Alright, Chapter 2! And this one's gonna be pretty good, if you ask me. Thanks a lot to everybody who's reviewed and liked so far. Knowing people like this gives me the motivation to continue. But anyway! on to the good stuff.
Disclaimer: Lolruss555 owns neither Skullgirls or Madness combat, they belong to Lab Zero and Krinkles, respectively.
The Madness inside all of us
Chapter 2: The meeting
TRICKY
TRICKY
TRICKY
TRICKY
TRICKY
TRICKY
TRICKY
TRICKY
TRICKY
in the begi**ing of ti*e
torture…
th**e w*s dar**ess
blood…
w**le I lay r****ng in my mo****'s **mb
maim…
I so** b****e a p*** *f th* li*** wo**d
kill...
y**ng ** **dy
Listen...
e**l at h**rt, and with **ttle **ve around,
LISTEN!
I BECAME AWARE OF DEATH!
"DAMN IT!" Hank yelled as he shot up from his bed, slumping back into it as he realised he was just dreaming.
"Hah, Hah...! Not again…" Hank muttered in a cold sweat as he lied in his bed. It was that damn recurring nightmare again. Often, Hank never really had any nightmares, nor did he ever have any dreams. He only dreamed of blissful darkness and silence. However, ever since his 4th death, he began to have a rather… disturbing recurring nightmare. He didn't like to think about it at all, it involved that damn clown, and the things he does in that nightmare were even more appalling than usual. Before, it only ever happened whenever he died again, but as of late, it's been getting more frequent.
'maybe all this killing has finally caught up with me… or maybe that clown left more of a mark than I like to admit.'
The nightmare also had the Savior in it as well…but...
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buT
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but enough about that! it's about time Hank cleans himself up.
After stretching his muscles and hearing some satisfying cracks, Hank looks around the motel room he was staying in. It's a decently sized room that, for the most part, was clean. Hank currently had the shades down, as not to let any light in. Hank owed his current living accommodations, and by extension, his knowledge of where he was, to that kind couple who owned that bakery. After they invited him in for some delicious pie, they gave him a couple hundred dollars of this world's currency and directed him to the motel he was currently staying in. They would've let him stay with them, but they said they couldn't, something about it being too dangerous for all of them, or something along those lines. They also told him that he was in New Meridian, a part of some land called the Canopy Kingdom. Hank wasn't exactly sure what to think about this land so far, only that it was very strange. He was also informed about who the people he attacked were, but he would focus on that after he cleaned himself up. With that in mind, Hank went into the bathroom to take a shower.
As Hank let the hot water run, he removed his pants and grey boxer shorts, now bare save for his bandages.
'Now, here comes the hard part.' Hank thought with dread as he began to unwrap the tightly wrapped bandages around his body. After removing all of them, Hank momentarily took a look at himself in the steaming up mirror. From the neck down, Hank's entire torso and most of his arms were covered in scars and burned muscle. that explosion from his 3rd death did him no favors, because of it, his torso and arms just felt...numb. The worst part of it was, he was told the numbness would never fully go away even after his wounds fully healed Thankfully, Hank's hands were still okay, so he could still feel things, and there were some benefits to this numbness as well. Because of the lack of feeling in most of his upper body, he could easily tank a lot of damage without feeling much punishment, which has come in handy many times. However, one thing Hank needed to do constantly was make sure his bandages were replaced each day with fresh ones. While that wasn't a problem in it's own right, his exposed skin made taking showers very painful, and he wouldn't really be clean if he didn't. Normally, he would take a drug that the anti-AAHW gave him to ease the pain before taking a shower, but he had no such benefit right now. Despite that, Hank still held his breath and stepped into the hot stream of water. Afterall, Hank thought with gritted teeth, it was better to be clean than comfortable.
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'Well,' Hank thought as he began to dry himself up, 'It might just be in my head, but that wasn't as bad as I thought.' Instead of white-hot burning throughout his entire body, his shower just made him feel pins and needles. Maybe he was getting used to it? Well, whatever the reason, Hank just glad it was out of the way. After making sure his white hair was white hair was nice and fluffy, Hank reapplied a new set of bandages. With the medical tape snugly wrapped around his body, Hank put his clothes back on and took one last look at his face before putting his face mask and bandana up.
