Hollywood:
Spoiler (Click to Show)
Well that’s exactly where I was. I just wanted to give my little brother a call, just say I’ve always been proud of him and I know Mom and Dad are too. That they’re looking down on him smiling with each step he takes, choice he makes and know just how much of a good man he’s going to grow up to be. I wanted to tell him that I love him, that I love him more than anyone else in my life, even if I don’t ever say it and that I was sorry for not saying it more.
But he was asleep, and my roommate and I weren’t on speaking terms. I was about to get guilted out if I dialed home, probably have to argue to get my brother on the line, and have then do a little more just so he’d wake him up. I didn’t have that kinda time. Thirty seconds tops. My ears were ringing, skull was pulsing, and I could feel my limbs shaking in intense anxiety because in a literal sense, I was exactly where I didn’t want to be. Desperately, I slid my phone open and pounded my thumbs into the keyboard, sending a message to someone else entirely.
‘Aug its hollywood 1465 main st room 303 please keep leo safe lock doors stay inside’
To be fair, my grammar would been much better if my ears weren’t bleeding.
“If that was Facebook, I swear I-”
“Shut the Hell up.” Sliding my phone back into my pocket, I gripped the side of the car we both hid behind before taking a quick glance at the mummy looking Mother- “Is that a cannon!”
“Tell me to ‘shut the Hell up’ again and I’ll show you exactly what it is.” The robotic reply came as cold as you’d expect from a machine, disheveled hair seeming to be the only human thing about him. Under five feet, he had to stand at his full height just to see over the vehicle, resting his massive weapon on the hood. It almost looked like it belonged on a pirate ship, aimed at the sea of orange fleeing the prison a short distance away. His open palm seized the handle as my eyes snapped to escapees. The men and women varied in almost all ways, but the one that registered immediately was their expression. They looked beaten, worn, exhausted, and broken even. Bruises riddled their faces and blood soaked their clothes, both fresh and dry. Faces of relief were passed between some of the runners, while others looked past the point of desperation, terror screaming in their eyes as their feet pounded across the earth, while the rest carried the ruthlessness, bloodthirstiness and vileness you’d expect from a horde sprinting out of a prison.
That last group was not the majority. By any stretch of the imagination.
A metallic whirr gradually began to resound and a chill raced down my body as I saw light funneling into the cannon beside me. Whatever it was doing would end with certain death, but neither the cyborg or I were their judge or jury, and we sure as hell weren’t their executioners.
My body became alive in an instant, feet pivoting in self-righteousness as my entire arm swung towards the massive weapon beside me. Hooking a handle with my elbow, I tore my other hand through the air snatching it as well before lurching back suddenly, ripping it away with the full force of my weight. The angle of the gun tilted upwards as it’s balance shifted, but the force of my yank helped slam it into the ground leaving a fissure of cracks as both the cyborg and I staggered back. Unbraced and unprepared, he hit the ground hard as his cannon, sending a blazing beam of energy hurtling into space.
Noise was void for a moment as civilian and convict alike stopped dead in their tracks, eyes tracking the laser as it became nothing but a light in the distance, almost like a star in the daylight. The cannoneer and I slowly exchanged glances before looking back out of our cover. There were maybe fifty of them now, men and women coated in orange from head to toe scattered across a thirty foot area. Front and center however, was a man with hazel eyes and sloppy brown hair. A soul patch prevented him from being clean shaven, however raging burns across his body questioned that definition of ‘clean’. It looked as if someone had come deadly close to burning him alive and left him halfway to being Two-Face, flesh and muscle scattered around his neck and crawled up his cheek. Wielding a pair of shivs, he was the first to make us, expression neutral as he stood his ground.
The man beside him however, was significantly less quiet.
“Cut down the gladiators!”
Noise erupted like we were a rival team scoring the winning point in overtime. The burned man was lost in the yellow-Red Sea as the others rushed us, but a fist cracked against the side of my head before I could even fumble a dart out of my sash. Reflexively, I swung my blowgun blindly as I staggered, but a metallic clang echoed as jolts of pain shot through my wrist from the blocked strike.
Retracting my arm as my body stabilized, my free hand found itself where my skull was throbbing, close to my ear just behind my mask. A blazing inferno ignited in my eyes as they snapped to the bandaged bastard, who was somehow shrinking his cannon into a handgun. I opened my mouth to shout, but he beat me to the draw.
