Dante's Abyss Spectators

[Deadpool]

This takes place prior to Round 2

The once bustling saloon was now hollow; most of the entrants elected to recuperate from their battles over washing down the sweet high of victory or bitter, lingering taste of defeat with a relaxing adult beverage.

This came as no shock to Oswald, the bartender, who had been around long enough to know that business boomed best prior to the start of Dante’s Abyss, when patrons still had inflated hopes of becoming the next champion. He could still remember their glistening eyes, filled with ignorant glee. They would come in droves, planting an ass in damn near every stool, crowding every table; their swarm always started at the center of the saloon, detailing the square bar counter with an assortment of faces and characters, before branching out towards the perimeters, like a threading spider web.

He’d be lying if he said those times were enjoyable. The tips were good, sure, but the headache of it all ran painful laps in his head--probably why he suffered from premature balding, only in his mid thirties, and maybe even the discolored blotches scattered across his caramel skin. He preferred the mellow environment of a quiet bar, where he could dim the lights low and do the more monotonous, yet less strenuous duties of upkeep, while listening to a playlist of his favorite childhood R&B artists (there was something soothing--no, therapeutic--about those old songs; Just My Imagination by The Temptations was one of his most cherished; his grandmother use to play it by pulling a large black disc from a hard envelope, and spinning it on wooden box she called a phonograph).

Only one patron remained. It was a brown-skinned, middle-aged man, wearing a full-length trench coat, which was a prune purple. He sat directly in front of the overhead monitor, suspending from the middle of the bar counter, taking mild interest in one of the fights.

To the dark-skinned man, the climax was the very end of the battle. One of the fighters substituted for a wall to protect his all. He was subsequently transformed into a shish kabob by one opponent; the other foe struck him with a tidal wave of energy, which turned him into a drunken surfer.

“Impressive,” Elijah murmured as he brought the lowball glass to his mouth. He took an extended sip until he felt the numbing touch of conglomerated ice kiss his lips, then pushed a subtle grunt from his throat when Hennessey’s distinct amber dropped in his stomach. “You can switch to another fight.”

“The other fight just ended,” Oswald replied matter-of-factly. He finished polishing a beer mug, flipping it around and onto a holder stick, then grabbed another mug from the frothing sink water adjacent to the holders. “There are some midday soap operas on right now, if you want to watch one of those.” Shoving a stained rag into the mug, he twisted it around, removing all of its suds. “They’re not all bad.”

“I’ll pass,” Elijah replied. He swirled around the diluted Hennessey at the bottom of his glass before downing it. “Now that the fight is over, I have some business to attend to. . . Oswald it was, right?”

“You got it.”

Elijah reached into his interior coat pocket, and pulled out a handful of bills--two Karls and a Jason. “I got my Omnillium exchanged for this currency; i trust that it’s usable for tips,too?”

“Only in Karl’s universe,” Oswald replied, “but he Mr. Karl can convert it into any currency I need.”

“Good.” Elijah slid them across the counter to Oswald’s side. “If it isn’t too much trouble, could you tell me how to get to the fighter’s ward?”

Oswald racked the now spotless mug. “Once you leave here, you go left; make a right at the end of the hall, and it’ll be on your right, two doors down.”

“Much appreciated.” With the assistance of his glass cane, Elijah got up from his stool and exited the bar.

* * *

“When I pass,” a raspy voice of an old lady said, “I’m leaving everything I own to you, John-Scott.” Her voice filled the hospital room.

”No, don’t do it!” Deadpool cried.

The mercenary sat at the edge of a cushioned chair, hunched over, eyes firmly locked onto the television mounted in the corner of the room.

Erik lay resting in the bed behind him, covered in taffy-colored blankets. Dried blood stained his head wrapping.  

The Old and the Relaxed was on the screen. A woman nearing the end of her life promised to leave her entire estate to her younger husband, but unbeknownst to the woman, he had three mistresses; two of them were pregnant.

”The entire empire you built--all the hard work you did--is going to be butchered by a bunch of Southside whorebags!” Deadpool jumped from his seat, right fist jolting into the air. ”Damn you, Margarette!”

“What’s going on?” Erik asked, woozy. He slowly pulled himself upright from the bed, rubbing his bandaged head.

Deadpool looked over his shoulder at the priest. ”This old bitch is really about to leave a shit-ton money to an unfaithful, Southside whorbag-fucking, slimeball.”

Erik gritted his teeth, and winced. “No offence, but lower your tone. When you just spoke, a violent red attacked my eyes.”

”Sorry, my Euro buddy,” the mercenary whispered. If it makes you feel better, I see the color red every time I talk. . . But colors aside, how you feeling?”

“My head feels like an anvil was dropped on it,” Erik replied.

Deadpool cut to the chase: ”Can you still fight?” Seriousness saturated his tone.

Erik nodded.

”Good. I don’t think Karl gives out paychecks for the bottom dwellers, and I don’t intend on finding out, either. And I’m almost certain that action figures aren’t made out of second round losers.”

“Action figures?” Erik furrowed a brow.

”Yes,” Deadpool answered. ”The royalties on those damn things is how I can afford to take long hiatuses--I finish well, I get an action figure, and then I barely scrape by until the next Dante’s Abyss. My narration isn’t consistent enough to have fun adventures, like the rest of you primes.”

“If I’m not mistaken, don’t you have ties with some of New Babylon’s crusaders?” Erik replied. “It could be mutually beneficial if you became an affiliate.”

Deadpool doubled over with laughter. ”I doubt there will be any ties left, once I kick their king’s teeth in,” he scoffed. ”We fight the golden boy next round.”

The scar crossing through his left brow and cheek stretched as his blue eyes widened. “We fight King Gilgamesh next round?”

”Yeah, so pop a goddamn senzu bean or something,” the mercenary said, ”because a telekinetic with a busted skull is like a porn star with a broken dick--flaccid and useless.”

* * *

Elijah arrived at the medical corridor, clapping the bottom of his cane on the terrazzo floor as he walked. Doors lined the hallway on either side, each having a small window above the handle. He glanced into every one of them. First his eyes burned with zing, but when it became clear that whom he sought was gone, disappointment and vexation dampened them.

He had just missed him.