Raven once again returned to watch the frenzy at the meat dealer's tent. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply through her nose, not caring that the air was so thick with scent.
There was no way that Ty would have believed that little acting job she put on. Ever since she could remember he knew her better than she knew herself. She had never been able to hide anything from him.
She slowly let out her breath through her mouth. Ty would never let her turn her back on Manticore.
*****
Even the streets offered him no solace. Zack could not get his mind off what he had seen only a few hours ago. Kat's body limp, laying in such an unnatural position and his son, looking so natural in army fatigues and a gun in hand.
Kat had done nothing to deserve death, unless one could count her devotion as a mother. Kat had showed she would even live in hell for her son when she made the choice to return to Manticore. What happened next? Manticore, in all its perverted irony, sent the son she had given her soul to protect, to seek and destroy her.
And now Cole was living the life Zack had run away from. And he had grown. He was no longer the small child who looked at him with those wide eyes out the window of the helicopter. The pictures had proved it, the innocence was lost in Cole's eyes and there was no way to regain that. Zack knew first hand that the hate learned then would forever taint Cole's view of the world.
Finally he had to stop, waiting for the traffic to clear so he could make a left. He cursed when one way became clear and then the other would fill with cars. As he waited oh so impatiently it was like a shock of lightning. The unmistakable scream of pure fright ripped through the air and wrenched him from his dark thoughts. He looked about him to see if any of the other patrons that filled the streets at this hour had heard, but none seemed to notice.
Again the scream rang in his ears. Now, with attentions peaked, his acute hearing pinpointed the location of the victim. Zack wasted no time as he wrenched his handles to the right and sped toward the victim. Deep in his mind, where even he had limited access, he wished he would meet more than just one thug on his arrival.
*****
"Raven?" Max asked as they headed back to the penthouse.
"Hmm?" Raven's response was muffled since her mouth was full of what Max had called an orange.
"You were with Zack last night, right?"
"For the most part…" she struggled to get the words around with food in her mouth.
"He was fine then right?"
"Yeah…"
"So what was his dealio this morning?"
'Why didn't you just tell her Zack?'
But Raven knew it was not her place to intervene with Zack's decision. "I don't know. Maybe the whole rapid aging experience finally hit him. There's always that delay after a traumatizing experience."
"Maybe…"
Raven could tell from her voice that Max was far from convinced.
After a moment of silence Max spoke again. "Are you alright? You seem a little tense. The market didn't shake you up that badly did it?"
It seemed Raven was having a hard time convincing anyone this day. The meeting with her brother must have shaken her up more than she realized.
*****
His finger itched to pull the trigger.
'Patience, patience' he chided himself as he waited for the man in the penthouse to come to a complete standstill, so he would have that perfect shot. There was no rush, the man didn't seem to be going anywhere.
Finally the man sat down on the couch in the living room and took his glasses off, wiping them with the hem of his sweater. Resting his glasses once again on the bridge of his nose, he picked up the newspaper and settled for a read.
'A perfect shot to the temple. Beautiful.' Donovan thought as he trained his crosshairs on the man. Beneath his cheek the gun warmed to match his body temperature. It was a comforting feeling, as though the sniper rifle was truly becoming an extension of his body. With hands as steady as a master surgeon's, Donovan held his sights on the weakest point of the man's unsuspecting skull.
His trigger finger tensed.
"Bang." He whispered with disappointment heavy in his voice.
He lifted his head to look down at his watch. There would be another estimated hour before his target would return home. If only this man was his real target, then he could have gotten this pathetic assignment over with and could return home, ready for a greater challenge.
*****
Logan felt the hairs on his arms raise of their own accord. The apartment was warm, but a shiver ran its icy fingers along his skin. He had only had this sort of uncanny sense of impending doom once before, and that was right before Bruno and his buddies opened fire that day he lost his ability to walk.
Without knowing why, he turned his head to look out the window.
*****
A strange sensation tugged at Donovan and he used his eagle eye vision to look once again at the man. He had turned his head to look out the window and Donovan saw his face full on.
It was just like the woman he had killed in the forest. Fuzzy images tried raise to the top of his thoughts. Not only did the man look familiar, but he recognized the apartment as well. The red stained wood, the artwork hanging from the walls. 'But that's impossible,' he shook his head as though that would rid his mind of the familiar yet alien images, 'I have never lived anywhere but Manticore. I have never been outside its walls before.'
