Woooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
Just caught up with the rest of volume nine.
Ya know what, I'm just happy they finally just went out and did it(Though the circumstances in which it happened really irritated me. Why couldn't they have had that conversation themselves? Them literally being forced with a metaphorical gun to their head to finally talk their shit out really irked me. Like, dude, just sit down by a fire and have an honest conversation. Literally, everyone in the show just needs to pair up, sit down, have a beer, and fucking talk. That would solve almost every issue I have with the show and would have also probably stopped
Spoiler
It also hurts me a little bit that immediately after confirming it, they started crowing about it being planned all along, when if you know literally anything about Monty or the show's behind-the-scenes production, you'd know that statement to be ridiculous. It really bothers me when people bring him up to make a point or a statement about the show, whether or not it's a fan, a critic, or a producer doing it, because the man is fucking dead. He's been dead, for over eight years now, and to this day people keep using his coffin as a soapbox to make their points when the reality is that we'll never really know how his mind worked or what he wanted to do, or even how he was going to do it in the first place. I know I've been guilty of it in the past, but I always try and do my best to keep him out of my critiques of the show besides the obvious role he played in the animation.
I'd also like to apologize for the delay. I got a new job, met a sweet gal, and nearly broke my wrist after eating shit on a skateboard. It should be smooth sailing from now on.
Now, on the topic of characters having an honest conversation, here's Adam Adamantly refusing to open up and be fully honest in a conversation.
/
The door behind him slid shut with an ominous creak. Adam took a step forward, biting down a swear when his toe made contact with the base of the sink in front of him. The room was pitch dark, and even with his night vision, he had trouble parsing out the layout of the cramped restroom he'd walked into.
He reached to his left and fumbled with the wall, blindingly groping for a light switch. When the light came on, he instinctively reached a hand up to protect his eyes, the light blinding, and his hand impacted the lightbulb above him hard enough that Adam was worried he'd almost knocked it loose when the bulb began flickering ominously.
After a moment, the flickering stopped, and Adam sighed. The sink didn't have a mirror above it, so he turned to his right.
Adam stopped.
His reflection hit him with a force that almost felt physical.
His hair, finger-combed down to disguise himself and messed by his hat, had strands and bangs run down long enough to touch the shell of his ear. Lightly soaked by the rain, it had dried in a way that had knotted parts of it together in a way that looked virtually nothing like his style.
His horns, hidden by his hat.
His one free eye, a gleaming emerald, with only a few small flecks of blue shining bright enough to fight their way past the contact lens, and that in and of itself looked unique enough to differentiate himself from himself.
His face was unblemished by scar or by scowl, free of stress lines, the small wrinkles dotted under his eyes and the sides of his cheeks hidden by the makeup.
And, of course, his scar, hidden by the eyepatch on his face. His nose, of course, still bore parts of the mark his meager cosmetology skills couldn't hide, a few small cuts and raw skin bright and angry.
His usual attire was nowhere to be seen, and even his jacket and gloves were gone, having been left behind in the booth at the diner's entrance he'd shared with Sabah.
He looked years younger. For once, he actually looked his age.
He couldn't recognize himself.
Adam didn't feel like himself.
Adam Taurus had built himself into a machine. Had mentally and physically prepared himself to become a weapon, a beast, a monster, a force. A force of change, a force of destruction, a living symbol of freedom, of what his species could be without humanity's chains to hold them down.
Adam Taurus lead men into battle. Adam Taurus did not sit down in a crowded movie theatre for two hours to watch a film about robots boxing in an arena at a human's request.
Adam Taurus had personally hunted down his former partner in the midst of her burning home to tear out the knife she plunged into his chest with her betrayal and stick it into hers. Then he'd made it his mission to twist it in, deeper and deeper and deeper until it finally killed her or broke her.
Adam Taurus had just smashed open a claw machine inside a children's casino to retrieve a stuffed animal at a human's request. Because he hadn't wanted that human to suffer, to be upset.
Adam Taurus had personally inspired hundreds of men and women, all young, all angry, all desperate, to join the White Fang and get their own payback.
Adam Taurus was currently mentoring a girl to hopefully one day become his opposite.
Adam looked in the mirror, and he saw a stranger. A stranger who laughed, who smiled, who blustered and joked and went to the movies, who went out to eat and who loved to sew and knit and listen to rock music on his friend's radio, who loved to have a friend in the first place.
A small part of him liked that stranger in the mirror.
An even smaller part of him wondered what it would be like to be that stranger.
Adam shifted, and felt the contents of his left pocket rub against his leg. He remembered the pit stop he insisted they make along the way.
Reality set in.
He reached up towards his left eye and plucked out the contact, tossing it into the sink.
Then he took off his hat, lifted his eye patch to the side, emptied his pocket, inhaled, and went to work.
(X)
When it was over, he flipped the eyepatch back into place, wincing as it rubbed against his skin.
He looked at himself again, at the makeup he'd all but ruined, and reached upward to style his hair back.
When he opened the bathroom door and stepped back into the dining room, a few stubborn strands fell back down past his hat, dancing in the breeze the fan at the ceiling of the diner generated.
He reached upward-
Stopped.
