DogOfHavoc
Future Tragedy
- Reaction score
- 55
This is a FanFic I wrote for a contest on UrbanRivals.com.
Double or Nothing
Part 1
“Look, I’m not saying we have to whack him, but we sure as hell can’t let him get up into that ring tomorrow,” Donnie said, grinding his cigar to an ashy pulp. He swirled the ashes around in the tray with his finger, taking out his frustrations on the black chalky dust.
He sat in the corner of the dimly lit room, an old wire bulb swinging from the ceiling above him. The flickering light sent shadows skittering across the other members of the Montana Clan scattered around the room. None of them looked particularly happy.
“And how do you propose we stop him without killing him? What do we do, break his legs? You wanna be the guy to take a baseball bat to Rolph’s kneecaps?” Giovanni asked, the light glinting off his sunglasses. Even in the dark basement of Enzo’s garage he kept the shades on, allowing him to look around without his eyes being seen. He sat in a chair facing the stairs leading up, his legs crossed in a relaxed manner. “I got a better idea. Right before the fight starts I sneak into his dressing room and put two in his skull.” He raised his hand and pantomimed shooting a gun with his index finger outstretched. “Let’s see the big oaf win a match with his brain splattered all over the walls.”
Prince Jr. shot to his feet. “It’s not happening! You know how bad that shit is for business? You kill a guy in Borgia’s and I’m ruined. If I can’t protect prizefighters in my own casino how can my customers expect to be safe? I already had that incident last month where Cell popped out of the urinal and mauled the mayor. One more problem and I’m ruined.” Sweating profusely, he sank back into his chair, fanning himself furiously with a wad of cash.
“We don’t have a choice here kid, if Rolph gets up there and trounces Hammer we are all screwed. The Don has fifty thousand clints riding on this match,” Edd said, exhaling cigar smoke into the room as he spoke. His massive girth was laid across an old patched couch that dominated an entire wall. He stared up at the roof and spoke slowly, as if not particularly interested in the proceedings taking place.
“Don’t call me kid. It’s your fault we are in this position. You had to sell all those damn pills to the GHEIST. Now they’re going to pump that shit into Rolph before the match and he’s going to tear Hammer limb from limb. The Don will lose the money he put on Hammer, and all of our asses will be mounted to the wall.”
Edd’s composure didn’t change, he just kept looking at the ceiling. When he spoke, it was with the same relaxed tone. “Take it easy kid. I didn’t know who I was selling those cartons of pills to. Half of the smuggling business is not asking questions.”
“And the other half?” Enzo asked.
“Not answering them,” Edd said, a slow smirk spreading across his broad face.
“You think that’s funny? We are all going to be dead in less than 48 hours and you two are making jokes?” Prince fumed.
Enzo shrugged.
“Calm down. This isn’t even a real problem. We just whack Rolph before he gets to Borgia’s Palace,” Edd said. “No one will be the wiser.”
“Fine. But I’m not slogging it around in the streets waiting to ambush him. You fine gentlemen can handle that enterprise,” Prince Jr. said. He cast one last accusatory glance around the room and stormed up the stairs.
“What a diva,” Edd said once the smaller man was gone.
“Poor bastard’s got his panties wound tighter than Rosa on date night,” Enzo said and laughed. Edd’s booming chuckle joined him.
“Alright boys, that’s enough. Let’s get down to business,” Donnie said.
The remaining mobsters gathered around and began to plan.
In Enzo’s dark basement, in the worst part of town, in one of the worst cities in the world, the most dangerous men in Clint City plotted.
-------------------------------------
Part 2
Moonlight slipped down onto the roof in thin beams, blocked by a slithering mass of clouds making its way across the night sky. Along the rooftops dark silhouettes crouched in waiting, hidden behind weather vanes and crumbling chimneys. Below, the city lay dark and brooding.
The thick blanket of night was suddenly split wide apart as headlights popped on. Slowly, a group of SUV’s began to prowl down the pavement.