Donovan squeezed his eyelids closed, and clenched his jaw as a sharp pain pierced his brain. It was a natural animal reaction to clamp his free hand down on his temple, even though it did nothing to relieve the pain.
For a few split seconds which seemed like an eternity, the diluted images flashed brilliantly and with such clarity he wished he could shut his eyes tighter though that too would be a futile effort.
There was a view from what could have only been the inner workings of the penthouse. From his perch atop the neighboring building there was no way he could have even caught a glimpse of those parts of the apartment.
There was a man with blonde hair and blue eyes, and he was lifting him up in the air. He had never seen this man before.
There was a lady with curly brown hair that smiled down at him, as she held him in her arms in another dark apartment he once again could not remember.
And then there was the woman he had killed in the forest.
Her face was more haunting than any of the others. This time the woman's face wasn't covered in dirt and blood she smiled warmly at him.
As quickly as it had come the throbbing hurt vanished and the images disappeared to where ever in his mind they were first dredged up. He blinked and shook his head. That was now way for a soldier to concentrate on his objective. Letting his mind run away with bizarre pictures conjured from who knows what. He cleared his thoughts, pushing everything down and glanced at his watch again. There was still plenty of time before the target would return home.
*****
It was evening and the sun was still up, but the alley was more shrouded in shadow then the events that transpired now.
"Please! No!" the woman said, trying to hold her torn clothes together around her body. She could have sworn this alley wasn't a dead end, and she groped at the brick wall that blocked her path as though a hidden passage might reveal itself.
"Come on sweety, you were so hot last night when you were stripping on the bar," said one of the five men who had corralled her into this alley.
"Strip tease for me baby," another laughed.
"Stay the fuck away from me!" She turned around now, full of defiance, but she could not hide the fear in her eyes and the quiver in her voice. The lady wiped her red hair back from her face, it was sticking to the blood that dripped from a cut on her cheek.
They laughed a sick perverted laugh and stepped toward her again, she saw the hunger in their eyes and it shook her to her core. Her knees went weak, and though she wished with all her heart that they would obey her one last time and run, they instead became jello and she fell to the ground, paralyzed by terror.
With her eyes closed tight she could only hear the sound of the approaching vehicle. A motorcycle maybe? Another of their friends to join in on the fun? Why did she have flirt with all of them the other night?
The sound of the men's footsteps paused, and she dared open her eye to see what other horror would threaten her this night.
*****
Zack's smile was hidden behind his helmet when he arrived in the alley. He took of his helmet and tucked it under his arm. Quickly he surveyed his battlefield. Five guys, one damsel in distress, cramped alleyway no wider than two arms lengths across. 'This should be fun'
He dropped his voice to a serious tone. "Back off kiddies, looks like the lady doesn't want to play."
"Who are you calling kiddies?" one of the blonde thugs piped up.
Another held his hand to stop his friends progress toward the intruder, "I suggest you move along little boy, your parents might get worried." With his comment he flashed a knife in Zack's face.
"That's it? My parents wouldn't be too worried about that." He rolled his eyes. 'Come on,' he begged the powers that be, 'Let them be packing something heavier than that.'
"This isn't your problem you little punk."
Zack ignored the comment and leaned to the side so he could make eyes contact with the woman. "Are you okay Miss?"
She did nothing but stare back at him.
Yet another man stepped to break their eye contact. "Well then run along and go find her some help. I'm sure you could find a cop if you looked hard enough in the next sector over."
"Yeah, but if I left, you would just keep doing to her whatever it was you were doing to her in the first place."
"Well give the boy a prize."
"There are five of us, kid. Just run along and forget what you saw here."
"Sorry. Can't do that." Zack shrugged his shoulders and tenderly set his helmet down on his motorcycle.
"You're pissing me off." The biggest of the bunch approached Zack and this time no one held up a hand to stop him. 'Finally!' He stood his ground and waited for the man to come to him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the rest of the gang standing and smiling, relaxing and preparing themselves for what they assumed would be a good show. If that's what they wanted…
The large man threw a few punches that, by Manticore standards, were slow and clumsy. Zack easily ducked the first few, not needing to even lift his feet from the ground. The confusion in the man's eyes became apparent as he watched Zack use his unnatural speed to easily avoid the attacks. After a moment's hesitation the man became doubly determined and sent another right fist at Zack's face. It was a pitiful attempt to which Zack responded by ducking to his left and thrusting the heel of his right hand straight into the large man's solar plexus. His opponent stumbled backwards, shock knitting his brows together as he gripped at his shirt struggling to breathe.