He looked towards Sabah, who was on her phone, idly chewing on a fry from the meal they'd apparently been served whilst he was away.
He let his hair sway.
(X)
Adam swallowed the remains of his burger, grimacing at both the irony and the cold taste. Evidently, he'd taken longer than he'd thought.
He proffered a quiet apology as he wiped his mouth with a napkin.
Sabah hadn't responded. Her food was all but untouched, and she was still staring into her phone with a frown. It looked focussed.
"Sabah?"
She jumped in place slightly, tilting her phone to the side to look at him. One of her eyes glanced back toward the screen for a split second before she made full eye contact. "What's up?"
"What are you doing?"
Sabah shrugged. "Just looking some stuff up." She set her phone on the table facedown and reached for another cold fry.
Adam nodded.
Silence reigned.
There was a wall between them, he could see that now. It had been there since his passing comment about his time at the mall.
He'd chosen to be honest with her, unlike the half-truths he'd given her at his apartment and her warehouse.
He could see now that it had been a mistake.
He reached for the right words to say, the right lie or the right apology, but he could come up with nothing.
Sabah chewed on distractedly. Had what he said truly affected her that much?
Adam swallowed his pride.
"I'm-"
"How about we get some drinks?"
What.
Sabah laughed, reaching forward to slap him on the shoulder, her hand passing through that lingering wall between them as if had never existed at all. "You heard me! It's a right of passage! No day out like this is complete without a little bit of drinking."
Adam chuffed. "Spend a lot of days out like this drunk, do you?"
Sabah blushed. "Nnooo, but my roommate has been trying to drag me out to all these parties, and I keep saying no over and over." She looked up at him, suddenly quite serious. "I figure I'd be safer my first time drinking if it was just me and you."
The admission wracked him, but Sabah didn't let the feeling linger. "Besides, I'll bet I can out-drink you!"
Adam let his eyes draw downwards, taking her in.
All four feet and eleven inches of her.
"You're on."
(X)
Adam felt a buzz come along, a pleasant haze that dulled his senses and brought with it a sense of serenity and dull satisfaction. He hummed along with the music that played in the background and took another sip that drained his beer bottle dry. That was his third in fifteen minutes. Sabah was only a third into her first, and he could already see the shaking in her legs and the flush beginning to spread across her cheek.
He'd brought them to the same bar he'd mentored Shadow Stalker(Sophia, he reminded himself. Sophia Hess. He'd have to start addressing her by name soon. He much preferred it that way, rather than her ridiculous code name).
The bartender hadn't asked for any ID, and had been quite magnanimous and welcoming once Adam had slipped him a 100 dollar bill to ensure no questions were asked.
He'd never gone drinking before.
Gods only know he'd been tempted. Sienna had offered, the Albain brothers had, Yuma & Trifa, and even his own men had tried to get him drunk once or twice to loosen him and get him to spill his guts, but he'd never wavered.
He sure had now though. And he was beginning to regret not taking their offers.
He leaned back, pressing his body up against the leather booth with a contented sigh, the slow guitar and low vocals in the background music to his ears.
"What's this song called?"
Sabah took a hesitant sip of her beer, and he could see her grimace at the taste. "White Rabbit, I think. I don't know the band."
He committed the name to memory and left himself a mental note to look the song and band up. When he opened his mouth again to call out to the bartender however, Sabah spoke up. "How about we play a game?"
He echoed her, and she clarified after another sip of her beer, which was infinitely more courageous and enthusiastic than her last. "A drinking game!"
Adam shrugged. Tonight would be a night of many firsts. "Sure."
Sabah nodded, and for a moment she seemed hesitant. But after another swig of liquid courage, she seemed to steel herself and rose up to talk to the barkeep.
Adam sank further into the leather. There was a weight, and certain heaviness that seemed to be dragging his body down, but he didn't fight it. There weren't very many people here, and the ones that were sitting calmly and drinking were the kind of people he could fight in his sleep, let alone slightly inebriated.
So he decided to float away with that heaviness instead of fighting it, and he let his eyes drift shut.
He was jolted into the conscious by the sound of glass impacting wood, and he let his gaze fall upon the source of the disturbance.
It was a wooden platter, loaded with shot glasses, five over five stacked against one another in two rows.
Adam very slowly quirked a brow.
Sabah enlightened him. "The games pretty simple. One of us asks a question. It can be about your favorite color or your deepest darkest secret, it doesn't matter."
Adam grimaced; Sabah grinned. "The trick is, if you don't answer the question, you have to take a shot."
"Who's the winner?"
"Whoever's the least drunk."
Adam's brow raised up further, further, and further until it all but merged with his hairline. He'd bet just one of whatever those were would knock her off her feet.
"You wanna go first?"
Adam shrugged. "What's your favorite color?"
Sabah chuckled. It sounded off even through his pleasant haze, but he ignored it. "Starting easy, huh? White. What's yours?"
As if it wasn't obvious. "Red."
Sabah hummed, tapping a beat on her chin. "What's your most embarrassing memory?"
Adam froze. He was tempted to reach for a shot glass as soon as the memory dredged itself up, one he'd almost forgotten.
