Post by Declan Prescott on Jun 30, 2010 18:23:31 GMT -5
It’s about chaos. Anarchy. Fear. When people are afraid, people act. They act without asking questions or wondering what the point is. And that’s exactly the point! Those that seek control are opposed by those who just want to be free. The product of that freedom doesn’t even matter. Hell, we couldn’t even tell you what it is. But we know we want it.
Peter Damascus made his way down the corridor of the Acer Arena only moments after his victory over Vladimir Ulysys, seemingly unaware of the blood trickling from his crown, down his face. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel the pain. Just the opposite. He had become so accustomed to it, he didn’t seem to notice anymore.
“You should get that looked at.”
“I thought you liked blood.”
“Real funny, smart guy. I wonder how much you’ll be laughing when we pass out from blood loss. I don’t want to be some Australian hillbilly’s pet food!”
“Then you picked the wrong mind to invade.”
“Come on, Petey! Don’t go all sour puss on me again. We’re a team! You know that!”
“We’re such a great team!” Bianca Rowe applauded.
Standing before Damascus was the tight, busty figure of Ms. Rowe. She was smiling proudly, as she approached Damascus.
“I don’t recall you doing all that mu – ” Damascus’ words were cut short, as a door to his left swung violently open and two huge, black figures emerged.
The first man, wielding a chain, smashed the steel straight into Damascus’ jaw. The Empty Eyed Anarchist went crashing into the wall, before the second brute grabbed him by the shoulders. As Damascus hanged helplessly in the attacker’s grip, the original thug dropped his chain and instead opted for a pair of brass knuckles. Smashing Damascus in every imaginable place, from the crotch up to the temple, the beast laughed manically with every hammering blow.
“This is what ya get for hittin’ a girl!” the attacker spat. “Mr. King don’t like some white bread homo working over his employees! Especially one as fine ass as Bianca! Now it’s up ta us ta teach ya how to play fair!”
“Haha!” laughed the gorilla who was now crushing Damascus with his clutch. “You gon’ be a good doggy, ain’t ya Damascus?! And once we’re done here, maybe we could give you a ‘workin’ over’ too, huh Bianca?”
“That’s Ms. Rowe,” she frowned, before sticking her hand into her cleavage.
ZAP!
In an instant she had removed a taser from her shirt and stunned the attacker in the throat. He fell lifelessly to the floor, as the second brute released Damascus, instead throwing his arms into the air in shock.
“YOU CRAZY BITCH!” he roared.
In a single moment he, too, fell limply to the floor. Rowe stared down disapprovingly at the pair, before inserting her weapon between her breasts once more. She then turned her focus to Damascus, who was cradled on the floor, spluttering up blood. She only rolled her eyes.
“You’re welcome.”
“D… didn’t expe… t… you to… h… help,” he croaked, before more blood spattered out his mouth.
“Please,” she mused. “I can handle myself. The very idea of needing Jamal King to protect me is simply insulting.”
“Y… you pr… probably… could… could have… stopped them… earl… earlier…”
“That’s the thanks I get for saving you, even after you attacked me?” she shook her head. “You really are a brat. But in reality, you did deserve it. And I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t enjoyed seeing you clobbered to a bloody mess. But the fact of the matter is that it isn’t Mr. King’s place to seek retribution on my behalf. I’m more than capable of that, myself. Now come, you’re getting a manicure.”
“Would have been better off with the pimp lackey’s thugs. Ehehehehe.”
People wonder ‘why do you kill?’ My response? ‘Why don’t you kill?’ We kill because we can. Sometimes we kill to prove that we can. There’s no I in team, but there’s meat. And at the end of the day, that’s all we are. Rotting, festering bags of meat. Now would you try and give order to a big pile of steak? If you would, you’re probably crazier than Petey, here.