Zack approached slowly, making sure the man saw him coming. When Zack stood over him, he only waited a moment's pause before he dropped to one hand simultaneously using one foot behind the man to kick at the back of his knees, the other to kick the man in the gut from the front. The effect of the move drove the man to the ground so hard he knocked his head on the cement and blacked out.
The others were stunned by the display, but for only a second, as their confidence returned, trusting that their five on one advantage would let them easily win this fight.
Even at what must have been their top speed, in Zack's eyes their advance was at a snail's pace. The man who first revealed a weapon made good on his implied threat and was the first to leap at Zack, knife raised.
With reflexes his muscles still remembered from his training Zack dodged to the side and the man's own momentum carried him past. Zack turned his back on the others to face this second challenger. If he didn't have fun with these guys the moment wouldn't last, so Zack humored the guy and let him take a few more swipes at his face. Soon, Zack tired of these attempts as well and swept his left foot up in the air, and easily knocked the blade out of the man's hand. Was this all the fight they would offer him this night?
The man's confidence faltered as he lost his weapon, but Zack could see in his eyes that he wasn't about to give up. The reason for his confidence became obvious as Zack heard behind him someone pull out a gun and release the safety.
He looked over his shoulder and smiled.
"You … you think this is funny boy?" a black haired man asked, his stutter betraying that he was truly afraid. He was not blind and he saw the freakish thing the boy had just done to his buddies. Of course he would be afraid. Every criminal is a coward inside.
Zack wasn't surprised when the thug did what every thug does when he is frightened, and shot at the source of his fear. The shot echoed strangely through the confines of the cramped alleyway.
Though he moved with uncanny speed to avoid the shot, he could feel bullet pierce his thigh. Falling to one knee, Zack ground his teeth together grimacing in pain. He reached down and felt the warm wetness of blood drenching his pants.
What Zack didn't anticipate was exactly how nervous he made this guy. The man's shaking was so severe that when Zack moved to avoid the shot, even as quickly as he did, he instead moved into the bullet's path.
"Fucking punk. That clipped your wings didn't it you freak." a fourth man with a scar on his face spoke as he and another man moved in. The man that formerly held the knife found his confidence again and moved in as well. He needed to save face infront of his friends even if that meant beating on the kid while he was down.
Shunting the pain away, Zack stood, leaning a bit at first to favor his left leg then stood tall. That was it, Zack could no longer hold back and let the hatred engulf him whole. Hate was something that burned in every corner of his mind since as long as he could remember and now, as it wrapped around him like a warm blanket, he felt more natural then he cared to admit.
"Stubborn fuck. Why don't you stay the fuck down!" the scarred man yelled as he threw his whole body into a punch. Zack stood still until the last moment, sensing the other man's presence behind him as well. Just before the fist made contact with his face Zack dodged and grabbed the man's wrist utilizing the momentum and pulling the punch over his shoulder into the man approaching behind.
With the man's arm over his shoulder Zack pulled down. He could hear the man squeal like a little girl as his arm snapped in two. Zack wasted no time tossing him aside and advanced to finish off the other brute. A few quick punches and a knee to the gut was all that was needed to put a third man out of commission.
That left two others.
The fourth must have been in some sort of martial arts as he was quicker then the others. It was refreshing for Zack to have an actual challenge for once and he slowed his own fighting down. Nothing was better then the way a man fought when he thought he had a chance of winning. The battle was a flurry of attacks and counterattacks, thrusts and blocks. Zack smiled briefly every time the man actually got in a good hit.
The fifth man, still holding his gun watched as his friends dropped like flies. He would have fled, but the battle that ensued blocked the only escape route. His eyes filled with horror as he watched Zack seem to grow tired of the battle.
When the opportunity presented itself, Zack stepped on the mans foot and, before the other man could react, drove his knee down, hyper extending the other's joint until it was a full ninety degrees the wrong way. His scream bounced off the brick of the alleyway, and he dropped to the ground.
Slowly, deliberately, Zack turned toward the last man standing. The gun was still pointed directly at him. This time, Zack would not make the same mistake, and he leapt up in the air, jumping from wall to wall. The frightened man quickly emptied his clip and was still pulling the trigger of a useless gun when Zack landed in front of him.