After an argument with Blake about her countermanding his orders and speaking over him during a briefing, she'd refused to talk to him for hours. His only recourse had been to surprise her with their anniversary gift three weeks early. It was a signed copy of one of her dumb romance novels, 'Ninjas of Love'. Even that hadn't been enough.
So he'd dragged a chair into their tent, propped it up against their bed(Which she had been hiding in, cocooned in blankets), and proffered a dramatic reading of the book's contents.
Smut included.
He could hear dozens of his men outside their tent listening in as he narrated some of the most vulgar and depraved sex acts he'd ever seen put to paper until Blake had finally cracked and thrown a pillow at him to shut him up with a laugh. Then they'd made up, and soon after that, made love.
The men outside the tent had quickly dispersed once Adam's falsetto moans had been replaced by Blake's quite real ones.
"Adam?"
Adam realized he was smiling. He hid the smile by reaching over for a shot glass and dumping its contents down his throat.
Adam wheezed.
His entire face scrunched up, and Adam slammed a hand on the table.
Sabah laughed.
Adam swallowed, gathering his composure, and threw the question back at her.
Sabah's laughter subsided. She glanced to the side for a moment, eyes downcast. Then she smiled. It was a small thing.
"When I first came to America, in our old house, there was a raccoon that lived by the park nearby. I'd never seen one before, I thought it was cute." Sabah licked her lips. They looked dry. "But my father..." Her voice trailed off at the word. He could see her visibly compose herself, and the smile on her face turned a shade more nostalgic. "My father warned me that it was a wild animal. It wasn't a pet and it wouldn't ever be. He said not to feed it, and not to touch it."
"Did you listen?"
Sabah chuckled softly. "Not at all. I threw food at it from day one, until it grew comfortable enough with me to hop up onto our porch. I fed it day after day, week after week, and I thought I'd tamed it."
The smile upturned. It looked brittle.
"I named her Noor. I was young and dumb and thought we were friends. I'd spend hours sitting on my porch just watching her scurry around. Then, one day, she comes waltzing up on my porch with a bunch of baby raccoons trailing her."
Sabah swallowed. "Up till then, I'd taken my dad's advice. But by then, I figure that she trusts me, right? So I walk over to her, and try and pet her."
Adam didn't speak.
There was a pause as Sabah looked him in the face, eye to eye.
Adam turned away.
"She reared back and clawed me, right across the face. There was blood everywhere. My dad heard me yelling, and ran out with a gun. He sees me covered in blood and the raccoon running away. He put it together pretty quick."
Sabah laughed again, but this time there was life in it.
"All the neighbors come out to see the commotion. They don't see the raccoon, but they do see this giant, bald, angry Iraqi man waving a gun around, screaming at a teenage girl in Arabic, a teenage girl whos bleeding all over, and they assume the worst. The cops show up pretty quickly, and it took me half an hour to convince them it was a raccoon that did it, and not him."
Sabah sighed. She gazed longingly at the shot platter. "I miss him sometimes."
Adam felt he was woefully unqualified for this line of conversation. "Only sometimes?"
She nodded. "I know he's in a better place. I know he's watching over me." She snorted under her breath. "Judging me."
"Judging you?"
Sabah nodded again. "My father was very traditional. Very religious as well. He brought us to America, but he didn't want us to be Americans, if that makes sense. He argued with my aunt constantly. Everyone in our family started integrating, and it bothered him a lot. He tried not to show it, but we could tell. We didn't go to mosque as often as we should be, or we weren't praying enough, or I was going out dressed like a whore, he'd tell my aunt that she was going to go to hell for philandering, and he kept asking me and asking me why I hadn't found a boy yet."
Sabah paused for a moment, obviously shaken. "He felt like he was failing us. Money was getting tight with my tuition, and his practice wasn't making as much as it used to. The stress got to him, and then he had the heart attack."
Her left hand was splayed out onto the table. Adam laid his own atop it in a show of sympathy. "I'm sorry."
Sabah shook him off. "Don't be."
There was another bout of silence, but this time Adam decided to fill it. "What's your last name?" It struck him, that he hadn't asked her that already.
Sabah blinked at him dumbly before laughing softly. "I can't believe I haven't told you already! It's Zghir. My full name is Sabah Aabidah Zghir."
She reached out with a hand, and Adam leaned forward to shake it. "Adam Taurus. No middle name."
"You used your last name as a cape name?"
Adam shrugged. "I doubt anyone else but you is ever gonna learn it."
Sabah squeezed his hand in a mocking form of reproach. "Don't say stuff like that. One of these days you'll meet someone else you can trust."
Adam hummed, and didn't deign to argue the point any further.
Sabah retracted her hand and asked her next question. "Alright, next up; If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?"
Adam thought about that.
Adam reached for a shot, and dumped it back.
His face seized up for a moment before settling.
Sabah stared for a moment. Then whatever she'd been distracted by flew by and she nodded to herself. "Paris for me."
Adam didn't know anything about Paris except that it apparently had a giant tower, so he didn't bother commenting. "Does your family know about your powers?"
Sabah stopped. "I guess I walked into that saying nothing was off limits. They do."
"Did you tell them?"
Sabah chuckled. "Nope."
She seemed content to leave it at that. Her eyes darted down, toward her pocket. Towards her phone?
"What did you do before coming to Brockton Bay?"
