Tombstone
Rock winched as the duck tap that gagged him was ripped off. He watched as the military worn man walked outside the room, returning a few seconds later carrying Po over his shoulder. He placed her in a chair next to Rock before removing the tape from her mouth, he then proceeded to give the handcuffs that bounded Po and Rock a once over before quietly exiting the room.
"Po?" Rock whispered to the gunwoman who seemed to be in a daze, a daze that snapped back to reality as soon as another man walked in. Rock looked up and recognized the custom eye patch immediately.
"Suraj." Po growled.
"And a hello to you again fair Erica." Suraj replied, giving a courteous bow. He grabbed the third chair that was in the room and spun it around forwards before sitting in front of Po and Rock.
"Now, why the long faces? Are you not enjoying your stay here?" Suraj commented, barely holding back his mocking smile. His eye then swiveled in Rock's direction.
"You've been quite quiet now haven't you? And here my first impression of you was that of a sniveling baby that'd try to talk his way out. Or at least until that gun toting girlfriend of yours bails you out, am I right?"
"I'm not going to dignify that with a response." Rock replied, "but I would like to know this: Do you even know what you're looking for?" Suraj only threw his head back and laughed, even pretending to wipe an imaginary tear from his eye.
"Whew, that's a good one; do I know what I'm I looking for? What a card you are." Suraj responded, then without warning he punched Rock square in the mouth from his seat. Rock reeled, but kept himself from falling over.
"Listen boy, this isn't my time doing this. What? Did you want to hear me say "The Tombstone Virus"? If you're going to ask a question, don't make it a stupid one."
"So what happened to your fourth man, Reins?" Po asked, her eyes never faltering from their death stare, even as she knew what was coming.
"Reins?" Suraj said, pretending to tilt his head back in thought, "I pretty sure I left him somewhere in the Indian Ocean. I don't take to kindly to insubordination. But enough about me, I want to talk about someone more...sensual." Po cringed as Suraj grasped a handful of her left breast. She grunted as he began to roughly massage it, while slowly unzipping her tactical vest. Rock looked away, not wanting to think about what was about to happen.
"Ah, Po you're just as beautiful as I remember." Suraj whispered in ear while simultaneously reaching his hands under her tank top and pants.
"Go fuck yourself." Po spat, but an involuntary groan creeps out, only encouraging him more as he began to suck and kiss at her neck.
"Wait, you don't know where the virus, is do you?" Rock suddenly said, still trying to think of ways to get Po out of her current situation. His plan seemed to work, for the moment.
"What did I just tell you about asking stupid questions?" Suraj said, only removing his left hand from inside Po's panties.
"Why else would you have us hostage other than to buy yourself undisturbed time to search the crates on the ship for the virus." The one eyed man gave Rock a bored yet threatening look.
"Okay so you figured out what I was doing, what do you want a cookie?" Suraj mocked.
"No but I do have one more question"
"Do you now, well feel free to ask, but I would like to finish my...desert, if you wouldn't mind." Suraj's hand dove back down inside her pants, as he pulled her tank top up exposing her gravity defying breasts.
"What does the virus do?" Rock shouted quickly.
Suraj looked him, then back at Po, who he then grabbed by the hair and sat on his lap. He responded while beginning to roughly kiss her shoulder, "Mmm, why don't you ask Erica, she knows." To put emphasis on his claim Suraj yanked her hair back causing her head to pitch upward, "Don't you?" Suraj whispered loudly into her ear.
Through her obvious pain, Po only laughed, "I'm not tellin' you shit."
"Wrong answer, Erica." Suraj growled, he grasped her tightly by the cheeks and yanked her forward placing her face inches away from Rock's. He unsheathed his combat knife placing it dangerously close to her crotch.
