Oh Geez… my second go at it…
well, I actually got some reviews, and what I did get was encouraging. So I'm
gonna keep going… I don't care if nobody reads as long as nobody calls it crap.
Though it would help if I got some more reviews. I'd like to improve as
much as possible, so any C&C is appreciated… big thanks to those who did
review, I'd love it if somebody would tell me if I'm misspelling any names.
Okay, here we go… number two…
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SO CAL CONTRACT
(for anyone who doesn't know, So Cal is short for
Southern California…)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The G-Team followed the motorcycle gang to the
roadside gas station and tavern. Here, about six miles west of Larsen Volcanic
National Park in Northern California, the run-down little station lay along a
lonely strip of poorly-kempt road: the sort of place few motorists ever wish to
see, and fewer would ever wish to use for a fill-up or ask directions from.
A CLOSED sign hung in the window of
the gas station. Another sign was posted in the window of the bar, but
nevertheless, it was filled with activity that night. Lights were on the inside
and shapes moved within the windows. Loud music was playing. Barely discernable
heavy metal and punk, mostly.
Voices
shouted inside the tavern, bellowing to be heard above the blare of the stereo.
Yet, although laughter mingled with these other noises, very few passers-by
would be interested in finding out what the party was like. Eleven
Harley-Davidsons were parked out front of the station. The choppers were big
machines, chrome and black and-red-paint all along their sides. Each bore a
symbol of a yellow skull with curved horns and flames jetting from the top of
its bony dome.
This
was the symbol of Lucifer's Wild Riders (corny name, I know… but easy to
remember), a small outlaw biker gang. The LWR gang had formerly been out of
Washington State. The leader, Samuel "Stomper" Torrance, was wanted there for
armed robbery, assault and battery, manslaughter and third-degree murder. His
second in command, Fredrick Gordello, or "Gorilla" as he preferred it, was
involved in most of Torrance's crimes as well as two charges of rape. The other
twelve members of the gang, which included killers, thieves, rapists and child
molesters of all shapes and sizes, were all also on the lam escaping charges
for their crimes in the jurisdiction of Washington. The feds had only realized
that they hadn't run nearly so far when two state troopers on routine patrol
went missing after radioing in that they were going to investigate some bikers.
Heero Yuy lowered his
night-sight binoculars, a present for his last birthday from his ally Lucrezia
Noin. The G-Team had followed the bikers in an old US Army-surplus jeep. The
gang had been easy to track, since their roaring motors, stripped of mufflers
for an increased intimidation factor, could be heard a mile away. When the Wild
Riders finally came to roost at the tavern, the team had stopped in the
darkness out of sight.
"It
occur to you, Heero old buddy, that this is a pretty damn weird job for four
mercs to take on?" Duo Maxwell's remark could be heard from the hood of the car
where he sat, composedly chewing on the stalk end of a shoot of wildgrass wheat
he'd plucked from the ground. "I mean, this ain't our usual kinda thing… we try
to work for private contracts… if word gets out we're working for the Seattle
Department of Police because they can't act out of their jurisdiction, both us
and they will get in some deep shit. It just ain't wise… "
"No
it isn't." Heero agreed as he rose from his kneeling position in the tall
grass. He moved himself over to the metal footlocker strapped to the fender of
the jeep. "But the more I see of these cycle-bound savages, the more I feel
like its a job that somebody better do, but nobody seems to be doing shit
about."
Wufei
Chang sighed wearily then grimaced. "Well, when do we attack?! Are we to sit
here all night? We know their location, now we must crush the motorcycle
maggots!"
Duo
chuckled slightly then grinned. "Heheh… 'motorcycle maggots'… good one,
Wu-man."
"Hilarious."
Trowa Barton remarked in his emotionless monotone, a voice that rarely changed
to express any kind of feeling. The tall, slender merc's half-hidden features
('cause of his hair) remained equally deadpan. "How do we handle this, sir?"