Adam's mouth opened, then slammed shut just as quickly. The lies tumbled free on reflex, half thought out. "I did some small-time mercenary work. Bodyguard work, mostly. Lots of small-time criminals and civil servants wanted someone big and mean looking to watch their back and stand by them menacingly."
"You were a mercenary." Her voice was flat.
He nodded. Maintained eye contact, kept his voice level. "A small-time one. I moved all through the midwest, but I mostly stuck to where I grew up after I was adopted."
"Where was that? I can't remember."
His eyes narrowed a touch. That was because he'd never told her. "A small town in Iowa." He grasped for a name, cursing himself for his lack of research. A name came to mind. He snapped his fingers. "Mantle. Small enough town you'd have to dig around a paper map to find it."
Sabah nodded. Her eyes drifted toward the shot platter.
She lifted one up, pinched her nose, and downed it before he could say a word.
Sabah wretched, muttering a low curse under her breath.
"What was that for??"
She panted for breath a moment, and set the glass down. "Just trying to keep it even."
She coughed, once, then gathered herself. "Why go after the Empire 88?"
That was easy to answer, He could even be honest with his answer, at least for the most part. 'I wanted to do something good. I got tired of sitting around doing nothing with my abilities. I wanted to just do something for once. To try and right some wrongs the only way I know how."
Sabah nodded.
Then she gave him a look.
It was a deadpan, slightly narrow-eyed glare.
Despite the flush in her cheeks and the slight shake in her hands, she looked as serious as he'd ever seen.
"Who was the woman in the painting?"
Adam paused.
Adam reached for a shot.
A hand snaked across his wrist and clamped down tight enough he could feel his aura warp with the force, arresting his movement.
Sabah's mouth was open, her eyes squinted, a million words on her tongue, a million different thoughts racing through her head, a million different emotions visible on her face.
Then she laughed, and pulled her hand away with a slurred apology. "I'm sorry! I don't know why I did that!"
She snorted down another chuckle, and Adam could see that that shot had really gotten to her. "It's fine."
He glanced toward the door. "Are you ready to go?" He needed to get work on his new clothes, and she needed to sleep this off. This obviously had been a mistake.
Sabah nodded slowly. Her whole body lolled with the movement.
Adam exhaled and slid out of the booth. His stomach rolled.
It was then he remembered a comment Trifa had made to him about drinking. Something about liquor and beer and being sick.
Sabah's cheeks turned green as if on cue.
His stomach rumbled again.
Adam spent ten minutes with her in the bathroom before they even stepped out the door.
(X)
Adam swayed on his feet. The body nestled against him went limp, and Adam squeezed Sabah higher to his chest to keep her from falling down.
Adam half lunged, half-collapsed against the doorframe. Sabah clumsily wrenched the doorknob open, and they stepped inside her warehouse.
Almost immediately, Sabah disentangled herself from him with a low moan and beelined lined towards a row of stuffed animals she immediately collapsed upon.
Adam laughed. The noise echoed through the empty room and made his temple throb.
He shrugged off his jacket, then shakily made his way towards his workstation.
He flipped on Sabah's radio, set the volume low, and went to work.
In his inebriated state, he never noticed Sabah get up, much less shakily than she had previously been moving.
He didn't see her walk out the door.
He didn't hear her take out her phone.
He didn't hear her dial a number.
He didn't see her look back at the door forlornly.
He didn't hear her hang up the phone just as the call was answered.
And when she finally came back inside to see him passed out in his chair, he never saw her finish his work and correct the mistakes his shaking hands had made.
Nor did he feel her touch when she gently plucked him free of his chair and laid him down over a blanket and a pillow.
Nor did he hear her final words before she fell asleep herself, nestled against his side.
"Please don't make me regret this."
/
That mirror scene was one of my favorite parts of this story. I don't know why.
This is the last chill chapter. It all goes down from here. The plot moves, and doesn't stop moving. We have the ABB arc, Brockton Bay's version of the Boston Games starts in the immediate aftermath(And a little bit during the ABB's rampage) the Empire Arc wraps up once Coil makes a drastically different decision than canon, Cole Perry gets Gangster, Adam confesses, and then Leviathan and our conclusion.
I appreciate all of you sticking with me. The end is nigh.
Last edited: Apr 22, 2023
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MasterDuplicator
Apr 22, 2023
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MasterDuplicator
MasterDuplicator
Big Fan of a Mad Cow
Apr 22, 2023
#1,397
I'm not much for sensitivity or trigger warnings, but this is Hookwolf. This chapter should(If there is anyone who may think this) assuage any doubts that I was trying to flanderize or glow up Hookwolf.
I am unsure about SB's rules regarding racial epithets, I've seen some stories here use the whole word, and some stories censor it. I went with censorship, but If I broke any rules, please do let me know. I was trying to think of a plausible reason as to why Hookwolf became so gung ho during his time in the 'Nine. The result of that thought process was the speech you'll be reading below.
Be forewarned: There are quite a few slurs at play here.
/
Brad kicked in the door with a whistle and a jaunt in his step.
Lars trailed behind with a grimace.
"One pit stop to n*ertown and you've got sunshine flying outta your ass, huh?
Hookwolf grinned.
Five minutes.
