The room stank of cigar smoke and cheap cologne, a haze clinging to the overhead light fixtures and cutting through the warmth of the single portable heater in the corner. The crimelord’s men leaned against the walls with their rifles, relaxed but posturing, showing him they were ready to draw if things soured. A scarred wooden table sat between the crimelord and Etrius, its surface cluttered with half-empty glasses, an ashtray brimming with butts, and a single folder of forged manifests.
Etrius had come in without weapons, only the dog tags around his neck, the black cargo pants, and his plate carrier over bare fur. He looked calm, composed, posture straight, his green eyes fixed steadily across the table.
The crimelord leaned back in his chair, one gold ringed hand stroking his trimmed beard. “I’ll be blunt, soldier. I don’t like the SCDF nosing into my affairs. You people act like you run the whole city, but you don’t own this district.”
Etrius spoke evenly, his voice low, the weight of authority in every syllable. “We’re not here to dismantle you. If you comply with the SCDF’s request, you can continue operating. Keep your markets open, keep your crews working. We’re not interested in closing your doors. What we want is a cut of the traffic, your guns move where we say, your drugs move under inspection, and you stop running hits in SCDF territory.”
The crimelord narrowed his eyes. “So you want tribute.”
“Call it stability,” Etrius said. He didn’t blink. “We give you legitimacy. You stop having to look over your shoulder for raids. You stop losing men in pointless turf wars. In exchange, you obey restrictions. You run your business, but under rules.”
The crimelord scoffed and gestured at his men. “You think rules apply here? You think my people will respect me if I bow to yours? They’ll smell weakness the moment I agree.”
“That’s your problem,” Etrius replied. “But if you don’t bend, you’ll break. And once you break, I guarantee someone else will take your place. The SCDF isn’t here to negotiate who runs things. We’re here to make sure it runs on our terms.”
One of the bodyguards shifted his stance, raising his rifle slightly, but the crimelord waved him off. “You speak well, soldier. Calm. Professional. But I can’t help but notice your friend hasn’t shown her face yet. The one who leaves piles of bodies in her wake.”
“She’s nearby,” Etrius said. He leaned forward, resting both clawed hands on the table, his voice sharpening. “But you don’t want her here. Trust me. She’s the hammer. I’m offering you the pen. Take the deal while it’s on the table.”
For a moment, the room went quiet except for the hum of the heater. The crimelord stared at him, weighing the offer. Then his lips curled into a grin. “I don’t take deals from freaks.”
His hand dipped under the table.
The report of the pistol cracked through the room like thunder. The round struck Etrius high in the forehead, just above the left eye. His head snapped back, but he didn’t fall. A dark spray of viscous, black-oily fluid splattered across the table, staining the folder and dripping onto the wood.
The bodyguards froze, watching. The crimelord’s grin faltered as Etrius straightened again, slowly wiping the blood from his face with the back of one claw. The wound had already closed into a shallow, glistening groove in the fur. His green eyes locked back onto the crimelord with the same cold steadiness as before.
“You just made a mistake,” Etrius said flatly.
And that was the cue.
The steel door at the back of the chamber groaned open, heavy hinges protesting. Zoey stepped through, her tall frame filling the doorway, red fur glinting in the dim light, thin exploration suit stretched across her bulk. The amber of her eyes cut through the smoke. She didn’t need to raise her voice.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Zoey said, calm but venomous. “The easy way puts you in jail. The hard way puts you in the ground.”
The air went brittle. Men at the walls tightened grips on their rifles, the metallic creak of springs and bolts filling the silence. The crimelord still had his pistol half-raised, finger poised, knuckles white. Etrius hadn’t moved an inch, save for the slow rise and fall of his chest. Zoey’s presence at the door was weight enough; the room felt smaller with her inside it.
Nobody fired. Not yet.
Etrius spoke first, voice even but carrying a sharpened edge now. “That’s the only warning shot you’ll ever get. You had your chance to deal. You can still salvage what’s left, or you can dig your own grave right here.”
The crimelord’s face twitched, uncertainty flickering at the edges. He flicked his gaze from Etrius’s unbroken stare to Zoey’s towering figure. “You think you can walk in here, dictate terms, and scare me into surrender? I run this city block by block. My men-”
Zoey cut him off, her voice flat, deadly serious. “Your men are already planning how to run when this starts. They’re not stupid. They know what we are.” She tilted her head slightly, eyes scanning the room. “So the question is… do you want to leave them corpses, or do you want to keep them on payroll?”
A few of the guards shifted, the barrel of one rifle dipping just slightly. The crimelord noticed. His teeth ground together.
“You think you can threaten me in my own house?” he spat, slamming the pistol flat on the table. The impact rattled the glasses, ash scattering across the wood. “You’re not gods. You bleed. You burn. You die like the rest of us.”
Black blood still streaked down Etrius’s muzzle, staining the fur at his jaw. He leaned forward slowly, until the table creaked under his weight. “Try me.”
That tiny moment - the scrape of chair legs as one guard shifted his weight, the pistol lying on the table, Zoey’s shoulders rolling as she stepped fully into the room - was the last chance the crimelord had to back down. He didn’t take it.
“Kill them,” he snapped.
The rifles came up in unison.
Zoey moved first.
The first rifle cracked before the order finished leaving the crimelord’s mouth. The round tore across the room toward Etrius, but his head snapped sideways, digitigrade legs driving him off the line before the bullet struck. His claws raked across the edge of the table, knocking the heavy oak slab on its side into the gunman’s line of fire. The shot chewed into the wood, splinters spraying.