"We
go in." Heero removed a DK5 Deutsch from the locker. "No careless moves. Those
outlaws may be a bunch of untrained fools, but they are still killers. The
police have branded them as armed and dangerous. We take it by the numbers… and
give them a chance to surrender, as per the police orders. I know it may seem
obnoxious of them to ask…" he caught Wufei's deepened scowl "…but it's only
fair that we try as much as possible. We're working for lawmen now at the
moment, and they'll pay more for a live capture of these punks, and they're
even more obnoxious."
"Their
choice in music is certainly obnoxious." Wufei commented as he reached
into the locker for his own armaments and his leg brace. "How can they stand
that garbage with the volume turned up so loud?!"
"Its
helpful," Trowa remarked as he dipped the tip of a steel arrow into a sticky
brownish poison. "They probably won't even be able to hear us coming."
Wufei grumbled. "A contingent of Leos
could troop by and they wouldn't notice." He buckled a sheathed sword around
his waist. "Music is supposed to be calming to the warrior soul. It wouldn't be
so bad if it were classical. Wagner or Tchaikovsky…"
"Or some old school shit!" Maxwell
interjected, abandoning his piece of wheat and working the cocking bolt of his
Uzi. "Y'know? Like the Rolling Stones, the stuff they did back in the nineteen
sixties."
Wufei made a sour face at the youthful
rebel's comment as though it were sacrilege. Heero ignored their conversation.
Wufei had been born and raised in an aristocratic and proud race, while Duo was
the product of a childhood spent scavenging in the slums. The two hardly ever
agreed on anything, though they managed to get their shit together when it came
to action.
The group was locked and loaded in
minutes. Heero carried a DK5 machine gun and Duo and Trowa were both sporting
Uzi subguns, not to mention Trowa's obligatory hunting bow and knife… the knife
being the same one he had used not long ago in Mexico, D.F.
Wufei carried an unusual bladed
weapon; the short Otoiyi-Cho sword of the Long Clan he was a part of.
The small but sharp fourteen-inch cutting steel edge was capped by a strong
wooden handle placed at navel level for a quick draw, tapping against the butt
of his army-grade M-16 automatic rifle.
Heero nodded at his compatriots.
Mission… accepted.
+++
The
gang was obviously not expecting trouble, as no sentries were posted to guard
the area. They must have felt safe in their remote party place. Of course, the
four assassins didn't take this for granted – they snuck up quietly on the
place, making sure to check the gas station for innocents.
Heero motioned for Trowa to move up to
one of the windows and pointed at Duo, cutting a small circle in the air with
his finger. Both men nodded in comprehension. Trowa headed for the window while
Duo sneaked around to the establishment's backside.
The G-Team commander listened at the
door. There was a lot of drunken laughter and yelling and of course the
uncomfortably loud music, but it was clear that there were quite a few people
inside.
Trowa peered through the window… he
saw a lot of guys in leather jackets and torn-up jeans, plus a couple of ripped
vests. A lot of untrimmed beards or bad moustaches, too. Almost all wore some
form of headgear, which included straw hats, caps, and helmets – football
helmets, steel military helmets with Nazi Swastikas painted on them, and even
one Viking helmet recreation with twin horns protruding from the top – but
absolutely no normal motorcycling head protection.
Most of the punkish delinquents were
at tables, swapping stories about god-only-knows-what, and tossing back Jack
Daniels and beer, along with a smattering of different kinds of drugs. The
female members of the gang were having less-that-subtle sex with the male ones,
doing a number of things that Duo had vividly described trying with Hilde
before.
Two shaggy bums were throwing knives
at a dartboard mounted on a wall. The knives generally missed the target and
failed to even stick into the wall. Trowa smiled inwardly and shook his head at
the antics of the amateurs, who were trying to use switchblades and cheap
Bowies as if they real throwing knives. The blades bounced off the wall and hit
to the floor. A switchblade snapped in two on impact, causing the morons to
giggle like giddy little kids who were throwing water balloons at the
principal's car and thinking they'd get away with it. The pair seemed
determined to ruin every knife they could get their hands on.
