Boss Kusanagi in DEATH DEALS IN 3
A Fearsome Desert Warrior On The Bloody Road To Revenge...
From out the one came three.
It was an overlong mantra that came to Boss as he meditated, legs crossed and bare-chested within his dojo. There were no students, no friends, no family. Just the gray wolf with the flaming tattoo up his arm, and his mind’s gentle descent from surface thoughts to the depths of transcendence. A voyage of pure, incredible light that stirred within the mind’s eye. Boss stilled his breath and continued his descent until he felt that white light. Not a light of warmth nor of cool nor of temperance. It was all at once. Passion’s heat, a level head’s cool, the regulator of emotion and calculation. The martial artist dwelled in this world of white until he felt within his left hand the hot flash of the id, and within his right the crystalline chill of the superego in all its perfection. And flowing within him the negotiator of both.
The gray’s eyes opened and he looked to the wall before him, his prized blades sheathed on their display stands and the brass keys to his dune buggy. He stood up, slid into his two-strapped sandals, and made his way towards the end table. There, he grabbed his keys and filled his hand with the tachi’s hilt. Before leaving the dojo, he unsheathed the blade and gazed upon its bowed silver, the Japanese steel reflecting his vivid brown eyes and the placid line of his mouth.
“This is not revenge to be savored.” he said, as if to the blade itself. “But a job that must be done.”
Within the soft click of the sheath against the hilt, the fate of five dozen hounds had been sealed.
No one knew when San He Hui began operating in Haven. No one knew what it was until hounds in fine black suits began attending the street-fighting games that drew incredible crowds in the Southern district. No one knew until the gambling began and fights between obvious matches defied convention.
Not just the usual dives a hood would take to please a manager, however. Haven’s street fighters always fought for the love of the martial arts. The dives came in the terrible spasms brought on by a well-timed right hook and the click of a remote button. The device–no larger than a pen–matched certain function codes to the fighter’s chip. The hound in the suit clicks his pen, shutting the opponent off long enough to be counted out. Another click would turn the opponent back on. If the gang felt the opponent threatened their prospects for big credit takes, that second click never came.
The only mistake the gangsters made was killing the tan wolf Hector Lopez.
The only mistake made was killing a pupil of Boss Kusanagi.
Hector had been attending the martial artist’s teachings for years, and proved himself one of his most apt learners. His motion was fluid, his ability to switch from Eastern sparring to Western fisticuffs was often used for demonstration. He wasn’t some savior, he wasn’t some great community leader.
He was a good hound bet against by powerful players. A good hound no longer thanks to those thugs. A good hound worthy of being avenged.
Before reaching Haven, Boss wanted to pay his respects to brave settlers trying to populate the Western Desert. A synthesizer farm handcrafted for vices of all sorts. Uppers, downers, sidewinders, pills of all colors, shapes, hallucination states. An operation that was less about making money, and more a covert means of sedating the desert population, revolts being bad for business and all.
He met them as only he could; with a sandaled paw buried in the footwell of his turbo-charged Manx Meyer dune buggy. The metallic orange machine sent the drug-makers flying through the air and splattering beneath his wheels, Boss silent as he let his metal lady’s screaming V8 do all the talking for him.
When one of the gang’s envoys from Haven came to see what all the commotion was, he was met with the ungodly sight of this gray maniac running his hounds down left and right. Quickly, the white-furred gangster drew his gun and began firing into the open-top off-roader. Boss wove between streaks of green laser fire while still keeping the pedal down and his eyes on every thug not left bleeding on the ground.
Soon, that only left the white wolf, who kept shooting like mad until the gray wolf slammed the brakes, and swung the tail of his buggy into the rat bastard. The silver automatic went flying as the gangster envoy cried in shrill pain, fangs barred on his thick muzzle as he seethed.
All Boss had to do was unbuckle himself and snap a gloved hand to the gangster’s throat, and the other cuffing the thug’s hands at the wrist.
