Chapter 3: Angel Eyes

It had been twenty-eight days since Brian had first crossed the border into Mexico, searching for trouble on the road to Dorado and hoping to find even more at his destination. As he stared down his opponent, the broad-shouldered desperado, roughly seventeen years of age and swinging a bike chain with cruel intent in his eyes; the courier was pleased that his hopes had been met with such haste. On the path that brought him here, his desire for strife to test him constantly conflicted with his need for his acts of heroism to remain as such, both in action and intent. The most he had found on his path here that he could justify the need for aggression was the occasional smash and grab and those had been surprisingly few and far between. From what he could piece together, Los Muertos had become far more clandestine in the recent months with the crusades of both lawmen and vigilantes, Soldier 76 spearheading this shift the times. Luckily for Brian, it seemed like their Dorado branch lacked any sort of subtlety, meaning he would lack any sort of regret for laying them low.

Despite the Brute's intimidating presence, he had yet to do anything more than swing a chain in the few seconds of calm as Brian looked on unphased and calculated silently.
"Afraid...They always talk big, but they're just as afraid as anyone else. Just gotta wait for him to do something stupid. Shouldn't take long."
Brian is proven correct as the silence is broken by the Brute's hollow bravado.
"Time to die, you asshole wh-"
With that mistake, Brian could not keep a smug grin from spreading across his face as he planted his left foot down and pulled a soup can from the pocket of his hoodie, throwing it at the thug with every ounce of his strength. His aim proved true as Chef Vortivask's finest collided with the criminal's nose, the sickening snap of iron meeting cartilage soon joined by muffled screams filling Brian's ears as he began to charge.

Swiftly entering arms reach of his opponent, he reaches deeper into his pocket to equip himself with his weapon of choice: a lightweight, yet surprisingly sturdy adjustable wrench. Blunt force in hand, his muscles tense as his right foot meets the ground to empower a mighty swing that sends chrome to bone with violent force. The horrified screams of the Brute echoed through the passage, telling all around of the fate of his now shattered kneecap. As the desperado tumbled forward in his pain on course to flatten his attacker, Brian's fighting instinct took hold as he began his next attack. Right leg still firmly in place, he twists his body one hundred eighty degrees to deliver a kick to the Brute's abdomen, sending him falling safely away from the courier. Descending brutally onto the back of his head, the Brute could barely cling to consciousness as Brian presses the attack once again. With a curb stomp direct to the nose, the overwhelming pain finally robbed the Brute of his mental faculties as Brian began to breathe heavily on relief. In all of five seconds, the battle was over and a near month of hard road had been made worthwhile.

Slowly, Brian began to retake control of his breathing, obeying the distant memories of what little training of martial arts he had been given. Even a century after it's years of infamy, Oakland was still far from the safest city in the United States. Gang violence, including the Los Muertos' attempts at expansion, was still a common thing in the city and the laws of California left martial arts the only cost-effective method of personal defense. As such, the eternal march of capitalism left a young Brian, or more accurately his parents, with an abundance of options to satisfy his excess of time at the tender age of six. In a decision likely inspired by its distance from their home, his training was in kickboxing. Unfortunately for him, that training lasted only a year and a half before it was cut short by his parents after he decided to employ it on one of his school's more aggressive bullies. Throughout the years, he did what he could to piece together his knowledge of the art for whatever the internet and now the road could teach him. Staring down at the bloodied face of his unconscious opponent, Brian felt confident in his findings.

Adrenaline slowly fading, the continued screams and moans of agony from the goon's ringleader reminded him that he was not alone. Looking back, the girl still pinned herself to the wall, visibly amazed by the courier's display of prowess. Studying her closely, he soon discovered the fresh wound in her leg, blood still flowing to the ground and staining what appeared to be a new pair of pants.
"Probably just another mugging", his intuition told him, "Don't know why they'd rob a kid, but then again, they are idiots."
The hypocrisy of giving her that title was not lost on him, given his own age. From what he could tell, she was likely thirteen, and recently thirteen at that. While the difference of their ages was only two years by his reckoning, the difference in their experience was night and day to him, but he had to admit that he didn't know how she had handled the three before he had interfered. In fact, he hadn't even seen her before his attack, he had only made an educated guess based on how the thugs had gathered on the wall. In any case, the air had been left dead long enough and even if he already made the only introduction that mattered to him, he thought it best to make it official.

"H-"
Before he could even get a single syllable into his greeting, another challenge rang out for him.
"You piece of shit whitey!" The Vulture shouted, finally recovered from the pain of skull bone hitting brick.
Pulling a knife from his back pocket, his bravado continued.
"I'm gonna gut you like a goddamn sheep!"
As the Vulture takes an aggressive stance, Brian enters his own, wrench still firmly in hand, as he begins to formulate a strategy. Examining the knife, Brian recognized it as a Saca Tripas, its hook-like blade designed for the sole purpose of gutting sheep. By any definition of the word, Brian was no sheep, but the Vulture's stance told him warned him he held enough skill with the weapon to set the courier on edge.
"Have to wait for an opening, one good swipe and I'm dead."

