-Advance Wars 2
--Death Array
---Chapter 6: Grenades and Blades
Winchester held his grenade launcher, ready to blow me away. I could tell. He was still bitter about our last fight ending in a stalemate. Knowing him, among Black Hole's ranks. He'd probably been taught that it's either victory or nothing. He took a couple of steps forward and made a quick glance to Groling.
"You couldn't even save the guy next to you." Winchester laughed.
"He's tough. He'll wake up. But not in time to see me take you out."
"Oh ho ho! We're so full of confidence. How might I ask? After Adder cleaned your clock!"
I raised an eyebrow. How'd he know about that?
"Word travels fast with Adder. Or haven't you noticed?"
"Yeah, I kinda figured out that speed is his forte." I growled.
Something was going on, or we would have been slugging it out already.
"Since you're so forgetful, perhaps you had forgotten mine. You see, I control every aspect of the weather, by my will alone. I know when it will snow, rain, or when the sun scorches the earth with a heat wave."
"Maybe you didn't notice." I said, cutting him off. "But I don't give a damn about you."
He snapped his fingers and he flashed for a bit. Oh hell, a CO Power, we're outside too. This was going to be trouble. Very slowly, he took a hand off of his grenade launcher and held it out.
"What do you think Wolf? I think there's going to be some rain today!"
Then I felt a plop on my shoulder, and it was so unexpected that I opened fire and started the fight. A second later, it was pouring down rain, making everything slippery and wet. There was an explosion and let me know that his grenade launcher worked perfectly in the wet weather. Damn, that rain was cold too! I tried to move behind a tree... but he promptly blew it up before I could take cover.
"No no no! There's no hiding from me! We finish this!"
"Fine with me!" I yelled before firing off a couple of rounds in his direction.
He answered my attack with another grenade and I dove to avoid the explosion. My AK slipped from my hands as I went tumbling across the ground. Next thing I knew, I had lost track of it. I quickly looked up to see that I couldn't spot him, and decided to take the chance to look for my gun. I wasn't going to lose two rifles in one day.
"Ah ha! There you are!" He cried out.
Winchester popped out to aim his weapon as I found mine. I leapt to grab it in a roll as he blasted away more areas of the courtyard with his launcher. Finally, I managed to get behind a tree before he could spot me. I was relieved, because I had to clean some mud out of the slide, so it wouldn't jam the next time I fired my gun off.
"You keep hiding from me! And I'll blow your friend into pieces!" Winchester vowed.
Thump. Thump. Thump. The ground shook each time Winchester was able to fire off one of his grenades. Good for me that this time I was armed a whole lot better. Bad for me that Groling was unconscious, and I had to cover him against explosives. My only chance was that I could make Winchester angry enough to only concentrate on me. I was never really good at talking smack.
"Hey! How's your leg feeling?" I asked.
"Go to hell!" He yelled back while blowing a shrub next to me into oblivion.
Dirt and snow rained down around me. Reminded me of Flak's Neotank rounds, except Winchester's grenades were a whole lot tamer. I took a deep breath and readied my gun. I heard a twig snap to my right and jumped out to fire. Oh hell...
He was pointing his weapon in my exact direction, and there was little I could do to avoid the attack. I could see that smile on his face, he was ready to do away with me.
But when he pulled the trigger, nothing came out. He was out of grenade rounds. I've never seen an expression change so fast from ecstatic to utterly crushed.
"No!" He moaned while attempting to reload.
I shot as fast as I could and nailed him in the chest. It appeared that my AK was much more effective at penetrating his suit than my pistol. He clutched his midsection and spun around to get nailed in the back. I didn't even realize when I ran out of ammo and heard clicking. I scrambled to reload... only to find out that Winchester was through with fighting.
The rain stopped and the snow slowly returned. In a couple of minutes, all the water in the courtyard would be iced over and turned into a skating rink. I found Winchester slumped up against a tree, taking huge breaths of air and keeping a weak grip on his grenade launcher.
"How did... a little do-gooder like yourself beat me? I don't understand... I'm... on the right side..."
