With no other pressing issues at hand, and a killer headache to recover from, Dix continued laying on the floor of the classroom. This was the first moment in quite some time when he truly had nothing to do. Almost four years in fact. While it was nice, it was also finally time to go over what had happened to him. Not just his death, but all that came before it.

Born Richard William Johnson to parents who had a strange way of showing that love, Dix had had a rather rough and tumble start to life. It didn’t take many years before he realized kids were vicious little psychopaths, and he was born with a huge target on his back. When your name is roughly translated from English to Moron as Dickjoke Dickjoke Dickjoke life can be hard. But no matter how you look at it, there were great lessons to be learned from his early years. Things like how to fight on the streets, how to keep fear from dictating your actions, how to not care what anyone else thinks of you, and how to win when you are out matched or outnumbered in a fight. All these lessons, and a great deal more made Dix the man he was today.

Perhaps the most important lesson came from asking his father one day, after he had been suspended from elementary school for fighting again, why he had insisted on naming him as he had. Sitting his son down at the kitchen table he explained his reasoning. “Son, we could have named you anything we wanted, but I wanted you to be strong, to be able to stand tall on your own. Yes, giving you the name you have was a painful decision in a way, making you a target for all the cruelties of children, but I felt it would help you to grow up, and grow strong faster. Right now you think it’s the problem. Soon you will discover that your name isn’t the problem, it’s people, and the way you interact with them. If you can stand your ground in the face of all the bullies that come after you, confident in who you are, then they will flee you instead of your wrath. Until the day you can make your perceived weakness your strength, you will just have to keep fighting. Just try and take it off school grounds next time, OK?”

To help Dix deal with the rage he felt at the injustice of the situation, and help out in the fighting department a little, his father enrolled him in martial arts at a young age. The hard physical work, routine, and meditation helped him stabilize his emotions. After learning to control himself better, Dix also realized that he greatly enjoyed the workouts that martial arts gave him, not to mention the increase in his ability to protect himself. As he grew older, he would add a number of disciplines to his continuing study of martial combat, although he never achieved mastery of any of them.

It took a few years longer before it made sense to Dix, but eventually he stopped getting upset at what people said of him, or how they felt about him. At the start of middle school, when his teacher called attendance, instead of just acknowledging his presence when called, he stood and responded back, “Call me Dix. It’s what all these idiots think my name is anyways, so let’s make it easier on their poor brains.” The teacher wasn’t all that amused until she saw the looks a number of other children were wearing. They were shocked and afraid of this boy, but he showed none of the emotions that should cause this sort of reaction. Taking a second look at his name on her attendance sheet, she saw just how well his new nickname fit into his old name. From that day forward the childish cries of Dicky Dicky Dicky were no more.

His teenage years weren’t much less tumultuous for himself or his surroundings, but the bullying was over at least. The next major issue for him was girls. Before he discovered these delightful creatures all he wanted to do was read or play video games. But shortly after he started showing an attraction to girls he discovered these things didn’t interest girls in the slightest. It seemed changes would be necessary. So after discussing things with his parents, and doing a little research online he set out to learn the necessary social skills to successfully interact with girls. To draw their interest in the first place though, he started working out more.

Always an introvert, team sports were never going to be something he enjoyed, but weight training, running, swimming, and martial arts were all things he greatly enjoyed up until his death. Once again, there were some opportunistic asshats that wanted to bully him for having the audacity to be in great shape but not play football, but his steady, calm gaze and deep, quiet voice managed to get him out of most fights. These same traits had extremely different effects on females though, and they went a little wild everytime he stared or talked down a man on the edge of violence. As he went through these experiences his confidence grew, and with it so grew the attention of the ladies.

Outside of dealing with bullies and girls, he also learned to speak with everyone else. How he did it though was a little different from other people. Dix had two rules for speaking with people. First, tell no lies. Honestly he couldn’t understand why people would lie about anything. One lie led to hundreds more, and you had to keep all those stories straight, and never let people who believed different lies about you interact. As for lying to cover something he was ashamed of, well, Dix didn’t have shame or pride, so that made no sense to him at all. He did understand why other people lied, it just wasn't something he felt a need to do. He did try once, and discovered something rather odd. People believed him easier when he lied, than when he spoke the truth. Perhaps it was that his life was so far outside the realm of what most people considered normal, or perhaps it was that he was so much more earnest when telling the truth that people thought he was trying too hard and must be lying. It was all rather confusing to Dix, so he just didn’t bother to lie.