Hmph. A disgrace to Catharine's
profession…
Trowa gave an imploring look to Heero, who
nodded once. Trowa pulled back on the string of his bow…
Glass shattered as the speeding arrow
shot through the windowpane… the thing hit dead center on the target,
surprising a great many of the room's occupants. "What the fuck?" A voice
snorted out.
"I didn't throw it, man." Another
voice yelled.
Duo, around the other side of the
building, smiled to himself. "Robin Hood strikes again…" He got up and slammed
a foot hard into the side of the back door. At the same time, the lock of the
front door exploded upon coming into contact with Heero's speeding boot. Both
entryways were then entered into by the two mercs, who trained their guns on
the bikers, who backed away. A woman screamed and gasps of shock mingled with
the immensely loud music.
Wufei Chang entered, stepping in
behind Heero. He aimed his M-16 at the jukebox and fired a five-round burst
into it, smashing plastic and metal, bursting apart the CD inside the machine.
The heavy-metal music came to an abrupt stop. "Justice…" He muttered before
training his assault rifle on the miscreants alongside his commander.
"What the hell is this shit?" A tall
man with long limbs and rigid muscles demanded, pulling a pair of mirror-lensed
shades from his face to reveal ticked-off looking green eyes. "Who're these
damn kids?" Heero recognized him from the computer dot-matrix image he'd hacked
out of the FBI mainframe. Samuel Torrance had grown a bandido moustache and
lengthened his hair since the picture had been made, but was still recognizable
as the leader of the motorcycle gang. "Stomper" looked as mean as a pissed-off
cobra - if he was scared of the gun-toting teens, he wasn't doing a good job of
showing it.
The second in command of the Lucifer's
Wild Riders stood astride him. Fredrick Gordello was a big, ugly brute with a
broad nose that looked like it'd been broken more than once. His face was
framed by greasy black hair and a thick, ragged beard. Gordello's muscles made
one wonder if he carried pet boa constrictors under his skin. "Who the fuck are
you little cocksuckers? You even outta preschool?" He spoke as though using
non-four letter words was an unfamiliar and uncomfortable task for him.
"You obviously aren't." Wufei
challenged. However, it didn't take a preschool education to see that the young
mercenaries were a threat, seeing as they were collectively carrying three full
auto guns. Gordello wouldn't have really been impressed by the teenagers
otherwise. Heero, though extremely strong thanks to gene-therapy and
nanomachines in his blood, was actually a bit scrawny, Duo was, well, wearing a
braid in his hair, a sign of weakness to anyone as stupid as Gordello. Finally,
Wufei was simply hilarious looking to Gordello, who thought that all Asians
were primitive monkeys (look who's talking, "Gorilla"), and the Otoyi-Cho
in the boy's belt was the ultimate stupidity to Gordello.
While Heero aimed his weapon at the
two gang-leaders, the Long Clan brave kept the others down with his M-16.
However, the ratlike bartender behind the counter had been overlooked. He
slowly, deliberately started to move his hand towards the sawed-off eight-gauge
shotgun duct-taped under the counter, and felt the cool muzzle of an Uzi in the
small of his back.
"Try it and I'll splatter you all over
this dump," Duo Maxwell warned him.
"Oh, shit," The guy rasped, stiffening
as the hard metal cylinder was pressed harder into his spine. "I give, man. You
got me cold…" He whirled suddenly and tried to knock the machinepistol from the
youthful minister's grasp. He might have tricked a less experienced or aware
opponent, but years of dodging this very technique helped Duo now. The tough
guy from L2 colony simply pulled the gun out of the way of the man's slicing
hands and knocked the barrel against the side of his head hard enough to knock
loose a few teeth and K.O. him.
"Hey! Your bartender's sleeping on the
job!" Duo announced, glancing down at the unconscious business proprietor.
One of the Wild Riders pulled a small
.22 pistol from the back of his pants. Another arrow from Trowa Barton stopped
him. He hit the floor with the long missile sticking out of his neck, wilting
like a dead flower…
Two other dumbasses ducked behind a
table and turned it over for shelter. One guy reached for a highly compact
little snubber pistol in his boot. Wufei aimed his M-16 and squeezed four
rounds through the flimsy tabletop (as if plywood can stop rifle bullets…
honestly…) and drilled into the goon's back after splintering through the
tilted surface of the table as if it were paper. His heart got a double dose of
5.56 millimeter lead poisoning.
