I've got mixed feelings about the first chapter of this story.

While writing it, I realized I might have been able to do more with it as I tried to focus more on establishing the attitudes of two of the main characters introduced in the first chapter so I'm thinking I might right an alternate version of it just for variety at the very least. Let me know what you think of it, in constructive critatizm (sp?) please, I appreciate people being straight with me.

Anyway, please enjoy this chapter of...
Back Lash
By Riven Tora

Chapter 1: Overtime

The street lights were brief blurs of light as the Ferrari 575 GTC whipped past them at a 160, weaving in and out along the highway chasing after the Honda Civic a bit ahead of it. The drivers of the other cars honked their horns and wound down their windows to shout out obscenities at them. Oni though simply stuck her hand out the window and offered them a simple yet universal gesture in return and continued the high speed chase into the night.

She sat behind the wheel with her waist length black hair flowing loosely behind her unrestrained, she wore a black sleeveless shirt that was so small that it looked more like a tank top then a shirt, and she also wore long black pants very similar to those that SWAT members wore and steel capped black boots. She was twenty eight years old, but she still didn’t look a day over eighteen, something she was very proud of.

She had been a cop for little over three years now, and a damn good one too. Quickly rising up through the ranks and achieved the rank of Detective Captain a year and a half after joining the police force, another thing she was very proud of. She remembered when she had first joined, everyone thought at first that she was just some punk rookie fresh out of the academy, but she had shown them that she wasn’t just a dumb rookie. With an outstanding arrest recorded and an attitude to match Oni was not one to be mess with, and she made sure everyone knew it to.

The back passenger windows of the Honda Civic wound down and two men leaned out with guns – nine millimeters – in hand, on instinct Oni slammed on the brakes just as they opened fire, but the bullets harmlessly hit the ground kicking up small sparks. A second later her car was powering forward again trying to make up the distance that was now between her and the Honda. Within a few seconds she was already closing the gap between them, a little ticked off that she let them put a gap between them in the first place. Calmly she reached into the glove box between the two seats and pulled out a Glock 20 and stuck her arm out her opened window and took aim, firing off a couple of shots, one hitting the right rear light and the others going through the rear window and leaving a mass of spider web like cracks in it. Seconds later after they had recovered the two occupants sitting in the back kicked and punched out the back window and aimed their guns at her.

Not giving them a chance to hit her she accelerated while moving around the other side of a truck and out of their line of sight. As she maintain speed beside the truck she measured the gap between the truck’s trailer and the road in her head, she figured her car was just small enough and without hesitating swung her car through the gap and came out the other side surprising the punks in the Civic and quickly moved up right behind them, sticking her arm out the window and firing off a few shots that harmlessly hit the rear spoiler and the others going wild, but she succeeded in forcing the two in the back to duck and kept them firing on her. But when she tried to come up beside them the guy driving the Civic steer his car at her in an attempt to force her into an accident, but she quickly steer away from him and dropped back behind him again, keeping a safe enough distance while she tried to think of something.

Without warning one of the punks in the back sat up and Oni’s eyes widened as she saw the shotgun in his hands. He pointed it at her and opened up fire, fortunately for her though he hadn’t been ready for the recoil and not only did it put his aim off, but it also snapped backwards and smacked him in the forehead, and the last she saw of him was him falling backwards in the car with a dazed look in his eyes. Unfortunately, while the shot didn’t hit her, it did take out her side view mirror, causing a flood of anger to pour out. ‘That son of a bitch is going to pay for that!’ she screamed, it was going to cost her a lot to replace that with the correct part.

That was the least of her problems though as the other back seat passenger of the Civic picked up the shotgun and fire, though not before she swerved to the right to avoid it. They kept this up for a few minutes with him trying to predict her movement and then firing, only to miss her completely when she did the total opposite to what he had been expecting. On the last shot though, while he did manage to miss her again, his shot however hit the car next to her, destroying the front windshield and killing the elderly man sitting behind the wheel. With the man’s body going limp the car went wild and swerved into another car before flipping and effectively causing a traffic jam. Oni quickly snatched up police radio.

