"The Big Fat Kill"
"Get The Head!"
I'm rattling around in the cap of a beautifully restored 1940 Ford Coupe as it slips and slides around muddy corners and rockets along the straight stretches of barely-there back roads that just about nobody's used since the good old days of Prohibition and bootleggers. I'm doing my best to keep my stomach from jumping out of my mouth. I'm praying my companions can catch up with a pair of out-of-work-Irish-mutant terrorists-gone-freelance and get our hands on the severed head of a murdered hero asshole cop before the bastards can deliver it to the mob.
My companions. Dani. Psylocke. A hooker and her assassin pal. Nobody'd call them the last hope of civilization, but they're my friends and you gotta stand up for your friends.
I suck back the dead cop's cigarettes one after another, end to end, nursing a chunk of hot gravel at the base of my throat and trying to calm down enough so I can think straight.
No more false moves. No more dumb mistakes. Stay smart. Stay cool. Stay steady. It's time to prove to your friends that you're worth a damn.
You gotta stand up for your friends. Sometimes that means dying. Sometimes it means killing a whole lot of people.
-X-
Dani fishtails onto an access road and tortures her old Ford across scattered bricks and pipes and potholes big as bathtubs.
Now we'll see if our little short cut's gotten us to the projects ahead of the out-of-towners we mean to murder.
She rolls over a large hill and I can see the bright lights of the Sin City skyline. Dani starts of roll down the hill and I have to hang on to the dash to keep from going through the windshield. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a pair of headlights coming along the street below us.
"There they are!" shouts Dani. "Whatta we do? Whatta we do?"
"We stop dem, Dani."
Wrong thing to say. Her nerves are shot.
"Stop them. Right. We'll step them." She floors it—the Ford's engine roars like some fierce jungle cat. "This'll stop them! DAMN! THIS'LL STOP 'EM GOOD!"
"DANI—NO!" I shout and brace myself as best I can in the cab.
The Ford flies down the hill and the horn blares from the terrorist's van.
Crazy broad! She'll get us all killed! I should've known—her nerves are shot—
CRASH!
We hit the terrorists' car head on, smashing into the passenger side fender. There's a sickening crunch of metal and breaking glass. Dani's Ford buckles and breaks, taking the worst of the hit. But she did her job. She stopped them. The solid steel front of the Ford slammed into the van and managed to flip it on its side.
Everything goes to pieces—pieces.
I fly through the windshield, the glass shattering all around me, cutting my arms and face. Jackie-Boy's head flies through the terrorist's windshield at the same time.
Time slows down as I fly through the air, Jackie-Boy's head so close to me I could almost reach out and grab it right then and there.
Then the ground smacks into my face and kicks the sense of out me.
-X-
Sparks in front of my eyes.
Machine gun clatter.
Dani dancing an ugly death dance and cursing the sons of bitches even as their bullets rip the life from her…
"Get the head, you stupid git!" shouts the terrorist Sean. "Get the head!"
"I got it—I got it!" shouts Moira as she inches out towards the street and Jackie-Boy's head. She grabs it by the greasy long hair and steps back towards the overturned van.
And while I watch and I fumble around the wet, muddy pavement like an infant child, Psylocke makes her move.
Deadly little Psylocke. She'll cut you quick. She'll kill you quiet.
You won't feel a thing, not unless she wants you to.
There's a flash of steel as a throwing star appears in her hand. The razor sharp disc whistles through the air and hits the girl-terrorist right above the eyes.
"Urk!" she yelps in surprise. The star slices through her skull like a hot knife in butter and the top of her head flops to the ground beside Jackie-Boy's head.
"Moira!" shouts Sean in horror as his partner falls to the ground. His face flushes red in anger and he starts to hyperventilate, sucking in massive lungfulls of air.
"Suck on this, you stupid slag!" And he screams.
In terms of raw decibels, a military jet on full afterburner would have been quieter. The scream covers the full range of ultra-high-frequency spectrum, and it sends waves of white-hot needles through my ears. The noise ripples the air as it closes in on Psylocke. The force of the sound wave slams into her and her face contorts in pain. She covers her hands over her ears and doubles over.
