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Commissioned Story: Fang, Part 6
🕑 Added 2022-10-28 00:12:40 +0000 UTCThirty minutes. That was all it had taken. In no time at all it seemed, all the world had changed and seemingly come crashing down around the major players of this story, drawn finally to its rightful close. All there was left was the telling.
Sam had been abducted from the Fang Gym, stuffed in the back of a car with a gag in his mouth and blindfold over his eyes, fresh bruises laid over the old, and transported across town to the lair of his tormentor. The thugs had wasted no time in shoving him along, still blind, along echoing hallways and up rickety stairs into a drab, dark, musty-smelling room, before forcing him into a padded chair. Then, dramatically, the devices were ripped from his vision and mouth, if only to blind him once again, temporarily, with a spotlight on his face, and his hands bound to the chair in his moment of confusion.
By the time he was returned to his wits enough to peer through watering eyes at his new surroundings, he was too bound and shackled to fight back. He stared across a dimly lit room, over a polished desk too fine for this dismal place, at a grim, haughty, and smugly satisfied man in tailored suit and tie reclining in an even more ostentatiously padded seat than his own. A polished crystal glass of some drink swirled in his ring-clad hand, and a great three-ring notebook was set before him.
They were not alone in that room, however, half a dozen thugs of varying species among Human and Anthro were littered about the room. But the eyes, silver shining, that Sam expected to see, the one who had led his attackers into his store, allowed them to bludgeon and beat him, then dressed his wounds in his bleary state, only to return to the gym to take him once again, they were not here. He could remember now, more than ever, the reticent reluctance the Lynx Anthro had shown when forced to be around him in the gym, although he had not been aware, all those weeks ago, of whom they owed their true allegiance to. They had given away nothing until the night they showed up at his store, and to his knowledge had been among one of Nemea's limited cadre of closest and trusted friends.
Nemea. His mind flashed to her and part of him wanted to weep, knowing that the seldom seen but genuine kindness and warmth of those emerald-ice eyes would never look upon him again. He knew that real life was not like the comic books and graphic novels that he peddled; no avenging angel would be coming for him, no superhero could swing in dramatically and deliver justice and vengeance upon those who had been his oppressors and tormentors for so long after having moved to the city.
Everyone else had been afraid to dare to cross this man who sipped at his drink idly, and perhaps in his bravado or stubbornness blinding reason, Sam Raife had defied him regardless of the risk. He regretted none of it in truth, no matter how they had and most likely would continue to hurt him, using whatever was left of him after as just another lesson to the downtrodden victims of their extortion racket, but he did regret getting Nemea involved. Hers was a broken and sheltered heart, bereft by old pain and suffering from times of war and loss, and if he could have he would have spared her this newest of agonies in knowing she would likely never see him again, other than perhaps in the news as just another body fished out of the water maybe in a few months.
A deep chuckle disturbed his miserable ponderings and the man in the suit, Vinny Obersteer, mafioso and crimeboss, sat up straighter in his chair. "Nice to finally meet you," he drawled in a thick accent full of smugness and charm-wrapped malice. He flicked the notebook before him open, displaying the upside-down view of multiple rows of what looked like a ledger to Sam's watering eyes behind his glasses. The thugs had been kind enough to let him keep them, although more likely it had been an oversight, grabbed right before they fell upon him earlier. "Mr. Raife."
"I can't say likewise," Sam grumbled, matching the man stare for stare. "You're every bit as slimy as I always imagined you would be." He glanced down the man's face a bit and then back up to those crisp, unfriendly eyes that save for sadism's sake, were soon to order his demise. "You even have the shitty little goatee."
The room stirred and many eyes flashed toward their boss. Rather than rise to the insult, Vinny Obersteer merely laughed. "Well you know what they say," he guffawed in that tone of voice of a man holding four kings to someone else's single pair. "If you're going to be a bastard, might as well denounce your father."
Sam narrowed his eyes, furrowing his face in a bewildered expression and did not return the laugh that Obersteer's thugs all echoed. "Who says that?" he demanded over the uproar, which fell away quickly from how forced and false it really was. "Like, who in their entire lives has ever said that? I sell comic books, and even then that's a load of pretentious crap, not to mention the edgiest line I've ever heard."
Vinny's grin dropped and he whipped his eyes over to one of his men who had dared to let out a single snort of amusement at Sam's words. Then he took another sip from his drink and he returned to smiling coolly across at his prisoner. "You've got spunk, kid," he drawled. "Fitting, since all you've done since you moved here to our little neighborhood of such giving folks is cause trouble. You remind me of this one kid I grew up with, going around kicking anthills. Shame of the thing, he screamed when finally one of them turned out to be fire-ants."
"Yeah, and you're probably the kind of kid who would put honey in people's shoes to get them stung," Sam spat back.
The mob-boss' eyes lit up and he actually smiled more. "Now see, that there is a stroke of utter malicious genius I wish I'd thought of back then!" He tipped his glass to Sam. "Ordinarily I'd tip my hat to you, if I wore one, and chat with y'all a while longer, but I'm a busy man." He dropped the friendly guise and became suddenly all business. "And you've cost me quite a bit as of late, Mr. Raife. Samuel. Can I call you Sam? Sammy? Samwise?"