“Do you have any idea what you did!”
“I kept blood off my hands!”
“You did that because you don’t want blood on your hands?” I was suddenly staring (glaring) down the barrel of something that loosely resembled a Desert Eagle, “I could’ve ended that as soon as it started, but now I don’t have the time to charge a second shot! There’s about to be a shitload of blood on your hands, you dumbass!”
I would’ve quite literally spat on him if I was in less masks. My fists clenched but as the roaring of the inmates came rapidly approached us, my only option was to take a handful of darts out of my sash. I had no chance of outrunning a mob, and even if I abandoned my clothes they could just track down the guy in his boxers. Worried sweat stained the cotton on my face, and as even more made the metal in my hand slick, I swallowed hard.
“Get that out of my face, I’m all you have right now,” Despite everything, my fear was cloaked as I replied in a growl, rising from my cover as I tore my hockey mask up. Hot air rushed against my skin as my hands flew, swift to load my blowgun but even quicker it spit it back out. Their numbers were far too high for me to miss, even though the leaders of the mob were able to duck out of the way, a blonde man directly behind them ate it in the shoulder. His visible wince was all I needed to know it pierced flesh, and with the powerful sedative laced inside my weapons, that was all I needed. Faking a grin like I had any confidence whatsoever, I pounded another projectile into the tube before firing off that one as well, finding similar results.
A third was clenched in my mouth as I readied another, but the roars of gunshots exploded next to me without warning, startling me to the point that my teeth snapped it in half violently as I flinched. Screaming tore into my mind as I heard blood spatter against the pavement, grey cement now a rich crimson as bodies hit the ground, ignored as they howled in anguish. Glancing up at L.L., there wasn’t a shred of mercy within him. His gaze failed to waver or flinch as he rapidly pulled the trigger, bursting from the nozzle as it sent death in a hellish flash while casting a heavy, almost black shadow, about as dark as his soul behind him. At least Abra’s men showed intent to kill before August cut them down.
I believe in second chances.
Bust didn’t.
He was no ally of mine, and I had no intention of waiting for a reload before striking at my enemy.
The grip on my blowgun tightened after twirling it once more in my hand, but snapping it shut I held like I was wielding a dagger, blade pointed down as my palm sweat on the handle. Already half crouched I lunged up as swiftly as I could, arching the rod up diagonally having chosen to sacrifice accuracy for speed and strength. My body was a temple self righteous the moments my metal sped at him, but it shattered like pagan church during the crusades when a deafening clang echoed upon contact.
Bone’s not supposed to sound like that, and I couldn’t keep my eyes from widening when he only took a few steps to the side, rubbing his cheek. “You’re behind this!”
As fired up as he was, the accusation turned me into an inferno myself. Bust jerked his gun back into my face, but half seeing it coming I swung my steel tube to intercept. Another clank as it smashed into the armor he wore, doing little more than keeping me out of his firing line. Keeping my eye locked on his weapon, I failed to see him step in until his left arm shot at me like a bullet, pounding into my ribs and skidding me back. It felt like my organs took his side as they struck it from the inside, heart and lungs both agitating the forming bruise as they both frantically tried to do their perspective jobs.
Focus returned a second too late, gaze finding the gun the moment its butt smashed against my mask. If there was crackling, it could’ve been the soundtrack of a Rice Krispies commercial. Plastic snapped to the power, sharp edges digging just under my eyes as they impaled through the cotton between flesh and plastic, but the entire blow transferred to my nose, breaking it violently in a horrifically loud, nausea inducing pop.
I screamed like I took a bullet as my hands rushed to my face, chucking my hockey mask away in a desperate effort to ease the pain. Above me, L.L. twirled the handle around and aimed the barrel of his handgun back at me, but a stone bashed against his eye causing him to stumble to the side, squeezing the trigger just a moment too soon. Pavement beside me shattered as what looked like a tiny cannonball embedded itself inside, but as I scampered to my feet I heard hands slam on the hood of the car we hid behind. Snapping my neck back to look back as I turned tail and ran, I saw a buff prisoner springboard over it, tackling the cyborg to the ground while another whipped a stone at my back.
