Normal Everyday

Drops of water hit the ground with every second that passed as Coren attempted to calm his breathing. Coren stood with his head bowed, his breaths coming out in ragged gasps. The sound of footsteps could be heard slapping across concrete.

Clutching his stomach Coren finally managed to calm himself down before he was suddenly pushed back into action by a shrill scream. Weighing his options in his head, Coren hesitated before unsheathing his sword and sliding across the hood of the car he had previously used as a hiding spot.

The parking lot stretched out before Coren, a seemingly endless sea of cars that was almost swallowed up by the darkness. He scanned the rows frantically, his eyes darting from one vehicle to the next as he tried to find the source of the terrified shriek. his gaze briefly stopped upon a dead body that had been nailed to one of the pillars. Doing a quick double take Coren confirmed that this wasn't a fresh body. He had noticed this one laying on the ground when they entered the parking garage an hour ago. A flailing hand flashed a few rows down from Coren. Taking advantage of his opportunity Coren quickly ran towards the row. He had seen the hand quickly try to grab the side of a red convertible for leverage.

Hopping over the red car Coren found himself only a few feet away from his target. Misen-sen had been classified as a D list threat, although Coren knew that if he failed his job this incident would surely earn Sen a C or even B rating.

Hunched over Coren's partner Misen-sen looked back at Coren with surprise, his expression quickly morphing into rage as long ribbons quickly loosened out of his sleeves, cutting upwards towards Coren. Thankfully Coren had been prepared, His blade lifted high above his head, he slammed it down onto the cloth and quickly countered with a strong kick to the Sen's side. Coren's partner, recovering from his shock and fear, lunged towards Misen-sen stabbing him in the leg with his short blade. Coren noticed that his partner's main blade was missing from its holster and upon realizing that his partner was in a compromising situation Coren haphazardly tried to resume his onslaught onto misen-sen, although due to the confined space in between the two cars he struggled to maintain pressure.

Focusing now fully on Coren, Misen-sen's sharp ribbons poked at Coren's form, attempting to score lethal hits. Catching Coren off-guard with a quick stab at his Achilles tendon Misen-sen managed to boost himselft up, connecting a fist to Coren's gut.

Coren was fought back into the driving area of the garage, allowing both him and Misen-sen more room to fight. Coren position had already been shaky, and he wasn't sure about the additional two entirely new directions that he could get gored from. Deflecting Misen-sen's ribbon pokes Coren quickly closed the distance, attempting to make Misen-sen have to momentarily retract his ribbons to deal with a close ranged fight.

Finally catching the scent of fear from Misen-sen Coren began his attack, using his small knife to Nail down a large clump of Misen-sen's ribbons. Coren spun, deflecting a rouge poke. Facing back to his opponent Coren performed a fake-out slash into a poke, stabbing Misen-sen in the right gut. Coren raised his sword up high, preparing a lethal blow as he noticed his partner circling towards Sen's back. Curving his slice Coren took out a large swath of ribbons and Sen's hand coming from his right sleeve. Quickly raising back up his blade Coren performed another downward slash, this time connecting directly with Sen's torso, splitting his shoulder away from his chest.

Sen gasped for air as his remaining ribbons seemed to poise back, preparing to strike.

"I'm sorry." Coren breathed out as his partner came hurtling from behind Sen, cutting his remaining ribbons.

And with that Coren let his blade glide through the rest of Sen's torso like a knife through paper...

Coren let out a sigh as he sat next to his partner on the busy subway.

"What was your name again?" Coren had only been working with Public Health a year, actually registered for barely even a month.

His partner responded shortly.

"Gibee." He replied. Coren only now noticed that his partner seemed pent up, maybe even pissed off?

Coren began analyzing his interactions with Gibee from throughout the day. They had met for the first time ever in the morning before going out for routine health checkups. Things had been going fine and they went to lunch at around noon. Coren worried that maybe it was something he said or didn't say at lunch. After lunch they immediately went on their assignment...

"huh." he replied, not knowing what to say.

Gibee seemed to get silently more pent up and pissed off by this reaction. Delving deep into his mind Coren attempted to think of a possible reason. After a moment of thought it occured to him that this had actually been Gibee's first mission. Coren had been used to these sort of sights much before his work with the bureau but he guessed for someone like Gibee this was all very foreign. He had mentioned living with his parents on the top floor of a skyrise so Coren guessed he came from wealth. This had been Coren's third mission.

"So. What did you think." Coren talked casually.

"That was insane." Gibee was shaking a little bit.

"Yup." Coren didn't know how to continue this conversation. "Plans for tonight?"

"How are you not affected by all this." Gibee scoffed, looking over to Coren.

Coren opened his mouth preparing to give a serious answer, before rethinking it and explaining to Gibee that he was just "built different."

Gibee let out a small laugh before replying:

"You're insane."

People began filtering out of the train car as the train reached its stop. It was the rich person stop. Gibee's stop apparently.

"let me walk you home." Coren gracefully rose from his seat and bowed, offering Gibee his hand.

Gibee let out a small laugh before swatting away his hand and standing up from his seat.

"It's a short walk." Gibee replied, smiling. "but thank you."

"Aw come on, am I too poor to be seen with someone like you?" Gibee rolled his eyes before motioning with a head tilt for Coren to follow him.

Feeling happy with himself Coren obliged Gibee's invitation, following him through the bright city streets.

"I need to make sure you're as unaffected as possible y'know." Coren taunted. "I'm like your emotional support dog."

Gibee rolled his eyes as the two continued forward.

Finally arriving in front of the tallest building Coren had ever seen Gibee said his goodbyes and thanked Coren before exiting into the building.

Coren stood for a moment, just taking in everything all around him. The bright lights and busy streets of the city can feel dystopian to some, but Coren was raised in slums. Being surrounded by fear, death, and inescapable poverty was a million times more cruel than whatever this was.

Walking back to the subway station Coren curiously pulled out his phone and typed Gibee's name into the search engine. Finding his an account Coren looked through and couldn't help but feel slightly jealous. His social media was filled with images of him spending time with family and friends. A lot of friends by the look of it. Coren stopped on an image of Gibee's family. His mother died so he posted a bunch of memorial pictures. His family was on a tropical cruise in the first one, and in the second image he was holding a presumably freshly cut Christmas tree with his siblings. His older sister was attractive.

Suddenly realizing how odd it was to be snooping in on his coworker's personal life Coren quickly swiped the tab away, instead mindlessly checking the weather.