"Stupid." Zack said as he jumped up and kicked the man across the face, snapping his head to the side.
Behind him he heard a rustling and when he turned his eyes widened. Before him stood Satan's lapdog.
"Lydecker." Zack's voice was acid. Hatred pulsed through his veins and he could hear it thrum against his eardrums.
*****
The stars finally disappeared from the Jimmy's eyes and his breath came back to him. He watched as the runt made quick work of his friends. This kid wasn't human. How was it possible to move that fast? And jumping off the walls like that?
He tried to get up to run away but when he stood he was hit with vertigo, and any movement threatened to topple him again. When he looked up again the boy's blood-shot stare was so intense it seemed to fill the whole alley, holding him in his place.
"Lydecker," was all he said.
Jimmy didn't know what it meant. Was it a name? He looked around him but there was no one else in the alley besides the girl. "L-l-look man I'm sorry…" he stammered.
*****
"Zack. You're a disappointment." Lydecker said to him.
"I'm not here for your approval." Zack stepped toward the man who was his past personified, murder in his eyes. Something in Zack's mind snapped as he lost control of his predatory urges. The barriers between reality and imagination blurred as the blood lust took over.
Before him Lydecker smirked then turned his shoulder and began to walk away.
*****
Jimmy backed away slowly, hands raised in submission. The way Zack spoke to him left him fully disturbed, "What are you…?"
"Don't walk away from me."
Jimmy could hear the animalistic growl beneath his voice. His body told him to fight or take flight, but the look in Zack's eyes really gave him no option. Turning on still unsteady legs Jimmy tried to run away.
*****
"You got nothing to say to me?" Zack picked up his step to a lightning run and pounced on Lydecker from behind, knocking him down. Turning Lydecker on his back, Zack straddled him, picking him up by his collar just to punch him back down. "How could you do that to her? How could you kill her using our son as the weapon?"
*****
"Please…Oh God." Jimmy spit through his blood. This guy was crazy. In Zack's blue eyes he saw death. A quick glance revealed that his friends were going to abandon him as they took the window and dragged their bodies away. Jimmy closed his eyes and began to mutter his final prayers.
*****
Lydecker laughed between each brutal beating. "You were always so angry."
"He was just a kid." His fist made contact with Deck's face.
"We were all just kids." Another punch.
Deck laughed again. "You were never a child, Zack. You were soldiers."
"Fuck you, you bastard!" Zack screamed at Lydecker's laughter, which grated on his ears. Closing his eyes Zack just let go, for a minute the rhythmic beating of his fist against the man's skull was all he knew. He even began to take comfort in the familiarity of the action, but it was a fleeting calm.
When he opened his eyes again he saw who truly lay beneath him. It wasn't the demon that haunted his dreams. It was just a thug off the streets, his face bloody and beaten so badly that he didn't even look human anymore. Zack dropped the limp body and stood. The man must have been dead for a long time.
Hesitantly Zack lifted his hands. They were covered in blood. Tears brimmed in his eyes as he realized exactly what he had done. If for only a moment he had become the killing machine Lydecker had always wanted. He gave into that craving for blood and death, pain and killing, the part that didn't care of worldly consequences…
And he liked it.
His stomach turned at the prospect. How would he run from Manticore if it would forever be a part of him? He had to gain his humanity back. Why was he here with these men in the first place anyways?
A whimper in the corner of the alley served to reminded him. The girl, her clothes in shreds, sat hugging her knees crying. Blinking his eyes dry he tried to soften his appearance, though he didn't know if that was possible being covered in blood, the men's as well as his own.
He looked in a pile of rubbish and found what must have been an old artist's drop cloth. He picked it up and snapped it in the air, shaking all the dirt he could off it if. Cautiously, he approached her holding out the sheet as an offering.
She stared at him with more fright in her eyes then she had when she was pursued by the first assailants. The silence only served to amplify her terror. With one hand she held her rags close to her and with the other quickly grabbed at the gift. She did not take her eyes off him as she wrapped herself, and, hugging the walls to stay as far away as possible from him, she sneaked by.
Once she felt she was in the clear, she made a mad dash for the opening of the alley. Every once in a while glancing over her shoulder to make sure he did not follow.
