--That morning, Friday, the Fragat’s Story, 10 hours before the accident--

“So, did you figure out what happened with those two last night?”

“Eh, some crazy shit,” Honey replied with a shrug. “Let’s just say if I told you, you’d probably say: ‘holy shit that’s crazy’, with a dumbass look on your face and an exaggerated gesture with your arms.”

“No, come on, tell me. I promise I won’t do anything stupid.”

“You swear?”

“Swear on my heart. Cross it and die and yadda yadda.”

“Alright. The basic shit is that a bunch of dumbasses all got together and tried to summon a devil. Or, well, I guess they did summon one. And it shot blood everywhere and did crazy stuff and whatever.”

“Holy shit that’s crazy!” Hanson said with a dumbass look on his face and his arms shooting in every direction.

“You little...next time you sleep, I’m going to drop a weight on your balls.”

Hanson got down on his knees and slammed his head against the pavement.

“Please don’t. I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again.”

Honey sighed and helped him up. “Alright, whatever. Anyway, she said they can change people’s bodies, so I figured we could set her up with Dr. Hawk and leech money off her for a while.”

“Holy shit that’s crazy!” Hanson said with a dumbass look on his face as he did a somersault.

“You’re absolutely dead to me now.”

Even as they walked through the streets where crowds of people couldn’t escape the troubles of their lives, the Fragat siblings had nothing but jokes and laughter. In a world of slow demise or painful obliteration, very few people were able to live on the bright side. These two were such people. As they walked by a food line for the unemployed, their giggles drew both ire and admiration from onlookers.

Of course, the siblings looked strange to anyone that didn’t know them. An unlikely pair that weren’t related at all.

They were not the type of people who blended into the streets, but they were rarely hassled. How did they do it? Perhaps the sheer confidence made them difficult to approach. Last night was one of the few exceptions; people couldn’t face them head on, so it was required to ambush them from behind. That type of absolute confidence in all of their actions was like a ward that prevented regular humans with regular ambitions and problems from approaching.

It was even so apparent that people moved aside to let them through the crowd.

“Seriously, seriously, though,” Hanson said. “Did the Doc Hawk actually take her in?”

“Huh? How should I know? I just left her at his office and said she needed to pay back all the money owed. If she can’t get a job we just sell off her body parts.”

“Oh, okay. That makes sense.”

“And did you figure out what happened to the guy at the hospital? Did he make it?”

Hanson shook his head.

“Nah, doesn’t look like it. I guess the bullet went through some important artery or vein or whatever. I got no clue. But the doctors told me he was gonna die soon enough. If I had known they signed a deal with a devil, that would’ve changed everything. Damn!”

Nobody cared that they spoke openly about horrible crimes and taboo. Even the most hardcore of gangster kept their mouths shut about these types of things, but the siblings didn’t care. If they needed to, it wouldn’t be difficult to kill every single person on this street. In fact, it might not be hard to kill every person in Paris if it came right down to it.

While that wasn’t true, because they believed it, the Fragat siblings acted as though it were.

“What did you want to get for lunch, anyway? I was thinking pizza.”

“Pizza? Didn’t we just have pizza a few days ago?”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t have it again. Pizza is pretty good.”

“Well, I can’t deny that, but if you eat it too frequently, you’ll get sick of it.”

“Could you ever picture yourself getting sick of pizza?”

“Hmmm...well...I guess not…”

“Then pizza it is!”

“No, hold on…wait.”

Hanson grabbed Honey by the shoulder and pulled her aside into an alley. It was an uncharacteristic move, but the two were now seperated from the crowds.

“Hey, you might not believe this,” Hanson started, a violent smile creeping onto his face. “But you wanna know who I just saw?”

“Who’d you see?”

The smile on Hanson’s face was wide and his eyes were full of glee. A normal person might think he was happy, but Honey, who had been with him since their earliest memories, knew better.

“Our old friend Arco Jacks.”

***

Years ago, before any of them had even hit twenty, a group of six teens met each other in the slums of Paris. Each one of them was broken, somehow, and through that, they became allies.

Hanson and Honey Fragat.

Arco Jacks.

Bee.

Luise Tower.

And Jay Thoren.

A young and clever group of criminals, these six had no difficulty pulling off a number of crimes and earning names for themselves. But as they got older, they started to grow separate from each other, and individual personalities began to clash. In a fit of rage, Jay tried to kill Arco, but in the end, it was Jay who died. After that, they decided to end their group.

***

The siblings watch as Arco casually meandered around town with some girl.

While she looked energetic and joyful, they could tell something was wrong. Arco was only playing along, that much was obvious. Was this a job? Of course, neither sibling could picture him doing any kind of bodyguard work, so it seemed strange. Well, what was even stranger was that Arco was still in Paris. Hanson was cracking his knuckles in anticipation.

“Slow down, killer,” Honey said, slapping him on the back of the head. “What do you think is going on? He running a scam or something? I can’t imagine much else. Normally I’d say this feels like prostitution, but knowing him…”

“Whatever it is, it can’t be good.”

“Eh, you still hung up on all that? Come one, it’s been how many years?”

“I don’t remember.”

“So why are you all angry at each other still? I mean, come on. Luise got over it, even.”

