—xXx—
Chapter 2: Shit Gets Real...
—xXx—
When carrying cargo the size of a CD worth 20 grand, walking into a bar best known for it's destructive patrons (*cough* Revy *cough*) might not have been the best of ideas.
Dutch mulled the current situation as he took cover in a doorway, watching the bar and it's occupants get torn to shreds by automatic rifle fire. Benny was out back warming up the car and Revy was calmly waiting for the right moment to strike as she smoked a cigarette behind Bao's bullet-proof bar counter. Rock looked remarkably calm for a salary-man from Japan, but under fire people can snap and become completely different. Dutch had seen it happen countless times to American Soldiers in Vietnam. Young men completely unprepared for the realities of war quickly died. The ones that managed to survive were never the same.
The silence following the massacre brought Dutch back to reality in time to witness Revy pull out her guns. "Rock! Cover me!" To Dutch's amazement, Rock pulled a Smith & Wesson MP 9mm from underneath his untucked white collar shirt, and opened fire on the gunmen walking around the bar trying to eliminate any of the unlucky survivors. Five went down under his methodic shooting, barely showing any emotion as he pulled the trigger. Revy jumped over the bar and reigned death down from the rafters as she seemed to hang in the air longer than she should have.
Within seconds all of the gunmen in the bar were dead.
"Let's get out of here, Revy, Rock." Dutch's low voice stirred through the gun-smoke, getting the two time travelers back to this reality. They quickly fled the bar leaving in Benny's Dodge Corvet and sped off to the Black Lagoon. Within an hour, they were sailing out of the bay, past the statue.
—xXx—
"Oi Dumb-ass, you awake?" Revy opened the door to Rock's room aboard the Black Lagoon and crept inside, trying to not make any noise that would alert Dutch or Benny to her movements. With the engine noise, some of the quieter sounds were muffled, but with Lagoon Company so attuned to their ship, Dutch or Benny might be able to still hear her.
"Still trying to figure out what happened?" Rock's voice came from his bunk where he lay examining his new gun. It may have been the same model that he used before their inexplicable shift to the past, but in many respects it was not his gun. It felt alien in his hands, despite being identical.
He had finally picked up a gun, setting the unofficial record for the longest time without touching a gun. After Roberta's War, as it became known, the City of Vice destabilized for a time and in a pinch, Rock used one of Revy's Cutlasses to kill some thugs who had ambushed the two and knocked out the more dangerous Revy. With blood on his hands, and being forced to realize that he couldn't always count on Revy to help him, he secretly went to Praiyachat's and tried nearly every pistol until he found one that fit him. A special order, some cash, and a couple weeks later and Rock was the proud owner of a stainless steel Smith & Wesson MP 9mm. He didn't want to advertise that he was carrying like Revy did with her painfully obvious holsters, and instead carried his new gun with several magazines under his usual white dress shirt.
Going back in time with the worlds second most dangerous woman (even Revy recognizes that Balalaika wasn't a woman to anger) was not an easy task. Having her acting strange while in easy reach of her guns and booze was defiantly not a situation that Rock particularly wanted to be in.
"It's crazy shit." Revy answered Rock's question, stopping him from reminiscing of the past, err future. She walked over to where Rock was sitting up and sat down on a newly vacated half of the bed. "Dutch's already figured something's up with your shooting back at Bao's." Revy sighed. "He's smarter than most people give him credit for."
"So what's my explanation?" Rock asked. "I'm the new guy and the unknown factor in this mess."
"They got those gun range things in Japan where you come in from the street and shoot?" Revy asked, having seen similar establishments in Hawaii on her way to Roanapur with Dutch. The American paradise islands are a common vacation destination for asian tourists.
"If you look hard enough, you'll find just about anything you want in Japan." Rock replied casually. "Roanapur just makes it a hell of a lot easier to find." He sighed as he remembered the blitzkrieg war Balalaika waged on his home soil. It was the last time he had been back to the place he was raised, but after spending so much time with Lagoon Company, and especially Revy, his home was in the dirtiest city in the world. If his parents didn't think he was dead, they'd be ashamed of how he had lived his life.
