The heart's filthy lesson fell upon deaf ears. A poor soul, less than within himself, Jax awoke to the taste of dirt and the smell of leather. A bright light pierced his eyes once enchanted by the dark and revealed a what looked like a creation of earth and stone come to life.
"Get up, pig." The man spoke through a black and brown mask, covered in dirt and stained in body odor.
The big man kicked Jax in the mouth and forced him to his knees.
"What are you?" Jax spat blood and bone from his swollen maw.
"Black Dragon." The man was a beast, muscular and burdened by stones that protruded from his flesh. A golem if you will, of anger and vitriol as he used little strength to gather the metallic man up to his feet and pushed him against the wall with his forearm.
"Tremor, Tasia, bring him over." Kabal's voice, masked by the metal that covered his face, traced the thick air to Jax's punctured ears.
Death was no eden, but it's no sham. He would finally be able to greet it on his terms.
The chains that fastened his dead weights to the wall unlinked and slapped the wall slack. It was nothing for the beast to drag him before Kabal, the female he could see by him merely directed him in the dark until another light shown in Jax's eyes.
"Lights up, boy." The slits for eyes stared blankly through Jax. "You pigs live in the shadow of vanity, think you can go around killing anyone without repercussion." He continued, "blood on your hands carry no shame, right?"
"Don't waste your breath, just kill me." He spat.
"No, I want you know to hear why I'm killing you." Kabal ignored the plea. "You are directly involved in the death of the Black Dragon leader Kano."
"I didn't kill him, but I wish I had." Jax returned.
"Right," the metal mask nodded and Kabal shrugged, "Sonya did. I'll rape her to death for it, over your dead body."
"I'll kill you, Kabal!"
"Bring him to No-Face." Kabal instructed.
Jax stared back at those apathetic slits. His eyes narrowed with rage, and yet acceptance that death would finally come for him. Unable to move himself, Tremer, the earthen beast gathered him tighter to slug through the dirt.
Kabal, still and unmoving, watched as Jax was carried out of his prison. Tasia behind Tremor and the shadows of the room behind them to envelop him.
He lingered in stillness for a moment with the dark room. For a second his body even covered in all his layers felt a cool chill tug on the hairs of his flesh.
"Curious."
In the next room he'd be left in, it was all cement. He wondered how deep these tunnels ran. Jax looked up to find a pale form of a man, the face mutilated by fire. Nose scraped off, ears torn away and all hair removed. The man to his left he knew already, Jarek.
Tremor dropped the half man half machine lump of flesh down before the one they called No Face.
"This is it." No Face looked him over, kicked the specimen and snickered. "Doesn't look like much, does he?"
"Those arms will melt white hot." Jarek joined in and kicked Jax over onto his back. "I'll make a necklace out of them, a nice locket with Sonya's hair once we catch her too."
"Do whatever, just leave the arms." Tasia instructed.
This frustrated the two men and they grimaced in disapproval. Once Tremor and Tasia had filed out of the room and the metal door slammed them in, Jarek backed away to the far end of the wall in the rectangular room and No Face reached behind himself where Jax could see was a backpack, or tank, something that weighed the thin man down.
Plain brown shirt and pants, his exquisite attire was nothing but the flame thrower he wielded. The hose dropped down to the ground and the nozzle aimed down between Jax's eyes.
"I really wanted to blow you up, gift your bloody parts to the Saudi Prince." No Face remarked, "unfortunately I'll just have to settle for second best."
"Sorry to disappoint." Jax mocked.
Bang!
Boom!
Jarek pushed forward, but No Face paid the noise no mind.
"Stop!" He pulled the hose from No Face's wiry fingers. "Sounded like gun shots."
"Probably the bitch come to save her man." No Face ignored the threat. "Let's give her something to find."
"I'm going to find out what's going on." Determined to stay out of the line of fire, he rushed to the door, the massive metal portal that turned the room into an oven, but it would not open.
"What's going on?" He yelled for Tremor, who he expected to be on the opposite side.
What starving light lit the room in the form of standing lights shattered one by one behind them.
Shrouded in darkness, No Face activated the flame thrower and jerked around to fill the back end of the room with fire. The sight he caught was the horror of wide fanged jaws and black fleshy wings that stretched from above them, latched to the cracked cement ceiling like a bat.
With a swift action, the monster lunged down at the mutilated man and the fire extinguished. What screams could be heard behind that thick metal door was drowned by the gun fire and the screaming in the tunnels.