestly, as for where this leads, fuck knows." There was being direct, and then there was going a tad too far.

"Thirty seconds ago you seemed more than happy to treat this as a one-night deal, leave in the morning and no mention of it again." Calvin smirked. "I've got no problem with that." And now for the explanation. "And regardless of what we feel like," At the moment, completely uncertain. "Our occupations aren't exactly ideal for a long-term committed relationship."

With that in mind, Calvin let loose his top button and ran his hand around the restrained, tightened flesh of his neck, now flexing and breathing as he sighed in relief. That was a hell of a lot better. Moving up from the couch opposite Alisa, he smiled to himself - and on the inside, too - and undid the second below. With a tug, he untucked the shirt completely, and let it fall down over his waistband, crumpling, and looked down towards her, crouching by the couch and pressing his head in closer to hers. "So, what do you say?" His voice lowered to a murmur. His head moved in further. "Want to..." Pitch of his Cretan, smooth, rich boy gangster tones lowering ever further. Educated, but clearly from an area where he knew the local villains.

And before long, his voice was just a whisper, his face as close to Alisa's as it had been earlier of her own accord. "...carry on from where we left off?"

[Alisa Donnikova]

Un-fucking-believable. Pulling out her cigarettes she gripped the pack and shook it up so one slid out, putting it between her lips before lighting it up quickly. She didn't care what he was going to say about it, she needed a fucking smoke right now because god dammit was she pissed. Her whiskey was gone, she felt fucking sober, and then the little bullshit games? Yeah fuck this shit right now. "Fuck it." She didn't even look at him, though her eyes did glance towards his tie as he threw it down, half tempted to stomp a dirty boot on it. She didn't though. "I should have seen this coming. Figured you'd get pissed off with me beating around the bush." Ohhhh she wanted to retort. She really fucking wanted to retort. Fuck yeah she'd get pissed, she had asked him a direct question and he beat around the fucking bush. And he had questioned her like he had fucking knew who the fuck she was. Way to be a fucking hypocrite you Cretan asshole. "Yes, Alisa, if you can't already tell, I find you attractive, but you're not my... usual sort of girl."

She scoffed loudly, shaking her head as the entire expression of her face had grown darker, taking a long draw on her cigarette. Well how many fucking times had she heard THAT one before? "So I'll be as above-board about this as possible." Congratu-fucking-lations, welcome to the god damn party. "So, yeah, I'd very much like to take you in to the bed over there and fuck." OH really? She had NO idea AT ALL. "I like to mess around, clearly, you don't, and honestly, as for where this leads, fuck knows." Her eyebrow twitched again, but she bit her tongue because she had to admit, as much as she didn't want to, that he was right. All he had seen of her right now was that she was direct as a train running through a china shop. That was her normal mode of running because thats how she had been raised. If you wasted time dicking around you could end up dead or weighed down. Take what you could get while you kept moving, because you weren't going to be able to slow down or stop. He was also implying that this would go somewhere. Would it? Would it really?

Alisa tapped her ash into the whiskey bottle, at least that respectful of his space since he was letting her stay here. Part of her was starting to regret her decision. "Thirty seconds ago you seemed more than happy to treat this as a one-night deal, leave in the morning and no mention of it again." Ok thats fucking it. Alisa sat up at that, those chocolate eyes locking on him with such a furious fire in them that they probably would have melted stone. Was he for fucking serious. "I've got no problem with that." THEN WHY FUCKING MENTION IT LIKE THAT YOU FUCKING ASS-TWAT. "And regardless of what we feel like, our occupations aren't exactly ideal for a long-term committed relationship." No really, she didn't fucking know that. She hadn't heard to avoid relationships her WHOLE FUCKING LIFE. Sure, she got close to one, fuck it, she HAD one and that had crashed and burned as spectacularly as that fucking spaceship Challenger in another reality. She didn't know how to have one to begin with!

He just kept hitting button after button, and at this point, she was a volcano ready to burst. Yeah, he was a pretty man, but GOD DAMMIT HAD HE PISSED HER THE FUCK OFF. She couldn't even enjoy him unbuttoning his shirt as she just glared absolute daggers at him, taking another draw on her cigarette. She didn't move, or even change, a single inch when he got close to her. "So, what do you say?" Seriously. She turned her head away a little bit, subtly at first as he got fucking closer. "Want to..." Oh-ho-ho NOW he wanted to pull out the fucking stops. NOW he did. "...carry on from where we left off?" Thankfully she didn't have to tilt her head anymore, instead just glaring him in the eyes. "You lost that fucking chance you fuck." She growled at him as she shoved him aside with an arm so she could get up, tapping the last bit of ash off of her cigarette into her whiskey bottle that she picked up. Yeah she'd take it with her so she could throw it at some fucking wall. "Plain and simple, you fucked up and I'd like nothing better than to punch the shit out of you but I'm not. Because you know what?" She turned to face him, gripping the shoulder fabric of his shirt to tug him a little closer, "I'm just that fucking pissed." She let go and stepped around him towards the front door, shaking her head.

"Yeah, I don't know you, but you don't fucking know me either. I take what I can get wherever I can with no fucks given, but this ain't even fucking worth it. Not when I'm half-tempted to try and murder the shit out of you." She pulled her coat and beanie off the wall, cigarette dangling between her lips as she pulled them on against the cold. "Sorry Calvin Knox, you're just gonna have to use your hand tonight." Alisa unlocked the door, pinching out her cigarette between her fingers as she looked back at him, "We'll see each other around and who knows then. Good fucking bye." And with that the door slammed behind her, her boots thudding against the old linoleum floor as she headed down and back out into the cold. Her anger had subsided now, shaking her head again as she threw the cigarette butt out into the snow. By now the storm had subsided into a light snowfall, almost looking pretty as she stared up at it. "I fucking hate this city." She muttered as she suddenly turned and threw the whiskey bottle with all her might at the wall of his building, not even watching it smash into pieces as she began to walk out into the snow. Now... she was just tired, hurting, and... disappointed.

[EXIT THREAD]

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