It was genuinely surprising that by the time they'd hurried down there, no-one was dead yet.
Weasel had clearly gotten the attention of the guard, but was content to stand there and stare at him as the guard stared right back, a look that could only be described as pure horror on his face.
Watching from the treeline, Dick almost wanted to walk over and poke it. He then went back on this thought after concluding that he didn't want to end up losing a finger.
About a minute had passed and neither of them had made a move. He was pretty sure they hadn't even blinked. Weasel was the quietest it'd ever been.
"It doesn't look like there's anyone else around, otherwise half the camp would be gawking by now" Savant whispered. "Let's – "
Then Javelin straightened and threw his weapon upwards.
Like, straight up.
He may not be on the same wavelength as all of them, but Dick definitely wasn't the only one to stare at the guy in incredulity.
"What the hell was that?" Savant growled. It seemed he'd taken up the role of team leader as of the last twenty minutes.
"Wait for it."
They turned back. Weasel had made a soft cooing noise which sounded frankly terrifying in this situation.
"Yep, waiting."
"Good."
The guard may or may not have wet his pants, but had still made no move to alert his friends.
"Still waiting."
"I'm aware."
Harley shuffled a bit and accidentally elbowed TDK in the stomach. "Oop, sorry."
"It's fine" TDK muttered back, a little breathlessly despite the chest armour.
"Okay, this is dumb" Dick said. Yeah, he was a bit too loud, but they were planning on killing this lot anyway. "Can we just- "
A whooshing noise cut him off as the javelin sailed back into view, plummeting back towards earth like a bomb. Dick had honestly never thought that it could fall that fast.
But it didn't hit the earth. The guard looked up at the very last second, just in time for it to enter his mouth and come straight out between his legs in an erupting spray of blood and guts. And there were some pretty gruesome sounds to match.
"Holy shit!" Dick swore, observing the newly created cannibal's barbecue skewer.
Javelin looked extra smug, which was quite an achievement for him.
"Pure skill, if I do say so myself."
"Well, ain't that some great aim!" Quinn remarked, back to staring at the German's head with interest too intense to be strictly professional.
Javelin shrugged, as if he was going to fool someone by acting humble.
"It's all in the arms. I can show you how to do it yourself later, if you so wish."
"Yeah, that's great and all, mate" Boomerang interrupted, "but how are you gonna get the thing out of 'im?"
Javelin fell silent for a moment. "Well, that's easy, it…you see…"
"Good luck" the Australian sniggered, as they proceeded to come out of the bushes and approached Weasel, who was sniffing the air curiously.
Dick pressed down on the armour plating on his arm, rewarded with the slight buzz of electricity as the strength enhancers powered up. He had to give it to the 1,000: it didn't exactly make him Superman, but they really knew their tech stuff. Not that he wasn't an unflappable tank of awesome without it, but it certainly turned heads when you could tear off car doors and use them as frisbees.
Most of the structures set up ahead of them consisted of four props and a roof, with few walls. Logistically, it made sense, but that didn't mean it was any less irritating when you were trying to sneak around the place.
The stocks of Dick's pistols repeatedly bounced off his jacket as he half-crouched, half-ran towards the sound of two voice and the scent of cigarette smoke. Savant's earlier words echoed in his mind, and he silently willed them to shut the hell up.
Savant himself was moving away from the group, peering around the corner of a sheet of corrugated iron used as a fence. He looked back at Dick, his fingers up in the universal sign for "two".
Then a whole bunch of other signs. They lasted a good seven seconds and it was safe to say he didn't understand a single finger movement.
Dick nodded anyway, but he could tell by the way his gaze lingered that Savant didn't believe it. Thankfully, nothing was said before he slipped around the fence and out of sight. Dick coped him.
Both targets were men, middle-aged and rather large, their backs to them and conversing in rapid Spanish. Savant had already come up behind the one on the left and grabbed him by the head, drawing a knife from his boot and cutting their throat open in one quick swipe. The second man spun around in shock, going for a pocket, but Dick quickly ran up behind him and –
A boomerang flew into view and embedded itself in the back of the guy's head.
Dick stood there dumbstruck for a couple of seconds as what should have been his kill dropped to its knees and onto its face.
"What the hell, man?"
"Whoops" sniggered Boomerang. "Gonna have to be faster than that, mate."
"This isn't a contest -" Savant began, the tiredness in his voice conveying the knowledge that this was all likely going to fall on deaf ears.
"Think you're hot shit, huh?" Dick challenged him. A woman with a crate in her arms stepped into view and stopped dead upon seeing them. In a swift press of a button, the springlock on one of his holsters released and a pistol was ejected into his hand. Without even looking, he raised and fired.
The bullet went through the crate and carried on into the woman, who fell like a sack of potatoes.
