Interlude 12: Mad

  The boss was out of his fucking mind! Pietro’d seen those fucking videos! He’d fought against the Bear-Yakuza! He didn’t want to do it ever again. These guys fought better than any gang he’d seen. Their founder becoming a fucking samurai? Bad mother fucking news…

  He knew the rules of the street like the back of his hand, spoken and unspoken. Don’t fuck with samurais was the biggest one people forgot. Mostly because there weren’t a lot of fucking samurais! They also didn’t tend to interact much and when they did? Those guys didn’t usually leave survivors.

  The Family’s propaganda just fell in the same mental hole as all the other corpo crap. The problem? Most of the intel out there on samurais didn’t come from corpos! All the fan sites, all the talk online, just the very fact that the planet didn’t get overrun by aliens! Samurais were in a league of their own.

  Sure, the weak ones might get taken out, but their friends probably wouldn’t! If you pissed off the bigger ones? They’d erase your existence from every fucking network before destroying every fucking molecule in your body. Like you’d never existed…

  All of that because the fucking moron wanted to bang some younger teenagers? Pietro never liked that shit, so he bought his own sex. That deal the grand-boss made fell in the ‘more than fucking fair’ side of things!

  An alert. Plenty of the guys laughed off the threat that Mad Panda posed, but he didn’t. He watched the camera feeds like a fucking hawk. That’s why he caught it in time.

  “You have until I get there to drop your guns.” The tone sounded casual, but it’d been delivered at high volume. That meant external speakers, in this case, probably on power armor. It resonated oddly in the underground tunnel of their base, near Sewer-Dragon territory below one of their buildings

  A few seconds later, the door guards opened fire, full auto! All he heard was gunshots and impacts on metal. Then the samurai walked into view, like a nightmare in sexy armor.

  “Mad Panda…” It escaped his lips like the name of a monster from children’s tales.

  The armor looked similar to that footage, but the guy had been upgrading. Fucking great…

  The door guys unloaded everything they had, a full drum mag of 9mm, six shells from a shotgun, a full AK mag and a damn high powered rifle. Dude didn’t even slow. He saw him just walking casually, but he’d read about animals on his feed. The man’s tail stood rigid, elevated, behind his back and coiled like a snake, ready to strike!

  Mad Panda was fucking mad! “Fucking fantastic…” He muttered, his heart beating faster and faster every second. Three out of four dropped their guns. The last was the dude with a shotgun, some guy he’d known for a while who ‘didn’t believe in samurai’. A moment later, that moron got a spike through the face, accompanied by a punch! His brains splattered into a new dent on the metal wall…

  “Smart move, you three.” Again, the samurai didn’t even slow, just punched and kept going, not even pausing. Just like that, the samurai walked through their base like he owned the place! On the map, Pietro could see that he was heading towards that room nobody liked to talk about.

  On the way, more of Pietro's acquaintances died. The ones that died weren’t really friends. Usually, it was due to them not stopping when he told them to. However, he knew what type got iced no matter what.

  Those who liked them a bit too young. The ganger couldn’t say he was sad to see them go. Their boss had the same disgusting tastes, leading to this situation. When he saw that the force of nature would come close to his room, Pietro jumped into action. “S-stop! Stop right there!”

  To his surprise, the samurai actually did! “Interesting gun.” Mad Panda’s head tilted slightly as he examined the weapon. It’d been recovered post-incursion, real expensive plasma-kinetic gun that shot through a lot of shit. Pietro had to plead his case.

  “Look, please, I know my boss has to… you know just… P-please, let the rest of my guys go, they didn’t do anything!” The animated eyes were off, which made helmet so much more fucking terrifying!

  “You’re the second in command. Good. We’ll talk after this, bit busy, girl’s being tortured. If you don’t get out of my way you will die. The girl’s what I care about, but I’ll wait after before killing your buddies, deal?” Pietro understood very clearly that this was all he’d get. The girl was being tortured after all. So, he just nodded and stepped aside.

  What followed may have been some of the most brutal executions he’d ever witnessed. Oh, he’d seen people die in more horrific ways, the Cobra Kais knew their shit! No, it came from the horrific imbalance in power.

  The boss, with all the mods you could get on the black market, got tossed around like nothing! Mad Panda even let him fucking try to kick his ass, ineffectual fists breaking on solid armor, just to show how powerless his gang was to stop him. A display? A warning? It wasn’t the most bloody killing he’d seen, but the most viscerally brutal.

