Bounty? What bounty?

[Robert Pratt]

The first Robert had known about it was when he was walking through the city as normal and suddenly some mad man had opened fire on him. He'd managed to get out of the way as the bullets thudded into the wall around him, then sticking his head up he threw a blade at them and ducked back down to another spray of bullets flying over his head. However, a gurgling noise followed by a thump told him that the blade had found it's target. He got up and looked down at the man with a sigh and a shake of his head.

"I'm sorry for the loss your family will feel, and I hope that Lux welcomes you and brings you into her embrace."

He bent down and slipped a Sankofa made of metal into his pocket before closing his eyes and standing up, saying a quick prayer to Lux over him. There was nothing more that Robert could do for the man, so he left him where he was and then called in an anonymous tip off to the police, telling them where to pick up the body from. Once the call was placed, he pulled up the CrowNet to have a look and saw the bounty that had been placed on his head. He couldn't help but grin when he saw it, immediately guessing it was one of three people who'd placed it. Ivy, Tia or Luffy. All three of them were thick as thieves and all three of them seemed to have it out for him for some reason their twisted little minds had concocted and completely made up. Not to mention, all three seemed too chicken **** and useless to actually do anything themselves.

He wasn't entirely sure what had happened with Ivy. Everything had been fine as far as he'd been aware - she was having another of her snit fits because she didn't get her own way, but there was nothing new about that. However then her lies and manipulations had grown and worsened until she finally resorted to attacking him and Lizzie. That was the final straw to him. So with a blade lodged into her head, he told her he was done with her until she grew the hell up and stopped acting about 6. He'd kept to his word as well. He'd not sought her out, he'd not struck her in passing, he'd barely given her a second thought. Until again, she struck him.

Since then, it had escalated and gone back and forth between them. However the few nights in a row where she'd trapped Lizzie's apartment, fed on her after permission had been revoked, trapped Serry's home and attacked him - he'd admittedly snapped. He'd reached out to the people he knew had an issue with her. All of the people he'd previously protected her from whenever she'd fucked up and they'd come to him looking for blood. That night, he'd reached out and offered them a trike on her. She needed to learn there were consequences to her actions and he'd been wrong in trying to protect her from all of it - thereby letting her run wild. He had messed up with her, and in his opinion, he'd created a ***** without a clue.

She truely didn't have a clue how to hide, and she was so easy to find it was laughable. He'd always sworn he would never betray any he created in the way Pi had betrayed him. The ritual to find his childre would never be used to harm them, because when that demi whispered into his ear and told him what Pi was doing.... a piece of him had died because even though he and Lizzie had thought of the possibility weeks before, he'd never truely believed she would do it. At that point, he'd promised himself he would never do it to another, and he never had. That ritual, in his eyes, was for searching for childre when they were in trouble and needed help. Not for harm. So instead, he'd used telepaths and those with seeker powers - and despite Ivy running continuously, she made it too easy to find her in the little game of cat and mouse they'd indulged in. Then a day later, here was this hitman taking pot shots at him. Subtle.

He left it for a couple of days with a few more hitmen trying their luck and failing, until he'd just got sick of the bodied they left behind when he ended their misery. He told Lizzie and Oria what he was going to do and then set off into the city with both of them watching and worrying. It didn't take long before he was alerted to one of their presences with the sound of bullets against the wall nearby. He rolled his eyes and turned and faced the man, as all the humans around them ran away screaming about the lunatic with the gun. Robert simply smiled and began to walk towards the man with his arms open wide. The bullets continued to fly around him, but none of them landed.

"Were you trained at the same damn school of 'assassins' Ivy was? By Lux's name - you're useless. SHOOT me man!"

The man was getting flustered and his shots were flying wildly, loosing control as the kick of the gun tired his arms. In the end, Robert had to literally jump in front of the gun and let the bullets plow into his stomach and chest.

"Goodness! About bloody time!"

He muttered as he looked down at the little puffs of black blood that oozed from the wound, a little like liquid mercury, before vanishing in wisps of smoke. He looked up to see the man running off with all of his bits and pieces, though it was easy enough to follow him in the shadows. He followed the man through the city, using hankies to stop up the wounds until he could concentrate later, and right back to his residence. Slipping in through the door with him, taking the opportunity afforded him when the man's bag caught on the door handle. He watched as he poured himself a large glass of whiskey, then logged onto the computer and transferred the funds from the bounty list to his own account. Then with one swift movement, Robert cut his throat cleanly, setting another Sankofa on the desk in front of him.

"I'm sorry, but you were useless at your job and nearly hit innocents. You couldn't be allowed back out on the streets with such poor aim. It's what I should have done to Ivy instead of turning her. I know that now. But I was too soft."

He cleaned his blade on the man's shoulders as if knighting him before whispering a prayer over his head and offering him into Lux's embrace.

He'd done what he needed to. Whoever had placed the bounty had lost their 10K that they had placed. So settling himself down on the end of the man's bed, he reached out with his powers to the wounds. He visualised the veins and arteries, let his power flow along them and knit them back together. He saw the muscle fibre and let that weave together once more. He saw the bullets that were lodged within him, and he pushed them out, hearing them drop to the floor one by one. Finally, he imagined the skin, smooth, white and unblemished and felt it seal itself together. Looking down, he opened his shirt and looked under it -- seeing his skin clear and free of mark. Someone had just spent 10K, and gained nothing from it. And he couldn't help but grin about it.

Getting up, he left the man's hovel and made his way back to Solace to tell Lizzie and O the good news. That the bounty was gone and he was whole. It was as if it had never happened at all.