The other man tumbled over on his side
and clutched at the shot wound billowing red from his chest. He stopped rolling
over when Wufei gave him a second slug, this one in his head.
"Take it easy." Heero warned Stomper,
who had just moved as if he was about to pull a shooter out as well. The large
DK5 in Heero's hands reinforced his words. Stomper put up his hands and Heero
composedly relieved him of the .38 caliber pistol. "Right then… you'll be
waiting right here until we get the boys in blue to pay a visit, and you won't
be trying anything like that again."
"Oh? Well, c'mon, do I look like the
type who would do anything wrong?" Stomper gave an unconvincing smile.
"You look like a piece of shit who's
committed enough felonies to deserve a point blank bullet to the gut so that
you can whimper your confessions out while you bleed to death."
"Very vivid." Duo complimented him
from behind the counter, then nodded in approval. "Anyway, he's right. We know
who and what you are, so don't play innocent with us, Stomper."
"You wanna arrest me, you Jap fuck?"
He said, grimacing at Heero. "Well, I'll wanna talk to a lawyer 'bout…" he
stopped as Heero's foot struck him hard in the balls. He made a clutching
motion at his battered genitals, then fell over, shuddering with pain. His
mouth formed a tight oval shape.
"If you wanna play it this way, then
that's fine." Heero stated in his flat, level speech. "We've still got ten
criminals to take in if we waste you. No problem for us, really." Heero slammed
his left boot into Torrance's side and the head thug hit the base of the bar.
He then leveled his fully-loaded machine gun at the P.O.S.'s head. "But for
you… I'd say it will be. Your decision, Stomper. Make it quick, because we
don't feel like waiting around all night."
"What kinda little pricks are you
schoolboys?" Gordello demanded, furious at his inability to protect his boss.
"The kind that will blow off your damn
brainless head if you don't shut up, knave!" Wufei warned.
"Fuck you, shorty," He said, towering
over the relatively small Chinaboy. "If you weren't holding that fucking gun,
I'd snap you like a twig with one arm tied behind my back."
"You can use both." Wufei gave a rare
smile. "But if you lose, you sit down and shut up. In fact, we'll leave if you
win. Do you understand, or are you too stupid to understand what I said?"
"You ain't gonna win. I'm gonna break
your fuckin' back, little man." Heero smiled at the gorilla's comment. It was
rare that Heero ever smiled at anything, but this was going to be quite fun to
watch. Any untrained fighter asking to do battle with Chang Wufei was about as
smart as someone of African descent asking to join the Klan.
"Are you carrying any weapons, maggot?
I suppose not a gun… a device such as a trigger would undoubtedly tax your
neandrolithic brain too much. I'll wager you've got something simple, like a
club perhaps? Something heavy and simple."
Gordello reached under his
hobnail-studded vest and brandished from within a large metal sledge-mallet.
Wufei nodded as if to say 'told you so' and drew his blade.
A pair of Lucifer's Wild Riders
noticed that Wufei had stepped between them and Heero's line-of-fire. The
bikers decided to make their move, confident that Yuy would not fire and risk
hitting his comrade. They tried to jump Wufei from behind, one drawing a 3.5
inch switchblade, the other grabbing a mostly empty beer bottle from a nearby
table.
One met with an arrow through the
head… they had obviously not been observant enough to realize that someone was
still outside wielding a bow. However, Trowa could not hope to restring and
shoot his stealth weapon in time to hit the other one, and Heero and Duo were
not in positions they could fire from without hitting Wufei.
But Wufei didn't need help. He heard
the creep with the bottle behind him and spun in a full circle, turning almost
fast enough on his heel to not be seen. Some of the people in the room did not
even notice that it had happened.
But, as proof that the hand was
quicker than the eye, the goon clutched his wrist and gave out a sharp scream
of pain. Warm crimson liquid gushed out of his sliced-open wrist veins, and he
crumpled over, whining as he started to bleed to death.