“Where’s The Mountain?”
He opened his slim fingers to give the white wolf a chance to speak.
“Fuck you,” he growled.
Down came all five digits in a vice grip, the white wolf struggling and writhing between warped metal of the drug den’s wall and the hot rubber of the Manx’s wheel.
“Where’s your boss?” Kusanagi asked, the gray wolf unwavering in tone.
Again, he released his fingers briefly, only to be met with the thug’s swinging fist. A swing met with a quick catch and a swift bend backwards. Not even the white envoy’s pained cries could overwhelm the snap of his bones.
“Where. Is. The. Mountain?”
“District 967!” the envoy screeched. “Diapole Warehouse! You’ll find–”
ZPLAT!
The automatic found its way to the hands of one of the remaining drug makers, but between his blood-caked vision and Boss’ vigilant ears, the gray martial artist dodged the bullet and let the gangster take it in the head. The bloody white body fell limp and eyeless against the den as Boss flew back behind the wheel and sped over the last of the dope-pushers. The right tires took care of the head, while the left took care of the gun. Boss brought his orange steed to a stop and picked up the silver Colt. He looked towards the row of water-cooler-shaped synthesizers, and to the palettes of designer product.
When he shot the product, nothing.
When he shot the synthesizers, now there was a fireworks show.
But again, he didn’t have time to relish. He had to make his way to the 900s in Haven.
By the time Boss Kusanagi was speeding towards the Ivory Coast, the drug den was little more than a flaming epitaph to the Triad’s incursion into the desert. And faint in the distance, the stoic gray fighter heard a guttural explosion from the east, the last drug synths detonating within the metal den. A sound most reassuring as he made it down the small canyon and up through the withered chain-link fence.
Contrary to their desert expansion, the warehouse was little more than a base of operation. Accounting computers to keep track of their gambling earnings and a peer-to-peer distribution service to ensure each gang member received their equitable share of the proceeds.
Here, the black-suited wolves of largely white and sandy complexions drank evenings away with a strange cocktail called hun jiou. Roughly translated to “blended liquor,” it cut the taste profile of sake but with an alcohol content that could level an Old World Russian, and a unique adrenal additive. It was consumed religiously by Triad members, and the nights would often end in semi-playful sparring matches. Those who got a little too rowdy were escorted to their quarters, but it often took several wolves to wrestle them down from their steroidal high.
Tonight’s play would be anything but, however.
Boss parked his dune buggy a few blocks down and elected to make the trek by paw. With his blade in one hand and that eternal peace within him, he ran dozens of plans in his mind based on all his old heists. What staircases to take advantage of, what rooms to take cover in, all areas of escape.
When he reached the warehouse–marked by a white-on-blue sign with the embossed phrase “967, Diapole”–he saw two hounds standing guard by the door. Same black suits, but with the sandy brown complexion of Eurasian wolves and thicker muzzles. Whereas some would consider the stealthiest option, Boss was in no mood for games of infiltration. He rounded the corner and crossed the street, blade unsheathed, and eyes narrowed in pure concentration.
“HEY YOU!” barked one of the guards.
Boss made broad strides towards the warehouse.
“STOP!” the other shouted.
Both wolves drew their guns and fired.
Boss drew his blade.
The last thing both wolves felt was the sting of electric lead striking their guts as it bounced off the tachi’s silver.
They slumped to the side, parting ways for the gray ronin as he gave the door a mighty kick. They hadn’t paid the initial commotion any mind in their half-drunk, half-high stupor, but the bang of the door came like gunfire to the gangsters on the lower floor. Immediately they sprang up from their cross-legged convention with pistols in hand. When they looked up to see who had just entered, all they were met with was the same question he’d given the envoy.
“Where’s The Mountain?”
These fellows weren’t sober enough to be as polite as the envoy was. Instead of a “fuck you,” five hounds snapped their fingers down on their triggers.