That was all the time it had taken to break the Merchants.
Four years in the 88, begging and pleading and fighting and being denied his purpose.
And five minutes on his own, on his terms, and the Merchants were destroyed.
Skidmark either dead or crippled, that coal-burning bitch Squealer gutted, Mush off the reservation, and a buncha dumb junkies dead.
All in five minutes of being back in town.
They'd done it in the night.
Cricket had her trial run at the start of the ABB fiasco. That had proven it could be done. That it could work.
She was in on the plan. Wholesale.
But Lars had some reservations about the latter part of the plan.
"I still don't know how to feel about all this."
Hookwolf flipped a switch. The floodlights kicked on.
He groaned.
"Did no one remember to feed the fucking dogs?"
Bodies littered the cages ahead of him. The dogs had starved and eaten their cagemates. Then the lack of water must have killed them.
That was gonna be real annoying to clean out.
Lars had a hand to his nose. He could feel the man's glare dig into his back. "You didn't tell anyone to, dumbass. You didn't tell anyone anything."
Brad shrugged. "It was spontaneous, I know, but-"
" 'Spontaneous'? You called me and Mel at three in the goddamn morning telling us to pack our shit and get the fuck out. You tell us to go to Boston. Then you hang up the fucking phone and don't even tell us where you are."
Brad shrugged. Lars sighed. Brad sauntered past the corpses into his 'office' and opened the mini-fridge atop his desk. The beers inside were warm. He didn't care.
He stepped back out into the entrance and tossed Lars a beer. He caught it with a free hand and slumped against the wall with a sigh.
Brad followed suit. He popped the tab, chugged it, crumpled it, and tossed the can to the side with a burp. "I'll ask again. Mel's in, so-"
"Mel's gonna do whatever the hell you tell her to do man. You know that. I'm the guy you gotta sell, and I'm the guy who's always tryna reel you in."
"So let me sell you then. What's the problem, huh? You drink the cool-aid already?"
Brad gave him his best party salute. Lars flipped him off. Brad kept going. "I can't believe it. Larson fucking Jurist, white fuckin savior. Come here to save all the Aryan babies and-"
"Jesus, cut it out. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, fuckin over the people who took us in."
He nodded. "I can understand that. But let me give you a hypothetical: Say we stuck around. We walk back up to Papa Max, get on our knees, give him a little spit'n'shine, and go back to the way it was. What happens?"
As soon as Lars opened his mouth, Brad cut him off. "We die."
Lars scoffed. "You afraid?"
"No. But I wanna die on my terms, for my cause. Not for some bitter rich prick who don't give a fuck about us."
Lars narrowed his eyes and spat on the ground. Brad lamented the wasted beer. "That's a hell of a thing to say about the man who took us in after the shit we stirred up."
"And why the hell do you think he did that, bro? Think about it. Four years, and never once did he let us do our job, he never let us run loose. The arguments we had about the dog fights alone shoulda clued you in. I've dodged the Birdcage twice. I'm marked for death stateside everywhere I go. Think about it."
Lars turned away. Brad seized the moment. "The only reason you keep a man like that around if you ain't gonna let him work, is that you plan on selling him out to curry favor with the pigs when the heat is coming down on you. Remember Vista?"
Lars shrank inward. He took a long swig of his beer. "That poor fuckin kid."
"That dumb fuckin kid shouldn't have been anywhere near that shitshow. But she was. And for days after that, I had the PRT on my ass like a fly on shit. And I'll bet you all the money in the world Max was helping them along."
Lars opened his mouth again, but Brad was on a roll now. "How you feel about n*ers?"
Lars blinked. "What?"
"You like 'em?"
"Nah-"
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why you not like 'em?"
Lars fumbled a moment before shrugging. "I can't fuckin stand the way they talk."
"Well no shit, that annoys me too, but I'm asking what have they done to you to annoy you so much?"
Lars took another sip of his beer. He seemed to be genuinely pondering the question.
"Exactly man. How about a Jew? What they do to piss you off?"
Lars spat. "You forget our bookie?"
Brad would take the hit there. But he could still spin this.
"Well shit, that's just how they are. It's what they're good at, no shame in that."
Lars nodded at him slowly, like he was humoring him.
He needed to reorient this. "Max says the whites are the best, right? We invented culture and all that hippie hoo-hah horseshit."
Another slow nod.
"I'll grant him that. I can get behind the Ayran ideal, ya know? Family, duty, honor, loyalty, strength, all that shit. I also have a thing for blondes, so it all works out."
"So you plan on upholding that ideal by fucking over the actual, legitimate, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Aryan ideal man?"
When he put it like that...
"Just bear with me here. If whites are so good, how come the chinks invented gunpowder?"
Brad cut off his reply before it could formulate. "The fuckin Sand people invented all that math shit. Blacks gave us those pyramids, that weird dick-shaped obelisk in Ethiopia, and peanut butter. The slavs wrote up a bunch of really fucked up and sad books, and the first real empire came outta Arabia."
"What's your point?"
"I'm asking the question: "How are they supposed to be inferior, when they not only outnumber us, but have been giving us a run for our money since forever? How can n*ers be inferior, when they gave us Shaka Zulu and Menelik II? They had their own empires and wars and nations and leaders while we were out toling for nothing, wiping our asses with leaves."
