The Man in Burgundy
Chapter Five: Keep Your Friends Close…
Woot woot, more of this!
Let's go!
(Note: Almost the entire chapter is a flashback.)
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"Fucking hell, South!" I muttered angrily, kicking another guard off the edge of the platform. She just had to fuck this up, and now we were paying the price!
I rolled beneath a sloppy punch made by a white-armoured guard, turning and bringing my elbow into his head, before kicking his buddy in the chest, pushing him into the cluster of guards behind him. I pulled Super Good Advice off my back, opening fire and bringing down almost a half a dozen guards by holding the trigger.
North and South were remarkably coordinated, and I observed South throwing North a shotgun just in time to take out a charging enemy. To be honest, it seemed a little bit overdone, but whatever floats your boat, I supposed.
My attention was turned back to the fight at hand, two guards opening fire with their rifles, only for me to gun them both down, smiling. I noted the sniper moving into position on a gantry way ahead of me, and grabbed a guard by the chest piece, running him ahead of me as a shield. I felt him jerk and heard him scream as his companion shot him, and I raised his freshly dead body and threw it at the sniper, knocking the man from his platform into the water below.
I lost sight of North and South for a while, mostly because of my taking an alternate route through the facility. I still heard gunfire and yelling, though, so I presumed they were still alive, at least. Then the gunfire stopped.
I found myself in the door leading to a catwalk, which was currently bristling with enemy troops. Seriously, there were dozens.
"Attention assholes!" A man in red and black ODST armour yelled. He was operating a machine gun turret, but had a shotgun on his back. "We have you surrounded!"
Way to state the obvious, I thought, crouching and quietly moving past the distracted guards. None of them turned around, and I managed to reach the ODST with relative ease. He was still talking, I noted, and so I punched him in the head. He went down like a sack of bricks, and I grabbed the machine gun turret, firing at the other gantry way. The soldiers there started leaping to the platform below, leading to them engaging the twins in melee. That wouldn't end well.
The guards on my catwalk, however, were all very surprised to see me, and started rushing me. I kicked one off the catwalk, before opening up with Super Good Advice. The enemy horde crumbled under my fire, white armoured soldiers falling to the ground like puppets with their strings cut.
The ODST stood back up, and went for his shotgun. I beat him to the punch, literally, and drilled him in the chest with my fist. He took up a fighting pose, and we started exchanging punches and kicks. A foot slammed into my ribcage, but I countered by hammering my knuckles into his skull. His own fist came at my head, and I leaned to the side before spinning a full three-hundred-sixty degrees and kicking him into the water below.
The rest of the guards seemed to back up at this, and several turned and ran outright. I noted someone had shot North several times in the chest, and he was leaning on his sister for support.
"Four-Seven-Niner, we need evac, now." I said, two fingers to my helmet. "Prepare to pick us up in ten."
"Ten what?" The pilot asked.
"Seconds." I answered, jumping from the platform and landing feet-first on a guards shoulders.
I sprinted to the twins, grabbing them each by a shoulder.
"It's time we buggered out!" I said, pulling them both off the platform while simultaneously praying Four-Seven-Niner would get there in time.
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"This match will be taking place between Agent Utah and Agent South Dakota." The Directors voice rang out over the training arena, as I grabbed Super Good Advice, now loaded with lockdown paint. "The winner will receive or maintain the position of number four on the leaderboard, while the loser will take or maintain their place."
I cocked Super Good Advice, looking at the pink-armoured South with a light grin on my face. I had forgone my ivory helmet, supposedly a choice I would regret, but I didn't care. I would have her look me in the face as she won or lost, as she had also chosen to go bare-headed. I wasn't discounting the possibility of losing, it had only been my quick-thinking that had gotten us out of there alive.
"Match will begin in three… two… one… go!" The Director said, and I was off.
I opened up with Super Good Advice from the hip, as South fired her pistol with reckless abandon. I felt something strike my shoulder, but it was quickly drowned out by my adrenaline. This would be a melee fight, and little more. She came at me with her right fist raised to knock my head off, but I ducked the blow and swept her legs out from under her.
She leapt to her feet, and kicked me in the gut, but I grabbed her foot and pulled. Hard. I heard her leg wrench and the cry she let out as I used her momentum to leave her parallel to the ground, before I hammered my fist in her face, slamming her into the concrete floor. She made to punch me, but she was obviously dazed from the pain and the impact of her skull on the ground, and I easily grabbed the offending arm and twisted hard, dislocating the elbow.