"Oh fuck." The Gorilla suddenly found
Wufei's short sword to be a lot less funny than he previously had. "You aren't
gonna use that toad-sticker with me, right?"
Wufei flicked off the blood from the
steel with a slight jerk of his wrist. "No, that wouldn't be fair, would it?"
Gordello was quaking with barely
contained anger as Wufei coolly placed the sword on the wooden floor of the
tavern. The Gorilla still figured he could beat the feisty seventeen year-old
merc if he wasn't using his sword… Yeah… he probably don't even weigh half
of me… this'll be a cinch. After all, the Gorilla was a big guy and only
ever needed to get one hit in on his opponents. "RRRRGHHHHHH!!" The Gorilla
roared through clenched teeth as he rushed forward, swinging his balled-up
right fist in a wide arc at the boy's head. This VERY clumsy attack of course
missed, as Chang ducked his head under the man's swinging arm and grabbed onto
his wrist and elbow. Being the wise fighter that he was, Wufei did not need to
be told that any blows he inflicted – kicks, punches or palm strikes – would be
ineffectual as the Gorilla appeared to be the sort who could take a bullet and
continue charging you. Instead, he was going to rely on throws and joint
manipulation that would enable him to use the Gorilla's own weight against him.
He speedily dropped to one knee, turned and twisted Gordello's arm, letting go
at just the right time to send him flying into a table, which was crushed under
his weight. The Lucifer's Wild Riders gave a collective gasp as the big man
groaned into the pile of splinters he had made. Did their eyes deceive them?
Had a teenage boy just thrown the Gorilla across the room?
"It's all in the leverage," Wufei
explained and Gordello started to rise from the floor. "Care to see some more?"
"Quit fucking around, Wufei." Heero
ordered. "This is no time for showing off."
Gordello approached Wufei Chang more
cautiously this time, not intending to fall prey to another trick. This time
the Gorilla tried another technique that was a time-honored standard among for
a barroom brawler – swinging a leg straight between the legs of his adversary.
He was sure it would work on the one called Wufei.
Shyeah, right.
The merc simply deflected the kick
with a light tap to the shinbone of the attacker. This wasn't meant to hurt
Gordello, just keep him from smashing Wufei's crotch.
The kick Wufei snapped off into the
Gorilla's groin however, was meant to hurt him.
It did.
A lot.
"FUCKIN' PRICK!" Gordello screamed as
he recovered, and he swung a wild left cross up at Wufei's chin. Wufei simply
grabbed the intended striking arm and twisted, then began pushing at the
unwillingly rotated joint, then sat down on Gordello's back. Hard. "GAAAAAAH!!"
From this position, Wufei could have done one of a dozen things, but decided on
the one that would illicit the loudest scream from the Gorilla.
Wufei pressed down on the pressure
point on Gordello's forearm, twisting blood vessels out of place and bruising
some of the major arteries.
"AAAAAAAAAAAGH! NO MORE! NO MORE!!!"
"You saw that I was a kid and you
underestimated me. This is what you get for that." He launched a hard atemi
palm strike and broke the Gorilla's arm with a very wet, very unsettling snap.
He made a pathetic sort of whimpering noise and fainted. "Justice has been
served here… for now." Wufei stood up and took his gun back from Heero.
Heero shook his head. The fight had
been fun to watch, but it had lost them two more valuable live samples. He
decides something. "Hey, Duo. Code Green."
"Huh?" Said Duo, who was just counting
up how many they'd killed so far. And what Heero had just said was going to add
a lot more… all the rest, in fact, to that count. Duo had too keep himself from
smiling wolfishly. "Oh. Shit, commander," He pretended to be sad, disappointed.
"I thought that… NOW!!!" Duo aimed and pulled the trigger of his Uzi all in one
movement, hammering slugs into a biker that was cowering against a wall. The
slugs chewed up his body like a rabid rotwieler eating a cat.
