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Quirky Row Chapter 14
🕑 Added 2024-08-10 17:00:04 +0000 UTCChapter 14: Paint the Streets Red
(Wednesday, September 22nd, 2123)
“…and that is why you only flush biodegradable stuff down the shitter. Any other questions?” Playa inquired, eyes sweeping over a bunch of Saints who were looking down at the floor, unable to meet his disappointed gaze.
“Alright. I’m going to assume you’ve learned your lesson from this. Otherwise, if this happens again, you all get a double session of Johnny Gat’s ‘Motivational Training.’ Got it?”
The gang members he was scolding immediately straightened up and bobbed their heads wildly, fear in their eyes.
“Great! Now clean up this mess!” Playa ordered them, before leaving the bathroom.
“So? What was the problem?” Shaundi asked as the boss stomped out of the mission’s rest room.
“A couple of morons who thought flushing empty beer bottles down the toilet was a smart idea,” Playa grumbled.
“Dang. Well, at least we don’t have to call a plumber anymore,” the green-haired lieutenant noted.
“There is that,” Playa agreed. “Now, is there anything else? Because I’m late for a meet-up with Carlos.”
“Nah, that was it,” Shaundi assured him. “Thanks for coming over.”
“I was having a nice day off before this mess,” Playa muttered to himself as he left the building. “Can’t believe it… pill bottles down the toilet? Who even does that?!”
It was one thing to go into work early because one of your lieutenants had found some dirt on the Brotherhood. It was another to have to spend thirty minutes keeping a bathroom from flooding the mission because some idiots had a dumb idea.
Leaving the base, Playa couldn’t help but smile. The weather outside was nice and warm, if slightly overcast. Not cool enough yet to need a jacket, but it was clear that there wasn’t much summer time left at all.
After taking a moment to enjoy the weather, Playa strode off down the road, looking for a building that had a big neon pink donut with a scantily clad woman in the center. When he found it, he glanced around the area, scanning it for a certain Hispanic lieutenant.
“He should be here already,” Playa mused, looking around the street. “Carlos is normally on time.”
A creepy old man with a balding head and a trench coat walked up to Playa. He then proceeded to flash the leader of the Saints.
“Oh, damn it!” Playa grunted, looking away in disgust. The old man giggled maniacally before sprinting away, off to give another poor soul a glimpse of terror.
Looking around the street, Playa saw a tiny microcosm of Stilwater as a whole all around him. To his left a prostitute – one who worked for the Saints if her purple crop top was any indicator – was taking a customer behind a dumpster in an alleyway. To his right he saw an elderly Asian man selling bootleg, knock-off high fashion merchandise in front of a rug store. There was also a hotdog cart that Playa knew sold weed-laced sausages, a store that sold tacky bling made from teeth and toenails, and a donut store that doubled as a strip club. It was a weird town.
Stilwater was not for the faint of heart, or anybody with delicate sensibilities. Even with the streets swept clean of crime Playa doubted it would ever be anything more than a den of weirdos. Yet for its eccentricities, Playa loved it. Where else would you be able to find the world’s greasiest burgers? Or the world’s most ridiculous outfits! Seriously, Playa had seen some stores selling dildo hats. Hilarious!
Stilwater was his home, and he’d protect it and the people, along with their right to let their freak flags fly free.
Yet one question kept flashing through his mind: ‘Where the hell is Carlos?’
‘He called me up earlier this morning claiming he had big news about the Brotherhood, and to meet me here,’ Playa thought to himself, looking around in the hopes of spotting his Hispanic Lieutenant. ‘Why’s he so late?’
He was getting annoyed, and when his phone rang and he saw Carlos’ number on the screen, Playa answered with a gruff, “Carlos, where the fuck are you?”
“I think your people skills need some work, sweetie,” a sultry, valley girl voice replied from the other end, causing Playa to blink in surprise.
“Jessica,” he said, eyes narrowing in recognition. “How do you like Maero’s new tattoo?”