"If you call guys who ransom entire countries for money the right side, then you must have a pretty messed up view of heroes."
"At least this side watched out for me... Unlike... Green Earth... and Blue Moon."
Hm... I wondered what he was talking about, and kneeled down so I could hear him. He seemed to know I was clueless and gave a wicked laugh.
"Stupid Heckler... During the Cosmo Land war... Olaf let Orange Star walk all over us... When you were... marching through our capital. Olaf was busy brownnosing Sturm... while we... got pounded!"
"So that explains how you got your snow background." I realized. "Did you get your rain experience from Drake?"
"Yeah... yeah..." He wasn't impressed by my understanding. "I soon left Olaf and his crummy country. I thought... surely... Green Earth, would be a better place to live. But it was the same... old... story!"
He broke out into a bad fit of coughing and dropped his launcher to the ground.
"You see... When I moved to Macro Land Area, Hawke showed up... and Green Earth let Black Hole... have their way with my family, my friends... my entire life! After I had just built it back up! Those cowards! Eagle and Drake simply sat back and watched as Black Hole wiped out everything they came across!"
"I don't get it. If you're so angry. Why are you working alongside the same group that did all that damage?"
"Why would I fight for... cowards... and suck-ups... who can't even protect the country they serve! How can I? I agreed... to bring along the Blue Moon mercenaries... so we could take this base... and I could get my revenge! And... make... them... pay!"
I heard footsteps, and Groling had moved up alongside me. He looked pretty angry, but simply kept quiet as Winchester spoke. At least I knew where the Blue Moon guys came from. Winchester must have made some calls, or simply knew soldiers with his same craving for revenge to come and help him.
"I hope your happy... Heckler! Letting those... cowards... walk around free..."
"We didn't ask to be attacked you know." Groling nearly shouted. "You can't just run in, take casualties, and expect everything to work out well. Eagle and Drake were trying to wait for the right time to launch a counter-attack."
"Heh... You say what you want, worm. But you don't know jack...about me. Heh heh heh he... h heh... he...h..."
And he died laughing. It wasn't a feel good laugh though. It was a sad laugh. A laugh like after you've gotten a big load off your shoulders. A strangely... relieved laugh. I never did get Winchester, and I figured I never would. I didn't know jack about his life. I looked back toward Groling.
"You feeling ok?"
"Yeah, I just got knocked out from the blast. I'll be fine."
"Good, just sit tight. I gotta contact my CO."
Groling nodded and moved over to a stump to sit down. I bet his head was still ringing from that impact against the wall.
"Wolf! What's going on?" Sami greeted me. "It's been forever."
"Yeah, sorry ma'am. I kept getting interrupted by Black Hole. More specifically, Adder and Winchester."
"Adder huh? What's your situation now?"
"We're right in front of the barracks. About to go in. Adder got away... and Winchester's been taken care of."
"Hm... well, it's good to hear you're alright. Hawke just gave us some new news to chew on. He says that if there are any more full scale attempts to stop him or rescue hostages. He'll forget the deadline and fire the Death Ray."
"I kinda figured that." I muttered.
"Well, you need to get moving. We can't exactly act on behalf of the other countries."
"Copy that, I'm moving out."
I waved to Groling who stood up a little bit shakily, but got his bearings fast enough. We moved up to the door of the barracks and opened it up. Finally, if Flak wasn't rampaging around with his crummy Neotank, I would have made it here so much faster. The side entrance Groling had spoke of put us in some kind of garage, with Big Bertha parked in the middle of it all. Ooooh... what I would give for ten pounds of C4 explosives right then. I'd blow that whole tank apart in an instant.
"Hey Groling, I know that you were only here for Jess... But this place is pretty big, I remember from my briefing before the mission. We could probably find Andy faster if we split up."
"Yeah, I gotcha. Where should I head first?"
"Hm... why don't you head up? I'll go down and check the basement. There isn't any kind of stairwell to head up, but there's an elevator in the middle of the base."
"No problem. I'll let you know if I find anything, or see those alien weirdoes that are wearing the new suits."
"Don't call them weirdoes." I spat back.
