"You got this Yoyo! C'mon! For the fifth time, jump…the fuckin'…canal!"
"Okay, okay! I'm trying, yo! Just not quite in my groove without Professor K's music. …Here I go-!"
Splash!
"God-damnit! You lazy little bitch!"
Beat fell to his knees and fists at the alcove across the canal, looking over the edge with boiling frustration. His "apprentice," Yoyo, had failed to leap over a particularly wide gap separating one of the Chuo street buildings from a little alcove, at which Beat was (rather impatiently) waiting beside a sparkling Graffiti Soul. At least they no longer needed to fear falling into the water. After the GGs had taken over Tokyo, the air was made cleaner, the water purer. The canal was no more threatening to them than a swimming pool these days, though it was still difficult to swim to the water's edge with a pair of heavy roller blades on their feet.
Yoyo dragged himself to the top of the building across from the alcove, sopping wet.
"I told you, I'm just not in my usual groove. But I swear you need a boost dash to make that jump," he muttered over to his friend.
"Then how did I make it over with two spray cans?" Beat retorted.
"You're a fucking troll, that's how."
"…You mad, bro?" Beat did his best impression of a troll face grin as he danced idly beside the Graffiti Soul.
"Goddamn right I am!"
Yoyo circled away from the canal's edge to get a running start. Carefully, he lined himself up with his target, then pushed off against the concrete rooftop and began gliding forward at a quickly building pace. At last he felt the front of his giant yellow roller blades tip over the side of the roof and let his legs uncoil like springs against the edge.
He already knew that it hadn't been enough to land him on the Graffiti Soul. But as he fell further, he realized that the alcove's edge was just close enough to grab onto. His black, fingerless glove connected with the white plastic platform with a satisfying smack, and, with a momentary struggle, he managed to keep his grip from weakening, long enough to get a second handhold on the edge.
"That's more like it, punk!" Beat half-congratulated, pulling his fellow GG to his feet. Yoyo snatched up the Graffiti Soul and grinned.
"You said Soda's meeting us at the green monument in the pedestrian zone?" Yoyo inquired.
"That's right."
"And we'll be the first to get there, because now were doing things my way," Yoyo declared. "Follow this!"
Crimson flames bursted from his roller blades and the rudie catapulted diagonally out of the alcove. Aiming with perfect precision for a billboard, he wallrode across it, leaving a pair of black burn marks in his wake. Before the second was over, he had leapt off of the board and careened out of sight.
Unable to trace Yoyo's path due to his shortage of cans, Beat spied a telephone wire strung taut above the canal, much closer to him than the billboard. He hopped onto it, hearing a strange bang in the distance, and gained speed in a series of wild, dance-like changes of footwork, flipping away when he spied a metal ladder hanging from the top of a nearby wall. His skates connected with the metal and he glided to the rooftop with ease.
"Yo-"
Beat had begun to speak, but stopped upon locating his friend. Yoyo sat only a few feet away. His hand was gripping his side, blood-drenched.
"Yoyo!"
For some reason, Yoyo seemed not to hear Beat's call. He didn't even turn his green-haired head to return his worried friend's stare. He was looking at something else, Beat realized. Slowly, he, too, turned to follow Yoyo's gaze.
Crouched at the edge of an even higher roof was Captain Hayashi, pistol in hand. The middle-aged psycho seemed healthier-and happier-than ever. A long, curved wristblade gleamed on his opposite arm. His skin was fair but no longer deathly pale, and an almost supernaturally silver luster had returned to his stress-bleached hair. His trademark blue coat hung open to display an impressive set of black body armor beneath.
"Hey, you little punks," he greeted in a shrill purr, rising to his full height with a trail of smoke in his pistol's wake. Turning to Beat, he warned, "Drop your cans and I won't finish him off."
"Don't!" Yoyo's gasp was barely audible.
Two bright yellow aerosol cans clattered onto the concrete roof at Beat's feet.
"Good." Hayashi smiled as if he was talking to an adorable child. "Glad to see that you've finally learned some respect for authority."