‘Dispatch, this is Anderson, the suspects I’m chasing just took out a driver, requesting medical assistance and back up and where the hell is that chopper I requested earlier!’ she demanded urgently, glancing back just for a second at the mess behind her. Things were starting to get very ugly very quickly. ‘Get a road block up, we have to stop these guys before they kill anyone else.’

‘Copy that Captain,’ replied a young woman on the other end of the radio, and at the same time Oni heard several police sirens go off, and a few seconds later she heard a helicopter approaching from behind, it was still a bit behind but it wouldn’t be long before they caught up with these punks. She still couldn’t figure what had gone wrong though, she had been investigating a possible drug smuggling ring amongst a group of street racers and when she had seen enough to move in, the guys in front of her come out of no where and tried to run her over and while she had been forced to get out of the way, all the other racers took advantage of her distraction and high tailed it out of there before she could arrest a single one of the exhaust sniffing pricks. She was going to nail these guys before sun up, she promised herself that, she just had to do it without killing innocent bystanders in the process.

They soon left the highway and flying down the main street, they had obviously given up trying to take her out with guns and had opted for trying to lose her, which they were going to have even worse trouble at doing considering her car could effortlessly keep up with them. Suddenly though the Honda went up on the side walk, causing the passer bys to jump out of the way as it roared passed them, Oni frowned at this, it was a pointless move and before long he was back on the road, she figured he was just trying to distract her though.

The without warning the Civic came to a screeching halt and Oni also forced to slam on her brakes, the back of the Ferrari swinging around before it skidded to a halt. Oni looked up and then past the Civic to see five police cars being used to block the road and before she could react another four came out of nowhere and blocked off the road behind her, trapping the Civic between them as she and all the other officers got of their cars and aimed their weapons at the black car.

‘Place your hands on the door where we can see them, then step out of your car with your hands up!’ she ordered them. They had no where to go, except for the above ground parking station, which would really help them as there was only one exit and entrance and it wasn’t connect to any other buildings and the buildings around it were too high up for them to be able to roof hop it out of there, so even if they ditched their car they would still have no where to go. They were trapped like rats, she knew and they knew it.

Then suddenly the wheels of the Civic started spinning, making a screeching sound before the car turned and drove into the parking station, leaving Oni slightly dismayed at their choice. They all stared up and watched as the head lights of the car highlighted the fourth level, and that’s where they stopped.

‘Idiots,’ she said while shaking her head.

* * *

Almost an hour later, the suspects were still trapped on the fourth floor and a command center had been set up inside the SWAT truck, where Oni had only just finished putting her bullet proof vest on and pulled her shirt back on along with her leather overcoat. It was a cool truck, brand new and larger then normal SWAT trucks too, decked out with weaponry, body armor and other neat little gadgets, but most importantly it had three computers, used to gather information on and also a few monitors that were linked to the live feeds in the helmet cams the SWAT team wore, enabling them to watch everything unfold.

At first they thought it would be easy, send a squad car up after them and arrest them. And that’s exactly what they did, but soon realized – all too late – that it was a big mistake as only seconds after it pulled out on to the fourth floor, gun shots rang out in the parking station, and then there was a burst orange light and a small explosion before a flaming police car smashed through the parking lot wall and nose dived into the ground before exploding into a ball of fire!

And so SWAT had been called in.

Oni wondered if these idiots knew what kind of shit storm they had brought down on themselves, not only were they murders, but now they were also cop killers. She felt twinge of pity for them, they were most definitely going to get hurt bad before this was all over, but then she reminded herself that they only had themselves to blame, they could have done it the easy way and gave themselves up, but for some reason, they thought they were going to get way with it. She wanted to know why. They were lucky she had been given command of the SWAT team or they would have already been toast by now, but she knew she wasn’t going to be able to keep the SWAT team from going in for much longer, she knew the team commander and he would either go over her head or just go in without her permission.

‘Here’s that information you wanted Captain,’ she turned and took the sheets of paper from the female officer sitting at the computer.