"This fine boy asked a question, now answer it." But Po ignored his demand, warranting a punch in the face and knife wound in the leg. If anything that moment, Rock wished he could kill Suraj, anything to put an end to Po's cries of pain. But to his surprise, Suraj himself stopped. While still clutching Po's hair, he reaching into his pocket and retrieved a small radio headset, similar to the ones the Lagoon crew used. He placed it to his ear, he only had a few seconds to listen before there was a knock on the door.
"Enter." Suraj commanded. A young Asian woman, heavily resembling a ninja stepped in.
"Pardon my interruption Captain." Her voice was eloquent; Rock could barely pick up the slight Japanese accent.
"Its fine, I was just about to finish up here. Situation report Tank."
"We've spotted the PT boat coming from the southeast side of the island."
"What about the search progress?"
"We've checked about 30% of the crates thus far, my apologies for our slow progression."
"No, this is fine, you are dismissed Tank." The swordswoman gave a customary bow before leaving.
"Now you see that, your knights in shining armor will soon be arriving." Suraj announced, Po whimpered as pulled he to her feet by her hair.
"And you got quite lucky today, I guess that means Interpol still knows what they're doing." Suraj remarked. He rammed his lips into Po's, forcing entry with his tongue before letting go of her hair and giving her a swift punt in the stomach. Po rolled across the room, hitting the back wall with tremendous bang.
"Kasey, take you squad, and rendezvous at the front of the boat. I don't want them getting to this side of the ship. Understood?" Suraj said into his headset. He then turned to Rock and a now dry heaving Po.
"Well it's been a pleasure my boy." Suraj said, giving a deep renaissance style bow to Rock.
"And the ever so tantalizing Erica, perhaps next time we can meet under more favorable circumstances." While still hunched over in pain, Po offered her middle finger to Suraj who just laughed and walked out of the room, locking the door behind him.
Immediately Rock turned to Po, " I'm so sorry I couldn't do anything, are you alright Po?"
"Yeah, Rock I'm fine." Po deadpanned while she spit out blood and bile from her mouth. Rock couldn't help but notice the express on Po's face during the entire ordeal. It was all too similar to Revy when she was in her blood thirsty gunner mode. That dark void replacing her eyes, it was a cold place the Rock still had trouble getting used to.
"I, um..." Rock slowly contemplated his next words, "Has something like this happened before?"
Po eyes lighted a little as she laughed to herself, "That's the thing about beauty Rock, it's always a double edge sword." she replied while sitting up against the wall. She dry heaved again before actually throwing up the contents of her stomach. A small black bar fell from her mouth and clanked to the floor.
"Ugh, finally." She said.
"Why? What is that?" Rock asked.
"Carson brand Swiss army knife, I made sure to shallow it before they searched me."
Upon seeing the PT boat, the guard standing watch in his speed boat frantically turned on his radio, which in retrospect was probably a mistake. Just as the lookout began to speak into his head set, the back of his skull exploded.
"Ha ha, headshot!" laughed Revy, "C'mon Dutch let's get this shit rollin'!" She barked as she reloaded the Remington.
"Right, let hurry up and do this, I wanna get back and have a couple of rounds at the Yellow Flag tonight." Dutch said.
"Fuckin' A"
Dutch floored the engines as the PT boat barreled toward the Sentinel. The sound of the Remington resonated as Revy's next bullet priced the heart of the second lookout. The Black Lagoon blew through the cluster of empty ships, damaging some within its wake. Dutch slowed his boat down as soon as they where neared the front of the cargo ship, he watched to make sure the Carson had successfully jumped to one of the many rope ladders before speeding off again. Carson quickly scrambled up the latter and looked side to side before making a b-line for the nearest open crate.
"He's up." Revy announced while scanning the deck of Sentinel.
"Good." replied Dutch as he speed the Lagoon around to the other side of the cargo vessel. Revy panned the vacant military boats with the Remington's scope, the third lookout she had counted was gone.
"Shit, the last guard already split Dutch." she snarled
"Doesn't matter as long as we have their attention," Dutch replied, he nodded to Marty who gave a thumbs up before exiting the cabin with the Lagoon company's RPG.
