Okay, here's Chapter four. For anyone who's kept up thus far, I'd like to apologize for the abrupt ending of the previous chapter. It's just that I had a lot planned for this part of the story and I felt it would've been too much (for me at least) to cram into one chapter. In short, I needed to end the previous chapter somewhere and that was the best place that I felt I could've ended it. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this one; it'll finally earn the M rating! Please R&R!
Ch. 4: Revy's Playground
The cargo hold quickly became a mess of organized chaos as the crew scrambled to get the drugs safely on the boat and secure before their "guests" arrived. There were curses and apologies mumbled as Rock and Revy collided with each other and Dutch hurried to get out of the room and back to the bridge. The two partners were especially frustrated because they seemed to mirror each other at every turn. This resulted in several painful collisions and a few lesser brushes of the skin. It was these brushes that flustered the two of them most and caused tingling feelings to reverberate through each of their bodies from the point of contact. Needless to say, these feelings did nothing but worsen Revy's conflicted state of mind, which caused her brewing frustration to boil over.
After yet another collision, Revy forcefully grabbed Rock by his collar and hissed, "Enough!" before tossing him aside just as forcefully and leaving him to finish strapping down the cargo in preparation for what was sure to be a wild ride.
"Hurry it up back there, Two-Hands. If this game of chicken goes on any longer I'll be able to see who's at the helm of that boat."
Dutch fired a torpedo in an attempt to stave off their advance while Revy half-heartedly brushed off his complaint in her rush to get above deck. She was well armed for the task ahead of her, having made a quick stop to their storage room to grab both the rocket launcher and the sniper rifle to aid her cutlasses in the task of taking these imposters out.
"Relax, bossman." Revy spoke once she had found a good vantage point to the front of the PT boat that also provided her with good cover.
"These fuckers are all mine now."
She fired a shot from the sniper rifle, reloaded, and then fired a second time watching as two of the men went down in a shower of brain matter, bone fragment, and blood. The triumphant smile that crept across her face accentuated the predatory gaze that adorned her eyes; creating a look that had caused many a person to quiver in fear…only a handful of which were still living to tell about it.
She continued to toy with the men as they fired futile shots while the two boats continued to waltz around each other in the tropical waters. She was a lioness, just biding her time before the final kill.
"Duck..." The boats were drifting closer to each other in the water with each pass. "Duck…" The sniper rifle was leveled in preparation for the next shot, and as the boats passed particularly close together, the trigger was pulled. "Goose."
Almost every one of the ten men left on the boat ducked the instant that she leveled the rifle, but a sickening thump told them that the bullet had found it's mark. In the middle of the deck, there was a man with a rather messy tracheotomy who had been unfortunate enough to be exposed by the angle of the pass. His face bore a horrified expression; as if he had known the bullet had his name on it. His eyes were rolled back into his head and blood and torn muscle laid around his neck.
"Hmm." Revy smirked as she watched them scramble for the bombs; she guessed that if they were going out, then they were taking the Lagoon Company out with them.
"Wait a minute." She did a quick head count. There should've been nine left after her last kill, but she only counted seven. "Where did they get off to?" She briefly wondered before she spoke to Dutch through the earpiece. "You might wanna get us the hell outta dodge. They're gettin' ready to make shark food of themselves."
"Got it." Dutch moved the throttle up, but to his surprise, the boat sputtered and died on the spot.
"What the fuck?" Dutch and Revy spoke at the same time, while Revy looked toward the boat with widened eyes. She couldn't blow their boat up with the rocket launcher from this distance without killing herself, Dutch, Benny, and Rock as well.
She pulled her cutlasses and hoped she could hit them all before they blew the bombs. With a cock of the hammers and pulls of both triggers, the bullets went flying. In moments, the deck of the large cruise boat was painted red. The last man slid down one of the bombs and left a bloody streak down the front of it just before he could activate it and Revy let out a sigh of relief.
"What the fuck happened, Dutch?" Revy asked, holstering her cutlasses and picking up the launcher and sniper rifle as she headed back to the bridge.
"I don't know." Dutch rubbed his temples and then retrieved a cigarette. He lit it and took a deep breathe. "Benny and I just installed new parts before this job and she worked great on the test run. It's almost like someone tampered with it…but how." He rubbed his goatee thoughtfully while considering how it could be that the engine wasn't working.
Revy stopped just outside the hatch into the bridge and looked over in the direction of the engine room. A devilish smirk spread across her face as the mystery of what happened to those two men from the boat was solved. The hatch into the engine room was standing wide open.
"Maybe someone did tamper with the engine, Dutch." She said with a knowing tone in her voice, her left hand gripping her right cutlass. "I'm gonna go greet our little stowaways."
Again, Revy removed both cutlasses from their holsters and began to walk the short distance toward the engine room.
When she reached the open hatch, she cautiously poked her head in, only to come face-to-face with one of the two men and have a bullet whiz by her head as she jerked it out of the hatch.
"Well, well…" Revy smirked as she spoke in a taunting tone, "I thought you chinks were supposed to be smart." She racked the slides on both cutlasses, fully aware that the two men would be able to hear the menacing sound that signaled what was about to happen; even if they couldn't understand English.
"You two fuckers shoulda stayed on your own damn boat, 'cuz you're in Revy's fuckin' playground now!" Her growl was accented by a discharge of several rounds into the side wall of the engine room. The silence that followed her shots betrayed the fact that the Chinese men were scrambling for cover. Revy chuckled devilishly at their predictable behavior before she quickly leapt through the hatch and began their game of cat and mouse.