There were three of them, big hulking armor plated vehicles painted a deep dark crimson. On the sides of each was a menacing black skull surrounded by a light red border. The middle SUV had a hatch on its roof and a machine gun mounted next to it. A ghoulish-looking figure in a gas mask and white suit gripped the gun intensely, his grotesquely long tongue lolling about from side to side as the SUV bumped down the street.
After what seemed like ages, the vehicles were halfway down roadway. Just as the middle SUV pulled by, Edd gave the signal. Immediately, the night was thrown into chaos.
A black sedan roared to life in a side alley and pounced forward, plowing into the side of the lead vehicle. The SUV’s armor crunched under the impact and the two vehicles were wed in a flurry of sparks and flying metal. United, they skidded across the street and crashed into an abandoned storefront. Glass exploded out into the night, glittering shards dancing in the moonlight.
The rooftops sprang into motion as the shadows gave birth to one Montana thug after another.
Edd hefted an assault rifle from where it had been leaning against a chimney and opened fire on the middle vehicle. The other Montanas followed suit, and soon bullets were raining down in a deathly hail onto the GHEIST convoy. In a matter of seconds the GHEIST gunner had been torn to bloody shreds, and the SUV was rocking back and forth as ballistic hell smashed into its sides.
The battered doors opened and more white-clad Gheistlings spilled out into the night, their poison rifles shooting burning green acid up at the Montanas. Some of the blasts found their marks and knocked mobsters screaming from the roof, their skin sloughing off their bones as they plunged down to the cold hard pavement. By the time they hit the ground they were little more than liquid flesh.
More and more of the GHEIST minions emerged, an endless stream of lashing tongues and gas masks.
Goddamn there are a lot of them, Edd thought as he sprayed another Gheistling with his machine gun. The GHEIST are even stronger than we thought. He knew Sigmund had upped his recruitment rate in recent months, but he had no idea it had reached this point. If they had this many troops protecting just one convoy, how many more Gheist soldiers lurked elsewhere in the city? The implications were unsettling. He pushed the thought from his mind and returned his attention to the firefight.
There were now at least twenty Gheistlings milling about in the street, most of them taking cover behind discarded trash piles and parked cars. The higher ground was working for the Montana, as the GHEIST forces slowly dwindled. Even so, some of the acid weapons were doing damage, eroding the mobster’s hiding places and ripping the more careless Montanas to pieces.
Edd’s assault rifle clicked empty and he discarded it, switching to his handgun. Further down the rooftop he could see Giovanni firing off his duel pistols, pulling off stupendous headshots even at this range. Next to him Vito hopped from one foot to the other, laughing wildly and tossing Molotov cocktails down at the Gheistlings. On another roof he could see Donnie, his face lit up by the gun flashes all around him.
He was just starting to think the battle was theirs when he heard an unsettling noise. It started out as a far off buzzing, but soon transformed into a loud WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP. A sinking feeling creeping into his gut, he scanned the sky quickly.
Suddenly lights appeared in the dark sky, revealing a red helicopter hovering right above them.
“Reinforcements,” Giovanni yelled as he turned to open fire on the GHEIST chopper. The bullets ricocheted off the armored hull, striking a Montana thug in the neck. Blood sprayed all over his three piece suit as he slumped down lifelessly. The door slid open on the helicopter and Erika leaned out, assault rifle in hand.
Giovanni responded with astonishing speed, grabbing a nearby mobster. The man screamed protests as Giovanni pulled him between himself and the helicopter. Erika’s bullets thumped into the squirming human shield. When she stopped to reload, Giovanni dropped the dead man and returned fire. She ducked to avoid the shots and slipped back into the helicopter, slamming the armored door back into place behind her.
“Roast the birdie. Roast the birdie. ROAST THE BIRDIE!” Vito screamed, his eyes rolling wildly towards the GHEIST air support. He burst into a sprint, heaving Molotovs upwards as he ran, splattering the chopper in fire. It rocked as the improvised bombs hit it, but the flames failed to light the reinforced armor.
“Get us out of here,” Edd heard Erika shriek, her voice shrill and loud even over the sound of the gunfire and whirling rotor blades. The chopper banked to the side and began to retreat, but as it did a hatch opened up on its bottom. Something dropped down and landed behind a giant dilapidated chimney.
