Chapter 237 : Bloodied knife

Evadelyn groaned from where she was collapsed on the floor, her tentacles a noodly mess knotted together that weighted down on her body. Sunburn scoffed, watching her struggle to get up before giving up, and he pressed his foot harder down on her back - or rather roughly where her back was under the many appendages covering it. The way said appendages squished weakly was even more pitiful, lacking all the strength and rigidity of the powerful muscles that had shattered stone with ease earlier. When she failed to react even when he started heating his sole, flames escaping the vents of his foot, the Draskian cyborg sighed and finally stepped back, leaving the poor girl on the ground as he cooled down.

"You need to work on your stamina. Raging around is only effective if you have enough energy to continue fighting after, or at least flee. If you fail to defeat your foes before you get exhausted, then it's a useless strategy that only puts you in more danger. And you have no grace. Every attack was obvious and easy to avoid for those with enough experience. I didn't even need to propel myself with my flames most of the time."

The only response he got was yet another pained groan. It didn't even sound like she was complaining or refuting his points, merely an instinctual response to stimulus. In this case, his voice.

"You're an elf, don't go fighting like a dumb brute. Fight like a smart one. Overwhelming power is an asset, but one that can be easily countered with the right strategy or technique. Next time I see you spar, I want to see more intelligent techniques than just throwing tentacles at the problem. Lure the opponent, create fake openings, tempt them into getting closer so you can maul them with those claws and fangs. Use your entire arsenal, not just your glorified fleshy hair."

"Uhm, sir? I... I'm not sure she can understand what you're talking about, right now."

Sunburn glanced back at the rocky man standing at the edge of the part of the training ground he'd claimed to teach the Chaotic Cored girl a lesson. The glorified elemental thug hadn't impressed him, but he would give the man credit, he had the guts to spar with a woman who could blatantly maim him by accident, and as soon as he got done healing the worst cracks in his rocky form from their training, he came back to check over her. And, this had to be mentioned, he dared to question Sunburn. Oh, he wasn't being openly antagonistic about it or anything, but most would merely hold their tongue.

"Hmph. She needs to do better. Knowing how to stay awake after defeat is a major skill and a great source of information. You wouldn't believe what cops and Heroes are willing to say so long as they think their target is knocked out. I'm entrusting you to remind her of the lessons she should have already figured out from our training."

"Yes, sir!"

"Good, soldier. Now bring her to the infirmary. I want her up and running as soon as possible. Feel free to ask others to help you carry her if need be."

The rocky thug went for a salute before trying to wake, then lift, then drag the collapsed pile of mutated flesh on the ground. He failed at every turn. Still, he tried. Seeing he was yet to ask for help, Sunburn shook his head in exasperation before snapping his fingers at another group of thugs training, these lifting weights, and pointing at their struggling colleague once he knew he had their attention. They nodded and obeyed, and the Draskian was free to return to his drink. Moonfreeze would tease him, saying he had gotten soft, but he simply thought that making sure their potential asset would be properly taken care of was merely a more efficient use of resources. They always needed more muscles.

Speaking of the little gremlin he called his comrade, he was barely surprised to find his seat stolen by the little menace, her face smug as she served herself a drink from his bottle, only that grin to vanish in a strangled cough as the alcohol hit her throat. This was one of the advantages of his lack of lips, he made it a point to cultivate his image of a cold killing machine, one that shouldn't be seen expressing any positive feeling, and he wouldn't have been able to hide a smile at her struggling as she fell from his chair, hitting her plexus as hard as she could. Ah, he knew karma was a fool's belief, otherwise he'd already be dead or worse, but he could still appreciate these small moments.

"Moonfreeze. I didn't know you had taken an interest in Draskian drinks. This one is a little soft, I'll admit. I wasn't in the mood for more today. But if you wish, we could always open a bottle from my personal collection later? These are the good ones."

"Eh, blegh. Nine damn it, Sunny, how do you handle that stuff? It's worse than kerosene!"

He valiantly fought off the urge to raise an eyebrow at her words as she got back up, his curiosity instead merely leaking through a slightly lighter tone than usual in his voice.

"You know what kerosene tastes like?"

"I was drunk, and someone bet a hundred bucks. But back on topic! How do you drink this stuff? Like, I thought cyborgs drinking crude oil was a dumb racist myth!"