(A/N From my translation, Rock's boss guy says that Rock will be reported dead and to simply lay low for the rest of his life.)
"Just tell him that you watch too many action movies and spent too much time at the ranges." Revy told Rock. "The less I'm tied to it, the better he'll react. It's too suspicious for me to really know you so well so soon, and we should have been more careful at the bar, but too late!" Revy grinned at Rock and leaned into him slightly. To most it would have seemed incredibly intimate for the hardened gunslinger to be so familiar with Rock, but their relationship simply worked that way. After Japan, the two had simply spent more time together and learned each other's quirks and tells in a way that only longtime couples or serial stalkers could.
Rock knew he had fallen in love with Revy but to mention anything of that affect, would immediately worsen or better his connection with Revy and knowing how violently she reacted to things close to her heart, he didn't want to risk anything. It was one of those things that he believed it was better to wait and see what happened in the future. There were few people in Rock's life that he truly respected. Balalaika and Mr. Chang held definite spots, with Lagoon Company led by Revy at the very top of his list. It might sound cliched, but Rock didn't love Revy for her looks, but rather the incredibly complex person under her skin. Her beauty attracted him and who she was made him stay faithfully by her side even in the worst of times. Even if she was the reason behind many of the worst times.
"You done thinking?" Revy broke the silence and answered Rock's questioning glance. "You had your thousand yard stare going full blast."
"How long till that chopper comes after us?" Rock asked. He hadn't paid too much attention to the sequence of events the last time, as he was scared for this life and too busy having a panic attack.
"Probably another hour at most." Revy replied as she stood and stretched sensuously in front of Rock. "I packed a few RPG's and heavier artillery to see if we can bring the sucker without all than pansy running away."
"Sounds good." Rock leaned back and watched Revy stretch out getting ready for the battle ahead. "If we miss, we always got the surprise torpedo-in-mid-air-launch to take it down." The duo grinned, remembering the adrenalin rush of their first successful anti-helicopter attack.
"You two sure have gotten to know each other quite well in the last day." Dutch spoke through the door freezing the duo inside.
"Aw crap." Revy muttered. "Come join us boss-man." and the large dark-skinned skipper of the Black Lagoon opened the door.
"Couldn't help but hear you two talking about a chopper and shooting it down." Dutch rumbled in his low voice. "Mind telling me how you know we've got an inbound chopper on our ass and for that matter, what Revy Two Hands is doing acting like the newbie prisoner is her best friend?" Revy and Rock looked sheepishly at the veteran.
"Would time travel explain everything?" Revy asked and to her surprise Dutch nodded.
"It would if it weren't for the fact that it's impossible." Dutch retorted, not moving from his position blocking the door, forcing the two to deal with him.
"Technically it only has to be possible in the future for time travel to be a plausible explanation for this shitty mess." Rock spoke up. "And since you don't know what happens in the future, you can't conclusively rule time travel out."
Dutch absorbed Rock's words for a moment before speaking. "That actually makes sense in a twisted way. So tell me, what proof can you offer to back up your explanation."
"The helicopter following us is a Mil Mi-24 Gunship armed with infrared air-to-ground missiles." Revy listed off several more details she remembered including the bearing the helicopter would approach from.
Dutch light up a smoke and inhaled deeply and then sighed. "I assume that you've got a plan?"
"You got it Boss-man!" Revy grinned and elbowed Rock to get him to nod in agreement.
"Then get up on deck." Dutch moved from the door and the two guns moved passed their captain and acquired a vast arsenal of weaponry from the ship's armory. Anti-tank rifles, RPG's, AK's and the occasional grenade launcher found their way up on deck in the hands of two experienced Roanapur citizens.