I froze, and so did he. We just kind of stared at each other for a time. I sounded way to offended to turn it into some kind of joke. I didn't understand it really, it just kind of popped out. There wasn't much I could do to explain myself... and I really, really, didn't want to tell him about Lash's experimentations. Eventually, I just kind of shrugged and turned away.
"You might hurt their feelings." I finished weakly.
It made him smile... or he might have just forced a smile so we could get back to the task at hand. I was beginning to worry. This little problem might just advance to a point where I couldn't pull the trigger on the alien troops, or just couldn't fight them all together. Then I'd be dead for sure.
"Uh... yeah.. so. Who wants to use the lift first?" Groling asked. "Cause I gotta go up, and you gotta go down..."
I waved a hand and pointed toward a door in the corner of the garage.
"The basement was built before the upper floors, so that door over there will take me down. You just watch yourself."
"You too." He told me.
Then we left, with me going down, and him going up. It's one of those moments where you wonder if splitting up is such a good idea. I figured that since I've been going down all this time that I might as well not stop now. When I opened up the door, I found someone had turned out all the lights, but I didn't want to switch to my pistol... My AK was so much better to use with the silencer and all. So I took a moment to take it off of my pistol and put it on my rifle.
The stairs... I thought would go on forever. The steps were also slippery as water dropped down from pipes running overhead. When I reached the bottom, the basement of the barracks reminded me of an unfinished basement. You could see the raw concrete walls and the electrical wires and pipes sticking right out. I guess when they were building the place, they just wanted a basement and nothing else.
I made my way through it slowly, there was no telling why they turned off the lights. I knew they were using this place, because of Lash's constructive needs and the fact that I haven't seen any of her strange equipment anywhere else on the base. And as far as I knew, there weren't any more places on this island to go. So this had to be it, and I'm sure she laced the place with traps.
I guess being tied up in a room with her has some advantages... but not much. You can get to know her... but then you feel like you wish you never knew she existed.
An electric squeal soon caught my attention and my nerves tensed up. A saw blade erupt from the wall and almost made me a head shorter as I ducked to avoid it. But I couldn't relax, two more saw blades erupted from small slits in the floor behind me and began to give chase. Oh man, someone was trying to cut me up! I ran for it, hoping that my panic wouldn't drive me into a spiked pit or whatnot.
The blades sped up to keep on my heels and I continued to point my flashlight all over the place, trying to locate another source of a trap before it sprung. More blades shot from the wall, around my waist and head areas. I ducked and dove and rolled through most of them and kept running. Those two blades were still moving after me, intent on eliminating the use of my legs.
I found a door at the end of the hallway and tried to kick it in. Except it didn't open up, and the blades were still moving after me. I pounded on it, and nearly forgot about the keycard that Groling handed me. I whipped it out and frantically ran it through the slot so that it would open up. I got through just in time, and I could hear the sound of metal on metal as the blades hit the door.
Holy hell... that was close... Man, I leaned up against the wall next to the door and took a deep breath. Maybe I should have headed up instead of down...
Once I was done stressing over my close shave... I finally noticed what was in the room I had just leapt into. It was full of lab equipment and computers. This must have been the base security, because there was a huge wall to my right that was full of monitors overlooking certain areas of the facility. I noticed the motor pool, the heliport, and the fuel depot for starters.
"How do you like my new humble abode Heckler? Or should I say... Wolf?"
I turned around and raised my gun in a flash. Some lady dressed in full uniform, black hole colors, standing at a computer console. She had the longest black hair I had ever seen, it must have fell down around her waist almost. She also wore a pair of riding boots, reminded me of Adder's, except without the funky purple designs. Her hands were on her hips, and she had confidence written all over her face.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Why... I'm Lash's pupil. I am Cyanide. I've been learning all sorts of tricks from her since my recruitment into Black Hole. She's a genius you know. I've never seen such a gifted child before..."
"Don't even go down that road lady. Lash is crazy. There's no arguing that. You could preach all you want about how smart she is. All her little doohickeys and death machines she cranks out, but when it comes down to it. She has a diminished sense of reality. It's nothing to her to throw away a couple thousands of lives in the name of fun."