Keeping his mental focus, Brian simply waits for the Vulture to make his move, his strategy already decided. The blade of the Saca Tripas, more like that of a scythe than a knife, held a critical weakness inside of its own strength. It is designed to disembowel and disembowel alone, forcing its user to only take wide slashes at the stomach and throat to be an effective weapon. Thrusts made impossible by the blades design and overhead stabs difficult to make worthwhile, the Vulture had no choice in his method of attack.

Not even one full second passed before the Vulture lunged forward and made his attack. Just as the courier predicted, it was a violent slash aimed right for his stomach. Amazed by The Vulture's speed, he only just managed to dodge the fatal slash, even prepared as he was. Before this revelation, he had planned to wait for an opportunity to strike after timing the strikes he dodged with his own considerable agility. But with this deadly speed revealed, his focus was shattered and he was left without a plan.

Another slash came, and again Brian managed to just barely evade it while formulating his next plan.
"Don't think I can get an opening since he's this fast. Might be able to hit him with the wrench if I aim the throw just right. Won't have much to fight with if I miss, so I gotta make it count."
Yet another slash, this time aimed for his throat, the steel managing to just barely meet his skin. While only a flesh wound, Brian's blood still flowed and his situation had yet to improve, he had to go on the offensive and soon.

Pleased by his letting of its blood, the Vulture slashed for Brian's throat once again. Leaping back almost six feet to dodge the savage attack, Brian hoped it was enough distance to safely make one of his own. As his opponents rushed to fill the gap he had just created, Brian was forced to make his move. With all his power, Brian threw his wrench for the Vulture's head, spinning it horizontally to ensure it found its mark. Even with this technique, the Vulture was still nimble enough to evade it as it impacted on the wall right above the head of the girl who instinctively had to let out a scream at her near injury.

Now defenseless against the edge of the blade, Brian began to visibly sweat in fear as the Vulture's grin widened.
"Ah shit, what now?", thought the courier, only now realizing how far over his head he truly was.
"Guess I can still try for just a punch or kick to the sack, but I'm still worse off than before."
Another slash, another dodge; lacking the same degree of confidence as before, Brian leaves far more space than ever before as he searches his mind for a way to improve his position in this fight.

Without daring to make the fatal mistake of taking his eyes off his opponent, Brian scans his surroundings in search of anything that would give him the advantage. Only now did he realize how far backward they had both moved for the wall, over fifteen feet from where they started by Brian's reckoning. His wandering eye met his turned of bicycle, confirming what he already knew. Almost twenty feet from his grasp, nothing from it numerous pouches would be able to help him with the Vulture standing between them. Even the soup cans that now littered the street thanks to his previous plan were too far to bring him any salvation.

The cans may not have been his release for the danger he found himself in, but they soon led him to the true source of his release from the peril he faced. His mind soon returned to the mere minutes of the past that already felt like days in the incredible speed of his battle. As he successfully dodges the Saca Tripes once again, he quickly searches for the Brute's bike chain, still laying next to his defeated foe. Fallen far from the villain's hand after his defeat, it lay only a mere six feet from the would-be hero, Brian. While hardly a weapon he had mastered, it was the key to his victory, the links just thick enough to keep the blade from meeting flesh. The speed and precision of the Vulture's strikes now known to the courier after six attacks had failed to meet their mark, he could only hope that his estimation of his opponent's strength would prove accurate in his final bid for victory.

The distance was only achievable to him if he leaped past the Vulture, the danger was obvious to Brian, but he had no other plan if he wanted to survive. His confidence still wounded by his original failure in this fight, he returned his mind to his moment of glory almost five months ago, as he always had whenever his pride was damaged. He remembered the fear he felt that day as the gunfire rang out in the museum as he and Timmy could do nothing but cower behind a slab of rubble. It was not his fear that kept the memory in his mind, but the fear of the woman that dominated his thoughts every day since then, Tracer. She had tried to hide her dread behind a catchphrase and a false smile that Brian could easily see through, even when his young brother delighted at them. She had lived in combat for over seven years, and likely far more before her military career, yet terror still gripped her in the warzone the building meant to honor her and her comrades had become.

It was not a fear for her own life that had shaken her very soul, but the well being of the two brothers she had found by chance in the chaos. Brian could see it upon her face, as the thrill of battle gave way to dismay upon learning of their existence, but with her powers crippled by a malfunction of the device that allowed her to hone them, there was little she could do to save them. As the battle unfolded ahead of them, the terrorists' intent was made clear to him, the theft of the mighty Doomfist gauntlet that lay motionless in a case of now shattered glass. With Tracer disabled by poor fortune and the great ape locked in battle with the Assassin and the Reaper, there was only one person left who could keep the prize from evil hands. Raw emotion swelled within the courier then, a force that lay dormant within him for so long, a force called heroism. Commanding his brother to stay safe with the hero he so admired, Brian snuck his way to the case, and the rest became history.