  At the end, the maniac’s helmet turned to him, his gaze burning a hole in his chest, before dragging his boss in the corridor. With one hand partially inside a broken shoulder, the other went under the jaw, slicing into flesh without issue to make a handhold, then he fucking tore off the boss’s fucking head bare-handed!

  Most of his guys were filming, so yeah, probably a display. It worked for him. “Why the fuck didn’t you shoot?” One of the girls in his dojo asked. He just looked at her, mouth agape at the insane bitch.

  “Are you seeing this shit? Dude took bullets like they were less than paintballs! I’m not even fucking sure it’d work.” He wanted to shout but profound dread kept him from going above a whisper.

  In the end, the boss couldn’t do anything. His accomplices all got brutally murdered, many bones broken long before the fatal blow. Some didn’t even have their pants up. “Fucking give it! Pussy.” Pietro didn’t argue. If it worked, it worked. If it didn’t? He wouldn’t be the one paying the price.

  As Mad Panda turned around and headed for them, Alina took her shot! The armor shifted and a plate moved to his arm. The shot deflected. Alina tried again, then a third and fourth time. That same super dark plate blocked every single hit.

  Before she could try again, her head blew up! Like a damn shotgun blast instead of the pistol Mad Panda clearly held. “Shit…” Mad Panda turned around and told the kidnapped girl to go in the corner. For some reason, his shield deployed and he took it off, leaving it next to the door. She must have complied, because the crazy fuck started his way again.

  “Yup, that’s the whole of it, really. Now, I believe you should move a bit farther in.” Pietro didn’t get it, but he complied. After, Panda spoke once more at high volume. “Now, for the obligatory ‘unload everything you’ve got at me’.” He looked down the hallway and spread his arms.

  “Come on, I won’t even necessarily kill you after we’re done with this bullshit!” That rang the starting bell for an unholy volley of gunfire! The samurai didn’t move.

  They had weapons for this sort of tank, usually some battle-drone or mech, and the time it took to handle his boss made it easy to get the anti-armor shit!

  From SMGs to LMGs, hundreds, maybe thousands of rounds from 9mm to 16mm impacted the beast, but none stopped him.

  Nothing got through! It took a few seconds, and Pietro sure as hell felt glad about following that advice. The shattered remnants of countless bullets peppered his room and left small holes everywhere. Without moving, he’d have been very, very dead!

  ***

  Not to self: Big advantage of memory alloy armor is that they can’t see how many dozens of rounds made it through.

  Ow.

  ***

  Quite a few LMGs lasted longer, the SMGs with massive drums took a bit too and the shotguns were reloaded twice. How the fuck did anyone survive that? “Samurai, that’s how…” He muttered under his breath.

  After the volley subsided, the guy just brushed off a few bullets stuck on him. Whatever dent was made got fucking unmade! Anything left after were smears of copper and lead…

  Then, mister unkillable turned around. Pietro came closer to see what happened. One of the super chromed guys had tried to sneak up behind Mad Panda for a surprise attack. The dude had massive, chrome, military grade prosthetics! Unmatched physical power… for a normie. The samurai didn’t look surprised at all. The melee that ensued might have been brutal, but something took a turn for the worst.

  “You like ‘em young, don’t you.” Panda’s voice could freeze the entire sewers. Just like that, he finally started using blades. The fucker’d been playing with him! After cutting off major muscle groups one by one, he even sliced off the guy’s fucking junk off! “Well, it fits your preferred victims.” Then, the tail finally came into play. The samurai used it to pulp the fucker’s head before moving down his body, halfway through his mother fucking chest!

  “Fuck…” Pietro couldn’t think of anything else. They were all so fucking fucked! While he looked upon the remains of a gang enforcer he’d never really liked, something stood out. The floor behind Panda had tons of missed shots and deflected bullets marring it, except for one spot…

  “That’s where he told the girl to hide…” He murmured in realization. He’d deployed the shield for her. The samurai’s head turned to him slightly. Had the madman heard that?

  A moment later, so fast he had no idea how, Pietro got slammed into the corridor’s fucking wall! “So, buddy, about this talk on not killing your friends over there. Well… talk.” Given that all the breath had been knocked out of him, the request felt sort of ironic. After a few shaky breaths, he answered.

  “They had nothing to do with it! I’m sorry, I know you made that rule with the big boss and you’ve got a good reason, but these people…” The fist grabbing his shirt pushed into him a bit more.