“Actually, I think it’s pretty sexy. Rugged, tough…” she giggled.
“Flesh melting?” Playa snarked.
“Cute,” Jessica drawled.
“Thanks, I try, now what the fuck do you want?” Playa demanded. “And why do you have Carlos’ phone?”
“Well, I just wanted to let you know that since you were nice enough to give my man a makeover, I should return the favor,” Jessica said, her tone turning sharp. “Don’t worry, by the time we’re through with him, Carlos will look just as handsome as Maero.”
“Listen up you fucking bitch-!” Playa snarled, but was quickly cut off.
“Of course, I don’t have access to the same materials you did, but you know, I figure we can make do,” Jessica informed him, her voice oozing with vindictiveness.
“You touch so much as a hair on his head, and I swear, I will-!”
“I’m sure you’ll do something scary,” Jessica interjected mockingly, before her tone turned ice cold. “Do me a favor? When you’re scraping your friend’s face off the road, just remember that you had a chance to be Maero’s partner, and you threw it in his face.”
The call then disconnected, and for a few seconds Playa could only stare at the phone in his hands.
That ended as a red haze descended over him, and Playa could feel the Fog of War clawing at his mind, begging to be freed.
And Playa let it out with only a moment of hesitation.
“Pierce?” Playa uttered as he called up his lieutenant.
“Huh? That you, boss?” Pierce asked as he answered.
“Round up the boys, the Brotherhood has Carlos,” he informed him darkly, and Pierce swore loudly on the other end.
“I’ll get right on that!” he promised. Playa hung up, calling Johnny next.
“Johnny? Get the car, I need a driver,” he informed him. “And grab my costume as well.”
“What happened?” Johnny inquired.
“The Brotherhood kidnapped Carlos and are about to torture him,” Playa informed him.
“What?! How did… never mind, that doesn’t matter. I’m grabbing your costume and some guns. Where you at?” his Second-in-Command asked urgently.
“I’m outside Donut Whores in Prawn Court,” Playa informed him. “Come quick.”
After hanging up, he called the last member of his Holy Trinity. “Shaundi, get the boys armed and ready. Have the mission on lockdown and get everybody ready to rumble.”
“Got it, Pierce just texted me,” she informed him.
“We’re going to war today,” he warned her. “The heroes won’t like it, so suit up yourself. And Tell Pierce he has to do so as well.”
“Understood,” Shaundi replied. “Give ‘em hell, boss!”
“I will,” he vowed. Less than five minutes later Johnny Gat screeched to a halt in a slick silver convertible.
“Hop in,” Johnny said, and Playa did so, getting into the backseat where several firearms were stashed, along with his costume in a trash bag.
“So, where are we going first?” Johnny asked as Playa got into his villain outfit.
“Donnie’s,” Playa said grimly. “We’re going to make the weak link spill the beans about what they’re gonna do to Carlos.”
“Gotcha,” Johnny said, and they zoomed off, cutting through side streets and weaving in and out of traffic. Honking cars and angry drivers were left in their wake, Johnny only paid them enough heed to flip them off.
They reached Donnie’s garage, finding it surrounded by Brotherhood goons. Clearly, Donnie or Jessica had thought ahead and stationed some protection around the most vulnerable member of the Brotherhood’s Inner Circle.
“Lethal or non-lethal?” Johnny asked as they approached.
“Non-lethal, for now,” Playa replied as he tugged his mas mask on. Now fully kitted out in his costume, he leapt out of the car before it even came to a halt, slamming a fist into the face of a startled goon, who fell, unconscious.
Johnny hit the brakes, whipping out a shotgun. He fired a beanbag round into one Brotherhood member’s crotch, before hopping out with a canister of tear gas he threw into the garage.
Seconds later over a dozen people came spilling out, weeping and screaming as the gas agitated their eyes and skin. Johnny calmly shot them with his beanbag rounds, knocking them down before they did anything else.
Playa spotted Donnie amongst the crowd and lashed out, grabbing him by the collar before pinning him to the wall.
