I heard the movement before I saw it, but the tight turn of the corridor made it impossible to judge distance. He was there before I knew it or I would have pulled the Ebon out of the way.
"Cole!"
It would have been better for him if he had died back there fighting because then I might have had a modicum of respect. Instead, this meant he was the one who ran and left the others to die. Something that might have been empathy soured into something darker and I sneered.
"Man, am I glad to see you! You won't believe the shit that's going down back-"
I hit McNeil square in the mouth with everything I had and he fell backwards into the bulkhead. My heart was pounding in my temples like a tympani and the anger was so strong that tears were in my eyes. What I was feeling had boiled beyond rage into something primeval and I could taste blood.
"DT'KL'DKSHN!" I yelled. Calling him a ball-less coward wasn't quite bad enough, but it was the first thing that came to mind. "GET ON YOUR FEET!"
"Son of a-," he started as he climbed back up. He was a little dazed, but not enough to stay down. "You lost your mind? You want some of this?"
The sound of Obie bounding up behind me was muted as I focused on McNeil and I held up my hand. There was no doubt the Chagrin would want to take a swipe at him too, but he was mine.
"You coward," I spat. "You fucking COWARD!"
He poked at me with his left and followed up with a right but I saw both of them coming nearly before he threw them. That was the difference between a newbie and someone who's been out here and done this for real. I slapped the jab down to cross him up and backhanded over the top of his follow up, using my punch to redirect his. The impact sent his head back and the skin above his eye split, splattering red onto his nose and cheek. That rattled him for a moment, so I jabbed him in the nose again and slid in hard, taking advantage of a twist to draw the momentum with me. My uppercut came from the ground and made a solid sound when it connected, taking him completely off his feet. He hit the ground with a grunt and a rattle and I stepped back to rub my knuckles. While I didn't break his jaw, I definitely rearranged his boyish smile.
The bastard had a lot of things to pay for and my instincts told me that I had the choice of either drawing this out or finishing it quickly. For what he had done, it was an easy decision.
"GET UP!" I barked, but the look on his face told me that he wasn't quite sure which one of the three of me had said it. Instead of waiting for his vision to clear, he rolled on to his knees and then came into a crouch. I almost laughed when he held up his palms. Did he actually expect that I'd let him get back up? Sooner or later he'd realize that Kick Murder Sparring 101 wasn't anything like a real fight.
I brought my right leg around and caught him on the outside of the left thigh with my shin armor. There was a crack like smacking bamboo as the laminate popped and he let out a yelp as his leg turned into spaghetti under him. It's a real shock when you get hit with something you haven't seen before and a nerve strike like that seemed to surprise him. I jabbed him twice in the chin for emphasis as I backed off and he didn't react to either, which surprised me. McNeil still hadn't figured out that he was telegraphing everything and everything he had tried was right from the manual. I wasn't about to tell him.
"That hurt?" I taunted as I shifted behind him and fired off a kick into his floating ribs. My heel punched through his damaged armor with a sound like cracking ice and he went down wheezing. It only took him a moment to come back to his knees, but his eyes showed that the ego was taking a good beating. He was probably ticked over what the Dark Night team had done to his pretty paintjob, but then not even the best airbrush work can make Blocker fuckup proof.
I circled, enjoying what crossed over his face. With a split lip and one eye swelling shut, he was beginning to feel a little of what I wanted him to. Hell, he had been begging for a shot at me and now that he finally got it, he was glaring like things weren't fair. It's a real bitch when you get what you ask for, and sometimes reality is cruel.
When I crossed behind him, he threw a back kick, but the shoulder drop gave it away and told me where it was going. I slipped to the side again and put a hard snap kick in underneath and he fell on his face. From that angle, his armor hadn't taken all of the impact and he must have been having problems finding the cojones I had just kicked into his throat.
"Whay th-thuck-ah-you-" he stammered. He was so stupid that he had no idea why I was angry.
"It's pay back for getting my friends killed," I answered. "M'th'l' s'lthk't!"
"Whahiszat," he slurred through a split lip and missing teeth. "Fuckin' hiss talk from your girlthriend?"