Sam wanted to cut back at the man but he saw no point. He just sat and stared angrily at the well-dressed, sleazy man and allowed his barbed jests to glide past him.
Noticing that his tactics of baiting and taunts weren't working, Vinny glared a bit more openly and slammed back the rest of his drink before he placed the thick tumblr down on the polished surface of his desk. "Alrighty then, kid," he grumbled. "Y'all don't wanna play along and want to just cut to the chase, I suppose I'll oblige. Now I could go on, and on, about how I'm gonna take a pound of flesh outta ya for all the trouble you've caused for me, or how every offense I have detailed in my books are gonna be a finger apiece..." Then he smiled, and despite Sam's anger and despair, he felt genuine horror at the look on his face. "But I think we both don't have the time for that. So."
Vinny Obersteer leaned back in his chair, reached into his desk, and pulled out the gleam of a large caliber revolver. He placed it on his desk, facing Sam, and steepled his ringed fingers above it. Sam and the rest of the men in the room stared silently as whatever evil wheels turned and clicked in Vinny's head for a long few seconds.
"See, I could just easily shoot you," he began. He whipped up the gun and aimed it steadily at Sam's face. At this range, only the world's worst marksman could miss, and Sam doubted that he would be so cockily boasting and flaunting the weapon if that were the case. Besides, even a glancing shot from a weapon that powerful would be lethal with him unable to dodge at all. Then the weapon lowered once again. "But I do hate cleaning up blood in my office; takes forever you know, and then my office chair would have a big ol' ugly hole in it. Chair like that costs more than most of your neighborhood's rent, and it really helps class up this ol' place."
Sam let out a shaky breath he hadn't been aware he had been holding but he still had no illusions that he was just suddenly going to be let off or allowed to go, or that some equally horrible fate was being spared of him. All there was to do was sit silently and stare at the gloating mafioso as whatever he was eluding or building up to was eventually to come to pass. Even so, he trembled at the idea of death being so close, knowing it was unavoidable.
"So, I figure," he continued. "I'll let you in on what else is gonna happen around here, because what's a villain without a bit of monologuing?" Then Vinny leaned back and plucked up a cigar from a holster nearby. A thug moved forward to light it for his boss and Obersteer puffed on its acrid length. The smell of it was nauseating and the Anthros around the room noticeably curled their lips and ears going flat against their skulls as their overly sensitive senses were overwhelmed. "Care to know what I'm gonna do next after our little business concludes?"
"Frankly, no," Sam grunted. "Because you're gonna continue being as shitty as you were since I first heard about you. Except, I'm gonna make a prediction."
"Oh, a prediction!" laughed Vinny and he leaned forward as eagerly as a child on Christmas about to be given a surprise gift. "Got a right Oracle up in here!"
"Uhhh..." rumbled one of his men from the side, disturbing the dynamic of the two's conversation. "What's an... Oracle, boss?"
Vinny looked at the man sideways out of the corner of his flinty eyes. "A seer. Someone who makes predictions and they come true."
"Like a psychic?" another asked.
"No, not like a goddamn psychic," Vinny growled. "Would y'all just...go? You're ruining this for me."
The thugs were only too happy to do so, the Anthros first out of the room. Even as the door closed, there was an intense round of muted coughing from outside. Oberster returned his attention to Sam and gestured for him to continue.
"Eventually," Sam shrugged, settling back into the seat as comfortably as he could given the circumstances. "You're gonna make the huge mistake of crossing a line you shouldn't have. Someone will take you down, and drag you across your own office like trash to dispose of you like you should have been years ago. This is not your city, Obersteer."
"Well now, now who's got a touch of the dramatic and edgy?" the boss sneered in a chuckle, taking another puff on the foul cigar. "And it'll most likely be...who? Who's gonna drag me out like trash? The Police?" he pointed a hand at a detailed picture on the wall, framed in silver, showing himself and a uniformed man in the local police at some high-class function. "I've got the Chief of them in my pocket, have for a while. Or maybe you mean the owner of that run-down Gym my Enforcer found you in? She won't be an issue after today either, and even if somehow she tries to cause me a problem..." Vinny settled back into his chair as Sam had done. "I'll have that sorted out too."
Sam's self control burst its cool bindings and he strained against the actual ones keeping him tied to the chair. "If you hurt Nemea, I swear to the Spirits and God and whoever I need to that you'll pay!" he snarled.
A gleam came to Vinny's eyes and he laid a hand possessively over the gun on top of his ledger. "Fancy words, kid, but power's power in this world. Your little ex-military spook girlfriend could have had it. I offered her a stake in the territory, a seat at the table, and she denied me. But if you want to hammer in that nail, oh I'll do you something special in regards to her. My enforcer stayed behind to make sure she was handled. I won't be surprised if that Gym doesn't have some electrical accident...and end up on the news. Another burnt down old building...lot of that happening lately."
