Capítulo 35: Issue #33: Ninth VII - No I in Team
Any semblance of rationality is postponed until further notice.
Adamant in finding my mother, I walk out of the hall with a knife in one hand and a pistol in the other before any danger befalls her. Well, any more danger in this case.
To my surprise, however, most of the survivors or combatants that have left the birthday hall have evacuated the surrounding area. Walking past the detritus on the carpet, I head towards the servant's exit where I can cut through the throng of people crowding the front of the manor.
As I pass the rooms, I can't help but fixate on the stains of blood and food that completes a picture of chaos and panic that followed the explosion. If not for the lack of bodies or limbs, I would have assumed that the assassin came through here and disemboweled the servants first.
Up until I arrive at the servant's exit, no one stands in my way, but that all changes when I open the locked door and see the huddled mass of seven women protected by a ring of four men. We lock eyes before almost all of them sigh in utter relief, muscles relaxing within their safety circle.
"Uh, hello! Stegan, did you see my mother?" I ask our personal chef.
"What? Oh, young master Edmund. I-I saw them go towards the Hedge maze and-and we're supposed to follow but…" Stegan points to something behind me.
For a moment, my muscles tensed and spin around with my knife hand extending past my body. Only to find an enemy sticking to the protruding wall with five weird knives embedded in his chest.
"I-Is that a Sai? Jesus, am I dealing with Elektra?" I mutter under my breath before tilting my head in contemplation.
I drop my butter knife and grab the hilt of a sai, choosing the one sticking in the center of the man's chest. It's best not to destabilize the structure of the formation since, this way, the cops would be the one taking everything out and getting blood all over their uniforms.
I nod at the servants before heading west where the hedge maze lies, confident that the confounding routes would keep my mother safe from confused assassins for a brief period.
Keeping up a fast pace is intense on my degrading stamina and wound on my chest. Luckily, Bruce had prophetically trained that part of me in the four months, along with giving me tips and tricks when running on fumes.
Since I have unlimited energy at my disposal, I employ my lessons and lean into that untapped reserve.
'You know what? Since I can regenerate a deadly body wound into a deep cut in a few minutes… I can probably regenerate my fingers. But that would mean–Fuck me.'
I click my tongue as I calm my frayed nerves before stabbing the sai into the tips of my knuckles. Sharp as the jaws of a piranha, the blade slices through my fingers like melted butter.
Blood gushes out like a broken faucet and so does a finger, as my control over the blade is more amateurish than I expect it to be. The off-putting a weight of Sai messes up my balance because of the length of the blade, but given that I don't need to be surgical about this, I quickly slough off the parts of the skin without tearing off my pinky.
As usual, when there's blood, there's usually pain. With my tolerance for such isolated agony. it has gotten to the point that such pain is just an obnoxious, burning sensation.
Disregarding it is easy enough to do, especially when the maze comes into view. I recognize a few of them to be influential enough to appear as a guest star on a cable sitcom, which makes their floundering attempt to get away from the gunshots funnier.
"Hey, I saw you on cable–" Seeing how short she is, the D-list actress bumps into my shoulder and, with my strength, her body stumbles past me and crumples to the ground.
Before I can help her up, she shrieks in fright and disregards what little she has left as she crawls away from the maze. She's not the only one who has disregarded personal dignity, with many more screaming their eyes off in response to a series of gunshots emanating from the maze.
I check the progress on my fingers and notice that the wound is nearly closing up with four holes in the middle of each knuckle. By my estimate, I would have a finger sprout in about five to ten minutes.
'I should probably be an organ donor or a black market organ seller.'
I head towards the maze with a starting run, wielding the sai in a reverse grip and holding its bloodied blade against my forearm. There are nine entrances within the maze, two on each cardinal direction, with a secret tunnel created by my great, great-grandfather and great-grandfather to hide run-away slaves.
Although they were only able to technically use it for no more than four years before Lincoln abolished it, there were a lot of plantation owners who didn't accept the law and still ran after their 'property'.
'God, I bet the bastard's grandfather is rolling on his grave right now. From abolitionist to fucking capitalistic oligarch.'