Oni looked at the first sheet that contained a black and white mug shot of the owner of the Honda Civic a man in his mid forties, he had a clean shaven head, a missing left eye and burn mark near his left ear. He looked like he had seen hell and come back stronger. The rest of the sheet and the other two sheets of paper had his arrest recorded and as she read over it all her eyes just got wider and wider with disbelief. This guy was a suspect in more then fifteen different murders, he was also suspected of smuggling drugs and fire arms. He had a history of prison time dating back to when he was just sixteen, during one of his prison sentences he had killed a prison warden and suspected to have killed a few inmates as well. She couldn’t believe this guy had even been allowed back out into the public, this man was human, he was an animal.

She quietly read a out a brief summary. ‘It looks like our suspect is Quinn Stahl, age thirty six. Spent two years in Juvenile Detention center for grand theft auto from when he was sixteen to when he eighteen, later served another five years for killing his wife when he was twenty five, got out on good behavior and has since had his license suspended five times for speeding and has been suspected of several unsolved murders, and of trafficking in drugs and fire arms…….’ She stopped suddenly when she came to something interesting and a little unnerving and that was that Quinn had served six years in the arm forces after he got out juvenile hall and spent the next six and half years serving his country and rising in rank to command his own unit. ‘Great, a criminal and a trained killer’ she sighed tiredly,

Silently she stepped out of the truck and walked over to two men talking near a police car, one was her partner, Captain Kurt Henry and the other was Lieutenant Marcus Frost, the team leader of the SWAT team under her command. He had a look of frustration on his face while Kurt had his usual calm as water expression, something that added to the irritation of any frustrated person. She knew first hand how annoying it was.

At thirty two, Kurt had been with on the force since he was twenty, he stood at six foot four with a lean figure and rugged good looks, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by a lot of women that met him, Oni included. He had seen a lot action in the years he had been a cop and had taught Oni a fair bit that she hadn’t known. Over the years he’d had a lot of partners, some had quit, some had been fired and some had been killed, not a lot of people were comfortable working with him, Oni didn’t see why though. They were worked well together and had a better track record then anyone else on the force, which is why the chief had decided to keep them together, she guessed.

‘And what are you boys talking about?’ she asked casually as she came up to them, Frost turned and glared at her in frustration.

‘Cut the crap Anderson, when are you sending us in? These punks have been held up there for almost half an hour, we could have ended this as soon as we arrived! Why not just send us in so we can all go home and get some sleep?!’ Frost growled at her. They had never really gotten along, he was too arrogant for Oni’s taste, and she was sure he thought she was the same too and then some, though with that being said she did respect him a little if only for his skill.

‘Well, for one, I’ve been waiting for this,’ she said and handed him the bunch of papers. ‘I figured it was better to be safe then sorry, I mean look at what happened with those two officers I sent up. I thought then they were just a couple of punks, but after how quickly they took out that squad car and the two officers it became pretty clear that they weren’t just punks. Now I’m not saying you wouldn’t be able to take them out quickly and effectively Frost, but I don’t want them dead yet, I have questions for them and if you kill them, I’m not going to get my answers now am I? So grab yourself a coffee and sit the fuck down,’ she said firmly.

They glared at each other for a few seconds, neither of them blinking once until Frost finally pushed the papers back into her hands and walked off in a huff, leaving Oni smiling triumphantly.

‘You really know how to get under his skin don’t you?’ Kurt smiled and carefully took the papers from her to have a look for himself, it took him a few minutes to go over it all but his reaction was pretty similar to what Oni’s had been. ‘The justice system, sucks,’ he said calmly. ‘How does someone with this kind of record get out on parole?’

‘Because some fool decided once that scum bags like this asshole should have rights,’ she replied darkly. ‘At least we know why they’re putting up such a fight. Accessory to murder alone will land him back in prison for two to three years, if he gets a good lawyer, and that’s not including reckless driving, attempting to kill a police officer, braking parole and resisting arrest. This guy has nothing to lose except his freedom and I can tell you now that he’s not going to give that up so easily.’

‘So how do you want to do this then?’ he asked as they looked up at the fourth level of the parking station.