"It is. As I said, this is merely a Draskian bottle, on the softer side of things. Your country is the one that is unable to brew alcohol worthy of the name. Well, the Capital does have this Liquid Refuse Flames drink, but its qualities are overshadowed by its terrible taste. No proper brewing, just base chemicals mixed without heart."

"Uh uh. Look, not that I don't find your melodramatic stories about the battery acid you call a drink, but Marcus wants to see us. At the same time. Now."

Sunburn took a moment to look at her face. The grease-covered bronze skin didn't have its usual manic energy, instead, it had a more serious air. Not that it would hold for long, she'd likely be smiling like an idiot again very soon, but the fact that anything could ruin her natural good mood was concerning. He sighed as he gave a final glance to his bottle, kissing his day of relaxation goodbye. He casually took a stray bolt from her hair and let it drop on the ground, leaving the cyan blue ribbon of capillary strands pristine once more. How she even kept that thing stable was a mystery to him.

"Very well. But you will brief me on what you think is the reason behind this sudden emergency meeting, as well as why he sent you instead of a minion."

"Oh, sure! Well, first off, it's not really an emergency, just an unplanned important meet-up. Like, there's no urgency, but he wants this done today."

"An emergency meeting with no urgency. Not an immediate crisis then."

"Probably not. He'd tell us if it was an attack. He loves throwing you at problems."

"I am aware."

"If you want my opinion-"

"I do. I explicitly asked you for it."

"-then I'd say this is about the gang war. Well, that or Silhouette's stunt on TV. Gotta give shadow boy credit, he's very active for a newbie."

"I had similar thoughts, but I doubt Marcus would be this tense about him. We don't really rely on Patchees as much as smaller gangs do. If anything, we'd benefit from them losing their elite loyal fighters. And so far, Silhouette hasn't stepped on our territory, outside of a warehouse we had already abandoned in contested space near the Black Block."

"Uh. Didn't think you'd follow the latest gossip about our shadow boy. Last I heard, you thought he was just another weakling and below your notice."

"We were discussing his encounter with Abrakaboom, and I pointed out that surviving a fight with him was no achievement, since the old wizard isn't one to go for lethal means usually."

"Explosions are pretty lethal, Sunny. For regular people, that is."

"You get my point. Abrak doesn't go out of his way to kill, he prefers to play around with his victims. He's a performer, he needs an audience. He puts on a show, not a terrorist attack. Silhouette winning the fight would have impressed me. Instead, all we know is that the two had an altercation, likely about that one former councilman from Wicked Witchcraft that Silhouette defeated. It's no different from his brief meeting with the Empress."

"Yeah, yeah. So, shadow boy is a good enough businessman for you to pay attention, but not much more beyond that. No big hopes of a worthy adversary or anything? Word on the street is that he's a pretty good fighter. Even heard he killed a demon, once."

"You don't judge a hunter by his ability to fish. Demons play by completely different rules, so even if he did kill one, it wouldn't be proof of anything. Still, I have heard he has quite the interesting powers. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see if some other idiot tries to go after him, we'll know then exactly how powerful he is. And no, I'm not looking forward to a 'worthy adversary' or whatever nonsense you're thinking of. Only idiots look for rivals. I want to stay at the top, where I'm untouchable."

"Aw, and here I was, hoping you'd finally get that homoerotic conflictual relationship you deserve. I mean, fire is close enough to light to make a cute opposite power pairing, right?"

"Moonfreeze, I have no idea of what you're talking about, and for your sake, I hope I never find out."

"Aw, you do care!"

She didn't react to his glare as they entered the tent in his trash heap that served as their headquarters. The tent was Marcus' space, a way to separate him from the riff-raff, for him to forget he was in the middle of a mountain of junk and scraps. The leader of the Blood Angels didn't particularly care for grandiose bases or working in filth, he just needed to keep himself away from the common thugs at his service. Getting his hands dirty was no problem. Quite the opposite, Marcus always had a fondness for the hands-on approach, so long as he wasn't putting his life in danger. Marcus was a killer and a decent fighter, but he was no risk-taker. Especially not when it came to other Supers.

Speaking of their dear leader, there he was, standing over a table, files covering the scarred wood. For a leader of a Villainous group, Marcus didn't have the style of a Super Villain. A middle-aged man in typical biker clothes, his stained leather jacket standing out. His dark hair was styled in a vague approximation of a small pompadour, but there was so little care put into it that you could hardly be faulted for thinking this was simply messy short hair that had clumped together. Frankly speaking, Sunburn was still unsure if it wasn't exactly that, despite his leader's guarantee that the hairstyle was voluntary. A thin yet glaring red scar ran from above his left eyebrow down to the corner of his mouth, a slash that looked fresh even when Sunburn knew the man had had it long before they met years ago.