It was excruciating. Peter Damascus sat upright, making sure to keep his face set only on the seat in front of him. Though his eyes continued to creep to his left. Bianca Rowe sat just as upright, though she looked much more natural with such a rigid posture. The sun bathed her creamy skin and danced throughout soft, neatly tied blonde hair. She was writing eloquently on a clipboard, taking new focus off her task as she spoke.
“You know what’s unsettling?” she proposed. “I can actually feel your eyes on me. Do you really find my breasts that fascinating?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Damascus snorted. “It’s the chair that’s making me jealous. Window seats rule. Instead I’m stuck between you and this guy who looks like he ate Ronald McDonald.”
“I can hear you…” the fat man complained.
“Think you’ll be able to hear me after I rip your ears off?!” Damascus spat, clearly unimpressed with the intrusion.
The blobby man only gulped and returned to his small pack of peanuts. Rowe raised her eyes for the first time, staring out the plane window. A plethora of marvellous, fluffy white clouds in a sea of perfect blue greeted her.
“Play nice, Mr. Damascus,” she instructed. “A hero doesn’t make fun of those with girth conditions.”
The fat man only continued crunching nervously.
“A hero doesn’t fly economy either,” Damascus returned bluntly. “Fucking King…”
“You had to know there would be repercussions for our actions,” Bianca Rowe returned. “And you can bet he’ll be speaking to Komosube and the masked man, giving them some incentive to hurt you this week.”
“Let him try,” Damascus said flatly. “It won’t make a difference. And why’d you call him the masked man?”
“You’re in no position to be giving me orders,” she stated matter-of-factly. “And the reason is simple. I really don’t know how to pronounce the name of someone who spells it with numbers. Though my sources assure me it’s something that only closet paedophiles on the internet engage in.”
“You made a joke,” Damascus grinned. “So you’re human after all.”
“We won’t know for certain until the masked man informs us of his off hour ‘appetites’,” she returned. “Though you did just smile.”
“Ha!” Damascus now laughed. “Maybe we can just settle on calling him Terry Funk Junior. Because making false retirements is his only real achievement. Unless you count taking advantage of the corpses of Dredd and Chip Masters at Horizons.”
“Horizons?” she inquired. “That was a while ago. You really have done your homework.”
“Something like that…”
“Though Mr. Junior’s past shouldn’t concern us,” Rowe insisted. “His present is the real issue. How do you approach him this weekend?”
“Like I would a rabid dog,” Damascus sneered. “He’s intimidated by a bunch of delusional uCw failures, who hate what they’ve become so much, they’re trying to escape back into the past and he respects an angry, self-absorbed homo with tits in Komosube. The only real question is how he’s going to react when he faces down against someone he actually should fear. Because I plan on beating those haunting memories right out of him. Hell, maybe I’ll even make him retire for another week.”
“And Mr. Chen?”
“Same deal, really,” Damascus shrugged. “He’s too busy trying to control the sexual tension with Raenius, that’s about to burst from his seams. He’s just an ignorant, spoilt brat, who can’t see past the generic uCw reject that’s kicking the shit out of him every week he competes. He probably doesn’t even know Peter Damascus exists, because he’s so focused on head butting the nearest poster of Chassie Fear until it bleeds and then ‘celebrating’ his ‘victory’ at an all boys’ orphanage. In fact, the only person we know that he can beat is Junior Funk! What a joke…”
“For a self-proclaimed hobo,” Rowe now added. “You have quite a way with words.”
“Did you ever see my ninja sign?”
“Huh?” she tilted her head.
“Well that was good,” the enormous man belched, tossing his peanut packet away. He then dusted the salt off his hands and pulled a small briefcase out of the pouch on the back of the seat in front of him. Opening it up, he revealed an assortment of nail polishes and a syringe full of a colourless liquid.
“That can’t be good…” Damascus gulped.
“I’d like you to meet Mr. Smiles,” Ms. Rowe introduced. “He’s a world renowned beauty technician, despite what his love of saturated foods would suggest. When you wake up, your hands will be gorgeous.”