"Hayashi!" Beat snarled. "What the hell are you doing on the streets again? Don't you realize that fighting us is pointless?"
"Fighting you? I was never really fighting you before." Hayashi began laughing in his familiarly maniacal, trembling tone. "It was all just a game back then. But the game's over now, haha!"
With a contented, almost innocent expression, Hayashi raised his gun at Yoyo, taking careful aim. But something was moving up behind the Captain….
"Kiss your brains goodbye, 'Yo-yo,'" the Captain chortled, finger on the trigger.
"No!" Desperate, Beat whirled around and wrapped his arms around his injured friend, shielding him with his own body.
The following gunshot succeeded only in clipping the end of the metal spike on Beat's right headphone. Soda had come up from behind and grabbed Hayashi's arm, pulling his aim off-kilter.
"Shit! Beat?!" Yoyo began to panic after hearing the gunshot and feeling his friend jolt against the impact. But his pounding heart relaxed with relief upon seeing his friend stand up on his own and turn away, calling,
"Soda!"
"Yeah?" The fellow GG responded, using a navy roller blade to kick Hayashi off the edge of the building. "Are you okay?"
"Yoyo's hurt!"
The captain fell into the canal, but splashed over to the opposite wall and began climbing it like a giant blue spider, using his wrist blade as a handhold in the flat concrete.
"Get him to the garage!" Soda shouted, arming himself with a spray can in each hand. "I'll hold off Hayashi!"
Beat debated saying more but, for a moment, could only stare up at his comrade with worried eyes.
"Okay," he eventually conceded, hoisting Yoyo's bloodied body over his shoulder and leaping off the opposite end of the building, landing in the middle of the alley below.
"Get back here!" Hayashi cawed with blood-lusting eyes as he pulled himself onto the rooftop, immediately beginning a sprint for the alley.
"Hah!"
Boost-dashing off the edge of the taller structure, Soda barrel-rolled into Hayashi in a perfectly executed Misty and emptied a spray can onto the back of his exposed jacket. Before he had the chance to use a second, however, Hayashi threw him off with an upward sweep of his claw arm. Soda tumbled over the edge of the building and into the alley. Hayashi followed, using Soda's stomach to springboard his landing. This allowed him enough air to use his claw to wallride across a nearby billboard and continue his pursuit of Beat and Yoyo. They weren't all that far away; Beat was using all his power without the aid of a boost dash, but was weighed down by his injured friend. But the nearest corner was only a few strides away.
Soda leapt to his feet, dismayed by the fact that only three cans remained in his possession. Besides that, Hayashi was out of range. He was catching up to his targets. And he was beginning to take aim at Beat with his pistol.
Soda's only chance was to throw the can.
With a full, deliberate swing of his long, wide arm, Soda hurled one of the metal cans forward. It tumbled through the air in a subtle arc and exploded in a sunburst of high lighter orange on the back of Hayashi's head.
"Damn it!"
Furious, the captain whirled around, sending orange droplets in infinite directions as he did so. Raising his pistol to eye level, he fired at Soda, aiming for the head. Too shaky due to rage, the bullet's path went slightly askew, succeeding only in grazing the GG's shoulder, causing him to jerk back and lose momentum. As he began to turn away and continue his pursuit, Hayashi fired one last, desperate shot, completely missing his target. But as he returned his focus to Beat and Yoyo and saw them round the corner and disappear, his initial goal blocked out the urge to kill his pursuer. He began to sprint after them with renewed resolve, turning the corner with his pistol raised as Soda slowly built back his momentum.
Soda spotted a billboard on the wall across from him, just halfway past the corner. If he could wallride across it, he might be able to get in front of Hayashi and hold him off.
He reached the corner, leapt for the billboard, wallrode across it and soared past Hayashi with an extra jump, skidding to a quick stop to face him. Immediately, the captain swiped at his obstruction with his wrist blade, but Soda had predicted this and raised one of his last spray cans in front of himself as a shield. The blade was half imbedded in it and a thick, black spray of paint coated Hayashi's face, neck and chest. Stunned, Hayashi was unable to react in time to repel a roller blade to the stomach. He flopped onto his back, splattering the ground with orange and black.
