Chapter 6: When Bad Things Happen To Worse People

One of the many strange things about human society, although perhaps more so of the modern era, is the stigmata to blame a rape victim for what she has suffered (and it is always a she. With the exception of prisons, male rape victims are practically non-existent.) Oh, it is rarely done up front and just as that, but it always seems to be there. Behind the sympathy and help, so many men have that disturbing and disgusting hint of a suggestion that somehow, the victim brought the fate on herself. She wore the wrong thing. She was walking in the wrong place. She said the wrong thing. She looked the wrong way. She gave the wrong impression. She placed the wrong amount of pressure on the ground when she took her 398th step of the evening. Always how she did something wrong. One wonders how many men, if they suffered the same fate, would react to someone subtly accusing them of doing something wrong, considering the horrible wrongness of the act they had suffered.

In any case, perhaps that is best said, in order to keep people from accusing Tea of doing anything wrong when she was attacked.

Now, Tea was not a stupid girl, but everyone makes mistakes, every day, and sometimes they can have terrible consequences.

Perhaps her first mistake was signing up for the contest in the first place. It had run a long time and finished quite late. Tea had finished in fifth place out of a field of 25th, which was pretty good considering she was a traditional dancer and not one of the people with insane memories or eye to foot coordination that usually won contests held on dancing machines. And she had definitely found out how far she could go. Hence, she was sore but satisfied (leg muscle wise, get your minds out of the gutter you hentais) as she headed across the darkened parking lot.

Her second mistake was not calling a cab. She was tempted to, but she didn't have a lot of money to spend, and if she wanted to go to dance school, a good one, she needed to save every cent. Besides, the bus station was just across the parking lot, not through a really bad part of town, so Tea figured she was probably safe.

Her third mistake was making that assumption, but Tea wasn't a fool. She didn't walk across the parking lot knowing she was safe. She, despite her weariness and aching legs, kept her eyes and ears open, and stayed in a well-lit areas as she walked across the mostly deserted parking lot, making sure she kept her eyes open for any potential threats.

Hence, she wasn't paying attention to the bright blue van as she walked past it. And even if she had been, she probably still would have been taken by surprise.

All she heard was the quick low growl-esque noise of a sliding door being opened and then suddenly her nostrils were filled with the scent of ether and a slightly sweet taste was on her lips as her assailant wrapped one arm around her waist while simultaneously jamming a chloroform-soaked rag against her face.

Elsewhere (and this IS important) two men, totally unrelated to the man currently assaulted Tea, drove around the quite night streets of Domino. The quiet outside was matched by the heat, literal and metaphorical, of the men inside the car.

They had but one desire, and they were getting damn impatient. Still, they stayed alert, waiting and hoping, that an opportunity would present itself, and bring them money and pleasure.

What ultimately saved Tea was her dancing.

To match the bad luck she had had earlier, a stroke of good luck came with it. Tea was tired, and like most humans, did not like to be tired. Seeing how she had no books or magazines or people to converse with, she was trying other things to keep herself occupied.

What she had been doing while she was walking was a breathing technique she had read of that supposedly helped exhaustion. The guy who wrote it had theorized that rapid breathing was wasteful, as it flooded the body with nutrients and made them go to waste due to the sheer amount of them and this was harmful or something. Instead, he suggested taking a deep breath and holding it until the need to take another one began necessary but not urgent. He had sounded like a crackpot, but something had reminded Tea of the article a short time ago and she had decided to try it.

Her decision proved to be fortunate, as when her assailant stuffed the rag in her face, she was holding her breath.

Surprise, however, caused reactions she could not control, and there was a slight snorting sound as some of the air within her escaped. Her mind whirled as she realized she was being attacked.

She inhaled, ever so slightly, and immediately her senses began to swim. In the back of her head, she was vaguely aware of being pulled backwards towards the van her attacker had come out of, and her animal flight or fight instincts kicked in as she realized what awaited her if he managed to get her in there, as well if he managed to keep the rag over her face.