“What the fuck?!” he gasped out, eyes red and teary from the gas.
“Where is Carlos?!” Playa demanded.
“Skunk?! No, what are you doing here?!” Donnie gasped, recognizing Playa’s voice, even through the gas mask’s filter.
“Tell me!” he snarled, slamming Donnie against the wall of his own building. “Or I start breaking fingers!”
“I can’t tell you! Maero will kill me!” Donnie blubbered.
“If you don’t tell me, Maero won’t get the chance!” Playa uttered, punching Donnie in the face, breaking his nose.
“I’m not helping you again!” Donnie spat out.
“That’s a shame,” Playa replied. He then did as he’d promised earlier and reached down to his right hand, breaking his thumb with a swift “Snap!”
“ARGH!” Donnie screeched.
“Tell me!” Playa snarled.
“Even if I knew, I’d never tell you!” he spat back.
“Johnny, give me a side piece!” Playa requested.
“Sure thing, but hurry it up, we’ve got company,” Johnny said as he gave Playa a handgun. In the distance, three Brotherhood trucks were gunning down the street towards them, loaded with more goons.
Playa nodded in understanding, then pointed the gun in his hands at Donnie’s right pinky finger. He then pulled the trigger, blowing the mechanic’s digit clean off.
“AGGH!” Donnie howled, blood spurting from his wound.
“Tell me!” Playa repeated.
“I-I heard Jessica say they were gonna give him a ride around the docks!” Donnie whimpered. “That’s all, I swear!”
Playa grunted in response before knocking him out with a blow to the head.
“To the docks, Johnny,” Playa informed his best friend, who was firing at the trucks with live ammo as beanbags and rubber bullets wouldn’t do much to a vehicle.
“Yeah, yeah gimme a sec,” the gun-toting Saints member replied, shooting through the windshield of an oncoming Compensator with his shotgun, killing the driver and causing the vehicle to spin out and crash into the second truck. Said second truck flipped over and skidded to a halt in a shower of sparks in the middle of the street.
That left only a single Legion to reach the garage, but Playa was in no mood to play around, and instead emptied the handgun’s clip into the truck, shooting through the windshield just as Johnny had. The driver didn’t die, having ducked down below the dashboard as soon as he’d spotted the super villain pointing his gun at him, but that did cause the truck to swerve and ram into a street light. Still, it took it out of commission, which was the whole point.
“Okay, they’re down, let’s go!” Playa ordered.
“Damn, that’s some nice shooting, boss,” Johnny praised.
“You weren’t bad yourself,” Playa replied with an unseen smirk.
The two hopped into their ride and drove off, leaving behind a scene of carnage and devastation.
“Pierce, gimme a sit-rep,” Playa demanded, calling in to his friend.
“We’ve got the boys ready to rumble!” Pierce declared.
“Good! Carlos is down at the docks. But the Brotherhood know we’re coming, so expect some resistance,” he warned. “You will lead the assault. Try to open a path for Johnny and I to get through. Have Shaundi hang back with a few Saints to guard our territory from any vultures.”
“Can do, boss!” Pierce said. “Get Carlos back safely!”
“We will,” Playa vowed, before hanging up. “Come on, Johnny, put pedal to the metal!”
“Now you’re talking!” Johnny laughed, and they shot off towards the docks.
Unfortunately, as they did so, a police car began to chase them, sirens blaring.
“Ah, shit, the pigs are out,” Johnny grumbled.
“Not for long,” Playa declared, as he took one of Johnny’s rifles and aimed it back at the police car. The police officer, to his credit, spotted the weapon being pointed at him and tried to swerve, but Playa’s finger was faster on the trigger, and he blew out the front left tire with a single shot, sending the cop car spinning.
It wasn’t the only one, however, as two more peeled out of nearby side streets and began to follow after him.
“This is the Stilwater Police!” a cop with a megaphone (or perhaps an auditory Quirk?) shouted at the two Inner Circle members. “Pull over or we will open fire!”