“OH FUCK NO!” Damascus roared, springing desperately to his feet. But it was too late. The syringe had been stabbed into his leg and he could already feel himself fading into unconsciousness.
“Underestimation is the key to all failures,” Ms. Rowe stated matter-of-factly, as Damascus tumbled helplessly into his seat. “You would be wise to remember that.”
A lot of people are squeamish, to the point of being sickening. But pansies are often the cruellest type of monster. They look down at the bloody mess that was once a person and can’t help but lose their lunch. But they destroy the dreams of a man, take his name, face and everything that he aspires to be without losing a single moment of sleep. It’s hypocritical and revolting. The world judges us as monsters, but we’re just a creation of society. It’s like the kid that pokes the dog until it bites. And then the dog is the one shot full of lethal poisons. The outrage of it makes us want to kill something, doesn’t it?
The sun barrelled down on the GIW production team. Men and women scattered hurriedly in every direction, trying to establish the burnt out barracks as a place that could actually be inhabitable. It wasn’t an easy task. Several kilometres away, a squadron of U.S. marines patrolled the perimeter.
“So they banish us. Spit on what we are. Take away our livelihood. Now they wanna protect us? I don’t get it.”
“Or control us. Just hope they don’t decide to play their Drowning Pool mix tape.” Damascus didn’t take his attention from his now bright, metallic blue fingernails. “I feel like such a dick…”
“We could die here.”
“A man with painted nails that isn’t named Kiseragi? She’s a real bitch.”
“Seriously, you may be filled with enough self-loathing to not value your life, but I kinda need you to keep breathing. So lets get this over with and get the fuck back inside!”
“Baby.”
Damascus now looked up for the first time, his gaze falling squarely on three familiar figures, about a hundred meters away. Two burly, black skinned beasts, overseeing the construction work and a small, pale figure, with fiery red hair. One of the lackeys smacked his hand to Hazel East’s posterior, as she walked past. The two men chuckled, as she hurried off with a disgusted look on her face.
“Those two are pathetic. They can’t even smell the trail of gas that leads from their feet all the way over to us. I’d say they were as stupid as gorillas, but I’d hate to offend our primate relatives. It’s kind of sad they got the jump on you…”
“The jump on us,” Damascus corrected, now removing a small cardboard box from his jean pocket.
“Nuh uh. You’re solely in the driver’s seat here, pal. Once I take the wheel, you’ll know it.”
“But until then…”
Damascus now lit one of the matches, but as soon as the flame appeared, it vanished into nothing, but smoke. Bianca Rowe now stood before him, her eyes narrowed with disapproval.
“I needed that,” Damascus scowled.
“To what? Light two Neanderthals up on fire?!” she barked. “Mr. Damascus, this is outrageous. I won’t stand for such ridiculous behaviour!”
“You really can’t stop me,” he sneered. “If I want vengeance, I’ll take it.”
“Well I never said you shouldn’t,” she now grabbed his wrist. “But I had hoped you were better than wasting your time on a couple of foot notes. Come with me.”
He grumbled in annoyance, as she dragged him across the sand, her heels not slowing her down for even an instant. They soon reached a rusty, derelict personnel carrier. She yanked on the corroded door for several moments, before finally pulling it open with a triumphant growl. She then entered the vehicle, Damascus only inches behind.
“No way…”
The victim was tied to a wooden chair in the centre of the space, struggling pointlessly to break free. He was gagged and flooding with sweat. Ms. Rowe planted her hand on his shoulder, smiling proudly at her catch. Jamal King only erupted with a horrified, muffled scream at the sight of Damascus.
“So?” she inquired smugly. “What do you think?”
“You’re insane,” Damascus gasped, overcome with both shock and awe.
“Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment,” she smiled, now moving across the metal room and opening up a slick, silver briefcase. “I just figured, why bother with the lackeys, when we can go straight to the source? It was Mr. King who ordered those men to attack you. So I think it’s only fitting that Mr. King be the focus of our wrath.”