And once again, her dance skills saved her. For while she mostly danced alone, she had taken a few couples lessons, and the most important part of beginning lessons is to make sure you knew where your partner's feet are at all times.

In theory, to avoid them.

In this situation, to get a good idea where your attacker's feet are. Which Tea figured out and used as she lifted up her leg and brought her well-muscled limb down as hard as she could, adrenaline giving her an extra kick.

The man behind her yelled as she stomped on his foot as hard as she could, and his grip loosened. Tea broke free, the rag coming away from her mouth. She exhaled and inhaled clean air as she turned around.

The foot stomp had been Tea's innate dance skilled used in a practical way for the situation, but her follow up mood was pure luck and rage, as she reared back her leg and kicked her attacker in the testicles as hard as she could manage.

Her attacker made a weird groaning bellow as he slumped over, grabbing for his injured privates and dropping the rag.

However, Tea's had pretty much exhausted her supply of bravery with these two moves, and with freedom came the exact situation she was in: she had almost been kidnapped and raped.

The fight part of her instinct promptly died, replaced by the flight part overwhelmingly, and Tea screamed and ran away from her attacker. She heard him curse "Bitch" and stole a glance over her shoulder. Her panic multiplied when she saw her attacker was already back up and stumbling after her.

If logic was in charge at the moment, Tea would have taken note of his features and clothing, as well as the van and quite possibly the license plate, to ensure the conviction of her attacker when he was (hopefully) arrested. However, panic is a poor breeding ground for logic, and a more inevitable response in the modern human when faced with sudden mortal danger, so she didn't.

It also led to another folly. If Tea had been thinking clearly, she would have run towards her previous destination: the bus stop. That direction may have brought cars, or houses, or generally more people to scare her attacker off. However, her innate need to run had overpowered that: it just wanted her to run, and just run.

Hence, Tea ran back towards the D-Dueling Arena, which was closed and abandoned. By the time she realized her mistake, her attacker was already running/shambling after her. She didn't dare double back: even with all the room he could still grab her.

So she kept running. And screaming. And hoping that life would provide her with a good answer for the next problem that arrived.

"HELP ME! SOMEONE HELP ME PLEASE!"

It was that scream that jerked V out of his little dream meeting. He was wide awake and alert instantly. He was well versed with screams, and this one spoke of panic and fear.

He stood still for a few seconds, trying to place the direction.

The scream came again. Now he knew.

In overall design, the D-Arena was ultimately two big buildings/domes with a connecting passageway between them. Not wanted to run around the domes in case her attacker ran at an angle and intercepted her, Tea took off down the dark and trash-strewn alleyway of sorts between the domes, still screaming, hoping someone heard her. Maybe someone was still working in the domes. Maybe a helicopter would fly by. Maybe someone had left a shotgun in the alley. Maybe she was fu-

Tea barely managed to avoid running face first into the passageway between the domes that rose up before her, cutting off her path. For a moment her panic almost overwhelmed her: she was trapped and was going to die.

Luck came again though: she noticed a small gap underneath the passageway. Apparently it was slightly above ground level, and that left some room to crawl under. If it was enough Tea didn't know, but she figured she would find out soon enough. She immediately threw herself on the ground and began crawling. Great! It wasn't too tight a…

Someone grabbed her ankle.

Tea screamed again and began thrashing her legs, barely hearing the pain-filled curses of her attacker. She twisted and kicked and managed to free her leg a second before a switchblade knife would have been buried in her ankle. She scrambled out of the reach of her attacker and tried to get up so quickly she nearly tripped and fell on her face again. She managed to avoid that though, and kept running. She had no idea if her attacker would be able to crawl under the passageway himself, but she wasn't sticking around to find out.