Vito stood on the edge of the roof, giving the middle finger to the receding helicopter. After a moment he jumped down onto a fire escape, slipping down into a dark alley to do other unspeakable things.
Edd and Giovanni turned to face whatever was now lurking behind the chimney. They didn’t have to wait long to find out.
A dark figure stood in the shadows. He stepped out and the moon gleamed off his shaved head, his flesh, corpse white. He wore a dark suit and bowtie. Any of his wardrobe’s comic effect, intentional or otherwise, was drowned out by his aura of pure menace. His hands were massive robotic contraptions, golden metal pincers clutching a big black bag.
“Vryer sends his regards,” Brutox growled as he opened the bag. A swarm of tiny creatures jumped out and scuttled towards the Montanas. Terrible recognition flooded Edd and in desperation he grabbed an assault rifle from a nearby henchman.
The lieutenants snapped into action, Giovanni and Edd firing at the oncoming wave of robot spiders. Giovanni hit one every time he pulled the trigger, and soon the rooftop was covered in metal and rat brains. But the Arkn kept coming.
Edd wasn’t as surgical with his shots, instead preferring to spray lead in every direction, hitting Arkn by sheer force of numbers.
One of the spider bots latched onto Ricardo’s face. He screamed as the robot’s needle-like pincers plunged into his eyes, coating his trademark cheetah print coat in blood. The Arkn kept stabbing, and soon Ricardo lay on the ground, his body floating in a sea of his own blood.
Giovanni blasted the Arkn. It was the last one, but there was no time for the lieutenants to even catch their breath.
Brutox was already amongst their men, crushing mobster skulls in his crablike claws. One Montana henchmen tried to flee, but he pounced on him as he ran, smashing the hapless man to a bloody pulp.
When Brutox saw the Edd and Giovanni turning to open fire on him, he let out an animalistic roar. By now he was covered in the gore and eviscerated remains of his foes. In the illumination of the gunfire he looked like some ancient war demon, his ivory white skin covered in streams of running blood.
He broke into a run, slashing violently at mobsters as he made a beeline for Edd. Bullets clanged off his claws and tore through his suit, turning him into a shambling abomination of twisted cloth and blood. But he still kept coming.
When he was just yards away from his target, he bared his teeth and sprang into the air. Edd sidestepped at the last second, putting all his energy into moving his girth agilely. At the same time he squeezed his trigger, firing the last few bullets in his magazine.
A look of surprise bloomed on Brutox’s as one of the bullets hit him square in the chest. He smashed to the ground and slid across the rooftop, stopping right at the edge of the building.
Edd gathered the remaining Montanas around him and together they advanced on the shape of the sprawled GHEIST enforcer. As they got closer, Brutox slowly climbed to his feet.
Edd put his hand up to signal his men to hold their fire. He wanted to capture this bastard alive.
Brutox turned to face them, his clunky hands doing a terrible job of trying to stop his bleeding.
“You’ve failed. Surrender,” Giovanni said, leveling his twin guns at the GHEIST member’s head.
Brutox grunted. “No. Not fail. Distract.” He nodded towards the street. Then he turned and stepped off the building, plunging down into the darkness.
Edd rushed to look down at the street, more concerned with what had happened to the convoy then with the escaping Brutox. The scene below was not what he’d hoped for.
The Gheistlings were all dead. Enzo and some of his enforcers stood at one end off the street, making sure all the GHEIST were gone. Unfortunately, the burning SUV’s blocked their view of the other end of the street. But Edd could see, and it wasn’t good.
Rolph and Platinum were running down the street. He only caught a glimpse of them for a second before the two men disappeared around the corner. For a moment he considering giving chase, but a quick glance at his bedraggled forces dismissed any such notions. His men were much too battle-worn to give pursuit through the shadowy streets.
The one positive thing was that Rolph was headed in the other direction, away from his boxing match at Borgia’s Palace. The Don wouldn’t lose his bet after all. Even so, as Edd looked at the dead bodies all around and below him, he knew they’d made the wrong decision. Sure they’d saved the Don a lot of clintz. But they had paid a steep price.