Sam's teeth gnashed and he raged impotently against his cuffs, but halted as the revolver lifted once more. He froze as the muzzle came slowly to point right at him. All the rage in the world, all the comic books and fantasization of his youth of imagining being in the place of so many of his fantasy icons, unflinching at the confrontation of their own demise; all of it did not help how deeply scared Sam was right then. He wasn't ashamed, who could blame him really? But he was scared, and Obersteer knew it.
"See, that's power," Vinny continued, thumbing the hammer back with a heavy click. "I can do whatever I want here, and no comic book geek, or giant-sized gymrat vet is gonna have a thing to say about it..." His eyes gleamed coldly and he aimed solidly at Sam's face. "Forget the cleaning bill, I think this'll be worth it. Game over, kid."
Just before the trigger fell, Sam steeling himself to make one last desperate attempt to throw the chair to the side and dodge literally death itself staring down the muzzle of the revolver before him, there came a sudden, rapid knock on the door.
"What?!" Vinny raged, abruptly slamming the gun down to his desk. Sam was surprised it didn't go off right then and there. "None of y'all can give me five minutes time to do a damn thing around here!"
"Uhh, boss?" the clueless guard from before muttered through the door, sounding shaken. "We got a problem."
"And I got a fucking problem that none of y'all know what dramatic timing is!" Obersteer swore. Then he paused for a meaningful second and finally snapped out, "This better be good."
The door opened and the man hurried inside, carrying a laptop. Wasting no time, he flopped the device down on top of Vinny's ledger, clicking it open and turning the screen to face his boss. "This is the security camera feed from outside," he explained.
Vinny's sharp eyes flashed back and forth across whatever it was that he was seeing. "No," he growled out. "This is a blank ass fucking screen." He tapped on the keyboard loudly several times. "Congrats, Muller, you've successfully wasted my time. All I'm seeing is static. Bravo." There was a long pause. Then Vinny looked back at the screen. He tapped several more times. "All I'm seeing is static," he repeated, then his voice grew harsher. "Where's the goddamn feed?"
"Boss, that's what I'm trying to tell you!" Muller grunted out, sounding very worried. "It ain't working."
"It better be working," Obersteer snapped. "I dropped more than you or anyone else here is worth on that camera system. This crappy ass warehouse is as good of property as I could get on this side of the city and not have to answer a shitton of questions when we do business. Get someone to fix it. Flexly."
"Already tried that," continued Muller. "We sent Flexly and Burns out to check the box. Thought it was another rat or something, chewing through the wires. But..." then the man paused.
"But, what?" Obersteer demanded.
"They didn't...respond on radio. So we...uhh...tried to go see what happened and..." He then closed whatever window they had been looking at and pulled up another. Brighter light lit up Vinny's face from the screen and both men's eyes went wider. Slowly, very slowly, Vinny's eyes lifted to look across the room at a perplexed Sam. At a nod, Muller turned the laptop around and Sam's eyes peered across at the screen.
A pair of men hung, upside down from their ankles, in front of the view of another security camera feed, but this one looked like it was being shown from the inside of the warehouse itself. Both did not move more than occasional swaying, but across their black uniform sweaters were white words painted upside down so that they were legible on the hanging men.
"I'm. Coming." Sam read off silently.
A heavy thud, a crash from far away, and sounds of muffled shouting echoed from outside the office. Vinny glared up at Muller and nodded at the man's waist. From it the man drew a firearm and he hurried out of the room. In that space of time, the camera feed panned away on a rotating timer, and this time he saw another brace of men, laying over the railing of a catwalk and the other pinned by bent metal to a boiler.
Vinny rose from his chair and stalked around the room, glaring out of the multiple windows of his office at the darkened interior of his warehouse base. Muted flashes and distant barks of gunfire set both men's teeth on edge and yet Sam could not look away from the screen as it continued to pan across multiple camera viewpoints. This time he saw several men, one Anthro Bovine and two armed Humans, racing down a gangway towards the other end. Their weapons lifted and the Anthro roared silently in the feed as he closed with something just out of sight, a massive shadow that intercepted his charge and retaliated in a flash. The distant echoes of that same voice came and then abruptly cut off just as the camera flashed away to yet another view.
Four bound men, slumped over in the center of what looked like a meat processing room, heads bowed. "You're running out of men," read a large-handed message, written in black marker on a board set onto a wall behind them all, right before the feed cycled away. Vinny interrupted his silent viewing by hurrying over and bending down in Sam's way, staring avidly at the screen. Even from behind, Sam could see the tenseness of Obersteer's shoulders.
Another roar, this time of fear, came from a shrieking, high-pitched voice, echoing tinny all around the warehouse before it cut off with a grim finality. The mob boss whirled around and stared down at Sam, hate, fury, and fear lividly shining from his eyes. Gone was the haughty superiority, replaced by the same level of surprise as he himself was feeling. But whereas Vinny felt only horror from seeing the macabre messages being left around the establishment, seemingly in rapid combination, ruthless efficiency, and total seeming unobserved silence, Sam felt what could only be described as the beginnings of his own smugness coming to him.
The clock on the wall up above them ticked slowly away. It had only taken thirty minutes.
"Looks like I'm an Oracle after all," he smiled up at his captor. "Although, I admit, even I had no idea it would come true so fast."