The engine room was filled with a haze of black smoke caused by the damage that their unwanted passengers had done. This gave Revy an even bigger advantage since she knew the engine room well enough that she didn't need to see it to navigate her way through it. For the moment, though, she merely stood silently, just waiting for some sound to give away her enemies' position. She could practically feel their fear and adrenaline radiating through the room along with the smoke and it thrilled her to the bone.
After several tense moments, one of the men finally lost his cool and began to fire rapidly at her. He barely nicked her with his first shot and she skillfully dodged the rest by alternating her quick reflexes and talent for acrobatics with the use of cover. After a few moments, she heard the tell-tale sound of his gun reloading and she pounced, landing right in front of him. He only had a couple moments to be stunned before she put a bullet directly between his eyes and the sound of blood spattering against metal was heard.
"You hear that, Chinky?" She asked with a gleeful tone, "One down, and only one to go." She re-racked the slide of her right cutlass and took a brief moment to light a cigarette. She exhaled a cloud of tobacco, nicotine, and carcinogens as she spoke again in an ominous tone.
"You can't hide from me forever."
To prove her point, Revy fired off what appeared to be a random shot, but the man that was left fought back a scream of pain as the bullet pierced his right hand. Fortunately, the sound of his gun hitting the floor was hidden by the hiss of steam coming from the engine directly behind him. His eyes still widened with fear. Did she really know? Or was it just a lucky shot?
His answer came when the gunslinger let out a genuine yawn somewhere to his left.
"Well, would ya look at that. I think it's almost bed time for me. That sucks for you, Chinky."
The fear reached a peak inside the man and he scrambled to pick up the gun with his good hand. He was unnerved at how close her voice had sounded, and at the foreshadowing of his fate. He absolutely would not go down this way!
Just like the other man before him, he fired a series of shots, and just like before: Revy dodged each of them with unparalleled skill before coming to stand directly in front of the frightened man. He looked into her eyes for a brief moment and shook with fear at the predatory gleam in her half-dead eyes.
"It's been fun, Chinky." Revy said, leveling her gun to aim it at his forehead. It was quickly becoming clear to him that he would not be one of the few to live after being on the receiving end of the look in this woman's eye. In fact, that predatory look, accompanied by her sadistic smile, was the last thing he ever saw.
A loud crack rung through the engine room and another spattering noise was heard as the man's lifeless body slumped to the floor.
Revy lifted up her cutlass and blew the smoke off of the end of the barrel before she returned it to its home in the empty left holster. She paused momentarily to inhale on her cigarette as she gazed at her handiwork.
After a few moments, she silently turned on her heel and exited the engine room as quickly as she'd come.
Several hours, swear words, and spare engine parts later, the Black Lagoon finally pulled into its spot at the docks. It was early morning in the city and faint traces of sunlight had begun to slice through the blackness of the night sky. Rock busied himself with their acquired passenger while the rest of the crew went about untying the cases of drugs from the cargo hold.
Despite the fact that he'd been on their boat and out of harm's way for hours now, Su Jun, as Rock had learned was his name, was still somewhat shaken and hesitant to trust any of their crew. It didn't help him that Revy had made a game on the trip back out of bursting into his cabin at random intervals and pointing her gun at him. When Rock had finally confronted her about it, she just scoffed dismissively and said she was "just playing"; asking Rock where his sense of fun was.
After everything—and everyone—had been gathered, the group came to stand by the GTO as Benny began to load the drugs into the trunk. In spite of their ordeal, none of them was any worse for wear than when they left.
"So, where are we going now?" Rock questioned, lighting two cigarettes and passing one to Revy on his right as he handed a third one to Mr. Su on his left. "It's a little early to call on Chang, isn't it?"
Dutch just smirked wryly, responding "It's a minor inconvenience compared to the twenty four hours that I've been away from my bed on account of him." He lit his own smoke as Revy voiced her agreement beside him.
"Anyway, we can decide in the car. It's not smart to hang around for too long with our cargo still in the trunk."
The drive to the Triad headquarters was uneventful. At this time of the morning, there wasn't much traffic. It was 5:30, and most of the people awake this early had some sort of affiliation with one of the numerous mobs and cartels throughout the city. Apparently, most of the population shared Revy's sleep-in attitude.
Once they reached the Triad offices, they were surprised to find Chief Watsap standing at a roadblock in the middle of the road. Dutch rolled down the window on his side as the Chief approached.
"Well, well. If it isn't Lagoon Company." The Chief greeted them jovially, leaning his fore arms down on the door frame.
"I see you're gettin' to work on that golf game." Dutch joked with a smile, only to become serious an instant later, "What happened here?"
"Road's closed." Chief Watsap stated simply, lighting a cigarette. "Some idiot blew up a car bomb yesterday outside the Triad's offices. There's debris to clean up; same thing at Bougainvillea."
Revy was the first to find her voice in light of the news.
"Holy shit!" She exclaimed from where she sat in the back seat, "Someone tried to kill Chang and Balalaika? This city's about to be ripped apart at the seams."
No matter how tough Revy acted, there were still things and people in this world that she feared; Balalaika was one of them. Balalaika on the warpath was another, and the city was sure to be crawling with Visotoniki by the end of the day. Just thinking about that gave Revy the chills.
"No shit." Watsap agreed as Dutch bid farewell to him and they made their way to the back of the building.
"Damn." Dutch stomped on his cigarette and closed the car door as everyone made their way to the trunk, "Roanapur's about to reach the boiling point and we're in the middle of the pot."
And the plot begins to thicken! I hope you enjoyed chapter four. Next Chapter: the introduction of Chang, Balalaika and Boris. Please R&R!