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Tick
Tock
Exhale
Hold

She simply waits in her perch, watching silently, daring either of them to make a run for it. Deprived of any choice, the man eventually drags his friend back inside the crumbling building.

Hours bleed by in tense, suffocating silence.

Slowly, timidly, a few surviving townsfolk emerge from their hiding spots. They creep along the alleys like ghosts, warily peeking out from shattered windows and ducking behind rusted doorframes. One lone man ventures across the street to check on a neighbor's house, knocking softly before fleeing right back to the safety of his own home.

Eventually, the weeping bandit stumbles back out into the light, his face blotched and pale, tears leaving tracks through the dirt on his cheeks. He begins a slow, broken walk of shame down the gravel street, his shoulders slumped in absolute defeat. Out of sheer habit, he tugs uselessly at a few locked car doors, his movements sluggish and hollow. Finding no way out, his composure shatters completely.

He tilts his head back toward the heavens and screams at the top of his lungs, his voice raw with grief: "He died! He bled out... What more do you want from me?"

A few locals, hearing the pathetic display, step cautiously out from the shadows. The moment the broken man spots them, he instantly flinches, throwing his hands high into the air and dropping to his knees.

"I surrender! Please, I surrender! Don't hurt me!" he wails, trembling so hard he can barely keep his balance.

The locals exchange bewildered, hesitant glances. A woman and two men step forward, carefully disarming the weeping wreck, sliding a rusted knife and a length of lead pipe from his belt before binding his wrists behind his back. They speak in hushed tones, their words lost to the wind, but the bandit offers no resistance whatsoever, just limp, helpless nods between heavy gulps of air. Hoisting the miserable man to his feet, they march him toward the center of town.

Then, faint and low from the east, a familiar rumble vibrates through the earth. Vehicles are approaching... again.

Tick
Tock
Exhale

With patience, the world comes to you.

She has no remorse or second thought for the bandit that bleed out. They made their choices. He could have begged for help from those he was hurting. Maybe they would have showed him more kindness. He choose to hide and hope ij something else.

Maybe reinforcements are coming. Maybe the help from earlier. Maybe a different threat all together. It matters not to her.

There is a peace and calmness that comes from waiting and watching. No anticipation is needed. What will come will come.

Tick
Took
Exhale

Oo(With patience, the world comes to you)oO

She feels no remorse, no lingering shadow of regret for the bandit who bled out. They made their choices. He could have begged for mercy from the very people he hurt. Perhaps they would've shown him a kindness he never earned. Perhaps not.

There is a cold, razor-sharp peace that settles over a sniper who knows how to wait. No frantic anticipation. No wasted motion. What will come will come.

The distant engine noise swells into a deafening roar as a convoy of heavy vehicles rolls back into the dusty center of town. Dust clouds billow as doors slam open, unloading shaken townsfolk alongside heavily armed deputies and a detachment of volunteer militia from Camp Wilson. Karen, Al, and a handful of local leaders immediately converge, speaking in rapid, hushed tones as they plot their next move.

Finally, the rear door of a armored hover-jeep opens. Sheriff Harper steps onto the gravel, his face grim, and gives his deputies a single, curt nod.

"Alright! Listen up!" Harper's voice booms across the square, cutting through the murmurs of the crowd. "We're doing a house-to-house search to flush out any scum still hiding in the shadows! Reports indicate a powerful vigilante, possibly a D-Bee, wiped out the main force of the bandits, but we aren't taking chances. Anyone holding a weapon is an active threat. Anyone armed who fails to immediately comply gets put down. Is that clear?"

A unanimous, grim chorus of nods and clipped "Aye-ayes" echoes off the surrounding buildings.

The search teams split up, boots crunching on broken glass as they approach the first row of homes. Just as the first door is kicked off its hinges, the surviving townsfolk march their prisoner into the square. The weeping bandit stumbles forward, his hands raw and bound, his face pale with shock. Harper doesn't even waste a word on him as a deputy roughly slaps a pair of steel cuffs onto his wrists and shoves him toward a guarded wall.

Fifteen minutes into the sweep, the fragile silence shatters.

A hail of automatic gunfire erupts from a side alley. A female bandit bursts through the shattered back door of a small residence, spraying wildly with a submachine gun. Muzzle flashes strobe against the dirt walls as she fights frantically to buy herself an escape route, rounds chewing up the street right toward the advancing line.

Sara will watch and wait. Not much of a true threat and firing out of fear, not trying to kill. She will begin scanning buildings about to be entered and the next ones up. Something feels off to her.

Sara continues her patient watch. oO(Not much of a true threat... firing out of fear, not trying to kill)Oo she assesses.

Her gaze sweeps the surrounding structures, thermal and infrared overlays probing the shadows. Nothing.

Suddenly, as the bandit's suppressive fire does its job; giving her just enough cover to dip into a nearby building. Sara tracks her signature as her target moves with calculated precision through the interior, slipping into an adjoining structure before abruptly vanishing from advanced sensors. A beat later, the signal blips back to life on the far side of the street, inside a building already marked cleared. Suspicion turns to urgency as the scanner reveals her next move: she’s frantically shedding her armor and ditching her weapons to possibly melt into the crowd.

Down on the street, chaos reigns. The sheriff, his deputies, and a wave of armed militia charge in entirely the wrong direction, blind to the deception unfolding behind them.

Then Kryyn freezes mid-stride, as if a sudden instinct pulls at her mind. Pivoting slowly, she turns back the other way, staring straight toward the building where the bandit is stripping down. Her grip tightens on her rifle as she raises the barrel, cautiously advancing towards the cleared building.

Sara can hear Al shout to Karen, "Hey! Building's already clear! Let's catch this bandit," Yet, she ignores him, certain that she's right...