Snip #24

I wasted no time; moments after I had warned Mr. Smiles, I was gone from his side.

My knees bent as my feet touched the ground, ending my leap over the park bench. Falling into the running start position, I pushed forward, dodging from side to side as I moved to avoid being shot.

I reached the shade of the trees on the other side of the clearing within moments. Hiding behind the closest tree I could reach, I checked myself. Good, I did not get shot.

Step one complete, easily enough.

I let my eyes adjust to the dimness of the shaded park, and I peered over the side as soon as I could be sure to see something. I carefully exposed myself as little as possible, using a technique from a noir detective novel as a guide. Keeping my head pressed to the tree, I looked out from the edge with the corner of my eyes.

I guess it worked; nobody seemed to have noticed me. The bark my cheek was resting against was kind of uncomfortable though.

Back to the task at hand: One, two, five, ten… twenty? I lost count as I reached thirty, and I was probably only halfway through. They wore a variety of colors and clothing, but the commonality between all of those I could see clearly was easy to spot: all of them were Caucasians, all of them sported varying degrees of red and back on their person, and all of them were skinheads.

The red and black clinched it, more than anything else; after all, I was bald myself, but I digress.

Nazis. They were Nazis, part of a local branch in Brockton Bay called the E88. And by Nazis I did not mean the honorable soldiers who fought for their country, right or wrong, back in the Second World War, but instead were those deluded people who had followed the corrupted words of that era's warmongering leader.

And just like those fascists back then, this mob had come here for war: all of them had pistols, or worse. I spotted a shotgun here and there, others struggled with the bulk of their hunting rifles, and there was probably an automatic rifle in the crowd going by the rat-tat-tat echoing throughout the park.

I watched them for a while more, before I ducked back behind the tree. I recalled my observations of my opponents, thinking of what I should do next.

Oh, incidentally, I have got to thank Tailor later for the assist; a good number of opponents were writhing on the floor as a large cloud of bugs wrecked an entire side of the E88 advance.

Later, my background thoughts emphasized.

So, with what I had seen, my first conclusion was that their actions were practiced, but their skills were amateur.

The attackers' advance was surprisingly smooth and well organized despite the hiccup that was their fallen flank, the advancing mob pointedly giving Tailor's buzzing insect clouds a wide berth. Small groups of them dashed forward and sought cover in the sparse forest, sometimes piling up behind a tree in twos or threes. They would then provide covering fire for their fellows, keeping Coil's mercenaries pinned and unable to move.

Covering fire which, by what I saw, came dangerously close to hitting one of their own every time they fired their weapons. They were unloading shots with wild abandon, standing out in the open as they did so. Some were even lost in their own movie universe, doing a good imitation of Rambo as they shot from the hip, neglecting to aim anywhere at all as they shouted at the top of their lungs, their bodies fully exposed to counter-fire.

And those that dogged onwards were not doing so skillfully themselves. Groups here and there split into even smaller teams, as bits of one group ran out but the rest flinched back into cover. Others held back, false starts aplenty as they flinched right at the start of their sprints, no doubt wanting their peers to run out front instead of themselves. And those that ran forward cursed all the way for all sorts of reasons, drawing attention to themselves as they advanced.

The only reason these E88 goons were not annihilated within moments were the amount of gunshots fired in the direction of Coil's men, even if they probably spent more time reloading than they did firing.

As I had thought earlier, I was sure I was correct: their actions as a group were well thought out, but their skills were very lacking, especially after my exposure to the professionalism of Coil's men.

Which probably meant they had a good leader somewhere, a skilled combatant familiar with guiding this rabble hidden in their numbers.

So, now that I had figured this out, it was decision time.

If I got that leader, the attack would probably crumble into general chaos. The rest of the mob would stall, if not outright collapse, each member not knowing what to do next. And it would help in the long term too; even with the number of capes the local Nazi chapter had, losing a leader capable enough to lead this rabble would be a big hindrance to their effectiveness, and probably hinder their future plans.

It was a viable option, and I almost carried it out except for the one hiccup in my plan: I could not tell who the leader was. Was he leading the pack from the front, shouting his orders as he did so? Was he the guy hiding at the back, talking to them via some device? He could be any one of them, a face hidden in the crowd. Or he could be one of the capes mentioned by Mr. Smiley, controlling this mob with powers somehow.

I peeked around the corner again. The six or so men being assaulted by Tailor's bugs were still screaming on the ground, blindly thrashing every which way as they coughed and choked. Another unlucky trio started to wave their hands wildly in the air as another insect cloud joined the fight. Someone up front was gesturing backwards as he hid behind a tree, screaming vulgarities of some kind at his peers behind him. A pair was having some sort of conference in the bushes that involved a lot of finger pointing and palm cutting, and I would have thought they were the leaders if a third did not come along and kick them up on their feet, pointing them towards the front. Two others crouched in the middle, one of them dragging the other to safety as he shouted something at nobody, his head moving from side to side in a half panicked state.

And I could barely hear anything in this mess, the discharging of rifles and pistols of all shapes and sizes forming a wall of sound.

I frowned. I observed. I thought.

I gave up.

Getting that leader would solve everything. But getting every single one of them would give me a similar result now, wouldn't it?

Decision made, I peeked out one last time as I tied the jogging jacket's cowl tightly, securing the cloth around my head.

A familiar feeling came over me, my perception of time slowing down as I concentrated.

I leaned down into a crouch, a runner's start.

I breathed in.

I breathed out.

Showtime.

I dashed around the tree I was hiding behind a moment later, my first victim already decided.