"Shut up!" the boss snarled and he grabbed his gun off of his desk. The camera had by then cycled back around to the view of the walkway where the three guards had been about to close into combat with the hunter now stalking them. The Bovine from before was stretched out cold on the steel walkway, one horn missing from the side of his head, and the two Humans who had been with him were similarly disabled, one sitting against the wall nearest the camera and another visible only by his boots sticking up out of a metal trashcan.
"How many men did you have again?" Sam teased.
"I, said, shut, up!" Vinny rasped, and then the gun was level with Sam's face once more, and even his bravado was not so rash as to exacerbate the situation further with more taunts with the cold metal brushing his red hair. The mob boss licked his lips, assessing and plotting, scheming and deliberating, before he turned to the door and bellowed. "Muller!"
Silence.
"Muller!" Vinny screamed again, this time more frantic. As if right on queue, the camera feed buzzed away and revealed another message, drawn on a piece of metal using scratch marks as if by claws or a sharp metal device, faced the camera directly.
"Window," was all it said, if crudely and hard to decipher at first glance.
Both Sam and Obersteer jumped as something thudded on the window right outside the office, facing the harbor. Vinny turned and opened it, hands shaking, and there hung, upside down like his cohorts, a bloody-faced, senseless Muller, dangling from a cord wrapped around his ankles. The window where they were was on the second floor, however that was somehow possible to have arranged. Even Sam couldn't help a thrill of apprehension as the man who had just been in the room with them a few minutes ago now hung, seemingly lifeless, there before him and his captor.
That, it seemed, was enough for Obersteer. Savage jostling alerted Sam to movement beside him and then his chair was being spun to the side and his bindings undone by a rough and shaky hand. The gun was pushed flush with his temple and Vinny's hot breath stunk in his nose as he growled into his ear. "Move. You're coming with me."
Sam wanted to fight back, but even as he mustered up the courage to do so, Vinny abruptly punched him in the gutt, right where he had been injured and he doubled over with a groan. More echoes of gunfire and snarls from somewhere distant but closer than the others had been, made his blood run cold even as his breathing struggled to come back. Then his scalp seemed to catch on fire and he was hauled to his feet as Vinny began to drag him out of the office by his hair, revolver still pressed against him.
They came out onto the landing of a balcony overlooking the warehouse, where several armed goons were all huddling, eyes wild and staring around as frantically as their boss was. Into their arms he was abruptly shoved, his arms clamped to his sides. "Boss," hissed one of them, ironically a sinister-looking Serpent Anthro. He and another reptilian, a large and scar-covered Crocodile, were the biggest of the assembled half a dozen remaining goons, but seemed to be the ones in charge. "Far as we can tell, most of our men are down."
"So as I've gathered," Vinny snapped, but trying to make his voice as silent as he could. A heavy thumping and scuffling from all the way across the warehouse made everyone present jump, as did the rapid bark and flash of gunfire in that direction. Then there was an almighty crashing sound and men screamed in panic and pain. Vinny glared at Sam. "But so long as we have our little hostage here, we can get out of here."
"Who or what the hell is it?!" gibbered one of the Human men, but not one of the two currently holding Sam's arms locked back behind his head.
"...Fang..." growled the Croc then, harsh voice a soft utterance as if voicing a curse or a prayer. "Heard she was in the area..."
"What the fuck is a Fang?" the same man asked.
The Croc turned and loomed over the assembled humans, baring his long rows of sharp fangs in a grim smile. "The reason I'm getting one hell of a bonus from you, Boss, once I deal with her. These Humes you got working for you are useless muscle."
"Again, so I gather," Vinny growled at the huge thug. "Fine. Take care of it while we exit out the back. Name your price after that."
"Price," chuckled the Anthro and there was a dangerous, red gleam in his slitted eyes. "Such a Human concept...I'll take the prestige. One predator taking down another. Our Kind have grown too soft living among you soft-skinned Humes."
The Serpent chuckled nearby and Sam's eyes darted up towards him as well. "I'll enjoy putting flowers on your grave, Topang," he hissed in a mocking voice. "I've got no such death wish," he told Vinny immediately. "But I'll expect adequate compensation for tonight as well."
"I do not care what you want after," Obersteer grumbled, flinching as did several others as yet another loud clanging far off in the warehouse announced another occurrence of the silent, malevolent stalker of their home-base. "But you and the rest of you clowns, down the stairs, out the back doors, and then we circle around the building to the front. Krule, you get the keys and bring the van from the garage to meet us. Topang, handle this intruder."
The Croc snarled and reached into his pockets to extract a pair of wicked, bladed knuckle-dusters which he fit over his scaly, scarred paws. Sam was jerked out of sight just as the Croc vaulted over the railing and descended back down into the warehouse, landing with an audible thud while he, Vinny, and the rest of the goons hurried down another flight of stairs and headed towards a set of double doors at the rear of the building. A rush of fear had his limbs almost stiff and thus he was more or less dragged along by the men holding him.
