BadlyDressedWritings @badlydressedwritings - Tumblr Blog

You live in a world where the day of your death is on your body. You are also extremely bored at the moment, and have begun to test whether or not you have control over your death time.

badlydressedwriter

As I approached the toaster with knife in hand I paused, very briefly to consider that the ink on my skin was in fact indelible so no matter how close I got to the toaster there would be no miraculous change to the in-

Oi sunshine, can you not. I turn to find the grim specter of Death, it must be spelled with a capital D lest I seem rude, standing at the door with a tattoo gun.

My typography is not what it once was and it’s going to a right whore to tattoo ‘right this very bleeding second’ as you’re June bugging about. “You know what, I’m not even gonna.” I said placing the knife back in the drawer, then paused. “I’m making toast do you want some?”

Honest to goodness I would, I was in a right sprint to catch you before you before you got to.

The massive skeleton did a brief jittery impression of someone being electrified, the sound of clacking calcium will haunt me to my dying die- Thursday the 8th of June 2087.

“So I gotta ask,” I began and Death pointed at a jar of jam, “not what I was going to ask but, it’d be a blight to be uncivil.” I pass Death the jar and it is with an eerie percision they scrape of just enough to coat their badly burnt toast. “But do…do you actually tattoo all the babies in the world when they are born?”

Death does not answer as they eat the toast, crumbs fall through onto their robe. They nod.

“Why?”

Honestly? If I popped up and said ‘here, let us tattoo your dying day on you.’ You’d leg it wouldn’t you? You’d be off to the clappers.

“I can’t deny that,” I say choosing butter for my own piece of toast, only lightly toasted it’s pretty much bread with spray tan on. “But surely someone must take umbridge against you tattooing dozens of babies?”

My man, I slip a nurse eighty quid and I could teach the babes to waltz. You lot need to pay your nurses more.

“I agree grim specter I do,” I reply between bites, noticing that crumbs are falling by the dozens onto Death’s robe, “would you like a napkin?”

I’m fine. Needed an excuse to go out and get a new robe, jam stains seems a good one.

“If you say so.” I nod. “But I must ask you, grim specter.”

Here enough of that patter. Call me grim specter again and I will twat you one.

I hold up a hand in apology. “Sorry. But don’t you have a better system? Like omnipotent knowledge or a room of hourglasses or something?”

No. I’m on a Mac Book now. Let me tell you storing all the details of lives and death dates on that thing? Rubbish, runs out of room too quick. Plus, I mean, I can’t be expected to uninstall my games can I?

I don’t ask what games Death plays with the lives of mortals…but I assume Doom. That seems poetic. “So…you just tattoo it to people to save memory on your aging computer?”

Yessir. There is one funny thing about this new system, like I did for you when I show up to amend the date.

Death laughs. It sounds like all hope falling down the steps and snapping it’s neck as it hits the ground.

The look on skydivers faces when they see me coming at them with a tattoo gun. I wouldn’t trade that for the world.

#I WROTE THIS FOR YOU

Hell served Rare

A little crossover story written after some long entertaining conversations with Cruxia- the artist not the character that’s a whole lot harder a conversation to have- in which chefs summon a demon and things get a little mad from there on out....

#writing #Superheroes #Demons #Cruxia #Lots of characters in this #20 thou words #Chefs #monsters #scary teeth

mosellegreen

Writers Ahoy

Every writer I know, myself included, seems to be blocked these days.

Clearly the planets are in a creativity-blocking alignment. It isn’t you, it’s the stars.

badlydressedwriter

To combat this wrote something. It’s obviously not the stars…it’s Aliens.

Keep reading

#Who wrote something?#I did #Aliens and Scotland

Punk isn’t dead-Just Sleeping

So on other websites I upload writing that’s like Superheroes and stuff. It’s kinda my practice run, since then I’ve taken some of that stuff and refined it into a similar setting with some stuff turned upside down. THIS is that story- it’s also being uploaded on the other place but I want to put it here as well as it’s something I feel a little more proud of. So this is the intro something like 12,500 words, sorry if it’s a bit long but it is what it is. Written with my long time buddy and much more talented writer SheetcakeGhost who has several writing projects under her belt that you should look into- yeah advertising my pals. Without further ado here is that story- like it, reblog it, message me comments that say you hate it or love it. OR do none of those things. Upload more next week, I guess

“First things first,” the boss declared as Grant shadowed her heels, “we’re going to get you introduced to the boss, he’ll sign you up and then you get two minutes on the phone with Odin.” She spoke quickly and walked far faster, Grant was certain her momentum in heels was unnatural to say the least. Though he was keeping up easily, as soon as it became detrimental for him to be slower he just seemed to catch up. He wouldn’t normally be slower than her but this building and everything in it were so very distracting. It was her office, the logo was currently under foot. Some vague male silhouette, barrel chested with their hands on their hips standing in front of the globe. It was heroic in some sort of way and Grant was certain it would have had much more of an impact on him were he not barefoot and distracted by the chill of the floor. Until he wasn’t, at that exact moment. He was attracting a lot of stares from people. He imagined that this was to be expected; he was a sixteen year old being dragged around in hospital scrubs and barefoot. It was likely a strange sight. His boss didn’t seem to mind so he followed her example of just keeping up. She seemed in a hurry. She stood in front of an elevator, arms crossed over her chest. There was a thin crowd around the elevator, all of them looked busy in their own way. One of the people was carrying a box full of tiny furred people. All of them seemed to be chirping into miniature phones and speaking in words that were unclear to Grant and then made total sense, languages were easy after a couple of seconds. Most of them were chirping about things like low toner on floor seven, the ghosts on the tenth floor have caused electrical wires in the ninth and eleventh floor to start shorting and they’re working on getting it back up. He assumed they must be some kind of maintenance crew, albeit very small and cuddly looking they seemed to be using the right language. Talk of Earth wires and parallel circuits dribbled from their chattering mouths at a blinding speed. Grant just decided to stop staring at them, it was rude after all. There was someone who seemed to be encased in glass, wheeled around by a roustabout looking sort. The person in glass seemed aware of everything, their big yellow eyes roving over the tops of people’s heads slowly and deliberately lingering on a few folk. Its lips peeled back slowly over too yellow teeth and lost chewing gum coloured gums. It winked at him and Grant just waved back. It seemed nice. Just funny looking. “Deluca,” a newcomer voiced. The young sort had a bike helmet on their head in a noxious blue colour, adorned with the paper’s logo and in one hand he held a package. He was about to talk again when he took notice of Grant, he looked from Grant to his boss with a slow swivel of his neck. “This is your hot ticket to an interview?” “He is,” Felicity replied tightly. She knitted her brows and looked at the digital elevator display it ticked down excruciatingly. The biker looked at Grant again and then back to his boss. “I like the pieces of metal in your face,” Grant said and the assembled group turned to look at him. “Christ that’s a voice.” The bike messenger said with a laugh. “Lord alive kid you ever had a drink in your life?” “Yes but I’ve been in a coma for a while so I haven’t drank anything recently.” Grant replied warmly, he assumed it was warm but everyone still leaned back suddenly. Eyes went from him, his clothes and his bare feet to the biker. “Oh, crap. I’m sorry kid, geez.” “It's fine you didn’t put me in a coma.” Grant said again and then his boss barked out with a thick machine gun laugh. The doors opened as she snorted out another laugh. Everyone looked on shocked as his boss wrapped an arm around his shoulders and dragged him into the elevator. “Sorry, everyone, heading to the boss. Need a private car.” She thumbed the door closed button savagely leaving everyone stuck there to wait. The doors glided shut and with a jerk the elevator began to crawl up the building. “Where can I get those face things?” Grant asked his boss who looked down at him and pursed her lips. “Lots of places, malls do them cheap. You’re of age so pretty much once you get the cash anywhere.” She stopped and squinted at Grant. “You’ve got a cute little face why do you want to shove it full of metal?” She inquired and Grant stood there and said quite confidently, though he had no idea where the confidence came from; “Because it belongs there. Feels right, would be familiar.” He said it with such assuredness that Felicity just nodded and leaned against the elevator walls. She rubbed at her temples for a moment. “Sure kid, whatever you want.” She sighed. “Now the boss is a bit strange, he might yell at you for no reason but that’s only because he’s a fairly old clone. They tend to lose mental inhibitions as they get older and he’s positively geriatric for a vat grown clone. Just…do what you’ve been doing with me and he’ll probably love you.” “Why, do you love me because of what I’ve been doing?” Grant asked and she just snorted once and bumped his side with her hip. He was suddenly aware of how wobbly he was on his feet when that quick bump had him shoot over to the other side of the elevator with a thud. It didn’t hurt but he was now pretty certain he’d have to remember to make more efforts to stand solidly on his feet. She put an arm around his shoulder and dragged him back against her side. She snorted and rubbed at his thick black hair. “Oh shut up,” she chuckled, “god you’re not allowed to be like this all the time. Ruin my street cred.” Grant would have loved to apologise for ruining her street cred, he very honestly felt bad about it. But then the door opened and he met the logo of The Silent Sentinel in person. Only it was a very broad back silhouetted against the setting sun standing in that room. The figure turned to look at them in profile, his face every bit as solid as granite. “Oh,” he said in a thick voice, “it’s you. Come to face organ grinder?” He turned to face them and he was shirtless to the waist and the trousers he wore were shredded at the thigh. He didn’t look quite right considering the rest of the room was rather neat and professional looking. It also looked too small for the big guy at the window. His boss went to speak but the large man just held up a hand the size of Grant’s face and said. “Did you bring a child to bargain with me? Did you think that those goddamned rumours were true, it was slander! Cloned from a Greek general and every-” “No, boss I didn’t the kid for that,” she looked at Grant, “fuck’s sake do you think I’m Hitler or something?” “I imagine Hitler was more punctual with his paperwork but no, get your wide rear in here and speak to me before I decide letting you talk is too damned dangerous.” He gestured to a pair of little chairs in front of his small desk. He stood behind it not bothering to sit in the too small chair behind the desk. Everything in this office looked too small. “This is Grant-“she began and the man leaned over his desk to shake Grant’s hand in his giant sand papery mitt. “Pleasure boy, tyrants put you in a fucking coma. That’s some bullshit and its front page tomorrow,” he spoke through a thick stogie clamped between massive teeth that Grant imagined bit through bone with alarming ease. He wasn’t sure why he thought that but looking at this man it was hard to see him doing anything but hurting people in alarming ways. He was so massive! “Thank you sir.” Grant said as his arm was jerked up and down with such force that he left the ground a couple of times. His boss grabbed a hold of him and planted him firmly back into his chair. She went to talk again but again the hulking mass spoke quicker.