Leaping to the side I dodged it by inches, but another unseen one bashed into my calf, sending my planted foot flying into the air and me onto my ass. Moaning in the street, all I could do was moan before the orange army had the both of us surrounded in seconds. I don’t know what they were doing to Bust, but boots beat against my skin like baseball bats to a mob informant. Lacking any defenses and excruciation numbing all other thoughts, I only rolled into the fetal position, taking most of the shots to my back. I felt my eyes dampen as all hopes of survival died inside me and a hopelessness started making my body limp.
“That’s enough!” I barely even heard the booming voice as the mob around me begged for my blood, presumably unsatisfied with what I was coughing, but an outside yelp made them all pause suddenly. “I said that’s enough!”
Bust and I were the only ones making any noise, but both of us were limited to groans of agony as we lied on the ground, limbs shaking as we fought to stand.
“You don’t even know who these men are!”
“I know that one isn’t your old Bloodshot boy! Even if your sources tell you he and the gangster both work at the same diner.”
“Bullshit!” Having made it back to my knees, a massive foot blasting into my ribs murdered all my progress, sending me reeling back into the fetal position. “Only Harper would have what it ta-”
“Hollywood’s clearly squeamish but you told me Harper shot you three times point blank without blinking. They’re different people.”
I was too busy throbbing everywhere for all that to sink in.
“Ya know what? I’ll let this rat show you his true colors himself. Get the bounty hunter, I’ve got Pointe.”
Feeling a massive hand grip my neck, an intelligent thought finally struck me, sliding my hand to my darts and slipping one into my hoodie sleeve. If anyone saw, no one said anything as the massive man dragged me back to the car. Taking a glance up at him I only confirmed we never met. He looked to be about six and a half feet, bald with a scraggly brown beard and piercing blue eyes. The most evident giveaway that he was a stranger however, was the four tattoos he had under his right eye beside his nose, all of them being the same just repeated. A blood drop containing a crimson bullet, and if tear tattoos meant what I thought they did, I might’ve screwed up when I stopped Bust at the beginning of this whole mess.
Feet dragging behind me, my exhausted eyes shifted back forward only to see L.L. in a similar predicament, bandages torn around his face and bandanas missing, revealing what lied beneath. Fresh gashes drained down his mangled face, transforming once dead pale skin to a deep red. Heavy scarring put the original burnt man to shame however, it almost looked like flames had outright digested him, claiming both his nose and ears. His jaw was wired shut, but he had outright metallic eyes, each with a haunting red pupil and steel cheeks beside them, one of which was dented, presumably by me. All in all however, he made my stomach churn while I made him sick in more of a rage type way. Armor intact however, he was still faring better than me in that regard, although his gun was missing. A brief look located it in the hand of man with the soul patch, who motioned to my blowguns which were unceremoniously ripped away on cue.
“So, who wants to see a live wRHG fight?” Cheering erupted as bloody-tear-tattoo crackled, completing our Rice Krispies commercial and planting me on my feet in the middle of an orange circle. Swaying as standing became difficult, the behemoth of a man slowly offered me a crude knife, grinning wickedly as I accepted it. “Tell you what Harper, you can live as he dies.”
I was too weary to argue, panting heavily as it was it was too much effort to frown. A gradual nod passed from me to him as Bust was given a weapon of his own.
“You’re wasting time we don’t have, sirens are going to be coming in the distance soon.”
So Soul-patch was the one who stopped them from stomping us into oblivion…
“So you don’t want me to kill my traitor without knowing its him for sure, and then you don’t want to me to prove it either?” Ominous chuckles exited the Bloodshot, “You can’t have it both ways you, nameless shit. Besides, you want their organization to burn, why not watch it?”
The man didn’t reply, crossing his arms as my heart sank.
“Get on with it!”
Tear-Tattoo shoved my back violently, sending me staggering forward as Bust took a fist to the back of the skull, causing him to do something similar. Intensity burned in his worn out eyes, but as he rolled what looked like a broken toothbrush, snapped and sharpened for stabbing, I could at detect a part of him that didn’t want to impale my throat.
“This is your fault.” Fine, a it was a tiny, microscopically little part.
“I didn’t blow a hole in the prison.”
The wall of men surrounding us closed in, rapidly growing impatient as they started chanting for a fight. Seeing how there were somewhere between fifteen and twenty of them, they were going to get it whether or not we liked it. The tip of a shank poked my shoulder to egg me on, but as I flinched L.L. lunged forward, aiming low at my waist yet failed to close the distance before I pivoted to the side, reply