Five hounds fell dead on the floor as the laser fire bounced off the tachi’s blade and landed square on their heads.
Boss began his steady stride down the steps to the warehouse floor, where the empty space was defined only by the towering black grid of the back wall, segmenting the large facade and allowing in only the evening’s blue, filtered through tinted glass.
By the time his sandaled paw met the cold concrete, Boss found that the Triad members weren’t just packing guns. Blades of all sizes and shapes filled their hands as they waited for their aggressor to make one last move.
Boss held his spot on the floor and flashed a brief smile.
“Finally. Real men.”
He leapt into the fray and started swinging. Steel sang in the air and rattled in contact as the desert fighter danced his ballet in the indigo midnight of the warehouse. Some gangsters felt the sting of a slash across the stomach, others held their own against the seasoned swordsman. And one hound, a one-eyed white donning an eye-patch and a slender muzzle, finally managed a blow to the furious stranger.
Boss felt the blood’s warmth, trickling down from the cut on his right arm, and then its twin on his left. And yet, the hound fought on.
By the time his forearms were soaked in red, none of the drunk thugs knew if they were fighting a wolf at all, but a dragon in wolven form, sent from Hell itself for God knows what reason. Soon they began to fall, one by one, in mirroring fashion. First the drunken war cry of attack, then the piercing shriek of death.
Even as he felt his stamina fading, his own natural adrenaline needing replenishment, Boss didn’t stop fighting until he was down to his last thug.
This fellow was the largest of the bunch, but he took as many blows as Boss. By the feverish melee’s end, both hounds came up caked in dried blood. Boss held the tachi’s tip to the towering white wolf’s neck.
“Where’s The Mountain?” he reiterated.
“The fuck you want him for?” the white thug growled.
“To give him Hector Lopez’s regards.”
“But the mook’s de–”
The tachi drew a trickle of blood as it pricked the flesh beneath the panting gangster’s fur. Boss gave a solemn nod.
“That’s why I’m sending him his regards.”
“Well Johnnie Ka-fai’s place is hard to reach,” the meat-head replied. “Penthouse Xiao down in 999. Awful lotta floors to go through. And you ain’t looking too hot.”
“That’s all I needed to know.” Boss replied, withdrawing his blade.
At first the hulking white gangster stood there, stunned that he hadn’t been finished off. It was only when Boss turned his back did he realize his opportunity to finish him had arrived.
“Oh, just one more thing.”
“What?” Boss asked tersely.
“You made a bit of a tactical error, Mista–”
SLASH!
The word hung in the air as the white wolf’s severed head flew across the warehouse floor.
“I believe the error was yours.”
Johnnie Ka-fai had made himself a honey of a mansion at the top of Penthouse Xiao. The short and savvy Eurasian wolf–always in a dark velvet robe–had made a mint off his scheme and savored every trinket he’d been able to fill his placid white abode. Sat upon the smooth, rounded furniture were displays of gold jewelry and Old World affects. On the nights he felt it, all manner of fine wolven women were ferried to the pad by hovercar for an evening of red light lovemaking. In his case, literal red light, for the tiled floor and ceiling could be color-coded to his heart’s content.
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” he’d often muse to his one-night stands. “A world in which we needn’t want for anything, and yet here a hound like me stands.”
His musings were often drowned by the moans of his evening’s harem, but he didn’t mind that. It was more an intellectual party trick than invitation to introspection, the wolven gang leader content to revel in his spoils without any greater philosophy. To him, he was in the afterglow of history’s end. Everything not nailed down was free for the taking. And anything he could pry loose was not nailed down.
He’d spent many a night enjoying these many fruits of his “labor” without interruption by business, but tonight would be different.
It all started after midnight.
Ka-fai was in bed with the evening’s red meat, an exotically patterned red wolf to his left and a black wolf to his right. They’d enjoyed themselves plenty, and ultimately wound up tired as hell by the end of their fun. Ka-fai was a sound sleeper to boot, so it was going to take a hell of a lot to wake him up.
