Cutscene: Taken I

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The van bucked, axles of the vehicle bouncing as it hit yet another pockmark in the asphalt without slowing down. The world spun again for Axel Ramon as he slammed against the floor of the van again, his muffled mouth letting out an unwanted groan. Another jolt rocked the van as the driver made a swift turn, doing nothing to ease Sparky's pain as his skull bounced off the hard surface without care. The noise of the engine didn't make matters easier for him either, the sheer din only outdone by the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears.

The bruise on the side of his head throbbed with the pain of the first blow he never saw coming, blinding headache mixing with flashes in his vision as he let out another unintentional cry. Even in his state, Sparky didn't fail to notice that he wasn't the only one making noise. In fact, he was far from alone in many ways, several other muffled voices almost synchronizing with him in a symphony of discomfort. A short second later, their noises were followed by the sounds of annoyed cursing, this time from the irritated - angered - voices of their grown captors.

Along with growls to "shut the fuck up", several kicks landed home on the bodies of at least three or four others, the resulting additional groans making that much clear. Wincing in expectation of his own, Sparky tensed his body, doing his best to curl in on himself as he waited for his own stomping.

And yet…

The van ride continued on like that, the teenager blinking in confusion almost half a minute later as he realized he hadn't been punished for making noise.

Huh.

Surprised as he was, Sparky didn't exactly find himself in anything approaching a better mood.

Bound, gagged and on the floor surrounded by Neo-Nazis, there were only so many possible ways this was gonna end.

And none of them looked happy.

At least, not for him.

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It was amazing how time seemed to slow to a crawl when you were terrified for your life. The word 'amazing' might not exactly be accurate, but Sparky wasn't exactly in a position to look up any synonyms that better fit his situation.

In fact, he wasn't in a position to do much other than scream past his gag and writhe on the floor of the van like a particularly overgrown caterpillar, both his hands and legs tied up the way they were.

Not that he would do either of those.

Drawing any more attention to himself would definitely not make things any better than they already were. Even though things getting worse was almost guaranteed, Sparky didn't think that making things worse faster would do anything to help.

Even still, anything happening faster would almost be an improvement, even if it came with a healthy helping of pain. Don't- Sparky shuddered at what would come along with the pain, fear jumping up again in his chest as his heart once again resumed the pace of a rabbit. Don't think about it. Just…

Just what, he asked himself.

Just… Frantic eyes darted back and forth across the dark insides of the vehicle, vaguely lit up by flickers of street lights as the van darted past them. Just pull it together.

It took a while for his breathing to shift from it's ragged pace to something slower, Sparky's nostrils flaring as he tried his best to return to something approaching a level of calm, but he managed it… somehow.

Still, whether it was due to fear or anxiety or just a simple concussion, the ride felt like it was taking hours upon hours and attempting to keep track of how long it had been was pretty much a no-go. Honestly, each slight bump on the road rattled his head against the hard metal and every slight turn sent him sliding several inches back and forth; both making it impossible to somehow try and keep time. Even trying to get an idea for where they were headed was a failed start by itself, the van windows covered with cloth preventing almost any light from getting in and keeping everyone in the back in the dark, both literally and figuratively.

Holy fucking shit, this is… Sparky mentally shook himself before that thought could continue. He knew what the Empire did, yeah. Almost everyone in Brockton Bay and honestly, a lot of people outside it knew at some level too; how could he not?

Beating up minorities was along the lines of what people expected from the Empire, at least the basic racist thugs that made up 99% of the gang, given what they were. Robbing anyone who was non-white after leaving them half-dead was pretty much a guarantee, because why the fuck not, right? Obviously, they weren't exactly gonna get rich out of random and disconnected muggings, but if you were the type to beat up somebody over their skin color or religion, then you probably were pretty happy to snatch an extra twenty bucks from their wallet after cracking their skull op-

...Fuck.

The image of his own skull leaking blood and gray matter on the sidewalk jarred Sparky's mind, sending another shudder through his body that had nothing to do with the driver's reckless behavior. Why did I leave his fucking house? Fuck.

Part of him blamed himself. What the fuck was he thinking when he did this? All this 'cause I was pissed? Running out into Brockton Bay at night? Like I'm fucking invincible? His own self-loathing hung at his thoughts, his own mood cratering even further as he tried not to think of how none of this would have happened if he just accepted Greg's offer. Yeah, he offered to walk me home. and I flipped him off. Fuck me.

Not smart, he knew. There's being pissed and there's being retarded, he hissed at himself. And then there was being fucking suicidal. Being pissed off at his friend to even worry about anything like the Empire felt like the third right now.

It didn't even make sense, though. Why me? Why today? This isn't even their turf!

The questions bounced around in his head as the ride continued on in relative silence, the thought of retribution doing it's job at keeping the other kids in the car quiet no matter how uncomfortable they felt.

To Sparky, every second spent in the darkness of the van, surrounded by fearful teenagers and fearsome gang members, felt like five at the very least. If it wasn't for the fact that he didn't feel some sudden reserve of power in his body, he might even have assumed he had triggered with the power to control his perception of time.

He'd give anything to be that lucky right about now.

Unfortunately, he was just as powerless as ever, the fear he felt making time move at a seeming crawl while his heart did the opposite and pounded at a rabbit's pace.

That was why he could only react with surprise, albeit completely silently, when the van finally came to a sudden jerky stop. What?

Fear surged in his chest a moment later, surprise shoved to the back of his mind, as his mind connected the dots. Stopping isn't good.

It really wasn't.