“Luise can get over whatever she wants. I’m the one pissed off.”

Honey sighed. Out of the two, she was the one with the brains. That also meant she had to be the one making the plans, and it meant she had to keep Hanson reigned in. If she wasn’t here, he’d probably walk right up to Arco and try to murder him in the middle of the street. He’d succeed, but it would cause more headache than she wanted to deal with.

Okay, there is a way to figure this out, she thought. Just need to do some research. But for now…

Once again, Honey slapped her brother on the back of the head.

“Yeah, alright,” she said. “I get it. We’ll figure out what’s going on. It is a little strange. Totally get it. But if he sees you, then he’s just gonna run, and you know how easily he can get away from you.”

“Grrr…”

“Admit it! You can’t do anything on your own!”

It was true, so Hanson let his muscles relax.

“Fine,” he said. “Then what’s the plan?”

“Just leave it to me.”

***

The perfect opportunity came when Arco and his girlfriend stopped for lunch. It was a crowded bistro, one with a penchant for making fantastic sandwiches. Or at least that’s what people said. Honey couldn’t tell the difference, so it didn’t matter to her.

After ordering, the couple sat at a window where they could gaze out at the square. A wise move by Arco; it allowed him to get a perfect angle on anyone entering the building. But it didn’t seem to matter, because almost immediately after he sat down, Arco checked his watch and stood up. He said a few words to the girl that Honey couldn’t hear, then let through the back.

Go!

The girl was distracted by the acapella group singing outside and reached around for her backpack to pull out a camera, and as she was taking the picture, Honey went into action.

She strode into the building, right up next to the girl. To anyone watching, she just looked like another customer trying to take a look at the daily specials marked on the chalkboard above the counter, but Honey knew how to disguise her actions. Her hands went into the bag until she found something useful. A wallet. Honey popped it open for a second, checking to make sure the girl had an ID, then when it was confirmed, she walked back out the way she came. The entire theft took less than ten seconds, and she was back at the alley hiding with Hanson before the girl even put her camera back.

Smiling greedily to herself, Honey flipped through the contents of the wallet.

ID. Cash. Bank and medical information. Citizenship card.

Far more than anyone should carry in a wallet, but upon seeing the girl’s ID, Honey understood the situation completely. What a fucking insane coincidence?

Maxine Vasquez.

The name was horribly familiar to Honey. It was so silly, she couldn’t help but laugh out loud, earning a confused look from Hanson. The name meant nothing to him, but to Honey, things were falling into place like some massive puzzle of conspiracy.

“This girl, haha, Maxine, haha, Vasquez,” Honey said, between gasps for air as she laughed. “Is the one, that, hahahah, Luise, is working for! Hahahaha!”

“I don’t get it.”

Instead of answering, she just let herself calm down. It took a few minutes.

“Alright, alright, let me explain,” Honey started. She cleared her throat and giggled. “So: Luise is working as a maid right now, you know that? Good. So, she’s been doing this for a year or two, and whenever we hang out, she always complains. About how her boss is this annoying girl, still around our age, who is a total loon. Super weird.

“And the weirdest thing ever was what Luise told me about yesterday. This girl, Maxine, wanted Luise to pretend to be her so that she could run away from home. Like, Luise pretends to be the pretty princess and the real princess runs away from home to escape like her engagement or whatever. And I was all like: ‘girl, you ain’t no princess. Maybe if you were disguising as one of their horses you’d be good’. And she said: ‘shut up, you’re one to talk’. Then, I said: ‘wait, I get it. If her husband sees you, then he’ll cancel the marriage on his own...genius!’ And et cetera…”

Honey realized her story was dragging and getting off topic as Hanson started tapping his toes expectantly.

“Back to the main point. Anyway, so this girl is obviously the same person. Super rich, and wanted to run away from home. But who does she end up with? Arco Jacks. Scummiest person we know. Now, I may have said that Luise has gotten over what he did to her, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t get pissed if she saw him. That leads me to believe that this girl probably doesn’t know who he is. I mean, Luise wouldn’t introduce them, so they must have met on their own. Sometime in the last day, since that’s when the switch happened.

“Of course, I doubt Arco has changed at all. He still despises rich people, so when he figured out who this girl was, he probably realized he could extort her or her family or something. But still, we know Arco. He would never stoop as far as to prostitution. He’d never sell his body for work, and he’d never behest himself to a rich person’s wishes, so I gotta suspect he’s taking advantage of them.

“The final key to our problem: Luise said the only reason they could pull off their switcheroo plan was because the father was out of town and the mother had terrible eyesight. That means today, of course, Luise must have been found out. We were gonna meet and celebrate for lunch, since she’d obviously be fired. Yes, as you now must realize, I had already decided where we were going to eat, and to reward Luise, I was going to force you to eat with us! Moving along, though, normally, a girl like Maxine probably doesn’t know her way around the city. Luise even said the same thing: she figured it wouldn’t last longer than a day. But if Arco is trying to take advantage of her, he could keep her afloat, and if Maxine wants to be away from home, he offers a perfect floatation device. That means that while Luise will be fired, the family won’t know where their daughter is, and they’ll start to panic once they realize she isn’t coming home. The reason, of course, is because she is with Arco. But if we go and tell them where she is, we can ask for a bounty reward and get paid! But more importantly, we can fuck up whatever Arco’s plans are. What do you think?”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re saying but I agree with all of it,” Hanson said, nodding. “I stopped paying attention halfway through. So, when do we get to kick his ass?”