Their going was a slow one once they reached the stiff, bracing chill of outside. Krule the serpent whisked away silently in another direction towards another smaller building with rollup garage doors further away. Wind rushed in over the water towards them, bringing with it the sour salt taste of the waves and the biting cold of night.
A gun was forced firmly into the small of his back by one of his jailers and he heard the man growl, "Don't even think about making a noise," before the entire group of eight humans began creeping around the outskirts of the warehouse, doubled over, and hidden from view of the massive warehouse windows set along the wall.
From inside came many more, now muted, clanging, scuffling, shouting, and yet more flashes of gunfire whose barking retorts had the whole area echoing with their grim sounds. Sam's nerves were on edge, perhaps worse than any of the men forcing him along. When they paused at an especially loud crash, Sam dared to peek over the edge of one of the windows. It was pitch-black almost inside the darkened warehouse, but he thought he saw distant movement before he was violently yanked back down.
They kept going, arriving at the front of the building. The sounds from inside had grown louder somehow, gunfire replaced with those more reminiscent of a blacksmith's hammer striking an anvil repeatedly but unevenly, hooked up to loud speakers so that the din was deafening. Even as they all waited in anticipation, several thugs peering inside as Sam had done to see if they could spot anything of the melee going on, the rumble of an engine made them jump collectively. Screeching up to the curb where they were waiting, a large, solid-bodied van parked. The door on the side opened and Krule could be seen in the driver's seat, his tail retracting back to him.
Towards that vehicle, Sam was then shoved, the darkened interior like a coffin to him. He was barely six feet from the doors, trying to resist their forceful pushing, when abruptly all the sounds fell away into an ominous silence. Everyone froze stiff as they did, pausing where they stood and looking back at the warehouse. For a second, no one dared even to breathe.
"Do...you think Topang won?" one of the men asked.
Vinny whirled on his employee, glaring. "Now why did you have to ask it like that?" he asked, then stopped himself, blinking. "Wait, what am I worried about?" he then chuckled, to which his men seemed to take as a sign to relax. "This ain't some comic book movie." He grinned evilly at Sam. "Topang's a trained killer, less subtle, but killer nonetheless. I'll admit, your little girlfriend lasted longer than I thought, but..." he trailed off cruelly.
Sam didn't believe it, he couldn't believe it. He tore his eyes away from the mocking sneer of the crimeboss, looking up at the distant stars for what he was sure was going to be the last time. A shadow, high up above, disturbed a patch of them, and his eyes behind his glasses went wide.
"Suppose we just wait for Topang to get here," chuckled Vinny, reaching into his jacket for probably another cigar. "Anyone got a lighter?"
And at that exact moment, Topang did indeed arrive. There was a rushing of air, everyone pausing to try and pick out what it could be, and then, with an almighty smash, the Croc landed on the top of the van. Everyone ducked and fell back in shock, pieces of glass flying everywhere and cries of alarm, dismay, and utter surprise filling the parking lot.
The roof of the van caved down heavily beneath the weight of Topang, who lay flat on his armored back, unmoving. His heavy tail hung limply, and his scaly paws jerked spastically. From within the van, a heavy groan and hiss of pain came from the even more startled Krule. As everyone stared, dumbstruck, needling and peppered with tiny shards of glass, several of the thugs bleeding now and everyone blinking wide-eyed, the Croc Anthro stirred.
His scarred, ugly head lifted from its cavity on the top of the now destroyed van, and Topang growled out a heavy, pained sound. Obersteer's mouth hung open as his henchman rolled off the vehicle onto the ground, landing on all fours and trying furiously to shake off the impact. "W-what...happened..." Vinny asked in a tiny, squeaking voice that did not fit his macho image or drawling accent at all.
A heavy thud from behind them came at that moment. They as a group turned, slowly, as a shadow loomed above them all, blocking out the light of the moon and streetlight directly behind, like a giant from a fairy tale. Tactical black sweater and military pants clung to a titanic form that rippled from head to toe with thick fur billowing in the sea breeze. Exotic metal bracers were attached to snow-white and dappled arms that were bigger around than a light pole, leading up a massive frame to a sinister, black metal mask, shaped like a fanged feline skull. From inside the eyeholes, emerald ice glittered coldly down at the assembled humans and prone Crocodile.
Sam could barely believe what he was seeing, hope and awe surging inside of him even as terror descended among his captors. Nemea towered over them all, a heavy, rolling snarl building from within the tower of her chest. Her tight, sleeveless turtleneck sweater had several tears and holes in it, scrapes upon her armored mask and gauntlets, and the gleam of a pair of weapons protruded from holsters attached to her forearms. She looked like nothing short of breath-taking, awe-inspiring, and in the interests of the thugs and the still speechless Vinny Obersteer, nothing short than the personification of an Anthro avenging angel.
Then she spoke, and it was the harshest sound Sam had ever heard, setting ice deep inside of his heart even if he knew he was the only one here not in any danger. Or so he hoped anyway. The air virtually was rank with the harsh, acrid, subtle scent of pure, unrestrained Fury emanating from the towering Alpha Smilodon woman.