Sure enough, a few minutes later the roar of a helicopter could be heard over the rumble of Lagoon's engines. Almost immediately cannon fire started splashing around the small maneuverable vessel.
"Yo bossman!" Revy yelled into her mic. "Start the avoiding shit. I don't want to become swiss cheese." A few rockets over the bow of the Lagoon, and a quick increase to full throttle later; the chase was on.
—xXx—
For twenty tense minutes, the PT boat and the attack helicopter danced over the high seas of southern Asia. Rock and Revy strapped into the railings along the deck of the lagoon and were busy returning fire with all manners of weapons.
"We need to get him to stay still to get a shot off!" Rock yelled over the engines, gunfire and explosions.
"YO! DUTCH!" Revy shouted into her headset, getting the attention of the captain. "Find some river or something to hide in! We need to get him standing still."
"That will make us sitting ducks, Revy." Dutch replied after getting Benny to consult several charts. "I don't want to fix any more holes than i have to."
"Dammit, Dutch!" Revy angrily shouted into the radio. "We don't have a fuckin' choice! Rock and I are only wasting ammo up here with him buzzing us like this!"
Rock grunted as he reloaded another magazine into his rifle. "At least I didn't through the guns overboard this time." He commented loud enough for Revy to hear him.
Dutch didn't reply, but turned into a river mouth and slowed down as the gunship fell back waiting for it's prey to turn around at the inevitable dead-end and return to face it's guns.
Dutch puffed through several cigarettes as he slowly steered the Lagoon through the winding river channel. Revy and Rock entered the cockpit and stood silently behind the large Vietnam vet. "So what's the plan, Revy?"
"We try to get the chopper to land and capture it." Rock replied, earning a surprised glance from his partner.
"And how do you plan on getting that miracle accomplished as well as getting out alive?" Dutch demanded.
"It's impossible to fly that bird without the help of a computer." Rock replied. "I'll help Benny with the frequencies and codes he'd need to hack into it's auto pilot and then set it down next to the shipwreck."
"This presents us with the least amount of danger to the ship, and a few well placed rifle rounds would take care of the pilot and co-pilot." Rock laid out his plan in more detail with Benny who kept nodding throughout the monologue.
"So you think the two of you can do this?" Dutch asked Benny, breaking the silence after Rock finally shut up.
"If it doesn't work, we can always try a more direct approach and just shoot it out of the sky." Benny replied, not wishing to die or risk his neck if he could avoid doing so. He began to type on the keyboard in front of him, calling up the necessary software and controls to run the operation. When he had downloaded this particular program a mere six weeks before his plan had been to study how it was written, never actually use it.
To his surprise, Rock began to type on another keyboard and was able to get through his firewalls and securities with no trouble it was as if the Japanese man knew exactly what his computer setup was, but that couldn't be possible…Could it? The former salary man started entering the necessary frequencies and encryption keys into the software and in under ten minutes, the two had everything they needed to control the gunship.
"Hey Revy!" Rock called out the door. "Wanna try landing the sucker?"
"Sure!" Revy replied a little too happily and sauntered into Benny's lair, taking the joystick and keyboard away from Rock. "Hey do we have access to his comma frequencies?"
"Gimme a minute." Benny muttered as his fingers flew over the keyboard while Revy took his headset. "Okay your on."
"Attention fucked up pilot." Revy grinned predatorily. "You have pissed off the wrong fucking boat. Enjoy the last minutes of your piss poor life." With that, she hand the headset back and began flying the chopper towards where the Lagoon was currently moored.
"Oi, Rock get a rifle and take the bastard out. I'll open the canopy for you." Revy grinned as she looked out the window and positioned the helicopter broadside to the Lagoon to make the shots cause the least collateral damage that would reduce the value of the machine.
Revy was defiantly feeling sadistic. She set the helicopter to hover barely ten feet from The Lagoon. For the pilot and co-pilot, there was nothing they could do but simply swear at the tie-wearing gunman as he pulled the trigger.