Halloween Event (Pt. 6): Stealing the Girl, (and not getting punched in the face…)

--- Joshua ---

(I can’t leave her here even if that thing chases me.)

“Fuck.” He cursed himself before rushing over to the unconscious girl and picking her up in a princess carry. (Thank you super strength,) “Alright, this probably isn’t going to be a fun trip for you but-”

A roar from the side drew his attention to the Burning Man clumsily climbing into the VIP room.

“Yeah, that.” He nodded, as the world turned black and white. “Ooh, ooh, I know what this means!”

Turning around he took one step with the girl in his arms and found himself ramming shoulder first into the VIP entrance door, causing him to spin on his heel as he hopped out of the office on one foot while looking at the Burning Man unleash a torrent of flame at his previous location.

“Ha! Not today bitch!” He mocked, adjusting his grip on the girl to give the Deviant a pair of birds.

Of course because he wasn’t looking where he was going, he ended up slipping on the first step of a set of stairs. “Oh shit.”

He held the girl’s head to his chest as he fell and banged his way down the (pointy) metal stairs. “Ouchies…”

(You see this is why we don’t mock until after we’re safe.)

“Come on, I wasn’t looking… I totally should’ve walked on air right there!” He frowned, picking himself up and planning on blaming the girl’s new injuries on the Burning Man.

(Rule of comedy kid: Bitch slapping the arrogant asshole is always funny.)

“Point, point.” He conceded to himself, just as the door to the VIP room was thrown open by burning mass of muscle and malice. “Speaking of bitches, let’s run like one.”

Turning around he darted through the inky blackness once more and found himself at the entrance to the train station, and for once did not harm himself in some way because of this sudden transposition.

“Okay, think I’m finally starting to get the hang of that.” He told himself, not stopping to see if the Burning Man was following him. (Because obviously he is.) (Duh.)

He felt an odd twisting inside of his head, one so powerful he found himself slipping on the ground and slamming into the dirt face first as the girl tumbled out of his arms.

“F-uck! Don’t need one of these right now…” He groaned, feeling a familiar dampness beneath his nose. (Shit. Okay, I think I know what went wrong right there.)

“Really, because I don’t!” He spat, pushing himself off the ground.

(Don’t worry I’ve got it covered.)

“F-uck…” A coughing sound drew his attention away from his own Madness and to the side where the girl had gained something resembling consciousness.

“Okay, you’re, uh, you’re conscious again.” He told the girl. “That’s good.”

“Wh-what the fuck… happened?” The girl asked, her gaze concerningly glazed.

(Yeah, she’s not going to be walking like that.) He grimaced, before moving to pick her up once more. “Right, sorry about this but we’re still in the middle of running from-”

The Burning Man roared once more as the Deviant caught sight of them the train station’s entrance before leaping on top of one of the nearby trains.

“Don’t interrupt me!” He yelled back at the massive wall of flame and muscle that honestly kind of scared him, but (I’m not going to admit that to anyone.)

(You admitted it to me?)

(Fuck off.)

With that said, he turned on his heel and proceeded to flee from the Deviant (that totally doesn’t scare me) while trying to figure out, (how the fuck do I do the teleporting thing?! It can’t require the black and white thing can it?!)

(If it’s what I think it is then no it doesn’t.)

“Then what the fuck am I supposed to do?” He hissed through grit teeth.

“Run away?” The girl offered weakly, getting a smirk out of him even if she didn’t mean to.

“Finally.” He sighed in relief before focusing on a nearby train and letting the inky black consume him as he felt a growing heat at his back. One that disappeared as he found himself atop a train and away from the Burning Man for another moment. “Yes!”

His cheer caused the Burning Man’s blazing red eyes to snap to him.

“No!” He cried before leaping off the train on the side opposite the other Deviant. “Leave me alone!”

Rather than simply letting him get away like any even remotely considerate person would, the Burning Man decided to ignore his plea and continue to follow him. By crashing through the train in an explosion of flame that sent half of the train whipping through the air.

“Oh shit!” He cursed, before noticing one of the flying train cars’ doors were open.

Thinking quickly, he leapt into the air, aiming himself at the open train car where upon entering it he kicked off the car’s currently vertical floor to launch himself out the door on the other side where a backflip let him clear the last little bit of the wreckage before it could crush him beneath several tons of burning steel.