The person who was up in front of his group was not waving anymore. He was firing his pistol with an extended arm around the round trunk he used as cover. His eyes widened as he saw me coming towards him, and his aim shifted slightly to line up in my direction. His gun fired

The shot missed completely; I was already beside him, parallel to his arm. I jabbed him on the head with my left hand, knowing from past experience that would be enough to incapacitate him. I continued past his falling body without stopping.

A quartet of E88 members skidded to a stop out in the open, probably realizing I was running towards them from the direction of their intended cover. They barely managed to raise their weapons by the time I was in their midst.

Two taps from my right fist, a slap with my left, and one last jab in front of me, and this group was done with.

Three people noticed me from where they were, barely hidden behind scrawny bushes. They shouted a warning as two pistols and a shotgun shifted in my direction, and their weapons fired.

I was not there anymore.

Dodging their projectiles completely with a leap, I flew over their heads. Both of my arms reached out and I jabbed twice with my right and slapped the last with my left before he was out of reach.

I arrived at the tree trunk I was aiming for, passing beside the thick wooden pillar about two meters or so up in the air. Grabbing on with my left hand and shifting my body, I orbited the tree in a counter-clockwise rotation. Bark chipped off its surface as I switched directions mid-jump. And as I let go of the trunk, I kicked downwards with both my feet.

The two goons below me were slammed onto their backs, their limbs trailing behind their bodies and pointed towards the skies by the force of my kicks.

I did a somersault in the air as I flew in my new direction, directly towards a group of five other panicking E88 members. One was pointing a gun directly at where I was, another two spinning wildly to face me, and the last three were trying to run away.

With my forearms outstretched, I nailed two of the members who stayed with clothesline straight to their faces, as I landed through the gap between them. As they somersaulted in the air beside me due to the force of the blows, I pulled back both my arms and pushed the open palms into their stomachs, turning them into projectiles which barreled them into the three retreating thugs.

And with the last remaining member of that group, I kicked him in the knee forcefully enough to launch myself off the ground. Using my new height, I landed on his shoulders and kicked off, slamming him into the ground with the force from both my feet as I propelled myself towards another nearby tree.

I reached the ground around the trunk easily, my arms already up and ready to deal with the small group of shouting E88 members hiding there. A jab, a slap, and a cut with the edge of my palm later, they were mostly down on the ground.

I looked around me.

An instant later, I sidestepped. The hail of bullets missed me completely, filling the air where I was a moment ago. I ducked and weaved past the deadly slugs, as I concentrated on my surroundings.

In the slowed time of my enhanced perception, I accelerated further, moving forward into yet another group of the significantly reduced mob.

A tap, and another, and two more thugs went down to a double punch. A light kick knocked out the person furthest away from me before he could fire his pistol, another step forward and I closed the distance enough to jab and palm-strike the last two of this group.

And again, I was gone, dodging another hail of bullets…

… and my eyes widened as a shot hit the person I had palm-struck into a tree.

It was then I realized the danger of the situation. In their hurry to shoot me, the E88 were all firing inwards, towards where I was. And because I had placed myself right in their midst, each shot they took was dangerously close to hitting their peers, either because of the friendly targets beside me, beyond me, or behind me.

For goodness sake you people! Have you people heard of friendly fire?!

I hopped into the air as quickly as I could, a diagonal leap to my side. As soon as I was airborne, I curled myself into a ball before I forcefully kicked off the third tree I had aimed for, launching myself in a controlled arc over the heads of several groups of my targets.

As the gangsters collectively aimed upwards at where I used to be, I jabbed, and jabbed, and slapped and jabbed and kicked and knocked and knocked and was blocked.

'Huh?' I thought to myself, as I bounced off the last strike, the knockback of the unexpectedly blocked punch slowing my forward momentum to almost nothing. The man who had blocked my punch slid backwards a distance, throwing dirt and a cloud of dust everywhere as his feet failed to hold onto the loose dirt.

He finally stopped moving backwards three meters or so away by the time I landed back onto the ground. There were also sounds of a tree crashing to the floor somewhere behind me, followed by another.

I ignored the sounds as I turned to look towards him.

He was a big man, a well-muscled man, and he had the height to match. But it was not 'well-muscled' in the way a Mr. Universe participant would be, but rather the kind which fits the stereotyped image of a long distance trucker.

He was Caucasian, but one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise from a distance because of how heavily tattooed he was. He also had hair, but one could be forgiven for thinking he was bald from a distance because of how thin the haircut was.

And he was human, but one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise again. His snarled, his twisted face inhuman with anger, waves of hatred easily seen behind his crossed arms as he straightened himself from the earlier slide. Not to mention all of the metal plates coating his body and extending his limbs.

As I watched more metal grew out of his very skin, forming a hedgehog of spikes, plates and metal as he changed, shifting into a ball of shiny silver material growing bigger by the minute. And when the ball reached the size of a small car, four limbs sprouted out of the core body as it narrowed into a lithe, thin shape, followed by a head and a tail.

"You bastard!" the gigantic beast that the man had transformed into towered over me on inhuman limbs, as his surface continued to ripple and change. "I'll KILL you for what you've done!" he shouted from a snout that just formed, creating an unnaturally wide set of jaws filled with rows of terrible fangs.

Erm… did I offend a giant metal dog in the past?

But before I could even begin to ask the question in my thoughts, I was interrupted for the second time in two moments, as an impossibly handsome man dressed in red and black stepped between us.

Raising both of his hands towards both of us, he uttered a single word, loudly.

"Stop!"