#Badlydressedwriting #Badlydressedwriter #Sheetcakeghost #Writing #Concept series #Character driven #Should I tag the names of the characters?#Hyper-Reality 2Niverse

Devils in the Details

Hey guess what more writing. A birthday gift for Cruxia featuring her Demon Overlord...Cruxia, a dog butler Rostrul and a scheme that could CHANGE everything. Story below the cut;

#Cruxia #Writing #Cruxia Astoria Maltrius #Parralect #Rostrul #Not my characters

leseanthomas-deactivated2021030

Some Show/Story Pitching tips for young creators.

a-nuff-is-enough

I don’t care if you like Ms. Pauling…

I care if you don’t like Zhanna. because ahhhh, bitch just put Pauling in her place, and I’m fucking loving it.

Jog about Town

I wrote something in my superhero setting. Earlier on in the week I bitched about coming up with a transit system for a world of superhuman's this story is why. Put under readmore because it feels polite for my followers.

#Writing #Original Content #Critique #Superheroes

The Wailing of Sirens

Oh man it's a story from me! After a long time of silence due to work and personal projects I bring you...another personal project. WE join Ray and Lucien in the strange city of Midway once again as strange events are taking place. Can the pair solve the current case and see what's causing the town grief? Give it a read, tell us what you think. Written with my buddy Sen.

#Writing #Original content #urban Fantasy #Raymond Valentine #Lucien Moreaux

Louis at the Lighthouse

Been a while, here's another offensively long story. Co-Written once again by my long time writing partner/conspirator http://spookenityfrost.tumblr.com/ over here. Never has there been a better word writing lady.

Anyway here's a story about Super-Hero charity organizations, thieves and ongoing psychological trauma.

#Hyper Real #Writing #Spilling Ink #Super Heroes #Original Content

Mr. Undisclosed Starring in....

A strange thing I wrote based around a leading character from stories I've written on another site, in his first starring role...kind of. Outside of that one short story I wrote. I attempted to introduce a number of ideas and such on the organization he works for without being TOO heavy handed, lord only knows how well it worked.

#Writing #Spilled ink #Hyper-real verse #Mr Undisclosed #Louis Niccals #Sophie Thomson #Hermes #Nathan

planetofjunk

Here’s a multiple-color binary-brush commission I did of some original characters by Badly Dressed Writer (Tumblr, Deviantart), three individuals (Grant, a teleporting paperboy with a mowhawk, Felicity, the affectionate elastic reporter, and Rupert, a photographer who can clone himself) who work for the superhuman newspaper, “The Silent Sentinel.”

badlydressedwritings

Got this done after coming into a bit of spare dosh. Liked Mr. Junk's art and thus decided to throw him some dosh...you should too if you get a chance. He's cracking to work with.

#Commission #Non-words #Picture I got made #Planetofjunk

Morning Routine

Decided to do a small number of short stories about various characters morning routines...because sometimes you should write about the mundane. Here's a pair from a number of stories I've not stuck up here, they work for the Hyper-Real's only super hero/ villain newspaper.

