muse: Leo Barnes (The Purge)
open to: 21+ only please / mutuals and non-mutuals / other canon horror muses, multifandom crossovers, OCs, whatever!
triggers: canon-typical, including mentions of death/dead bodies, genocide, guns, violence, classism, racism, ableism, police, grief
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EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM
WEAPONS OF CLASS 4 AND LOWER HAVE BEEN AUTHORIZED FOR USE DURING THE PURGE. ALL OTHER WEAPONS ARE RESTRICTED.
GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS OF RANKING 10 HAVE BEEN GRANTED IMMUNITY FROM THE PURGE AND SHALL NOT BE HARMED.
ANY AND ALL CRIME, INCLUDING MURDER, WILL BE LEGAL FOR 12 CONTINUOUS HOURS.
POLICE, FIRE, AND EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES WILL BE UNAVAILABLE UNTIL 7AM WHEN THE PURGE CONCLUDES.
BLESSED BE OUR NEW FOUNDING FATHERS AND AMERICA, A NATION REBORN.
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07:26:03 LEFT OF THE ANNUAL PURGE
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With one exception, Sarge had never cared for Purge night. It went against everything he'd sworn to do as a police officer. Protect and serve. It had been hard to argue with the results those first few years though because it seemed like it worked. Overall crime did go down in the country, and it stayed down. His job got easier. Then his world ended, and he believed in the Purge a lot. The Purge kept him going that whole first year. The Purge would get him the justice he'd never see in a courtroom. The Purge would set him free.
Yeah, grief could mess with a man's head like that. It wasn't until that night that he started to see it for what it was. Who was mostly likely to be a target. (Not him.) Who suffered the most on those nights. (Not him.) And who stood to benefit the most from things staying exactly as they were. (Not. Him.) It was unfairly stacked against people of color, people of low income, people who couldn't protect themselves. And, naturally, the New Founding Fathers liked it that way. Crime wasn't lower because people got to purge their darkest impulses once a year. It was lower because it cleared out all of society's "undesirables," and the government no longer had to pay to protect them. And when the Purge wasn't effective enough on its own, they sent their own people to help.
He hadn't been able to stomach going back to the force after that night. He'd worked on the edges of private security for a couple years but hadn't yet decided if it was going to work out. Nobody needed a bodyguard more than on Purge night, and he wasn't quite willing to give this up. He'd been warned to stay out of it, warned not to play hero, but shit, it wasn't illegal. Nothing was tonight. The worst they could do was kill him, and that could happen just as easily if he was sitting at home as out here in the thick of it. (Maybe not just as easily. But he'd rather be a dead hero than a sitting duck.)
It wasn't that hard to tell the government Purgers from the regular population if you knew what you were looking for. They were better trained and better funded. Sure, you'd get the occasional rich asshole on a murder spree, with piles of fancy or custom weapons they had no fucking idea how to use, but more and more these days, the rich preferred to Purge in the privacy of their homes. Get someone old or sick or dying to come on Purge night, pay their family an enormous sum of money for their sacrifice, and never risk a damn thing. You could bet the government would be extra and trained. He fucking hated those semi-trucks with the automatic weapons in the back, take out a whole block at once like it was a goddamn genocide. (Wasn't it, in a way?)
He'd gotten lucky that first night. Few people had ever dared to fight back against that kind of weaponry. He'd caught them off guard. They were prepared now, but he was too. The explosion had knocked the semi on its side and left a crater in the street, and it was a chaos of gunfire and screaming. His team might not be well-funded or ex-military, but with a sniper rifle at that range, they didn't really have to be. There were plenty of people who hated the Purge even more than he did, and they were more than willing to hit back in any way they could. A little strategy, a little target practice, a little contracting, and you got this, a little street guerilla warfare.
When everyone with body armor, gas masks, and automatic weapons was on the ground, dead or dying, he stepped out from his cover but didn't holster his gun until it was clear he wasn't being shot at. Most of the people who had been hauled out of their tenement buildings to be slaughtered had already fled at the first opportunity, but a few had stayed behind, too shocked or injured to run. All of his team wore the same matte black mask, featureless and invisible in the shadows. It was an extra precaution; they'd already thrown out a signal jammer for the cameras. Everything might be legal on Purge night, but there were 364 other days in the year where "accidents" might happen to people who fought back.
He pushed it up to reveal his face as he knelt by a girl, maybe eight, frightened and bleeding. "Hey, it's alright. Can I have a look at that?" He nodded toward her arm, gently inspecting the three-inch gash in it, likely from being pushed to the ground. "It'll be okay. Hold it up like this to stop the bleeding. You got somewhere safe to go?" This he directed at the woman who had joined them. Mother, aunt, older sister? He had no idea. When she shook her head no, he produced a business card with a single address printed on it, no other information. "Memorize it. Head that way and take a left on 5th. There are weapons and medical supplies. You'll be safe there until morning." The card disappeared back into a pocket, and he nodded a goodbye as they started down the street. He needed to move too, before the next wave, before all the noise brought vultures of a different kind down on them.
It was instinct that had him pointing the gun before he even understood what the threat was or if there was one. He couldn't see clearly enough in the shadows of the alley to tell whether it was victim, threat, or something else entirely, but he hugged the building for cover and kept his aim steady.
"Come on out of there. Slowly."
