With a flurry of red petals to announce their arrival, Eleanor reappeared still upholding Gracie with Doc holding the woman around the waist. Eleanor continued crying almost unaware of her new surroundings. Doc Johnson, meanwhile, and realized they had instantaneously transported to…
"The diner?" In a matter of seconds they had moved at least six hundred feet. The thought astonished him but not as much as the pure dread upon examining Gracie's wounds.
"Eleanor, Eleanor," he shouted. "You have to put her down so I can look at her. Here, rest her up against this wall."
Eleanor slowly propped Gracie against the wall then turned around and slugged the doctor across the face. The man flailed around before hitting the ground. His nose was clearly broken from the impact.
"Don't you touch her! You, you brute!"
At that moment Gracie lifted a weak arm towards her only daughter. "El… Elea-nor," she gasped weakly. The girl rushed to her side and held her already cold hand. Tears streamed down her face. Gracie grimaced with each breath and squeezed the girls hand to comfort her.
"I'm not letting you go," she cried out.
Eleanor placed her hand over the wound to stop the bleeding but it was in vain. Hopelessness ate away at her but she endured it. Eleanor wanted her Aunt Gracie back. She wanted her aunt to be… HEALED.
"That light," Doc Johnson exclaimed standing behind Eleanor. "Your hand!"
Both Eleanor and Gracie looked where the girl's hand lay pressed against the woman's wound. Her hand was indeed glowing. Gracie felt a tingling sensation as her internal injuries became restored. Her breathing still remained in labor but her lung expanded as the hole in her chest cavity slowly closed.
While Doc Johnson stared in awe of Gracie's miraculous recovery he felt something splat against his back. He turned around to see no one there and looked at his back to see red goop filter into his clothes. He felt like laughing… no crying… No he felt angry. Angry that things had gone this way. How dare this floozy girl refuse to save their community. It wasn't their fault Gracie was shot, it was Eleanor's for not coming quietly. But she would pay dearly for this.
Eleanor could not only feel a massive amount of energy leave her body but also the wave of energy emulating from her hand. A second later, Gracie's would stitched itself together and some color returned to her face.
"My sweet, sweet Eleanor, I don't know what- Doc no," Gracie exclaimed as Doc Johnson plunged a little sister's hyper-needle into Eleanor's back.
The hyper-needle began draining ADAM from Eleanor's back at an alarming rate. With red eyes the man harshly yanked the needle from the girls back and quickly drank the crimson liquor. Johnson hardly had the time to wipe his mouth before the affects flung him backwards. Random plasmids began firing off from his hands.
Eleanor mouth remained agape until somebody tapped her shoulder. It was Fred Tumble. The man who only seconds ago had tried to shoot her and almost killed Gracie.
"You!"
The man held up his hands in surrender. "I- I know now we were wrong. I'm here to protect Gracie so you don't have to. Johnson needs your help more than I do."
"You'll protect her," she inquired.
He solemnly nodded.
"I'll hold you to that!"
Swaying to her feet, Eleanor circled around the thrashing Doc while keeping a decent perimeter away from him. Eleanor gritted her teeth as she saw Johnson stand back up. His face had warped beyond recognition but his red eyes remained the same.
"Mister Johnson," Eleanor called out to him while trying to draw his attention away from Aunt Gracie. "Doc Johnson," she repeated waving her hands.
The Doc held up his hand sending a wave of fire in her direction. As the flames approached, Eleanor leaped out of the way but Johnson had teleported to her location and caught her by the neck.
"You called," He replied laughing hysterically.
A second later Eleanor found herself reappearing in market still being chocked by Johnson. He threw her in the corner and laughed again.
"More power," Doc Johnson screamed. His eyes were blood shot and drool slathered from his mouth. "I need more power! You no longer have any say in what belongs to use anymore. I will take it and rule…" The man grabbed his forehead and staggered for a moment. Then his entire left arm lit on fire and he spread flaming barrier around the corner in which Eleanor was trapped.
"N-no not rule, protect. Protect with an iron fist I will. Any that fall out of line will be punished f-for their own goooood." A ball of electricity erupted around the doctor sending all who were present to the ground in spasms.
