Angel on Fire || Specter & Ringer
spectergates:
Major combat operations weren’t forthcoming every day in the Commandos, and it was the case, more often than not, that Specter exerted his considerable skills as a sniper simply protecting their camp. He had his cheek pressed to the stock of his rifle, cold sharp and stinging against his skin as he forced himself to breathe deeply, watching the ensuing fight through the lens of his scope. Near misses, blood blossoming across Ringer’s pale skin made his fingers itch— his stomach clenched in fits and starts as his finger curled gently across the trigger, enough to be prepared but never enough to act. Not yet.
Timing was everything. Even as his pulse skyrocketed, his heart slamming a steady tattoo through his veins against the hard packed dirt of his perch, against the stock of his rifle, violent and unceasing.
As the second brawl unfolded before him, he gritted his teeth sharply; jaw twinging under the pressure— he felt as though he’d grind his teeth down to nubs of his own accord if it kept on much longer and he saw the moment to act looming before him like writing across the sky. A twitch. A crack that reverberated through his entirety.
He watched Ringer tumble over the edge as he lurched to his feet, everything in him screaming to follow, to protect her, to save her. Sour and violent, bile rushed into the back of his throat and he drove his fist angrily into the trunk of the tree he’d been using as cover, the ensuing cracks alerting him to the injuries he’d now be forced to deal with.
Rifle slung over his shoulder he careened down the path towards the ruins knowing full well he’d have no way of helping Ringer if she was genuinely hurt, or, God forbid, dead at the bottom of the ravine. A split second found him shifting his weight in the opposite direction, all but sprinting in the direction of their most recent camp— breath half caught in his lungs and frantic cries teasing at the edges of his lips as he bit them back.
He would not be weak now.
He wouldn’t lose her. Not for anything.
When the earth awoke her, the serenade consisted of squelching soles and overworked engines. Her bones ached within their scorched sockets. With dark amusement, she realized it had been the cliff she scraped down that’d taken the bulk of her fall. The pain was a massive outbreak to her new apocalypse. What damage awaited a medic’s expertise she cared not to know. On her own, she knew cracked ribs from the way her body caved when she forced its support. An intake meant a gasp of death. An outtake meant scarce breath.
The soles sunk into mud beside her head. If it had been an enemy, the reaper could have at least kissed her before they left.
“That one alive?”
Wonderful, she thought irritably, I’ve discovered how I look.
Somehow, the woman’s snap was as biting as it had been more than several tens of feet before. “That one’s alive.” The retort did not come without its unfortunate result. Ringer was drawn upward by either arm. Neither of her ‘saving men’ were medics, that much was evident from their handle. And from the way her left shoulder popped and vision swam at the sudden jerk of limbs, it was a miracle they had not further dislocated her frame.
Her curses came in brutal strands. Surely they were more intelligent than to hoist without examine. But the real conversation she demanded above her own being was directed at the medic in the jeep’s backing. “The sniper,” she started roughly, “Gates--.” The medic’s hushing only fueled her defiance. “Gates, who made it out of the valley?” If her arms had functioned better, Ringer would have formed a thunderous bruise upon the doctor’s jaw. Of course, the man could not know the information she sought. “Get me a damn radio.” A useless request from one lying in the back of a medic’s truck. Her eyes raced the clouds that the vehicle surpassed. She wanted to reach upward and snatch them from their safe hovering. Away from the war, outside volleys of blasted bullets.