In normal cases, the crawlspace Tea had used probably would have been too small for the man, but he was so damn mad that he managed to force himself through the space anyway, his mind burning with the mad justification that these kind of men had, that women deserved everything he did to them and he was damn sure gonna…

And then the slight darkness of the night was blighted out by a greater darkness as a figure dropped down from the roof of one of the buildings and landed in front of him. He was just getting up, and he barely got a good look at the figure when he could see, his eyes filled with confusion.

Then a hand seemingly the size of a glove clamped over his face and lifted him up with inhuman strength.

V had barely seen the man, but he didn't care. He had seen the girl running. He had heard her terror. And he had read the man's intentions and they filled him with rage.

An Unworthy.

DESTROY.

"I declare you a convert of Zen Buddhism!" V said, as he swung his arm back. "Let your head become one with THE WALL!"

And he slammed the man against the side of the building as hard as he could. Blood and worse squirted between V's hand before it hit the wall itself.

The body fell at his feet. He spat on it.

"Scum."

Calming down a little, V looked at now decapitated corpse and realized something. Eventually someone would find the body, and they deserved to know what crimes the man had committed to warrant such a fate. However, a headless body could be hard to identify…

V noticed the switchblade the man had been carrying, now at his feet. He had an idea. He picked it up, torn the man's shirt off, and wrote the message on the man's chest.

JUST PUNISHMENT FOR A RAPIST.

V wanted to add "He never thought with the right head, so I removed it", but there wasn't enough room. He dropped the bloody knife and wiped his hand on the wall.

And then he remembered the girl.

He had better catch up to her and tell her she was safe. Otherwise her panicked run might bring her right out in front of a car or something, and he didn't want that. With that in mind, he took off after her. She wasn't hard to track.

He could smell her fear.

Yugi woke with a start as his ears filled with the buzzing noise of the front doorbell.

"What the heck…" he said. He realized he could hear someone banging frantically on the door between the buzzes. Intrigued, and a little scared, he jumped out of bed and ran downstairs, neglecting to grab his Puzzle on the way down.

He reached downstairs almost as soon as his grandfather. He could also hear someone yelling outside, but he couldn't make out the voice. It sure sounded familiar…

"What's going on Yugi?" his grandfather was asking.

"I don't know!' Yugi said. He was closer to the security camera display, so he ran over to look.

He arrived at a bad time: just when Tea had gathered enough breath to look up and scream at the camera again.

"YUGI! LET ME IN! HELP ME!"

The sudden noise scared Yugi so badly he nearly fell over, but he recovered quickly.

"Grandpa, it's Tea! She's in trouble! Let her in!" Yugi said, as he ran for the door. He tried to look through the glass, but the darkness outside with the light on inside obscured his view. He could definitely see the hands banging on the glass though.

He vaguely sensed his grandfather hurrying over and punching in the entry code, and no sooner was it finished then the door flew open and Tea fell on, dragging Yugi down with her.

"Yugi! Oh thank god!" Tea said, a hair away from crying. Yugi gaped at the condition of his friend: her clothes were filthy and torn, and her face held an expression of shock unlike anything he had ever seen.

"What happened?"

"I don't know…rapist…call police….might still be after me…help me…oh god….call police…." Tea babbled.

"Rapist? Holy sh-Cats! Grandpa, call 911!" Yugi yelled. He was still sitting on the floor with Tea holding a death grip around his shoulders. In the background, he heard what sounded like a screeching noise. Tires? Near accident? Drunk? Yugi wondered for a moment in the back of his head, and then focused on Tea again.

"It's ok Tea…you're safe now…it's ok…" Yugi said, trying to get up and pull Tea with him. He managed it and managed to drag her a few feet before he put her down again: she was heavy and her shock made her dead weight. Behind Yugi, the door began to swing shut.

"Ok Tea, now tell me…"

And then the last bit of bad luck from Tea arrived. Unfortunately, it was a real bad one.

The door abruptly slammed open again, and Yugi jerked upward, thinking the rapist had indeed followed Tea.

It wasn't. It was worse.