“Not until we’re guaranteed pay,” Honey said, completely ignoring Hanson’s provocation. “And the best way to do that is with Luise, since she’ll be able to vouch for us. So now, we just need to wait.”

***

Luise didn’t show up to the pizza parlor.

Perhaps she wasn’t figured out? It was unlikely she forgot about the meeting, and the two women were incredibly close friends. This made the siblings worried, and ultimately, they decided something must have happened.

Worst possible scenario was the Vasquez family holding Luise hostage. Torturing her for information. While it seemed unlikely, neither knew enough to make those claims.

So, they decided to go to the mansion and ask for themselves.

Something stopped Hanson.

There was a single man in the crowd who looked different than the rest. He was wearing dark clothes and had a long, bushy mustache and worried look on his face. The way he moved was intimately familiar to Hanson; it was the gait of a trained killer. He was carrying a guitar case, but how the weight was distributed was all incorrect. As Hanson followed the killer’s eyes, it became clear they were trained on the Vasquez estate.

But why?

There was something else to this that they didn’t understand. Hanson probably wasn’t smart enough to figure it out normally, but that didn’t matter. If you chose not to play by the rules, you really didn’t need to try very hard.

“Honey, stay here for one second,” Hanson said, putting on a pair of gloves. “I’m gonna be right back.”

“Huh? Why? Did something happen?”

But he had already vanished into the sea of pedestrians. After blinking, Honey sighed and decided to go and get something to drink.

***

“...anyway, boss, I’ll go back to watching them. But if I don’t make it back by tonight, just assume the worst.”

After that, the mustached man set the phone back and did a quick spin to check if anyone had been listening. Unfortunately for him, Hanson had been, but wasn’t on a horizontal plane for viewing.

The payphone this man had been using was near the subway entrance, in an empty room with dozens of pipes and machinery in the ceiling. For the people of the city, it was just a regular thing. How else were gas and electricity supplied throughout the city? But to Hanson, it was a separate dimension. He stood among these pipes, staring down at the man with the guitar case, and heard everything.

There were some explicit names left out, but Hanson understood the general gist of what was going on.

This mustached man was a gangster, or part of a criminal group. That group was watching the Vasquez estate, and this man had seen two bodyguards go into the building. But from their descriptions, Hanson knew both of them, and he knew neither were bodyguards. This guy was doing surveillance, and reporting back any information he came across. He seemed knowledgeable, so Hanson followed him further.

The mustached man kept to the alleys and side streets as he returned to the mansion, however, he did something Hanson wasn’t expecting. The man hoisted the guitar case onto his back and leapt up towards a metal railing on the side of a building and started climbing.

It was in an area without anyone around, but what surprised him more was how quickly the man climbed. Like he had been here before.

Naturally, Hanson had no difficulty climbing after the man in complete silence.

On the roof, it became clear what the man was doing.

This building was taller than any of the others around it. It also had no roof access, and from it, you had a perfect view of the Vasquez building as well as the entire estate surrounding it. From the ground, you wouldn’t be able to know this. It was planned ahead of time. Well, it was probably time to act.

As the man started pulling rifle parts from his guitar case, Hanson walked over to him.

“Yo, bro! Whatcha doin’ up here?”

The words came from nowhere, and the mustached man wasn’t expecting them. He dropped the parts he was assembling and just stared for a second. Then in the next he was grabbing something from his shirt.

But Hanson was faster, leaping onto the man and dislocating his shoulder. The hand which was reaching for a gun went limp.

Hanson covered the man’s mouth to prevent a scream from being released.

“Okay, well, that went south pretty quick,” Hanson said with a snort. “Sorry, your arm ain’t broken or anything, I just popped it out of the socket for a second. I can put it back shortly. I just wanna ask a few questions. That cool?”

It was a while before the pain started wearing off on the man, but his eyes finally returned to normal. He looked resigned.

“I’ll take that as a yes. If I take my hand off your mouth, will you scream?”

The man shook his head the best he could, so Hanson removed his hand.

“What do you want? Who are you?”

Hanson put his hand back on the man’s mouth.

“Relax here, buddy,” Hanson said. “Come on, don’t tell me you haven’t done this before. You looked so professional. You know how this goes: I ask you a question, you answer me. If you lie, I break some part of your body. Then, we continue until one of us is either bored or dead. Capisce?”

As he once again removed his hand, the man spoke.

“Capisce.”

“Heh. Perfect. We’ll start with: what’s your name?”

“Rico Barnes.”

“Who do you work for?”

“...”

“Okay, I’m going to dislocate your other arm now.”

There was a loud popping sound and a muffled grunt as Hanson did as he promised. After a few seconds, he asked again.

“Who do you work for?”

“A crime family. I can’t say which one, so you’ll need to kill me.”

“That’s fine, I’ll move on then. What are you doing here?”

“...”

The reason Rico hesitated to answer was not because he meant to keep quiet, but more because of how stunned he was at the speed of Hanson’s questions. Rico had interrogated before, so he knew how to make people crack. And he knew that the man holding him down could easily force Rico to spill with the correct pressures. I mean, this man just dislocated both of his shoulders without a second thought. This person had no qualms with killing.