Dick didn't need to look around; he knew someone had to be impressed.
But Boomerang just threw him a is-that-all-you've-got sort of shrug, spinning his now-bloodstained weapon and hurling it in response to a sudden sound of surprise. Three more people, who just seconds before had been laughing together, were disengaging the safety on their rifles.
Dick's second pistol flew into his spare hand immediately, but before he could fire, the overblown toy sailed back around an arc. It slit the throat of number one as it scraped him mid-flight, before sailing around number two, who jumped slightly in fright and misfired.
Right into the head of number three.
One and three dropped, but number two sort of stood there with a dazed look on his face. Boomerang still had that shit-eating grin on his face despite the clear failure.
"You missed one."
"Watch."
A crimson slit suddenly grew across number two's forehead and blood dripped down his face. Then the top of his head just kind of slid off in a near-perfect cut.
Then he dropped.
"You're showing off" They bean to trek deeper into the camp. A young man with a pencil moustache turned the corner. Dick unfurled his whip and wrapped it around his neck in a practised motion. The speed and force were rewarded with a muffled crack as the guy's neck broke. "We never agreed on showing off."
Boomerang finished slitting the throat of a dumpy woman whose legs he'd just taken out from under her with another practised throw. "Fucking…blood – Jesus – yeah, this isn't showing off, mate. It's just real Aussie grit. By the way, your lace is untied."
"Nice try, pal, I tie them every – hang on, my boots don't have laces!"
But his confusion had already been taken advantage of, as Boomerang had managed to rush off ahead to get the rest of them first.
No way that's happening.
Letting the charge of the power enhancers flow to his forearms, Dick grabbed the corpse of the fat woman and hurled it with all his might.
He made a slight miscalculation.
Boomerang noticed it at the last second and managed to sidestep just in time, but the assorted group of fighters huddled around a burnt-out campfire weren't so lucky. The body flattened them.
But then it kept on going, smashing against a makeshift guard tower, which wobbled perilously before crashing to the ground amidst numerous screams and cries of pain. It was more than likely the entire hemisphere heard the ruckus, so it wasn't altogether surprising that shouts of alarm echoed from further down the camp and the sound of an entire brigade of troops suddenly started getting close.
"Find cover, this could get loud" Savant snapped, his jaw set so firm he could probably knock someone out with it.
In fairness, the fight wasn't very long. They were just picking off a few remaining stragglers when Savant decided to speak up again.
"You're a liability, kid. A liability."
Dick activated his shield and slammed it into some guy's face. The guy's nose spurted blood everywhere as he fell backwards, before his throat was caved in by a super-powered kick. "He started it!"
"Who, me?" Boomerang shouted back, giving an innocent smile that fooled absolutely nobody.
"Then ignore him" Savant growled. "Act like an adult for once. This situation is too important for you to mess around like – hold that thought."
An attacker who had come running through a doorway, wielding a machete and screaming like a madman, rapidly found himself on the receiving end of an armlock that resulted in three broken bones.
"You're a liability, kid. A liability."
Dick frowned. "Yeah, you – you just said that."
"…oh. Well, my memory ain't the best. Just don't be, alright?"
He's an old crazy man. We have an old crazy man leading our team. We're all going to die.
"Mongal. He died about seven minutes ago. Come on, leave him."
"I am aware" Mongal replied curtly, bent over a body, "but extraction of the skull is not an easy feat, unlike what I deign to call the battle we've just experienced. I intend to bring something back for my trophy room after all this is over and if I cannot use the traitor, then this pathetic whelp will have to do instead."
That definitely wasn't something Dick wanted to probe any further and judging by Savant's curled lip and short cough, the same rang true for him.
One final opponent shakily got back up – not an easy feat, given the fact that he'd just been on the receiving end of a flurry of punches from Harley – slowly raising a pistol like it would get him somewhere.
A javelin sailed over Dick's shoulder and skewered him to the wall via the jaw. That guy hadn't had much of a chance either way; Dick didn't mind handing out a freebie at this point.
There was only one hut left to check; it was a good distance away and in a much more open spot. If anyone had been on look out, they'd definitely have seen them by now. Harley jogged up next to them, humming idly to herself. Dick pointedly ignored the disembodied arm a few metres away that was stabbing one of the corpses repeatedly in the throat with a sharpened bit of rock. He'd walked blindly towards the jaws of death only yesterday; less than twenty-four hours had passed and here he was, possibly doing it again.
It was quiet. Too quiet. But then a slight murmur came emanating from behind the curtain over the doorway. And it had a rather signature southern twang to it.
"Rick, we're here to rescue you!" Quinn yelled as they burst through, arms wide like a cheerleader.