They had started a war.
Double or Nothing
Part 1
“Look, I’m not saying we have to whack him, but we sure as hell can’t let him get up into that ring tomorrow,” Donnie said, grinding his cigar to an ashy pulp. He swirled the ashes around in the tray with his finger, taking out his frustrations on the black chalky dust.
He sat in the corner of the dimly lit room, an old wire bulb swinging from the ceiling above him. The flickering light sent shadows skittering across the other members of the Montana Clan scattered around the room. None of them looked particularly happy.
“And how do you propose we stop him without killing him? What do we do, break his legs? You wanna be the guy to take a baseball bat to Rolph’s kneecaps?” Giovanni asked, the light glinting off his sunglasses. Even in the dark basement of Enzo’s garage he kept the shades on, allowing him to look around without his eyes being seen. He sat in a chair facing the stairs leading up, his legs crossed in a relaxed manner. “I got a better idea. Right before the fight starts I sneak into his dressing room and put two in his skull.” He raised his hand and pantomimed shooting a gun with his index finger outstretched. “Let’s see the big oaf win a match with his brain splattered all over the walls.”
Prince Jr. shot to his feet. “It’s not happening! You know how bad that shit is for business? You kill a guy in Borgia’s and I’m ruined. If I can’t protect prizefighters in my own casino how can my customers expect to be safe? I already had that incident last month where Cell popped out of the urinal and mauled the mayor. One more problem and I’m ruined.” Sweating profusely, he sank back into his chair, fanning himself furiously with a wad of cash.
“We don’t have a choice here kid, if Rolph gets up there and trounces Hammer we are all screwed. The Don has fifty thousand clints riding on this match,” Edd said, exhaling cigar smoke into the room as he spoke. His massive girth was laid across an old patched couch that dominated an entire wall. He stared up at the roof and spoke slowly, as if not particularly interested in the proceedings taking place.
“Don’t call me kid. It’s your fault we are in this position. You had to sell all those damn pills to the GHEIST. Now they’re going to pump that shit into Rolph before the match and he’s going to tear Hammer limb from limb. The Don will lose the money he put on Hammer, and all of our asses will be mounted to the wall.”
Edd’s composure didn’t change, he just kept looking at the ceiling. When he spoke, it was with the same relaxed tone. “Take it easy kid. I didn’t know who I was selling those cartons of pills to. Half of the smuggling business is not asking questions.”
“And the other half?” Enzo asked.
“Not answering them,” Edd said, a slow smirk spreading across his broad face.
“You think that’s funny? We are all going to be dead in less than 48 hours and you two are making jokes?” Prince fumed.
Enzo shrugged.
“Calm down. This isn’t even a real problem. We just whack Rolph before he gets to Borgia’s Palace,” Edd said. “No one will be the wiser.”
“Fine. But I’m not slogging it around in the streets waiting to ambush him. You fine gentlemen can handle that enterprise,” Prince Jr. said. He cast one last accusatory glance around the room and stormed up the stairs.
“What a diva,” Edd said once the smaller man was gone.
“Poor bastard’s got his panties wound tighter than Rosa on date night,” Enzo said and laughed. Edd’s booming chuckle joined him.
“Alright boys, that’s enough. Let’s get down to business,” Donnie said.
The remaining mobsters gathered around and began to plan.
In Enzo’s dark basement, in the worst part of town, in one of the worst cities in the world, the most dangerous men in Clint City plotted.
-------------------------------------
Part 2
Moonlight slipped down onto the roof in thin beams, blocked by a slithering mass of clouds making its way across the night sky. Along the rooftops dark silhouettes crouched in waiting, hidden behind weather vanes and crumbling chimneys. Below, the city lay dark and brooding.
The thick blanket of night was suddenly split wide apart as headlights popped on. Slowly, a group of SUV’s began to prowl down the pavement.
There were three of them, big hulking armor plated vehicles painted a deep dark crimson. On the sides of each was a menacing black skull surrounded by a light red border. The middle SUV had a hatch on its roof and a machine gun mounted next to it. A ghoulish-looking figure in a gas mask and white suit gripped the gun intensely, his grotesquely long tongue lolling about from side to side as the SUV bumped down the street.