“Not gonna answer again, huh? Well, this is one I do need to know.”

“Hold on,” Rico said. “I’ll tell you. I’m doing surveillance on the Vasquez family.”

“Why?”

“Because we need to know what they’re doing.”

“Duh,” Hanson said. “That’s obvious. Why are you watching them? Are you working with Arco?”

“Arco?”

“I’ll take that as a no. Don’t ignore my question. Next I’ll be pulling out one of your eyes.”

Hanson wasn’t bluffing, and Rico could tell. Well, this was a good enough time to surrender. When the time finally came, he wouldn’t be able to die for men he didn’t trust. To Rico, the Gordoli family was now gone.

But something was strange.

“Our group is...holding something of theirs…”

“Holding what?”

Suddenly, it became clear.

This guy had no idea what was going on. Who was he? Obviously he wasn’t either of the two bodyguards from earlier, and he wasn’t on the staff list Rico had memorized. Could he be a secret bodyguard? Or perhaps he was the daughter’s boyfriend?

“I’m sorry, to make this easier,” Rico started. “Can I ask you something? To clarify.”

Hanson sighed.

“Fine. But if you keep trying to drag this out, I’ll take out both eyes.”

Rico swallowed air to calm himself.

“Are you not working with the Vasquez family?”

“No, I’m not,” Hanson admitted openly. “I mean, it seems like they’re being extorted, so we figured we could suck some money out of them. And what are you doing?”

“Our group kidnapped their children and are ransoming them back.”

That caught Hanson off guard for a second.

Wait.

Hmmm.

Something seemed weird with that statement, but Hanson couldn’t figure it out.

“Where are you holding them? And how much are you ransoming?”

“In an abandoned warehouse in the factory district. Roughly 500,000 francs.”

“And your job was to watch the building?”

“To surveil them and make sure the police weren’t called,” Rico said. At this point, he had completely given up. “You want to work with us? I’m sure the boss could give you a split of the reward.”

“Nah, I’m not interested in a split. I want it all.”

Rico didn’t respond.

“Okay, well, that seems good for now,” Hanson said. “I’m going to bring you back to my friend, and so long as you work with us, I promise I won’t kill you, probably.”

***

The three had returned to the Fragat household, where the real interrogation began. Nothing Hanson could do would ever compare with Honey’s ability. No, quite literally, it was impossible.

Years ago, when they were very young children, the two had been sold off to the Institute for experimentation.

As a result, Honey could release small microbes into the air which caused different sorts of emotional reactions of those in her area. One of them was absolute submission, and she created a massive cluster of those spores in her hand before blowing them into Rico’s face. If he was hiding anything before, he wouldn’t be able to now. All of the subtle details before came spilling out, and Honey, who had a better mind, was able to understand the entire picture.

It caused her to stumble over and bellow out laughter until she fell unconscious.

Hanson splashed water on her face to rouse her, and after a few seconds, she remembered what she had figured out, then started shaking again.

“Jesus fucking christ! Pull yourself together woman!”

Hanson slapped her twice.

“What the hell is going on here!?”

Eventually, she calmed down and explained the absurd series of coincidences that created the situation at hand.

***

“Greetings, ma’am,” Honey said, smiling politely to the old gatekeeper. “We’re here to meet with Mr. Lenore Vasquez, if we can. We’re a detective group...just ask him if he needs help. Please and thank you.”

Again, the spores helped alter the emotional state of the woman, and she let the two in to see Lenore.

But it wasn’t just Lenore.

Sitting along with him was a thin and wimpy butler, kneading his hands.

Then there was a familiar face to the Fragat siblings.

With his annoyingly cocky face and massive trademark wide-brimmed hat, Lance Gordon sat smoking a fat cigar while looking at the newspaper. When the two siblings made eye contact with him, all three froze on spot with gasps.

“W-who are you?” The man who was probably Lenore asked. He sat at the desk which obviously acted as the centerpiece of the room.

“A bunch of scumbags,” Lance answered, his hand itching to whip out a revolver. “Let me take care of this. If you two are the ones who took the children, then just hand ‘em over now and I’ll treat ya’ nice. But I never thought I’d see you doing something like this.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Hold on just a second.”

Honey waved her hands and stepped in front of Hanson, cutting off the tension slowly building between the two men. She didn’t want to turn the room into a battleground.

“We’re not here because we did anything with your kids, Mr. Vasquez, in fact, it’s the other way around,” Honey said. She was looking at the confused senator. “We accidentally stumbled on a bunch of information about their possible whereabouts. It was our intention to come here in hopes of helping out, since the situation is probably more complicated than you think.”

“More complicated? What do you mean? And who are you people?”

“Don’t listen to ‘em,’ Lance said, his eyes narrowing. “They’re troublemakers, I’ll tell you that. I don’t know what you’re looking for here, but we have it under control.”

“Is that so?” Honey’s eyes scanned the room quickly before figuring out what to say. “No, that’s wrong. You don’t have all the facts.”

“What are you talking about?”