"Wait a sec'... it that? OH SHIT!" Revy examined as she dove into the Lagoon's top hatch. Instinctively Marty looked up then immediately mirrored Revy just as a high volume of 30mm rounds hit the Lagoon's deck.
"What the fuck was that?" Dutch asked as he swung the PT out of the cannon's range.
"That blonde bitch, she has fucking chain gun!" Revy explained, furious at the blonde gunwoman's ability to handle heavy weapons with relative ease.
"Damn." was Dutch's only reply. He swiftly moved the PT boat to rear of the Sentinel, circling back around to the where they had dropped Carson off.
"Weird," Benny commented, "you'd think there'd be more than just her shooting at us."
"No, they have the hostages. If anything they want us to bring to the fight to them." Dutch reasoned.
"Doesn't matter, I gonna make sure that ship is knee deep in blood when I'm finished." Revy growled.
"Well the plan doesn't change. Benny, tell Carson to put his head down." Dutch smirked. From the top hatch, Marty fired the RPG; it sailed with a bit of an upward arc before impacting the Sentinel's hull. Black smoke rose skyward as debris and shrapnel rained down into the water below. The PT pulled away from the cargo ship as another volley of 30mm bullets shot in its wake. Kasey frowned as she watched the old navy boat once again speed out of range of her heavily modified M230.
"Damnit, I'm like so tired of not being able to kill anyone today." Kasey complained, directing her speech to one of her personal squad members. He only glanced at her before moving to search the deck near the explosion. The blonde gunner pouted from being ignored before bringing her weapon at attention from the sound of gunfire. She and the rest of her squad carefully trotted through the maze a of metal crates and containers before coming across two blood stained mercenaries. She knelt down to look at their wounds; the hole in his chest suggested something of standard caliber, 9mm. She jumped up, scanning all the opening to the immediate area. It was only at the last second she heard the metallic tap of boots on a crate that she raised her chain gun in time see two figures wielding twin handguns leap down from over head.
Carson dashed as quietly as he could across the tops of the crates, making his way to the stern of the ship where the control room was located. He would stop now again to avoid a large group of armed thugs running in opposite direction. He arrived at the back of the ship and quickly slipped through on already open entry hatch, the interior was dank. It was obvious this wasn't a very young ship. After a few minutes of running, Carson finally came across a stair well. He flew up, skipping multi steps as he went, until he ran into opposition. The two mercenaries looked surprised at first, but quickly shouldered their P90's. Only one soldier for hire was able to shoot as the other when down clutching a knife in his chest. Carson jumped down a flight of steps while blinding throwing two more knifes at the remaining assailant. Landing on the platform below, Carson placed an active smoke grenade as inconspicuously as he could before franticly jumping down the next set of stairs, narrowly avoiding another wave of bullets. The grenade ignited quickly filling the stair well with an impermeable fog. Making sure he had estimated distances more than once, Carson dove into the smoke, survival and ballistic knife drawn. After a second or two of blind, white, nothingness Carson felt the bump of another person and immediately ducked as the P90 rounds sprayed over head. Carson leapt up with a stiff upward slash; he heard blood splatter as a body tumbled down the stairs. Not wanting to see the result of his actions, Carson stepped carefully through the smoke and continued he search for the control room. Upon arriving at the top floor the knife wielder rolled into the bridge as stealthily as possible, only to find that his antics had reached a nonexistent audience. He located the communications terminal before speaking into his borrowed head set.
"Okay I'm here, what do I do know Benny?" he asked.
"Wow that was faster than I though. Well you gonna need to find look under the board first." Benny explained. As quickly as he could manage, Benny walked Carson through the procedure of hardwiring a radio jammer. Several minutes later Carson hid the finished jammer inside the terminal, replacing the panels in order to deter suspicion. Armed with his two knives and making sure his book bag was on securely, Carson disappeared into the metal maze of the Sentinel's upper cabins.
