chapter two: the blood-splattered BRIDE
four years, six months earlier
There were no words. Harvar had been a cop for six years, fresh out of high school. He had seen a lot in that time - gang violence, corruption, and organized crime. But this was a bloodbath of epic proportions.
Nine people -technically, ten- were dead and strewn about the chapel like a grotesque Renaissance painting. None had been spared, not even the man that played the piano. He was on the ground just behind his bench, a pool of blood a foot in diameter beneath him. Gold bullet casings littered the ground, making it hard for the crime photographers to find them all for their pictures. It was hot and sticky out; the doors were open, and someone had brought a fan, but it didn't help much.
He inspected the bodies that were in clusters, starting with the preacher and his mother. The other five were under investigation - they had family that had to be notified, arrangements that were to be made. But the bride was the one that had thrown them the most; her name was fake, her prints were burned off, and they had yet to find a match to her DNA in the system.
Someone had thrown on the local Rockabilly station, much to his chagrin; he hated this kind of music, so he stepped outside. He was waiting for his boss to show up - then they would be able to conduct a more thorough investigation. He heard heavy metal coming from an approaching undercover car before muting itself quickly. His partner and boss, Ox Ford, stepped out and fixed his suit coat. Ox was privy to his way of thinking; though a bit more brash and his ability to recall simple facts was beyond exhausting, Ox offered an insight that was widely respected and typically was very informative.
"So, what's it like in there?" Ox nodded towards the open doors, the smell of sour blood spilling out into the Texas heat. He blanched, not ready to view the scene quite yet. Harvar's expression changed to a deep frown, and that told Ox more than enough.
"Nine dead bodies. We're talking the works; bride, groom. Reverend. Reverend's mother. They even shot the organ player." Ox began to slowly ascend the steps, his eyes on the ground in front of him.
"It would appear as though someone objected this union... And couldn't hold their peace," Harvar smacked his arm, telling him the joke was in bad taste, but he agreed nonetheless; this was something personal. But it was done so cleanly that it appeared as the work of professionals. Ox took in the room and he let out a low whistle, fixing his jacket while doing so.
They began to walk the length of the floor, trying to avoid the numerous shells that littered the ground and some of the pews. "It's like a goddamn Nicaraguan death squad," Harvar swore under his breath. It was Ox's turn to hit him, before removing and cleaning his glasses.
"This is a house of God, Harvar. You better watch that blasphemy here." He nodded in acknowledgement and Ox put his glasses back on. They stood only a few feet away from a body clad in white. He took a moment to look at each body from where he stood and absently tucked his hand in his pocket.
"This is definitely the work of professionals. Death Squad's the right track - four, maybe five of 'em... This isn't the work of an amateur."
"This is the work of a salty dog." Ox took a moment to think about what his partner was saying - and it made sense. This was a wedding, after all. Only one kind of person would destroy such a precious day, and that would be someone who had been slighted. This was personal.
Ox slowly approached the bride, Harvar following. "You can tell by how clean this is, that someone meticulously planned this out with a group of people. If you were a moron, you could almost admire it." He looked down at her and his eyes roved her face. If he took away the bruises, cuts, and blood, she was a gorgeous woman. Her hair was ashy blonde and long, and her body suggested curves - but the worst part was her swelled stomach. She had been pregnant. He snapped his fingers for Harvar to fill in her name.
"Name on the marriage certificate is Arlene Machiavelli - a fake, obviously. We've just been calling her The Bride. On account of the dress."
"You'd have to be nuts to shoot a goddamn good-lookin woman like that in the head. Look at her," he leaned over her and continued to admire her superficial beauty, "Ashy, soft hair. Big, doe eyes. She's like a blood-splattered angel."
She recoiled, almost imperceptive, and hawked one right in his open mouth. Ox flew back in disgust, running outside to induce vomitting. Harvar ran out after him, trying to ask him what had happened. After he finished retching and had wiped his mouth, Ox donned a look that his partner had never seen. His face was twisted with disgust and embarassment as he spat his next words.
"That tall drink of cocksucker isn't dead."
-i guess this is the six months later part-
She approached the building and shook her umbrella of excess water, almost skipping inside. She was overjoyed right now, but she had to play it cool. She looked around as she entered the hospital doors briskly, her one eye taking in the security cameras and the orderlies, the doctors and patients. She had been told the room she was to look for was on the way to the critical care unit - it was an observation room with a window outside of it, just after a set of large security doors.