His second rule was to speak with purpose. He always had a reason to speak, and a goal to achieve. Whether it was trying to talk a girl into bed, an angry boyfriend to back off, or to search out the true idea of what a client wanted, Dix always had something he was trying to achieve. Even his “casual” conversation had the purpose of endearing people to him, or to push them towards a particular action. This is not to say that everything he said was well thought out. Oftentimes the things he said jumped straight from his subconscious to his mouth, without him consciously thinking of what he was saying. Sometimes this had less than optimal results for him, but most often things seem to fall perfectly into what he was trying to do. It wasn’t that he was manipulative, just the opposite in fact. He was less the subtle hand of a shadowy politician, and more the hammer of justice. One of his colleagues had once described his conversational skills as, “Blunt force trauma to the brain.”

Despite how well he interacted with people, he had few friends, and no lasting relationships. His parents had tried getting him antidepressants for a time, not realizing that his demeanor wasn’t based on depression, but merely a lack of interest and interconnectivity with his fellow man. They even sent him to a psychologist for a time, but she reported that he was the most remarkable man she had ever met, leaving off her matching diagnosis of his sexual technique. Dix was very intelligent, and had difficulties sympathizing with people who constantly made idiotic decisions. But it was more than that. Most of his “emotional responses” were feigned, allowing him to fit in with the rest of humanity despite not particularly feeling like part of it. Unlike other people, his values weren’t taught to him by his family, friends, and community. Instead he found them in books and stories of old, and they weren’t the nice heroic virtues that most would expect. Quite honestly, Dix considered himself to be rather cutthroat, practical, and efficient. By the time he graduated college, these traits were evident in his every action if one knew how to look.

He didn’t pick up girls to get to know them, or to test them out for a long term relationship. He was looking for a good time, be it a night or a week. It is important to note that he never lied, or led them on. He was very upfront with what he was and was not looking for. Not that it mattered, as most women he dated even for such a short period of time couldn’t stop pursuing him. If a girl indicated that she was unavailable in any way, he simply moved on to another. No knowingly sleeping with women in relationships or marriages for him, but it also didn’t overly concern him when he discovered them after the fact.

At work he was constantly remarked as being quietly efficient. One of his managers once told another that Dix was almost a ghost worker. He never had problems or missed work, but you would never know he was there, until you looked up the reports and saw he had a higher output than any two other employees combined. He was friendly, without actually being friends with anyone at his work, or anywhere else for that matter. But God help you if you screwed with his ability to do his work. His wrath was as legendary as his work ethic.

He had gone to college for a degree in graphic arts, but eventually transitioned into CAD before heading off to work for an aeronautics company. He made good money and lived a simple life of work, women, and hobbies. His hobbies even made him a little money on the side. He had taken a liking to weapons when young, specifically archaic style weapons. Things like knives, swords, axes, maces, and spears. He even started a YouTube channel to talk about which of the modern recreations of these types of weapons actually had any worth other than just art to hang on the wall. This hobby required him to have a passing familiarity with how to use them, so he branched out from just body based martial arts into weapon based combat over the years. It also allowed him to stop weight lifting, as swinging around a long piece of metal for hours was a great workout. While it didn’t make him a lot of money, it did cover all of his costs for training and sparring, as well as a portion of the cost of his new toys. Even with all of his study over the years, he had never become a master of any one style of martial arts. Instead he branched out more and more, simply enjoying the learning, and finding ways to mesh them together to fit his own particular blend of styles.