Stopping meant that whatever they were gonna do with them was about to happen.

A rough hand grabbed Sparky by one of his arms while the remaining calloused palm took hold of his hair again. Oh n-

The Nazi wasn't gentle.

If anything, the bastard made sure to be the exact opposite of whatever his single brain cell thought was anything close to gentle. Not that Sparky had expected anything less, but still…

Fuckfuckfuckfu-

The teenager couldn't help but scream, both in his mind and past his gag, as he was harshly dragged out of the van without even a moment's warning barely a second after the door slid open. Sparky let out another noise as he was pulled out and to the ground, shoulder protesting and wind knocked out of him by the short fall. Trying to catch his breath, he blinked up at the meathead that had stepped out of the van with all the care the man didn't bother showing to him, only for those eyes to widen as the man's hands reached out for him again.

"Nnnggh!"

A fistful of his hair once again found itself in the man's hands and Sparky could only release a muffled scream in protest once more, his body thrashing violently as he was pulled back up onto his feet. The first thing he saw was an abandoned tenement, the fading, patchworked, broken building taking up almost all his fading vision. Almost every window he could make out in the dark of the night was shattered, some from the inside and some from the outside, those probably the fault of random kids throwing shit at buildings no one cared about. What the fuck now?

A hand at his back pushed him forward, and Sparky stumbled forward toward the building he was obviously being directed to enter. He cast a glance over his shoulder as more noise caught his attention, the other teenagers in the van being pulled out with just as much care he received. Fuck, was all he could think as he glanced at his surroundings. An abandoned building in a derelict part of town, barely any lights still working up and down the street, and all in an area with little witnesses.

…huh.

Sparky stared blankly forward as he was pushed from behind again, the hand at his back accompanied by a muttered grunt. He glanced at his side, some Asian kid staring back at him with a look that just seemed to define hopelessness. Behind them both, the last of the Empire kidnappers stepped out, dragging the last kidnapped kid with him.

"This is the last of them," the familiar looking man in the leather jacket barked at the driver through the passenger-side window. "Dump the van with the rest." With a noise of agreement, the white van pulled away, quickly heading off down the dark streets.

Last of them? That didn't sound good at all. The teenager took in a breath through his nose, attempting to calm himself down as much as he could. Fuck.

Once more, the thought of making a run for it made itself known in Sparky's thoughts, but he didn't even bother attempting to entertain the idea. He was already beat up and his hands were tied; outrunning several grown men was basically a fantasy at this point.

The entrance to the abandoned tenement creaked open as he neared the steps to the building, him at the front of a small crowd of teenagers walking to what he could only assume was a death sentence. As if to confirm his thoughts, several blond and pale faces — oddly young ones, too — glanced out of the opened door, Sparky's mood falling even further, if such a thing was even possible. This is…

He knew what this was now. An initiation.

He'd heard of them, not that they were rare. All the gangs did something like this, he was pretty sure. The ABB and Empire were alike in that their initiations involved violence; the ABB against white people and the Empire…

Well, the Empire against everyone else, really.

… I'm gonna die, huh?

The thought barely had a moment to settle in, the realization dropping into his stomach like an anchor, when a belligerent yell caught his attention. Sparky's gaze snapped up as a screaming figure launched themselves out of the door and down the stairs in a blur of motion.

Before he could even move, A hard right slammed into his jaw with a guttural yell that Sparky wasn't even sure were words, the teenager suddenly struggling with the monumental task of keeping himself upright. Breathing ragged and unsteady, the teenager threw himself forward, forgoing careful attempts to find balance in favor of the much simpler solution of simply hurling his body in the opposite direction he was falling.

It worked… kinda.

Wavering in place, Sparky blinked back, unfocused eyes managing to land on the belligerent figure that had struck him out of nowhere. He blinked once more at the familiar face contorted in anger as well as the fist flying toward his face, something shiny wrapped around its knuckles.

...Mal?

A sharp pain exploded above his eye, the world going black for a single instant as that same fist rocked his entire world.

No one caught him when he fell.

Not that he expected them to, really.

"Nnggh!"

Sparky was reintroduced to the asphalt with a loud grunt of pain that was audible even behind his gag, the sound more a muffled yell than anything else. F… fuck.

His nose met the ground with a noise that he would have been more worried about if his head wasn't currently throbbing hard enough to block out almost everything else. Said everything else already hurt bad enough, a large chunk of his face a patchwork of bruising and what could only be a cut above his left eye from the brass-knuckled fist that had just made contact with his face.

A faceplant and broken nose didn't help that much at all.

Wetness gushed down Sparky's face, both from his nose and a good bit higher than that, the taste of something warm and metallic in his mouth as he tried not to choke on his gag. With great effort, the teenager managed to roll over, eyes staring up at the night sky, unable to discern the stars in the sky from those in his vision.

Sparky stared up at his attacker, eyes meeting a face dotted with bruises as the angry teen stared down at him. 'In his head, the pieces suddenly started to form one by one, all of them falling in place as the night began to make sense. You're fucking joking, I swear to god. This can't seriously be h... Behind his gag, Sparky began to make a sound that could only be described as muffled laughter, the manic urge to cackle madly seizing the teenager. It didn't take a genius to realize what was going on, why he was one of the people snatched up along with all those Asian kids.

Oh, this would be way funnier if I wasn't about to get fucking murd-

He didn't get a chance to finish the thought as Mal Duncan screamed bloody murder and his booted foot smashed down on Sparky's face.

For the second time that night, Axel Ramon knew darkness.