  “Oh, oh no, buddy. You got it wrong. This isn’t me just enforcing a rule. I made a deal with your big boss. That fucker in there broke that deal. Do you know what it is? Fuck it, let’s not waste time.” The volume raised significantly so that everyone could hear.

  “The deal was, after your fucking people helped murder over one and a half thousand innocent street people, including killing half my fucking friends, for your lives. He brought me the heads of everyone involved, and asked what I’d like as repayment in order to prevent my rampage. You’re here mostly because I don’t like killing people unless I have to. Exceptions made for pedophiles, like any good father.” The helmet got closer, a lot closer.

  “As part of that deal, I freed all the slaves you kept, and he made a rule that you wouldn’t get new ones. Especially not underage ones!” The tone in the samurai’s voice almost made him pee his pants. The worst part was? He felt wrong in this. Pietro couldn’t defend any part of this shit.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “I asked for one fucking thing, no minor sex slaves! That fucker said no, so I mother fucking collected on my fucking deal!” The new local leader didn’t fucking dare say a word.

  “Did I ask for too fucking much!? Should I abandon it and just fucking remove you shitstains from this fucking city!?” The helmet got closer once more, inches from his face. The volume lowered a bit, but not that much.

  “I’ll tell you a secret buddy, pieces of shit like that?” He nodded at the most recently deceased corpse. “Killing them’s not my responsibility as a father.” Pietro’s nose could almost touch the helmet. “It’s my privilege.” That voice was filled to the brim with hatred and cruelty.

  He moved back slightly and the volume raised once more. “You threw everything you had at me and didn’t even leave a scratch. So, have we properly established that your continued existence is based on nothing but MY FUCKING MERCY!?”

  It took a few seconds, but Pietro understood that this was his cue. “Yes uh, sir, I’m sorry my… old boss broke the deal! You were right! None of my guys will do anything to stop you from concluding this… transaction?” Mad Panda looked at him for a few seconds before, to his eternal relief, nodding.

  “Anyone hurts the girl, I’m killing every-fucking-one in this base, no exceptions, catch?” Pietro nodded again, much more vigorously, and started sending messages to stand down. That got another nod from Mad Panda. Did the crazy fuck hack his augs? Of fucking course, samurai, come on. Shaken, Pietro stood on his own once more.

  Panda then walked back to the room, casually stepping through the pools of blood he’d created.

  ***

  Lucia got scared out of her god damn mind when they grabbed her. However, she got a few good slashes in with her shive before the fuckers disarmed her. Even at… probably thirteen, she knew the rules of the street. Always sleep with a knife under your pillow’s a big one. A few more fucking hits and they’d have given her enough loose to run!

  They’d been planning some shit she prepared for mentally ever since her first period. It meant the worst of the worst might be coming after her. However, she just… nothing could’ve prepared her for… all of it.

  The powerlessness, the fear, the futile struggling that just made her feel worse for failing, the pain… They got pretty close to… She didn’t want to think about that.

  That’s when the samurai arrived and just… massacred all of her attackers! Killing was too small a word. It felt so insanely brutal... She’d seen people get killed, for plenty of reasons, but this felt… savage and cruel. Not that she had any problem with that at the moment!

  Then, the maniac asked her to stand in a corner, and when someone that scary tells you to do something, you fucking do it! A few moments later, bullets flew everywhere! Missed shots, ricochets, most through the door, some through the walls. She was so fucked!

  Yet, Lucia remained unscathed. After she heard the speech, things started to make sense. Some samurais went in for the whole justice thing and helped people, it happened! Some samurai charities helped her not starve or die in the cold from time to time.

  “Hey, time to go.” Lucia jumped and refocused. That samurai was back… for her? That would probably help a lot. She didn’t want to stay in that room. Suddenly, a box appeared in his hands and he handed it to her. “For you, if you want, up to you.”

  She opened the box and inside were… clothes. Right, she was naked. Her face reddened and she quickly started putting them on. The memory of clothes being ripped off and apart tried to invade her mind but she pushed it down. One thing now hit her. The mask never pointed straight at her. Well, that was… something.

  A few seconds later, she wore the softest fucking clothes of her life! Just some panties, a bra that fit her still A-cup, socks, a pair of stretchy exercise pants and a t-shirt… with a Mad Panda logo on it. “Hum… You sell merch?” She asked out of sheer insane curiosity.