I had no idea why I was being so brutal. I drilled my fist into her stomach, as she tried to beat me away with her left hand. I rose and stomped her in the left shoulder, hearing a definite crack. I stomped again, feeling her left leg break, and when she made to bite me in the face, I drilled my forehead into hers, before rising and kicking her in the temple twice, leaving her out cold.
I lost my mind. My fist was up and down and up and down and up and down and there was blood everywhere and I faintly heard calls to cease and desist and my mind screamed at my body to stop but god damn it this woman nearly got North and I killed and up and down and up and down…
Then I snapped out of my frenzy.
It was like I had just woken up, I was so dazed. I looked at her, every limb either broken or dislocated at several joints, and cried out for a medic, picking her up gently off the ground. I was tearing up at the eyes, and looked at my hand, realizing I had broken several fingers from beating on her.
Three white clothed medics ran into the room, two of them placing South on a stretcher while the third inspected my hand. He did something, pulled on each finger in such a way that they seemed to pop back into the correct positions. That didn't matter to me, I was too busy wondering what the fuck had happened, and why had I beaten on South like that.
I looked up to the observation deck, where North was only watching with an expression blending terror and rage, Carolina had raised an eyebrow, Colorado looked almost shocked, and the rest of the Freelancers seemed to be panicking. I felt a prickling in my shoulder, and I looked down, seeing a neat hole drilled in my left shoulder-plate. And three more in my upper left chest.
Someone had given South live ammo.
I ran over to where South had stood when she fired, the pain from the bullet wound only now filtering through the adrenaline pounding through my veins and into my heart. There, eight gleaming shell-casings sat on the floor, scattered randomly across the concrete. I looked back to my firing position, seeing it was clear of shell casings. Only South had been playing for keeps, it seemed. But who had given that to her, and why?
I felt a light tugging on my arm, but I ignored it in favour of thinking. Then I was being grabbed by two very large hands, each one wrapping itself around my upper arms, and being turned physically to face Agent Maine and a medical officer, who I thought was saying something about injuries but I was really tired and everything was turning black and what was that prickling in the back of my neck and where was I what was going on WHY DID I FAIL THEM.
Then I blacked out.
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"Men, meet Lopez dos-point-o."
"…Does it talk?"
"Hola."
"Motherfucker!"
Yep, Lopez still spoke Spanish. I knew a little Spanish, mostly thanks to some education I couldn't remember the details of but seemed to result in me being fluent in several languages, but Spanish was not on my 'I can speak this really well but I can't remember why' list. Shame about that.
"Spanish again? Why?!" Simmons asked exasperatedly.
"Does this happen a lot?" I asked, feigning ignorance.
"Yeah, Sarge likes robots that nobody understands." Grif explained, shrugging. "I don't really care why, though."
I looked at the brown-armoured robot, deciding to cease the initiative.
"Lopez Dos-Point-O, could you fix the radio tower?" I asked politely.
"Dónde está?" He asked. 'Where is it?' Alright, I could do this.
"Follow me." I said.
Around a minute later, we were standing in front of the radio tower, where Wash and Tucker were bickering like an old married couple and 'fixing' the radio tower. I simply observed the two for a second, a bemused smile coming to my face, before I shook my head.
"Hey Wash, need any help with the radio tower?" I called.
"No! Go away!" He yelled back, pressing more buttons. I looked back at Lopez.
"You can understand English, correct?" I asked.
"Si." The brown robot replied, nodding.
"I need you to go fix the radio tower. Just make it work." I said, gesturing to the tall structure.
"Si." Lopez repeated, marching to the tower.
"Damn it, Walker, slow down!" Sarge said, after running after us.
"Sorry sir, I was just getting Lopez to work on the radio tower." I explained, looking over to the brown robot.
Sarge's helmet followed my own, and he visibly loosened up. "That'll get the job done." He said, sounding pleased. "Now then, let's just wait for the blues to finish up and then we'll have a ride outta this joint. Reminds me of my time in Vietnam…"
Those last seven words sent a tremor running through my spine and a vision of several smiling soldiers and I posing for a photo. I shook my head, clearing my mind, even as goosebumps formed on the back of my neck. I knew for a fact that that had been a memory, but where the heck had it come from?
I was not looking forwards to my dreams that night.
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Well, that's a wrap for chapter five! Hope you enjoyed this sneak peek into Walkers past, and have a lovely day!