“Our wrath?” Damascus asked.
“Yes,” she replied, very frankly, while pulling a sleek, smooth, foot long blade from the assortment of metal implements filling the briefcase. “You see, what Mr. King has failed to realise is that with my contract, comes my loyalty. You’re my agent, Mr. Damascus, and I’ll do whatever is required to see you succeed.”
“But… but… how’d you even get him here?!”
“Ha!” she yelped. “That was the easy part. I just made up some story about having a military fantasy. And these whelp bought it completely. He was drooling on himself more than a Sean Cyanide fan by the time we arrived here. Then it was just a matter smashing a baseball over his skull. Nothing really.”
“And you tied him up, so I could what?”
“That’s up to you,” she reassured. “You see Mr. Damascus, I can only take you so far. If you are truly to become the hero of GIW, you’re going to need to want it. Mr. King wants you moulded like a dog, to be his convenient little errand boy. But how many errand boys have ever been heroes, Mr. Damascus? I say to you, make a choice. Either be prepared to be this man’s tool or become your own monster. What decision will you make?”
“What about the penguin?”
“HA!” she spat. “The penguin is a joke! I can’t even recall the last time he managed to go a week without being humiliated by one of his employees. Right at this very instant, he’s probably being outwitted by the Roberts siren. He’s not even a match for some drugged up, delusional slut. That’s why he wants you, Mr. Damascus. It’s why he had Mr. King assign me as your image consultant. It’s why Mr. King has such an invested interest in you. They know you’re strong and they want you on their side. It won’t be long before the penguin is on his non-functioning wings and begging for your help. But I believe that if he wants your help, he has to understand that you won’t be playing by his rules. That he’ll have to play by your rules. What do you think?” She now extended the blade to him.
“I think,” Damascus began, clutching the handle of the blade in his hands. “That I don’t have any rules.”
Jamal erupted with one, final agonising groan, as Damascus slashed the steel in a single stroke against the head Scouter’s throat. Jamal gurgled helplessly as blood splashed from his dieing body.
“And I think it’s time we show the rest of GIW that.”
You really want my opinion? Sometimes destroying a man’s name is enough to kill him.
And other times it isn’t.
Peter Damascus made his way down the corridor of the Acer Arena only moments after his victory over Vladimir Ulysys, seemingly unaware of the blood trickling from his crown, down his face. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel the pain. Just the opposite. He had become so accustomed to it, he didn’t seem to notice anymore.
“You should get that looked at.”
“I thought you liked blood.”
“Real funny, smart guy. I wonder how much you’ll be laughing when we pass out from blood loss. I don’t want to be some Australian hillbilly’s pet food!”
“Then you picked the wrong mind to invade.”
“Come on, Petey! Don’t go all sour puss on me again. We’re a team! You know that!”
“We’re such a great team!” Bianca Rowe applauded.
Standing before Damascus was the tight, busty figure of Ms. Rowe. She was smiling proudly, as she approached Damascus.
“I don’t recall you doing all that mu – ” Damascus’ words were cut short, as a door to his left swung violently open and two huge, black figures emerged.
The first man, wielding a chain, smashed the steel straight into Damascus’ jaw. The Empty Eyed Anarchist went crashing into the wall, before the second brute grabbed him by the shoulders. As Damascus hanged helplessly in the attacker’s grip, the original thug dropped his chain and instead opted for a pair of brass knuckles. Smashing Damascus in every imaginable place, from the crotch up to the temple, the beast laughed manically with every hammering blow.
“This is what ya get for hittin’ a girl!” the attacker spat. “Mr. King don’t like some white bread homo working over his employees! Especially one as fine ass as Bianca! Now it’s up ta us ta teach ya how to play fair!”
“Haha!” laughed the gorilla who was now crushing Damascus with his clutch. “You gon’ be a good doggy, ain’t ya Damascus?! And once we’re done here, maybe we could give you a ‘workin’ over’ too, huh Bianca?”