“Answer your phone,” the man, no boy I suppose, in the thick black leather jacket groans as he pokes at the pile of covers, which shudders with an animalistic noise in response. The boy, no teen I suppose is kinder, arcs an eyebrow and decides to bring out the big guns. He deftly navigates the piles of clothes, discarded boxes and other riff raff that litter the floor like the autumn leaves on the street outside. He makes his way over to the curtains, a thin slit of light sneaking in through a microscopic gap, and grips one side of the fabric with almost gleeful sadism. “Felicity,” he sang, adjusting the grip he has on the curtains, “last warning, get up, go to work and answer your phone. Or else,” he gingerly peeled apart the curtain holding back the rampant army of light outside, the scratch of the fabric had the person in the bed stirring at once. “Five minutes, please, five more minutes,” the voice was scratchy, indicative of a night spent drinking and yelling, a head emerged from the protective sarcophagus of quilts and sheets, immaculate blonde hair had been rendered askew as her bleary blue eyes attempted to focus on the man by the curtains, while avoiding the thin slip of piercing light that was marching into her room. “You’re already late,” the teen by the curtain said, “I’ll give you ten seconds to hop in a shower and get dressed, I’m making French toast in the other room for your sister,” Felicity threw him a thumbs up before retreating below the covers again. “I can’t help but notice you’re not moving,” the teen rumbled as he pulled one side of the curtains open allowing the light to crash into the room with all the grace of a wrecking ball. The quilts hissed menacingly before flopping onto the ground, their contents groaning various rather unkind words as the bundled swarmed over to the bathroom door where it stopped for a second, then fell flat as if its contents had vanished. The shower screamed to life in the bathroom and the teen decided his job in this room was done, he once again navigated the jungle like mess of the floor and departed to the living room to see himself and young woman in the kitchenette. “She up?” He, the he in the kitchen that is, asked without turning away from the pan. He was never sure why he asked himself questions he knew the answer to, it seemed sort of pointless, he nodded before heading out the front door. The other woman in the room watched him go while he stood at the kitchen counter, dipping slices of bread into a bowl. “Okay, Grant, what was that?” she pointed to the door which closed shut with a snap. Grant turned to the door, and shrugged one shoulder, dropping the yolky bread into the pan with a quick delicious sizzle. “That was me, currently heading to work, while me, as in me talking, have come back from the end of the day to do this task now,” he looked over at the woman with a thousand bags under her eyes, chin rested on an open palm, starring at him with a goldfish expression on her face. He smiled weakly, “Too early for time shit, Gabrielle?” “Much too early for time shit, Grant, much too early,” she sips heartily at the glass of orange juice at her side, “lord help you if you say something like time is relative or not real right now, I’m not in the mood,” “Long night?” Grant asks as he slaps down a slice of French toast before her, she gives him a weary smile; she catches a look at her slightly singed black hair in Grant’s glasses and decides to bury her attention into a loving slice of French toast. “Very,” she tuts, “wouldn’t you know about it already, what with working for the Sentinel?” Logically someone who works for, delivers and has, on odd occasion, written an article for the world’s only newspaper written by Superhumans, for Superhumans and by Superhumans would know about the goings on of Superhumans, at least Gabrielle would hope so. “No, fraid not,” Grant said in a quick hiss, his eyes rolling towards her sisters room, “I only work as a reporter when I’m part of yer sisters’ team, so when she’s having her month sabbatical to commit crimes I’m back to just doing deliveries,” he didn’t sound mad about that, but Gabrielle hardly needed her super senses to notice that Grant was practically drowning the current slice of bread he was working on. Gabrielle decided that her meal deserved her full attention right now, it most certainly did, not the teen in black leather with the kind of hair cut that should have died in the eighties, nope just her and her toast. Lord knows giving advice to teens is about as smart an idea as sharing a bed with alligator. Besides he sees the future, or like a bunch of them she thinks, so if she was to give him a pep talk he’s probably already heard it. “So you’re excited to get back to the reporting part then,” Gabrielle attempts with a mouthful of toast, “bet that’ll be good.” Grant chirped at that and flipped around to deposit a pair of pancakes atop a pair of plates before sitting down at the table alongside Gabrielle. “Yeah, better than deliveries,” Grant looked down at his culinary masterpiece and decided it looked passable, he piled a piece on to a fork and gave it a taste, his face screwed up slight, “I think I could have been a bit harder on the flour,” he said quietly after chewing. “Nah, best breakfast I’ve had in a while,” Gabrielle said, honestly at that, “I’m used to Cheerios most mornings, it’s better than Cheerios.” “Hey, Cheerios are one of the four essential food groups,” barked Felicity as she entered the room, towelling off her hair as she slunk over to the table. She looked down at the plate set before her and grinned from ear to ear, “I’ll decide if this eggy tart is even fit to lick the shoes of Cherrios,” she sliced off an insultingly small portion of the meal and scrutinised it. She held it up to the light as if it might shine upon some micro imperfection, she gave the fork the offending slice occupied a quick spin, peering into every nook and cranny for something out of place something out of sorts that would unmask this pretender to the throne of the ultimate breakfast food. She found naught, disappointingly and much against her will she decided she’d have to eat this. She wasn’t absolutely starved at all, nope, no sir. She crammed the morsel into her mouth and chewed slightly, making a show of bulging cheeks and screwing up her eyes which caused the other two at the table to roll their eyes and continue ignoring her. After a second, maybe less, anyone paying attention would have noticed her plate was empty and Felicity looked quite a bit happier. She drummed her nails on the desk and shook her head. “Could have been dumb luck,” she gripped, looking at Grant, who just stared back at her. She caught her reflection in his dark shades and was quite pleased to see she’d hidden much of the damage last night’s drinking had done. “You think so,” Grant leaned on one arm, “I’d whip up more but you really need to answer your ph-“ he never quite got to finish that statement as with one quick movement Felicity’s arm had snapped out of her sleeve, seeming to taper on forever from the silk hole, and formed a quick loop around Grant’s arm. Her hand clamped down on his plate and with a sharp tug, with strength that you certainly wouldn’t expect, dragging his support away causing poor Grant’s face to slap on the table with a meaty crack. “No elbows on the table, “Felicity said as she shook her head, arm reeling back to normal, “because of how rude you were, no breakfast,” she picked up the slice of toast and crammed it into her mouth. Grant leaned up from the table a rather vicious snarl on his face, “I knew you’d do that,” he coughed as he sat back up straight and felt around his nose for any damage. Felicity simply stuck her tongue out at the boy. “I’m a villain, what can you do?” She asked, batting her eyelashes at Grant who only managed to quirk an eyebrow, lowering his glasses at once to reveal his fractured eyes. Sometime, long ago, Grant had started to see the future and in response his eyes went a bit…queer. His eyes segmented into a strange sort of kaleidoscope pattern, multiple black pupils growing and shrinking in size, width, height and such at all times independent of one another. “Oh, you’re right I can’t get too mad about that,” he chewed for a second, “be sure to answer your phone,” he said again absently. Felicity leaned over to glower at him, neck slithering forward just enough to be uncanny. “Why do you ke” Felicity almost finished her sentence, almost being the operative word, when a solid crumpled piece of metal, that used to be a fork, impacted onto the centre of her forehead causing her head to snap back across the room and smack against the back wall with a strange sort of sound, the kind you’d hear if you punched a pillow….for lack of a better explanation. Her neck was rigid for a second, having stretched after her head, before falling to the floor lifelessly. Grant turned to Gabrielle who was suddenly sans fork, “I knew you’d do that,” he said chipper, sliding her his own fork seeing as how he had no use for it, though he always knew he’d have no use for it so he ate before he came here. “No being rude to guests,” Gabrielle bubbled as she took the fork and continued to dig into her own meal, “also please chew your food, it grosses me out when you just like...snake stuff,” she repressed a shudder at memories of meals past, Christmas puddings vanishing in the blink of an eye and that one year with the goose….scary stuff. Felicity’s neck snapped up from the floor, taunt as piano wire, as her head peeled from the wall. Thick slabs of her blonde hair meshed back into its natural flowing shape before coming free from the wall with a crisp pop. Her head snapped back into its proper place with sickening speed. Felicity reached up and pulled the steel sphere from the crater in her face and with a twitch of effort her face popped back out looking none the worse for wear, a rather crude smirk on her face. “Suppose I maybe,” she looked off to one side, “deserved that,” her sister looked at her for a second before Felicity groaned, her sister was the worst, “sorry for being mean, Grant, is that better Gabby?” Her sister could only shake her head. “Yes Felicity and maybe one day you’ll learn proper people manners…without me having to hit you in the face,” “Let’s not hold our breathes,” Felicity replied with a small smile before looking at the mohawked teen teetering back in his chair, “right you, teleport me to work before my sister gets super PMS on me and kicks me into the next town over,” “We’re already in your office,” Grant said as Felicity noticed that they were indeed in her basement office. She was behind her desk; Grant was sitting on the small couch aside her desk. She’d moved into the basement because the place was free space and had converted the whole place into a giant office filled with all the essentials to journalism…flat screen TVs, sound system, a couple small fridges, and a small set of alternate seating for when she had to entertain the higher ups or when she wanted to lounge in comfort. “I hate it when you do that,” she said simply before leaning back in her chair, hand over her stomach, “I’m starved, should have had more of your awful toast crap,” she said serenely, “ah well needs must,” she fished into a pocket before snapping her hand over to Grant with one quick flourish, “go buy me something greasy and bad for me and a coffee.” Grant looked down at her hand and took the money and flopped up from the couch, “Sure, be back in a bit, answer your phone.” He seemed to fizzle from existence after a single step, one moment he was there, then his foot hit the ground and all that was left of him was the vague smell of rebellion and sticking it to the establishment in the air. Felicity ground her teeth and slammed her palms flat on the desk, jostling its contents, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN!?” she screeched after him. Her stomach groaned at once with all the grace of a cement mixer, she hated being hungry…it was a pity she was hungry most of the time. Stupid powers made her pretty much indestructible, allowed her to change shape at will but saddled her with an immense hunger that she’d yet to be able to fill no matter how much she gobbled up. She joined up with the paper hoping to land a job in the peoples section, reviewing restaurants mostly, but got saddled up with on the field reporting instead. Though…she still charged food bills to the papers name…much to whoever ran the books chagrin. A loud ring stole her from her thoughts of breaking into the vending machine upstairs, again, and remembering what had been said ad-nausea to her all day she picked up the phone. “Hello Felicity Deluca, writer for The Silent Sentinel speaking how ma HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK Felicity screeched and dropped the phone, hand slapped over her buzzing ear. She heard, well among the ringing, the loud guffaw of someone soon to be sans a head. “Who is this!?” “Hey it’s Grant, getting you back for earlier boss, be back soon,” he buzzed before the phone went dead. Felicity growled angrily at the phone on her desk before tearing it free and throwing the thing across the room. She was going to nail the brat to a wall when he got back. But first she needed a quick pick me up. --- “Hey what happened to the vending machine?” “What do you mean?” “I mean we used to have one right here…now we don’t.”

