The Next Step

[Jim Raynor]

Ditto climbed the curling stairs, Diesel's lumbering form ahead of him and a gun wielding guard jabbing him in the back with the rifle behind him. His teeth flattened together until they shook. The skin about his nose tightened into a deeply etched scowl. He felt the beads of sweat oozing from his forehead and clinging there, driving an itch in his mind that wanted to transform into a Rhydon and shred the guard into fleshy confetti. His breathing sharpened, opening the only outlet for his rage, but the quickening of his breaths only intensified the mind rattling urge to react.
 
His eyes darted from side to side, searching for some implement he could use to belt his captor with and escape. The featureless brick walls offered nothing but cracks and dust.
 
Calm down. Ditto took a long breath, expanding his torso out like a balloon, and jetted it from his nose. His short temper wouldn't help him out of his situation. His scowl relaxed, but his furrowed brow remained as a connection to his rage. Being consumed by it would ruin any chance he had, but drip feeding it to himself allowed sharper thought and decision making. Plus, if the opportunity to attack revealed itself, he could open the barrage and flood himself with it, basking in a torrent of fury that would make him a deadly and uncompromising assassin.
 
Yet such a chance remained elusive. His talent for shapeshifting gave him the tools he needed to become such a feared and powerful being, but exposing it to anyone not only destroyed Giovanni's use as a disguise, but usually involved his adversaries tightening security. While Ditto found that social engineering could defeat almost any security system, the smarter enemy could plug this exploit as well. Whoever Spook Eye was, Ditto intuitively knew he would bolster defences to the point where infiltration would be nigh impossible.
 
Diesel's thick legs came to a halt. "I'm opening the door now," he said, lowering his hands to the knob.
 
The guard nestled the rifle's end into the small of Ditto's back. "Try anything and this guy dies. Then you'll be next."
 
As the gangster's sandpapery hand wrapped around the doorknob, the entire stairwell rattled. Thin clouds of dust, unsettled from the shake, fell upon them. Diesel leaned closer, his eyes tracing lines across his vision.
 
"What are you doing?" Ditto said.
 
"Listen," Diesel said in a hushed tone.
 
Ditto stared at the ground and focused on his hearing. Beyond the door, muffled bangs and tinkling trampled over muffled shouting.
 
"It would appear that your secret hideout isn't as hidden as you might have hoped," Ditto said to the guard, grinning. Man, that felt good.
 
"What?" The cold rifle barrel left Ditto's back and the guard zipped past him.
 
An instinct cried out in his mind, and Ditto wholeheartedly agreed with it. His hands dropped onto the guard's shoulders. Spook Eye's henchman turned his head as Ditto hurled him backwards, his body rolling and crashing down the staircase. Bullets screamed from the rifle as the guard tumbled down towards the basement, but they only found targets in the well aged brick around them.
 
"Quick, let's go!" Ditto urged to his last gang member. "It won't take him long to get back up!"
 
Diesel didn't need another prompt. He barrelled through the door shoulder-first with Ditto in hot pursuit.
 
Ditto entered into the foyer, a thin shroud of smoke layered over his sight. The smell of burned rubber and blood intertwined in the room. Two searing headlights bore into the room from the far side, making it nearly impossible to see anything else. Ditto squinted, kicking a discarded pistol on the ground. As he picked it up, it fell from slippery fingers. Ditto rubbed his index finger and thumb together before his nose and sniffed. Blood.
 
Again he grabbed the gun, wrapping his slick fingers carefully about it, and hurled it at one of the spotlights. It hit with a satisfying shatter. Ditto relaxed his eyelids and blinked against the remaining beam of light.
 
The front walls of the building had been obliterated by a interposing garbage truck, its single headlight unwavering, the driver's side door swinging open. Bodies lay about the ground, some flat on their faces, others hunched over rubble. Two assault rifles lay near the garbage truck, the spent casings of their ammunition gathered in two glinting piles.
 
"What the hell happened here?" Diesel asked, batting away the dust cloud.
 
As if responding to his voice, a figure came bounding from behind the written-off garbage truck. The shady figure burst through the smoke, his silhouette burned away by the headlight.
 
Diesel laughed. "No fucking way!"
 
Ditto could barely believe his eyes either. There stood Ricky, crouched on his haunches like a gorilla, smiling and giggling. He looked around the room. Did he do this? Was he some kind of idiot-savant or something?
 
"How?" Ditto said, dumbstruck. "How did you do this? How did you find us? Where'd you get the garbage truck from? Do you even know how to drive a truck?"
 
Ricky grimaced and stuck his pinky finger in his ear, twisting it like he was forcing a screw into place.
 
"You ain't gonna get a straight answer from him, boss," Diesel said.
 
Gunfire erupted from behind him. A jolt of adrenaline shot down his spine and he dived forward. He rolled to his knees and slid behind a chunk of fallen wall. Diesel and Ricky charged past him and out the ruined building. Diesel, to his credit, stopped behind the garbage truck and looked to his leader.
 
"Come on, let's go!"
 
Another round of bullets whizzed past. "Come out here, you bastards!"
 
Ditto peeked over the top of his cover. The soldier walked slowly, steadily, rifle in arms. A red line ran across his cheek, revealing a small segment of his face beneath the mask. His head spun towards Ditto. Stomach squelching, he ducked down again.
 
"Go!" Ditto said. "I'll take care of him."
 
Diesel looked to the soldier, back to his boss, and then stole away into the night.
 
With no direct line of sight, Ditto was free to transform. He needed something fast and agile, while being able to strike from distance. He closed his eyes and felt his body shrinking into its new state.
 
He poked around the side of his cover, bushy tail bristling. The soldier crept forward, though the remaining headlight of the garbage truck appeared to hinder his search. Ditto skidded out, pursued his lips, and pressurised jet of water exploded forward. The guard turned at the sound and caught the Water Gun attack square in the chest. He flew into the far wall, audibly grunting as he crashed to hands and knees. The rifle had fallen from his grip, but was only a stretch away.
 
Ditto sprinted on Squirtle's stubby clawed feet along the wet trail left by his attack. He sucked his body into the shell and bounced along the ground, letting the slick track thrust him forward. A few moments later, he collided with the soldier's boots as he tried to stand, and he slammed back into the hard, dusty floor.
 
Popping his limbs and head from his shell, Ditto scooped up the rifle and jammed the barrel beneath the guard's chin.
 
"I knew I'd kill you," Ditto said in a croaky voice. "Even if you didn't pose a threat to me at all, I knew I would kill you."
 
He pulled the trigger. A flash of light and splatter of blood painted across the floor for a second, and then all was forgotten.
 
Ditto transformed back into Giovanni, ignoring the requirements for the black army fatigues since his cover had been blown, and strolled out of the building and onto the pavement.
 
As he looked up to cross the road, his throat tightened. During his daring assault, two black vans had pulled up and emptied their cargo onto the street - a strike team clad in black, rifles drawn and trained on Ditto's chest.
 
A splintered chorus of "Don't move!" and "Stay where you are!" repeated over and over, but Ditto had already raised his hands above his head.
 
"I don't suppose you gentlemen saw a burly vagabond and a mentally ill criminal charging down the street towards me, perhaps looking to assist? No?" The soldiers surrounded Ditto in a tight circle. "Lightning doesn't often strike twice."
 
Someone kicked the back of his knees, forcing him to the ground. The familiar feeling of a rifle butt smashing across his temple sung loud and clear as everything else dulled into a single, numb blackness.