"Don't," was all she said. Immediately the thugs all around Sam, all worriedly half-reaching for their weapons at their waists, froze as if turned to ice by her rasping tone. They quivered in fear up at her, then turned as one to look back at their boss and the two still stunned Anthro enforcers. Her growl brought their attention squarely back onto her. "One chance. Run."
Sam's arms abruptly hung loosely at his side and he nearly toppled over onto the ground as he was suddenly freed from his captors' hold. Scuffling of boots on pavement came as the men broke and fled, accompanied only by the shrieking cry of their previous employer.
"Come back you cowards!" Obersteer screamed after them, then turned and reached for his own weapon. He drew it in a flash of moonlight on polished metal. "S-tay back!" he warned her.
Her eyes narrowed behind the armored mask. "That is a model e19 S. Ranger, full rotational clip, 50calibur, .5 inch solid rounds. Its main drawback is that for its power, the kickback is so severe for someone your size that you'll get one shot off at this range." Then another growl seemed to shake the very ground underneath Sam's feet. "And you can be sure, Obersteer, that you'll need far more than one bullet to put me down. By the time you've shot, my paw will have crushed your throat."
The threat hung almost physically in the air, as palpable in its intent and truth as the smell of her Aggression or the salty sea-spray coming in from over the bay. Vinny licked his lips nervously before he gritted his teeth. "Then I suppose I should make sure it counts then, shouldn't I?" And he leveled it up at her head, aiming for the eyesocket of her mask.
"You can try," she countered with, voice the deadliest calm Sam had ever heard, and it set his stomach to turn almost completely to ice. There was the voice of someone wholly comfortable with death, a stoic silence and acceptance of the weight of their life hanging in the balance. "This mask is resistant to arms fire, but perhaps you would get lucky. But there is the difference between us, Human." She leaned in more towards Vinny, towering over him and casting him completely in her shadow. "I'm not afraid to die...because I finally found the sun that shines through my winter twilight. I've felt warmth for the first time, and even brief, it is worth everything I can give to guarantee it shines after this night, even if our nights become forever more."
Sam realized a split second later, through her poetic words, that she meant him, not from any look, or any hint she might have given, but solely, completely, from her tone. His heart throbbed in agony and tears dotted his vision. "Nemea..." he heard himself whisper in a broken voice despite not wanting to distract her.
"Hello, Sam," she grunted down at him, not taking her eyes off of their enemy. "I'll be with you in a moment, love. Are you hurt?"
"N-no I'm...fine," he shakily answered, mind still reeling at the word 'love'.
A rumble came from her then. "That's good. There are a few things I need to tell you, things I've come to realize but struggled to put to words. Now I almost lost my chance entirely tonight, so I'm gonna say them, so I hope you're ready."
"O-okay..." Sam Raife muttered, chest tight, and a smile beginning to glow not just on his face but within him, melting away the pain of his bruises.
"Well ain't you two just two shades of fucking precious," growled Obersteer, cutting through their personal moment. Then his thumb drew back the hammer on his revolver and he steadied his aim. "But I'm of the mind to continue what I was doing, so if y'all don't mind, I'm gonna shoot this big bitch first, and then..." Even as he spoke, his finger began to tighten on the trigger. Nemea jerked in response, a hair's breadth too late as she made to lunge forward.
"NO!" screamed Sam, and even with his injuries screaming, he threw himself to the side and slammed his shoulder into Vinny's outstretched arm. The gun roared, louder than any other that night, and there was a loud impact, accompanied by the ringing of metal and a startled, enraged snarl from Nemea. Then the revolver went sailing off and away, vanishing over the side of the pier nearby and disappearing into the waters of the bay.
Sam whirled around to see Nemea staggering back, clutching a big paw to her head. Red blood trickled down from beneath the mask's edge, staining her thick fur. She wavered where she stood but standing she remained. His heart surged with relief for a second.
"You, little, fucker!" snarled Vinny, and a second later, Sam felt a large, powerful hand latch onto his shoulder. He was hauled back, stumbling, and turned forcefully to see a ring-covered hand arcing towards his face. Obersteer's enraged face was bright red and utterly livid. He just barely jerked back out of the way in time but still felt the rings catch and tear at his cheek, knuckles grazing his chin. "Krule! Topang! Get up off your scaly asses and fight like I pay you for!" he screamed at his remaining bodyguards who seemed to finally be recovering.
Both reptilian Anthros, shakily, drew themselves up and rushed towards Nemea, tails lashing. Sam didn't get to stand and watch the ensuing brawl, because he was grabbed then by the throat by Obersteer. His vision flashed and he fell to the ground as his injured leg gave out, the mobster falling in atop of him and pinning him there. All his breath rushed out of him and he gasped, gagging, as he stared up at the man now throttling him.
The roars of the Anthros battling nearby were muted and tinny in his ears as blood rushed to his head, distorting his senses. He gazed up through his cracked glasses at the irate, sinisterly pleased face of Vinny Obersteer, trying desperately to remove the clammy, heavy hands clasped tight around his throat and cutting off his windpipe. Pound for pound, he was in no shape and vastly underclass to outmuscle the gangster. He was going to die.
No.