‘As much as I hate to do it, I don’t think I’ve got any choice but to send Frost and his men up, inconveniently enough the parking station levels and the levels of the office building across the street aren’t aligned so we can’t disable them with sharp shooters, so the only way we can settle this is if we go in and force them out,’ she sighed, it wasn’t what she wanted to do but she was being forced into a corner herself. Then she smiled. ‘Of course I could just finish this quickly with a Stinger missile.’

Kurt just snorted slightly. ‘Too messy, even for you. Besides, too much paper work to fill out at the end of the day, well night in this case.’

‘True…’

And so they called Frost over and explained the plan to him and gave him the go ahead he wanted, all he and his men had to do was drive the men held up on the fourth floor up to the top floor, where the fifth man on Frost’s team would disable them from his position across the street, shooting from a window above the parking station. It was quiet a sight seeing Frost and his men preparing, slapping magazines into their M16 assault rifles and adjusting the cameras built into their helmets and attaching a laser scopes. And watching the man that would be the sniper set up his own Barrett M82A1A ‘Light 50’ rifle was most impressive, he was young when compared to the other members of the SWAT team, being only twenty two, Wesley, she believed his name was, but he was already a valuable member of the team. She had told him that he was only to fire if the suspects refused to give up once on the roof, and he had nodded sincerely and she knew she could trust him.

Although the SWAT team was impressive, she had seen US Marine Recon Units setting up before missions and they were far more impressive then Frost or his team.

About fifteen minutes later Frost and his men were at the entrance of the parking station and Wesley was positioned inside the building across the street, Oni could just picture him lying on his stomach, eye pressed against his targeting scope and ready to fire once given the order.

‘Frost, can you all hear me ok?’ Oni spoke into her mouth piece.

‘Copy that,’ came Frost’s voice.

‘What about you Wesley?’ she asked.

‘Loud and clear Captain,’ replied the young man.

With that she gave Frost permission to proceed and watched the live feed on the monitors inside the truck with Kurt standing next to her, both were wearing bullet proof vests so if they needed to they could rush in and provide back up fire on a moments notice, though she was pretty sure that there was going to be no need for that, Frost was good at what he did, as was his team.

* * *
Frost took point as they quietly made their way up to the fourth level, their black and deep blue clothing blending it quiet nicely with the darkness around them, their night vision goggles though made them look like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Not long after the suspects had killed the men that had been sent up to arrest them, Oni had acted quickly and had the power cut to the parking station, which meant the suspects would have to rely on the car lights and that would only illuminate a certain area.

They passed the third level and continued up the spiraling ramp, and Frost felt his heart pumping a little faster then normal as the got closer to their target level.

‘This is Frost, we’re nearing the fourth level,’ Frost keyed his radio, speaking quietly.

‘Use the stun grenades to drive them back or disarm them, be careful though with those goggles on because if you’re in the path of that grenade, you’ll probably be blinded by the blast,’ Oni told them, sounding like a nagging old women.

‘Copy that,’ he acknowledged as he unclipped a flasher from his belt. “Flasher’s” were quiet a useful weapon they emitted a bright blinding light which would stunned the enemy, causing them to drop their weapons and make them more vulnerable and easy to disarm and arrest. This also reduce the rate of innocent bystanders being shot, by either friendly or hostile fire.

Cloaked in the shadows they swiftly moved to the entrance of the fourth, behind him Frost’s men had their M16’s resting against their shoulder ready to fire while Frost himself got ready to throw the stun grenade. Only problem was, that he never got to throw it, because in the second it took him to pull the pin from the grenade twin beams of white light erupted in their vision of green and Frost dropped the grenade in pain as the light near blinded him. He struggled quickly to pull his goggles off, but just as he got his goggles off, the grenade exploded and all he saw was white….

* * *

It happened all at once, the front lights of the Honda Civic came on, and then a few seconds later the stun grenade went off, issuing a deafening blast as well as a blinding light that had Frost and his team and screaming in pain. In one go their plan had been terminated with the blast of light that erupted from the fourth level.