Revy danced and twirled in plain sight as she dodged Kasey's chain gun fire. For her own amusement she would bull's-eye one of the mercenaries Marty was currently trying to kill. But behind her usual demonic smile was a face of frustration, if she could kill that blonde bitch she would have by now. Despite her armaments, Kasey was fast and unnaturally agile; on top of that she swung her Hughes M230 chain gun like it was a mere pistol. Revy had to stay as close as possible; the gaping holes in the surrounding crates were reminders not try ranged offense again. Two Hands dug her boot into the deck as she lunged for another decisive blow, but the blonde bombshell of a gunner held the cannon in one hand as she block the roundhouse with the other. Revy rebounded off her arm and spun around both Cutlasses blazing only to have Kasey jump back letting the custom blast plates on her M230 absorb the bullets. Revy frowned as she was forced to back flip out of the path of 30mm rounds, she flanked around jumping toward the nearest mercenary while shooting him in the neck. Revy bounded over fallen foe as she ran up the crate that was behind him. With little effort the gunwoman scaled a wall of two crates high, launching herself off near the top unleashing fresh clips at the bikini clad gunner. Kasey matched her maneuver as she slid to her knees firing her chain gun into the air. Both gunwomen dodge each other's bullets as Revy landed and rolled behind cover while Kasey spun around and continued to unload 30mm fire. Revy began to sprint around for another attack when she heard it, or more accurately everyone heard it. Every speaker on the ship began to play a recognizable tune, it was when the lyrics started that everyone stopped.
If there's something strange
in your neighborhood
Who ya gonna call?
GHOSTBUSTERS!
"What the fuck?" Kasey said aloud, "Captain! Suraj come in!" she yelled in her radio headset, until she realized it was no use. "Damn, it's on the radio too" she cried as she threw down her headset in frustration.
If you're seeing things
running through your head
Who can ya call?
GHOSTBUSTERS!
A few crates away Revy dropped beside Marty who was reloading her Grizzles.
"Is this Benny and knife boy's idea of buying us time?" Revy asked, almost laughing. Marty just nodded before standing and reengaging some nearby mercenaries.
I ain't afraid of no ghosts
I ain't afraid of no ghosts
Who ya gonna call?
GHOSTBUSTERS!
Revy laughed to herself before rolling from behind the crate and sprinting toward the blonde gunwoman, all but ready to finish the fight.
Dutch ducked behind another crate as small squad ran by, in disarray at the sudden loss of radio contact. He had to commend them though; Tundra had only been on the Sentinel for a short period of time but had efficiently and thoroughly searched every crate they had gotten to. Dutch peeked out of the crate his 870 at the ready before running out to continue his own search of the item at hand.
Po grunted in frustration as she continued to pick the lock of the handcuffs that bound her. Rock on the other hand had gotten to his feet and hoped over the door.
"Hey, Po, do you hear that?" he asked
"Yeah."
"What is that? It sounds somewhat familiar."
"Sounds like the Ghostbusters theme." Po replied as the handcuffs around her wrists opened with a satisfying pop.
"Um, what does that mean exactly?"
"That we'll be seeing my driver pretty soon." Po said as Rock turned to face her, his face now taking a more serious note.
"Po, why did Suraj mention Interpol?" he asked, his voice stern. Po stopped picking the handcuffs binding her legs, but did not look up.
"Why do you think he mentioned it?" Po responded, her tone darkening.
"I don't know Po, I don't know"
Carson dashed up and down the metallic hall ways of the cargo ship occasionally snapping his fingers to the tune of the Ghostbusters theme that was playing on a loop as he looked for any leads to where his two comrades had been taken. He skids to a stop when he realized his aimless running lead him into the ship's mess hall. The room was fairly wide, it was filled wall to wall with wooden tables and benches. He scanned the area, preparing to turn and leave when saw a kunoichi dressed in black calming eating a bowl of ramen. Carson froze at the sight, his next attempt to move was halted when a throwing needle pierced his arm. He dove behind the nearest table narrowly avoiding another barrage of needles.