It was not pride, glory, or a lust for violence that kept this memory in his mind or what kept him on the path now, but a sense of purpose he had yet to find before. When he charged into the kill zone unseen, the price he would have paid for failure, the loss of his own life, was no price at all to him. The spoils of victory he claimed that day were a sense of meaning in this world, a feeling given value and significance by the hero that had only just been terrified for him. Eyes that once held horror were now alight with an almost motherly pride for the young man, a sight he had never known before, as she spoke the nine words that became his creed. Before that feeling, fear was an illusion. Before that sense of meaning, pain meant nothing. Before the threat of failing to live up to that expectation, death held no fear. With no more doubt in his mind, body, or soul; he dove forward for the weapon that would lay his enemy low.

Unprepared for such a bold action, the Vulture takes a swift, but clumsy strike that only manages to cut through the courier's hoodie and across the skin of his right arm. Brian did not so much as notice the pain as the carbon steel entered his hand as he recovered from the ground with surprising grace. Still shocked by the sheer audacity of the would-be hero, the Vulture makes his final strike against him. Putting his strength and courage forward, Brian wraps the chain around his hands and sends the length between them at the blade. Steel clashes with steel and muscles strain as the courier's plan is enacted and in the end, the blade's advance is halted.

In confusion at the success of this strategy, the Vulture's focus was broken but Brian's remained steadfast as he seizes the opportunity. Wasting no time, Brian's knee shoots out with brutal speed for the Vulture's groin. Screaming in a pain he could not bear, the Vulture's agony continues as Brian strikes again and again and again, once for every flash of the blade. With the eighth and final blow delivered to the desperado, he finally collapses unconscious from the pain that had likely robbed him of a future generation. The courier stood victorious, confident that the faith and trust that had been placed upon him had been met, if not exceeded.

With the rush of battle finally over, only then did he realize that screams of pain from the bandit's leader had finally ceased. Whether it was from the pain or blood loss, he now remained motionless on the ground by the bloodstained wall. On that same wall, only a few feet away, the girl sit perfectly still, still in absolute awe at the courier's skill. Though it was impossible for him to see his own face that fateful day, he recognized the glimmer of hope in her eyes as the same one his own held all those months ago. However, he could not say with honesty that he believed she had earned it.
"Don't get what you're so happy about. I might have bailed so out, but you're still you. Not like you did much.", he thought with sneering elitism.
However, his common sense and empathy soon corrected him.
"Wait...The hell am I thinking? She was stabbed in the leg, probably can't even walk now. Besides, it's not like I know what she did before I showed up. Even if she tried and failed, it's something."

With no danger remaining for the two of them, he attempts a proper introduction once again. With the wound in her leg still fresh and leaking, he planned to make his greeting a short one. Judging by the ripped bag of flour, Brian figured she was likely on her way home and assuming the Grocery Store he passed on the way there was only a few blocks away, they were likely very close to her home. Though his muscles were still tense from his battle, he was more than prepared to bring her to the safety of home, supporting her all the way on his shoulder. But he was getting ahead of himself once again, the words still remained unspoken even after a second chance and it was well past time to correct that.

"Hey, you o-"

The jingle of chains and a heavy footstep interrupts the courier's second attempt as he turns to see the final attacker standing before him with hate-filled, burning eyes. Through gritted teeth, the criminal bit down fiercely on the blade in a vain attempt to take his mind from the excruciating sensation as his hand disappeared into his jacket. Readying himself for battle once again, Brian takes his stance, raising a left fist in front of his right as he had been taught many years ago. As the faint glint of polished black polymer was made visible as it escaped the rough cut leather, Brian's arrogance collapsed entirely as he realized the threat he now faced: A loaded pistol. Before Brian could so much as attempt to dodge, the deafening sound of a gunshot echoed in the dark alley.

A high-pitched ping sound, like that of a sword striking armor, conquered the space within the courier's head. Soon following behind it was a sharp, thundering, and all-encompassing buzz, like his cranium had become a nest of angry hornets. A tight pressure, like that of a vice, clamped down on his skull and the faint feeling of liquid streaking down his brow brought him a shock of realization: He had been shot in the head. Only then did he realized that his vision had blurred to the point of being functionally blind and dark red lines ran across his sight. All control of his own body had been lost to him as he stumbled and fell backward. Time slowed to a near stop as the pain finally kicked in, the most infernal pain Brian had ever felt up to that point, like a drill with a glowing hot tip had invaded his frontal lobe. The fractions of seconds felt like days as the agony and injury denied him the ability to even think, he could only feel absolute horror alongside his suffering in this epitome of anguish.

The wind kissed him farewell as his torture finally stripped him of consciousness long before he even hit the ground and he was as a corpse.