After what seemed like ages, the vehicles were halfway down roadway. Just as the middle SUV pulled by, Edd gave the signal. Immediately, the night was thrown into chaos.
A black sedan roared to life in a side alley and pounced forward, plowing into the side of the lead vehicle. The SUV’s armor crunched under the impact and the two vehicles were wed in a flurry of sparks and flying metal. United, they skidded across the street and crashed into an abandoned storefront. Glass exploded out into the night, glittering shards dancing in the moonlight.
The rooftops sprang into motion as the shadows gave birth to one Montana thug after another.
Edd hefted an assault rifle from where it had been leaning against a chimney and opened fire on the middle vehicle. The other Montanas followed suit, and soon bullets were raining down in a deathly hail onto the GHEIST convoy. In a matter of seconds the GHEIST gunner had been torn to bloody shreds, and the SUV was rocking back and forth as ballistic hell smashed into its sides.
The battered doors opened and more white-clad Gheistlings spilled out into the night, their poison rifles shooting burning green acid up at the Montanas. Some of the blasts found their marks and knocked mobsters screaming from the roof, their skin sloughing off their bones as they plunged down to the cold hard pavement. By the time they hit the ground they were little more than liquid flesh.
More and more of the GHEIST minions emerged, an endless stream of lashing tongues and gas masks.
Goddamn there are a lot of them, Edd thought as he sprayed another Gheistling with his machine gun. The GHEIST are even stronger than we thought. He knew Sigmund had upped his recruitment rate in recent months, but he had no idea it had reached this point. If they had this many troops protecting just one convoy, how many more Gheist soldiers lurked elsewhere in the city? The implications were unsettling. He pushed the thought from his mind and returned his attention to the firefight.
There were now at least twenty Gheistlings milling about in the street, most of them taking cover behind discarded trash piles and parked cars. The higher ground was working for the Montana, as the GHEIST forces slowly dwindled. Even so, some of the acid weapons were doing damage, eroding the mobster’s hiding places and ripping the more careless Montanas to pieces.
Edd’s assault rifle clicked empty and he discarded it, switching to his handgun. Further down the rooftop he could see Giovanni firing off his duel pistols, pulling off stupendous headshots even at this range. Next to him Vito hopped from one foot to the other, laughing wildly and tossing Molotov cocktails down at the Gheistlings. On another roof he could see Donnie, his face lit up by the gun flashes all around him.
He was just starting to think the battle was theirs when he heard an unsettling noise. It started out as a far off buzzing, but soon transformed into a loud WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP. A sinking feeling creeping into his gut, he scanned the sky quickly.
Suddenly lights appeared in the dark sky, revealing a red helicopter hovering right above them.
“Reinforcements,” Giovanni yelled as he turned to open fire on the GHEIST chopper. The bullets ricocheted off the armored hull, striking a Montana thug in the neck. Blood sprayed all over his three piece suit as he slumped down lifelessly. The door slid open on the helicopter and Erika leaned out, assault rifle in hand.
Giovanni responded with astonishing speed, grabbing a nearby mobster. The man screamed protests as Giovanni pulled him between himself and the helicopter. Erika’s bullets thumped into the squirming human shield. When she stopped to reload, Giovanni dropped the dead man and returned fire. She ducked to avoid the shots and slipped back into the helicopter, slamming the armored door back into place behind her.
“Roast the birdie. Roast the birdie. ROAST THE BIRDIE!” Vito screamed, his eyes rolling wildly towards the GHEIST air support. He burst into a sprint, heaving Molotovs upwards as he ran, splattering the chopper in fire. It rocked as the improvised bombs hit it, but the flames failed to light the reinforced armor.
“Get us out of here,” Edd heard Erika shriek, her voice shrill and loud even over the sound of the gunfire and whirling rotor blades. The chopper banked to the side and began to retreat, but as it did a hatch opened up on its bottom. Something dropped down and landed behind a giant dilapidated chimney.