"That'll teach you to fuck with the GGs!" Soda declared before skating off towards his friends. But unlike before, Hayashi was not done yet.
"…Little punk."
The captain sat up and allowed drips of vivid black paint to coat his open eyes as he took aim at Soda for a final time and shot, sending a clap of air into endless echoes through an alley now cursed. The bullet had severed Soda's spine and ripped through his lung.
Nearing the end of the alley, at which a telephone pole stood waiting to offer escape, Beat stopped with sudden dread and turned around in time to watch his dedicated protector collapse for a final time, lying in a pool of blood too red to be paint. Beat's expression melted into the image of a silent wail as he realized that Soda wasn't going to get back up.
Barely conscious, Yoyo had also seen it all. His slowly fading, upside-down vision was further blurred by sudden tears. But his emotion was provoked by fury, not despair. It was the sight of Hayashi's paint-soaked, grinning face that had pushed him over the edge.
"You thought that punk would stop me?!" Hayashi howled in mad glee, hurling his wrist blade from his arm. It spun through the air and imbedded itself in the wall beside the two GGs, severing the wooden pole that had been their only means of escape. Beat was about to grab it to use as a weapon when it was suddenly yanked away. An extendable cord from Hayashi's sleeve had kept it anchored to him.
"You're next!" Hayashi cackled, throwing the blade again the moment it had returned to his hand. Just in time, Beat recoiled and ducked away, pulling Yoyo off his shoulder and propping him up in the corner to keep him out of the blade's range. As the blade was yanked back a second time, Beat snatched a spray can from Yoyo's pocket, then spun around and stood between him and the captain, arms spread, resolving to keep them apart at all costs.
"Get back, murderer!" He warned, desperation dripping from his lips.
Hayashi still hadn't lost his smile; his white teeth still flashed like the Chesire Cat's in the center of his midnight face. At least his gun was at his side, pointed at the ground.
"I see we're finally back where we left off," he noted, cocking his head like a hungry jackal. "But I only have one bullet left. I suppose I'll save it for your friend, after this claw rends out your insides, of course." Proudly, he held up the paint-spattered blade and watched it gleam, black and white in a faint beam of sunlight.
A tear-like bead of sweat trickled down Beat's face to his jaw.
"Well?" Hayashi prompted, expecting some sort of retort…preferably begging.
Instead, a giant black roller blade smashed into his crotch with vomit-inducing force, bringing the captain to his knees.
"Fuck! Fuuck! God damn…punk!"
Absolutely enraged, the captain raised his pistol-arm, aiming point blank for Beat's face. The GG grabbed onto Hayashi's arm before he could pull the trigger and forced him to the ground, pinning his arm to the concrete. With his free arm, Hayashi swiped for Beat's face, but he rolled to the side, evading the wrist blade by no more than a few inches. Hayashi's arm swung again with even greater force and range, but Beat had already jumped to his feet and suffered only a scratch to the shoulder. Before Hayashi could get up to his feet, Beat aimed his only spray can for his eyes and fired. Hayashi deflected the neon purple spray with his arm and wrist blade. His sleeve was instantly coated in ever thickening paint.
Beat was so focused on offense that he hadn't sensed Hayashi's next attack until it hit him. The wrist blade, though unable to cut through his skin, snagged on his shirt in a desperate slash and hurled him face down onto the ground with brutal momentum, crushing the breath from his lungs. The more he attempted to recover or even breathe in again, the more Beat realized that he was too stunned to do so.
"Beat!" Yoyo was still conscious. He almost wished that he wasn't. He didn't want to watch another friend die.
Hayashi shoved Beat onto his back with the sole of his shoe just as the GG finally managed to refill his lungs. Without hesitation, the captain placed his foot on Beat's chest and pressed, forcing him to exhale.
"After all that, it seems you deserve the quick death," he decided, aiming his pistol at the GG's forehead. "Your friend can have the honor to die by my claw. Alone."
But just before Hayashi fired, Cube leapt into the alley from above and tackled him to the concrete ground.