[The Kill List]—❈—16:: Did Somebody Order A Shounen Battle?

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011.

Morning.

Contrary to what one might think if they didn’t know him too well, Brad Meadows was, in fact, not an idiot.

A racist, sadistic combat junkie, yes, but not an idiot. No, he simply let people think he was so they would underestimate him.

Few people had ever seen through this façade of Brad’s without getting to know him first, and it was the fact that Max Anders had (along with his undeniable power) that had made him one of the few men that Brad truly respected.

Interestingly enough, it was for these same reasons that, despite himself, Brad felt grudging respect for Black Leg.

He was still going to kill the fucking chink, of course, but Brad appreciated that he was a powerful enemy.

A powerful enemy who, if Brad wasn’t careful, would be the one putting him down.

And to think the day had started with them plotting an assault on The PRT within twenty-four hours.

Now, Stormtiger and Alabaster (who Hookwolf had honestly expected to outlive… everyone) were dead, and who knew what the fuck the nigga-hued chink had done to Rune.

For a moment, as he’d watched Black Leg systematically cut down his comrades while staying out of Hookwolf’s earthbound range, he’d considered cutting and running.

Hookwolf wasn’t an idiot after all, and with that speed, that strength, and his power nullification ability, Black Leg was not the kind of enemy to face stupidly.

He’d quickly decided to stay and fight though, not just because the thought of going up against an enemy this dangerous gave him more than a bit of a thrill, but also because Black Leg was obviously a motherfucker with a vendetta, and it was always best to put those down as quickly as possible.

In a little over a day, the SOB had taken down (either with help or singlehandedly) Fenja, Menja, Crusader, Rune, Stormtiger, and Alabaster… six Empire capes decommissioned within roughly twenty-four hours.

He died now.

So, after Hookwolf watched him tear through the others, he knew it was his turn, and when Black Leg came at him, he was ready.

—❈—

Taylor had seen Hookwolf fight before, mostly through short clips shown on the news every now and then, or the odd video link on PHO she came across whenever she visited the site.

Thanks to all this, she, like most others, were under the impression that Hookwolf’s powers were what gave him his renown wolf shape.

It wasn’t.

Hookwolf gave himself the wolf shape so he would have what he (accurately) considered a cool and iconic look, and he had zero qualms with ditching it when it suited him.

When Black Leg and Hookwolf clashed, there was no wolf of buzzing saws and jagged hooks, all there was, was a giant amorphous blob of deadly metal lashing out with more tentacles than Taylor’s eyes could keep track of.

Tentacles with range of over a dozen feet and speeds breaking the sound barrier.

Black Leg folded between and around them like a leaf in the wind, his body literally flattening and folding and twisting (somewhat like a sheet of paper) in the most insanely superhuman feat of dodging the world had ever seen.

If the street had been dangerous to be in before, it was a warzone now, as Hookwolf’s tentacles slammed into the tarmac and surrounding cars with enough force to launch debris at supersonic velocities, effectively ensuring that everyone and everything within fifty meters or more of the fight was endangered.

“Taylor, come on,” her Dad screamed, pulling her away again.

Taylor held her ground. “We need to help her,” she screamed back, pointing at the unconscious form of Rune where Black Leg had unceremoniously dumped her in front of them.

“Taylor, I don’t give a shit about some Empire cape, I care about you. Now, come on!”

Taylor pulled away, then grabbed onto Rune and began to struggle under the girl’s dead weight.

Realizing that he couldn’t win, Danny capitulated and lifted the masked teenager onto his shoulder.

“Come o—” BOOM!

The earth shook, and Taylor turned to see that Hookwolf had crashed into one of the large buildings framing the street.

Several tentacles of buzzing saws and jagged hooks snatched up rubble from the wrecked building and began to pelt them at Black Leg.

The unmasked cape pulverized the first few that came at him with a few kicks, then, with an explosion of air beneath his feet, he blasted high into the air and swung his leg down in a powerful axe kick.

