Total Punishment

Jack was overpowered. This large man threw Jack through a door into another room of this warehouse. Jack figured that Dock 765 at Cold Rock Creek had some stuff going down, but the question was what. When he saw Fahook Ubduhl there, it would appear that some shady stuff was going on over there. Sure, the arms in the cargo were one thing, but there had to be more than just bringing in some firearms to support any organization.

Jack looked up at Longshoreman X and he was ready fire another arrow at him. But Jack thought ahead and laid a swift kick right in between Longshoreman X's legs. Longshoreman bent over, but the pain in his groin didn't faze him much as he laid a hard kick to Jack's gut and stomped in the same place.

"I have a better idea," Longshoreman X said. "You're coming with me."

Longshoreman X picked up Jack and carried him through the broken door. Thankfully Shadow wasn't present as the dog peered out from one corner near some large crates. Shadow looked around and noticed a familiar Chinese woman in a red and black, with her jacket being red, as well as her hair.

Eve got out of a corner as she saw Patch and Gofer walking off. She pulled out a silenced Beretta.

"You're mine now, Patch," Eve said under her breath.

However, a growl grabbed her attention, followed by a bark. Eve heard the sounds and looked around and saw Shadow right there.

That looks like Jack Slate's dog. Eve thought. Shadow locked eyes with her. She suspected that something was amiss, like he wanted her to follow him. But first, Shadow saw what looked like guns lying around, like a couple of pistols that Jack was using.

As if it wasn't cool outside already, while Jack was being carried over Longshoreman X's shoulder, the temperature started to drop. By this point he noticed that he was now inside the freezer of the docks. It was the area that any fisherman would bring in anything that would need to be kept on ice, such as meat or fish.

However, the moment Longshoreman X put Jack on the ground, he realized that no weapons were on him. If that wasn't bad enough, Jack looked up at a couple of pillars of ice in the area. Jack's eyes widened when he saw what looked like a dead body of a person on one ice pillar. This man looked like he hadn't been dead for too long as the flesh looked flesh, but the horrifying part of it was that a lot of the ice was red from all of the blood. The body was tied to the pillar and lots of arrows were sticking out of the body.

Jack looked at another pillar. This time it looked like the body had been there for at least a week as the skin had decomposed a tad as it looked rather pale. Or maybe it had been dead for less than that. Jack was uncertain, but the corpse was frozen for having been in this room. Add to that there was also some severed heads and limbs in this room.

"Time to play, little man." The voice caught Jack off-guard. He saw Longshoreman X approaching him.

"You'll be a nice trophy," Longshoreman X said and pulled out a large blade. It was a machete.

Longshoreman X used both hands to grip the machete and held it up like he was holding a sword. Just as he was about to swing, Jack quickly got up and ran off. He was unarmed. He also noticed that the big man had his crossbow strapped to his back.

I got to find some weapons. Jack thought. There's just no way I will go toe-to-toe with this lug.

Jack ran away to hide behind one of the blocks of ice with a dead body on it. He looked around and saw Longshoreman X with his machete in hand. Jack stood there wondering what this guy's deal was. It seemed like he was a member of Mayhem Inc. When Jack confronted Patch and Gofer just moments ago, it wasn't long until this big lug made his presence known.

As Longshoreman X got closer to the ice block, Jack sidestepped towards his right to get out of the big man's sight. But there was one thing that grabbed Jack's attention right near his feet: a sharp piece of ice, likely an icicle.

Jack picked it up and slowly stalked towards Longshoreman X and jumped up towards his back and held the icicle in a stabbing position and tried to aim for the man's neck but the sharp end only landed on his collarbone. Without any warning, Longshoreman X turned around and delivered a hard slap to Jack's face. This man was so strong that it caused Jack to fall a tad from the impact.

"You want to play that game, big boy?" Longshoreman X said. "I can play that way."

"Jesus, who the fuck are you?" Jack said.

"They call me Longshoreman X." He finally made his introduction. "I am a fisherman by day, but by night…" Longshoreman X started to laugh.

Longshoreman X picked up Jack off his feet and charged towards a wall nearby. He slammed Jack so hard to the wall and gripped Jack's neck so hard that his left thumb pressed against Jack's windpipe. But Longshoreman X wasn't going to end there, as he pulled out a knife and swung it so that the sheath would come off and quickly put it in a stabbing position. Longshoreman X quickly swung his right arm forward towards Jack's chest. But Jack thought ahead and grabbed the big man by his wrist, right before the knife could puncture into his chest. Jack held his breath while he was still being choked. All Jack could do was knee the man right into his gut and then delivered another swift kick to the man's nuts.

POW!

Jack was now freed from the assassin's iron grip. Longshoreman X was bent over once again. Jack quickly delivered a hard knee to the man's face. Right after that, he delivered a hard elbow to the man's face. Longshoreman X now had a bloody nose and a bruised jaw. He was still wearing his goggles for some strange reason.

But Longshoreman X wasn't going down that easily. He quickly grabbed Jack and threw him towards the wall. He delivered a hard punch to Jack's gut and a hard left hook to his face and another right hand. Jack was now bruised and bloody on his face. Longshoreman X picked him up and threw him to the center of the floor. He quickly laid a hard stomp to Jack's gut again.