Honey’s posture, which had been defensive throughout the confrontation, slowly relaxed and she stood taller. She yawned and took a seat in a nearby chair in the office, spinning around slowly as it swivelled.

“You’re wondering why there are two Maxine’s, am I correct?”

A moment of silence.

Then, Lenore, the butler, and Lance all spoke at the same time.

“How do you know that?”

“She knows!”

“God damnit!”

But before anything else could happen, Lenore finally put his foot down.

“Enough.”

It wasn’t loud, and it wasn’t energetic, but his tone was like iron. The weight behind it was that which only a parent could use, and since he was the only parent in the room, the command it brought was unable to be defeated. Everyone’s eyes fell to him.

“How did you come across that information, young lady?”

Honey smiled and cleared her throat.

“Many, many sources. Of course, before I begin, allow me to introduce ourselves, I’m Honey, and this is Hanson. We’re a pair of siblings who do some work on the darker side of society, but it isn’t like we don’t mind helping out the good guys,” she started. “But to answer your question, most of it came from torturing a member of the Gordoli Family.”

“The Gordoli Family?” Lenore asked. “I’m not sure...I thought Paris was free from the mafia influence? I didn’t realize organized crime was happening…”

Honey would have answered his question, but Lance jumped in before.

“There isn’t,” the detective said. “The Gordoli are just a small time gang. Nobody important.”

“Did you change your mind? Do you trust them?”

“I don’t, but…” Lance sighed. “Currently, I’m not sure if there’s a better chance. Fragat brats. For tonight only, we’re allies, alright? That means no funny business, either way. Got it?”

Hanson answered quickly. “Got it.”

“Ehh, sure. But anyway, like I was saying, we captured and tortured one of these gang members,” Honey continued. “Because he seemed suspicious. And he told us they had recently captured both your children, and were planning on ransomning them. Of course, he only knew a few details, but we had everything else figured out. Running the clock back a bit, the biggest issue is why your daughter appears to have been captured twice, no?”

“We just assumed they were trying to take advantage of us,” Lenore answered, his lips pursed. “But what’s the truth?”

“The truth is: your daughter is technically held hostage, but not by the Gordoli crew. Last night, your daughter and her maid swapped places, and your daughter tried to run away from home. While Luise, her maid, was captured by the gang along with your son, your daughter was beguiled and taken in by an even far worse criminal, one who us siblings dislike to our very core. Arco Jacks. You know him, right Lance?”

“I’ve heard the name. He made a deal with a devil and can teleport, correct? Does a number of heists?”

“That’s the one.”

Lance had fully given up trying to resist them at this point, so he just looked at Lenore and nodded his head in confirmation.

“Well, while we hate Arco, Arco in turn hates rich people, much like yourselves. While my brother and I were out on the town, we saw the two of them together, and eventually I swiped your daughter’s wallet. That’s how I figured out who she was, and from then on, everything is history.”

“I see,” Lenore said. “So, this is what happened. Well, we knew that Luise had been taken, but had no idea who the culprits were. This answers all those questions, but still, it doesn’t solve the problem before us. We still need to pay them, unless there’s some plan to get my children back without letting them get hurt.”

“Of course there is.”

For the first time, Hanson let his opinion be known. He smiled. “If you just pay us, senator, I’ll kill every one of them.”

***

For the first part of their plan, only Hanson needed to act. In case he failed, everyone else needed to be ready, so they all stayed at the mansion, getting prepared. With some cajoling, Hanson managed to get the keys to Lance’s motorcycle. As he left the building, a glint caught his eye from a building he had climbed just earlier today.

They just don’t learn, do they?

After killing the man who replaced Rico, Hanson pulled out a checklist from his pockets. On it were the names of every person in the Gordoli family, along with basic descriptions of each. This was probably Frank. Well, if he was any indicator of strength, Hanson was going to have no difficulty wiping them out.

He didn’t.

It was getting dark now, so there were less people on the streets as Hanson rode to the abandoned factory area. He parked the motorcycle in a nearby alley wand walked the rest of the way. Even though Rico didn’t say anything about a guard, there probably were at least a few people stationed.

Yep.

Two men standing by the fenced off entrance to the factories. They lit a fire in a garbage can and were talking. Hanson couldn’t see any weapons, but if they didn’t have guns, they were pretty stupid. So, he pulled a knife from his belt, walked to a good distance still obscured from their vision, then flicked the blade out like a bullet.

“Agh!”

It struck a man in the shoulder, and his friend reacted with shock a moment later.

“Rolly, what the fuck!?”

“There’s-”

He didn’t even have a chance to finish his sentence before Hanson was upon them. With a swift motion he stabbed his other knife through Rolly’s throat, then slashed out through the side, showering himself with blood.

That red waterfall was cover, and the other stunned henchmen didn’t even have time to blink before Hanson leapt atop him and pressed the blade against his throat.

It didn’t cut through.

The man sighed a massive breath of relief and wet his pants.

“Far too soon to be relaxing, bro,” Hanson said. “Which building are your friends in? If you lie, I’m gonna cut your dick off.”

The man cried out an answer, and Hanson killed him. He actually had no idea whether the man lied or not, but it didn’t matter. He’d be able to find the correct building eventually, just by looking. And for intimidation factor, he sawed off the heads of the two men he had just killed. He did so without ever realizing Rolly was the man chasing the two daemons he helped the day before. Everyone was insignificant against a master like Hanson.