#Writing #Spilled ink #Creative writing #Prose #Comic books #The Silent Sentinel #newspaper #Fiction #Felicity DeLuca #Gabrielle Deluca #Grant Ellis

Hyper Real: The Last Case of Lucien Moreaux

This is a long one, but a great one, so bear with it. Co-written with my good friend Serenity-Frost without whom I would never had taken up writing, or gotten any good at it, with such fervor. Here's to you Sen for helping me get to do what I love in life.

#Hyper Real #Writing #Urban fantasy #rejectscorner

Hyper-Real: Life on Base

I watched a dozen videos of these things happening to people. I had to write this, it's almost like I couldn't sleep unless I did this.

It was Dave’s fault, most things tend to be, that the fad bore roots in Doc’s compound. He was always willing to inject a little social experimentation into people’s lives, so long as it made his life more interesting. It started with the henchmen, those faceless goons who wander around Doc’s compound in numbers so vast it boggles the mind. Dave happens to own a small section of henchmen, his entourage as he calls them, and started promising all of them a significant pay raise if they went along with his little scheme. It started small but, as with most things Dave gets involved in, it spiraled out of control. The minion factions were at each other’s throats within days. An all out civil war was raging between the helmet wearing masses that patrolled the corridors. They ran in packs to avoid being caught out by other marauders. Desperate to earn the pay raise Dave had promised them if they remain above the juvenile acts of those other men. But sooner rather than later, all the minions were bolting through the base’s corridors after one another, screaming bloody murder. Some looked to Frank, the senior most henchman for aid. The man had been part of the Doc’s operation since day five. The large dark skinned man would only shake his head at those who came to him begging for help. “But, sir,” they’d stammer, only for him to point them to the door with a grunt. They went to Jessika, the Doc’s primo assassin and weird super powered soldier from the Cold War and asked her for help. She looked at them with all the passion you’d reserve for a fly in your soup until they departed. It was sad to say there was, perhaps, only one man who could help them now. They went to the accountant. Now that’s not some badass moniker he gained for, say, killing a million men and keeping count, no sir. He’s a very literal accountant, he manages the books for Doc and that’s all he does. None the less he was, quite chillingly, their last hope. So a brave trio of minions dashed off to his office, more of a cubicle really, secreted deep within the labyrinthine compounds. They found him there, in his cubicle office, pouring over a number of sheets and puffing away on a trio of cigarettes at once. “Yes?” Jennings began, his voice monotone, not bothering to look up from his papers, ash dribbling onto the table top as he spoke. The spokesperson, that is to say the least senior minion, took a step forward and decided spoke in a crisp clear voice. “Sir, there is an issue in the base,” he said, loud to the point of embarrassing a loud speaker, standing at attention, as though the weed of a man at the other end of the room had some kind of authority over him. “Oh, no, what will we do?” The man muttered as he edged a jagged red line through something on the desk with a satisfied smirk, “Quick, leave me behind, point any assassins, death dealers and general murder aficionados my way, I’ll buy you gentlemen all the time I can,” Jennings continued before returning to his work. The room was eaten up by silence, save for the clicking of the large clock that took up an entire wall of Jennings’ office- with the message “Don’t forget you’re here forever” carved lovingly into the clock’s face. The ticking was quiet, not at all thunderous as one would have expected from a chronometer that size. But Jennings would tell you it was the loudest sound in the world. It started ticking when he was thrown in this room five years ago. The clock ticks louder with each and every tock, it fills the room. He could leave the room whenever he wanted, there were no guards keeping him there, but he’d always be forced back into the room to do his job. IF he went too long without getting a report in front of his cycloptic employer he was simply locked in the room until Doc remembered he had an accountant on staff. He’d been locked in there for three weeks once. Years could fall between the tocks sometimes, he thinks. He looks up at the trio by the door, desperate for a new noise. “Well,” Jennings snapped, rising from his desk, groping at its edges to support his wounded leg, “what’s such an issue that you came to me?” he inquired, stubbing out the trio of cigarettes into an overstuffed ash tray on the table. “Well, it’s nothing dangerous,” the spokesman said, his voice a little peaky as Jennings snatched his goat headed walking stick from the side of the desk. The accountant could only grin at that, tilting his head to one side as he hobbled cross the room. “I’d bloody well hope not,” he cackled, “if you came to the accountant for battle advice you’d be fucked,” he smiled at the man, adjusting his thing wireframe glasses as he stopped just before the men, “so let’s hear it. What’s going on?” “It’d,” the men looked at one another, “it’s easier to just show you, to be honest,” the spokesman mumbled as the trio exited the room in a tight formation, one checking the door and looking out for any attackers. He signaled that the coast was clear with a quick sequence of waves and hand signs, Jennings was starting to regret this already, and they filtered out in the corridor in a tight triangle formation. One leading them forward, Jennings hobbling behind him and the other two minions at the back keeping their eyes peeled for surprise attackers. Jennings worked hard not to laugh, he never understood the minions at the best of times. It was a bizarre method Doc had for weeding out the masses when it came to henchmen. His men were paid on a success ratio, for every successful mission they pulled off their pay would increase by margins. There were factors that would subtract from pay like, say for example, should you need Doc to supply you with a new robotic limb to make due for one lost in battle. The money for that had to come from somewhere. The goal on the mind of any minions was to become a henchman. Doc claimed that any minion able to complete one hundred missions would receive an immediate quadruple pay increase, a squad of their own minions to command, private accommodations on base, better vacation days and free surgery and surrogate limbs courtesy of Doc. It was certainly an incentive to most of the faceless masses, but at the same time it seemed nigh impossible. In the time since Doc went professional in the evil villain gig he’s only acquired three henchmen. Frank was the first. He accomplished the impossible tasks, seemingly on auto pilot, going through deadly assaults, battles with super humans and tactical assaults on space bases like it was a jog through the park. Dave came next, though nobody could tell you how. There was a rumour circulating that he lied to Doc on his first day, claiming to have already done ninety nine missions and Doc seemingly bought it. Finally there was Jessika who likewise never did the full one hundred mission tour. She showed up when Doc called out for an assassin, killed all the other people there and then asked if she was hired. Doc declared this to be a pretty good start and promoted her on the spot to henchman, claiming that if anyone had issue with the decision they should take it up with her. As such any minion worth their salt tended to become thoroughly entrenched in military know how, weapon specifications, close combat and anything else that would hopefully keep them one step ahead of the reaper. Sadly none of them were prepared for exactly what Dave had unleashed on them. Jennings looked over one of the bases lower levels at the various minions slapping each other in face with hands covered in shaving foam. Jennings’ mouth tweaked up at one corner as he looked to his guides. “Are you fucking for real?” He asked and none of them could look him in the eye. “I know each and every one of you people are like trained killers…how in the world can’t you handle,” he peered down at the people below with a smile so wide that it was in danger of ripping his face in half, “shaving foam?” “Well, it’s not that we can’t,” one minion said with an edge in his voice, scratching at his visor, “it’s that we can…too well.” The cogs in Jennings head click into place in an instant and he pushed his glasses up with his glasses up and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Are you telling me that people are killing each other because of this?” One of the minions nodded. Jennings groaned as he began to factor in the costs of new recruitment, replacing broken equipment, clean up duty overtime and decided that enough was enough. “Alright I know how to put an end to this, get me a can of shaving foam.” With a shrug one of the men handed him a can, Jennings let out a monstrous sigh and hobbled off toward the elevator. He keyed in the numbers for Docs office. After a few moments of silence the doors spat him out in Docs’ sanctum. His employer, the one eyed, shark toothed bastard, was sitting at the other end of the room muttering to himself and drawing some sort of bizarre schematics for some sort of box, it hardly seemed important. “Sir,” Jennings called from the other side of the room, if only to let his employer know he’d appeared. The long haired man looked up for a moment before snarling and going back to his sheets. This suited Jennings fine, conversations with Doc turned into long and tedious affairs that usually devolved into name calling on his part and Doc shooting him. He hobbled his way across the room, rather tired of his faking this injury…but unwilling to break the masquerade, lest his employer seek a new and more exotic way to cripple him. As he neared the man he drew back a hand coated in shaving foam and slapped the super villain. The room was horrendously quiet; it was as if the entirety of existence had decided to hold its breath for a second. Doc looked up, his eye patch lathered in foam, and clasped his hands before resting his chin atop his fingertips. “SO I take it you really want me to torture you for hours on end today?” Doc asked, his voice fluctuating wildly between faux calm and indignant rage. “Because, honestly, I can’t think of any other reason to do what you just did,” Doc rose, he was sadly a short man and as such he hardly cut an imposing figure as he matched up to Jennings who stood a full head taller than him. “I was more treating this as an example, sir,” Jennings said not even bothering to look at his employer, “this kind of thing has been going on with the minions for the better part of a day now, it’s led to raising tempers and it’s been starting to,” he rubbed an invisible spec of dirt from his tweed collar, “cost us.” Doc’s expression glazed over. It was amazing how little interest the man had in money; any mention of the stuff seemed to immediately bore him to tears. “Oh,” he said simply all life seemingly fleeing his green eyes, “a lot?” he asked almost nervously, unsure if he should be treading in this domain on finance. “Not yet, but if it continues, it’s likely to cost us a lot, both financially and in man power,” the Doc groaned, hands rustling through his thick hair. He groaned in frustration before sighing at once. “Do you have any more of that foam?” Jennings helpfully handed him the can he’d been supplied with and Doc nodded, scrubbing the mess from his face. He paced toward the elevator with Jennings on his heels. They rode down in silence, save for the hiss of the spray can, until they came out to one of the lower levels where the minions congregated for training. Lo and behold they were running around smacking one another in the face. A fellow jumped out as he noticed the elevator opening, hand coated in foam and the second he noticed his employer he froze. Doc raised his right hand and swung once for the man’s cheek. It’s a well known fact on the base that Doc’s entire right arm is robotic and packs enough of a punch to tear open a tank. Needless to say everyone stopped what they were doing when a head shaped missile slapped down amidst them with all the grace of a fart at a wedding. The body in front of Doc slopped over to one side leaving him standing there with a bloody open palm a large toothy grin on his face. “This stops now, do you hear me?” Everyone nodded at once. Doc smiled at them and pointed at the body on the floor, “Someone clean that up.”