Zack stood alone save for the corpse by his feet, feeling so unnatural in his own skin.
There was no way that Ty would have believed that little acting job she put on. Ever since she could remember he knew her better than she knew herself. She had never been able to hide anything from him.
She slowly let out her breath through her mouth. Ty would never let her turn her back on Manticore.
*****
Even the streets offered him no solace. Zack could not get his mind off what he had seen only a few hours ago. Kat's body limp, laying in such an unnatural position and his son, looking so natural in army fatigues and a gun in hand.
Kat had done nothing to deserve death, unless one could count her devotion as a mother. Kat had showed she would even live in hell for her son when she made the choice to return to Manticore. What happened next? Manticore, in all its perverted irony, sent the son she had given her soul to protect, to seek and destroy her.
And now Cole was living the life Zack had run away from. And he had grown. He was no longer the small child who looked at him with those wide eyes out the window of the helicopter. The pictures had proved it, the innocence was lost in Cole's eyes and there was no way to regain that. Zack knew first hand that the hate learned then would forever taint Cole's view of the world.
Finally he had to stop, waiting for the traffic to clear so he could make a left. He cursed when one way became clear and then the other would fill with cars. As he waited oh so impatiently it was like a shock of lightning. The unmistakable scream of pure fright ripped through the air and wrenched him from his dark thoughts. He looked about him to see if any of the other patrons that filled the streets at this hour had heard, but none seemed to notice.
Again the scream rang in his ears. Now, with attentions peaked, his acute hearing pinpointed the location of the victim. Zack wasted no time as he wrenched his handles to the right and sped toward the victim. Deep in his mind, where even he had limited access, he wished he would meet more than just one thug on his arrival.
*****
"Raven?" Max asked as they headed back to the penthouse.
"Hmm?" Raven's response was muffled since her mouth was full of what Max had called an orange.
"You were with Zack last night, right?"
"For the most part…" she struggled to get the words around with food in her mouth.
"He was fine then right?"
"Yeah…"
"So what was his dealio this morning?"
'Why didn't you just tell her Zack?'
But Raven knew it was not her place to intervene with Zack's decision. "I don't know. Maybe the whole rapid aging experience finally hit him. There's always that delay after a traumatizing experience."
"Maybe…"
Raven could tell from her voice that Max was far from convinced.
After a moment of silence Max spoke again. "Are you alright? You seem a little tense. The market didn't shake you up that badly did it?"
It seemed Raven was having a hard time convincing anyone this day. The meeting with her brother must have shaken her up more than she realized.
*****
His finger itched to pull the trigger.
'Patience, patience' he chided himself as he waited for the man in the penthouse to come to a complete standstill, so he would have that perfect shot. There was no rush, the man didn't seem to be going anywhere.
Finally the man sat down on the couch in the living room and took his glasses off, wiping them with the hem of his sweater. Resting his glasses once again on the bridge of his nose, he picked up the newspaper and settled for a read.
'A perfect shot to the temple. Beautiful.' Donovan thought as he trained his crosshairs on the man. Beneath his cheek the gun warmed to match his body temperature. It was a comforting feeling, as though the sniper rifle was truly becoming an extension of his body. With hands as steady as a master surgeon's, Donovan held his sights on the weakest point of the man's unsuspecting skull.
His trigger finger tensed.
"Bang." He whispered with disappointment heavy in his voice.
He lifted his head to look down at his watch. There would be another estimated hour before his target would return home. If only this man was his real target, then he could have gotten this pathetic assignment over with and could return home, ready for a greater challenge.
*****
Logan felt the hairs on his arms raise of their own accord. The apartment was warm, but a shiver ran its icy fingers along his skin. He had only had this sort of uncanny sense of impending doom once before, and that was right before Bruno and his buddies opened fire that day he lost his ability to walk.
Without knowing why, he turned his head to look out the window.
*****
A strange sensation tugged at Donovan and he used his eagle eye vision to look once again at the man. He had turned his head to look out the window and Donovan saw his face full on.
It was just like the woman he had killed in the forest. Fuzzy images tried raise to the top of his thoughts. Not only did the man look familiar, but he recognized the apartment as well. The red stained wood, the artwork hanging from the walls. 'But that's impossible,' he shook his head as though that would rid his mind of the familiar yet alien images, 'I have never lived anywhere but Manticore. I have never been outside its walls before.'