'Code Green' meant that the primary
objective was no longer to keep the enemy alive for anything, but to waste the
lot of them. It was Duo's second favorite, right below 'Code Black'; Blow it
up. Obviously, Heero had decided that the goal of keeping the LWR alive was now
worthless, and it'd be best if they were all killed.
One of the stupid guys who'd been
throwing knives earlier pulled a pistol and planned to start hammering away at
the G-Team members, but suddenly realized that he'd just been shot through the heart
by Wufei, who had also reacted to the 'Code Green' – his personal fave. He shot
the guy once more, and then moved on.
Heero maneuvered his DK5 to lay into
two LWR who had been charging him. He was forced to duck a flying Jack Daniels
bottle a second later, and he swished the gun's snout into the chin of an
attacker, who he then killed using his patented nose-ramming technique, which
felled the man in seconds.
"Bastard!" Torrance stood up and
rushed Heero from behind, pulling an unseen pistol from his belt. He barely
lived long enough to see the shining survival knife that punctured his throat,
and the Uzi that flashed to hasten his death as Trowa Barton entered the fray.
The loonie with the Viking helmet
panicked and grabbed a chair, raising it overhead to use as a club against
Trowa. Trowa clucked his tongue in distaste and raised the Uzi, dissolving the
man's torso amid a series of loud shots.
The biker with the revolver was
pressed up against the bar, breathing hard. He stopped breathing hard –
or at all, actually – when Duo made a nice somersault over the bar and shot him
up with a three-round burst that splattered his brains all over the shitty bar.
Duo rolled over and popped up from his
crouching position, firing again and bringing swift death to some nut who thought he could escape though
the main door.
Wufei noticed, as he sprayed a guy
who'd been trying to go for a duffel bag containing a double-barreled pump
shotgun, that his Otoyi-Cho was no longer where he'd left it on the
ground. He noticed it when it nearly ran him through, wielded by one of the
female gang members.
Foolish woman! He had to figure
out how to do this… without hurting the woman. She made another uneducated stab
at Wufei, but he merely sidestepped it. Had his opponent been a man, he would
simply have sprayed him with the M-16 in the first place. However, Wufei's code
of integrity prevented him from doing this. Instead, he did an artful spinning
cartwheel and poked the blade out of the brave but crazy woman's grasp with an
index finger. He then did a gravity defying kick-off move from the bar (think Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and used the butt of the sword to poke the lady
in the arcipular martilary, causing her to gasp in surprise, if not complete
pain. She blacked out as her windpipe gave a 'hiccup' of retraction… but was
otherwise fine.
One final LWR, who fancied himself a
knife thrower, tossed his switchblade in Trowa's general direction. Trowa did
something we only ever see in action movies; he stepped aside and grabbed the
blade in midair. Doing some spectacular and also impossible acrobatics, he
sliced up the man's jugular while spinning in midair. The last Lucifer's Wild
Rider gave a slight sputter and croaked out his final breath, bubbling out
pinkish arterial blood.
"Dumbshits." Duo remarked looking
around the room at the slain gang members. "I mean, really… we offered them the
chance to live. Ah well, at least we had fun. So, anyway, Heero, you gonna say
it?"
Heero gave his once-in-a-blue-moon
rare smile… and…
"Mission… complete."
END CONTRACT
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Whoo… that was fun, at least for me it was. Anyhoo, I hope
you enjoyed this'n… I'm gonna try another pretty soon, if this gets good
response. I even made a preview to keep you interested in seeing the next one.
Uh, now where'd I put that trailer for it…
Oh, there
it is…
Heero:
"Cocaine Paste sparkles like diamonds, but leaves a
trail of blood reaching from Bolivia's bloodstained mountains to American
streets and schoolyards… those who possess this evil commodity have begun to
fight, and their feuds have begun to spill across the jungle borders of
Argentina and Peru… a war waiting to happen. Preventer intends to send a
message to the drug lords that only the G-Team can deliver. Next time, on The
G-Team, episode three: BOLIVIA CONTRACT."
That's right! I'm
bringing in Preventer on this one! Yeah, so we can see Zechs and Noin blow some
heads off shoulders too… Tell your friends and I'll see you there!