#Writing #Creative Writing #OC #Dave Davidson #James Horatio Jennings #jessika #Frank Manington #T.c.Doctor #Mad scientists #Henchmen

badlydressedwritings

Hyper-Real: Henchmen off the clock

Jesus this fucking thing. I’ve honestly restarted this, finished it and started over, roughly seven times, totally hating how it went most of those times. I really just finished this for the sake of getting it done; and my personal policy of leaving no story unfinished even if I end it with the line “Then they all died so I never have to write about them ever again.” But yes without further ado, another story with more weirdos.

badlydressedwritings

I posted another thing on my writing blog, go read if you want.

#I should probably stop linking this

Hyper-Real: Henchmen off the clock

Jesus this fucking thing. I've honestly restarted this, finished it and started over, roughly seven times, totally hating how it went most of those times. I really just finished this for the sake of getting it done; and my personal policy of leaving no story unfinished even if I end it with the line "Then they all died so I never have to write about them ever again." But yes without further ado, another story with more weirdos.

We have a problem,” a reedy man announces as he leans over his ornate walking stick, “money is going missing,” his fingers run along the grooves of his cane, probing the marble eyes of his goat headed cane. The other people in the room, a pale young woman and a large dark individual swap a small look. “You’re the accountant, Jennings,” the girl said, her voice deep despite her youthful appearance, as she looked over at the man slumping over his cane, “we kind of have you here to keep track of the money.” Jennings’ mouth twitched up at one corner before he was able to strangle all the glee out of his expression. “Yes, I suppose you do,” his thumb worried at the space between the goat’s horns, “and sufficed to say I’ve let you down,” he look aside a weary sigh escaping him, “I suppose you should kill me for gross incompetence.” He smiled sweetly and leaned forward, resting his chin atop the head of his cane, “Once between the eyes please, I won’t cause a fuss,” he said with a quick shrug. “Fat chance,” the larger man said, scratching at an old wound on his throat, “you’ve known money has been going missing for a while now,” he groaned, mopping at his forehead. “Am I that transparent Frank?” Jennings inquired with a cheery tone, Frank only rolled one massive shoulder. “No matter, I suppose I don’t need to tell you two who’s behind this, do I?” The other two people in the room only smiled. “Needless to say I’m content when this places pisses money, I love it honestly, adds some extra challenge to my day, balancing books.” “I sense a but,” the girl said as she rose from her seat, “honestly, this is such a pain, Doc would slag him if he knew,” she said matter of factly as she paced the room. “Yes, he would,” Jennings said with a small smirk, “but let’s be honest Jessika, as much as we’re loathe to admit it, Dave is better to us alive than dead,” Jessika snorted once at that, a bizarre look on her face. Jennings attempted a new approach, he’d forgotten for a second Jessika had a slightly skewed view on the worth of human life, “Frank you’ve known the man five years, surely you don’t want to see him dead.” Frank looked to Jessika and blew out a quick breath. She snapped around to face him, her long braided ponytail snapping around she turned, a look of utter revulsion on her face. “Seriously, are you seriously going to tell me he’s worth it?” She asked, her Russian accent peaking as she got more frustrated. “Oh gods save us, you Americans and your bros before hos.” “If you’re quite done, I know where you can find Dave.” --- David Davidson, or Dave to everyone who knew him, had a spectacular problem. In truth Dave has a lot of problems but gambling was chief amongst them. He’d bet on anything from the golf to the weather, Dave would quite honestly bet on anything and everything. Though if you were to ask him what he liked to gamble on the most, his favourite sport to gamble on, it’d be the fight ring at the Crooked Cadaver. The Cadaver is a place that caters to villains and villains alone, if you’re not evil you’re not getting in, that’s how it works. It’s not that villains hate heroes, quite the opposite, it’s just we all want a little private time to unwind don’t we? The Crooked Cadaver is perfect for getting away from your hero for a while, get a couple of drinks, watch some illegal fights, shoot a game of pool, y’know people stuff. The Crooked Cadaver bar happily offers all of these things and protection from those spandex wearing capeys. The chain of bad-guy only establishments was set up in the early 1500’s by some fellow called Gustav Germain and they’ve continued strong to this day. Hidden from sight underground, though there are a few floating bars somewhere up in the clouds for the ultra deluxe villain with more money than common sense, and tucked away in the dark corners of the Earth is where you’ll find the Crooked Cadaver. The only way in is to either be a member- Which you can easily become with a monthly subscription fee, first time subscribers can also look forward to a fashionable Crooked Cadaver Jacket only available through the Cadaver’s store.- or be invited by a member. The place is unusually cheery for a room filled with self professed mad men and killers. But when you’ll find that when you start working the Hyper-Real, that is IF you start working there, 99% of heroes and villains can be counted on to chill when it’s quitting time. Now this sounds horrendous, I know, but it’s a fact that heroism and villainy run on strict schedules. The dayshift heroes, that’s your bright and shiny individuals, paragons and truth, not to mention those who draw power from sunlight of course. Then you got your nitty gritty night-shifters who prowl the rooftops and growl soliloquies about dead parents and revenge on this sinful Earth. Villains are the same, the more colourful ones prance around during the day and the edgy deranged ones flounce about at night. That’s just how it works, unless big events are going down- but that’s a topic for another time. So sometimes, like everyone else in existence, they just want to go a place where everybody knows their name…though everyone knows Dave’s name…because he’s in dept to a lot of them. As I said Dave has a gambling problem, but at the same time he has a much direr problem. He gets off on danger. I mean that in an almost literal sense. The worse a situation is for him, the better he feels. As such Dave has purposefully been building up his debt to some horrifying people for the last couple of years in order to pull off tonight. “Davey,” he hates being called Davey, “it’s not that we displeased you don’t have our money, no we’re used to that, it’s that you had the money then you went and put the money on a fight.” The man talking to Dave has some kind of theme, there’s a period in a villains life where they might decide to be insect themed, thankfully most of them break from these bizarre fad fascinations. This fellow was not one of them. Shark King, big surprise what his theme is, was a lawyer until an accidental murder led to some very dubious decisions. Deciding to plead insanity, on the grounds of thinking he was a comic book character, rather than face time in the big house. He was moved to some cushy asylum somewhere with lovely padded walls and the screams of the deranged to rock you asleep at night. Apparently some enterprising villains were tired of being used as an excuse for madness and abducted dear sweet King Shark in the night and brainwashed him into believing he was a villain. From there he got a number of invasive surgeries and here we are. King leaned over the table, his pure black doll like eyes pouring over Dave. “Doing things like that can upset someone you’re in debt to Davey,” he had this unfortunate habit of slobbering as he spoke, all the teeth spilling from his mouth have made the man quite hard to understand, and as such the surface of the hardwood table was slowly begging to overflow with thick, ropey strands of drool. “Kingy,” he hated being called Kingy, “man you gotta relax, all this sitting still is bad for