Jack struggled to get up. Things were a bit blurry from the beating he took. All he could make up was a big man at a stand-still. He couldn't tell what was happening, until he heard the sound of something cracking close by. He glanced to his right. It looked like shattered ice. His vision was still a bit blurred, but was clearing up. It looked liked another arrow went right on the bow.

"Oh, fuck me," Jack said and quickly got up and tried to run away, but then…

THWIP!

"AAAAAAHHH!" Jack felt another arrow puncture his other shoulder, except it was through his back this time. Jack dropped and was laid face down.

"Any last words, little man?" Longshoreman X said.

"Yeah, that is one lovely outfit you got there," Jack said. "Rubber boots, goggles, crossbow. Man, this just keeps getting better by the moment."

Rather than feel insulted, Longshoreman X let out a chuckle. "Mouthy one, aren't you? The end is here for you, Jack Slate."

Out of nowhere, a bark was heard.

Shadow? Jack thought.

"Jack!" A female voice yelled. It sounded like it could have been from an Asian woman.

"I'm in here!" Jack yelled. That would likely draw some unwanted attention towards any potential accomplices, but it could cause a distraction.

Eve and Shadow finally got into the freezing room. Eve passed one of Jack's guns to Shadow as he quickly raced away. Longshoreman X tried to aim his crossbow towards Eve or Shadow, but Jack found another icicle and quickly stabbed Longshoreman X in the back of his right calf. The big man started to yell in pain. Shadow got to Jack and gave him his gun and Jack quickly let out a few shots to his back. Longshoreman X fell forward.

"Thank you, Shadow, good boy," Jack said. Shadow then barked in response.

Eve quickly got to Jack and looked at him.

"Oh my god, Jack, what happened?" Eve said.

"I got into a fight," Jack said.

"Come on, let's get out of here," Eve said. "You need to go to a hospital."

"No, no hospitals," Jack said. "I know someone who can help me."

Eve helped Jack get up. He put his arm around her shoulder while Shadow heard something a bit amiss nearby. Shadow turned his head around and noticed that Longshoreman X was not dead and was getting up. He barked to get Jack and Eve's attentions. The two turned around.

"Shit," Jack said.

Longshoreman X drew his crossbow again. Jack leaned in towards Eve and whispered, "Do you have any knives?"

"Yeah, why?" Eve said.

"I'm pretty much fucked right now," Jack said. "You and Shadow can scatter. I'll keep his attention."

Eve nodded her head and ran off. Jack looked towards Shadow and signaled to him to run off. Longshoreman X had his attention directed towards Jack, who was hurt and couldn't really move.

"You're mine now, Slate," Longshoreman X said. "You're my next trophy and that money is mine."

Jack tried to fire a few more bullets that were in his gun. He tried to land his shots on the man's chest, stomach, anywhere in his torso. He tried to aim for his head, but his arms were messed up from all of the punishment he took that he couldn't aim towards the head correctly.

"That's all you got, huh?" Longshoreman X said. "It's over, Slate."

"Not quite, big boy," Jack said.

Suddenly, Eve jumped on the hitman's back and started to cut his neck and shoulders. She hung on as tight as she could while Longshoreman X spun around to try to throw her off his back. At some point she sliced the man's neck. The cut wasn't enough that it was fatal as it cut mainly his flesh. She kept trying to stab him in his neck, but he wasn't going down as the big man had thrown her off, but he was bleeding a bit from his neck. It was only a matter of time until he was down, but it was going to take some time, too.

Eve was now on the ground and she looked on at what was going on. Jack saw that Longshoreman X was on his knees with his hand against his neck as he was bleeding out a bit. Not wanting to risk any other attempt on his life, Jack approached Longshoreman X and quickly pulled out his gun and put it right to the man's head.

"Hunting season is over," Jack said and pulled the trigger.

BANG!

One bullet right to the dome was enough to really take down the big man.

"Come on, now we can get out of here," Eve said and tried to help him to his feet again.

Eve guided Jack out of the freezer room and into other storage units. She picked up Longshoreman X's crossbow and some other arrows. She felt she might put it to use someday.

However, from the outside, some guys in black outfits and creepy evil clown masks, as well as guys in purple wearing creepy joker masks were coming out. They all had their weapons drawn and were ready to fire at anybody who passes through the door.

Author's note: Yes, this was shorter than usual, but I decided to end it on another cliffhanger. This chapter was mainly about the battle with Longshoreman X. Really, the boss fight in the game didn't make much sense as we didn't know about this guy at all. Yes, in the original game there was little to no context about some characters (I will get to some others soon, especially with my beef surrounding how a major character was portrayed in the original game). But it's interesting how in some Let's Plays that I've watched for the 2002 original that the people talk about how awesome that guy's name was and how they wasted an interesting character. Even in one LP that had comments on the side, some people talked about how interesting that character was.

I also must note that what inspired me for this fight was a number of things. The primary inspiration was the fight with The Russian from the Punisher comic series, "Welcome Back, Frank," which is compiled in a trade. Yes, the fight was also in the 2004 Punisher film, but that movie had a lot of elements from "Welcome Back, Frank" and "Year One."

The other source of inspiration was Die Hard 1 and 3. Both films had John McClane (Bruce Willis) fighting against the top henchman for the villain. It was a hard fought battle but McClane managed to get the upper hand somehow, despite being messed up afterwards.

Like before, I am picking up where I left off in the next one. I have a plan for the one after that as it will have some downtime. Stay tuned.