She navigated the halls expertly, and once she found the right one, she ducked into a supply closet. This is where her fun began.
She slipped off her long purple cloak, revealing her skimpy black dress. She giggled happily as she slipped out of that as well, reaching into her bag and pulling out a similarly skimpy nurse's outfit. It was like a second skin, and her breasts barely fit in it. She buttoned it up as best she could, before smoothing it out and placing a small hat atop her head. She stepped out of her black boots and replaced them with a pair of shiny red pumps. Reaching back into the bag, she pulled out an unidentified vial of reddish liquid.
She grabbed a silver tray and a blue hospital parchment and set them down, and after a bit of searching, she found sterile needles. She helped herself to one and uncapped it, watching as she drained the liquid into the needle's chamber slowly. She pushed on the pump and waited for a bit of the fluid to come out, confirming the elimination of air in the syringe. She laid it and the vial carefully on the tray and shoved her clothes in the bag before hiding it. Smoothing down her dress one more time before grabbing the tray, she left the closet and began to make her way down the hall, her heels clicking loudly in the area between CCU and ICU.
She hooked a left and peered in through the window, a smug look on her face.
BLAIR
member
DEADLY VIPER ASSASSINATION SQUAD
codename:
FELINE FATALE
She entered the room and closed the door quietly behind her. As she turned to face her greatest adversary, she was overcome with a feeling of absolute victory. She set her tray down and a grin broke out across her face as she looked down upon one of the greatest warriors she had ever met - but one of the people she hated most passionately. She reached out and waved a finger under her prey's nose to test for breath. Once she affirmated that she was, indeed, comatose, she allowed herself to feel victory more wholly.
"I might never have liked you. Point in fact, I despise you! But that doesn't mean I don't respect you, kitten." She had expected the silence, and the only response she got was a deep breath. She reached over and grabbed the syringe and uncapped it, delicately setting the cap back on the tray.
"Dying in our sleep is a luxury that our kind is rarely afforded - my gift to you~" Her tone was still jovial, even as she pushed the needle into the extra dock on her network of tubes. Just as she pushed on the plunger, her phone rang and her irritation came out. She removed the syringe and angrily put it back onto her tray. "For fuck's sake," she mumbled while trying to get her phone from her ridiculously tight outfit. She flipped it open and smiled a little, her happy tone back.
"Hello, Soul."
"What's her condition?" Blair licked her lips and looked at her heart monitor, then back down at the syringe.
"Comatose."
"Where is she?" He asked a little too quickly, to her ire. He was fiddling nervously with his sword handle, anxious to hear news about the woman he had loved, killed, and let go of all at the same time.
"I'm standing over her right now."
"That's my girl." He knew she was pissed at him for asking so much about -, but he heard her flirty giggle on the other end and knew he had been forgiven. Well, it was nice while it lasted.
"Blair, you're going to abort the mission." The way she screamed 'what' on the other end made him think, for a split second, that an 89-year old, pack-a-day smoker had grabbed it and screamed for her. He tried to console her, telling her to relax.
"We owe her better than that."
"You don't owe her shit." It wasn't a growl, it wasn't a scream. It was between a hiss and a snarl, and he actually had to pull the phone away from his ear. He winced in pain at her volume.
"Would you keep it down?"
"You. Don't. Owe. Her. Shit." She whispered with enough force and venom to make them both think she popped a blood vessel in her eye. She was beyond pissed. She was filled with seething rage. She could flip that scrawny bitch out of her bed and kill her. How could he take this away from her? He was the one that told her to come do this, and now it was suddenly, 'we owe her'?
"May I say one thing?" He asked, almost meekly. Blair hoped he was scared right now.
"Speak." She said shortly, and he took this opportunity to try and rectify the situation.
"You beat the shit out of her. But you didn't kill her. I put a bullet in her fuckin dome, and her heart just kept on beating. And you saw it with your own beautiful gold eye, did you not? We've done a lot of bad to her, and if she ever wakes up, we'll do a helluva lot more... But one thing we won't do is sneak into her room, at night, like a filthy rat and kill her in her sleep. And we will not do this because that, Blair, would lower us. Don't you concur?"