One of the most difficult things for him was simply finding purpose and excitement in life. Perhaps he had read too much as a younger man, but life was frightfully boring. Even new books couldn’t hold his attention for long, although that was mostly because he tore through them in a couple hours, and they couldn’t get new books out fast enough to keep him entertained. As for movies and video games, he had always felt that they basically reused the same plots and characters so often there was no longer any originality left in either field. And people were never a good thing in Dix’s mind. They were willfully ignorant, hypocritical, greedy, and so self centered it was amazing the human race had managed to continue this long. Really the only reason he could see was the slavish devotion they had to their sex drive. Dix craved something more, but there was nothing but the endless grind for the money to survive at the level you thought was appropriate, or the search for higher pay. There was no adventure left in the world, nothing to search for or discover. Most new inventions were simply advanced iterations of their original products, and the others were stolen to make millions of dollars for someone who already had billions.

Truly, the only light in the gray mist of Dix’s life was his only real friend, Elise. They had met shortly after he started his career, and the whole thing was an accident. Some of the people in his department had taken him out for drinks on the pretense of showing him around town. After three pubs, they reached the largest club in town, and the party really started. After an hour, when the supervision of his coworkers floated away on a sea of booze, Dix wandered off to hunt for a girl. Somehow he missed the simultaneous approach by another girl on his chosen target, making things rather awkward when they both tried to introduce themselves at the same time. Then they both followed up with a smirk and the words, “Care to share?” While the girl they were approaching made a break for it during the ensuing laughter, their friendship was forged in that instant. After that they were almost inseparable each night until they both had someone to take home for the evening. Despite being very similar, and remarkably close friends, they never slept together. When asked why they hadn’t, both would respond, “Because I’m not a fan of masturbation. I’d rather go pick someone up for the night.” They shared a few years of fun and flirtation around the city before Elise disappeared, and Dix set his foot upon the path that would lead to his death.

In the years leading up to Elise’s disappearance they had spent quite a lot of time together at the bars and clubs all over town. Dix didn’t really have a type. He would sleep with almost any female he could find. His only real limitations were trying to stay away from married women, and they had to at least be attractive to him. Not that being attractive to Dix was hard to accomplish. Elise had the same taste in females as Dix, but was a bit more discerning when it came to her chosen prey of the opposite sex. Admittedly, she was enough like Dix that she would take just about anyone, male or female, home on a rough night, but most nights she was actively searching for a specific type.

Elise liked bad boys. And not the fake kind. She wanted men of crime and violence. A man who would intimidate, threaten, or beat his fellow man with no hesitation. When they first met she was just looking for bad boys with rough edges, but she eventually moved onto truly bad men. Bikers, gangsters, mafiosas, even cartel guys. The last night Dix saw Elise, she left on the arm of Eduardo Martinez. And was never seen again.

Martinez was a low level cartel sicario with delusions of importance. He was a short Hispanic of mixed Columbian and Mexican descent. It was always amusing to Dix to see his tall friend with her four inch heels, putting her at an even six foot, towering over the five foot four inch man. Apparently tall curvy blondes were in demand in every culture. Dix was a little nervous letting Elise leave with slimeballs like this, but she always insisted it was what she wanted. Knowing her sexual tastes were a bit extreme, even for him, Dix merely smiled and kept track of who she left with. Her description of Martinez was particularly unflattering. She said the only reason she slept with him despite his tiny penis, was that he threatened her with a big knife, and let his three goons “soften her up” first. The goons, at least, were very attentive to what she truly wanted.

When she never showed again after that last night with Martinez, Dix got worried. After a week of her not being at her apartment or returning calls, he went to the police and filed a missing persons report. Six months later they had completely given up, and Dix was furious. Finally a detective told him, in different wording, that working girls disappear all the time, but she’d turn up in some other city eventually. When he recovered from the kick in the balls Dix gave him, Dix explained Elise was a slut, not a prostitute. Being arrested and spending a night in lock up was fine with him, he needed a quiet place to think. When the police tried to press charges, Dix showed them the video of the detective telling him his, “filthy whore friend was gone for good, so shut the fuck up,” and they let him go. And by that time he had a plan.

Dix was sure that Elise hadn’t left, she was dead. And the only suspect was Martinez. The cops might not care, but he did. Maybe he didn’t care about most people, but Elise was his only friend, and taking her from him brought out a rage fiercer than he had ever known. Instead of rushing off and getting himself killed, he decided to do it the smart way. Killing Martinez sooner rather than later wouldn’t make a difference to Elise now, so better to find a way to survive and escape suspicion for the murder. With a loose plan set, Dix headed off to study his enemy, his enemy’s enemies, and himself. He also gave up drinking and sleeping around, as well as took a leave of absence from his job, claiming he had a personal project he wanted to work on before returning. He even added firearms back into his training, something he had given up after college, although he hadn’t sold his guns. After six months of studying, training, and planning he was ready.

