Suggested changes: {before : after}
On 08/28/2004 03:03 PM, DB Sommer said:
and here's the second half
Nearly fifteen minutes of searching turned up nothing on the women's
part, nor was there any further communication from any of Killgore's
teams. With each passing minute, Iria, who insisted on remaining in
the lead, became increasingly restless. It became worse when their
{progressed : progress} slowed as they neared the areas where the
spacecraft had hit. The damage to the building was evident. Cracks
had formed in the floor, ceiling, walls, and in some cases collapsed
outright. Emergency lighting was the only form of illumination,
bathing everything in an eerie crimson glow.
"Unless there are another pair {or : of} agents around here," the
albino concurred.
"Yeah, right," Yuri said drolly as Kei recovered her weapon and the
two exited the room.
Kei's gun was crushed. Is she planning on throwing it?
After a moment, Cross said, "I really must give you my apologies. It
appears we're dealing with a true professional." And dove to the
floor just as several small objects came into the room through a wall
and headed toward the three remaining people and where Cross had been
a moment ago. The ionic shurikens, which {has : had} passed through
two inches of metal as though they weren't there, sliced through
vital points of each of the three still standing people, killing them
instantly.
Even as he placed a rebreather on his face, to keep the smoke from
getting to him, he noted that the shurikens probably weren't coated
in poison, since they had to pass through walls and any such
substance would be lost on when it cut through. Ionic shurikens were
an interesting choice of weapon. Using them required a high level of
training, and the number one could carry was limited. On the other
hand, they were silent, had no tell tale power signature until they
were activated, and didn't necessarily have to {come from a linear
direction : follow a straight path}. Though from the way they had
been clustered in both attacks, he assumed they were all coming from
the same point of origin, and that it was in a direct line. He
doubted there was enough room on the other side of the wall for them
to arc and hide the origin point. That meant he had already
circumvented one of his opponent's advantages by forcing them to make
mass attacks from one point instead of single attacks from anywhere.
Sure enough, the foe attacked when he gave away his position. A
quartet of shurikens buried themselves in the plate of the flooring
in between fires. This time the throws had come from the right of the
last attack, and were lower. So the mystery attacker wasn't repeating
the dodge pattern. They probably wouldn't dodge twice in the same
direction in a row. It was too chancy. Now, it was time to play
process of elimination. He loaded a fresh magazine, and prayed to the
{goods : gods} of chance that his foe's luck ran out before his.
The protracted fight took its toll. Cross took another cut across the
forehead and a fourth to his side, slicing deeply into flesh but
missing anything vital. He shut out the pain, like he was taught.
Pain was the same as any other feeling. Nothing more than a warning
sign. You could feel hot. You could feel cold. You could either
choose to acknowledge it and react {acc ordingly : accordingly}, or
ignore it and move on until the body overloaded and collapsed. He'd
swallow an {anti- :}coagulant after the fight, when he had the time.
Unless he _wants_ to bleed out.
Zeiram rose to his feet somewhat wobbly. He took a single step toward
Dane, then stopped as his head jerked abruptly. He turned around,
picked up the container he had been carrying, and proceeded to walk
away at a high rate of speed, his {wound : wounds} healing every step
of the way.
"I took some {anti- :}coagulants. I'm a little slow, but still
lethal."
"Good." Killgore spat once more on Dane's corpse and headed for the
nearest exit. It was time to get some answers and solve some {stick :
sticky} situations that had come up in one fell swoop.
Now Whisper won't get her mausoleum.