Disclaimer: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and its characters are copyright Jhonen Vasquez. The Original Characters in this story are mine, not yours. Enjoi.
Sam's assignment was simple: kill a sociologist gone mad. A man with no proper means of self defense in the face of overwhelming, hellish power aside form a hiding place that even demons could not find. He had previously appealed to the state board of sociological research to conduct experiments that were since deemed 'inhumanly immoral and unethical in unprecedented extremes'. Samuel rode in a limousine to the closest point the demons that employed him could find to this target's whereabouts. A an abandoned rural town's mayoral district. All the quasi-important political structures of this never renovated village stood in a state of disgusting disrepair. Everything everywhere was era early 1800s, with the exception of poorly maintained electric wires and cable boxes.
"For a man like me" Sam said, loading his magnificent gun, "this is just a step away from Hell."
"Best of luck" Remsius of Hell said from the driver seat. Sam stepped out into the streets and the car vanished in a puff of ashen dust to the netherworld. His only intel was that his target was deranged, and in an area as spacious and strewn with cover as this, he could be waiting anywhere with an evil ambush plotted.
"This won't be easy" Sam said. "Especially if he's employed some extra help. I'd better switch guns until I find him." So, to conserve the scarce ammo he had, Sam drew out a neatly polished, wood-finished automatic rifle. He made sure it was loaded, cocked it, and set out to town slowly. Unknown to the bespectacled anti-hero, there were indeed sinister forces stalking about. Within the rotted walls and shady corners of the narrow alleys and street-corner lamps were wireless hidden cameras. Elsewhere in the rustic town sat the target, hidden by shadows, as he leaned back in his chair and grinned. An emaciated hand reached over from his side and pushed a button on the desk that sat before the myriad screens.
"Let the game begin" the target said on the border of manic laughter... Suddenly the streets were alive and blazing with loud mechanical roars and flashing lights. Sam didn't miss a step in his gait and didn't let the noise and flickering lights bother him. He kept himself constantly aware of gun sounds and boots marching, just in case.
Just come out Sam tiredly demanded in his head. If you have a spec of human logic, come out and end this quickly. As expected, the marching of multiple boots was soon heard, and Sam attempted to find refuge behind a broken old jalopy car. Almost immediately, bullets started firing across the square. Judging by the sounds and the trajectory, Samuel made his assumption and sprang up to fire rounds quickly. Aiming with the butt of the gun against his shoulder, Sam shot one mercenary through the useless Kevlar mask and the bullet exited through the base of his skull, severing his spinal cord and brain. Then, Sam ducked back.
One dead, at least four left.
"Send the vultures" the mysterious target commanded. Another emaciated hand, attached to an unseen body in the blackness of his supposed lair, pressed a button carelessly wired to a machine. Now an air-raid siren blared and the mercenaries retreated. Sam assumed the worst and equipped his trademark gun again, expecting demons or mad clinic cases with godly reflexes and annoying twitching habits to come out of the windows and sewers. However, he saw nothing but circling shadows at his feet.
"What now?" Sam asked, looking up. Very quickly the sky above him was being covered by birds. These birds were very abnormal, however, in that they had all been hideously mutated to grow teeth and have an unquenchable blood thirst. Sam assumed such as the entire flock of birds, sized from sparrow to mallard, came diving straight at him with a gore-filled screech. One shot and the cloud dissolved into messy rain, but the sky continued to fill and spiral ominously.
"Shit" Sam cursed. "I need to move!" And so he did. Sam went sprinting down the street, seeing hordes of maniacal birds flying at him from nearly all sides. "Cover, cover" Sam muttered. "Where's some cover!?" He looked to his left and right, neglecting to pay mind to his front and back where the vicious birds were quickly storming in. Finally, an opening! An unbarred, glass window that led to an unknown indoor area. Everything else was fast sealed or boarded up from the inside, so Sam made the hasty decision and jumped to his right, through the window. He landed on his back so he could point at the window, but the birds only flocked around in confusion, having apparently lost track of Sam.
"The intellect of an animal is surprising" a Vincent Price-esque voice echoed throughout the various speakers of town, "isn't it sir?"
"Who the hell...?" Sam asked.
"I am Von Horn Gott" the voice introduced, "an award winning psychiatrist and sociological researcher. I have spent a good lifetime's worth of work these past five years researching and perfecting the finer arts of the human and inhuman subconscious, and thanks to the involuntary donation from the greater powers that be I was able to cure the sickening disease that clouds men's minds known as 'madness'. Now I wish to purge the entire world of its mad attachments so the human race can evolve to the next sociological step, from a loose group of unrelated societies to one wonderful hive of knowledge and collaborative effort!"