I store my ridiculing thoughts away when I enter the maze, more so when I find two bodyguards being beaten to near death by an assassin clad in thick clothing. The assassin weaves his short, curved blade through the air like he's some kind of rhythmic gymnast, marking the bodyguard in a hundred shallow cuts and forcing him to bleed profusely while kicking around the other.
That was, of course, before I arrived. My hands are already on the ground as I kneel down and conjure a front-facing horizontal Black Line on the grass. Tracking the movements between the assassin and the bodyguards is easy enough when you find the pattern the assassin keeps repeating.
Within a few seconds, just enough time for the bleeding bodyguard to fall down unconscious, the assassin turns his attention towards the other one. Passing by them continuously, the throng of civilians have caused such blatant disregard for their environment.
Still, that gives me a leeway when he steps forward and his foot passes through the grass, having quickly conjured and activated another front-facing, horizontal Optic Leap.
"What the!?" He exclaims, distracting his attention from the bodyguard.
With his training, only the assassin's foot up to half his lower leg emerges through the main portal, but that is enough for me to work with as I swing my sai and cut through tendons, muscle, and bones.
While I cut through his leg, his scream cuts through the crowd before I, too, scream at the bodyguard. "Fucking snap his neck!" I shout to remove him from his surprise.
The shout does wonders to the guard as he grabs the assassin's head and snaps his neck as if he was twisting a chicken leg. I close the portal as soon as the assassin falls down to the ground, dead.
"God, did Olgar only hire brutes?" I snap my fingers to get his attention as I ask him a rhetorical question, only to be met by an ashamed expression. "Have you seen Olgar? Or my mother, by any chance?"
"Thank you for saving me." He says first before trudging towards his companion while he answers, "We were supposed to guard this exit because they might find their way inside of the maze. That all went to hell because of the explosion guy and Superman."
"Goo-Wait, what? Superman?" As if answering my question, a blast of wind ruffles the grass and vines that carpets the maze and floor. I look up to see, evading a streak of smoke and fire, Superman in all his glory and he's fighting an armored individual that continuously fires off incendiary devices.
Superman tears through the sound barrier just to evade the flames of the explosion, only attacking whenever the armored man changes the color of his gun from crimson red to cerulean blue.
"Wait? That's…" The big, blue boy scout dances around the electric beam being shot out by the armored man, yet a hint of doubt creeps up my heart. "That's not… Oh, J'onn!" I chuckle at 'Superman', startling the bodyguard.
"Let's go, kid!" The bodyguard wraps the unconscious one's arm over his neck and hurries me along.
"Nah. I'm gonna go inside." I shake my head, walking further. "Do me a favor. Ask the police for Lieutenant Gordon. Tell him to enter the maze on Batman's orders."
"I, ugh, fine. Your death." He scoffs exasperatedly before trudging out of the maze.
"Jesus. Saved his life and we're paying him top dollar. What a guy." I chuckle at the man's actions and head inwards.
The throng of people evacuating from the increasing rate of gunfire lessens as I weave through patches of dry leaves and dead bodies, most of which are either the newest members of my household's bodyguards or limbless civilians that might have stood in the way of the assassins and were killed for it.
If not for my determination to find my mother, then I would long have been vomiting what little remains of my lunch and breakfast. Sure, I've been on the receiving end of violence and blood for the last half a year, but the state with which the two warring factions have left their enemies is still too much for my taste.
Maybe they were emboldened by the sheer brutality of their leaders, or maybe this was part of their training. Either way, the assassins are combing through every single one without a care for their identity or situation, which proves unhealthy for my mind.
A seemingly innocuous turn on the maze leads me to a scene of a bendy skirmish with an assassin and…
"Robin?" My voice startles the two as I eye Richard Grayson's crimson suit and orange tablecloth mask fighting against the assassin.
To my utter surprise and, frankly, I should not have been. The assassin can't even hit the Boy Wonder with his Katana. My words, however, give the assassin his chance and thrusts the blade forward, which Robin barely evades with a quick yet graceful pirouette.
Not wanting to be left alone, I open a secondary Optic Leap behind the assassin and pass through it–feet first. My soles smashes against his back, sending him tumbling forward with an angry gasp.