"So fast" Carson said to himself as he yanked out the needle, he peered over the table only to find that Tank had returned to eating her noodles.
"Really?" Carson complained at the audacity of her actions.
"I was hungry, and it just so happens to be dinner time." Tank replied, "But if you wish to fight, I will oblige." Carson rolled away as Tank's kick came crashing through the table, in a flash her ninjato blade was drawn and making passes at Carson's vital organs. Sparks brighten the dim room as Carson's knives began trade blows with Tank's blade. A prolonged parry allowed the knife user to kick the swordswoman away long enough to fire his homemade ballistic knife. Tank looked unamused as she leaned away from the blades trajectory while simultaneously throwing two shuriken, each barely missing their marks as they scrapped across Carson's leg. She gracefully spun into her next slash, expecting to meet the sharp edge of Carson's survival knife but was instead was introduced to his fist. He winched as the ninjato cut across his chest but was satisfied as Tank's head arced away, nose bloodied from the extra force of leaning into his punch. The swordswoman reeled but was still able to assume a defensive stance, unfortunately it wasn't enough to stop Carson's finishing lunge. Inches from her throat, he stopped when he saw a small blood stain on his arm from the previous man he killed. He stepped back still looking at the stain, stuck in the realization of what it meant. Carson only stole the life of another every once in a blue moon, but it's not like he wanted to, he wasn't supposed to, he was a driver not a killer. He didn't want to, but the execution came naturally, but it shouldn't come naturally, should it? Maybe he and Marty...Carson shook off the thoughts and did the only thing he could think of in this situation, he ran. As quickly as he could Carson dropped a smoke grenade and fled the mess hall leaving a still dazed Tank coughing in a cloud of smoke.
Dutch kicked open what felt like the hundredth cargo container as he quickly began sifting through the items inside. Time was running out, he had to find the Tombstone before Tundra did...tombstone.
"Couldn't be..." Dutch said as he slowly approached the back of the crate, he moved boxes out of his way as he moved toward the item that had clearly be isolated from the other contents of the container. It was an actual tombstone, a large gray tombstone that sat near the back of the crate. Dutch smiled at the irony before searching around the grave marker, finally finding what he had been looking for. Behind the tombstone sat an armored briefcase, Dutch picked it up, examined it, then sat the case on the slab of stone. He flipped open the two locks fastening the briefcase and peered inside. Sitting in highly absorbent black foam were three mirror like CD's. Dutch quickly closed up his find and stepped around the tombstone preparing to radio in his discover to Benny. He stopped short when saw a man that adorned an eye patch decorated with the Star of David.
"Die ya fucking cunt!" Revy screamed as she flipped away from oncoming cannon fire while discharging her own weapons .
"You first, bitch!" Kasey shouted, shooting at the crate the other gunwoman hide behind.
"Fuck this is starting to piss me off." Two Hands said to herself as she quietly slid behind another crate. She reloaded her last clips into the 92F before staring at them for a second.
"How is that whore not out yet?" she said aloud.
"It's like magic, dont'cha know?" Kasey growled, Revy looked up and instantly dove away as the blonde gunner fired her M230 from atop the crate. She began to run behind Kasey when she heard just what she had hoped for, just over the sound of the still blaring Ghostbusters theme she heard the rapid click of an automatic gun firing with no ammo. She leapt to the top of nearby crate to confirm what she heard only to jump down again to avoid the fire of two AK-74's.
"Yeah right, I ain't done yet you Asian bitch." Kasey informed continuing to spray the assault rifles she had picked up from fallen allies. She emptied the clips and began franticly looking for another gun, she spotted a lone pistol and dove for it. But instead of grabbing the handgun she rolled into the crate clutching her leg in pain from the 9mm round that had been lodged into it.