'Alright,' Hank thought as he put his guns in his coat and tied his sword sheath to his waste, 'time to raze the Medici Mafia to the ground.' Hank thought with glee and anticipation as he left his motel room. As it turns out, the thugs Hank attacked were actually members of the infamous Medici mafia. The couple who Hank saved from them informed him that they rule the Canopy Kingdom's criminal underworld with an iron fist and that Hank will likely be a on their hit list due to his actions the previous night. Considering Hank has already been the target of an organisation that was likely more powerful, Hank wasn't bothered in the slightest by this. In fact, it made him glad because now he would have something to do while figured out how to get back to Nevada! With that in mind, Hank left his motel room and began to walk among the streets of New Meridian.
While on his way to his destination, Hank noted, with some level of amusement, how he actually fitted in among the various people around him. A young man with red eyes, white hair, and his face obscured was just another face in the crowd compared to the blue-skinned Dagonians, ferals, and people with just as interesting hair and eye colors. It reminded Hank of his days in Nevada before his little… "outburst" at the park.
That being said, Hank began to notice something odd. He noticed that some of the girls he passed would give him a sideways glance and their faces would turn red (like blood!) for some reason before they would hurry off. Other times they would wave to him or giggle a little bit. Hank would wave in return, but was a little confused by their odd behavior. Was that a common way of greeting people in this kingdom? And if so, then why weren't there any guys doing that to him? Either way, Hank just concluded that this was another weird thing about this place before moving on.
After about an hour or so of following the directions given to him, Hank eventually found himself nearing his destination. He now found himself across the street from a vacant lot housing what appeared to be an abandoned factory. However, the information he received from Scyllo apparently suggested otherwise.
When Hank expressed his interest in going after the Medicis to Scyllo, he was reluctant to let Hank put his life on the line like that, however, after seeing how Hank wouldn't stray in his desire to take down the Medicis, he eventually revealed some information he overheard about the Medici's repurposing an old factory to help manufacture weapons. Deciding that would be the best place to start (and since he nothing else to go on), Hank chose to begin his assault against the Medicis here.
As Hank began to cross the street and neared the factory, he took note of two men guarding the front entrance. Now while Hank was the type of guy to go in "guns blazing", He decided to give himself a little self-imposed challenge to make things more interesting. He was to sneak into this place undetected and, before all hell broke loose, scare the guys inside shitless. With that goal in mind, Hank used the parked cars as cover and sneaked over to the side of the building undetected before he scaled the wall up the building. As luck would have it, one of the windows proved to be unlocked, and so Hank now found himself in the factory's old accounting offices.
Seeing that nobody was inside the dusty room, Hank quickly made his way to the outer hallway. Deciding it would be a good idea to see the layout of this place, Hank quickly headed to the announcement room. Once he found his way there, He saw some punk in a suit talking on his phone, completely ignoring the person behind him
"Yeah, the shipment should be ready to go by the end of the week boss. With all of this, Parasoul and her Egret shoe shiners won't know what hit em if they ever try to knock down our-HRRK!" Was all the mobster could say before Hank ripped out his damn spine. The man fell down to the floor, his phone blaring with the sounds of an angry voice on the other end.
"Hello!? What the hell happened!? Say something you FU-!" Whatever the person on the other end of the line was going to say ended abruptly as Hank stomped the phone into pieces. Now that the annoying voices were gone, Hank could actually take a look around the room now. Hank found himself in what appeared to be the announcement room. In this room he could see everything that was going on in the assembly lines. Various thuggish men were working on the lines to assemble various guns one would find on mobsters in the 1940s, from revolvers to Tommy guns, to even concealed sleeve guns! With the amount they were producing, one could supply a small army. Taking his eyes away from the assembly lines below, Hank looked through the rest of the room to see if there was anything that could help him, and as luck would have it, he found everything he would've needed and then some! To sum it up, Hank found four things that would give him the perfect opportunity to get under the skin of these thugs and mobsters. He found: fuse box next to the exit of the room which would allow him to cut the power to the lights, a ladder to the bars keeping the lights up(1), a goddamn chainsaw, and most importantly, a portable microphone. Now, some of you might be wondering, why would Hank need a microphone to help with this little attack of his? Well, to get under their skin a bit, Hank was going to deliver a little speech to these mobsters after he cut the power, and hopefully, it would freak them out before he went in for the kill.