your health, walk with me,” Dave said pleasantly, hopping to his feet as a thick splat of saliva slopped onto his shoes. King rose, his back hunched from the massive fin jutting from his spine. “King, I respect you, you’re a business man first and a villain second. Much like myself, though nowhere near your level,” The shark gave a strange mix of a purr and snarl, he knew he was being buttered up but damn if he didn’t agree with the kid. “Shpare me, Davey, get to your pitch before I pay someone to kill you,” he said without malice, killing people was the villain’s bread and butter. Nobody held a grudge when you said you were going to kill them. God help you if you tried and failed though, that’s premium grudge material right there. The duo were making their way through the crowd, men in capes slumped on the bar regretting their life’s choices, women in outfits that were very clearly painted on, bouncers who were part crab, on their way to the edge of the Cadaver’s prime method of fleecing it’s customers of their money. Near the boozy norm of the bar, the tables, the chairs, the stools etc, there was a massive ring surrounded by a large steel cage that reached up to the roof of the establishment. This was the fight ring; anyone and everyone who came to the establishment could enter the ring and or pay for someone to enter the ring. At that point bets are made and a fight happens, standard stuff. But this being a hangout for villains anything can end up in that ring from robots to zombies made of knives. Currently the ring was occupied by large hellish machine that looked like the bastard child of a scorpion and a large tank. A giant steel monstrosity pacing back and forth on massive metallic legs each as thick as a support beam. Its body a luminous green shade with scars and dings in the metal work from previous bouts and battles long won. It had a singular eye, for lack of an altogether better term, which whirred around on its front. The eye was locked behind a face plate, a thick sheet of plastic glass wedged between two massive slabs of steel. At the forefront of the metallic beast were two long pincer arms, one arm a standard vice like clamp and the other a giant pair of shears that could easily rend anything between them into mince. The rear end of the contraption had a length of cable as thick as a tree trunk topped off with a large multi-barrelled weapon. The tail weaved back and forth with a languid grace. “Look you’ve seen the death scorpion thing right? Who hasn’t?” Dave pointed at the machine in the ring as it traipsed around minding its own thoroughly deadly business. “I got a guy here,” Dave aimed King at a man standing by the ring in a pair of black trunks, “him, and he is gonna beat the shit outta that thing.” “Him,” King asked, the droll pooling along the bottom most row of his many jagged teeth, “the boxer guy.” The boxer guy was a wiry mass of muscle. He hopped back and forth on the balls of his feet, jabbing furiously at the air, as he eyed the large machine in the ring. “You think he can take that thing?” Dave nodded like his head was on a spring, “Yah huh, so confident am I that my boy can take your robot, that I’ve put all the money I owed you on him to win.” Dave’s eyes were a glitter with joy as he watched the shark-man snap wildly at the air as he tried to form words. “Yew,” the teeth snapped together a few inches in front of Dave’s smiling face, “yew, yew,” the teeth continued to smack and clatter with sounds like fine china being thrown against the wall by a particularly angry seven year old who was just told he wasn’t getting desert. “I, I, I...” Dave said helpfully clamping his hands over the extended maw of the other man, he took a deep breath in and looked meaningfully at King Shark. He took another slow breath and the other man did the same, albeit looking thoroughly confused. Dave stared into the creatures eyes to see his reflection within, his hair was a touch askew. He let go of King and, his hands slick with drool, ran a hand through his own jet black hair and slicked down the offending follicles. “Better?” He asked. “Much,” the shark groaned getting a strange look from Dave who made a quick clicking noise. “Oh no I was talking about my hair, I couldn’t care less about you having a hissy fit,” the creature wheeled on him, staring up at the man, a harsh bark erupting from his fanged mouth. “Settle down,” Dave said quietly, ignoring the fresh coating of spittle on his face, “you start any shit in here outside of that ring then you get kicked out. Remember Germain’s rule: “No killing in his club.” King growled out a little longer, teeth clenched tight, black doll like eyes zipping around in his head to look at the various people watching them. He looked back at the black haired man towering over him, a queer little smile dancing across his face, a smirk that told him to try it. There was not one iota of fear in the man’s dull blue eyes as he looked down at him. King gnashed once more out of habit and stalked off, “Fine, your boy loses, me and you are going to have a little chat after hours,” with that the hunchbacked freak wandered off. “Can’t wait, buddy!” Dave called after him with a quick wave before hopping across to the man in boxing shorts. “So, Jackson, think you can take it?” Jackson, a man with the kind of face that screams I get hit a lot, rolled his shoulders as he took in the machine in the centre of the ring, patrolling around the edges staring out at everyone. “If I don’t the fish guy will kill us,” he looked over at Dave, his expression and tone flat, “right?” Dave nodded with a wide smile on his face. “I hate you so much it makes dick hard.” “Not the first time I’ve heard that,” Dave said slowly before stuffing his hands in his pockets, “so come on, get in there, kill the scorpion robot, win me like a billion dollars so I’m not in debt, I’ll give you what’s left over after I pay people off. Sound like a plan?” Dave nodded once. “Sounds like a plan to me.” Jackson just stared back, after almost ten years of knowing Dave; he’d learned to just let the man talk. Jackson nodded and ran his left hand over his shaved down hair, shorn down to a tiny smattering of microscopic hairs in places. “Yeah, yeah, just make sure I get paid for this.” “Will do, now get in there, some of my debtors are forming a lynch mob,” he said jovially as he pushed the man toward the ring. Jackson grumbled something as he walked up a small gangplank into the ring. Jackson pulled open the small makeshift door made in the side of the cage. He traipsed into the ring, taking up residence in one corner where he began to go through a small routine of jabs and stretches. The machine in the ring looked at him, its tail rocking back and forth lazily as it did so, before clamouring its way to its corner…or, I suppose, the area of the corner as the machine could hardly fit into such a small space. Screens around the bar went blank for a second before suddenly displaying the ring. One side of the screen displayed Jackson and the other the large robot. Odds appeared around the screen in a dizzying array and people started to make bets. If you join the Crooked Cadaver bar chain you must submit your finances to them. Germain always claimed it was gauche to be seen spending money when in the company of other villains, as such all the purchases made in the Crooked Cadaver are run strictly from credit. AS such when one makes a bet in the Cadaver you need only swipe your membership card through the slides attached to the screen and make your selections. Everyone made a bet, some paltry, some outrageous, some that would upset the national debt of certain countries come the result. Dave made his way to a table, swiped his card through the machine, put all the money he had on Jackson and sat back. His bank was now officially empty. Well…not HIS bank but his boss knew he was good for it. Besides if Jackson lost he’d be dead before his boss knew about it. Dave suddenly decided he should have ordered a drink before throwing away all his money, nerves had hit him all at once and made him quite decidedly thirsty. “Thank god we found you,” Dave turned at the familiar voice of Jessika, who sounded quite hurtfully sarcastic, a small nervous smile on his face. Jessika and Frank stood behind