It turned out that there was a very uneasy truce on the streets between the gangs operating in the area. The Vincensos, the Tongs, the Crips, and the Cartel. Each of these groups had taken or lost territory to each other in the last year, but seemed to have recently cut hostilities over the previous five months. That didn’t mean there was peace, just no active fighting. And what better way to get away with killing a bunch of Cartel guys than to make it look like a resurgence of the earlier conflict.

Having watched all of the groups for a while, he was struck by perhaps the only thing all four groups shared, arrogance. All of them thought they were gods. The only things they saw as threats to them were the other factions. Even the police were merely an irritant to them, one that could be safely ignored as long as they followed certain rules of behavior. They each seemed to follow a different set of etiquette within their ranks, but had a shared set that they used for dealing with the other factions. And they all seemed to think there were certain ways of killing someone that were used by each separate faction. So if you wanted someone to think a particular faction killed their people, kill them exactly how they think that faction would do so. Despite the preponderance of mafia movies that involved hammers, concrete boots, and bullets to the back of the head, all of the other factions thought the Vincensos were known for using a blade and fire. Oddly, the Vincensos thought the same of the cartel.

Surprisingly, almost all of his preparations were utterly pointless. Martinez and his three goons were either complete idiots, or so assured of their invulnerability that they didn’t even bother to lock the doors of the house they stayed in. The house was far from any other occupied building, probably so that they could throw parties or shoot people without other people hearing and notifying the police. They left no outside lights on, and no guard watching the approaches. In fact, all four of them were unconscious in the living room from a combination of booze and drugs, with their guns laid out on a table in the corner. After collecting the weapons, and restraining the men he came for, Dix got to work. He only wanted one question answered, what happened to his friend.

As should be expected of sicarios, asking nicely didn’t get him the information he wanted. So he calmly explained that torture wasn’t something you could practice by yourself. When he saw them trying to hide their relief at thinking he wasn’t going to torture the information out of them, Dix just smiled and told them how happy he was that they provided him with three men to practice with because he needed to do his best on the last one. Dix wasn’t looking forward to the work, but it needed to be done. A little extra duct tape to keep the screams down, and a utility knife with a new blade to make it easier to peel off the skin. Pliers to break fingers at the joints, a hammer to crush the bones to dust, a blowtorch to cauterize, and smelling salts to keep them awake through it all. Dix had only gotten to the third finger when the men watching started begging him to let them tell him what happened between bouts of furious vomiting.

According to the goons, Elise left them in fine health. They worked her over just the way she liked, but in the end Martinez couldn’t satisfy her any more. Dix always knew she was a woman of great sexual hunger, but even he was impressed by what they said they’d done for her. Elise had left when Martinez failed her, and said she was going back to her last lover. They claimed to not know who that was, but it didn’t matter. Dix knew. It looked like his studying might bear useful fruit after all. With his question answered Dix killed all four, set the house on fire, and left. He needed a shower and a couple of days to plan his assault on the Vincenso estate.

Looking back at it now, he was sad that he’d not found out exactly what happened to Elise, but he was sure that vengeance had been achieved. If Elise had stated she was going back to her ex, she would have done that immediately. She hated being unsatisfied. So that meant that she would have gone there that night, or the next day. Either way, he would have seen or heard from her the next night. She never missed a chance to brag about what she’d been up to, and kicking Martinez to the curb would have given her a story to delight in telling. That meant the only real option for what had happened to her involved the Vincensos. That led to a new plan, one that, with the amount of explosives and incendiaries that he’d left around the estate before trying to get inside, would ensure that no one on the property at the time of detonation would survive. Elise’s ex-boyfriend had been the second in command of the Vincenso family, and set to inherit it all as soon as his aging father passed. And the heir apparent only rarely left the estate. Even if he had left, just hearing that someone had been there would bring him rushing back. So, vengeance was likely achieved despite his death.