Zoey was already moving. Her bulk blurred forward, one hand snatching the barrel of a second guard’s rifle mid-raise. The tungsten-carbide prosthetics clamped down with unstoppable force. Metal groaned, the barrel flattened like tin, and then her other fist smashed across the guard’s face. His jaw snapped sideways with a wet crack, teeth spraying across the wall as his body collapsed bonelessly to the floor.
Etrius vaulted the table in a single motion, claws extended. He landed atop the first gunman, the full weight of his tungsten frame driving the man down. Ribs broke audibly beneath the impact. His left hand clamped on the man’s throat, claws punching through muscle, the right hand tearing the rifle free. One smooth twist of his wrist snapped the man’s neck. Black blood still dripped from his forehead, slicking his fur, but his eyes burned cold and clear.
Another guard panicked, muzzle flashing in staccato bursts toward Zoey. The rounds hammered her torso, cracking through furniture, punching divots into the exploration suit’s composite weave. She didn’t stop. Her massive hand swept through the hail of fire, caught the rifle mid-barrel, and ripped it from the shooter’s grip. A knee drove up into his gut with freight-train force. His spine bent around the blow, vomit and bile spraying from his mouth as he folded. Zoey shoved him backward, boot slamming into his sternum as he hit the floor. The sound of ribs collapsing under the pressure filled the air.
The crimelord was screaming now, scrabbling for the pistol he’d slammed onto the table. He snatched it up, hand shaking, and fired twice more at Etrius point blank. One round flattened against his plate carrier. The other smacked into his tungsten jaw, sending another spray of black fluid across the wood. Etrius turned his head back slowly, almost deliberately, claws dripping red from the body beneath him.
Then he lunged.
The table went flying as Etrius’s full mass hit it, claws scything downward. The crimelord tried to bring the pistol up again, but the blow smashed it aside. Claws raked down his arm, flesh and tendons parting in ribbons. The pistol fell, clattering across the floor, slicked in blood. The crimelord screamed, backing against the chair, crimson spraying in arcs across the smoke-stained walls.
Behind them, Zoey tore through another pair of gunmen. One she disarmed with a simple crush of his rifle’s receiver, repeatedly smashing the warped lump of steel across his temple until his skull fractured open like plaster. The other tried to swing a machete in close, but she caught his wrist in her iron grip. The bones snapped like twigs, blade dropping to the floor, and she shoved her prosthetic hand through his chest. Blood fountained from his mouth as her claws tore through lung and spine. She flung the body aside, leaving it to twitch on the carpet.
The heater tipped in the chaos, flames licking at the pile of discarded papers and cigar butts. The room filled with acrid smoke.
The crimelord was cornered now, scrambling backward on his knees, arm hanging in tatters. Etrius loomed over him, claws dripping black-and-red, chest heaving.
“You could have walked away,” Etrius said, voice low, steady.
Zoey stepped up beside him, her amber eyes fixed on the broken figure. Her muzzle curled into a grin, tongue flicking against her teeth. “Too late for that.”
She picked up the crimelord's handgun and shot him twice in the head, his blood splattering on the floor as his body slumped.
Etrius turned and walked for the door. Zoey followed, slamming the steel door shut behind her.
-
The SCDF briefing room was clean, sterile, and almost too bright after the smoke-stained chaos of the den. Stainless steel walls reflected the overhead fluorescents, and a heavy projector hummed in the center of the table. A pair of officers sat across from Etrius and Zoey, flanked by a clerk tapping notes into a console.
Etrius sat upright, dog tags resting against his bare chest, fresh bandages over his forehead and jaw. He’d put on a clean black jacket but left it unzipped, his plate carrier lying across the table like a discarded shell. His expression was calm, neutral, eyes locked forward.
Zoey, on the other hand, leaned back in her chair, boots kicked up onto the corner of the table. Her exploration suit was still dusted in ash, faint scorch marks streaking across her chest. She had a half-empty can of energy drink in her hand, condensation dripping onto the polished steel.
The senior officer, a lean man with tired eyes, folded his hands. “Report.”
Etrius’s voice was steady, formal. “Negotiations failed. Target refused compliance. Violence escalated. Crimelord deceased, primary facility compromised, all hostiles neutralized.”
The officer raised an eyebrow. “Failure, then. No agreement, no compliance, asset dead.”
“Correct,” Etrius said. He didn’t blink. “Objective was not achieved.”
Zoey took a long pull from the can, burped softly, and grinned. “Correction. Objective achieved. Crimelord’s dead. Problem solved. No one left to run his rackets. That’s success where I come from.”
The clerk hesitated at the console, glancing between them before typing both answers into the log.
The second officer, a woman with a scar running down her cheek, leaned forward. “So which is it? Failure or success?”
Etrius clasped his hands on the table. “Failure in diplomacy. Success in elimination. Decide which you wanted more before sending us next time.”
Zoey smirked, tail curling lazily behind her chair. “Yeah. If you want clean deals, send him.” She jabbed a clawed finger toward Etrius. “If you want the trash taken out, send me. Or send both, and watch it all go to hell and get wrapped up in one night.”
The senior officer exhaled slowly, rubbing his temples. “God help this city.”
Zoey laughed, crushing the can in one hand and tossing it onto the table. “God left this city a long time ago.”
Etrius stood, sliding his plate carrier back over one arm. “Debrief concluded?”
The officer nodded stiffly.
“Then we’re done here,” Etrius said.
Zoey rose with him, slapping his shoulder hard enough to rattle the dog tags. “C’mon, partner. Drinks are on me tonight. I wanna celebrate our success.”
Etrius didn’t respond. He just walked for the door, calm, deliberate, leaving a faint smear of black blood on the edge of the chair as he passed. Zoey followed, still grinning.
Behind them, the officers sat in silence, the word “success” and “failure” both glowing on the console screen, unresolved.
No comments:
Post a Comment