"Come with us if you want to live -" Savant began, before pausing, pistol lowering slightly. "…at a lower standard than this, I guess, holy hell."
"Yeah, it ain't gonna be this easy from here on in." Dick said happily as he came up behind the two of them, yet to spare Flag a glance as he re-tied his whip. "We've killed them all for you today, but next time we expect you to at least do some of the work. Boomerang will say he did the most, but I was responsible for at least a good half of it, y'know -"
Savant elbowed him in the ribs and he finally looked up, the adrenaline meaning the urge for a fight had not yet subsided. "Ow, what was that for?"
Then he noticed Flag. And how un-tortured and generally comfortable he looked. He even had some bandages on; a steaming mug of something in his hand.
Boomerang appeared by Dick's other side. "'Ere, what's all this?"
Flag frowned. "Healing. This is me, healing. Good job you guys showed up when you did, though, we've just got word of a breach somewhere in the last few minutes. Sounded like a dangerous group, might be worth taking a look at."
He slowly lifted a hand towards a woman sat there with him, hair back in a ponytail and dressed in rather unremarkable military clothing. "By the way, guys, this is Solsoria, leader of the resistance group trying to take down the current government."
He twisted his body to better face them, the bandages clearly noticeable. "We got into a skirmish when I was busy checking the perimeter last night, but we managed to patch things up. She basically saved my life, even if it was one of her own that shot me."
His mouth set into a straight line.
"Thanks for backing me up, by the way. It's really appreciated."
Just how loose was this guy's definition of a perimeter if a gun battle had failed to wake any of them up at the time?
Solsoria leaned forward, a concerned look on her face.
"What did you say happened to my people?" she asked in an obvious native accent.
Oh.
She was staring right at him.
Dick felt the familiar sense of heat spread across his body as he began to panic at the realisation that they may have made a slight mistake.
"Uh…"
Act dumb.
"What are people?"
Not that dumb!
Dick had decided it best to look at the ground rather than the steadily mounting pile of corpses in front of them. Solsoria was already on the warpath; the last thing he wanted was to accidentally establish eye contact and give her an excuse to kill him.
She was hurling profanities at Flag, rapidly switching between Spanish and English as he struggled to get a word in edgeways.
"Too far!" she was yelling. "This is the exact definition of too far!"
She threw her hands up in the air. "Americans!"
Boomerang looked like he wanted to argue against that remark, but clearly valued breathing more.
"I know" Flag said finally. He looked slightly nauseous; the heat combined with all the bodies was starting to attract flies. "I know. They're… well, they're fucking idiots. But we're here to help take down Luna. Maybe not directly, but it's possible."
"Don't push me, Flag" she snarled. "We've been talking for hours up until now; I know full well you're full of shit."
Flag held out his hands placatingly, as if that would block a bullet in the event that his next sentence got him shot.
"Trust me, I get you. I do. But when we go into Jotunheim, chances are there's going to be some noise. The President gets everyone over there and, well… I bet the palace will be pretty much unguarded."
Solsoria was still panting as if she'd just run a marathon, but her eyes had taken on a more interested look. "And you can accomplish all this, can you?"
"I know we don't look like much, but we're a cohesive, military-level unit."
A brief pause as she turned to face them.
"…Weasel, get that out of your mouth."
A tall, heavyset man with auburn hair pulled into a ponytail, who was helping pile the bodies, seemed to making a suspicious amount of eye contact with them, as if deliberating something. Eventually, after six rather intense minutes of smouldering stare-downs, he rolled his shoulders and took a few steps towards them as Solsoria continued to berate Rick into next week.
Dick's initial worries of whether he ought to prepare to receive a bloody nose were quashed when all he did was give a nod. You could practically smell the testosterone. "Savant."
His accent was thick; most likely eastern European.
"You know this guy?" TDK asked.
No-one was paying attention to the verbal beatdown on Rick's end anymore. Every Belle Reve resident turned to Savant, whose usual sharp side-eyes wilted with surprisingly little resistance.
"Hey, Creote" came his barely-audible reply, choosing to ignore his comrade. He was quiet, even for a man whose preferred method of communication was the dead-eyed glare.
Another nod, then Creote walked back and carried on like nothing had happened, leaving Dick with even more questions that he'd started out with.
Well, that was… weird.
One of the bodies moaned slightly. A floating arm hiding behind the pile smacked them back into unconsciousness.
Honestly, this was one of my less favourite parts to write. It cuts off a bit abruptly, but I figured the rest wasn't polished enough yet - I mean, would fit better in the next chapter. I have a lot more plans for later in the story, though, don't worry. Isn't it annoying when you've got to go through the less-planned bit first?
Comment. Comment. This is the mothership telling you to comment. My entire existence relies on feedback from people I have never met.