Non-Fatal

      Maudlin’s foot connected solidly with the old wooden door, but it didn’t fly open like he expected. Instead, it caught on the patchy floorboards and stuck halfway open mockingly. It was enough of an opening for him to squeeze through, and he caught his target heading towards the opposite door. He couldn’t imagine how he could move through the crumbling building unhindered like Maudlin seemed to be. He moved in a flash of black and orange, and he seemed to know the building a lot better than he did. Just as he made it into the room, his target disappeared through the other door. Maudlin followed.

           His target was the infamous Halloween. He was a League puppet whose sheer destruction count outnumbered any other member by millions. His demolition projects nearly matched the Calamity, and he’d only been on the scene for a few years. In a near impossible juxtaposition, his body count was almost nil. It was because of his apparent non-League disposition that the Association wanted to recruit him. They assumed- more like hoped- that his unwillingness to kill meant that he might not have been completely brainwashed by the League. If there was even a chance that they could take a pawn away from their lifelong enemy, they were willing to take it.

           The League was a glorified terrorist group. They rose from the ashes of the Calamity with the intent of turning the world into an unfixable ball of chaos. They believed that a giant meteor nearly destroying all life on Earth was a sign that civilization was never meant to survive. With the radiation the meteor gave off mutating everyone in some way or another, they took advantage of the fear and confusion to rise in power. The Association was formed to bring some semblance of peace and normalcy back into the world, and so they clashed with neither side giving much ground. The Association was putting a lot of hope in Maudlin’s ability to get Halloween to change sides.

           He again slipped just out of his view as he ascended the nearby staircase, and Maudlin pushed his legs to move faster. The floorboards creaked threateningly beneath him, but he didn’t slow. This was the closest his team- or any team in the Association- had gotten to him, and he couldn’t let caution prevent him from capturing him. His foot went through the first step on the stairs. He swore, regained his balance, and continued the chase.

           “He’s coming up on the roof,” he spoke into his earpiece.

           “Do you want me to shoot him?” Sniper asked with amusement lacing his voice.

           “This is supposed to be a recruitment meeting,” Avian yelled, trying to be heard over the sound of rushing wind on his end.

           “Do you want me to shoot him non-fatally,” Sniper corrected.

           “Let’s see how he reacts,” was Maudlin’s only response.

           He was gaining on Halloween, but he seemed to always be just out of reach. He made it to the roof’s door ten steps before him. The door swung open, and Halloween immediately dove to the left. Maudlin heard the gunshot just as the wall beside the doorway exploded in a shower of brick and dust.

           “Non-fatally,” Maudlin hissed into the earpiece.

           “It was non-fatal. He dodged.”

           He could hear the nonchalant shrug in Sniper’s voice.

           It took Maudlin a moment to catch sight of him again. He was moving more cautiously now that he was aware of Sniper’s presence, and Jared was able to get closer.

           “Halloween!” he called. “We’re not looking for a fight!”

           He froze and looked in Jared’s direction. He couldn’t see his expression through his reflective goggles, but something about his body language told him that it was more than his words that gave him pause.

           “We’re from the Association. We-”

           At the mention of the Association, he bolted again. He ran towards the edge of the building, and another shot went off. There was a spray of blood as it grazed his shoulder, but he never slowed. He jumped and for a moment appeared weightless before he tucked and rolled onto the other roof.

           “Avian!” Maudlin called.

           “On it!”

           Halloween made it another two steps before two large talons scooped him up. Avian immediately began lifting him up, quickly taking him into the air.

           “Just take him high enough that he loses consciousness,” Maudlin ordered.

           “I’m not the one shooting people,” Avian shot back even as he rose higher and higher in a flash of dark grey feathers. Halloween went still in his grip, and Jared wondered if he’d given up. They were about fifty feet up when that was proven to not be the case.

           There was a bright flash and Avian swore before Halloween began to plummet. He crashed through the roof of the building he’d landed on earlier, and Jared winced at the sound of the impact.

           “What happened to non-fatal?” Sniper scoffed as Avian began to descend twitchingly.

           “He tasered me!” Avian growled.

           Jared leapt to the other roof and looked down the hole that Halloween had made. He could see his outline in the shadows, unmoving. Jared groaned.

           “The Association said to bring him in alive.”

           Sniper appeared beside them silently and gave Avian a once-over.

           “It’s hardly our fault if he decided he wanted to take a swan dive through a building instead of being apprehended,” Sniper shrugged. “Are you going to be okay?”

           The muscles beneath Avian’s wings kept spasming and forcing him to keep them open. He attempted to close them again only to wince afterwards.

           “If it doesn’t wear off, I’ll visit Margot.”

           Sniper rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything else about it.

           “I guess we should at least bring his body-” Jared began before he heard a loud cough.

           “Holy shit,” Avian gasped. “Who survives a fall like that?”

           “He won’t if we don’t get him help,” Jared retorted as he dialed in for an emergency pick up.

           “Well, at least your sterling success rate remains intact,” Sniper smirked.

           “Shut up.”