Lars cut him off. "What do you believe then?"
"I think that each of us has a tribe. A group. That white men and black men and yellow men and red men can all be capable of great things. It's just that whitey got in his head that they needed to 'raise them up' when they was just fine as they were. While we had guns and rockets and carriages, they had spears and shields. That's what they knew, that's what they were good at. But we came over and started acting all high and mighty and said 'no, you need to start acting like us'. And you know what happened when we built our roads and gave them our guns and our clothes and our cars?"
Lars sighed tiredly. "Enlighten me."
"They said 'fuck you' and went back to what they knew. Slavery, war, and conquest. I look at Africa as it is now, at what crazy bitches like Moord Nag have been doing, and I say good for them. They see the world for how it is. I think we're the backwards ones. We keep pretending we're all so above it all, but if we were, then the Empire and the PRT and the 'Nine wouldn't exist. We forgot who we were, and they never did. Max calls Lung a savage. I say Lung gets it, and that it's a damn shame they got him locked up. The chinks don't know what to do without someone to tell them it. It's just how they work. We all got our quirks. The problems all came up when we started mixing everyone together. I say keep the blacks with the blacks, the reds with the reds, the yellows with the yellows, and the whites with the whites. Eventually, nature'll sort itself back out, and the damage thats been done will undo itself. That's why I started the dog fights, you know? There was a time when the dog was man's best friend. We hunted together, fought together, and bled together. Now you've got all these rich fuckin white women breeding them into tiny purse accessories, who can't kill, can't fight, even if they wanted to try. So-"
"Brad, what the actual fuck are you talking about?"
Brad paused, out of breath.
"What the fuck does literally any of that have to do with anything?"
Brad sighed. "I'm saying it wasn't ideology that kept me in, Lars. It was respect. They took us in when no one else would, and promised us three things. You remember those three things?"
"Fighting, fucking, and fame."
"Yeah. Now let me ask you this: Since when did we need the Empire for any of that? We had all'a that on our own before. Max would have us die for him. Make no mistake, we would die trying to fight Taurus, and it wouldn't make a lick of difference. We would be forgotten."
Lars sighed. Brad knew he had him now.
"But if we do this, if we do this right, we'll stack up enough bodies that our names are gonna be right alongside his." Brad smiled. "It'll be just like the old days."
Lars was quiet.
"Are you afraid to die?"
Lars spat again, and this time he aimed the loogie right at his face. Brad felt the spittle drip off his chin as Lars glared at him. "I ain't afraid of nothing."
Brad stood up, made his way over to Lars, and extended a hand. "That a yes?"
Lars gave him a long, long look. Then he clasped his hand.
Brad hauled him to his feet. "Good."
Lars nodded. "What's the first step then?"
"I've got Mel sending some feelers out to Rune and Crusader. I wanna see if we can get them in. Justin's a true believer, but he cares about that kid. He knows Max's hold on the city is dying. If we look like the safe bet, if he thinks we can give her a place to stay, a place that's safe, he'll come along. I want you to make contact with our guys. Not Max's, ours. Let them in on the plan. We're making our own tribe."
"And after that?"
"Come morning, everyone's gonna know we're back in town, and that the Merchants are fucked. Max has Krieg's replacement and a few true believers from the fatherland arriving by boat tonight. We ambush that, alongside a coordinated lang grab from our loyal guys? That's gonna send a message."
"And the PRT?"
"They'll have their hands full. I made sure of that. I gave Alex a call."
Lars froze.
"The only thing keeping the Elite outta town was Max. If I know Alex, he's been frothing at the mouth for a shot at the Bay. I gave him a call and let him know it's open season."
Lars swallowed. "You call anyone else?"
"I told him to pass on the message to the Teeth."
Lars went pale.
Brad's grin stretched even wider.
For the first time in forever, he had a plan.
So naturally, the universe decided to fuck him over by setting the Bay on fire not seven hours later.
But Brad couldn't bring himself to be upset.
He wouldn't have it any other way.
/
Alex is my made up name for Bastard Son, one of the Members of the elite, whose cell is described as just a rung below the fucking nine.
Last edited: Apr 22, 2023
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MasterDuplicator
Apr 22, 2023
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MasterDuplicator
MasterDuplicator
Big Fan of a Mad Cow
Apr 25, 2023
#1,431
Here we go.
/
Cole Perry woke up to sounds of what he considered to be Brockton Bay's natural ambiance.
Those sounds being a pair of gunshots, a scream, a car alarm, and squelching tires on pavement.
He sighed. His wife came to life with a low, pillow-muffled moan, and she lazily whipped a hand in the direction of their bedroom window, before said arm went limp and plopped back down onto their comforter.
Cole sighed again.
He snaked a hand underneath his pillow until his hand closed around the grip of his gun. He pulled it free, flipped the safety, and got to his feet.
He walked bare-ass naked towards his window, and by the time he'd pulled back his blinds and opened it, the car alarm had gone silent. He poked his head out and surveyed the area, the only remaining signs anything was amiss were the tire marks on the road and the broken glass and bloodstains by his neighbor's car.
When he realized whose car it was, a half-hysterical laugh escaped him, and he set the gun down by his nightstand.