The other scars on his body, at least the most notable ones, were countless thin lines all over his exposed arms. Self-inflicted wounds, but not for the typical reasons behind self-harm. Marcus' powers required blood to properly function, and sometimes that meant using his own before he could find a victim. He had no shame for the practice, it was merely another tool in his arsenal. These scars weren't as red as the one on his face.

His bloodshot eyes were glaring at the files on the table like they had disrespected him, and he was on the verge of growling, his chest rumbling like an engine. Sunburn could even see his knuckles whitening from how tightly he was holding onto his kitchen knife, the blade red and wet. From the lack of screaming and of a thug looking for a missing friend, Sunburn assumed this blood wasn't from one of theirs, then. The weapon wasn't the only one in their leader's arsenal, but it was the one he preferred using when in the safety of his base. It comforted him, like a deadly teddy bear.

"Marcus. Moonfreeze said you wanted to talk?"

"Sunburn, Moonfreeze. We have a problem."

"Oh, oh! Is it the kind of problem Sunny can't burn?"

This time, Marcus did growl as he stabbed his blade into the table, the blood on the metal now mixing with sap. Sunburn made a note to check the durability of the furniture later. Whenever Marcus unconsciously used his powers to make inanimate objects bleed, they had a tendency to degrade faster. Good for breaking into things, less good when it came to maintaining a working base when the holder of this power had a very poor temper.

"Moonfreeze, shut it! Sunburn. How's the Patcher investigation going?"

"Might as well be a dead end. The only things the Union knows for sure are that the assaillant was a lone male and that he either had no powers or went out of his way to make sure his powers wouldn't leave a mark, using a gun instead and burning the place for good measure to get rid of the evidence."

"Not enough for a hit then. Damn it. Think they'll go anywhere?"

"Short of hiring a proper seer, no. There's no witness, no evidence, and most of the city had a motive. They'll never figure it out, and so neither will we."

"Getting that guy's head would have been nice, but we'll have to do without. Now, with Patcher gone, we need more healers. Moonfreeze, report."

"Oh, well, we got a couple of guys? Wicked Witchcraft rejects, but they're still better than a regular pharmacist or quack. Their potions taste like ash and make you rash, but they work."

"Better than nothing, it'll do for the regular grunts. Anything new for those who actually matter?"

"Ah, no, nothing new. But the new guys might free up time for our current crew?"

"It'll have to do. We lost territory in the west again, we need our idiots ready and on the terrain. The wizards are desperate for success, and they're coming after us since the hippies and the bots are running over them. Sunburn, how do you feel about a little purge down in the Sunken City? It's been a while since our last expansion, and there's plenty of spots open for the taking, only operated by weaklings trying to cash in on our drug business."

The Draskian tilted his head as he considered the question.

"I don't think Bones would take kindly to that. She's always been against us big names brawling down there, and from what I heard, she's gotten even more active lately. Something about her research getting a big boost, apparently."

"And what's the trouble in that case? Mercenaries? You can deal with those, you're the strongest person in this stupid city!"

Sunburn and Moonfreeze exchanged a look at their boss' words. Now was the moment when he started getting too bloodthirsty to think properly. He was almost foaming at the mouth already, and he'd barely started getting angry. 

"Marcus, with all due respect, I'm only one man. If she sends all her mercenaries after me, I wouldn't be sure to win. And even if I could beat anyone she sends, that'd still leave the rest of the Sunken City getting mad at us for breaking the rules, and I can't be everywhere. We'd take big losses. And she could just hire new, stronger, better ones to replace those I burn."

"And if you kill her directly?"

"We've already had this conversation. If she dies, then not only do we have to deal with the Sunken City, but also her family. And those people wouldn't hire small-time fry like her. They'd bring in the big boys, the kind I wouldn't be sure to defeat in a duel, let alone if they call in a bunch of them. No, no touching Bones. But if you make sure to only send mooks on your expansion campaign, then she shouldn't complain too much. So long as we don't damage the good old buildings, she'll be fine with it."

"Fine. But I want you incinerating wizards tomorrow. They need to learn that there are consequences to messing with us!"