Oni and Kurt both shielded their eyes at the same time as the monitors were filled with the blast of white light, still some light got through, sending color spots dancing across their field of vision though they were just thankful that the sound of the blast hadn’t been as deafening as it should have been had they been standing right near it. She turned back to the monitor rubbing her eyes, the whole time she tried to figure out how they knew they could use the lights to stun the SWAT team, or better yet, how they knew the SWAT team was on the way up to begin with. Then she turned slightly and spotted a police scanner in the cabin of the truck and it hit her.

‘They’ve been listening over the radio waves the whole time,’ she said, feeling stupid for not having thought about it before. They had been street racing after all, they had probably had a police scanner to keep track of where the cops were when they were racing. Kurt just stared at her though doubtfully. ‘No, think about it for a second, that’s the only way that they could have known we had sent people up to get them and they wouldn’t have been able to tell from up there that they had been wearing night vision goggles even if they looked down on us but we would have seen them there. Granted they probably didn’t count on causing Frost to drop the flasher, that was only a bonus for them.’

Kurt just sighed. ‘In any case it doesn’t matter anymore, they not only have probably three hand guns each, and a shotgun, but now they have four M16’s, maybe half dozen to a dozen Flasher’s, and whatever else Frost and his team had been carrying and Frost also had a grenade launcher attached to his M16 which meant he would have been carrying normal grenades too, meaning they now have enough weaponry to cause some serious problems. Not to mention now they also have hostages to use against us. Which means we’re going to have to pull something out of our asses quickly,’ Kurt pointed out. ‘Maybe we should have just gone with a rocket launcher.’

Oni just nodded thoughtfully, things were turning bad, real quick. She hadn’t counted on these guys having a police scanner, though what street racer didn’t have a radio tuned to police used frequencies. She threw her radio away in frustration, it was useless.

‘Um, Captain, you might want to take a look at this,’ said one of the communication’s officers sitting in front of them. Oni looked down at the monitor and saw a one eyed man staring back at her through one of the helmet cams that was being picked up. Quinn Stahl, his mug shot did his true ugliness no justice.

’As you have no doubt guessed by now, your SWAT team has failed, and are now our hostages, if you attempt to storm this place again, I will personally put a bullet through these pig’s heads, is that understood?’ the man asked.

Oni keyed the radio. ‘Yes that’s understood, first however I would like to know the condition of the hostages.’

’Two are unconscious, the other three are blind and if one of those three doesn’t shut up I’m going to rip his tongue out!’ Quinn said, turning to yell at the unseen person.

Oni smiled and said. ‘Yeah, Frost is like that. Ok let’s talk, what do you want?’

’I want free passage out of the city for me and my buddies, that means I want the roads cleared as well as the bridge and you’ll never hear from us again, I can promise you that,’ was his reply.

Oni thought about his use of words, he had said buddies, meaning there was at least two people with him, which wouldn’t leave much room for hostages, two at the most. So that meant she could get three of the SWAT members back in return for the favor by appealing to their necessity.

‘Ok Quinn, you’ve got it, but I want three of the hostages in as an act of good Oni, and before you say no, remember you don’t have enough room to take all five with you, so you’d be doing yourself a favor if you hand them over now,’ she told him calmly, she had learnt long ago that it was no good getting frustrated when negotiating in hostage situations like this, it could get innocent people killed.

There was a long silence as he obviously mauled the idea over and his irritated look showed that she had got him.

’Alright, you can send two medic’s up to get the two unconscious ones and the one who won’t shut up, but then I want the roads cleared quickly,’ Quinn agreed.

Oni switched off the radio, and then turned around to find Kurt staring at her with a raised eye brow. ‘What?’ she asked as she took out a hair band from her pocket and pulled her hair back into a pony tail too keep it from getting in her eyes.

‘You know you don’t have the authority to give them what they want, the chief would have to approve it first and that would take time, something I’m sure these guys aren’t too likely to be too happy about,’ he explained.