He swings his blade back towards me, but I duck underneath its path before rolling in the northwest direction. With his arm blade sticking out and his side unguarded, I tighten my grip of the sai and pierce his ribs and kidney.
Robin jumps above me, using my shoulders as another landing pad, and smashes his soles into the assassin's face. The assassin flies briefly off the ground before falling to the floor, blood now pouring out his gaping side wound.
The assassin is still conscious, but not for long, as Robin and I kick him in alternating waves. I tend to hit below the waist, more on gonads, shins, and ankles, while Robin mostly hits the jaw and his ribs.
"Dude!" Robin exclaims.
"Dude." I state calmly before I offer my hand, which he accepts, and we do a Predator handshake.
"Dude!" We exclaim at the same time.
"You think you can help me find my mom?" I ask, knowing he'll answer with…
"You don't even have to ask!" He cracks his knuckles and nudges his head towards the inner part of the hedge maze, but before we can walk a few meters away, he stops me and says. "But, man, we need to get you a mask or… new clothes."
I chuckle, scanning my bloodied suit and shrug with willful apathy. "I'll take the mask."
Robin jogs over the assassin and takes off the man's mask, revealing his scarred face and broken jaw. He throws the mask back to me while he loots the unconscious body.
It's full of sweat but I still put it on and remove my shirt and pants, leaving me in my boxer shorts and sleeveless shirt. With a black full-head mask on, I look like a perverted ninja–
"You look like a pervert ninja." Case in point, but neither Robin's words nor my sense of reliance are enough to stop what I'm doing.
I strip the assassin of his top clothing and find it too big for me. Thankfully, there's a sash that I can tie into a loop which will help fit it to my form.
"So… a slightly pervert ninja." Robin remarks yet again.
"Shut up and take your ninja stars." I sneer at him and run towards the center of the maze, with Robin following suit.
"It's called a Shuriken." He says.
'What a nerd.'
•••
*Olgar Vulitnaya (POV)*
Nothing is more fun than a gun fight, especially if the combatants are a mythical group feared for their ruthless decisiveness and violent predisposition. That is, of course, not the main reason they are feared amongst even my peers.
"Do you know what?" I ask the assassin, who is trying to stop the bleeding from his torn off left arm. "It's because even if somebody knows you guys exist… nobody would dare tell. You are an enigma, one feared even amongst the monsters of old."
Seeing as he won't answer, I aim the pistol at his head and put a gaping hole in the middle of it. If my guess is right, then the Old Man in the Mountain willingly sacrifices hundreds of grunts like this per year, another reason nobody wants to fuck with the League.
I grunt at my crew, all of which are muscle heads and strongman that can't get a job. While I have been the head of security and would have preferred the use of 21st century weapon technology with former military guys, Giuseppe has superseded my authority and hired a three dozen or so of these freaks purely for PR purposes.
That choice now leads to a bloodbath with no more than seven of the original thirty or so bodyguards still alive and breathing; Some of them barely alive at this point.
"Split up and form a defensive position." I order them to move on.
I can easily hear the fight between the League and the bodyguards of the Chinese diplomat with just one wall of hedge between the fight and us. From the traces of entrails and limbs that paint the surrounding greenery, there's a great chance that the diplomat is close to being captured or killed by the assassins.
'And we still don't know why they're here.'
The men line up against the green wall, slightly crouched down as if that will help their hulking form from not being seen. I hold back my groan before cracking my neck and walking forward.
Since the Wayne brat left me earlier to grab his other suit and time is of the essence, I run forward and enter the battlefield. The act startles my goons, but they follow me soon enough with a war cry of their own.
A hail of gunfire erupts from our side, hitting the unsuspecting assassins that guard the rear of their group. When four assassins die from the bullets, the rest of their comrades take caution from our arrival as a familiar figure faces us.
The green-robed woman with a cat mask orders the rear assassins as she wields her heavy Katana behind her when she rushes forward. Knowing that my man is heavily outgunned and outmatched, I do what was expected of me and what I do best.
"Pair up. Don't die until you take one down." I roar, hyping them up before leaping forward to meet the green-robed woman.