Eleanor spread her hands out and countered the electrical wave with a smaller version of her own. The waves canceled each other but the result left her feeling drained and for the second time that day she tasted bile mixed with blood. She slumped against the wall and sat there. Her arms felt lifeless but still she struggled. "You are nobodies protector. You are no saint and hardly fit the profile of an antihero. It is too late for that. Look around you."
With his prey within his grasp, Johnson took the liberty to take a look around the market square. The entire mob, which had come to take Eleanor away, now stood around him. Some immediately hid from his gaze while others trained their weapons on what used to be Doc Johnson. He could feel their looks of disgust and rejection puncture his soul. "You all feel… I did this for you all. I did this for you ALL."
A man stepped forward, his gun still pointed at Johnson. "This isn't what we wanted. Now if you calm down we can fix this. You're not well John. Now come on… we're friends right. You're a member of Pauper's Drop."
The fiery embers slowly died on his arm. The seared skin slowly rebuilt itself until his arm was whole again with the exception of several major scars. The man tilted his and muttered something inaudible. "Friend, member of the community? You mean this dump? This hell hole? No, now that I've got power I will caste my lot aside for a better one. The question is: will you get in my way? My old friend."
A blob of fire shot from Johnson's palm and impacted the man's chest sending him flying backward. The angered crowd open fired on the lone splicer who replied with more volleys of incinerate three. It seemed to be a struggled between who could last the longest. At the moment the battle seemed to favor Johnson because the guns didn't seem to affect him while the remainder of the community seemed to drop like flies with their burns. But as Johnson repetitively used the plasmid the charred portions of his skin seemed to enlarge. Instead of breathing air, Johnson now inhaled the fumes his burning remains gave off. Johnson no longer laughed but with each toxic breath he now screamed in pain. His body was burning at a rate his stolen regenerative power could not keep up with. Within moments the fire died leaving a charcoaled, half dead man that writhed on the ground.
A lone woman staggered through the crowd. One hand pressed to her chest for the pain it was giving her and a revolver in the other. Everyone gasped as they followed the sound of footsteps to its source. Gracie, being supported by Fred Tumble, was now fully alive and well.
Cheers erupted briefly then died as they gazed upon her stone cold face. With Fred's help, Gracie slowly plodded to the middle of the scene where Johnson lay sprawled on the street shuddering. What was left of Johnson's eyes turned to see Gracie approached him. He made a plea in the form of a guttural sound but saw no pity in her dark eyes. Gracie Holloway halted a couple feet from Johnson kicking up dust that stung his raw skin. She pointed the revolver at the man's temple.
"Enough is enough."
As Gracie pulled the trigger Johnson's eyes widened. The cylinder rotated until the chamber aligned with the barrel sending the round flying threw Johnson's head killing him.
The somber crowd slowly and quietly dispersed from the scene. Soon the market was all but quiet with a single person wall-crawling on the ceiling. Her hooks clattered against the crumbling surface. She leapt down to the corpse and studied it. She poked it with one of her hooks only to see the ashes collapse into a silhouette pattern.
"Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, not a thing, a thing of not, NOTHING," exclaimed Lucy, Johnson's former assistant. "Idiot, moron, bonehead, cretin, dimwit, dork, dumbbell, dunce, IMBECILE," she screamed. "That ADAM was mine. My one chance. That Lamb chick will pay for this."
With that she jumped to the ceiling and clambered away through Pauper's Drop to plan her next strike.
Author's notes: With all the talk-talk-talking that's been going on i felt it was high time for some action. And while this might be too much or too little (lol) i don't care. Its how the story turned out. I actually didn't plan for any of this but it came about on its own. I wish filler was this good.
This pretty much wraps up Pauper's drop minus the leaving part. I wanted to use actually areas in the game and found an awesome map that detailed the entire area. i was thinking about arcadia next but i want to use Bioshock 2 areas more. Stay tuned and please leave any nots of praise, concerns, and comments in general.
ps sometime i do repeat words or misspell them accidentally and even windows vista won't catch the mistakes so do let me know and i'll get on it.