  The rescuer finally looked straight at her and his helmet drooped forward along with the ears. “My AI’s idea of a joke or something, don’t mind it, just… let’s go. I’ll carry you, sorry, but I’d prefer you were shielded.” Lucia just nodded and let that guy… mostly hug her but with her knees to her chest. His armor and a shield rearranged into a protective cocoon around her. “Don’t look down.” She looked back at his mask, now real close.

  “Why?” She asked, confused.

  “Look, I’m… I’m sorry you had to see what I did. You shouldn’t have to. I had to make an example, to make sure they knew I was serious so this doesn’t happen again. It’s just… I’m sorry you had to witness that. I had to do something similar outside. Just… Please don’t look down. I’m sorry, again.”

  That shit might be the last thing she expected. “For what, rescuing me?”

  “No, for the way I did it.” He said, calmly and without a hint of hesitation. She could tell, he didn’t feel bad about the murders, just the fact that it may have scarred her.

  They were already on the move, getting closer and closer to the outside. A morbid part of her wanted to see the other ‘exemples’ but no, it’d probably fuck her up even more. “So, I imagine you live around here?” He said, trying to make conversation while still in the base.

  “Not really, I move around a lot.” She tried to focus on him, not on the people they were passing by. Would they hunt her? Fuck, this entire fucking district might be blown.

  “Got somewhere for the night? Anything you want to grab?” Lucia thought about it.

  “No, all my data’s on clouds. Learned quickly that stuff is less important than not getting captured, you know?” To her surprise, the samurai nodded.

  “Don’t I fucking know it. I’m pretty lucky in that way, I got a territory. However, in my case it’s more destruction than abandoning. Stuff you can replace, people you can’t.” She could hear a wry tone in his voice.

  “You got some experience on the street?”

  “Yeah, lived on the lower levels since I was six. Floor eleven of Peach Trees. Technically underground, actually.” That left Lucia a bit dumbfounded.

  “I… didn’t know people were… good enough down here to get the job… Sorry, I’m sorry, that…” He cut her off.

  “Nah, chill stris, I’m no corpo or ratso, you feel?” She blinked.

  “You slang’s a bit old dude.” That made him laugh.

  “Yeah, I’m a bit old, at least for a ganger. My kids would do better. Still, that means you got nothing and no place to stay. I’ll exchange at least a night in a safe place along with some warm meals as repayment for making you watch that shit, deal?” Her guard instantly went up, but he continued.

  “I can just drop you off at whatever shelter, gang or whatever you feel. Up to you. I got a gang, our territory’s safer than any place. Protected by two samurais. We let a lot of homeless squat in our lots. Just offering.”

  As they exited, Kerosene-Zero, piss and drugs attacked her senses as he let her down. It’d never smelled better! The chill night air felt fantastic on her skin. As she enjoyed it, Mad Panda decided to do the same. His face was… cute but hard. She’d seen the look, no matter how pretty the face, on some PMC types. Gangers usually had a bit more of a beat-up look.

  Yeah, dude had seen some shit. That’s if the previous violence didn’t provide enough evidence. “I know people hate the fucking smell but I tend to like it. Mostly because I’m used to it, and it reminds me of my parents. Used to live much higher, you know? Less smoke-stacks between the New-Montreal air and my old place.”

  Lucia nodded. “Yeah, I’ve squatted deep in megabuildings. They get a bit stuffy, and the air depends entirely on the HVAC system. I’m pretty sure none of them ever fully worked right.” They both chuckled at that.

  They finally got to their transport. “I’m guessing you never rode one of these before.” She shook her head. He nodded.

  “Sorry, I’d have taken a car but I had to borrow this from a friend to get here faster.” She nodded.

  “Thanks.” Pretty soon after she received a brand new helmet.

  ***

  “Holy fucking shit!” The scream escaped her in an instant! This speed couldn’t be safe by any fucking measure! Lucia did not want to die from this!

  They kept climbing and climbing, the altitude thingy going nuts! The helmet acted like a virtual reality thing, making it look like she didn’t have one on. That meant the world around her sped past and even a bit of wind got filtered into the helmet for the feeling of speed.

  She laughed despite herself! That rush, that speed!

  They kept going up, and up, and up! They passed the tops of some of the tallest megabuildings, then the skyscrapers, then the tallest skyscrapers! Then the highest traffic! They still kept going up! How fucking high were they going?

  At an insane altitude for anyone to be at without a damn cockpit, they leveled off. “We’re here.” The samurai said with a clear smile in his voice. Lucia just panted for a bit.