‘Oh don’t worry, I have no intention of giving them what they want,’ she assured him and walked over to a weapon’s rack, leaving Kurt standing there in confusion. She picked up a couple of magazine clips and a stun grenade and stuffed them into her pockets, the picked up a hunting knife with a thigh holster for it and strapped it on. When she was done she walked out of the truck and over to her car with Kurt following her, stopping only once when she told the two medics standing by to go up and get the three hostages, which they were reluctant to do at first, but they eventually got in the ambulance and drove into the parking station and Oni continued on to her car again.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked her as she opened the boot and watched as she opened a metal case in the back and pulled out a HK MP7 and then a special holster for it. ‘Aren’t they going to be a little suspicious when the roads aren’t cleared?’

‘Kurt, haven’t you ever heard of the term, misdirection?’ she asked him calmly, before slapping a magazine into the assault rifle.

* * *

Quinn stood beside his car, his newly acquired M16 assault rifle with grenade launcher, trained on the two medic’s that were lifting the one of the two unconscious men into the back of the ambulance and then helped the annoying one into the back as well. He was a tall man, standing almost seven feet tall with bulging muscles and a generally powerful look about him. His years in prison and then in the military had left him with a battle hardened body.

He had seen plenty of combat situations to know that if they cut the power to the lights in a structure, then any team they sent in would either have to have really good eye sight, or be wearing night vision goggles, which was why he had positioned his car facing the ramp as he figured they would try to come at them from the ramp first.

Standing beside him were his younger brother Dave, and two of their friends, each of them carried an M16 assault rifle, as well as extra weapons. They were all a little jittery, none of them had been in a situation like this before, he just smirked at them, he felt like he was back in the army again watching rookies on their first assignments.

“Hey, Dr. Boys,” he said to the medics. “When you get back down there, I want you to inform the female pig that she’s got ten minutes to clear the roads, or you’ll be carrying these two out in body bags later. Is that understood?”

They both nodded and quickly finished prepping the third hostage, heaving him onto a stretcher and then as they were getting him into the ambulance, the level was suddenly filled with light as the chopped went racing past with its spot light pointed in on the fourth floor, causing Quinn’s little brother and their buddies to jump in alarm.

“Relax ladies, its just making a sweep,” he laughed at them.

* * *

“I hate flying, I really hate flying,” Kurt groaned as he held on tightly to his seat belt as the chopper flew upwards, Oni though casually stood at the side door leaning partially out of the helicopter as they flew up to the top.

Seconds later the helicopter slowly landed on the roof, and Oni and Kurt removed their ridiculous looking ear “muffs” and got out, checking the magazines in their guns as they did. Then they started down to the fourth level via the flight of stairs. There was no way these guys would expect this and they would have no idea either with a radio silence in effect – if it had been in fact a radio they had been using – that herself and Kurt were on their way down.

‘So, what are you doing tomorrow? Considering it’ll be the first time off we’ve gotten in almost a year.’ Kurt asked her suddenly as they silently moved down another flight of stairs.

‘I’m not sure, might sleep all day,’ she shrugged quietly. ‘You?’

‘Well actually I was going to ask if you could watch Sarah for me while I picked up her birthday presents, it would only be for an hour, two at the most. Then I was planning on spending the day with her, considering I haven’t had much time to lately with the case and all,’ he said a little sheepishly.

Oni admired him, he was a single parent, had been since his wife left him and disappeared off the face of the earth when their daughter was only one, he worked most of the time to make ends meet and still found time to put his little girl first. There weren’t many father’s who would do that, but Kurt found a way around his schedule to take her to school, organize a birthday party for her and still make it home most of the time to tuck her in before bed. She knew that his mother helped him out a lot by looking after Sarah when he worked late. He really was something else though and she admire him for that.

‘Yeah sure, bring her around, give your mom a brake,’ she told him. She liked Sarah, she was a good kid, never caused any trouble and for a six year old she was easy to please, the only thing was, Oni could the distinct feeling sometimes that Sarah thought she was her mother, and, that thought sent a chill down her spine.

‘Your a life saver you know that Oni?’