His wife rose up, arms stretching out and pointed skyward as she yawned, her long blonde locks askew and bedraggled. The bags under her eyes matched his own, but on her, he thought them alluring. "What was it?"
He shrugged and scanned the floor for his underwear. It was nowhere to be found. He tried to remember where she'd tossed them. His mind drew a blank, as it did when he tried remembering anything else that could have happened last night. "Some idiots decided trying to steal Harper's car was a good idea."
Anna blinked. Laughed. Yawned again.
She bent over the side of their bed to retrieve her bra. "Is anyone dead?"
He shook his head. Scanned the floor with more intensity. Last night they'd gone out for drinks with Mike and Girlfriend #8. The entire night had been a blur of fluorescent lights, robotic music, and half-digested seafood.
His head throbbed. The last time he had partied like that had been the summer of '84. His graduation party.
God that made him feel old.
"I'll go check on him."
Anna gave him a long(And quite appreciative) once over. "Dressed like that?"
Cole looked down.
A pair of boxers struck him in the face.
(X)
He shut the door behind him dressed only in a pair of socks, sweatpants, and a half-buttoned dress shirt.
Harper was standing out front, gun in hand, waiting for him. The man had a shirt on, thank god. He didn't wanna have to see that godawful tattoo unless he had to.
Somehow he had a feeling it had to do with their current predicament.
Harper glared at him, eyes wary. His brows rose up slightly at his disheveled appearance, but he chose not to comment.
"You gonna arrest me?"
Cole's eyes trailed over the bloodstain in Harper's driveway. He sighed. This was not the way he wanted his morning to start. "Nope."
Harper eyed him for a second, then he visibly relaxed. "You gonna be here in case the cops show up?"
Cole rolled his eyes. "Do you honestly think anyone even bothered calling them?"
Harper thought about that for a second.
Then he shrugged, bid him good morning, and walked back inside his house.
Cole turned around, stopping to watch the blood slide down the slope of the driveway into the street.
By god, he hated this fucking city.
(X)
He cranked down his window and made a show of extending his fuck-you finger in the direction of the cyclist who'd cut him off.
"You're in a good mood this morning."
He glanced into his rearview and saw his wife's ever-so-omnipresent smile. "Can you blame me?"
She smiled wider, tossing back her hair. There wasn't a single grey strand to be found. He envied her for that. "You've been living here longer than I've been alive, and you still haven't gotten used to it?"
His lips thinned, and he fought the urge to defibrillate that long-dead argument back to life.
He chose to keep silent. Anna chuckled knowingly.
Cole made his final right turn and pulled into the parking lot.
Fugly Bob's awaited. The Breakfast of Champions.
His stomach rumbled. He gave it a silent apology for what he was about to put it through.
(X)
Anna moaned. Normally that sound would've had him perked right up.
Instead he found himself repulsed.
He reached for a napkin and wiped the grease from his wife's chin.
She gave him an appreciative nod as she swallowed the remains of her burger.
"Why the hell do you insist on making me take you to such a shithole whenever you want breakfast?"
Anna gave him a mock glare, her lips peeled back as she hummed in amusement. "You really are in a bad mood this morning."
He turned his head away, sipping his coffee with a scowl.
The mockery on her face was replaced by sympathy. "What's wrong? You've been testy these past few weeks. You can talk to me, you know that, don't you?"
He could. Whether or not she would listen was up for debate.
The door chimed. He turned his head around to look, and saw a pair of teenagers walk inside, one male, one female. Their arms were linked.
The Alexandria sticker on the girl's leather jacket made him grimace.
Anna caught his eye. She chuckled. "Not a fan of merchandising, huh?"
Cole sipped his coffee. "Not since Hero."
That wiped the smile from her face.
Cole used the opportunity to reminisce.
The freakout the PRT must have had when the news broke.
Hero had been the most popular(And advertisable) member of the quadrumvirate. He'd been on TV, guest starred on Talkshows, appeared in magazines, and Scuttlebutt had said there were talks of giving him his own toy line like Vikare.
And the Siberian had gutted him live on national television for millions to see, and suddenly the PRT had been much more selective about who it let appear on paper stickers.
He remembered that broadcast. The day of mourning that had followed. He'd been on duty that day. The streets had been silent.
Cole sipped his coffee. Weighed his wife's earnest desire to help against her naivete and youth.
She gave him her best puppy eyes. Cole broke.
"I'm thinking of quitting."
Anna froze. He saw the gears in her head grind to a halt in real-time.
"But you're retiring in a year, you said so yourself! What about your pension, what about-"
"Fuck the pension. Fuck retirement." He drained the rest of his coffee and slammed the cup back down on the table hard enough to make it rattle. "If I have to work under Pappalardo's fat ass for one more goddamn day, I'm gonna lose my shit."
"But you love being a cop!"
"Oh yeah? When was the last time you saw me smile before heading to work?"
Anna paused. He saw her chew on that statement for a little while. Then she got right back to it. "Is it because of the PRT?"
His lips thinned. "Not just them."
Anna sighed. "Every city has gangs, Cole."