Cyanide crossed her arms and gave a laugh. What was so funny? Maybe she knew already and didn't care. I was about to find out though.
"You should listen to yourself Wolf. You sound like you've spent the last three years by her side." She continued to laugh. "You can't get her out of your mind."
No... I choked on that sentence. After I thought about what I had just said. It was horrible... I did sound like I had obsessed over her. But I didn't! You gotta believe me! It's just... after all that time getting stuck with needles with god knows what in each syringe... I had to justify why Lash was doing it. I had to have a reason why she was so twisted.
"The worst part is... Lash has a perfect grip on reality. She knows when she kills. It's not that she isn't aware of her talents. It's that she's all too aware of her talents. She just doesn't care." Cyanide told me, as if reading my mind. "There's no explaining it, she just is what she is."
I pulled the trigger on my rifle. I wanted it to stop. I didn't want to hear it, or talk about it, or even think about it. But my gun jammed. I didn't understand why though. My eyes bulged as I lowered my gun to take a look at the slide. That's when I felt something hit my shoulder. I looked like some sort of dart... like a... tranquilizer... Oh hell...
I fell to my knees and looked up to see Cyanide with some modified gun... to fire tranqs.
"Welcome back to your worst nightmare... Heckler." She sang to me as I blacked out.
-To be continued...
--Next Chapter: RC Demolition Automatons
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The little car was after me. I tried to run as fast as I could. But the funky sedative that they had injected into me kicked into high gear. My eyes blurred, my legs hardly worked, and I was stumbling down the hallway like some wounded animal. My body began to sting as I went smack dab right into the wall as the hallway curved. I just realized I had no depth perception either.
Whiiirrrrrrrr. The little electric hum of the motor to the remote control car was getting louder. I had to move, if that thing caught up to me... It was all over. I used to like remote control cars too. They were so much fun... but now they had explosives strapped to them. Enough to bury this whole hallway. I spun off the wall and ran. This was never going to work... and I froze. I think it just bumped my foot...
--------------------------------------------------------
--Death Array
---Chapter 6: Grenades and Blades
Winchester held his grenade launcher, ready to blow me away. I could tell. He was still bitter about our last fight ending in a stalemate. Knowing him, among Black Hole's ranks. He'd probably been taught that it's either victory or nothing. He took a couple of steps forward and made a quick glance to Groling.
"You couldn't even save the guy next to you." Winchester laughed.
"He's tough. He'll wake up. But not in time to see me take you out."
"Oh ho ho! We're so full of confidence. How might I ask? After Adder cleaned your clock!"
I raised an eyebrow. How'd he know about that?
"Word travels fast with Adder. Or haven't you noticed?"
"Yeah, I kinda figured out that speed is his forte." I growled.
Something was going on, or we would have been slugging it out already.
"Since you're so forgetful, perhaps you had forgotten mine. You see, I control every aspect of the weather, by my will alone. I know when it will snow, rain, or when the sun scorches the earth with a heat wave."
"Maybe you didn't notice." I said, cutting him off. "But I don't give a damn about you."
He snapped his fingers and he flashed for a bit. Oh hell, a CO Power, we're outside too. This was going to be trouble. Very slowly, he took a hand off of his grenade launcher and held it out.
"What do you think Wolf? I think there's going to be some rain today!"
Then I felt a plop on my shoulder, and it was so unexpected that I opened fire and started the fight. A second later, it was pouring down rain, making everything slippery and wet. There was an explosion and let me know that his grenade launcher worked perfectly in the wet weather. Damn, that rain was cold too! I tried to move behind a tree... but he promptly blew it up before I could take cover.
"No no no! There's no hiding from me! We finish this!"
"Fine with me!" I yelled before firing off a couple of rounds in his direction.
He answered my attack with another grenade and I dove to avoid the explosion. My AK slipped from my hands as I went tumbling across the ground. Next thing I knew, I had lost track of it. I quickly looked up to see that I couldn't spot him, and decided to take the chance to look for my gun. I wasn't going to lose two rifles in one day.