Sam's eyes flared to rage and indignance at the very idea of it. Nemea had fought so hard, endured so much, and been so brave, all for his sake. He was not going to just lie here and let this wannabe mafia boss with his crappy goatee beard, horrible breath, and sick corrupted mind rob him of it all. He couldn't outmuscle the man, but Nemea had drilled him on close quarters grapples like this. His legs flailed underneath them, unable to move him but his hands took a different approach.
The most exposed and vulnerable place, not to mention the most unexpected, he could attack right now was right in front of him. He took a firm hold of Vinny's hand, and pinched the skin there, hard. His nails dug into the skin as he twisted and squeezed, feeling hot blood coarse over his fingers. It did the trick.
"Fuck!" shrieked Vinny and he jerked back in surprise. Air rushed into Sam's lungs but he didn't wait around for his moment to pass by. Gritting his teeth, even as the mobster wrung out his bleeding hand, he lifted a foot and kicked Obersteer as hard as he could right in the balls. Again, the man screamed, voice high-pitched and ringing around the wharf, and he collapsed back off of Sam. He stumbled up to his feet, going about as slow as the now furiously cursing and sweating larger man.
They squared off to one another, the sounds of Nemea battling the Croc and Serpent behind them resounding off of the walls of the warehouses all around. Sam took a deep breath in, throat still feeling bruised and tight, but he set his feet as solid as he could, set his hips to aim straight at his target, and sunk into a fighting stance, just like Nemea had taught him.
Vinny stared at him like he was insane. "What, we gonna have a little boxing match?" he asked incredulously. "I was top of my class for boxing and wrestling in high school, kid!" He threw a lazy punch that even so was blindingly fast. Sam weeks ago would have been unable to even see it, but now he just twisted at the ankle as gentle as a bending reed and dodged it. Obersteer blinked. "Well ain't you a fast little shit?" he grunted, and then threw another hook, doubling it up with a rapid pair of left jabs.
Flowing with the movements and maintaining his square, he ducked the hook and shifted forward on the balls of his feet to deflect the jabs with small pushes. Sam kept his eyes open, his breathing steady, and as ever, with each response to Vinny's wild punches, he always returned to the square.
The gangster boss snarled in exasperation. "Come here so I can squash you!" he rasped as he lunged powerfully.
"Gladly," Sam growled in response and he whirled forward on the balls of his feet, rushing at Obersteer. The man was abruptly taken aback and swung clumsily in response to the unexpected movement from his smaller opponent, and Sam ducked underneath it, sliding in on one foot and resting inside of the man's reach. One hand latched onto the front of his fine, now marred and dirtied suit, and the other clenched hard, knuckles popping, as it drew back.
Rather than with his fist, however, he instead hit with his elbow, exactly as Nemea had said. Anthro martial arts was very close in appearance to certain Human ones, such as Muay Thai, which expressed the use of hard points of contact over straight punching. His blow hit solidly right in Obersteer's ample stomach and he felt the air burst out of his opponent in a rush, smelling of liquor and cigars. He distinctly felt one of the man's ribs actually crack at the impact, and it wasn't the only one.
Twice, thrice, four times his elbow hammered into the softened area of Vinny's ribs. He didn't let up, even as Obersteer staggered, he kept going. Keeping up his close-quarters grapple on the center of Vinny's jacket, using the armpits to help pin his arms at an angle that he wouldn't be able to reach in and use his superior weight and strength, Sam twisted at the hip and used it at the same time to shove Vinny off balance.
Spotting an extended knee, he lifted a foot and hammered his own knee into the side. A sickeningly loud pop was the result and, even if it wasn't as hard of a hit as he could have done, what with being injured and slowed, but it still made Vinny scream all the more. Like a toppling tree being taken down by simultaneous hard strikes of an ax, the mobster staggered unevenly, barely able to keep his footing, lashing out blindly but unable to connect with anything solid.
Sam dug his knuckles savagely into Vinny's raised armit, punching twice there in rapid succession and numbing the arm before he went even higher. Vinny was a taller man than he was but, now lamed, he wasn't standing at his full height, and his nose was at perfect level. Sam delivered a brutal strike to it, feeling it break underneath the blow, and more blood cascaded down the man's face, head reeling back, and exposing his throat. A harsh chop to the jugular took Obersteer's breath away and that sent him toppling with a gagging choke, onto the ground.
Leaping upon his downed foe, Sam grappled with him. The tides had turned fully now and he wasted no time in exploiting his advantage. Half stunned, unable to breath, leg and ribs cracked or out of place, Sam added to the tally with furious blows down onto Vinny's sculpted and trimmed head. A hand lashed out for him but he batted it away then dropped a heavy elbow down onto his face again.
Only then did Sam Raife climb up and off his foe, back-pedaling a few steps and then readopting his stance, letting out a single, long breath of air before inhaling solid and slow. On the ground, Vinny Obersteer writhed and groaned, clutching at his multiple injuries. He glared with utmost hatred and shock up at the smaller, red-haired man above him.
"W-what...?" he demanded through bloody teeth. "Too good to hit a man when he's down?"