Oni and Kurt walked down the flight of stairs at the other end of the parking station, it was eerily quiet, except for their talking and foot steps that echoed of the cold walls. Then they reached a door that had fourth floor written on it, slowly they opened it and then ran out after putting a brick in front of the door so it didn’t slam shut behind them. They ducked behind concrete pillars quickly, and then nodded to each other and started making their way towards the criminals, trying to move as fast possible while trying to make as little noise as possible.

They heard the ambulance pull away and knew that now they had two people to save, however Oni couldn’t help trying to imagine the look on Frost’s face when he finds out that she and Kurt save him and his men.

Hazarding a glance over at her partner, Oni saw that Kurt was peaking around the corner and she did the same and saw four men further down, each of them were carrying weapons, and tied up against a pillar were the last two SWAT officers. So far so good, they’d be able to take out two of the men quickly and hopefully the other two before they could react and take cover behind the car. As one they both stepped out from behind their separate pillars with their hand guns raised, still going unnoticed.

‘Put your hands up!’ she yelled out at them, her voice echoing loudly.

As one the four men spun around and without hesitating, they opened fire. Oni and Kurt barely had time to get behind their separate pillars before the hail storm of bullets ripped through the parking station, biting into the ground and pillars, coursing small chunks of concrete to fall to the ground. Oni stood there patiently wincing slightly every now and then when she heard a shot hit the pillar she was standing behind. Slowly she pulled out the stun grenade out of her pocket and signaled to Kurt to cover his ears, which he quickly did when he saw the grenade in hands. She yanked the pin out and without wasting a second, threw it down towards the men firing on them. The gun fire stopped and she heard Quinn yell at them to get down, then the fourth level was filled with the brilliant explosion of light and thunderous clap.

After letting the light die down they both ran out from behind the pillars with their guns raised again, they saw one of the men staggering about with his hands over his eyes but the other three were no where to be seen. As they got to the front of the car though, the other three appear from behind separate pillars and started firing again. Oni ran to the side returning fire as bullets ripped past her head and Kurt fell back behind a pillar again trying to provide cover for his partner as best as possible, who dived behind the Civic.

‘Are you guys deaf or just fucking stupid?!’ she yelled in anger and frustration at them when the firing stopped. ‘There’s no way in hell, you are going to get away with the shit you all caused tonight. Now your first mistake was trying to kill me, your second mistake was resisting arrest, your third was killing two police officers and your fourth was trying to kill me again! Your not getting what you wanted, so either give up or fucking shoot yourselves in the head, because those are the only ways you are getting out of here. So what’s going to be Quinn? Handcuffs or a body bag?!’ she demanded.

‘We’re not going to prison bitch!’ she heard Quinn yell back.

‘Where the hell do you think your going to go then moron? You killed two cops, your not going to get more then a few feet out of this place before you have all the cops down there, filling your bodies full of holes, unless we bring you and your buddies down ourselves!’ she told him.

‘We’ll kill anyone who tries to take us!” was the reply she got.

‘Fine with me because you are really starting to piss me off!’ she replied with a growl and stood up, she saw one of Quinn’s buddies emerge from behind a pillar and level a shotgun at her head, she quickly brought her gun up and fired a single bullet that ripped through the air and through the guy’s shoulder, causing him to drop the gun as he fell backwards with a scream. At the same time Quinn and the second guy came out of hiding and opened fire again and Oni started running forward before diving forward, hitting the ground, rolling and then coming back up on her feet before jumping to the side and disappearing behind another concrete pillar.

Kurt took advantage of this distraction and went to fire his gun, only the bullet never came out. It jammed on him and when he saw that he cursed angrily and without thinking ran out from behind the pillar and charged the second guy, neither him or Quinn saw Kurt before he dive tackled the man to the ground. Once on the ground the two of them started struggling, punching and kneeing each other in the sides and in the face.

Oni peeked out from her hiding place and saw Kurt struggling with the guy and then saw Quinn stepping out with his M16 pointed at Kurt’s head. ‘No! Kurt!’ she screamed and ran out from where she was standing, throwing her hand gun away and brought up her MP7 and squeezed the trigger back, sending a barrage of bullets ripping above Kurt and towards Quinn, who unfortunately saw her about to fire and quickly ducked behind the pillar. Oni ran up to Kurt and helped him with the second guy. ‘You ok?’ she asked her partner.