"Ah ha! There you are!" He cried out.
Winchester popped out to aim his weapon as I found mine. I leapt to grab it in a roll as he blasted away more areas of the courtyard with his launcher. Finally, I managed to get behind a tree before he could spot me. I was relieved, because I had to clean some mud out of the slide, so it wouldn't jam the next time I fired my gun off.
"You keep hiding from me! And I'll blow your friend into pieces!" Winchester vowed.
Thump. Thump. Thump. The ground shook each time Winchester was able to fire off one of his grenades. Good for me that this time I was armed a whole lot better. Bad for me that Groling was unconscious, and I had to cover him against explosives. My only chance was that I could make Winchester angry enough to only concentrate on me. I was never really good at talking smack.
"Hey! How's your leg feeling?" I asked.
"Go to hell!" He yelled back while blowing a shrub next to me into oblivion.
Dirt and snow rained down around me. Reminded me of Flak's Neotank rounds, except Winchester's grenades were a whole lot tamer. I took a deep breath and readied my gun. I heard a twig snap to my right and jumped out to fire. Oh hell...
He was pointing his weapon in my exact direction, and there was little I could do to avoid the attack. I could see that smile on his face, he was ready to do away with me.
But when he pulled the trigger, nothing came out. He was out of grenade rounds. I've never seen an expression change so fast from ecstatic to utterly crushed.
"No!" He moaned while attempting to reload.
I shot as fast as I could and nailed him in the chest. It appeared that my AK was much more effective at penetrating his suit than my pistol. He clutched his midsection and spun around to get nailed in the back. I didn't even realize when I ran out of ammo and heard clicking. I scrambled to reload... only to find out that Winchester was through with fighting.
The rain stopped and the snow slowly returned. In a couple of minutes, all the water in the courtyard would be iced over and turned into a skating rink. I found Winchester slumped up against a tree, taking huge breaths of air and keeping a weak grip on his grenade launcher.
"How did... a little do-gooder like yourself beat me? I don't understand... I'm... on the right side..."
"If you call guys who ransom entire countries for money the right side, then you must have a pretty messed up view of heroes."
"At least this side watched out for me... Unlike... Green Earth... and Blue Moon."
Hm... I wondered what he was talking about, and kneeled down so I could hear him. He seemed to know I was clueless and gave a wicked laugh.
"Stupid Heckler... During the Cosmo Land war... Olaf let Orange Star walk all over us... When you were... marching through our capital. Olaf was busy brownnosing Sturm... while we... got pounded!"
"So that explains how you got your snow background." I realized. "Did you get your rain experience from Drake?"
"Yeah... yeah..." He wasn't impressed by my understanding. "I soon left Olaf and his crummy country. I thought... surely... Green Earth, would be a better place to live. But it was the same... old... story!"
He broke out into a bad fit of coughing and dropped his launcher to the ground.
"You see... When I moved to Macro Land Area, Hawke showed up... and Green Earth let Black Hole... have their way with my family, my friends... my entire life! After I had just built it back up! Those cowards! Eagle and Drake simply sat back and watched as Black Hole wiped out everything they came across!"
"I don't get it. If you're so angry. Why are you working alongside the same group that did all that damage?"
"Why would I fight for... cowards... and suck-ups... who can't even protect the country they serve! How can I? I agreed... to bring along the Blue Moon mercenaries... so we could take this base... and I could get my revenge! And... make... them... pay!"
I heard footsteps, and Groling had moved up alongside me. He looked pretty angry, but simply kept quiet as Winchester spoke. At least I knew where the Blue Moon guys came from. Winchester must have made some calls, or simply knew soldiers with his same craving for revenge to come and help him.
"I hope your happy... Heckler! Letting those... cowards... walk around free..."
"We didn't ask to be attacked you know." Groling nearly shouted. "You can't just run in, take casualties, and expect everything to work out well. Eagle and Drake were trying to wait for the right time to launch a counter-attack."
"Heh... You say what you want, worm. But you don't know jack...about me. Heh heh heh he... h heh... he...h..."