“That’s Ms. Rowe,” she frowned, before sticking her hand into her cleavage.
ZAP!
In an instant she had removed a taser from her shirt and stunned the attacker in the throat. He fell lifelessly to the floor, as the second brute released Damascus, instead throwing his arms into the air in shock.
“YOU CRAZY BITCH!” he roared.
In a single moment he, too, fell limply to the floor. Rowe stared down disapprovingly at the pair, before inserting her weapon between her breasts once more. She then turned her focus to Damascus, who was cradled on the floor, spluttering up blood. She only rolled her eyes.
“You’re welcome.”
“D… didn’t expe… t… you to… h… help,” he croaked, before more blood spattered out his mouth.
“Please,” she mused. “I can handle myself. The very idea of needing Jamal King to protect me is simply insulting.”
“Y… you pr… probably… could… could have… stopped them… earl… earlier…”
“That’s the thanks I get for saving you, even after you attacked me?” she shook her head. “You really are a brat. But in reality, you did deserve it. And I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t enjoyed seeing you clobbered to a bloody mess. But the fact of the matter is that it isn’t Mr. King’s place to seek retribution on my behalf. I’m more than capable of that, myself. Now come, you’re getting a manicure.”
“Would have been better off with the pimp lackey’s thugs. Ehehehehe.”
People wonder ‘why do you kill?’ My response? ‘Why don’t you kill?’ We kill because we can. Sometimes we kill to prove that we can. There’s no I in team, but there’s meat. And at the end of the day, that’s all we are. Rotting, festering bags of meat. Now would you try and give order to a big pile of steak? If you would, you’re probably crazier than Petey, here.
It was excruciating. Peter Damascus sat upright, making sure to keep his face set only on the seat in front of him. Though his eyes continued to creep to his left. Bianca Rowe sat just as upright, though she looked much more natural with such a rigid posture. The sun bathed her creamy skin and danced throughout soft, neatly tied blonde hair. She was writing eloquently on a clipboard, taking new focus off her task as she spoke.
“You know what’s unsettling?” she proposed. “I can actually feel your eyes on me. Do you really find my breasts that fascinating?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Damascus snorted. “It’s the chair that’s making me jealous. Window seats rule. Instead I’m stuck between you and this guy who looks like he ate Ronald McDonald.”
“I can hear you…” the fat man complained.
“Think you’ll be able to hear me after I rip your ears off?!” Damascus spat, clearly unimpressed with the intrusion.
The blobby man only gulped and returned to his small pack of peanuts. Rowe raised her eyes for the first time, staring out the plane window. A plethora of marvellous, fluffy white clouds in a sea of perfect blue greeted her.
“Play nice, Mr. Damascus,” she instructed. “A hero doesn’t make fun of those with girth conditions.”
The fat man only continued crunching nervously.
“A hero doesn’t fly economy either,” Damascus returned bluntly. “Fucking King…”
“You had to know there would be repercussions for our actions,” Bianca Rowe returned. “And you can bet he’ll be speaking to Komosube and the masked man, giving them some incentive to hurt you this week.”
“Let him try,” Damascus said flatly. “It won’t make a difference. And why’d you call him the masked man?”
“You’re in no position to be giving me orders,” she stated matter-of-factly. “And the reason is simple. I really don’t know how to pronounce the name of someone who spells it with numbers. Though my sources assure me it’s something that only closet paedophiles on the internet engage in.”
“You made a joke,” Damascus grinned. “So you’re human after all.”
“We won’t know for certain until the masked man informs us of his off hour ‘appetites’,” she returned. “Though you did just smile.”
“Ha!” Damascus now laughed. “Maybe we can just settle on calling him Terry Funk Junior. Because making false retirements is his only real achievement. Unless you count taking advantage of the corpses of Dredd and Chip Masters at Horizons.”
“Horizons?” she inquired. “That was a while ago. You really have done your homework.”