  “What’s here?” It’d been a thrill ride, she had to admit. Never got a rush like that outside of muggings!

  “The view. it… I can’t explain it. Look down.” Lucia did, and saw… Her universe. New-Montreal. All of it. It… From this altitude, it felt… so, so much smaller. There were suburbs and everything around. Different points on the map were clear enough for her to recognize from this high.

  That city had been… everything. All that mattered, all that there was, forever. Now it… All the pain she’d suffered, all the hard fought meals, all the hard work just to survive, all of it… She… It…

  Tears fell from the corners of her eyes. Everything just sat there, below her. The entire universe, the only one she ever knew, full of garbage and shit, the only world that existed, just… down there.

  She stayed like that, very quietly crying like she’d learned to do, but eventually, a sob made her shoulders spasm. The samurai tentatively put a hand on her shoulder, but the touch made her recoil.

  Warm hands, hot hands, too hot, tearing…

  A cold metal hand touched her shoulder. She felt a lot less… attacked from that but… She still recoiled slightly and he noticed. Lucia didn’t want to offend him but at the same time, he didn’t look the type for that. It was the most horrible contradiction, she desperately wanted a hug yet couldn’t stand the touch of someone’s…

  Her crying hitched as something soft and cold touched her. She ran her hand over the fluffy… tail? It very gently, tentatively touched her midriff. She put her hand on it. It… didn’t feel bad, quite the opposite actually. The softness of the fur, the fact that it felt living. It was… almost like being touched but without all the bad.

  She put both her hands on it and cried more. She wanted the touch of it, the feeling of it. The sense of someone giving a fuck if she died. The sense that someone cared…

  Suddenly, after it helped her feel better, it started to move and she panicked for half a second. No! She needed the contact!

  But the tail simply surrounded her, more than once at that. A moment later, it tightened, just a bit. It… was a hug. It felt exactly like a hug.

  The last time she got a hug was a really nice sister from a convent handing out food to the homeless. This ridiculous punk nun just said she looked like she needed a hug. That was a year ago. She never trusted anyone enough for it.

  She missed hugs, missed them so much. Just… human contact, without ulterior motives. Just… fucking closeness.

  The dam burst and she cried more than she’d ever cried before. She cried for everything, cried over nothing, cried until she felt like all the pain had come out…

  Not just what had happened, but just… everything. The world. Her life. Everything she’d compressed and buried. It didn’t solve any of it, the pain was still there, but it was out. She finally got to cry over her little ball of pure compressed horror and suffering.

  She felt like a raw nerve, like all her defenses were down. Also… “I’m tired…” Got out of her with difficulty.

  “Okay.” The samurai said, softly, gently.

  The rest was a blur. She might have been carried by that tail. It felt nice anyway, soft, cozy, slightly warm but not hot or burning.

  At one point, Lucia realized she was in a bed and her old instincts shot her full of adrenaline! Her hands started to tremble. She didn’t have a knife, didn’t scout the exit, didn’t…!

  “I’m here. It’s alright. You’re okay. Nothing and no one will touch you here.” Lucia’s heartbeat started to slow down. That… Mad Panda, yes, he… he saved her so he wouldn’t but still what if… “You know, I never even pulled out my gun in that fight.” The non-sequeter made her snap away from paranoia for a few seconds.

  “Huh?” The adrenaline already started to fade.

  “There’s only one exit, and I’m watching it. I’ll be watching the whole night. Take your time.”

  Just like that, a huge gun assembled itself in his hands! Large and tall, looking a bit like some shotguns she’d seen on her feed. As her eyes darted around, they found the door. Thick, metal. Looked like a damn good lock, she’d gotten good at spotting those for safety.

  “Here…” He said as a… sheathed knife appeared in his hand. It looked like one of those military things in a plastic sheath. He handed it to her. “Vibro-blade with a hardened plasma enhanced spike tip, activates when you pull it out. Cuts through anything, stabs through even more, my armor included.”

  Her brain stuttered for a moment. Why…?

  Then she saw it. The samurai was sitting in a chair, massive gun pointed straight at the door. No windows, no extra exit.

  Just… Just that door. Usually, that meant no exit but… but there was a samurai aiming a huge gun at it. One that already saved her once. She thought even antithesis couldn’t get her in here.

  She took the knife, the one he gave her to feel safer, even from him…

  She… she was safe. Really, actually, safe. The moment her brain accepted that fact, she fell into the deepest sleep of her life.

  “Safe…”