First came the banging on the door.
Then the stunned cries of his guards as they saw the hound who barged in.
It was only when one of Ka-fai’s black suits was sent flying through the wooden door to the bedroom, right at the boss’s paws did he realize something was going horribly wrong.
The Triad leader sprang up and looked through the shattered door to find complete carnage. Painting the white-blocks red with the blood and brains of his muscle was a gray-furred maniac with a flaming tattoo sleeve. Only he wasn’t managing it with a gun nor a blade.
With bandaged upper arms and a fire in his brown eyes, Boss was fighting bare-knuckled through hoards of gang members.
One hound against a half-dozen, and he was laying their asses flat. Snapping limbs, landing quick kicks to the chest, and those who came at him with a gun found it blasting holes in their comrades or themselves, never their target.
Even with his whores in hysterics, Ka-fai knew the real business was killing this bastard on sight. Quickly he dove to the night stand and pulled out his pistol. Same as his men, marked only by its pearl grips, painted with the many colored scales of a dragon.
The short speckled gang leader drew the gun and aimed it square at the gray fighter’s head. With a flick of his ears, Boss heard the hammer’s click and ducked behind a black suit.
Unfortunately, Johnnie knew that trick well.
He waited and waited for a flash of the gray hound’s flame tattoo. The second he saw it he fired, and his laser round did not miss.
The red shot grazed the gray and sent him spinning across the room. Boss picked himself up and steadied himself, only to duck once again as the big hound himself fired round after round from within the dark of the bedroom.
There was only way to make the fight fair, and when Boss spotted the switch by the sliding glass door, the gray fighter dove for it and switched the lights off.
The apartment went jet-black, but Ka-fai never stopped firing. Streaks of red strobed throughout the room, and even when the sounds of black suits shrieking in pain, the Triad leader didn’t stop firing.
He used the light to hunt for his gray intruder, catching glimpses of Birk-clad paws and a dark tank-top with each round. Soon, however, the glimpses grew fleeting. The apartment was sprawling, but it wasn’t forever. And yet, the intruder continued to elude him. At long last, he decided to venture into the living room.
The speckled gangster held tight to his automatic and tread as lightly as he could upon the carpet of his room, and lighter still upon the cool tiles. He made no sudden moves, no quick checks. He felt the blood of his henchmen on the pads of his paws, but it didn’t faze him. He could feel the limp bodies about him, but it didn’t faze him. What was beginning to faze him was the pin-drop silence, cut only by the occasional whimpering of his bitches still huddled in the bedroom.
Still he trudged on, though the dark made the luxury apartment feel even more cavernous than it truly was. It wasn’t until the tips of his blood-tipped claws felt the edge between the floor and wall did he realize he was at the switch.
Carefully, he felt his hand across the cool glass wall, looking for the metal tip. He stopped for a moment when the claws of his hand began the faintest shriek. He hastened his search and at last felt the switch. The second he pulled it, the lights came back on, and before him was a massacre like no other. Black-suited wolven bodies atop one another, bloody paw prints trailing him from the bedroom to the threshold.
And then came a voice from behind.
“Hector Lopez sends his regards.”
Johnnie Ka-fai spun around on a dime, only to feel two hands snap to his head, and for a brief second, feel the ruthless crunch of his neck snap before all went dark.
The gangster’s body fell to the floor and Boss walked out into the hall. He walked past the guards he’d disposed of and walked down the stairwell–all 50 flights–to the metallic orange dune buggy waiting behind the building.
When he got there, he looked up to the penthouse one last time. The gray martial artist let out a soft sigh before turning his attention to the Haven border just a few yards off and gunned his Meyer for it. All throughout the drive back, he thought only of the hound he’d done it for, and the widowed wife who sent him. And true to his own words, it had been carried out as a job well done.
This looks new. Is it a new sub-series of 365 Infantry?