“Something like that…”
“Though Mr. Junior’s past shouldn’t concern us,” Rowe insisted. “His present is the real issue. How do you approach him this weekend?”
“Like I would a rabid dog,” Damascus sneered. “He’s intimidated by a bunch of delusional uCw failures, who hate what they’ve become so much, they’re trying to escape back into the past and he respects an angry, self-absorbed homo with tits in Komosube. The only real question is how he’s going to react when he faces down against someone he actually should fear. Because I plan on beating those haunting memories right out of him. Hell, maybe I’ll even make him retire for another week.”
“And Mr. Chen?”
“Same deal, really,” Damascus shrugged. “He’s too busy trying to control the sexual tension with Raenius, that’s about to burst from his seams. He’s just an ignorant, spoilt brat, who can’t see past the generic uCw reject that’s kicking the shit out of him every week he competes. He probably doesn’t even know Peter Damascus exists, because he’s so focused on head butting the nearest poster of Chassie Fear until it bleeds and then ‘celebrating’ his ‘victory’ at an all boys’ orphanage. In fact, the only person we know that he can beat is Junior Funk! What a joke…”
“For a self-proclaimed hobo,” Rowe now added. “You have quite a way with words.”
“Did you ever see my ninja sign?”
“Huh?” she tilted her head.
“Well that was good,” the enormous man belched, tossing his peanut packet away. He then dusted the salt off his hands and pulled a small briefcase out of the pouch on the back of the seat in front of him. Opening it up, he revealed an assortment of nail polishes and a syringe full of a colourless liquid.
“That can’t be good…” Damascus gulped.
“I’d like you to meet Mr. Smiles,” Ms. Rowe introduced. “He’s a world renowned beauty technician, despite what his love of saturated foods would suggest. When you wake up, your hands will be gorgeous.”
“OH FUCK NO!” Damascus roared, springing desperately to his feet. But it was too late. The syringe had been stabbed into his leg and he could already feel himself fading into unconsciousness.
“Underestimation is the key to all failures,” Ms. Rowe stated matter-of-factly, as Damascus tumbled helplessly into his seat. “You would be wise to remember that.”
A lot of people are squeamish, to the point of being sickening. But pansies are often the cruellest type of monster. They look down at the bloody mess that was once a person and can’t help but lose their lunch. But they destroy the dreams of a man, take his name, face and everything that he aspires to be without losing a single moment of sleep. It’s hypocritical and revolting. The world judges us as monsters, but we’re just a creation of society. It’s like the kid that pokes the dog until it bites. And then the dog is the one shot full of lethal poisons. The outrage of it makes us want to kill something, doesn’t it?
The sun barrelled down on the GIW production team. Men and women scattered hurriedly in every direction, trying to establish the burnt out barracks as a place that could actually be inhabitable. It wasn’t an easy task. Several kilometres away, a squadron of U.S. marines patrolled the perimeter.
“So they banish us. Spit on what we are. Take away our livelihood. Now they wanna protect us? I don’t get it.”
“Or control us. Just hope they don’t decide to play their Drowning Pool mix tape.” Damascus didn’t take his attention from his now bright, metallic blue fingernails. “I feel like such a dick…”
“We could die here.”
“A man with painted nails that isn’t named Kiseragi? She’s a real bitch.”
“Seriously, you may be filled with enough self-loathing to not value your life, but I kinda need you to keep breathing. So lets get this over with and get the fuck back inside!”
“Baby.”
Damascus now looked up for the first time, his gaze falling squarely on three familiar figures, about a hundred meters away. Two burly, black skinned beasts, overseeing the construction work and a small, pale figure, with fiery red hair. One of the lackeys smacked his hand to Hazel East’s posterior, as she walked past. The two men chuckled, as she hurried off with a disgusted look on her face.
“Those two are pathetic. They can’t even smell the trail of gas that leads from their feet all the way over to us. I’d say they were as stupid as gorillas, but I’d hate to offend our primate relatives. It’s kind of sad they got the jump on you…”
“The jump on us,” Damascus corrected, now removing a small cardboard box from his jean pocket.