It had been quite a surprise for the two men when the girl had gone running past them, screaming at the top of her lungs. Now, the men weren't given to helping, but it was interesting, especially considering how the rest of their night had been a bust. So, they had quietly nosed the car off the curve and followed the girl, headlights off. She had been so intent on running she had never noticed them.

And in running to the nearest place she knew, Tea inadvertently brought the blight that followed her to a target. They had seen the store before, but it had been locked up tight. But now, if someone answered the girl's cries for help…

When the lights came on they knew they had a score. They had revved the engine, and when the door had opened, they had driven at the door, until to pull an abrupt 180-degree braking turn maneuver usually called a "donut" right before they actually rammed into the game store. That had been the screeching sound Yugi had heard. They had jumped out of the car and gotten to the door before it closed, and they were in.

The newspapers called them the "Dine and Dash" bandits.

"OK FREEZE! DON'T FUCKING MOVE! NOT A FUCKING INCH!" one of the robbers screamed, waving his gun around.

For a moment, Yugi wondered if he was dreaming. This was just too damn surreal. First Tea showed up banging on the door claiming she had just escaped being raped, and no sooner had he begun to digest that then two men burst in (the same two men that had been on the news for weeks, at that!) and started screaming. Well, one did, a guy with stringy blonde hair. The other was rather passive, abet incredibly menacing. Also, a lot bigger.

Yugi's reaction was echoed in his grandfather's, although Solomon had a somewhat more realistic reaction: a ball seemed to form in his stomach, a ball of terrible cold. Oh no…why now? WHY NOW?

"DO NOT FUCKING MOVE! CASH! EVERYTHING! NOW! FUCKING NOW!" the blonde robber screamed. Not knowing what his name was, Yugi (in some detached part of his brain that obviously had a sick sense of humor) dubbed the robbers "Cuckoo" and "Stoneface". It was Cuckoo that was screaming at his grandfather to open the cash register, while Stoneface covered his back and swung his gun back and forth between Yugi and Tea and Solomon.

Tea was strangely quiet. If anything, the surreal feeling had affected her even more so then Yugi, shocking her into stunned silence.

"Ok ok…just don't hurt us…" Solomon said as he headed over to the cash register, praying that he could get his grandson out of this safe.

"I SAID FUCKING NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!" Cuckoo screamed. Part of his yelling was impatience, but the other part was his simple enjoyment of his Christian right to brutalize anything he felt was weaker and could be brutalized.

Solomon tried to open the machine, but fear made his hands sweating and he kept pressing the wrong things.

"NOW YOU FUCKING SHIT! I'LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF RIGHT NOW YOU SENILE OLD FUCK!!!!!!!!!!"

That did it: Yugi had had enough. He realized the danger they were all in, but he could not resist his desire to stand up to the man who was terrorizing his grandfather for no good reason.

"Hey! Leave him alone! You'll…!" Yugi began.

"Shut up kid!" Stoneface finally said.

As he slammed Yugi across the head with the butt of his gun.

Yami had been pretty much sleeping quietly through this whole spectacle. Yugi's abrupt departure had gotten his attention, but while in his Soul Room he lacked full alertness and dismissed it as his Aibou's need to use the washroom. He had not heard any of the commotion downstairs as well.

However, he was not so out of it that he couldn't detect his aibou's pain, when he suddenly got as a huge jolt he almost felt himself.

"YUGI!" he yelled, as he materialized in the bedroom. Who had dared hurt his best friend? He would make them scream…!

V arrived in view of the Game Shop about ten seconds after Stoneface and Cuckoo had made their grand entrance. He immediately realized what had happened. Questions on coincidence and possibilities were shoved aside as he watched Cuckoo yell at the man who had helped him earlier today.

Then Yugi stood up, and Stoneface hit him.

Dark energy sparked in V's eyes. How dare they!

V started for the store, planning to kick the door open and rip both the men apart with his bare hands.

But as he passed the car the men had used, he suddenly slowed down as he noticed a few things. The engine was still running. The keys were still in. The doors were even still open, assumingly to help assure a fast getaway.

