Black Out

6:00 - Barrett- Four-on-One

by McD

As the first Disassembler moved in, Barrett drew his Cougar Fineblade and side-stepped the clumsy attack, causing the ork to momentarily lose his balance. Barrett kicked him over with enough force that he heard the punk’s nose break as his face was introduced to the concrete. As two more gangers rushed in, the blue-furred warrior pressed the side of his upper-right molar with his tongue. Time seemed to slow down as his wired reflexes kicked in. The two Disassemblers attacked, one swinging a vibro-knife, the other wielding a bloody dagger. Barrett sprang into the air, kicking each ganger in the face simultaneously. In the meantime, the first ork, Donnie, blood oozing from his crushed nose, had struggled back to his feet. With a roar of outrage, he attacked the Night One, and his four comrades followed suit.

Even with his augmented reflexes, Barrett could not avoid all of the Disassembers, not when they were surrounding him. He dodged the first two slashes, then had to duck as the troll swung a vibro-sword at him. One of the orks took advantage, slicing at the assassin’s back. Fortunately, Barrett’s armor shielded him from the worst of the attack, preventing any serious injury. While the ork paused to ponder this, Barrett hit him with an ushiro-geri (back kick) in the jaw, and followed that up by spinning to ram his Fineblade into the ork’s throat, putting an end to his life. As the vibro-knife wielding ork dropped to the ground, blood spurting out of his neck, Mookie attacked, scoring a cut to Barrett’s face before he could dodge completely. Barrett guessed that he must have so augmentations as well, to pull that little trick off. He kicked Mookie in the stomach, giving himself time to move.

“Grady!” bellowed the troll. “Alright, motherfragger, now it’s your turn!” With that, the troll took another swing at Barrett, only to find that the “funny-looking elf” had disappeared. Barrett stood behind the troll, facing his broken-nosed comrade. With a smirk forming on his lips, he gestured for Donnie to attack him. Both Mookie and the ork moved in. Barrett tapped the troll on the back to get his attention.

“There you are! I’m gonna take your ears for trophies, keeb!” the oversized brute roared as he spun to impale the annoying little man on his sword. Unfortunately for Donnie, who was also attacking, Barrett sprang out of harm’s way just as the sword was about to turn him into a shish-ka-bob. Mookie stopped just in time, but his buddy wasn’t so fortunate; lacking the focus and timing to stop his attack, the troll rammed his vibro-sword straight through Donnie’s stomach and out his back. The ork’s look of surprise matched the troll’s own as he viewed his handiwork. He let Donnie’s corpse slide off the blade, his shock evident.

“Frag it Blister, can’t you do anything right?!” Mookie snarled, “get that son-of-a-slitch!”

Snapping back to his senses, Blister saw Barrett springing towards him, and backhanded the assassin into a wall, his cybernetically-enhanced body smashing a hole in it.

“You’re dead! You hear me? DEAD!” Mookie shrieked as the two gangers approached.

Barrett started to stand, but winced in pain. Drek, he thought, I think that damn trog cracked my ribs! He looked at the Disassemblers’ now-forgotten victims, wondering if they were still alive. Two of the three of them were visibly breathing, albeit barely. Guess I’ll have to end this quick, or they won’t last long.

Rising to his feet, Barrett faced his twisted opponents, gripping his knife tightly in his hand.

“Oh, so you’re not finished yet,” sneered Mookie. “Good. That ought to make this that much more fun.”

“I don’t think so,” Barrett growled through gritted teeth.

“Look at you. You can hardly stand! What can you do now, huh, tough guy?” Mookie taunted.