Sparks fly out of our initial clash, her Katana meeting the braces of my metal forearm. Unlike her blade, my forearm's material is strong enough not to dent and chip.
Unlike my left forearm, however, she has two weapons which she uses to slice my head in half. I evade, of course, rolling to the side and untangling ourselves from the initial clash.
Much like the reporter back in the manor, she wields the heavy blade with precision and ease. Targeting my legs with low swings before executing heavy blows in an upward swing, only to find my body is as quick as my wit.
I lean back from the last swing, backhanding the flat side of the blade with one hand while smashing the bottom of my steel palm on the center of her mask. The mask cracks, parting down in two portions with the leftmost crack breaking off from the rest.
Her left jaw is revealed to me as blood runs through her soft, fair skin. A scar that extends past the crack runs along the edges of her jawbone and up behind her ears.
The blow disorients her for a brief moment, but the League must be putting her under intense situational training because her movements shift into a defensive trance. My fists strikes go through a few times, forcing her into a dangerous defensive position even after the palm strike's disorientation has ended.
That bit of reprieve from the blades is short, however, as soon, more assassins emerge from the center of the maze and reinforce their rear comrades. This causes the green-robed woman to be more aggressive in her fighting style, aiming for precise, lethal swipes rather than her usual heavy swings.
Her desperation comes through her attacks, more so when she sacrifices her elbow joint to be crushed by my hand just so she can pierce the rightmost portion of my chest.
I push her away, twisting her powdered elbow to elicit any kind of negative sensation. But fuck me sideways and on the curb. I don't even hear a grunt comes out of her mouth as I skid and stumble backwards.
I growl at her as he discards her other sword while I press on the gaping wound on below my shoulder, "Why do fuckers always go for my arm, huh? Is this some kind of assassin hat trick?"
The green-robed woman does not answer and merely rushes forward in a bid to finish me off. I ask myself why and that much is obvious; we're blocking the only exit to the central area of the maze. Even if there are eight main exits, only this path leads to the center.
Since my arm was fucked up, I used that to parry her blade. Well, not parry. I used my forearm to stop the blade by letting it get split in half.
The action seizes the woman in surprise, which I used to jab a metal finger into her eyehole. My middle finger pierces through her cornea and into her optic membrane before I scrape out her eyeball and crack the bone below her eye.
Her screams delights me and even more so when I raise my foot and kick her in the chest, sending her tumbling down to the ground and away from me. Before I can rest from the fight, three more assassins take her place.
The three reminds me of my early days on the Block, breaking bones and washing blood off of cement and wooden boards with nothing on us but a broken mop and a toothless brush. Just like us, the three's proficiency in combat leaves much to be desired, but their teamwork proves an effective counterbalance. Since I only have one viable arm left, I do what I do best.
Every muscle in my body suddenly expands, veins that are normally behind my sack of flesh now pulse in visibility. My roar startles the three assassins as my hulking form lunges at one of them with quick ferocity.
I slam my mauled arm at him and grip fingers around his neck, knowing that the assassin will stab it with his weapon. He does so and sprays blood all over him, which allows me to break the arm that handles the blade before slamming his head onto the ground.
His neck breaks from the force, enraging the other two and forcing them to attack me. But before they do a fuck-ass job of killing me with my back turned, a tank burst out of a hedge wall. The dark tank-like vehicle slams through half a dozen assassins before parking its rolling irons next to me.
My hulking form recedes back to its original size, but the reddening of my skin and globule-sized veins does not. With the two assassins confused about the sudden appearance of the tank, I take the opportunity to completely break off the arm that is hanging by a loose thread of flesh and fling it at one assassin while I grab onto the other and cave-in his skull by smashing it against my metal fist and the ground.
My arm flops onto the assassin's face with blood and muscle sinew spraying onto his body. Apparently, even that kind of grotesque sequence does not have any kind of external emotion.
The assassin rushes forward, only to be hit by the tank and sent flying into a hedge wall. The door to the tank opens up, revealing the Bat in a worse form than I've seen him.
He looks at me, briefly stopping to scrutinize the faucet of blood pumping out of my left shoulder before barking an order.
"Get in. And don't get blood on my leather chair."
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