While writhing in pain, Psylocke didn't see the grenade land at her feet until it was already too late.
BOOM!
The grenade erupts in a fiery explosion and sends Psylocke hurtling over the remains of Dani's Ford and out of sight.
My ears are still ringing and I can barely see past the smoke and the sparks fighting a Star Wars dogfight in front of my eyes.
I can't tell if Psylocke is alive or dead.
But I'm finally on my feet and my knees don't buckle and every once of me want to get some killing done.
My hands dip into my coat pockets and handfuls of playing cards fill my hands. I whirl around to throw them at the terrorist scumbag for hire, but the Irish bastard is already down a manhole, Jackie-Boy's head in tow.
I run to the open manhole and the stench of the sewers slams into my nostrils. My stomach flip-flops in my throat as I stare at the darkness beneath my feet.
"Come on down, sweetheart," Sean's voice taunts me from the darkness. "You want the head, now don't you? Come on. It'll be fun."
Full of rage and heedless of the smell, I jump down the manhole, throwing cards as I fall. They make muffled explosions of energy and pink light as they detonate in the sewage.
SPLASH!
I land in waist deep water and go under for a second and try not to think what's actually in the water. I spin around, looking for the Irishman and Jackie-Boy's head.
"Brave lad," his voice calls from behind me. I twist around as Sean steps out of the shadows, holding what's left Jackie-Boy under one arm. "It's true I coulda put a bullet straight down your ear just now—that's if I hadn't got my revolver all wet and useless."
I whip new cards out of my pockets and cock my arm back, ready to blast the son of a bitch all the way back across the Atlantic if I have to.
"You got the drop on me, love. "I'm helpless as a baby," he says as he raises his free hand into the air. "I don't suppose you could find it in your heart to show a fella a bit of mercy, could you?"
Don't listen.
Aim careful.
Take him down fast.
I don't see the object in his free hand until it's too late.
Chikk!
KA-BOOM!
Sean depresses the trigger on a handheld detonator and a grenade goes off from under my feet.
"Gaaa!" I fly backwards and slam into the sewer walls. I land face first in a disgusting pile of god knows what and can hear the Irish terrorist for hire laughing in my ear.
"Haha! I gotta come clean with you, sweetheart. It was an outright lie I was givin' with, about my revolver bein' wet. Y'see, I'm not too fond of shootin'. It's much my preference to blow things up," he taunts right up and close to me. "Once you've blasted the roof off a pub and seen all the parts flyin' off people—a little bang-bang's never gonna match the sight of that!"
"And here I got me all these fine grenades," he stands in the small beam of light and proudly shows off the multiple grenades attached to his belt, "and such a sweet beauty of a remote. State of the art, it is." He raises the remote to his lips and gives it a peck like it's a long lost lover.
But the he puts the remote in his pocket and starts to hyperventilate again.
"But it's my voice I'll be doin' you with," he says menacingly. I gotta do you nasty. You killed my mates and my girl. Somebody shoulda told you never to give an Irishman good cause for revenge."
I'm still too out of it to do anything but watch as he starts to circle me like a vulture flying above a rotting carcass, still taunting, wasting time.
"You won't believe it, what me voice can do." He takes a deep, deep breath. "Here it comes, you bloody bastard!"
There's a quiet snap-hiss and Sean's banshee-like scream stops in the back of his throat.
"AARG-urk…" he croaks as the tip of a purple blade stabs through his back.
Deadly little Psylocke.
Her psychic blade cuts a hole straight through Sean's torso, burning away nerves and muscle and bones.
You won't feel a thing. Not unless she wants you to.
She twists the blade.
He feels it.
-X-
The storm kicks up a bigger fuss than ever as we climb out of the sewers. It's pounding, pummeling, drench-you-to-the-bone rain, deafening, blinding, end-of-the-world rain. The kind that doesn't hit Sin City more than once a year.