“Try me, piggies!” Playa shouted back.
“Attention! This is patrol cars Nineteen and Twenty-Four! We are chasing the supervillain Skunk!” the other car announced. “All civilians are advised to clear the area! I repeat…”
Ignoring them as they called out to the civilians, Playa fired the rifle again, but missed. Swearing, he ducked down as a hail of bullets whizzed by his head, a few of the rounds plinking off the trunk of the car.
“Are they shooting at me?!” Johnny demanded incredulously.
“What do you think?!” Playa snapped back.
“Fuckers better not scratch the paint, or I will shove grenades up their asses!” the Asian-American Holy Trinity swore.
They drove into Stoughton, the docks just up ahead. But the police were doggedly on their tails, alongside a hero on a motorcycle.
“None of them are giving up!” Playa growled.
“I can’t shake ‘em, either!” Johnny complained.
“Fine! I didn’t want to do this, but they left me no choice!” Playa snarled. “Pinch your nose!”
“Oh, shit!” Johnny exclaimed, quickly shoving a pair of rubbery nose plugs up his nostrils. And not a moment too soon, either, as a second later the air was filled with a vile odor of death and sulfur.
None of the law enforcement officers were expecting it, and thus recoiled in disgust as their eyes began to water and their noses stung. One threw up, immediately hitting the brakes, and another swerved and starting driving down another street to get away from the stench.
The hero got the worst of it, as they threw up inside their own helmet, causing their motorcycle to crash into some railing overlooking a river and send him flipping over it into the water.
“Ah, nothing like a good ol’ dose of L’eau d’Skunk to keep the police off our scent,” Playa chuckled.
“My nose hurts,” Johnny complained. “These nose plugs don’t block out everything!”
“Ah, get over it, you big baby,” Playa snorted. “Now hush, I’m calling Pierce for an update.”
“How’s it going, Pierce?” Playa inquired as he contacted his other lieutenant.
“Um, not so great. You were right, they were waiting for us,” the African-American member of the Holy Trinity replied. In the background, Playa could hear gunfire as well as the squeal of tires.
“We’re almost to the docks, so you better have a way in for us,” Playa uttered.
“We will, we will! Just give us… Whoa, shit, watch out!” There was a screech, followed by a loud crash and crunch of metal, and Playa narrowed his eyes.
“Pierce? Pierce, are you okay?!”
“Yeah, just nearly got run over by Matt Wolfe himself,” Pierce responded a couple seconds later.
“Wolfe is there?”
“Yeah, he’s leading the Brotherhood’s defenses,” Pierce explained. “But, good news, I think we have a way in, now that he totaled that dumb truck of his.”
“Got it. Stay safe!” Playa ordered, before sending the directions to Johnny’s GPS. “Take us there, we’ll be able to cut through to the docks and save Carlos!”
“Hell yeah, let’s do this!” Johnny cheered, twisting the steering wheel violently as he changed lanes. They soon came up to the battlefield, although they could hear it long before they saw it. Purple clad Saints members traded fire with the red wearing Brotherhood, the latter having formed a blockade using several of their vehicles which cut off the streets leading to the docks.
The Saints had been forced to disembark and use their own cars as cover, but then the Brotherhood had tried to pincer them, coming down from a side street and cutting through a field with only a chain link fence in the way. It was clear that the sneak attack had only failed because Pierce had used his Quirk on the fence, which, when made invincible, had seen the Brotherhood trucks crash helplessly against it, wrecking them. The fence was badly ruined and wrecked from all the vehicles hitting it, but it had stopped the charge.
Still, the Saints were outnumbered and out gunned, and Playa grit his teeth in annoyance as he saw that.
“Fuck,” he swore, before turning back to the phone in his hands. “Pierce! Retreat!”
“What?”
“I said retreat!” Playa commanded. “You stopped their charge, but they still have more men and guns than you!”
“But, we can still-!”
“You did what you could! And you bought me time and an opening! Now go! Get our guys out of here. Your work here is done.”
