[The Kill List]—❈—15:: Taylor, Don't Be Stupid

Tuesday, 12, April, 2011.

Morning.

…“Taylor? Taylor, are you okay?” her Dad asked, and Taylor nodded, eyes never leaving Black Leg’s.

A sound like a thousand chainsaws started up outside and Black Leg frowned and, even as Taylor stared at him, disappeared.

—❈—

This couldn’t be a coincidence, Taylor decided as she and her Dad stumbled out of their car on unsteady legs.

Like, seriously, what were the odds that Black Leg would be getting into it with Hookwolf of all people, right here, right now, in the perfect place and at the perfect time to involve her in it?

No, seriously, what were the odds? Because Taylor was pretty sure they were infinitesimal.

Taylor was right, the odds were infinitesimal, but unfortunately for her, as Protagonist-kun, provided it would make her life more entertaining to those beyond the fourth wall, one in a billion odds were practically a guarantee where she was concerned.

It was why Black Leg had gone through the trouble of paying her the visit that had begun this lovely little tale in the first place.

Not that Taylor knew that of course.

No, in her mind the universe simply hated her, and being her was suffering.

…Which is debatably true.

A colossal mass of chains and saws and barbed wire morphed roughly into the shape of a wolf, slammed onto the road hard enough it sent Taylor stumbling.

Two more SUVs accompanied it.

People screamed. Cars crashed as drivers tried, and failed, to brake, and everyone who could began to flee.

The rapid reports of automatic gunfire from above drew Taylor’s eyes to the sky, and she saw a lone figure flashing about, dodging floating cars, bullets, and arcs of wind so thick Taylor could see them.

“Taylor, come on,” her Dad screamed, reaching for her, “we need to get out of h—”

The hellish, brain gouging sound of metal tearing through metal rang across the street, and everyone (who wasn’t running for their lives in a blind panic) looked to where Hookwolf had literally just shredded am entire car with his body.

A car which, based on the blood and guts mixed in with its remains, had had at least one person inside it.

“Jesus.” Danny blanched.

Taylor damn near hurled.

“GET DOWN HERE AND FIGHT ME, YOU FUCKING MONKEY,” he roared with a voice like a thousand grinding saws.

There was a moment of stillness as everyone absorbed the barbarity of Hookwolf’s act, then the understanding that he was far from done spread through the crowd, and the panic grew.

This was a busy road near a busy intersection during morning rush on a weekday, so even before everyone began to run about like headless chickens, the street had been packed.

Now though, with cars lined up bumper to bumper and everyone rushing and jostling, it was bedlam.

Danny grabbed Taylor’s arm, pulling her, and Taylor pulled her arm away.

“I can help,” Taylor said.

Her father looked at her like she was insane, and God, how Taylor hated him for it.

“Taylor, that is fucking Hookwolf!” he screamed. “What the fuck are you gonna do to him!?”

Taylor refused to let the fact that she had no freaking clue faze her.

She stood her ground.

“You can’t stop m—”

Black Leg appeared between them.

For someone who’d been dancing around death for who knew how long and stopped a truck with his chest just a minute ago, he looked as pristine as he always did.

More importantly though, was the struggling, incredibly pale individual whose neck he had firm grasp of with his left hand.

“Taylor, shut up and listen to your father,” he said, ignoring their expressions of shock. “And if you really want to help, then get these people somewhere safe. You’re a crowd controller, for God’s sake. Use your head.”

The albino in Black Leg’s grasp, who Taylor was pretty sure was Alabaster of The E88, began to scream like his skin was on fire, and a white strawberry looking fruit with strange markings on it formed into existence from some sort of liquid crystal… goo, over Black Leg’s right hand.

Alabaster, whose skin had gone from super white to a more regular white, looked horrified.

Then Black Leg snapped his neck, and threw his body to the ground like discarded trash.

Taylor stumbled back.

What the fuck?

A moment passed as Black Leg pocketed the fruit. Two. Three. Four.

Alabaster was nowhere close to being the most powerful cape in The Bay, but he was one of the most well known.

Alabaster the Undying they called him. The Empire cape who, no matter what was done to him, always reset after four seconds.

It had been at least six seconds already.

“What the fuck?” Taylor heard a girl’s voice from above her and she turned to see two more Empire capes up in the air behind her.

She recognized them both; Rune, the teenaged telekinetic riding on a floating door, and Stormtiger, the aerokinetic held aloft by a mini-tornado centered on his lower half.

“He’s dead,” Rune said, sounding half freaked out of her mind. “Alabaster’s fucking dead. He fucking killed him.”

“Calm down, Rune,” Stormtiger said, though he didn’t sound too calm himself.

“Don’t tell me to fucking calm down,” the girl screamed shrilly, eyes wide. “We’re fucking around with a fucking power negator, don’t you fucking tell me to calm d—uck!”

Black Leg was behind her, right hand clasped around her throat in perfect mirror of his actions with Alabaster.

Rune lost her mind.

She kicked, she scratched and flailed, but Black Leg’s hand might as well be an iron band around her throat.

Everything hanging up in the air began to fall.

“Fuck no,” Stormtiger growled and flew at Black Leg, only for the suited cape to throw the struggling cape at her colleague. Hard.

The smart thing for Stormtiger to do was dodge. But that was also the heartless thing to do. And while he was a Nazi piece of shit, he was also a firm believer in looking out for one’s own.

It was his undoing.

In the split second of distraction using his wind to catch Rune cost him, Black Leg appeared behind him and, with his bare fingers, ripped open his throat.

The bleeding, suffocating body of Stormtiger fell to the ground, bones breaking upon impact and speeding up his already inevitable demise.

Rune, on the other hand, didn’t fall.

Stunned as she was from being used as a human torpedo against Stormtiger, by the time she realized she was back in Black Leg’s grasp, her world was already consumed with the pain of her shard being ripped through her being.

That finally got to be too much, and the girl mercifully blacked out.

Taylor watched stunned, as Black Leg landed on the roof of their car and unceremoniously dumped the unconscious form of Rune in front of her and her father.

He didn’t even look at them, eyes trained instead on Hookwolf, who, Taylor only just realized had been oddly quiet all this time.

“You finally ready to fight?” Hookwolf asked, the pseudo-eyes of his wolf form seeming deep pits of darkness that sent a chill down her spine just by looking in her general direction.

Black Leg pocketed a second weird looking fruit, then he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped Stormtiger’s blood from his hand.

“I know this is just going to go in one ear and come out the other, but, Taylor—” Black Leg looked at her “—don’t be stupid.”

He vanished and Hookwolf roared.