‘Yeah fine, go get that bastard,’ he said as breathed heavily, he would like to believe he was as fit as her, but she knew better.

‘Be careful,’ she told him and turned and started towards the pillar Quinn had gone behind, she was going to make sure this asshole never saw the light of day again, nobody tried to shoot her partner and get away with it, no one. But when she got to the pillar and came around it with her MP 7 raised, she found that he wasn’t there. ‘What the fuck?’ she said and then heard hurried footsteps and then saw Quinn running away from them, towards the upper levels, she growled irritably, this guy just didn’t know when to quit.

* * *

Quinn emerged on the top level with chopper spot lights shining down on him from above and the cool breeze sending goose bumps across the his bare arms. He looked around desperately for a way out but he quickly realized there was none, only a couple cars that had been left there for the night.

‘Put your weapons on the ground and put hands on your head!!’ came a voice over a megaphone from inside the chopper.

‘Fuck you,’ Quinn yelled and raised his M16 to fire, but as he did a loud shot echoed through the air and his gun was suddenly sent flying out of his hands, he realized then with horror as he looked around for the shooter that they had set up a sharpshooter. Despite this went for the machine gun, but at the same time Oni caught up with him and jumped on his back, driving him to the ground.

‘Did you miss me?’ she hissed in his ear.

Without saying a word Quinn used his superior strength and pushed up, sending Oni off balance and causing her to topple backwards. Quinn was up quickly and ready to fight and when Oni tried to bring her gun up he lashed out with a round house kick and knocked the gun from her hands, sending scattering across the ground. Oni flipped backwards as he came at her again and return a spinning heel kick to his face, the force of which almost knocked him down, much to his surprise.

Oni smirked. ‘Did I forget to mention, that I’ve trained in martial arts since I could walk?’ she asked in a sickly innocent voice.

The two of them started to circle each other, Oni removing her overcoat and throwing it to the side, not once taking her eyes off the man in front of her as he sized her up, he still looked arrogant and over confidant as he probably didn’t see her as much of a threat to someone as big and strong as himself. However, she knew that the bigger they were, the harder she could knock them down.

At one they rushed at each other, Quinn threw a right hook at her which swiftly avoided, ducking under the attack and then launching herself upwards and slamming her knee into his chin with a sickening crack. He staggered back with a small cry of pain holding the bottom of his mouth for a second before recomposing himself and launching forward. Oni was already moving though and side stepped him before sweeping his legs out from under him and brining her elbow down in the small of his back as he toppled forward, the combination of which smashed him into the ground with enough force to knock the average person out, but Quinn had much more stamina then the average person. Without wasting much time he rolled to the side and lashed up with his foot, his leg being long enough that his foot got Oni in the face and drove her backwards and then he was up and punched her in stomach, knocking the wind out of her. He picked her up and started running forward before slamming her into the front of a pick up truck.

Oni rolled off the bonnet of the car breathing heavily as she tried to catch her breath, he wasn’t a skilled fighter, but he was damn strong, she was expecting this to have been a quick fight. She looked up when he walked in front of her.

‘Just as I thought, all talk and no punch, not that I’m disappointed, I’m going to enjoy killing you pig?’ he sneered and brought his leg back ready to kick her in the head, but as he slammed his foot forward, she pushed herself into a kneeling position and caught his leg under her armpit, trapping it there. He looked down at her in slight shock and saw smile evilly, then before he could do anything she curled her hand into a fist and drove her hand forward with all her strength, hitting him right between the legs and causing him to scream out so loud that everyone in Los Angeles surely had to have heard him. He fell back grabbing at his family jewels in pain and rolled back and fourth sobbing before a small trickle of blood ran from his mouth.

Oni got up and stood over him, smiling with satisfaction. ‘Never, and I mean never Quinn, do you under any circumstances, fuck with LAPD,’ she said seriously.