"The fields have eyes, and the woods have ears."
—Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, The Knights Tale
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The Baron
I was sitting at a diner, looking around the DarkSpaceWiki. I was gathering information on several museums. Nothing special... yet. While I contented myself with extra creamy hot chocolate I also planned what evil things I will be performing for the future. Especially for the Dragoons.
War is in place and several vengeful plans have been thought out. However, they probably know that I am planning lots of nasty plans, and if I were in their shoes and my enemy was planning something I'd do something to disrupt his planning process. Nothing has happened yet...
Yet...
Then my bloody laptop started flickering...
When lights flicker ninety-nine percent of people in the world think it's ghosts; but when a laptop flickers ninety-nine percent think it's evil super villain hackers trying to blow them up. I thought about that a moment,
Nah, they don't think that it's an evil villain, just some punk to mess up their FaceBook page.
Anyway...
My computer blacked out to a dark chat room; all the fonts green. I typed:
<😂 really?>
<😎😎😎>
<😁👍😘😉>
<😏 Riiiight even after Gekko gets you?>
My eyes scrunched at the name. Gekko?
Gekko?
After a moment I thought the hacker wouldn't respond, but said,
"Great," I mumbled.
I injected a special (Alien-designed) thumb-drive into my laptop that saved whatever I was doing, checks and clears most viruses, and turns my eighty-grand firewalled laptop into a tablet of plastic that Moses had. That working, I slapped a five dollar tip down and tried to get as much sweetness as I could into my bitter heart before I got shot or something.
I pulled out my 'toolbox' and fingered it keeping it close. I waited for something to happen but nothing did. I thought for a moment that nothing was going to happen...
Then the lights shut off, I shouldered my backpack and got ready, standing up. Normally I would have been booking it out the door but something told me to stay in place. I was in a cursed two story diner with no windows and the Gekko was out to get me.
I flipped my 'toolbox' open and a gun unfolded. A little one, but it's kinda hard to conceal a rocket launcher. Laser pistol would be nice but that's if you can muffle the constant humming and don't care for collateral damage or knock back advantages. That and this has a built in flashlight.
I flipped the light on and searched the room. No one had been there a moment ago but considering that the Gekko hasn't come in guns blazing Mr. Gekko must be the stealthy type. I went into the kitchen and it was deathly quiet and I had the feeling that this Gekko dude was putting his hand into the cookie jar...
Or just getting something to eat.
Then my light turned on a woman not ten feet away with her head in the ceiling.
No...
Something on the ceiling was holding her up...
Then she fell with a ka-thunk that gave the quiet diner a total horror movie jive. Her neck and shoulders looked shredded and before I was married I had checked the woman out. Well, she dead now...
Then the man's trench coat fluttered as he hit the ground, causing a muffled creak on the tile floor. Only the man wasn't a man, he was a monster-man. Clothing-wise he wore black pants and trench coat with no shoes or under shirt. His skin looked tough and it was bone colored and he had big ole' claws. His toes and fingers were long and his abdomen looked like some horrid medieval chest plate of gnarled skin. His head was similar to Killer Croc off of Batman Arkham Underworld, no lips, big razor teeth, ya know, the apidimi of ugly?
"Dang," I said, "I thought my wife was the definition of ugly, but I might have to check again."
He snorted and spoke with that distorted voice. It was easy to understand but it sounded really monster-for lack of a better term. He even kinda sounded like Killer Croc,
"Hello Black Baron, I just finished my appetizer; might return to it after the main course."
He was nonetheless referring to me.
"Lovely," I leaned over on the doorframe and rubbed my chin in mock critique, "did you get that outfit from Jeepers Creepers at a garage sale?"
He flicked his arms dramatically unsheathing the bone hand-spikes he uses as weapons, I mocked again, acting perplexed,
"Ooo, doesn't Wolverine have three?"
"Any last words funny man?"
"Yeah," I said matter-a-factly.
I then shot his hat with lightning speed; it didn't fall off.
Honestly confused I asked myself,
"How on God's green earth did your hat not come off?!"
He snarled as he swung at me and I dodged the attack like Neo on Matrix: falling on my back with the spike not centimeters from my nose. He rose his other hand to pin me through the floor but I launched my grapple on my back, hooking into a wall. Had he went for my ankles he would have had me but I spread my legs apart before he impaled my groin. Lovely thought...
Being pulled to the wall I shot toward his general area full-auto James Bond style; just probably backwards. When two or three seconds into spraying and praying I stopped; confused. He was gone!?
I got up, having released the hook and scanned around the room with my light. God it was horror-movie quiet with only a few neon-lit decorations on shining onto red vinyl booths. Gekko wasn't anywhere to be seen.
Then a chair moved across the floor like possessed to my right. It slid ten yards, no, glided across the ground and stopped. My light stayed on it as I struggled with my thoughts...
Telekinesis?
Teleportation?
No...
If he had either of those he would have killed me by now.