Vito stood on the edge of the roof, giving the middle finger to the receding helicopter. After a moment he jumped down onto a fire escape, slipping down into a dark alley to do other unspeakable things.
Edd and Giovanni turned to face whatever was now lurking behind the chimney. They didn’t have to wait long to find out.
A dark figure stood in the shadows. He stepped out and the moon gleamed off his shaved head, his flesh, corpse white. He wore a dark suit and bowtie. Any of his wardrobe’s comic effect, intentional or otherwise, was drowned out by his aura of pure menace. His hands were massive robotic contraptions, golden metal pincers clutching a big black bag.
“Vryer sends his regards,” Brutox growled as he opened the bag. A swarm of tiny creatures jumped out and scuttled towards the Montanas. Terrible recognition flooded Edd and in desperation he grabbed an assault rifle from a nearby henchman.
The lieutenants snapped into action, Giovanni and Edd firing at the oncoming wave of robot spiders. Giovanni hit one every time he pulled the trigger, and soon the rooftop was covered in metal and rat brains. But the Arkn kept coming.
Edd wasn’t as surgical with his shots, instead preferring to spray lead in every direction, hitting Arkn by sheer force of numbers.
One of the spider bots latched onto Ricardo’s face. He screamed as the robot’s needle-like pincers plunged into his eyes, coating his trademark cheetah print coat in blood. The Arkn kept stabbing, and soon Ricardo lay on the ground, his body floating in a sea of his own blood.
Giovanni blasted the Arkn. It was the last one, but there was no time for the lieutenants to even catch their breath.
Brutox was already amongst their men, crushing mobster skulls in his crablike claws. One Montana henchmen tried to flee, but he pounced on him as he ran, smashing the hapless man to a bloody pulp.
When Brutox saw the Edd and Giovanni turning to open fire on him, he let out an animalistic roar. By now he was covered in the gore and eviscerated remains of his foes. In the illumination of the gunfire he looked like some ancient war demon, his ivory white skin covered in streams of running blood.
He broke into a run, slashing violently at mobsters as he made a beeline for Edd. Bullets clanged off his claws and tore through his suit, turning him into a shambling abomination of twisted cloth and blood. But he still kept coming.
When he was just yards away from his target, he bared his teeth and sprang into the air. Edd sidestepped at the last second, putting all his energy into moving his girth agilely. At the same time he squeezed his trigger, firing the last few bullets in his magazine.
A look of surprise bloomed on Brutox’s as one of the bullets hit him square in the chest. He smashed to the ground and slid across the rooftop, stopping right at the edge of the building.
Edd gathered the remaining Montanas around him and together they advanced on the shape of the sprawled GHEIST enforcer. As they got closer, Brutox slowly climbed to his feet.
Edd put his hand up to signal his men to hold their fire. He wanted to capture this bastard alive.
Brutox turned to face them, his clunky hands doing a terrible job of trying to stop his bleeding.
“You’ve failed. Surrender,” Giovanni said, leveling his twin guns at the GHEIST member’s head.
Brutox grunted. “No. Not fail. Distract.” He nodded towards the street. Then he turned and stepped off the building, plunging down into the darkness.
Edd rushed to look down at the street, more concerned with what had happened to the convoy then with the escaping Brutox. The scene below was not what he’d hoped for.
The Gheistlings were all dead. Enzo and some of his enforcers stood at one end off the street, making sure all the GHEIST were gone. Unfortunately, the burning SUV’s blocked their view of the other end of the street. But Edd could see, and it wasn’t good.
Rolph and Platinum were running down the street. He only caught a glimpse of them for a second before the two men disappeared around the corner. For a moment he considering giving chase, but a quick glance at his bedraggled forces dismissed any such notions. His men were much too battle-worn to give pursuit through the shadowy streets.
The one positive thing was that Rolph was headed in the other direction, away from his boxing match at Borgia’s Palace. The Don wouldn’t lose his bet after all. Even so, as Edd looked at the dead bodies all around and below him, he knew they’d made the wrong decision. Sure they’d saved the Don a lot of clintz. But they had paid a steep price.
They had started a war.