V had another idea.

"YUGI!!!!!!!!!" Solomon cried out as Stoneface slammed the butt of his gun across the brow of his young, frail grandson.

"YUGI!!!!!!!!!" Tea echoed, snapped out of her daze, as Yugi fell back into her arms, unconscious, blood gushing from his brow.

"YOU SEE, NOW GIVE ME THE MONEY MOTHERFUCKER!" Cuckoo screamed.

Had Solomon said what his mind and heart had wanted to say, he would have definitely wound up dead, as well as his grandson and Tea. But he never got the chance, as the door from upstairs suddenly slammed open and Yami appeared.

Yami almost wound up, if not dead, at least injured, as both men immediately swung their arms around and began firing at him. The guns were insanely loud, louder then Tea could have ever imagined. Yami lucked out though, as he managed o dive behind the counter as bullets riddled the wall above him.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA! DIE MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!" Cuckoo screamed as he fired. Three seconds later, both guns ran dry. Yami had learned enough about modern technology to know what that meant, and he popped up, prepared to Mind Crush these two humans into…

And then Yami witnessed one of the most crazy sights of his very long life.

Sometime in the chaos, one of the robbers had propped the door open with something, probably to make sure the door didn't close and lock behind them, leaving them trapped in the store until the police arrived.

It came from outside through the open door, almost like a Wild West lasso, except instead of thick rope, this loop was composed of thin metal. However, it was thrown as true as any cowboy, falling over the shoulders of Cuckoo.

"What the fuck!??!?!?!" Cuckoo cursed.

The loop jerked shut, pinning Cuckoo's arms to his side. The sudden jerk of movement caused Cuckoo's fingers to loosen, and he dropped the gun.

"What the…" Stoneface said, as he began to turn around. Just as a second lasso dropped over his shoulders. A second later, he suffered the same fate, although he managed to hang onto his gun.

And then the robbers were gone, as the tosser yanked hard in a quick 1-2 motion, and both the Dine and Dash bandits were pulled out of the store, yelling and screaming as they went. As he went out, Cuckoo's thrashing knocked over or out whatever he had used to prop the door open, and it closed after him.

"……………Yugi!" Yami said, forgetting about the now gone robbers, as he ran over to Tea. "What happened?"

"They hit him. Call an ambulance! And the cops!" Tea said, her ordeal forgotten as she cradled Yugi's limp body, her small friend seeming even smaller.

Solomon was already on the phone. Yami realized there was nothing he could do, and his memory returned to the robbers. Those bastards! He would get them yet, bizarre exit or not!

He ran to the door and tried to yank it open, but it failed to. Realizing the door was locked again from closing, Yami cursed and leapt over the counter to re-enter the access code. Yugi knew it, and since they often shared the same mind, Yami by association knew it as well. He began inputing it, his mind burning with things he would do to those robbers…

Stoneface and Cuckoo didn't have a pleasant landing, as they bounced a few times from the hard yank, in which Stoneface lost his gun as well. The two of them cursed and tried to get to their feet, but their arms were pinned to their sides so firmly it had drawn blood, and getting up without your arms, especially if you are not accustomed to it, can be a very difficult task.

Then they saw V, who had the other end of both wires in his hands as he glared at the two of them.

"How's yeh?" V said, and took a few steps to the back of the car Stoneface and Cuckoo had planned to use to drive away in.

"WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU! WHAT THE FUCK! LET ME GO! NOW!" Cuckoo screamed, jerking around.

"No." V said. He was doing something, but neither robber could see exactly what.

"Let us go! We'll fuck you up bad if you don't! BASTARD!" Stoneface said, briefly losing his air of indifference.

"I ain't the one getting fucked up." V said.

And he moved slightly as he completed what he was doing, and Stoneface and Cuckoo saw: He was TYING THE OTHER END TO THE BACK OF THE CAR.

And they realized.

"…………NO! YOU CAN'T! YOU CAN'T FUCKING DO THIS!" Cuckoo screamed and cursed.