Then suddenly, chairs, a table, and a dark figure I assumed to be Gekko burst into the air. Normally the first instinct is to shoot at something flying at you and maybe the second instinct would be hesitation, but what did I do?
Signature drop-kick!
He yelped like some distorted dog and I rolled from the kick into a ready stance, ready to shoot him as he ran. Only thing was that I turned again to find nothing. I waited in that eerie silence, looking for him with my flashlight.
Tables moved, as well as chairs, as if meant to scare me, distract me, and keep me in thought. I was sincerely scared; he was toying with me. Then determination filled me; NO ONE TOYS WITH ME.
I grabbed a menu, and using my taser, much like a futuristic hidden blade, lit it on fire. Burning steadily, it gave off a good bit of light. That's when I saw it.
Coming right for me like a shark from hell was the Gekko, SLITHERING towards me like a snake but more like a fish in water for his agility that he possessed. It turns out that he had a tail and elongated tongue, I figured that out as his body moved through the air, liquid, like the serpentine method of a snake. His clawed feet, torso, and tail all moved in a liquid-crisp circle. The tongue reminded me of Venom's tentacle-like tongue, but it's SO different in real life.
He was coming in too fast to evade him. I went in and tazed his face, and shoved him away. I ran past him and didn't turn to see if he slithered away. I ran through a door into a hallway normally leading to the bathroom or the kitchen. I turned my light to the door and waited.
Then time passed...
And then a little more time passed...
Something in me compelled me to check my clip. Almost out I proceeded to reload it, dropping the magazine, and turned for my clips.
A chair was behind me that wasn't there a moment ago. I barged into the girls room; (sorry ladies, emergency). How did that chair get there!? Was I imagining it?! Then, in the dark I looked at the mirror with my light.
Yellow eyes and reddish yellow teeth smiled back at me.
I went back into the hall and I turned to see him, or it, crawling on the walls his tongue hanging lazily from his mouth. I was running for the door; with my peripheral vision I saw him and heard him jump up to the light and swing himself toward me; planning to grab me with the claws on his feet like a bird of prey. I was fast enough out the door that he slid scratching the floor when he missed me but then leapt at me.
I dived under a table, and came out tossing a chair into the air out of my way. Still on the run he crushed the table and snarled before a final lunge. I slid and sprayed fire into him until the clip was gone.
He was to close for me to reload...
After he recovered from the knock back of my bullets he charged me with his blade spike things...
But who taught Weyha, Thread Walker, the others, and now working with Sarah (on occasion) how to fight? Me.
I dodged his swipes, dropped my gun, and with my adrenaline pumping in my brain I counter attacked with 2-3 stabs from my taser-blades to patches of nerves and large groups of muscles. Not only was it a form of muscle breakdown but the electricity would cause muscles to lock up or spasm while the hard prodding traditionally wore out the muscles. Combined? The torturous pain of karate master muscle exhaustion mixed with electro muscle therapy gone sadistically wrong!
Every jab illuminated my opponent and the room somewhat before I had him against the wooden stair railing. He was grabbing it as a boxer did the ropes before knockout. I held my arms at my sides with the prods purring electricity and their ominously dim blue light,
"Any last words?"
He huffed a few breaths,
"Yeah!"
But before he could spit his tongue at me I was kicking his head back and caused him to break the railing he was leaning on and fall below next to the restaurant's piano.
I snorted and went to pick up my pistol. After I reloaded it and folded it back into its toolbox form I began walking back with a knowing smirk. At the staircase...
... Gekko wasn't there...
... but had leapt up at me, blades outstretched again, and his tongue flaring in rage...
...but I smiled that smile all villains are good at...
...and signature drop kicked him. The impact sent him like a meteor to the piano.
You know that piano string is one of the sharpest things on earth? Remember the old cartoons where they drop a piano on someone? Picture that in real life, backwards, and you got Gekko. His body nearly snapped the piano in half but went through the strings like boiled eggs and a slicer one would use before putting egg on ones salad.
I looked at a table that had complimentary bread for customers. I'm hungry...
I went down the stairs and about went out the door when parts of the piano clanked. I turned to see Gekko...
...a blonde movie worthy fifteen year old with nothing but an arm and head left. Blood flowed in little rivers from the piano as it played its last tune and Gekko, last words.
"Baron-" the weak voice croaked, "I. WILL. KILL. YOU."
It was a very much cliché thing to say but these stupid cartoons ruin the reality of it. When said just right between normal people they might load some guns just in case. When someone gets a anyonmonous letter from the Zodiac killer people can get scared or otherwise emotionally engaged.
But the feeling I felt? Sadness. Here lay a sad demented form, someone else's blood on his mouth, bleeding everywhere, and...
...people like me or my father made him either directly or indirectly.
My gaze drifted to the sound of sirens and I walked out and disappeared into the throngs of people a few blocks away. I knew I was being watched as I thought about Daniel. Being listened to and watched as I wondered as I wandered, "How do I make my life count?"