It took a long time before he heard any movement on the other line. He heard the sound of clothes shifting before a long, suffering sigh.
"I guess."
"Do you really have to guess?"
"Smartass... No, I know."
"Come home, babe." She smiled and affirmed his order, though she was still rather upset at her sudden withdrawal from something she had been looking very forward to. She sniffled a bit to get her point across and she could almost hear the smile in his sigh.
"We cool?" She laughed this time and nodded, though he couldn't see it - the laugh had been enough. They bid each other goodbye and she hung up, wiping the tear that threatened to fall. She turned around and faced the woman again and her visage twisted into something lothesome, her anger returned.
"Thought that was pretty fucking funny, didn't you? Word of advice, fuckface, don't you ever wake up."
-four years later-
This side of the hospital was cold and quiet; it was where they housed most of their coma patients, and as such, nurses could hear each other walking when they're five or six rooms down. The EKG and the occassional deep breath were the only other sounds occupying the room The Bride had occupied for the better part of four years.
She lay motionless, time standing still for her as she continues to heal her wounds and plot her vengeance.
A mosquito invades her section of the room and lands on her forearm, sticking her with its jaw and beginning to suck her blood. Her eyes flew open as she wrenched herself from the comfort of the bed. She was breathing heavy, heart pounding as she gasped for breath she couldn't seem to find. Her world stopped as her last memory came back to her, and her hand shot to her head -
"This is me at my most... Masochistic."
She sucked in a breath between her teeth and she felt her body fill with a cold fury. She was shaking hard as she lifted her head a few inches from the ground, her eyes boring into his; she never wavered, and her voice was steady.
"Soul... It's your baby."
He pulled the trigger before she even finished her sentence, the casing turning into place and the gunpowder activated; the bullet was fired with man-made speed as it came screaming from his gun, and it was coming straight for her-
Her hand went to the spot due to reflex, but was startled to find a metal plate in the area of skull it had entered. She almost couldn't even believe she was alive in the first place. How long had it been? Where was she - still in Texas, or had he dumped her elsewhere? What about-
Her hands immediately went to her stomach, only to find the large round mass to be gone. A coldness spread through her and her mouth curled in a disgusting frown; her nose scrunched up as she tried to keep from crying.
Her hands roved the area and slowly pulled up the hospital gown. A large scar was on her stomach, revealing a C-section. Her baby had died that day, and it was all his fault. She pressed her hand hard against the smooth scar tissue while the other one balled up in the gown.
She couldn't hold back the scream that tore itself from her chest, nor the wails that followed. She wept hard for the future she tried so hard to seize for her baby - only for it to be snatched up by the very person she was running from. Her life was effectively over - her friends, her family. They were all dead, and her baby, oh god, her baby.
Her hands rubbed her stomach as she continued to weep, fragments of her memory continuing to connect. She needed to grieve, but she also needed to start planning. Tears streamed her face and blurred her vision, but still she lifted her hands to her face as she read her palms.
"Four years?" She whispered desperately. She clenched her fists and her attention was then drawn to the slamming of a door. Someone was coming. She tried to slow her breathing and she quickly wiped her face before slamming back down on the bed; her heart finally slowed as the door opened. She felt her bed being moved but continued to feign sleep. There was no speech between either person who had entered, nor had she heard much in the way of nurses on their way through the hospital.
It took a while, and an elevator ride, but they finally stopped rolling her bed around. She could hear the sound of a match, and then she smelled cigarette smoke. She struggled to hide a grimace in displeasure. He pulled the blankets from her body and took another drag from his cigarette.
"Price is $10 per stitch, and $50 if you want to take anything out. You can't do any work on her head, vagina, or her breasts. It all stays in the lower abdomen. Do you understand?" The first voice sounded mildly interested - in the way of someone studying their favorite subject. The second man must have nodded, because the first one left.
"Hopefully now they'll let me operate." The man mumbled as he pulled her hospital gown up. He had a scalpel in his hand and was going to cut just below her navel when her hand shot out and, in his surprise, he was unable to fight her when she forced the scalpel around and through his eye. He had no time to scream, but he flopped uselessly on the floor for a minute before he finally stilled. She sat up in her bed and looked around nervously.
He took her to the fucking morgue.