"Yeah! You can't! You can't do that to us!" Stoneface added.

"I can't do this? Let's take a tally of what you can't do, and did anyway, shall we?" V said, and began ticking them off on his fingers.

"You drive around robbing stores and killing and hurting anyone you decide, whether they resisted or not, because you're both sadistic monsters. Strike 1. You just terrorized a nice old man. Strike 2. You just hit a sweet young child who you have two feet and 150 pounds on with the barrel of a gun, for no other reason that you thought it would be quite fun to hit a sweet young child that you have two feet and 150 pounds on with the barrel of a gun. STRIKE 3. YOU'RE OUT." V hissed, and got behind the wheel of the car.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Cuckoo screamed.

"You're on the highway to hell!" V sang, and stomped on the accelerator.

And that was when Yami got the door open, and had his recent amazing sight topped as he watched a car drive away, dragging the two screaming bandits behind it. It was so amazing he just stood and stared at it as the car rounded the corner and drove off with the shrieking robbers, and he stared after it for a good ten seconds afterward.

Then he turned and went back into the store.

Tea had gotten a wet cloth and had put it against Yugi's wound while Solomon spoke on the phone.

"What happened to the robbers?" Tea asked.

"I'd tell you, but I'm not sure myself." Yami replied.

V drove down the street, ignoring the screams for mercy and of pain behind him. However, he knew he couldn't keep driving down streets like this: even if no one had the model of the car or the license plate, the whole dragging two men kinda stood out.

But V had a plan, as he made a sharp turn into an alleyway. He heard a loud thump as one of the men didn't quite make it all the way around, and the screaming got louder.

"OOOHHHHH, I bet that hurt a lot!" V said, and then his expression got very grim. "Good."

And V drove down to the docks. There was no one around at that time of night, and he was free to drive around, dragging his guests behind him. He did that for a while. The best part was definitely when he found a small patch of sand and drove through it. He didn't think it was possible, but the screaming got even louder.

Eventually though, it stopped. V drove a little longer just to be sure, and then he finally stopped the car and got out.

He took a look. The Dine and Dashers were both quite Dead. And judging from the condition of their bodies, their trip to death's door had taken a lengthy detour through hell.

Good.

He looked at the bodies for a bit. So much suffering wrought, so much potential maybe gone, all because two men couldn't find a better way to make money…

Money…

That reminded V, and he sighed. His funds were already running low. He would need more cash if he wanted to keep going.

And he had a good idea where to get it. The bandits' pants and wallets were long gone, but he had driven into this area for another reason. With all the privacy, it was a good place for certain things.

And V was certain that if he looked around, he would find one.

He left the car and robbers, already forgetting them.

"He's lucky." One of the paramedics said as he put Yugi on a stretcher. "Looks like a glancing blow. If he'd been one step closer, considering the guy who hit him, he'd definitely have a concussion. Maybe a fractured skull."

"What are you going to do?"

"We'll take him in for some tests, but I think he'll be alright." The paramedic said, as he loaded Yugi into an ambulance. Yami had gone back into the Puzzle, which Grandpa had managed to fetch and put on his grandson before the police and ambulance had arrived. Tea was being looked over by other paramedics, while the police went over his shop collecting evidence of what had just happened. He was sure they would have a lot of questions for him, but he knew he wouldn't be able to answer the most important ones.

As Yugi was driven away, in his mind, Yami entered and found Yugi sitting on the floor of his own Soul Room and looking dazed.

"Yugi! Are you ok?"

"A little woozy, but my brain seems to be working. Why did that man hit me?….Yami, please tell me you didn't hurt them!"

"Child, I can honestly say I did not lay a finger on them."

"Then what happened?"

"I have absolutely no idea. But I'll tell you anyway…"

Their names are not important. Neither is the exact nature of their deeds. Let us just say it involves narcotics, spread out on a table, in a warehouse between owners and with no security. Let us call the large, muscular man sitting in a big chair at the table, a man who is clearly the boss, Mr. Lord, and his followers Punk 1 through 6.