"Yeah, but they didn't used to have superpowered ones, Anna." He sighed, fumbling with his words as he gathered his thoughts. He wondered how to explain this to someone who'd been born knowing nothing else, born into the reality he'd only been able to imagine whilst reading his father's comic books.
"What would you do if you If you had Alexandria's powers?"
Anna blinked.
"Would you fly around like Scion, plucking cats from trees and try your hand at punching out giant monsters? Or would you use them to hurt, to kill, to maim, to rob?"
"Obviously I'd-"
"The trick to this question is that the answer doesn't matter. The mere fact you have the option of choosing does."
Anna paused and leaned forward.
"There used to be a time when actions had consequences. Where men had to follow rules, a time when men breaking those rules were hunted down to the ends of the earth and brought to justice. But now, with these powers in the mix, it feels like everyone just collectively decided that those rules don't apply to them anymore. That they have a bad day, get some shiny superpowers, and think that putting on some spandex and a domino mask gives them leeway to do whatever the flying fuck they feel like. That some asshole wearing a costume while he rapes, pillages, and murders affords him protections no normal man would get, just because he might be useful later on. Shoot a man with a gun, and have your face plastered on every television in miles. Do it with a laser, and you get to go on your merry way so long as you're not out wearing a mask. It makes me sick, because when you have kids like Glory Girl flying around wrecking shit, who has to clean up after them? Who rebuilds the roads they destroy, the buildings they level? We do, and we're supposed to just suck it up and be thankful."
Cole panted, out of breath. He reached forward and wrapped his lips around the straw inside of Anna's drink, taking a long, deep swig of her coke.
"Just think about what I'm saying. My dad fought in Korea. He'd only just missed out on fighting the Japs. Sometimes I wake up in the morning, I look outside, and I wonder what he would make of the world right now, knowing that the city he grew up in had been taken over by honest to god Nazis and some wannabee Pan-Asian emperor. How he would have taken New York getting leveled by Behemoth or knowing that psycho fucks like Jack Slash have been wandering around as long as we've even had these powers. To this day, we still don't know anything about them, or even about the glowing man in the sky who probably fuckin gave them to us!"
He sighed. "I don't think he'd be able to deal with it."
Anna frowned. She set the rest of her food aside and frowned at him, face alight with sympathy. She set a hand on his shoulder. "Are you able to deal with it?"
The love in her voice nearly brought him to his knees. "Sometimes I'm not sure anymore."
Anna frowned. Then she cupped his chin in her hand. "Then you don't have to be. Quit."
Cole blinked.
"Quit. I mean it. We'll sell the house. Sell our things. We'll move, far, far away from here. Maybe somewhere north. Canada, maybe, it doesn't matter. We can do it tomorrow."
"I don't-"
"We have money. We both have been working since were kids. We'll retire, hide away in a cabin somewhere in the middle of nowhere and forget about the rest of the world. How does that sound to you?"
Cole smiled.
The doorbell chimed.
His world erupted into flame and color and light and sound and then went upside down and then it was sideways and-
And then it was nothing but blackness.
(X)
Awareness came to him slowly.
A weight was pushing on his chest. The world was dark.
Something wet was dripping down his cheeks, out from his eyes. He tried to blink it away. Nothing. The muscles refused to cooperate.
Cole smelled charred flesh, could hear flames crackle, eager to devour the wooden interior.
Above all he could hear the screams, all so loud, deafening.
The smoke irritated his nostrils.
Cole tried to move, but couldn't. Tried to speak, his mouth open wide.
He croaked. Coughed. Liquid flooded into his mouth and made him gag.
His head lolled to the side, and it dribbled out past his lips. It tasted like copper.
Someone called his name. They sounded so far away.
Sirens wailed. Just barely, in the distance, past the screaming and wailing, he could hear more explosions in the distance, They sounded like fireworks.
"-le"
The flames surged. Cole felt the heat wash over his face, felt a bright, searing pain brand itself into his cheek before fading away.
"COLE!"
He twitched. Anna.
"Ma'am, get back, this building isn't stable!"
The weight on his chest lessened. Cole sucked in a breath. His lungs burned.
No. No. No. Run away. Leave me here. Please.
The weight was gone. Cole heard something clatter off to the side.
He just barely heard his wife whimper out a quiet prayer.
"Ma-"
There was a crunch, the sound of snapping wood.
His wife went silent.
Cole felt something heavy slam into his chest.
Then silence. Then-
(X)
Nothing.
Nothing and everything, all at once. He could see, but he had no eyes. Hear with no ears. Feel with no hands.
He was flying.
No.
Floating. Floating free, in an infinite vista of darkness.
he was dead.
no
alive
dead
a ghost
a witness
there was something with him
broad
vast alive and hungry and it was redredredredredredredred
falling fallingfallingfalingcloserclosercloser
a fragment
a star
a god
a monster
he saw them
dancing
swirling
shattering
alivingmirror
reflections
infinite
he hated them
he didn't know why
one approached
it came closer
closer closer closer closer closer redredred red red red red
it was falling
it was redredredredredred
and-
(X)
And nothing.
Nothing but darkness.
Cole moaned.
His wife was silent.
/
You have no idea how tired I was of seeing [DESTINATION] [AGREEMENT]. I wanted to try my hand at describing an actual trigger event. I hope I did okay.