There were a few bodies on either side of her, and it was absolutely freezing down here. She was pretty much naked, as well. The man she had killed happened to be wearing scrubs, so she sat on the edge of the bed and went to stand -
Only for her to crumple to the floor in a heap. Confused, she turned her attention to her legs, trying to make them move. Realization dawned on her that she hadn't been up and about in four years. Her legs were completely numb. She sighed and quickly stripped him down before slipping into his clothes.
By the time she had finished dressing herself, she heard someone approaching. Thinking quickly, she pulled the scalpel from the man's head and drug herself to the door. She waited for the man to close it before she swung at his Achilles tendon, only for him to lift the leg to bring it down on her in an axe-kick.
She moved at the last minute and drove the scalpel into his calf, which took him off-guard and off-balance. He fell backwards and she slashed his other heel - he had cracked his head on the ground as well. He tried to shake the dizzyness as she drug him towards the heavy door, but could do nothing as she screamed in his face, "Where's Soul!" before slamming the door on his head. He grunted in pain, but she only repeated this and slammed his head once again.
"I don't know who Soul is!"
"Bullshit!" She shrieked, hitting his head one more time. He was dazed and bleeding, and she finally read his name tag. Franken Stein. A memory washed over her suddenly, one from while she was in a coma -
"Well, aren't you just a darling little thing." He purred, leaning over her torso while she slept soundly. If he hovered over her face, she would spit; and he didn't want that. He lifted up her hospital gown and pressed his scalpel to her skin, a delighted giggle escaping him when he drew blood.
"I'm Dr. Stein. I'll be taking care of you tonight."
She contorted her frown into a gross smile, spelling out doom for Stein.
"You're my Doctor, right? And you're gonna take care of me, right?" She hissed. His eyes grew wide and he tried to utter anything consoling, but she slammed the door once more and it cracked his skull in such a way that a fragment shot through his brain. He convulsed for a few minutes and she fell back against him, exhausted from so much movement. She heaved a few breaths before reaching into his pockets, looking for cash or keys.
She didn't expect to pull out a small, dick-shaped key-chain with a bright orange key attached to it. She made a face of mild disgust before rolling her eyes and rolling his body and the other's behind the door. She procured a wheelchair and after hefting herself up into it, she made her way to an elevator.
It was apparently two in the morning, and as such, no one was privvy to her prison escape. She wheeled herself through the parking garage, trying to figure out how she'd find a match to this key. Almost every license plate was of Texas, which answered her prior question. Now she could begin formulating an actual plan. She rolled down what seemed to be another dead-end, when she spotted it.
It was bright orange and in bold, glittering gold letters, "COCK ROCKET" marked one of the most unique things she had ever seen. It was a sizeable bike, and it had a side car emblazoned with flames. She pulled the key from her pocket and groaned aloud. This would be her set of wheels. But she couldn't do anything in her condition. At least, not yet. She got up right beside the side car and with a careful precision, she transitioned from seat to seat on pure upper-body strength. She got comfortable and then she stared at her starting point.
"Wiggle your big toe."
She waited patiently for a response - subconscious or conscious, anything. But nothing happened. She repeated herself. Minutes passed, and she folded her hands in her lap. This was going to be long - but she had time. She wasn't worried.
'As I lay in the side car of Stein's motorcycle, trying to will my limbs out of entropy, I could see the faces of the cunts who did this to me, and the dicks responsible.'
She felt her face get hot as she remembered her old associates. She repeated herself and again waited. It was completely silent in the concrete garage; she wasn't particularly worried about anyone spotting her, either. There was a tarp draped neatly across the bike. She simply put it over herself; not to mention, he parked in the far corner of one of the last rows.
'Members all of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. When fortunes smiles on something as violent -and ugly- as revenge, it seems proof like no other that not only does God exist, but we're doing His will.'
She could see them all standing over her now. The satisfaction in Blair's eyes, and the resignation in Black*Star's. But the face that stood out the most to her was the cold, distressed face of someone she considered a close friend.
'At a time when I knew the least about my enemies, the first name on my death list, Tsubaki Nakatsukasa, was the easiest to find. But of course, when one manages the difficult task of becoming queen of the Tokyo underworld, one doesn't keep it a secret; does one?'
TSUBAKI NAKATSUKASA
member
DEADLY VIPER ASSASSINATION SQUAD
codename
DARK ARM