Donovan squeezed his eyelids closed, and clenched his jaw as a sharp pain pierced his brain. It was a natural animal reaction to clamp his free hand down on his temple, even though it did nothing to relieve the pain.
For a few split seconds which seemed like an eternity, the diluted images flashed brilliantly and with such clarity he wished he could shut his eyes tighter though that too would be a futile effort.
There was a view from what could have only been the inner workings of the penthouse. From his perch atop the neighboring building there was no way he could have even caught a glimpse of those parts of the apartment.
There was a man with blonde hair and blue eyes, and he was lifting him up in the air. He had never seen this man before.
There was a lady with curly brown hair that smiled down at him, as she held him in her arms in another dark apartment he once again could not remember.
And then there was the woman he had killed in the forest.
Her face was more haunting than any of the others. This time the woman's face wasn't covered in dirt and blood she smiled warmly at him.
As quickly as it had come the throbbing hurt vanished and the images disappeared to where ever in his mind they were first dredged up. He blinked and shook his head. That was now way for a soldier to concentrate on his objective. Letting his mind run away with bizarre pictures conjured from who knows what. He cleared his thoughts, pushing everything down and glanced at his watch again. There was still plenty of time before the target would return home.
*****
It was evening and the sun was still up, but the alley was more shrouded in shadow then the events that transpired now.
"Please! No!" the woman said, trying to hold her torn clothes together around her body. She could have sworn this alley wasn't a dead end, and she groped at the brick wall that blocked her path as though a hidden passage might reveal itself.
"Come on sweety, you were so hot last night when you were stripping on the bar," said one of the five men who had corralled her into this alley.
"Strip tease for me baby," another laughed.
"Stay the fuck away from me!" She turned around now, full of defiance, but she could not hide the fear in her eyes and the quiver in her voice. The lady wiped her red hair back from her face, it was sticking to the blood that dripped from a cut on her cheek.
They laughed a sick perverted laugh and stepped toward her again, she saw the hunger in their eyes and it shook her to her core. Her knees went weak, and though she wished with all her heart that they would obey her one last time and run, they instead became jello and she fell to the ground, paralyzed by terror.
With her eyes closed tight she could only hear the sound of the approaching vehicle. A motorcycle maybe? Another of their friends to join in on the fun? Why did she have flirt with all of them the other night?
The sound of the men's footsteps paused, and she dared open her eye to see what other horror would threaten her this night.
*****
Zack's smile was hidden behind his helmet when he arrived in the alley. He took of his helmet and tucked it under his arm. Quickly he surveyed his battlefield. Five guys, one damsel in distress, cramped alleyway no wider than two arms lengths across. 'This should be fun'
He dropped his voice to a serious tone. "Back off kiddies, looks like the lady doesn't want to play."
"Who are you calling kiddies?" one of the blonde thugs piped up.
Another held his hand to stop his friends progress toward the intruder, "I suggest you move along little boy, your parents might get worried." With his comment he flashed a knife in Zack's face.
"That's it? My parents wouldn't be too worried about that." He rolled his eyes. 'Come on,' he begged the powers that be, 'Let them be packing something heavier than that.'
"This isn't your problem you little punk."
Zack ignored the comment and leaned to the side so he could make eyes contact with the woman. "Are you okay Miss?"
She did nothing but stare back at him.
Yet another man stepped to break their eye contact. "Well then run along and go find her some help. I'm sure you could find a cop if you looked hard enough in the next sector over."
"Yeah, but if I left, you would just keep doing to her whatever it was you were doing to her in the first place."
"Well give the boy a prize."
"There are five of us, kid. Just run along and forget what you saw here."
"Sorry. Can't do that." Zack shrugged his shoulders and tenderly set his helmet down on his motorcycle.
"You're pissing me off." The biggest of the bunch approached Zack and this time no one held up a hand to stop him. 'Finally!' He stood his ground and waited for the man to come to him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the rest of the gang standing and smiling, relaxing and preparing themselves for what they assumed would be a good show. If that's what they wanted…
The large man threw a few punches that, by Manticore standards, were slow and clumsy. Zack easily ducked the first few, not needing to even lift his feet from the ground. The confusion in the man's eyes became apparent as he watched Zack use his unnatural speed to easily avoid the attacks. After a moment's hesitation the man became doubly determined and sent another right fist at Zack's face. It was a pitiful attempt to which Zack responded by ducking to his left and thrusting the heel of his right hand straight into the large man's solar plexus. His opponent stumbled backwards, shock knitting his brows together as he gripped at his shirt struggling to breathe.