And he died laughing. It wasn't a feel good laugh though. It was a sad laugh. A laugh like after you've gotten a big load off your shoulders. A strangely... relieved laugh. I never did get Winchester, and I figured I never would. I didn't know jack about his life. I looked back toward Groling.
"You feeling ok?"
"Yeah, I just got knocked out from the blast. I'll be fine."
"Good, just sit tight. I gotta contact my CO."
Groling nodded and moved over to a stump to sit down. I bet his head was still ringing from that impact against the wall.
"Wolf! What's going on?" Sami greeted me. "It's been forever."
"Yeah, sorry ma'am. I kept getting interrupted by Black Hole. More specifically, Adder and Winchester."
"Adder huh? What's your situation now?"
"We're right in front of the barracks. About to go in. Adder got away... and Winchester's been taken care of."
"Hm... well, it's good to hear you're alright. Hawke just gave us some new news to chew on. He says that if there are any more full scale attempts to stop him or rescue hostages. He'll forget the deadline and fire the Death Ray."
"I kinda figured that." I muttered.
"Well, you need to get moving. We can't exactly act on behalf of the other countries."
"Copy that, I'm moving out."
I waved to Groling who stood up a little bit shakily, but got his bearings fast enough. We moved up to the door of the barracks and opened it up. Finally, if Flak wasn't rampaging around with his crummy Neotank, I would have made it here so much faster. The side entrance Groling had spoke of put us in some kind of garage, with Big Bertha parked in the middle of it all. Ooooh... what I would give for ten pounds of C4 explosives right then. I'd blow that whole tank apart in an instant.
"Hey Groling, I know that you were only here for Jess... But this place is pretty big, I remember from my briefing before the mission. We could probably find Andy faster if we split up."
"Yeah, I gotcha. Where should I head first?"
"Hm... why don't you head up? I'll go down and check the basement. There isn't any kind of stairwell to head up, but there's an elevator in the middle of the base."
"No problem. I'll let you know if I find anything, or see those alien weirdoes that are wearing the new suits."
"Don't call them weirdoes." I spat back.
I froze, and so did he. We just kind of stared at each other for a time. I sounded way to offended to turn it into some kind of joke. I didn't understand it really, it just kind of popped out. There wasn't much I could do to explain myself... and I really, really, didn't want to tell him about Lash's experimentations. Eventually, I just kind of shrugged and turned away.
"You might hurt their feelings." I finished weakly.
It made him smile... or he might have just forced a smile so we could get back to the task at hand. I was beginning to worry. This little problem might just advance to a point where I couldn't pull the trigger on the alien troops, or just couldn't fight them all together. Then I'd be dead for sure.
"Uh... yeah.. so. Who wants to use the lift first?" Groling asked. "Cause I gotta go up, and you gotta go down..."
I waved a hand and pointed toward a door in the corner of the garage.
"The basement was built before the upper floors, so that door over there will take me down. You just watch yourself."
"You too." He told me.
Then we left, with me going down, and him going up. It's one of those moments where you wonder if splitting up is such a good idea. I figured that since I've been going down all this time that I might as well not stop now. When I opened up the door, I found someone had turned out all the lights, but I didn't want to switch to my pistol... My AK was so much better to use with the silencer and all. So I took a moment to take it off of my pistol and put it on my rifle.
The stairs... I thought would go on forever. The steps were also slippery as water dropped down from pipes running overhead. When I reached the bottom, the basement of the barracks reminded me of an unfinished basement. You could see the raw concrete walls and the electrical wires and pipes sticking right out. I guess when they were building the place, they just wanted a basement and nothing else.
I made my way through it slowly, there was no telling why they turned off the lights. I knew they were using this place, because of Lash's constructive needs and the fact that I haven't seen any of her strange equipment anywhere else on the base. And as far as I knew, there weren't any more places on this island to go. So this had to be it, and I'm sure she laced the place with traps.
I guess being tied up in a room with her has some advantages... but not much. You can get to know her... but then you feel like you wish you never knew she existed.