him, Jessika with her arms folded and a bored expression on her face and Frank looking as stony as ever. “Guys, sit down, best parts just coming,” he indicated the other chairs around the table with a point and leaned against his forearms, preparing to ignore the incoming lecture. Frank sat down with a quick grunt and inclined his head to Dave, it’s how he’d said “hello” for the past five years, before giving the man a quick slap on the back, it was how he’d say “how you doing, idiot?” for five years. Jessika looked over at the ring and her face fell, she collapsed into the chair. “You didn’t bet on the robot did you?” She said quietly, an edge to her voice, as she glowered at Dave. He tried to escape her gaze, but he found himself being drawn into eyes like dark leather. He slapped a hand over his eyes. “None of your mind control shit, Jess, come on,” he pleaded his voice going high, he turned to Frank, “tell her not to do her brain hoodoo on me,” he simpered and Frank just stared at the woman across from him and shook his head. She clicked her tongue against the roof and glowered at the giant across from her. “You must stop spoiling him, he’ll never get better if you always have his back like this,” Jessika leaned back in the chair and exhaled through her nose, “again you didn’t bet on the big robot did you?” she asked, much calmer, and without abusing her powers. “No,” Dave put up his hands, “and before you crack me in half let me explain,” Jessika nodded at him to proceed, “I’ve fixed the fight.” Jessika looked at the wiry man and the massive machine across from him. “Clearly,” she said with a thin smile, “that robot looks ready to take a dive,” she groaned while looking over to Frank. “Do we need to buy him a leash?” Frank only chuckled at that and Dave looked off to the side. “I had a dream where you said that once, ended with you and me in this big Jacuzzi,” he saw the cold hard look he was being given by both Frank and Jessika, “right, save that for another time.” He said helpfully. “Or never,” Frank mumbled as he swiped his own membership card into the small screen. He looked briefly at the odds and threw a small sum of money into the bet, in favour of Jackson. “So, how’d you fix it?” Frank asked as he ordered himself a drink via the screen. “Well that’s an interesting story,” Dave said happily as he too tapped on the screen for a drink, if Frank cared at all he didn’t show it, “it’s a bit of a complicated one as well. BUT needless to say my boy Jackson can’t lose.” Jessika looked down her nose at the man before sighing from the corner of her mouth. “You’d better hope he can’t lose I’d hate to see Doc’s reaction to finding out you burned through all of his money.” Jessika muttered snippily causing Dave to groan. He turned to her with a wintery look and nodded towards the ring. “He’ll win, I guarantee it,” he leaned across the table to her, “do you want to make this interesting?” he inquired with a rich trill to his voice. Jessika coughed out a quick laugh and nodded sloppily. “Of course, yes, I will, you got into this problem by making horrendous bets, it is only right I encourage your madness with another bet,” she said loudly, drawing several glances from around the room, “what did you have in mind, David?” “If I win I think we should go on a date,” he said chipper. “No.” “Kiss on the cheek?” “I’d sooner bite your head off.” “Hold hands?” “No.” “I can say we banged?” “I will kill you.” “You never give me shit about making bets again?” “I can manage that; if you lose I also won’t give you shit about making bets again,” she favoured him with a grim smile, “because you will be dead.” With that a claxon sounded and the screens claimed that all bets were final, they hopped you have good fortune and then lapsed into an advert on some new cloning factory that happened to be partially financed by Germain. The cage began to rattle as the small gaps in the metal glittered blue for a brief second before returning to normal. High energy shielding used to coat the entirety of the arena, even the areas the cage covered, the only reason they worked with a cage at all was because it seemed to rile up some animalistic part of the human brain. The shielding was designed by Franklin Pierce, fourth generation head of Pierce Enterprises private security firm. The Pierce family has been into security for about as long as there have been thieves, at least that is they’re dubious claim, and have never had any of their products breached by a single thief, again a dubious claim, but if you were to put a professional thief in the same room as a Pierce made safe they’d sooner surrender to the authorities than attempt to break into one. There are horror stories about safes lined with blades, laser corridors with reoccurring batteries allowing them to power themselves independently for a year even if the rest of the country is in a black out. Needless to say if you want security you go to Pierce. As such even when the scorpion machine’s gun started to spin itself to life nobody in the room flinched. Jackson, dressed only in his black trunks, knocked his head from side to side as he tried to think about the best way to tackle this. He imagined getting in close would save him from the gun, but that puts him in range of the claws and the bladed forelegs. He worked out a basic plan of attack and surprising just about everyone in the room he adopted a runner’s stance. He braced his heel up against the corner guard and rested his gloveless hands against the mat. He had a feeling that if he messed this next part up, he’d be dead, he rather liked living. The gong for the match to start sounded and all at once he snapped forward. The spot he was in previously was shredded by a hail of bullets, the red hot shells ejecting and bounding off the shield of the arena. Jackson pumped his legs, making himself as small as possible, leaning forward into a tear drop shape as he ran at full kilter toward the machine, the spitting sound of the gun echoing around him. As he neared the machine it reared back, the blades on one claw snapping together like a set of hedge shears with a thunderous din, before shooting forward toward Jackson. Its many legs giving it speed belaying its large size, clamouring forward like an overly eager dog going for its favourite ball. Jackson looked up at the machine’s claws, peeking up from his peek-a-boo boxing guard, as they snapped toward him. He leapt forward into a roll as the clamping claw flew towards him with an uncanny speed; he was able to curl under the vice as it snapped shut just behind him. Its massive claw raked backwards against the mat as it trailed just behind him, the flat of the clamp smacking against his heels as he rolled causing him to wince in pain. Jackson made it back to his feet with a shake, his feet feeling like hell after the smack. His speed didn’t suffer though his feet pleaded with him to stop. But he’d rather be in pain now for a couple of hours than never be able to feel anything again, which he was certain would happen if this thing ever got it’s claws on him. He took a quick leap forward to the underside of the machine, he grinned as he looked up at the steel chassis above him. The scorpion rattled back and forth trying to get at the man under it, limbs lacking the articulation to reach down and grab him, dancing back and forth across the ring, attempting to fake him out by going left and then right. But Jackson stuck to the thing like glue, he’d always been a wizard with footwork, watch the legs and not the body if you want to follow a boxer…he was just happy to see that the same principle worked for giant robot scorpions. He looked at the six legs around him; picking out his targets for what he figured was a horribly stupid move. The leg to his left rose to make another futile attempt at a feint and he went to work. He threw a left at the leg, smacking the joint of the leg. As soon as the leg returned to the mat it buckled at once, sliding out from under it causing the machine to tip to one side. Jackson stepped to the other side throwing a left at the foremost leg, which buckled inward at Jackson’s feet as it tried to stabilise itself, he took a step forward to dodge the guillotine like blade and smacked the next leg with another quick left, it