“Crescent Slash!” he screamed as an arched blade of azure energy streaked down and sheared into Hookwolf, leaving half of his roiling mass of metallic tentacles inert on the ground.

With another explosion of air, Black Leg came down on him like a rocket, but Hookwolf rolled away, already regaining his former mass, and seeming to do everything in his power to avoid coming into physical contact with his enemy.

“Taylor, come on,” her Dad said, and they began to run again.

Before they took more than a few steps though, Rune stirred, and, finding herself being carried off by some strange man after the traumatizing events that rendered her unconscious in the first place, the teenager freaked.

The immediate onset of kicking and clawing that Danny was beset with by the teen proved to be too much for the out-of-shape forty-five year old.

Unfortunately for him though, his instincts made him hold on tighter to the struggling girl, and between the running, the stress, his lacking physical prowess, and now a hundred or so pounds of panicking teenager on his shoulders, Danny went down. Hard.

Danny’s head cracked into the pavement hard enough to break skin and ring his gong real loud.

“Dad!” Taylor screamed, rushing to him, while, still panicking, Rune scrambled away, took one look around, and took off.

Danny sat up slowly, hand reaching for the bloody wound on the back of his head.

“Dad, are you okay?” she asked worriedly.

He looked groggy, mildly concussed at the very least, but he said; “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

Taylor helped him up. “We need to—”

Her Dad pushed her away.

See, while Taylor had been looking ahead, trying plot a course through the chaos, Danny had glanced behind, and it was the only reason why he saw the car (thrown by Hookwolf in one of his many fruitless attempts to tag Black Leg) headed right for them.

Taylor saw, but more importantly, heard the car collide with her father, and, for some fucked up reason, it brought to mind an image of a bowling ball sweeping away a lone bowling pin.

A sharp, keening sound arose in her head after that, drowning away the world as Taylor staggered to the broken, bloody body of her father, still pinned under the mangled car.

The world faded away, nothing, not the powerful scream of “RUKUOGAN!!!” heard halfway around the city, or the immense explosion that followed, utterly obliterating Hookwolf, pierced through to Taylor.

No, all the girl’s world was the vision of her father dying under a car.

She collapsed to her knees beside him, cradling his head on her lap, hot tears pouring down her face.

His eyes were closed, his face bloody, glasses lost, and Taylor knew, as surely as she’d ever knew anything, that this was the last image she would ever see of her father’s face.

But then Black Leg was there, he lifted the car and set it aside. Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a strawberry with strange markings on it.

Taylor’s mind was still trying to process the cape’s presence and decide whether she wanted to be mad at him or not, when he squeezed the strange strawberry and let the juice run into her father’s slack mouth.

A moment passed. Then two.

On the third her father gasped, and Taylor watched, dumbfounded, as, moment by moment, with squelching, snapping, popping sounds, her father’s body healed itself.

It didn’t end there though.

As though she was watching the strangest time reversal video, her father de-aged before her very eyes.

His thinning hair filled up and darkened, his fading green eyes brightened, his wrinkles smoothened, and, strangest of all, his muscles swelled.

Within seconds, it was like her father had been replaced by an alternate version of himself who was twenty years younger, had the body of an Adonis, and had been professionally made up for the TV screen.

His blood-soaked clothing didn’t even make him look like an accident victim anymore. Instead, he looked like a Hollywood action hero after taking out the bad guy, all his goons, and blowing up his base.

“Oh, I see,” Black Leg muttered to himself. “The power is less about undoing damage and more about reverting the body back to a prime state. That’s nice. Well, lucky you, Danny, I guess you’re Wolverine now. Don’t go swimming though, cause Wolverine or not, you will die.”

“Uh, what?” her father asked, and Taylor mirrored the sentiment.

The blaring of sirens reached them then.

“Took them long enough,” Black Leg said rising. “Again, Danny, don’t go swimming,” he said seriously. “You will die.”

“What do you mean he will—” Taylor began, but by the time she was halfway through, Black Leg was gone.