"A Utopia-crazed maniac" Sam uttered to himself. He checked his ammo, heard random guns blazing, and equipped his automatic once more. "Seems fairly simple."
"Kill him, my pets!" Von Horn commanded. "Kill him so we may spread my gift to the WORLD!"
"Be more cliche'd why don't you?" Sam growled. The Account of the Sociopathic Sociologist is afoot!
The target is an unknown assassin whose name is his only trademark on record. Jormungandr, the World Serpent. Why this name, no one seems to know. Its historical connotations suggest that he keeps things together, a sort of living belt that ties the ends of the world in a knot to keep it from falling apart. However, there is the darker side to that title, a name that implies total inhumanity, a monster. This is Tom's target.
Tom is ecstatic about it. Fate itself has arranged for these two to fight, and Tom was more than ready to find his destiny.
"Here it is" Mul said. Tom stopped at the boundaries to a city that was between places. He drove past the exits on the freeway when dropping off Mort beforehand. It was roughly a two-and-a-half hour commute from his hometown to here. This city seemed much more lively and, oddly, colorful than his own. Even the lights in the concrete and steel skyline were a calm and brilliant hue of blue. "Be safe out there, Tom."
"No problem" Tom said. Mul exited the car and Tom drove off, into the city. Mul had no comment for the occasion. He just stood silently watching before vanishing back to his given place. "He's easy enough to spot in a crowd" Tom noted. "I just need some way of drawing him out..." As Tom drove down the city streets, he noticed just how luminescent they were up close compared to the streets of his home. His vision was filled with the blurs of fast-moving lights and the sounds of a world caught fire with excitement. Despite how empty the roads seemed, the sidewalks and strips of shopping teemed with live, even in the approaching evening light. Signs and billboards of blazing blue and green made the sky and the colorful displays of shop windows made up the ground of this place.
"This is a nice fucking city!" Tom said, summarizing his whole passage of though as quickly as he could. "Wow! It's like Tokyo or something!" He continued driving through the streets, observing the rushing masses as they enjoyed themselves in the sensory-overload environment. Some more cars came and went, either loosing Tom or getting lost by him, until Tom had driven enough to lose the entire city's crowd. He was now in a different part of town where men and women in jackets with tattoos on every visible part of their flesh were loitering freely on the corners and in front of shops.
"Gang territory" Tom told himself. "And me in a shit-stained rust-colored piece of dookie like this. They'll either think I'm an idiot or a rival gang member. For once, I hope it's idiot." Suddenly, a red light. In the four lane one-way street, two cars pulled up on either side of Tom's. He looked from one car to another and saw two extremely contrasting people in each. The car on his left had people with piercings and tattoos like those in the street. The car on his right had men and women with their heads shaved and their skin virtually bleached.
"Shit" Tom cursed. "Gang wars. I better just keep my head down and ignore these guys. They can fight it out on their own." The cars revved engines at each other. The ones on the street started getting curious as to the other car's intentions, and once the light turned green all three cars went peeling out with loud screeches. Tom was caught in the middle of a firefight, and all by accident despite his rather obvious rush. The cars sped as fast as possible down the street, ignoring red lights and green lights in favor of shooting at each other. The bald ones had a girl leaning out of the window with an AK-47 while the punk gang had two guys with pistols, one out the back window and another out the sun-roof.
"Cock!" Tom shouted ,keeping his head down. "Why did my instincts tell me to go at green!? I should know better than that!" Suddenly, another car in front of the three veered off the road and ran into a shop. They were now blazing on a two-way street and taking up three of the four lanes. The other cars had to either park or pray that they didn't die as they swerved away. "This can't be good for my karma" Tom said. As his eyes were kept forward something jumped into the periphery of his vision. It was an intangible figure wrapped in a gray suit with a black scarf, brandishing a katana that plunged deep through the roof of the car on the right, killing the driver. With a glower, Tom turned and just saw the thing leap away as the other car swerved dangerously off the road. Before Tom could look back, the same thing happened, and he instinctively started steering to and fro before the same happened to him.
Take a left! Tom's unconscious brain screamed. He did, piled through a load of civilians, and wound up blacking out for a bit. When he came to, he saw the billowing scarf of the curious figure from before standing a good distance away amidst some burning rubble.
"I've been waiting for you Thomas Quindale" the growling, evil voice said. Tom immediately shot up and drew out his uzi with both hands, aiming from the hip at his target. "At last, I will be able to rest!" The Account of the Killstealer now begins as well!