too buckled and he shot out from under the machine and delivered a punch to the final leg on that side. The machine buckled and fell onto the bladed legs beneath it, digging harshly into the chassis; radial fluid spurted from massive rips in the hulking machine as it tried to lift itself up on its two remaining legs. The thing’s tail began to rattle up again hoping to keep its abuser back with a peppering of fire or, hopefully, just shred the nuisance. Jackson heard the tell tale rattle of the weapon starting up and made his move. He leapt against the cage and rebounded off the shield, just as the gun barked into life and landed atop the scorpion. He steadied himself as the machine buckled on to its jagged legs; it rocked and rolled as it tried to remove the man standing on its back. Jackson’s arms snapped out and wrapped around one of the grooved segments of the tail. His arms bulged with muscle and his nerves stood out on his skin as he screamed in frustration. He used all his weight to force the gun toward the machine’s body. The gun continued to fire, unable to halt its momentum, into the back of the scorpion. Whole sections of its outer shell snapped off and smacked against the shield wall. The steel screamed out as the machine squirmed, bullets peppering its insides and its lower legs eviscerating it’s innards with every movement. After six seconds of sustained fire the machine stop rocking back and forth, the little red eye at the front of the machine went off and the gun stopped firing. It was safe to say it was dead. Jackson hopped down off the machine and landed in a thick pool of scrap metal and oily discharge. He held up his hands to a small smattering of applause, these people had no taste. Jessika looked to Dave with a look of confusion. Dave only smiled as he stared at his winnings, some odd ten figure number which slowly began to lower, him paying off his debtors with ease, before it stopped. “There we go,” Dave said with a quick clap, he took a sip from his drink and smiled a sly vulpine grin over at Jessika. “Now Doc can have his money back, Jennings can stop mommying me behind my back and I get out of this with a cool couple million.” “Okay,” Jessika said, blowing a thin strand of her chestnut brown hair from her face, “I want to know how you rigged this.” Frank made a sound that could have been a chuckle and Jessika snarled at the large man. “Down girl,” Dave said about to put his hand on her shoulder but stopping as soon as he thought better of it, “it’s no big secret so let me tell you how I did it.” He pointed at Jackson who was exiting the ring and being provided with a small towel for his feet by one of the buildings staff. “I met Jackson six years ago in Boston, he was a small scale fighter, welter weight, but he had some potential. I did a bit of digging turns out he was a bio-engineering student at some university. I supplanted him some money via anonymous donations to get him through University.” Dave took a small sip from his drink, “Jackson was a resident of the…what’s it called, Frank?” “Hyper-Real.” “Thanks, buddy, apparently he was gonna work up at some robotics factory on cloned limbs, that kinda thing, replacements and the like. He also has a major passion of electronics and boxing. So I met up with him, had false I.D. set up so I could meet him on campus as a fellow student, and invited him to some small scale fight club like events around the country. After watching him win a few rounds I paid for him to get an opponent a few grades above his weight class, a partial cyborg. He lost…hard.” Dave knocked his head toward Jackson, “I suggested it’s a shame that those robot dick-weeds have a leg up in these kind of things and that set him to work on his left arm. You see his bio-engineering work dealt in, as I said, surrogate clone limbs. Now these limbs could be altered in subtle ways, like say, adding a small scale EMP generator to them or increasing the muscle density of an arm by eighty fold.” He said with a shrug. “From then on every time I find some robot or cyborg champion in one of these clubs I build up a huge amount of debt to the local flavour and then BEG they let me try my last hopeful. Then I over-bet with money they don’t know I have, quadruple my profits, pay them off, pay Jackson half and boom,” Dave took a throaty pull from his drink, “ahh and that, my Russian lovely, is that.” “So you custom built, so to speak, an anti-robot fighter for the specific occasion that this would happen?” Dave nodded vigorously causing Jessika to stare at him. “I sometimes you are forget you are a monster David, what with you being a lazy idiot most of the time.” Dave held a hand over his heart and mimed a pained expression. “Oh, you wound me; I’m almost tempted not to treat my two fellow henchmen to a night on the town.” Jessika and Frank shared a small look. “You wanna bet?” Jessika said with a queasy smile, Dave could only beam at her as Jackson sat down, launching into demands for his share of the money, asking what they thought of his fight and begging for a drink. A few tables away a man wrapped from head to toe in bandages stared at his compatriot, a large wall of a man. “Well what did you think about that, Nathan?” Nathan, picked at his teeth with one viciously pointed nail, and shrugged. “He’s alright,” the tanned man said with a empty voice, “I mean I think he has a secret weapon, favoured his left side a lot like it might weigh more, maybe he has a hidden blade in there or it’s one of those cyborg limbs, I dunno.” “You wouldn’t fight him then?” The man in bandages asked. Nathan barked with laughter and gave his friend a hard slap on the back with a hand the size of a ham. “I’ll fight anyone, he’s just not interesting to me,” the man said solemnly, “I was looking forward to having a go with the big scorpion though, shame it’s gone,” the other man gave him a quick pat on the back. “I’m sure you’ll find someone or something to fight soon,” you could hear the smile on his face, “hell if you’re that desperate for a spat I’ll fight you.” He said holding up his hands like a boxer. The large man looked down at his companion, wrapped in bandages underneath a fancy French made suit, with his little gloved hands raised up to fight. He could only laugh as he threw one thick arm around his friends shoulder. “Nah, nah you’re alright bud, you’re alright.” He grinned down at his friend, who went by far too many names to remember but insisted on being called Hermes in public if he was to be called anything at all. “Did see someone though, Hermes, least I think I did.” “Oh,” Hermes looked around the room for anyone he knew, “who is that dear chap?” “Her,” he pointed to Jessika, “I remember her,” Hermes peered at her from behind his shadowed spectacles and shrugged, “I met her in Russia, ninety nine. I cut her head off just after she threw me off a skyscraper, thankfully I was able to scale down the walls with my powers, but I distinctly remember decapitating her as I fell.” “Well looks like you did it wrong,” Hermes said casually. “Yeah, looks like, god I was so young back then, for all I know I missed,” his nails raked along the table top shredding the wood like it was a damp tissue, “hmm it’s getting me riled up just thinking about it. I can still smell the fire in the air, taste the sweat on my brow and hear the whistling of the wind as I tumbled.” His expression dissolved into ecstasy as he went to battlefields past. “Well…I suppose you should let her off tonight,” the large man’s golden pupil cracked open as he was torn from his reminiscing, “her friend has just won a great a deal of money. Let her have a night off and tomorrow, if you want, you can hunt her down and tear her face off.” “Nah, can’t, taking the little one fishing the morrow.” Nathan said with a small smile, “I’ll try and pencil it in though. See if she’s the kid of the chick I ripped apart that night,” he smiled a wide smile, a thick slab of white and golden teeth glittering from his mouth, “oh maybe she’s sworn to avenge her maw, oh that would be just thrilling.” “Down, Nathan, I hardly want you getting us kicked out of here for fighting with customers.”

#Writing #Creative Writing #rejectscorner #Hyper-real verse #Comic-verse

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