***

Hanson watched from behind a crate as the man who was probably Nick Gordoli shoved the person who was probably Maxwell Vasquez into a car and started driving away. The intimidation worked. Now first, what he needed to do was kill everyone inside and rescue Luise.

Ah shit.

If he rescued her, wouldn’t she just be more clingy?

Perhaps he could pretend he didn’t know where she was? That would suit him just fine. Cool. Time to go.

Before he could do anything, there was a loud scream from inside.

“FUCKING BITTTCCHHHHHH!!!”

Hanson blinked.

What?

He tried to guess what could have happened, but came up with nothing. Oh well.

It didn’t matter, he thought, grabbing onto the side of the building with his bare hand. It was a cold metal, with screws drilled in at common points. By using those, Hanson could easily climb up the side of the building from the outside, all the way to the roof. From the roof, he could enter through the windows, many of which had been broken.

There were men inside, moving around in the light like roaches. At the center of the group was a muscular giant, who Hanson assumed was Bruno. The toughest brother. To his side, clutching a gun as though his life depended on it was Dominic. Hanson could also pick a few more faces out of the crowd.

Two were going outside. In their hands were small pistols.

While they were within the light shining from inside the warehouse, they were safe, but the moment it went away, Hanson jumped.

His timing was good enough, and he crashed down on one of the men, shattering his bones and body into paste. As the other man turned, Hanson spun his knife and stabbed it into the man’s face, splitting through his skull. On instinct, the man fired blindly, alerting everyone in the area. Shouts came from the building as men started to rush out.

Okay, let’s do some quick math.

Rico is currently tied up, and Frank is dead. So are two from the entrance, and now these two. That’s six. Add in Nick, along with the three men who went with him, and you have ten. That means, including Bruno and Dominic, there should only be three more guys.

Four men came running out of the warehouse as Hanson slipped behind a defunct crane.

“What the fuck happened here?”

“Boss, how the fuck do we deal with this?”

“Shut up, you fuckers, take a look…”

Then silence.

A tingle went up Hanson’s spine. He looked down at his feet to see bloody footprints leading from where he stomped a man to death. Well, there wasn’t much way out of this one. Hanson grabbed onto a small piece of welded metal on the crane, barely larger than an envelope, and started climbing. It was enough cover for his body, and for the first time in his life, Hanson was glad to have a small build.

The sound of footfalls could be heard below him, and he took a look. There was a tall black man, holding a sawed-off shotgun, and another guy following the blood with a submachine gun. It would only be seconds before they saw him, and the other two weren’t in sight.

Fuck it.

Again, Hanson let himself drop.

***

As babies, the two were sold to the Institute.

They didn’t have any actual relation, but after the brutal testing and daily experimentations, they spent time with cells facing each other. To get a basic education, every day, they were forced to study academic material, but when the lights were out, they could talk.

The ‘outside world’ was a fairy tale for the two children, and they dreamed of blue skies and green meadows from their books.

The project Hanson was put through was called ‘Jottun’.

The first time he got to go outside was to be dunked into the ocean for three hours, along with 30 other Jottun kids. The temperature was sub freezing, but a catalyst in their body kept them heated in such cold temperatures. Out of the 30, only 12 came back alive.

Hanson was one of them, and for ten days straight, he couldn’t talk.

Eventually, Honey broke through to him and he told her it was all fake. There was nothing good outside. The world was ruined.

In those days, they didn’t have names, only numbers. But after being sent on a duo mission to infiltrate a cult circulating in District 8, they killed their handlers and decided to live on their own. That was at age 11. By the time they decided to live in Paris, they were 13, and had real names, deciding to take the world as they chose, rather than just being passive observers.

Neither would die so easy.

***

There wasn’t anyone immediately below him, so Hanson couldn’t do his usual tactic, but he used the momentum from hitting the ground to spring up and ram his first knife into the black man’s back. Whether it was luck or skill from his target, the man moved just enough to prevent it from being an instantly fatal blow. As the man staggered forward, he pulled away, turning to face Hanson.

Before he could pull the trigger, Hanson threw his other knife.

It struck the man in between his trigger finger joint locking the man from shooting. That happened in under a second.

The other man, noticing this, shouted out a cry of vengeance as he turned to spray with his automatic. Hanson fell to his hands and crawled forward as the bullets flew, getting to the man's feet and ramming his skull into the man’s crouch.

By the time he did that, the black guy had switched the hands holding his shotgun, and aimed it at Hanson.

But Hanson tripped the other gangster forward and used his leg as a buffer to shield from the shotgun blast, which destroyed most of the man’s leg and two of Hanson’s fingers. The tripped gangster screamed in pain, and shouts in the distance echoed his cries.

Without mercy, Hanson grabbed the black man’s shotgun and snapped the man’s wrist backwards, though emotion didn’t show on the wounded man’s face. True to a classic africalos, as Hanson yanked the gun from his hand and blasted a hole through the man’s chest, the gangster was devoid of any emotion.

Hanson turned and kicked the screaming man in the jaw, breaking it, before hopping on top of the crane.