An electric squeal soon caught my attention and my nerves tensed up. A saw blade erupt from the wall and almost made me a head shorter as I ducked to avoid it. But I couldn't relax, two more saw blades erupted from small slits in the floor behind me and began to give chase. Oh man, someone was trying to cut me up! I ran for it, hoping that my panic wouldn't drive me into a spiked pit or whatnot.
The blades sped up to keep on my heels and I continued to point my flashlight all over the place, trying to locate another source of a trap before it sprung. More blades shot from the wall, around my waist and head areas. I ducked and dove and rolled through most of them and kept running. Those two blades were still moving after me, intent on eliminating the use of my legs.
I found a door at the end of the hallway and tried to kick it in. Except it didn't open up, and the blades were still moving after me. I pounded on it, and nearly forgot about the keycard that Groling handed me. I whipped it out and frantically ran it through the slot so that it would open up. I got through just in time, and I could hear the sound of metal on metal as the blades hit the door.
Holy hell... that was close... Man, I leaned up against the wall next to the door and took a deep breath. Maybe I should have headed up instead of down...
Once I was done stressing over my close shave... I finally noticed what was in the room I had just leapt into. It was full of lab equipment and computers. This must have been the base security, because there was a huge wall to my right that was full of monitors overlooking certain areas of the facility. I noticed the motor pool, the heliport, and the fuel depot for starters.
"How do you like my new humble abode Heckler? Or should I say... Wolf?"
I turned around and raised my gun in a flash. Some lady dressed in full uniform, black hole colors, standing at a computer console. She had the longest black hair I had ever seen, it must have fell down around her waist almost. She also wore a pair of riding boots, reminded me of Adder's, except without the funky purple designs. Her hands were on her hips, and she had confidence written all over her face.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Why... I'm Lash's pupil. I am Cyanide. I've been learning all sorts of tricks from her since my recruitment into Black Hole. She's a genius you know. I've never seen such a gifted child before..."
"Don't even go down that road lady. Lash is crazy. There's no arguing that. You could preach all you want about how smart she is. All her little doohickeys and death machines she cranks out, but when it comes down to it. She has a diminished sense of reality. It's nothing to her to throw away a couple thousands of lives in the name of fun."
Cyanide crossed her arms and gave a laugh. What was so funny? Maybe she knew already and didn't care. I was about to find out though.
"You should listen to yourself Wolf. You sound like you've spent the last three years by her side." She continued to laugh. "You can't get her out of your mind."
No... I choked on that sentence. After I thought about what I had just said. It was horrible... I did sound like I had obsessed over her. But I didn't! You gotta believe me! It's just... after all that time getting stuck with needles with god knows what in each syringe... I had to justify why Lash was doing it. I had to have a reason why she was so twisted.
"The worst part is... Lash has a perfect grip on reality. She knows when she kills. It's not that she isn't aware of her talents. It's that she's all too aware of her talents. She just doesn't care." Cyanide told me, as if reading my mind. "There's no explaining it, she just is what she is."
I pulled the trigger on my rifle. I wanted it to stop. I didn't want to hear it, or talk about it, or even think about it. But my gun jammed. I didn't understand why though. My eyes bulged as I lowered my gun to take a look at the slide. That's when I felt something hit my shoulder. I looked like some sort of dart... like a... tranquilizer... Oh hell...
I fell to my knees and looked up to see Cyanide with some modified gun... to fire tranqs.
"Welcome back to your worst nightmare... Heckler." She sang to me as I blacked out.
-To be continued...
--Next Chapter: RC Demolition Automatons
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The little car was after me. I tried to run as fast as I could. But the funky sedative that they had injected into me kicked into high gear. My eyes blurred, my legs hardly worked, and I was stumbling down the hallway like some wounded animal. My body began to sting as I went smack dab right into the wall as the hallway curved. I just realized I had no depth perception either.
Whiiirrrrrrrr. The little electric hum of the motor to the remote control car was getting louder. I had to move, if that thing caught up to me... It was all over. I used to like remote control cars too. They were so much fun... but now they had explosives strapped to them. Enough to bury this whole hallway. I spun off the wall and ran. This was never going to work... and I froze. I think it just bumped my foot...
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