“Let me show you,” Barrett said. He tapped his molar again. His reflexes kicked in, full speed. Before either ganger knew it, he was attacking. With lightning-like speed, Barrett delivered a shomen-geri (front kick) to Mookie’s throat, and thrust his Fineblade into Blister’s arm. Mookie dropped to the ground, grabbing at his throat, while Blister howled in pain. Before the troll could react, Barrett had jumped onto his back. Grabbing the pull-tab on his wristphone with his right hand, the shadowrunner pulled out a nearly invisible length of monowire and wrapped it tightly around his opponent’s neck. Blister struggled to pull the annoyance clinging on behind him off, but his massive bulk and lack of flexibility would not allow him to reach. As Mookie, still gasping for air looked on, Barrett braced his feet against the troll’s back, held on tight, and pulled.

The monowire garrote took the demented troll’s head off as if it were attached by a piece of thread. Blood began spurting everywhere; on Barrett, on Mookie, and on the corpses around them. Barrett leapt clear of the now-headless titan, allowing his garrote to return to its hiding place. Surveying the scene around him, the Night One turned, glaring at Mookie through a haze of blood. Mookie began to back away in fear, his courage obviously gone with his fellow Disassemblers.

“D-d-don’t kill me, man! P-p-please!” the ganger gasped, his breath finally returning. Barrett started to walk towards him, picking up his knife as he approached. Mookie held his hands up in a warding-off gesture. Barrett stopped in front of him and crouched down to his height.

“Listen up, you little piece of drek,” Barrett hissed, his voice dripping with menace, “I’m actually in a forgiving mood right now. Leave. Now. Or I’ll kill you. So ka?”

The ganger nodded his head, standing up slowly with Barrett. Barrett glared at him for a second, then turned to check on the victims. Mookie, deciding that he could not just let this guy get away with killing his chummers and return to the gang in disgrace, quietly pulled a survival knife from behind his back. He carefully approached Barrett, who was crouched in front of the victims. Trying to make no noise, he slowly raised his knife…

Without even looking, Barrett threw his Cougar Fineblade behind his back, striking Mookie squarely in the middle of his forehead. The last ganger dropped, leaving Barrett in silence.

“N-no…please…do…do what you want with me, but…but leave my girlfriend alone,” came a raspy voice. Barrett looked up in surprise to see that one of the victims was awake.

But why would he…Barrett started to think, then took a good look at himself; he was a Night One, a metavariant that was not commonly seen, and often thought to be inherently evil, wearing dark combat clothes, who had just killed five gangers on his own. Reaching to his forehead, he discovered that he had also been bleeding, a lot, probably from going through the wall earlier, in addition to the cut from Mookie. Wiping his face, he put on the most reassuring look he could muster. “Relax, omae, I’m not hear to hurt you or your friend. I just want to help.”

The youngster looked skeptical at first. “W-what ab-a-about Bobby?”

Barrett turned to the other young man. He wasn’t breathing, and when Barrett got closer to check on him, he saw why: the poor guy had been ripped open, stomach to the top of his sternum. Damn, Barrett thought, Damn it! His head drooped in sorrow, and he pounded his fist on the ground. The other guy looked up at him hopefully.

“Mister?” he asked, wanting to know about his friend. Barrett looked at him a moment, and shook his head.

“Listen up,” Barrett said, coming back into focus, “I have a medkit on my bike, and I’m gonna call for the paramedics. You just worry about staying alive, and I’ll take care of the rest.” The guy looked a little more relaxed, but not much.

Barrett turned his attention to the woman. She had lost a lot of blood, but was still breathing. The man who was still alive was not so fortunate; his breathing was even more ragged than hers, and his lacerations more severe; the Disassemblers must have decided to let him die while they started working on his lady friend. Sick bastards, Barrett thought. Barrett shook his head in sorrow that he’d been too late. Putting his reflexes back on standby and deactivating his bike’s security system, he quickly retrieved the medkit from his cargo-boxes and began applying first aid. He did not want to risk moving them, as they were only holding on by a thread. After doing what he could for their injuries, he began scanning the radio frequencies with his commlink for the emergency services channel, broadcasting the same message again and again.

“Attention. This is an emergency! I have two people, male and female down here in South Seattle. Both suffering from serious lacerations, have lost a lot of blood. They need medical attention ASAP!”


Copyright 2002 - M. Dutelle

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