He did so just in time, because Bruno and his other gangster rounded the corner as Hanson cloaked himself with shadows. He kept himself still as the two stared down at their friends’ bodies. The man with the shattered leg was still alive, and he pointed up.

Hanson meant to shoot Bruno, but the gang boss grabbed his underling and used him as a shield. Bruno leapt backwards, still holding his screaming teammate as a shield as Hanson took another shot. He tried one final blast, but the gun was out of ammo. He tossed it to the side and descended from the crane, opposite to Bruno.

“Yo,” Hanson called out. “You’re Bruno, yeah? I killed Nick, so you wanna surrender or what?”

“Shut the fuck up! Lying mother fucker!”

It was a bluff that let Hanson ascertain his enemies rough location. Because it seemed like Luise was probably fine, he could do whatever he wanted here. After glancing back at the building to make sure the missing person hadn’t come out, he refocused on his current enemy.

“I ain’t lying, he’s the one with that crazy scar, right? Dude was weak as hell.”

Hanson heard the growling of the large man. He could probably fight the man if he got the jump on him, but missing two fingers from his primary hand was crippling. It meant only one knife, and a majority of his power came from his injured right hand. The bones were slowly regenerating, but it was way too slow. These wouldn’t be fixed until his heart rate slowed down. Because he was needed to deal with Nick, this had to be finished quickly.

“And when he died, it was pretty pathetic. Dude was crying and begging for me to spare him. You gonna do the same thing?”

This time, Hanson didn’t hear Bruno at all. It was a bad sign.

Sensing a chill on his spine, Hanson made a mad dash from his hiding spot.

It was good timing, because a hail of bullets pelted the area, then started to chase after Hanson’s trail. He slid back behind a wall to catch his breath. He couldn’t pick out where Bruno was, so the strategy of taunting the man was starting to backfire.

“Ah come on! You’re boring bro! I thought you were supposed to be the fun badass one. Pussy!”

There was a click next to Hanson and he looked down to see a grenade.

Holy shit, that was unexpected.

Even though he jumped away, the explosion shook him and the metal from the grenade stuck into his wounded body. It mostly hit his right side, and he felt broken bones. It would probably be impossible to fight back now. He tested his leg to find it was also pretty badly wounded.

Hmm. This cut back on his ability to fight quite drastically.

“Yo, bringing a grenade to a gunfight is totally unfair...and I didn’t even start out with a gun. I had to steal one of your guys’s!”

As he said that, Hanson limped away as quickly as possible. At this point, it didn’t actually matter whether or not he killed these dudes. If what he heard was correct, Luise had already escaped, so there wasn’t anything important here. He needed to be at the central square before the hand off. That was going to be tough, but possible.

“Oh my god, it really was you!”

The familiar voice bothered Hanson more than if it were an enemy. When he turned, his old friend had already struck, wrapping her arms around him and dragging him further into cover. She sat him with a crunch on broken glass from half a mirror. Bad luck.

“Luise, I can’t believe you were seriously captured,” Hanson said, trying not to pay attention to her. “Must be getting dull, huh?”

“I was just doing my job,” she said. “Can’t blame a girl for trying to get money. So how’d you find me anyway?”

In the distance, there was another explosion. No matter what, the police would be arriving, so they needed to go soon. But unfortunately, Hanson was currently stuck. In all of the world, there were very few things that stole confidence from him. One of those things were women. And Luise was down to undergarments, which made him unable to look at her.

“Come on, we need to go,” he said. Good thing it was dark, because his face was flushed as she continued to hold onto him. “Cops are gonna be coming…”

“Huh? But don’t you need to kill that guy?”

“I mean, yeah, but…” He held up his limp and mangled arm. “Not gonna be easy with this. Can’t get close to him, and I don’t have a gun, so that’s useless.”

From seemingly out of nowhere, Luise pulled out a revolver and dangled it in front of his face.

“You mean like this?”

…

Hanson sighed.

“Okay, how did you get that?”

“Picked it off a dead body, only has two shots though” she said, pouting at the lack of surprise on his face. He actually was quite surprised, but just good at hiding it in the dark. “I wanted to see what all the shooting was about, and when I saw you jumping around, I’m not gonna lie, I was totally starstruck. I’m now even more in love with you than before.”

“Ah! D-don’t talk about that type of stuff…”

“Haha. Come on, don’t be such a wimp. You’re supposed to be manly, aren’t you? With all those badass boasts, isn’t there more to show for it?”

“It isn’t like that,” Hanson said, his voice barely a whisper. “But thanks. I’m not gonna ask you to help me kill him, but can you help? I wouldn’t normally need it or anything, but just this once, we need to get this over quickly…”

***

All of his men were dead.

Bloodlust radiated out from all of Bruno’s pores. This was a crime with a punishment of death and desecration. Bruno’s men existed solely for his own personal use, and the only one allowed to kill them was him. Whoever the fuck this person was…

Whoever…

Whoever…

They were going to die. They would be ripped apart, and Bruno would wear their bones like armor. He was going to become a viking. In his right hand was an automatic pistol, recently reloaded. In his left was the final grenade, ready to be thrown. The first had done damage, he could tell as much by the bloody scene it left behind. The second, unfortunately, was a miss.