We know the name of the man entering. He is called V, and the reason the Punk Sextet did not immediately shoot him is because they mistake him for their friend, Punk 7, who is now outside with a broken neck.

When they realize V is not Punk 7, as he comes up to the table, they all train their guns on him. But the expression on V's face is strange. It looks as if he has recently had a lobotomy: his eyes are glazed and without light, and his face is slack in the way that the lesser minded sometimes are. The Punks yell at him at first, but he does not reply, and his manner is so strange and non-threatening that the Punks foolishly drop their guard and begin to seek amusement with their strange new guest. Perhaps he is a crazy homeless man, or a druggie so badly in need of a fix he has dropped into this strange catatonia to deal. Mr. Lord is more alert, but since he is impatient to finish his deal, he begins to ignore V. If there is trouble, his lackeys will deal with it.

"Hey, what's up man? You wanna buy something?" Punk 1 says in a mocking tone, keeping his submachine gun loosely at his side.

V stares on, dead to the world.

"What's wrong? Don't you speak English? Wha wrooonnnggg, rettarrrrdddd? You nooooo speakaaaaa tha engrishhhhhhhh?" Punk 1 laughs, waving his hands in V's face.

The steel returned to V's eyes, even as his hand snaps up and against Punk 1's face, breaking his nose and driving shards of bone into his brain, damaging it beyond repair, even as V reaches out with his other hand and grabs the sub-machine gun out of Punk 1's hand.

Even before their brains can register danger, V raises his new weapon and opens fire at point blank range at Punk 2's face. Even as his face and brains go exploding out the back of his head, V swings his arm to Punk 3 and makes his head explode. Punk 4 meets the same fate, and an attempt to flee earns Punk 5 a dozen shots to the back. Punk 6, by now, has had enough time to try and get his weapon up, but his panic makes him slip, and he drops his gun. Knowing he will never survive an attempt to pick it up, he raises his hands as V sets his sights on him.

"I surrender!"

"I'm sure you do." V said, and ventilated him anyway.

A slight click catches V's attention, and he swings around.

Mr. Lord sticks a gun in his face.

As V also sticks his gun in Mr. Lord's face.

For a moment, the two stare at each other.

"You idiot, the safety's on." V says.

Mr. Lord's inability to resist looking is all V needs, as his hand lashes out and knocks the gun out of Mr. Lord's hand. His eyes widen as V smirks, and pulls the trigger.

Click.

"Nuts." V said, and then quickly dodged back as Mr. Lord takes a swing at him, dropping the empty gun.

"Hold it." V says, holding up a hand. "Let me point something out. You are a big guy. I am smaller then you. I believe I am quicker and more coordinated then you. If we each dive for a floor gun, who do you think will win?"

Mr. Lord is silent, but his angry eyes show the truth in V's words.

"OR, we could settle this like men." V said, and raises his hands in a battle pose. Mr. Lord chuckles angrily.

"Young punk, you just made a big mistake. I was trained by the CIA, and in my 47 years, I have NEVER lost a…!" Mr. Lord says, and then swings at V, trying to catch him by surprise.

He fails, as V dodges to the side, raising his own right fist and pistoning it forward.

CRA-GLORSH!

Perhaps it was better that the Punk Sextet met death so quickly. It kept them from knowing the terror they would have felt if they saw the sight before them: V standing there, his fist literally stuck inside Mr. Lord's mouth, having driven all his teeth inward in order to make room. With a normal man it never would have worked, but Mr. Lord's size also constitutes a large skull, and V has somehow gotten his fist into his mouth without dislocating his jawbone.

Blood gushes down Mr. Lord's chin, as the sheer shock of the injury has robbed him of the ability to do anything but moan.

"If you were trained by the CIA, then you should know what happens when you open up your fist inside a man's mouth." V said.

CRRRRRRRACK.