Apparently I hadn't hit him hard enough yet so I decided to make up for it. Spinning on my heel, I brought my food up high and hammered it into his kidney. The rear of his armor had been in bad shape before I found him and that was its last hurrah. Its laminate cracked down the middle the bastard dropped to his elbows. Behind me, Obie's fists were clenched as he played the part of a cheerleading mime from the background.
"That means payback, you racist piece of crap," I answered as I circled around. His eye followed me and it was a good ten seconds before he had the guts to make a move. When something crossed his face, I guess he had just come up with a bright idea but I was too angry to care. I was determined to beat him to death, regardless of what he tried.
His great idea was apparently to bring weapons into this and he stumbled to his feet with his MAC knife in hand. For a moment or two, it seemed to give him a lot of courage, but the fact that I didn't pull mine in response caught him off guard. It was probably stupid of me to give him any advantage, but ego or anger got in the way and I just waved him on. Maybe I just really didn't want it to end too quickly.
McNeil slashed in twice clumsily and I shifted to the side to draw him after me, watching him drag his leg as he tried to keep up. When the next slash came in, I moved in to take it on the heavier armor over my forearm and jammed his arm back to interrupt his rhythm. It took him a little off balance and I pivoted, kicking my foot across the floor. It hit just above the back of his ankle and I extended the sweep, drawing it up to my head level. With a scream, he was airborne and I watched as the floor spun up to meet him. There were two bounces and a nice rattle as he landed face down and the 714 crowd went wild behind me. From the way McNeil reacted, I could tell that even though the deck looked like the same fleshy material like the walls, it was about as forgiving as an iron crash mat. He didn't move and I stomped him in the same kidney I had struck earlier as an afterthought. That took more of his armor's pretty airbrush job off and the side of it snapped apart. What a waste of money, both for the training SLA gave him and the armor.
"Damn, that felt good," I said to Obie as I watched McNeil try to crawl away. That had been one of the best sweeps I had thrown in a long time - maybe even good enough to earn a nod from Tony's teacher. On second thought, maybe not. I was pathetic by comparison to any one of the dedicated students and the mere thought that anything I could throw could be was enough to get me swept into the ceiling.
"Get on your feet," I said to McNeil as I walked next to him. "Time for you to die."
He kept crawling and I kicked him in the ribs in frustration. Instead of trying to take the fight back to me, he went into a fetal position and shuddered. That was when I saw he was crying. It was over and he was beaten.
"What do you know," I taunted. "All you had is ego. NOW GET ON YOUR FEET, YOU PATHETIC COWARD!"
McNeil refused, shaking his head and covering himself up further like a whipped child. Even with the rage fading, I was still wanted to make him pay for everything that had happened back there but was running out of options if he wouldn't stand up. At least I didn't do something stupid like tell myself that I shouldn't kill him because it wouldn't bring anyone back. He was a dead man, whether or not he got back up and I didn't care if he knew it or not.
"Well McNeil, you wanted to see who was best," I spoke up again as I crouched near his face. "Any doubt about it now?"
McNeil wouldn't look up at me, so I stepped over and dropped my knee into his spine to make sure he was still conscious. The yelp he let out proved he was still with me.
"Pathetic. Weak," I taunted. "You're a fucking disgrace."
He had managed to loose most of the equipment that he had brought with him, including the nice gunhead, so it didn't take very long to send most of it bouncing away across the floor. He trembled with the sound of each item hitting the deck and I shook my head as he broke out into open bawling. If he was what they were spitting out at Meny these days, Dark Night had already won. The thought turned my stomach and I spat on him as I stood back up.
"You aren't good enough to deserve something this quick," I said as I snapped back the hammer on my Blitzer. The click carried in the quiet air and he flinched, but the boot I stomped on his shoulder held him down and I took aim. Even though the bastard wasn't worth the cost of a single bullet, I was willing to splurge.
A sudden movement from the side caught my eye and I reacted by stomping the heel of my boot across his neck. As I sighted on the corridor, Obie tossed the Ebon behind him and got ready to charge. When my favorite Brain Waster came bounding around the corner, I'm not sure who was more surprised -Casper, seeing me with my boot on McNeil's head or me, seeing that both of the backstabbing cowards had survived the firefight with Darknight by running away.
It took a lot of control not to pull the trigger right then and there.
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