“Nuh uh. You’re solely in the driver’s seat here, pal. Once I take the wheel, you’ll know it.”
“But until then…”
Damascus now lit one of the matches, but as soon as the flame appeared, it vanished into nothing, but smoke. Bianca Rowe now stood before him, her eyes narrowed with disapproval.
“I needed that,” Damascus scowled.
“To what? Light two Neanderthals up on fire?!” she barked. “Mr. Damascus, this is outrageous. I won’t stand for such ridiculous behaviour!”
“You really can’t stop me,” he sneered. “If I want vengeance, I’ll take it.”
“Well I never said you shouldn’t,” she now grabbed his wrist. “But I had hoped you were better than wasting your time on a couple of foot notes. Come with me.”
He grumbled in annoyance, as she dragged him across the sand, her heels not slowing her down for even an instant. They soon reached a rusty, derelict personnel carrier. She yanked on the corroded door for several moments, before finally pulling it open with a triumphant growl. She then entered the vehicle, Damascus only inches behind.
“No way…”
The victim was tied to a wooden chair in the centre of the space, struggling pointlessly to break free. He was gagged and flooding with sweat. Ms. Rowe planted her hand on his shoulder, smiling proudly at her catch. Jamal King only erupted with a horrified, muffled scream at the sight of Damascus.
“So?” she inquired smugly. “What do you think?”
“You’re insane,” Damascus gasped, overcome with both shock and awe.
“Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment,” she smiled, now moving across the metal room and opening up a slick, silver briefcase. “I just figured, why bother with the lackeys, when we can go straight to the source? It was Mr. King who ordered those men to attack you. So I think it’s only fitting that Mr. King be the focus of our wrath.”
“Our wrath?” Damascus asked.
“Yes,” she replied, very frankly, while pulling a sleek, smooth, foot long blade from the assortment of metal implements filling the briefcase. “You see, what Mr. King has failed to realise is that with my contract, comes my loyalty. You’re my agent, Mr. Damascus, and I’ll do whatever is required to see you succeed.”
“But… but… how’d you even get him here?!”
“Ha!” she yelped. “That was the easy part. I just made up some story about having a military fantasy. And these whelp bought it completely. He was drooling on himself more than a Sean Cyanide fan by the time we arrived here. Then it was just a matter smashing a baseball over his skull. Nothing really.”
“And you tied him up, so I could what?”
“That’s up to you,” she reassured. “You see Mr. Damascus, I can only take you so far. If you are truly to become the hero of GIW, you’re going to need to want it. Mr. King wants you moulded like a dog, to be his convenient little errand boy. But how many errand boys have ever been heroes, Mr. Damascus? I say to you, make a choice. Either be prepared to be this man’s tool or become your own monster. What decision will you make?”
“What about the penguin?”
“HA!” she spat. “The penguin is a joke! I can’t even recall the last time he managed to go a week without being humiliated by one of his employees. Right at this very instant, he’s probably being outwitted by the Roberts siren. He’s not even a match for some drugged up, delusional slut. That’s why he wants you, Mr. Damascus. It’s why he had Mr. King assign me as your image consultant. It’s why Mr. King has such an invested interest in you. They know you’re strong and they want you on their side. It won’t be long before the penguin is on his non-functioning wings and begging for your help. But I believe that if he wants your help, he has to understand that you won’t be playing by his rules. That he’ll have to play by your rules. What do you think?” She now extended the blade to him.
“I think,” Damascus began, clutching the handle of the blade in his hands. “That I don’t have any rules.”
Jamal erupted with one, final agonising groan, as Damascus slashed the steel in a single stroke against the head Scouter’s throat. Jamal gurgled helplessly as blood splashed from his dieing body.
“And I think it’s time we show the rest of GIW that.”
You really want my opinion? Sometimes destroying a man’s name is enough to kill him.
And other times it isn’t.