'ohhhh, yeah.' Hank thought as he gathered everything required. 'This is gonna be a lot of fun.'
* *
'Well, whatever,' Anthony thought. 'As soon as the muscle here meet today's required quota, I can head off and relax at the River king.' Anthony thought as he relished the idea of enjoying an evening at New Meridian's hottest casino.
Unfortunately for Anthony, he wouldn't live long enough to do so.
Right as Anthony was about to demand the workers stop slacking off, the lights suddenly went off, leaving everybody in darkness. "ARGH, DAMN IT! Somebody get the lights back on!" Anthony yelled, angry at having to deal with more delays, did the asshole in charge of contacting Lorenzo break one of them!? However, before anybody could go and see what was wrong with the fuses, everybody present began to hear something revving up above them.
"W-Wha… what the hell's going on!?" Anthony demanded, taking his snub-nose revolver out, an action everybody else present followed as the revving turned into the angry growl of a chainsaw, of all things. As soon as that followed, a voice, seemingly amplified throughout the entire factory, spoke up, delivering a chilling preach.
"In the beginning of time, there was darkness," The voice began.
"While I lay resting in my mother's womb, I soon became a part of the light world." It continued. A few of men began to fire off some shot's at the ceiling in a panic, but nobody could tell if they even hit anything.
"Hehehe… Young in body," The voice laughed out, obviously amused by the panicked shots.
"Evil at heart, and with little love around-" "ENOUGH OF THIS BULLSHIT!" Anthony yelled out, masking his terror with false bravado. "Come out and face me you COWARD! I'm not afraid of you or your fucking mind games!" He declared boldly, although his shaking body suggested otherwise. For one unbearable moment, it was silent, save for the growling of the chainsaw. Then, an evil, chilling, laugh began to echo through the entire factory. Suddenly, something dropped from the wiring and bars above and landed right on Anthony's chest.
It was only a split second before everything turned red, but it was enough for anthony to see him. Standing on his chest, with a chainsaw raised high above him, was a figure clad entirely in black. What stood out, however, were the glowing red eyes that had the fires of pure and utter madness inside them. Anthony could only scream in terror before Hank drove the chainsaw into his chest, ripping the mobster apart. The men around him could only watch in horror as they witnessed an event that felt like it was ripped right out of a slasher film, fear paralyzing them. Eventually, Hank pulled his bloodied chainsaw out of the bloody remains of the man and turned to everybody else, blood sprinkled across his face and a terrifying smile etched across his mouth.
"YOUNG IN BODY, EVIL AT HEART, AND WITH LITTLE LOVE AROUND, I BECAME AWARE OF DEATH!" Hank screamed out, bloodlust and madness clear in his glowing red eyes. The following couldn't even be classified as a fight, that would imply somebody fought back. No, what followed was a slaughter as Hank tore through everybody in the factory without mercy and left no survivors.
So, to say the least, it was really inconvenient that the Medici decided to repurpose what used to be a chainsaw factory to produce guns.
(1):Yeah, I'm not sure what they're called, but almost every factory has these bars near the ceiling that holds the lights up. If you know what they're called, PM me about it, and I'll make sure to change it.
Bonus content: Pre-battle dialogue (neutral.)
[Hank's start-up animation begins with him facing away from the camera, in the middle of pulling his face mask up, before drawing his Dragon Sword and turning to his opponent]
Quote 1: "Do me a favor and put up a fight, I want to enjoy myself."
Quote 2: "Let's enjoy this time together, I know I will."
Quote 3: "Hmmm, more bloodshed… I guess this world isn't so different from mine after all."
Quote 4: "Man, everyone and everything here is so colorful!"
I think this chapter was pretty good, but I'm gonna love the next one! That'll be where the plot of this arc REALLY kicks off! As usual, give me your thoughts if you have anything to say about the story. I always enjoy hearing everybody's opinion about it. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, later!