I smell to high heaven and I'm tired of getting' blown up and shot at all night, but I have the asshole cop's head back.
I hate the rain. It makes it so damn hard to think straight.
I shake the snot and a bit of leftover sewage and tar of my brain and think straight anyway.
I grab poor Dani's car phone and make the most important call of my life. Then I tell Psylocke what we're going to do and how we're gonna do it.
She smiles.
First, we gotta rescue Storm. Then comes the kill, the big, fat kill.
For a second or two, the wind and rain lays off for a minute and I almost think I can hear a cry, tiny, distant, and helpless.
Storm.
Ororo. Baby.
Just hang on a bit longer.
I have to wait.
I have to wait.
Christ…I can almost hear her scream…
Author's Notes:
Sorry, I know this chapter is a bit shorter than usual, but I wanted to tie it off and have the big, grand finale all by itself.
The epic conclusion of "The Big Fat Kill" just around the corner. Stick around everybody, the best is yet to come!
Reviewer Shout-outs!
Coldqueen: How you doin' darlin'? I'm glad you're digging the somewhat callous Gambit. I tried to combine Remy and Dwight's personalities make Gambit a little more menacing and just cruel enough then charming and flirty all the time. There's a time for flirtin' with the babes, and then there's a time for stickin' a knife in a man's guts. But don't worry, the ol' Cajun charm will reemerge next chapter. Until next time, your highness, I remain your servant lol.
Asylumescapee: kick ass pen name. I did consider using X-23 for Miho, but decided she was too much like Logan from my "A Hard Goodbye" chapters and Betsy just seemed, well more hookerish the X-23, like she would fit in a little better. Sage will be making an appearance in my next SIN CITY/X-Men fic: "A Dame to Kill For" with her old boss Sebastian Shaw. Keep an eye out for it; I'm starting it once I finish this one.
CatLadyinTraining: How are your cats? Colossus was my first, last, and only pick for Manute. I think because I had visions of the Russian Mafia or something. And I love seeing the supposed "Good Guys" being bad. I think that's why Wolverine was always my favorite character. As far as Juggernaut is/was concerned, he's just too damn powerful. I have a hard time mixing the mutant powers with the Sin City realism as it is and having an unstoppable force running around just makes/made things too complicated. But, he's the Juggernaut. I had to have him in there. So when I decided to use Black Tom and the other Irish mutants as terrorists, I found my loophole to work him in. Plus, I really wanted Gambit to blast someone into the tar pits. And let me know how I did with Sean's powers. They were tricky.
A Pen and a Piece of Mind: Thanks for reading. Stick around for the big ending!
NoOo NoOo Lebeau: Glad you brought yourself back from the dead again to leave a review. Very cool of you. Glad you love Betsy and Remy. Stick around to see how amazing they'll be in the ending.
The Frog Prince of Crime: As far as Siryn is concerned, I decided not to include her in my little den of Irish hoodlums. I think one sonically-induced mutant is enough for now. And I think I already used her as one of my Old Town whores. The ways Colossus was "killed" reflects events that happened in "A Dame to Kill for" so I'm kinda throwing out spoilers to my own work, but the hell with that, right? And watch out for Kitty. There's a nice curveball in the next chapter with her.
DarkWolfBlade: I'm glad I'm getting better with my tenses. That stuff is a pain in the ass. Hope you enjoy this chapter and keep letting me know when I screw that shit up. Things like that are just as helpful and wonderful as hearing how much you love my fic.
Retrimesuroth: Another chap for ya. Hope you enjoy. Stick around for the exciting conclusion (did that just make me sound like a TV promo guy or what! lol)
Stefbug: I'm glad you loved the last chapter and I hope you love this one just as much. Back story is one of the things I love most about novels. I always go out and buy the movie novelizations to movies and stuff just because they go into a million times more detail than any movie ever could. As far as writing goes, all I can say is keep practicing. Writing is like anything else; you just gotta keep at it and persevere. And I would be more than help to offer any assistance, if you were to need or want some.
Nataku's Wrath