The ascent, grueling as it were, was coming to an end. The security, although they have acted on high alert with a lot of commotion throughout, weren't thoughtful of someone daring to free climb the elevator shaft.
I drop my flashbang and look away for a quick and necessary estimation to know how to reach Kensington's office.
With a deafening echo, it reaches halfway to the bottom before giving me a glimpse of finding myself so close to the sixty-ninth floor. I can reuse the hang cord and make the leap of fate to climb to the edge of the elevator doorway. Which is just what I'll do.
With a final breath slowly released to the world, I let go of the elevator cable and swing with my feet hitting against the wall.
A struggling moment later to regain balance and I slowly inch back up and reach the doorway.
It took my all to wedge an opening through and crawl passed it. Now, with just a doorway in between, I boldly press on. With finding the door to be locked, I put all I can into a kick on the doorknob to make way into the office.
"Well! I am certainly glad to not be disappointed in this last minute appointment." cackles who I would presume is Kensington.
His square face, half hidden by a short and stubby that he sips from, gives away to cold, brown eyes that appear to have long awaited this night.
"Finally. A Guardian becomes bold enough to face me. One on one! Do you know how long it has been, Edwin?" His voice, coarse as coal, rubs away at me.
"You know me?"
"You are a citizen of Æon City, after all. Why be so shocked?" He downs his drink and stands up, removing his desk as a boundary between us. "And here, a citizen of this most well-guarded city could dare to defy one of its leaders? To even so much as assassinate them? Tsk, tsk, Edwin. Tsk, tsk..." there grows a wry smile that even raises goosebumps over my body.
"It's a shame that I couldn't have surprised one of our most illustrious leaders, isn't it?"
He chuckles and shrugs, "Perhaps. However, I have little interest in gifts from your kind. Not unless you bent your knee and gave to me every ounce of your blood of course."
I break into a soft chuckle in return, finding it silly that he may be dancing around the effort to further unnerve me. The surprise aside, that won't stop me trying to ensure that if it isn't him that walks out from this office, then it will be neither of us.
"So! To kill me. What were your thoughts? Leave a bomb, timed or remote and you hide in a bush outside of the view of the office? Or perhaps poison! Yes... oh how I have missed that classic. Pity few know how to mask vervane in their concoctions and make it too easy to notice." He walks about, pacing really, and eyes me. "You don't look like the stories make you out to be, Eddy boy. You know that, right?"
"I don't, really. Please explain, Mr. Kensington." I clench my jaw, though his ramblings are hardly the issue in itself.
"All those you've killed, yet you're just a man reaching the end of his prime, facing down, well, me. I almost feel pity. If I could, anyhow." he chuckles and sighs, "Oh, but still. The wrinkles setting in. The two steps away from emaciation look. It is beyond me where Guardians dumpster dive their members from."
"Are you done?" I scowl at him.
"Excuse me?!" he trudges towards me, head cocked with fists clenched. At that moment, I draw my sword, making a slice at his body, feeling the clang of it with something metal as Cortain raises to his breast, and push my entire weight forward and into him, knocking Kensington down.
Kensington presses his palms against my chest and a blast of force throws me off.
The return to his feet came with pulling a pistol from the inside of his jacket pocket. He quickly raises it and fires at me, one bullet piercing my thigh and a second into my side.
I groan and drag out another flashbang and toss it between us.
Kensington roars with annoyance when it goes off. "You need to just die, Edwin!"
Shifting onto my knees, I go to pull the S.I.R. and activate it from the five second countdown mark.
I toss it towards him and then a whirling whistle pierces the air for a second, and a large explosion pulls me in and then outward - through the doorway and against a wall.
There's a ringing in both ears, but no other sounds. From looking between the cracks in the pile of rubble that may entomb me, I see sunrise is breaking this dark night.
A static whirl pierces the thoughts of my head. My NavCom activates on its own.
"The mouse bit the cat, now it must run from the maw of fate." an unpleasant and unforgettable voice muses on in my head. "You ilk may have seen battles won, but this war is only beginning."