"Arrrggh!" she cried in agony, but continued to reach for the pistol only another bullet impale her arm.
"Not so mean without your big ass guns are you" Revy mocked as she walked up the injured gunwoman. Kasey only glared at her, until Two Hands placed a bullet in-between her eyes. Revy's patience had long since expired as she continued fire rounds into the corpse.
"Revy!" Marty called out, stopping Revy's onslaught on the dead body. "Let's find Dutch and get off this boat." she demanded. Revy snarled in acknowledgment before following her toward the other end of the boat.
Rock gave a large sigh of relief as the handcuffs around his ankles fell.
"Ah finally, c'mon let's get outta here." Rock said as jumped to his feet and began trying to open the door. He struggled for a bit before realizing it was locked, he then stepped away to give himself some room before preparing to knock the door down. In the midst of his windup Po stopped him.
"Alright hon, move before you hurt yourself." Po advised, shooing him away from the door. With one swift move she kicked down the door. Po stepped back when heard the door hit something.
"Ow, fuck that hurt." Carson exclaimed as he pushed the off of him.
"It's about time you got here Carson," Po said offering him a hand up. Carson smiled as he grabbed her hand.
"I'm hoping you know the way out." Rock asked, anxious to leave the ship. Carson nodded as led them down toward deck. Half way through their trek, Rock noticed something.
"What happened to the music?" he asked, Po and Carson paused for a second.
"Wow your right, any ideas Carson?" Po replied.
"Run faster." Carson said as he broke into a sprint.
Once outside the main cabins, the dusk sky cast long shadows upon the deck as the trio continued toward the front of the ship. They stopped when they saw Revy and Marty hunched over an unconscious Dutch.
"Wake the fuck up Dutch!" Revy shouted, trying to refrain from slapping him. Her self control proved victorious as Dutch began to stir.
"Shit..." He said rubbing his head.
"What happen Dutch?" Revy demanded, Dutch started to replied but was stopped at the loud whistle like sound coming from the Sentinel's speakers.
Suraj's voice filled the air akin to an overlord addressing his subjects "Well this certainly was an eventfully day; give my regards to Dutch for finding the Tombstone Virus. My only regret is that I could not kill each and every one of you myself. Oh and Erica, if you survive the rest of the evening, look me up perhaps we can go to dinner. Ciao." The speakers went dead.
"What was that about?" Rock asked.
"Doesn't matter," Dutch said as he started to stand, "We need to get the fuck outta here anyway." He started to speak into his headset when he suddenly took notice of Carson, he was looking at the sky.
It was only a passing feeling at first but Carson decided to give it a second look. He tensed in pure horror as he confirmed what he saw. Even in the low visibility of the darken sky, he identified the silhouette large wings and the distorted waves of heat coming from the four turbo prop engines. Like an incarnation of the angel of death the plane banked and began to circle the Sentinel, but Carson never saw that as he had already pivoted to start a mortal sprint toward ocean.
"AC-130!" Carson screamed as turned trying to dig his feet into deck to make his getaway. No sooner had the words left his mouth did the first 105 shell impact the cargo ship. There was no sound, no noise, dust and debris filled the air as the explosion knocked the Lagoon Company and E.G. Transport to the ground.
"Holy fuck, where did they get that kinda gunship?" Revy shouted as scrammed to her feet.
"Who gives a shit" said Po as she got up and started to follow Revy to the edge of the ship. Everyone followed suit as the AC-130 began to pepper the ship with 40mm fire. With a communal leap of faith both crews dove into the water below just as another Howitzer round struck the Sentinel. Swimming frantically the group traveled as far out in frigid water as they could before turning to watch the gunship sink the mighty cargo vessel. Everyone squinted or covered their eyes as the Sentinel's finale was presented as a brilliant explosion from the gunship's last 105 shell. The sun set on the smoldering wreckage as the Black Lagoon returned from behind the island to pick up its crew and their clients.
P.S.- I don't own the Ghostbusters