For a terse couple of seconds, Playa feared Pierce would argue or ignore him, but that did not come to pass as an annoyed, “Okay, we’ll pull back,” was uttered.
“Save your skin so you can fight another day, Pierce,” Playa urged. He then hung up, and pointed to a gap in the Brotherhood’s blockade that had been made when somebody’s Quirk had knocked a truck onto its side, leaving a small opening between two Compensators. “Johnny, think you can squeeze through that?”
“No sweat!” Johnny Gat bragged. “Hold on!”
He gunned the engine and they hurtled towards the shootout. They zipped past the retreating Third Street Saints and then past the stunned Brotherhood guards.
Once passed the barricade, Playa disabled their vehicles by shooting up their tires, making it harder for the Brotherhood to chase them.
“Alright, we’ve penetrated their territory, where the hell is… Carlos!?” Playa shouted, spotting the person they were looking for.
Driving along the backroads of the docks was a massive red four-wheeled truck. It had spikes and metal wolves all over it, and had two Brotherhood goons riding inside it, as well as four more clinging to the outside, shotguns and hunting rifles in their hands that were being waved around, and occasionally fired into the air, or at screaming pedestrians trying to hide from the behemoth vehicle.
As for Carlos, his legs were chained up and attached to the rear of the truck. He was being dragged along behind the truck as it sped around, like Achilles dragging Hector’s corpse behind his chariot during the Trojan War. The driver wasn’t trying to ease the suffering, either, making sure to hit every bump and pothole along the way in order to cause the chained-up Saint to experience even more pain.
“What the fuck is this, a Mad Max reboot?” Johnny uttered, glaring hatefully at the vehicle as he saw what they were doing to one of their own.
“Don’t let it get away!” Playa shouted. “Stay on its tail!”
“No shit,” Johnny spat out. He then made the car swerve aside as several bullet whizzed past, fired by the Brotherhood goons riding atop the truck.
“Well, they shot first. You know what that means!” Playa sneered, pulling out a handgun from the collection Johnny’d brought with him.
He then aimed at the truck as it sped recklessly around and fired at the tires, hoping to blow them up and get the vehicle to come to a halt. However, his plans failed.
“Armored tires!” Johnny exclaimed as the bullets bounced off harmlessly.
“Damn it! Do you have anything stronger?” Playa asked as he rummaged through the pile of guns in the backseat.
“No! I didn’t think I’d need my Goddamned RPGs for this!” Johnny retorted.
“Fine! We’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way!” Playa replied, pointing the gun at the front of the truck. “Let’s see if I can’t shoot that damn driver and stop them that way!”
“Whoa!” Johnny exclaimed as a manhole cover suddenly came flying at the windshield. He managed to evade, but only barely, as the spinning metal disc tore off his side mirror.
“Hell was that? Telekinesis or something?” Johnny Gat wondered angrily. He retaliated by whipping out a submachine gun of his own from the glove box and firing it at one of the Brotherhood soldiers. eight rounds slammed into the bare chest of a gangster wearing only a pair of red cargo shorts, but they deformed and were deflected by his skin turning to stone.
The Brotherhood goon with the stony flesh sneered at Johnny and shouted something, probably rude, but it was lost in the wind.
“Damn, that didn’t work,” Johnny growled.
“Then take this!” Playa shouted, firing a rifle at the driver’s compartment of the truck. A few rounds scratched the paint and bounced off the windows.
“Damn it, they have bullet-proof glass! And one of them has a Quirk that can control metal!” Playa announced in annoyance as he saw the gouges he’d made in the side of the truck seal up, the metal flowing like wax to repair itself.
“That’s it, Plan C! I’m going to try and grab Carlos!” Playa announced. “Drive a little closer!”
“Any closer and I might accidentally run him over!” Johnny warned. “Plus, there’s still the problem of us being shot at!”
To punctuate his point, a bullet pinged off of the side of the convertible.