Zack approached slowly, making sure the man saw him coming. When Zack stood over him, he only waited a moment's pause before he dropped to one hand simultaneously using one foot behind the man to kick at the back of his knees, the other to kick the man in the gut from the front. The effect of the move drove the man to the ground so hard he knocked his head on the cement and blacked out.
The others were stunned by the display, but for only a second, as their confidence returned, trusting that their five on one advantage would let them easily win this fight.
Even at what must have been their top speed, in Zack's eyes their advance was at a snail's pace. The man who first revealed a weapon made good on his implied threat and was the first to leap at Zack, knife raised.
With reflexes his muscles still remembered from his training Zack dodged to the side and the man's own momentum carried him past. Zack turned his back on the others to face this second challenger. If he didn't have fun with these guys the moment wouldn't last, so Zack humored the guy and let him take a few more swipes at his face. Soon, Zack tired of these attempts as well and swept his left foot up in the air, and easily knocked the blade out of the man's hand. Was this all the fight they would offer him this night?
The man's confidence faltered as he lost his weapon, but Zack could see in his eyes that he wasn't about to give up. The reason for his confidence became obvious as Zack heard behind him someone pull out a gun and release the safety.
He looked over his shoulder and smiled.
"You … you think this is funny boy?" a black haired man asked, his stutter betraying that he was truly afraid. He was not blind and he saw the freakish thing the boy had just done to his buddies. Of course he would be afraid. Every criminal is a coward inside.
Zack wasn't surprised when the thug did what every thug does when he is frightened, and shot at the source of his fear. The shot echoed strangely through the confines of the cramped alleyway.
Though he moved with uncanny speed to avoid the shot, he could feel bullet pierce his thigh. Falling to one knee, Zack ground his teeth together grimacing in pain. He reached down and felt the warm wetness of blood drenching his pants.
What Zack didn't anticipate was exactly how nervous he made this guy. The man's shaking was so severe that when Zack moved to avoid the shot, even as quickly as he did, he instead moved into the bullet's path.
"Fucking punk. That clipped your wings didn't it you freak." a fourth man with a scar on his face spoke as he and another man moved in. The man that formerly held the knife found his confidence again and moved in as well. He needed to save face infront of his friends even if that meant beating on the kid while he was down.
Shunting the pain away, Zack stood, leaning a bit at first to favor his left leg then stood tall. That was it, Zack could no longer hold back and let the hatred engulf him whole. Hate was something that burned in every corner of his mind since as long as he could remember and now, as it wrapped around him like a warm blanket, he felt more natural then he cared to admit.
"Stubborn fuck. Why don't you stay the fuck down!" the scarred man yelled as he threw his whole body into a punch. Zack stood still until the last moment, sensing the other man's presence behind him as well. Just before the fist made contact with his face Zack dodged and grabbed the man's wrist utilizing the momentum and pulling the punch over his shoulder into the man approaching behind.
With the man's arm over his shoulder Zack pulled down. He could hear the man squeal like a little girl as his arm snapped in two. Zack wasted no time tossing him aside and advanced to finish off the other brute. A few quick punches and a knee to the gut was all that was needed to put a third man out of commission.
That left two others.
The fourth must have been in some sort of martial arts as he was quicker then the others. It was refreshing for Zack to have an actual challenge for once and he slowed his own fighting down. Nothing was better then the way a man fought when he thought he had a chance of winning. The battle was a flurry of attacks and counterattacks, thrusts and blocks. Zack smiled briefly every time the man actually got in a good hit.
The fifth man, still holding his gun watched as his friends dropped like flies. He would have fled, but the battle that ensued blocked the only escape route. His eyes filled with horror as he watched Zack seem to grow tired of the battle.
When the opportunity presented itself, Zack stepped on the mans foot and, before the other man could react, drove his knee down, hyper extending the other's joint until it was a full ninety degrees the wrong way. His scream bounced off the brick of the alleyway, and he dropped to the ground.
Slowly, deliberately, Zack turned toward the last man standing. The gun was still pointed directly at him. This time, Zack would not make the same mistake, and he leapt up in the air, jumping from wall to wall. The frightened man quickly emptied his clip and was still pulling the trigger of a useless gun when Zack landed in front of him.