V wiped his hand on Mr. Lord's clothing and takes the money he has on him. He takes what the Punks have as well, as well as the money on the table. He is pleased: this will keep him comfortable for a while.

He is about to leave when he hears the voices.

"Hello? Anyone?"

Intrigued but cautious, V retrieved another gun from the floor and headed around the pile of crates the voice was coming from.

What he saw was surprising: five men, all locked up in the same small cage, so tightly jammed in they couldn't even sit down. Their clothes were filthy, their faces were covered with stubble, and they stank to high heaven. Seeing V, they all begin to make happy noises.

"Oh thank god!"

"Hey buddy let us out!"

"Open the cage! Please!"

V walks in front of the caged men. They continued to plead with him to open the cage.

"Why are you in there?" V asks.

"That sick fuck Grizlow!" one of them says (We will assume Grizlow was the name of Mr. Lord). "He locked us up here, no food, no water, no sleep, NOTHING! All he does is have his goons take us out and beat up every day, while he watches, the sick fuck! We…!"

"No, you didn't understand. Considering this Grizlow's business, you are either in there because of money matters or revenge. So tell me, WHY ARE YOU IN THE CAGE?" V asks again.

They are silent for a few seconds.

"Well…we were in the business…he wouldn't give us anything…so we…well we grabbed his kid…but we weren't going to hurt her! But he was taking his time, and she was old enough, and we decided to have some fun, and…" one of the men finally babbled.

"Yeah, we didn't MEAN for her to suffocate!" another one of them blurted out. V's expression darkened.

"The good news is, Mr. Grizlow is dead." V said.

The men in the cage cheered.

"The bad news is, you're not getting out of that cage." V said, and turned and left.

The men yelled after him, begging him to come back. When he doesn't, they curse him, even as he turns the corner around the boxes again.

"MOTHERFUCKER!"

"Hey shut up! You see that gun! He could have turned us into Swiss cheese! Relax! If Grizlow's dead, someone else may show up, and they'll let us out! So lets get ready to…"

A strange mechanical noise suddenly filled the air.

"What's that?" one of the men asked.

And then V made his return.

Driving a forklift.

He carefully inserted the prongs under the cage and lifted the men up. The men yelled at him again, asking him what the hell he was doing. V turned around and drove out of the warehouse.

Heading for the nearest pier.

The men realized his intent and began screaming even louder, begging for mercy.

"Oh god please NO!"

"You can't DO THIS!"

"For God's sake, HAVE MERCY!"

"Is that what that child asked for? Did you give her any?" V asked, as he drove down the pier, getting close to the end. The screaming, by now, had generated into mindless noise as the men panicked.

And then V stopped, right as the cage hovered over the water.

The men stopped screaming and were silent for a bit as V sat in the forklift, watching them. A few of them began to laugh nervously.

"Heh, funny man, now why don't…"

"No."

They were quiet again.

"You took a child. You took one of the purest forms of POTENTIAL there is. And you took her innocence. And then you took her last breath." V said, and then he got up and suddenly swung up onto the forklift's loading mechanism.

"So I'm TAKING YOURS."

And with that V violently kicked the cage, sending it toppling back into the water. The men's final scream cut off abruptly as they sank like the proverbial stone.

V watched as a few bubbles emerged from the water, with eyes as cold as ice.

They soon ended.

V left the forklift and the docks. He wasn't going to head back to the Arena: the police may have found the rapist's body, and that would be no place to sleep.

He found the nearest hotel that wasn't a complete dive and checked in. Tomorrow he would go back to dueling, and hunting for a Worthy.

Even so, it had been a good night.

A good night indeed.

"It's all riiiiggghhhttt, it's all riiiiggghhttt, it's all riiiiggghhhttt, I'm just a little crazy….It's all riiiiggghhhttt, it's all riiiiggghhttt, it's all riiiiggghhhttt, I'm just a little crazy…."

Fight, "Little Crazy".

To Be Continued (and we finally get to dueling!)