[4-14] The Town

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

“Ten.”

Silence.

“Nine.”

“Lower it, sweetie. We’ve got places to b-”

“Eight,” Christa snapped, finger quivering on the trigger. A bead of sweat trailed down her dirty cheek, dripping onto her tattered shirt. From where Red stood, it could have easily been a tear.

“Okay,” Karl challenged, his playful smirk twisting to something slightly more menacing. “Go ahead. If you want to ensure that you get nothing out of me and that you’re sister is the worse for it, be my guest.”

“Seven!” The blonde announced, slightly louder, voice wracked with anxiety. It didn’t take a psychologist to see that she was at her wits' end. Whether Karl could truly predict her behavior when pushed to such an extreme was for anyone to guess.

The dapper executive took a step forward, lowering his face to press the tip of her makeshift bayonet to his nose. The muzzle now pointed directly between his eyes, threatening to gift him a third such socket. He made no verbal response, merely displaying the same fiendish grin.

“Six.” She brought the rifle up to brace against her shoulder, keeping the rifle’s sight evenly placed between the shyster’s mocking eyes. If the host wanted to play chicken, she was more than willing to oblige.

“Listen dollface,” the smart-mouthed swordsman quipped, “We don’t have six-hundred words to waste on your countdown-.”

“Five,” Christa all but whispered, ignoring the interruption entirely. Her hands had steadied, emotion draining from her eyes. Her chest rose and fell in a rhythmic cadence, slow and steady.

“Mr. Jak is the only one that can get us out of here!” Trent cried from his seat adjacent the mechanized man and the dark-skinned samurai. “The only one who can get me out of here.” Wade and his fellow swordsman exchanged looks, remaining silent.

Red caught sight of the young man, the look in his face telegraphing that he had clearly been working a job way beyond his pay grade. The boy seemed beside himself, unsure if he should be coming to the aid of his employer or simply remaining in the truck. Neither option seemed to offer much promise.

“Four.” None of those gathered spoke a word as the boy broke into tears, the weight of the situation falling on him all at once. Christa seemed to flinch as he sobbed openly, her finger momentarily leaving the trigger.

Karl noticed the minute movement, his smile widening as he straightened his posture, brushing dust from his previously clean suit. “Limp.”

As a cinder to kindling, the man’s words ignited the emotional powder keg beneath the surface. In one fluid motion the gunslinger reared back, raising her rifle and bringing the muzzle down hard over the producer’s cranium with an audible crack. Karl staggered slightly, bringing a hand up to press against his now bloodied coiffure. Before he could open his mouth to assault her with a snarky one-liner, she had pressed the jagged, gun-mounted blade to his throat. “One.”

It happened in an instant. Red reacted on instinct, leaping forward to close his jaws gingerly around the huntress’ arm. He held not a single positive emotion for the producer, no, though there was a very real possibility that murdering Karl would leave them stranded in the hellish town. What this meant for Vincent, he couldn’t know, though he was not willing to find out. With a firm grip on the woman’s bony arm, he made a quick jerking motion and pulled the barrel clear of Karl’s proximity as Christa’s finger squeezed tightly on the trigger. With a resounding boom the slug cracked the asphalt as Abner swooped in and grabbed her around her waist, lifting and pulling her away. She thrashed against her lover’s grip for a moment before the ex-trooper let her down softly, her uneven blonde locks hiding her hanging head as she fumed at the duo of 'saviors'. Abner stepped forward, ignoring her brooding, and pulled her into an embrace. "It won't get her back," Red heard him murmur.

“Well, that was fun,” the uniformed mercenary piped in, breaking the tense silence. ”You should probably get back in the truck, Karl, before she finds it in her to blow a load on you.”

Christa stood silent for a moment between the trooper and the lion, fixing them both with a smoldering glare. Finally she shouldered her rifle and turned toward the truck, raising her voice just loud enough for everyone to hear. “Let’s go.”

”Great,” Wade commented, clapping his hands together and leaping nimbly into the bed of the truck. ”Let’s get going. Hands where I can see ‘em you two,” he said, patting the dark-skinned samurai on the shoulder. ”We don’t need you passing viruses.”

The remainder of the group once more took their seats in the pickup as their blonde driver revved the engine, pinning the gas and taking off at a breakneck speed. No sooner had they jerked forward than the lion heard glass shatter behind him the butt of a katana coming into view. The mouthy mercenary poked his head into the cab, resting his arm on the jagged partition.

“Just like you Wade, to break a wall,” Karl quipped, shaking crystal shrapnel from his lap.

”You know you can’t keep me out. Besides, gotta keep my eyes on the prize,” he said, pointing to his own eyes, and then to Karl’s.

“Eyes off of my prize, thank you.” The swordsman stifled a laugh. At the sound of sniffling from the rear, Karl turned in his seat to look at his youthful employee sitting beside the mercenary. “Kristen,” he said, “She’s safe.” Trent quieted at the producer’s words, wiping tears from his eyes.

”Anyway, glad ol’ Karly here doesn’t have any extra holes. We’re fresh out of Phoenix Downs and we really don’t need an ‘Aerith incident’ on our hands.” He glanced at Nanaki, whose jaw now hung slack. “Too soon? Meh, Rinoa was better anyway,”

“It’s best to not even ask,” the executive said, catching Red’s gaze. “I suppose, though, since you went out of your way to stop your handler from harming yours truly, I could answer a few questions for you.”

The fiery feline sidestepped the remark, cutting straight to the chase. “Vincent Valentine,” he said through gritted teeth. “Where.”

“You got my gift didn’t you? That should answer that question for you. Though you won’t likely find service around here.” He glanced out the window, noting the dilapidated buildings and vacant streets.

”Vincent?” The masked man piped-in. ”Mopey type? Looks like he shops at Hot Topic?

Red snapped to attention at once, staring into the masked man’s ‘eyes’. “You know him?”

”I wouldn’t say know him, but he was briefly the second moodiest person on team Warpool Valenchiha last year." Wade scratched his masked chin with his gloved finger, staring wistfully into the night. ”He got struck by lightning. Good times.”

Nanaki opened his lips to respond to the man’s strange reply, though he could get no words out before the automobile lurched, flinging the unfastened passengers forward. The burgundy beast’s amber eye caught a blur in the headlights as Christa slammed on the brakes, the truck turning hard into a skid as it came to a halt.