"Stupid." Zack said as he jumped up and kicked the man across the face, snapping his head to the side.
Behind him he heard a rustling and when he turned his eyes widened. Before him stood Satan's lapdog.
"Lydecker." Zack's voice was acid. Hatred pulsed through his veins and he could hear it thrum against his eardrums.
*****
The stars finally disappeared from the Jimmy's eyes and his breath came back to him. He watched as the runt made quick work of his friends. This kid wasn't human. How was it possible to move that fast? And jumping off the walls like that?
He tried to get up to run away but when he stood he was hit with vertigo, and any movement threatened to topple him again. When he looked up again the boy's blood-shot stare was so intense it seemed to fill the whole alley, holding him in his place.
"Lydecker," was all he said.
Jimmy didn't know what it meant. Was it a name? He looked around him but there was no one else in the alley besides the girl. "L-l-look man I'm sorry…" he stammered.
*****
"Zack. You're a disappointment." Lydecker said to him.
"I'm not here for your approval." Zack stepped toward the man who was his past personified, murder in his eyes. Something in Zack's mind snapped as he lost control of his predatory urges. The barriers between reality and imagination blurred as the blood lust took over.
Before him Lydecker smirked then turned his shoulder and began to walk away.
*****
Jimmy backed away slowly, hands raised in submission. The way Zack spoke to him left him fully disturbed, "What are you…?"
"Don't walk away from me."
Jimmy could hear the animalistic growl beneath his voice. His body told him to fight or take flight, but the look in Zack's eyes really gave him no option. Turning on still unsteady legs Jimmy tried to run away.
*****
"You got nothing to say to me?" Zack picked up his step to a lightning run and pounced on Lydecker from behind, knocking him down. Turning Lydecker on his back, Zack straddled him, picking him up by his collar just to punch him back down. "How could you do that to her? How could you kill her using our son as the weapon?"
*****
"Please…Oh God." Jimmy spit through his blood. This guy was crazy. In Zack's blue eyes he saw death. A quick glance revealed that his friends were going to abandon him as they took the window and dragged their bodies away. Jimmy closed his eyes and began to mutter his final prayers.
*****
Lydecker laughed between each brutal beating. "You were always so angry."
"He was just a kid." His fist made contact with Deck's face.
"We were all just kids." Another punch.
Deck laughed again. "You were never a child, Zack. You were soldiers."
"Fuck you, you bastard!" Zack screamed at Lydecker's laughter, which grated on his ears. Closing his eyes Zack just let go, for a minute the rhythmic beating of his fist against the man's skull was all he knew. He even began to take comfort in the familiarity of the action, but it was a fleeting calm.
When he opened his eyes again he saw who truly lay beneath him. It wasn't the demon that haunted his dreams. It was just a thug off the streets, his face bloody and beaten so badly that he didn't even look human anymore. Zack dropped the limp body and stood. The man must have been dead for a long time.
Hesitantly Zack lifted his hands. They were covered in blood. Tears brimmed in his eyes as he realized exactly what he had done. If for only a moment he had become the killing machine Lydecker had always wanted. He gave into that craving for blood and death, pain and killing, the part that didn't care of worldly consequences…
And he liked it.
His stomach turned at the prospect. How would he run from Manticore if it would forever be a part of him? He had to gain his humanity back. Why was he here with these men in the first place anyways?
A whimper in the corner of the alley served to reminded him. The girl, her clothes in shreds, sat hugging her knees crying. Blinking his eyes dry he tried to soften his appearance, though he didn't know if that was possible being covered in blood, the men's as well as his own.
He looked in a pile of rubbish and found what must have been an old artist's drop cloth. He picked it up and snapped it in the air, shaking all the dirt he could off it if. Cautiously, he approached her holding out the sheet as an offering.
She stared at him with more fright in her eyes then she had when she was pursued by the first assailants. The silence only served to amplify her terror. With one hand she held her rags close to her and with the other quickly grabbed at the gift. She did not take her eyes off him as she wrapped herself, and, hugging the walls to stay as far away as possible from him, she sneaked by.
Once she felt she was in the clear, she made a mad dash for the opening of the alley. Every once in a while glancing over her shoulder to make sure he did not follow.
Zack stood alone save for the corpse by his feet, feeling so unnatural in his own skin.