September 20, 2058

Armour Road

Outskirts of Regina, Algonkian-Manitou Council

~~~

It was a grey, bitter, overcast day in the Council, as Leon, Brandon, and Sylvia were driving home in their Ford Bison truck. They had spent an afternoon delivering packages, and were looking forward to getting indoors before the inevitable rainstorm hit them.

There had been a bit of spitting rain throughout the week, and all the meteorologists and shamanic weathermen were predicting a brutal storm in Regina any day now. The Great Ghost Dance had played hell with a lot of the weather in North America, said to be a result of angering powerful fire and water spirits with the Dance. You had to be prepared for anything if you lived in the Native American Nations.

They were travelling along Armour Road, a long stretch of asphalt in the northwest outskirts of Regina. It was a roundabout way of getting home from the east side of town...... but Leon had been taking roundabout routes all day during his deliveries, as the damned unmarked Long Arms cop car was following him around the city again.

And surely enough......

"He's back again!" said Sylvia, peering over the backseat. "Man, his aura is creepy."

"......Creepy in what regard?" said Leon. "I don't know how this Astral Plane stuff works."

"I don't know how your instincts work either, I just trust them. Trust me, this guy is bad news......he's got these purple particles all around......"

"I see it too." said Brandon, twisting around to see what Sylvia was seeing. "I've seen aura like this before, in some of the people the family brought in from their vengeance quests."

"What, is he possessed by an evil spirit or something?" said Leon. "Maybe David is too, that would explain a lot."

"I don't think-" But before Sylvia could finish, a blue light flashed in the unmarked, as it started accelerating to overtake Leon.

"Oh, this oughta be good." said Leon, slowing down and peeling off near a curbside gutter.

Leon finished pulling over, and finally saw the cop who had been tailing him all this time, a flint-faced AmerIndian. This guy was definitely new. Leon knew every beat cop Long Arms had on a local level, and he would've remembered seeing a badman like this before.

"License and registration, please."

Leon smirked at the cop as he provided it.

"New here chummer? If you are, this vehicle's legit, and Longmiles isn't going to get me on some lame traffic stop."

The flint-faced cop made a show of scanning the license and registration, before looking up at Leon and shaking his head.

"Step out of the car please."

Leon laughed. "Are you serious with thi-"

"Out of the car, sir, I will not ask again. Your two passengers can stay inside."

Sylvia looked perturbed, but Leon smiled at her, mouthing the words "Don't worry." as he stepped out.

Truth was, he was getting a little concerned. He could feel now what Sylvia found suspicious about this guy, even if he couldn't see the astral plane like she could. The flint-faced cop had an air of toughness, competence, and danger to him, an air that most Long Arms beat cops did not possess.

"Hands on the hood."

"You're doing this? For real? I get you're trying to act tough for your boss, but you're gonna lose your badge for this-"

"HANDS ON THE HOOD SIR, I WILL NOT ASK AGAIN."

But Leon started to sense he wasn't just wanting hands on the hood, or even an arrest. The flint-faced cop had a certain glint in his eyes, and there was a slight grin curling up on his mouth. Leon's license and registration had fallen from the cops hand to the pavement, and were starting to swirl in the wind. The flint-faced mans right hand was also casually moving nearer to the service revolver on his hip......

......Something was up, and it all screamed one word to Leon's instincts.

"DRAW!"

Leon drew with unbelievable speed, but the cop was almost as fast, going for his gun at the same moment Leon made his play.

The cop rushed his shot ever so slightly, firing low from the hip, and the powerful Ruger Thunderbolt revolver erupted, sending a high-caliber round into the meaty part of Leon's thigh.

Less than a millisecond later, Leon, who had taken fractionally more time to bring his barrel up higher, fired a round from his Predator Pistol right as the bullet entered his thigh. Leon's hollow-point round went through the cop's throat, and out the back of his neck.

The flint-faced cop went down like a puppet with his strings cut, choking on his own blood, while Leon pitched forward, yelling in pain and rage from the huge gaping wound in his thigh.

Sylvia screamed in horror, and tried desperately to get out of the car, getting tangled in the seatbelt in a panic. Brandon moved quickly out of his shotgun seat, drawing his own Predator Pistol and putting two rounds into the fallen cop's head before checking on Leon.

Leon howled in pain, and started seeing stars, feeling disoriented as the blood squirted from his leg. Brandon cursed, and started applying healing magic. Sylvia finally got out of the truck and did the same.

Brandon then looked around in a panic, and realized they needed to get the cops body in the back of the truck now, before any traffic came.

"We gotta move this cop!"

"I'M NOT LEAVING LEON!"

"You can come back to him, but we need to get this body in the back and get Leon to a StreetDoc! He's cybered, the healing magic won't work as well!"

Sylvia and Brandon quickly dragged the dead cop into the back of the truck, before lifting Leon into the backseat. Sylvia sat with Leon and kept desperately trying to heal him, while Brandon scooped up Leon's license and registration, got in the driver's seat, and gunned the Ford Bison.

Thank heavens the road was empty. It was an out-of-the-way road to begin with, but it was also just before rush hour traffic.

Leon's howls of pain had been reduced to small groans, and he felt himself fading. Sylvia and the rest of the backseat were getting soaked with his blood, as she frantically continued healing spells in a bid to stem the bleeding.

"Get.....Doctor Rico.....closest one....."

"Step on it!.....bleeding out!....."

Leon's consciousness was waning, and this was mildly annoying, as he wanted to tell Sylvia to calm down and stop yelling. He'd survive this, surely. He'd taken bullets in worse spots and survived, right?

"I'll kill him!......see him again......kill him!"

Leon had time to think "Damn Sylvia, whose side are you on?" before passing out into unconsciousness.

......And as Leon passed out, rain began pouring down......