“Just do your best!” Playa shouted. “I’ll clear those shitheads off of the truck!”
Johnny swore loudly, but complied, and began to drive the car as close as he could. Meanwhile, Playa opened fire on the goons clinging to the truck with a shotgun. A round of fire knocked the stone-skinned gangster off the vehicle, and there was a violent “Thump!” as Johnny vindictively ran him over.
Then next to fall victim was the gangster with the Telekinesis Quirk. He tried to use it to fling a grenade right into the seat next to Johnny, but the Saints’ second-in-command was quicker and Johnny managed to toss it right back before it went off.
It exploded right in the face of the Telekinetic, and Playa winced as a spray of pink and red splattered all over the convertible.
“Son of a-! Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of these seats?!” Johnny demanded angrily as he turned on the windshield wipers in an effort to get the gore off the front of his car.
That was two Brotherhood men down, and Playa quickly added the third and fourth victims to that count when he chucked the empty shotgun at one of them, and the fool flailed around and knocked the other rider off. The hit the ground hard but neither the truck nor the car stopped for them.
‘All that leaves is the driver and the guy next to him,’ Playa mused. With the truck cleared off, Johnny was able to drive closer, and Playa tried to reach down towards Carlos.
“Grab my hand!” Playa shouted at his lieutenant. Weakly, the Hispanic Saint tried to reach out and take the offered hand, but the truck sped up, and their fingers brushed against each other as they slipped apart.
“Damn it!” Playa snarled.
To make matters worse, the probability of freeing Carlos greatly decreased as a trio of cars bearing Brotherhood colors pulled out of a nearby garage and began to chase after them.
Playa wasn’t too bothered, however, and he began to turn his sweat into a swirling cloud of noxious fumes. As the convertible drove ahead of the three cars chasing them, all of the foul smog he was producing flew backwards into the pursuing vehicles. He sneered in dark amusement as one of the cars immediately swerved and slammed into one of its companions, causing both vehicles to crash and burn at the same time.
The final one didn’t crash, though it came close as it wobbled about on the road. Whoever was driving it had had the smart idea of rolling up their windows and having the A/C on full blast, which had helped mitigate the stench.
Although he was impressed by their foresight, Playa didn’t have time to play around with them, and simply picked up an AR-16 and emptied an entire clip into the front of the car chasing him and Johnny.
Bullets pierced the windshield and the front of the vehicle, and the red car slewed to a halt, smoke billowing from the ruined engine.
“There, that’s taken care of,” Playa spat out, before turning back to the truck. “Johnny, take me closer! I’m going to jump onto its roof!”
“You’re crazy!” Johnny barked out, but he complied all the same and drove up close enough so Playa could leap from the back of the convertible onto the top of the truck.
Once he made it, he was able to lean down and secret a bunch of oxidizing liquids all over the back of the truck as well as onto the chain binding Carlos. The super rusting substance ate through the metal faster than the metal-repairing Quirk could fix, and a few seconds afterwards the chain broke apart in a shower of rusted flakes, and the young man slid to a stop.
Meanwhile, Playa kept on pouring more and more metal-eating sweat all over the truck. He then leapt back into Johnny’s car, which immediately turned around and drove back to pick up Carlos.
Behind them, the rusting solution ate through the rear axles, and the wheels snapped off, sending the death-truck spiraling out of control. It slammed into the side of a building, never to bother anyone ever again.
“Carlos!” Playa shouted as he and Johnny reached him. He was lying in the street, bloody and badly injured, and the lieutenant wasn’t even conscious anymore.
“We have to get him to the hospital,” Johnny said grimly, and Playa nodded furiously. He gingerly hoisted Carlos off the ground and got him into the back of the convertible. Then, without waiting another second, Johnny put pedal to the metal and shot off down the road, completely ignoring the various rules of the road in order to get their injured member to safety.
“Come on, Carlos, you can’t die on me!” Playa pleaded as he applied pressure to the worst of the bloody wounds he could find.
He wasn’t going to lose another friend, God damn it!
