"It's the day before the semifinals and they're still nowhere to be found? Well shit..." Noah sighed as he toyed with his lighter.
To be honest. He didn't like their chances tommorow. They were going against some gang he had never even heard of and they were coming all the way from Alabama.
Normally this wouldn't be a problem if not for the fact that their main source of Intel on other gangs was nowhere to be found. Boris had vanished like a snake in green grass, leaving them totally stranded.
Last Resort was of no help either. The day after Boris disappeared he put Triple and Casey in charge of the gang, gave us Boris' instructions for the next match and disappeared also.
Noah wouldn't have minded too much though, since Killer was still available. Unfortunately Boris said that Killer should be left off any matches till the finals. Casey and Triple were also still recovering from their own brawl against Hades.
That was four of their best fighters down already. LR and Killer's brute strength were out, Casey's ferocity was null, Triple and Boris' fighting genius were unusable.
Noah lit a blunt and watched it burn slowly, filling the air with the all too familiar smell of some good old weed.
"This is gonna be an uphill semi-final battle"
************************************
Reaper's fluttered open.
The hell am I?
He shot up and almost shot back down at what he saw.
Amber and Joan standing above him menacingly.
Well it was more like Joan was standing above him...Amber was sitting a few feet away, absent-mindedly eating something.
How did he even end up here?
He remembered leaving that old building scared out of his mind and running into what seemed to be a hotel. He probably passed out in one of the rooms.
"You're finally awake" Joan said as she pointed her staff at his throat, ready to jab through it at the slightest provocation. "Tell us why you barged into our room a few nights ago screaming like a chicken"
Reaper audibly gasped. A few nights?! Was he so scared of death at Boris' hand that it sent him into a coma? Talk about an overwhelming presence.
"Why bother questioning him? We could just take one of his hands and sell them to the highest bidder..." Amber piped up without even looking at him, clearly too occupied with watching TV.
Reaper's mind flashed back to the first time he wanted to kill a gangster. He remembered the girl who broke his butcher's blade with her bare hands. He remembered waking up from that encounter with both his pinkie fingers gone. This was the same girl who he was looking at a year later.
Amber 'Bodyparts' Alvarez.
Why did he keep ending up in the hands of these... terrorists....
"I bet those hands of his would fetch a lot of high prices"
Joan sighed loudly and turned to Amber, not moving the staff away from Reaper's neck. "I've told you multiple times...we can't just take the body parts of any random person we see...and look..." She gestured to where his pinkie fingers used to be. "..his hands aren't whole. That fetches a hell of a low price..."
Amber looked at Reaper with disinterest. "Let's just take his eyes then...or his tongue...."
As Joan tried to explain the ethics of basic human life to her commander, Reaper's brain fired at a hundred miles a second. He had to think of a way out of this before he ended up in the 'gone too soon' section of the newspaper.
"Wait! Don't take anything! P-PLEASE!!" Reaper stretched his arms out and wailed.
"And why should we do that?" Joan pressed the staff against his neck, the sharp and uneven splinters of wood drawing blood.
"I can help you find Killer!"
Amber's ears perked up at this interesting turn of events. "Go on"
Reaper smiled nervously. "We could form an alliance. I have two gangs under my command currently...we could join that with the soldiers of the Fort Lauderdale Warriors. You guys could use our help at the finals... everyone knows Taitanzu and the FLW are certified to face each other on the grand finale of Brawlhalla!"
"Who are you to assume that my warriors aren't good enough on their own?" Amber asked him. It was a simple question but it made him shiver.
"I'm not so foolish as to assume that Ms Alvarez... I just want to aid your success in the tournament"
"Why do you want to help us? What do you stand to gain?" Joan applied a bit more pressure to his neck, clearly skeptical about the entire thing. Something was wrong. She could feel it.
Reaper gulped painfully. "Because there's someone in Taitanzu I want to meet too. The one known as Last Resort. My gang is surely not enough to take on such a monstrous opponent...but together we can topple the entire gang. You get Killer...and I get the Last Resort of Tallahassee.." the blonde haired killer smiled.
It disgusted him to yet again resort to allying himself with gangsters to further his own goals. But oh well. Any help was good help as long as it led to the destruction of all gangsters. He would destroy them all with Deathbringer at his side.
Wait a second.
Where was Deathbringer?
Amber stood up and looked into his eyes, the blue orbs made Reaper feel like she was staring into the depths of his soul and looking at all his deepest darkest secrets, insecurities and fears. It made him feel naked and vulnerable. It was the same intimidating stare that Boris had but Amber's was somehow worse.
He felt Amber put a hand on his shoulder, snapping him out of his thoughts.
"Alright then..." She was smiling wide, an almost deranged look in her eyes.
"....we have a deal...."