Sam drew himself up proudly. "Yes. I am." That seemed to take the mobster aback at how simple, calm, and cool his response was. Then his eyes hardened behind his glasses once more. "Now stand back up so I can kill you on your own two feet."
Actual fear radiated from Vinny and he began to slowly crawl backwards and away from Sam. One hand lifted. "N-now hold on," he muttered, voice cracked and slurred. "You...you're not being serious. You ain't that kind of man."
Sam stalked forward, keeping up his guard, looming over his downed opponent like a predator going in for the kill. "A man is what he is," he growled soft and low, just like Nemea had earlier. "You can threaten him, hurt him, take away what he owns, and he will rise back up." Then his voice grew colder. "But threaten or harm the ones he loves, and there is no place on this Earth where you can hide from his wrath."
Vinny tried to rise but even as he got halfway up, Sam decked him and sent him collapsing back onto the ground. He took a tight hold of the mobsters' jacket then and, somehow, despite his pain and the vast difference in their weight, he hauled Vinny up, pinning his back against the wall of his own getaway van. Glass crunched beneath their shoes.
Terror met Sam's hardened blue eyes as he drew back his fist one final time, aiming straight for where he knew would cause the most pain. "That's power," he growled into the man's fear and pain-stricken face. "The strength that comes to the weak when the ones they love are in danger, when they're hurt or scared. Real power, the likes of which that scum like you would never dream was possible."
He turned at that moment to glance back at Nemea, making sure she was okay. The Serpent was out-cold, and then some, hanging halfway in and out of a broken window of the warehouse. Topang was pinned on the ground, Nemea holding onto him and having mounted him from behind, one paw clenching his arms behind his back and the other digging her claws cruelly into the scales on his spine. He writhed angrily, snapping his jaws and lashing his tail but she was safely out of reach.
"You think your claws hurt me?!" the Croc howled through a mouth half-full of broken fangs. "My scales are thicker than..." then Nemea clenched her paw more and the Anthro's voice fell away in a startled gasp of pain as she pierced through the cracks of his hardened scaly armor and reached something softer underneath. "Y-you don't...have...the guts..." he growled out hoarsely. "You're not...the Fang...anymore!"
Then the Smilodon Alpha's fangs flashed, dark metal mask gleaming in the dim light, and her jaws fastened onto the back of his neck, teeth latching right behind the Croc's skull where it met his spine. What began as a grunt and a gasp rapidly intensified into shuddering cries and then into full on screams as she pinned him beneath her might as she slowly and surely began to bite down. The display of power made even Sam's blood run a bit cold again. "S-stop!" he eventually yelled. "I yield! I yield!"
Nemea withdrew her teeth but did not release him just yet, although she did also relax her claws. "Be grateful that I am no longer the Fang," she snarled softly at her prey. "And to the Spirits. I suggest you find a better line of work. Come by my gym sometime, and I'll make you into a real fighter. For now...sleep." Then she slammed his head against the pavement and he went utterly still. She waited there atop of his supine body for several long moments, blood still dripping from her mask.
The sight of those dark stains on her fur made Sam's heart surge anew with rage and he turned back to Obersteer who flinched at his gaze. His fist drew back even more and Vinny jerked his head to the side, clenching his eyes tightly shut and pleading in gibbering fashion, no longer words being legible from him other than sporadic, "No, please!" And then Sam let him go. Obersteer crashed back onto the asphalt of the parking lot, sliding down the side of the van. His eyes jerked hesitantly open and he looked up at Sam in surprise.
Sam Raife towered over him, taller than he had ever felt in his life, and clenched his knuckles tight. A heavy shadow fell across them both as he felt Nemea draw near. "That's real power," he repeated, meaning not just himself but the towering woman behind them as well. "To have someone's life in your hands, to have every reason in the world to kill them, but to not. You're done here, Obersteer. Promise me, here and now, that you will leave this city and leave the people you've tormented alone."
Vinny looked up at him wide-eyed, then past him to Nemea towering over her little Human. He nodded.
"Say it!" snarled Sam.
"I promise!" he squeaked in response, raising his hands up. "I'll leave! You'll never see or hear from me again!"
Sam nodded, satisfaction giving way to the until just then ignorable pain of his bruises, and he staggered back on his feet before something huge and powerful caught him. He looked up at Nemea and smiled in exhaustion, a look that she returned, even if her face was still mostly hidden behind her armored mask. Then her icy green gaze fell onto Vinny as well and she growled. This close up, it felt like the roar of an engine to his ears.
"I'll know if you don't keep your word, Human," she whispered in a demonic snarl. "I am merciful to my own kind, not to yours. Come near me, my Sam, or this city again, and even the Spirits can not save you."
Obersteer nodded, face screwed up still in terror and pain. There was no duplicity possible in him anymore. He was truly a broken man.
Turning, Nemea lifted and easily carried Sam away from that awful place, leaving behind the warehouse. Sam rested in her arms as she stalked through the night-time city, his exhaustion and fear giving way to the throes of utter and completely enveloping sleep as warm furry arms surrounded him and his head rested on the softest of plush pillows in the world beneath a heavy black turtleneck. The nightmare was truly over.
***END OF PART 6***
Finale to Come soon!!!
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