That meant his third needed to be good. The amount of blood left on the ground as a trail was good evidence this intruder was hurt, and because it was all on the ground, Bruno was sure this acrobat wasn’t going to be approaching from above.

He was closing in, he could tell.

The predatory instincts in his blood were telling him prey was just around the corner.

“Hey, last chance to surrender,” the annoying voice called out, just behind the cement wall in front of Bruno. Barely five meters away. “If you take one more step, you enter my critical threshold, and you’ll die instantly.”

Bruno paused.

Not because he believed the threat, but because a cruel thought appeared in his mind.

The most logical course of action was to throw the grenade and kill the intruder from cover, but was that what he wanted? Were the deaths of all his men going to be avenged by such a weak way of killing? So lacking in violence? That was the type of murder Nick would do, the type of killing that only a coward would go through.

His thought process wasn’t completely empty; he also realized that while the man might have had a gun, he probably didn’t have ammo. If he did, he wouldn’t have run. But if this man was trying to bluff, claiming he still held onto the shotgun, the threat would be valid. Luckily for Bruno, he was well aware that Jack’s custom sawed-off only had four shots in it.

This was a sure bluff, and if Bruno called it, he could crush this intruder permanently. A wicked smile appeared on his face as he approached, ready to shoot, just in case.

There was a moment where time paused.

Bruno wasn’t sure why, but something happened. Perhaps it was the click and sound of metal falling to his feet?

When he looked down, he saw the pin of the grenade he was holding on the ground.

Why?

He would never know, because with all his focus on Hanson, he hadn’t noticed a quiet shadow appear behind him. Luise, finally enacting her revenge, pulled the pin and retreated without a sound.

In the same moment, as the pin hit the floor and made a sound, Hanson popped out from around the wall with a revolver in his hand. He shot twice: once to destroy the arm holding Bruno’s grenade, then again in his right leg.

Bruno dropped to one knee, his grip too weak to hold onto the grenade as it dropped. There were only seconds before it exploded.

He knew he was dead.

But he was a man of bloodlust and aimed his automatic at Hanson. With a smile, he pulled the trigger and unleashed a spray of bullets onto the intruder. But instead of seeing blood, all Bruno saw in his final moments was shattering glass.

In the few moments they had, Hanson had commanded Luise to set up a mirror using the shards shattered around them, doing her best to make him reflective on the opposite side of cover. Across from the cement wall was another, made of sheet metal. Hanson, knowing roughly where Bruno was but not for sure, took the shot through the metal wall after throwing his voice to the other side. If he had been able to see, he could have put two through the eyes, but there was no guarantee he would be fast enough.

But Bruno didn’t know this. He simply saw the figments of a man coming apart unharmed as the explosion ruptured his innards and destroyed half of his body. Even as he died, his still functioning arm tried to make a fist.

With their enemy defeated, Luise returned to Hanson.

“Damn, I can’t believe that worked,” she said, putting an arm around her short friend to help carry him back. “We make a pretty good team, huh? I bet it’d be even better if we were married.”

“A-ah...you shouldn’t talk like that. Marriage is supposed to be important, you know?”

“That’s why I’d get married to you, fool. It’s a good deal, since I’m so hot.”

Hanson didn’t answer; he was too flustered and just groaned as he looked away. This was the reaction she was used to, so Luise laughed. Her laughter was cut short as the final member of the Gordoli family, and the youngest, stood before them with a pistol.

He dropped it.

“I’m sorry for all the trouble my brothers and their friends caused you guys,” Dominic said, bowing his head. “Good luck in stopping them. I hope you can rescue your brother just fine. Family is important.”

***

“Thanks for driving,” Hanson said, holding onto Luise as gently and politely as he possibly could. His body was starting to recover, but it wasn’t at the point of riding a motorcycle. “You don’t have to, ya’ know.”

“Yes I do.”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t want to see that kid die,” Luise said. “And if what you said about Maxine is true, we need to make sure Arco doesn’t do anything bad. Even after everything that happened, I just can’t seem to hate him. It isn’t his fault that he’s broken. It isn’t any of ours.”

Hanson didn’t say anything. He couldn’t feel the same. But why? He didn’t understand. How could everyone just forgive and forget what Arco did? The amount of pain and suffering their old friend caused was atrocious. It was only because he dropped to his hands and knees and cried for forgiveness before running that Hanson didn’t kill him on spot.

No, it was because he didn’t want to kill a friend. But now, after years of simmering on it, no longer did Hanson consider Arco a friend. He didn’t care about any of the surrounding reasons Arco could have had for his actions; at this point, the man was nothing but scum. A black spot in Hanson’s mind. A reminder that even if you think someone is good, they aren’t. Someone who could easily do the worst possible things to their friend.

Almost as if Luise could tell Hanson’s emotion from his grip on her, she sighed and turned her head at a traffic stop.

“Stop getting so angsty. Focus on something better. Like the smell of my hair. I got to use a rich girl’s shampoo for the first time, and it felt really good. Kinda smells like limes. What do you think?”

***

As the two pulled up to center square, something caught Hanson’s eye.

It was in the car directly next to them.

What he saw would leave any normal human in shock as the man sitting in the backseat's head exploded.

Then, the car he was watching revved to life and jolted forward, smashing through the side of a building and then spinning around and slamming into a wall across the street.