“Please tell me you saw that!” He laughed upon landing.

“Saw wha?” The girl blinked, still clearly out of it.

“Oh come on! No one saw that?!” He whined, wishing to impress his badassery upon someone.

The Burning Man erupted into flame with a screaming roar as the Deviant pulled himself from the burning metal.

“You know what, on second thought I’m okay if no one saw that.” He assured the massive Deviant as he once more turned tail and ran. “Go back to what you were doing.” He paused. “Before you were chasing me I mean.”

“Think he was… kicking my ass…” The girl groaned.

“Well, what he was doing before that!” He told her. “I’m pretty sure he was trying to murder rich douchebags, so he can go back to that. I’m completely okay if he goes back to that. I want him to go back to that! He clearly made him so much happier than this raging mass of ‘Oh Cheshire he’s going to murder us!’ that he’s got going now.”

“You were… more confident before…” The girl noted in a way he hoped her concussion would make her forget.

“Before I wasn’t aware I was highly flammable, nor was I running on an empty tank with my powers going wonky.” He explained in a perfectly calm and reasonable manner as he gave into his instincts and dropped to the ground in a slide as a massive fireball flew overhead.

(Wait, empty tank… That’s it! Drink a Malice Vial!)

He blinked as he suddenly realized why he couldn’t seem to trigger his weird ink power outside of the black and white time. (I’m out of ink… Fucking idiot!)

As he hauled himself back to his feet he shoved a hand into his jacket and pulled out a vial of his regular Malice before biting the cap off and downing the entire thing in a single shot.

Within seconds of the sweet coppery strawberries hitting his tongue, that sweet sweet symphony began playing its swing inside his head and he knew he was going to come out of this in one piece.

“Heh-ha! Now we’re dancing, darling!” He laughed, hopping to his feet and pulling the girl to hers.

“Don’t feel like dancing…” The girl told him

“Ah, that’s a shame. Girl as beautiful as you deserves a dance or two.” He assured her, before turning his attention towards the Burning Man charging them. “Though with men this pushy, I get why you’re not in the mood.”

The Burning Man raised a fistful of flames into the air, ready to make them smash and burn before their world went black and Deviant’s fist cratered the ground.

“Really, a gentleman knows that ‘No.’ means ‘No!’ my good sir!” He yelled down from atop a nearby train where he sat before turning to the girl seated next to him. “I don’t know what’s wrong with this generation. They’ve no class.”

“How’d we… get up here…?” The girl asked, looking around in a daze.

“Same way we got over here.” He explained as they appeared on a train top closer to the edge of the train yard.

“I don’t feel good…” The girl told him, still unable to stand up as she leaned against him.

He nodded in sympathy having had his ass kicked a fair number of times as well. “Yes, well we’ve just got to get you home, and with a bit of sleep you’ll be right as rain, darling.”

A pillar of flame erupted into the air as another roar filled the train yard.

“But first let’s put a little more distance between us and ya’ stalker.” He told her, before focusing on a nearby rooftop and hoping he could make the distance with his new power.

At first it felt like something was missing, like the instinctive aspect of his power just couldn’t seem to grab onto the space he was looking at, but then the world turned black and white and something seemed to click as he felt something inside his power stretch a little further than before.

The world around him seemed to stutter and the edge of his vision seemed to take on this odd pattern of white dots on black, before something snapped and both he and his companion of this fine evening found themselves on the rooftop in a world of color.

“Hoo-boy… Might’ve pushed that power a little too far that time…” He confessed, feeling an odd strain across his entire body and familiar dampness beneath his nose. “Should probably keep it to a shorter distance from now on…” He told himself as he dabbed at his nose, knowing that he was usually pretty quick on the uptake with this sort of thing.

A glance over his shoulder showed a glowing figure bashing through the trainyard, too far for him to make out any kind of detail. A fact that would be twice as difficult for the Burning Man given how he was a bright light looking into the darkness of night.

“Now we should be safe.” He nodded to himself, before a too wide grin grew on his face. “Meaning now is the time to mock.”

He coughed into his fist before stamping a boot on the roof’s edge, giving the Burning Man two middle fingers, and sticking his tongue out in a raspberry. “Na-na-na-na! Can’t touch this, bitch! My ink’s too slick, my skills too sick, and you’re just a prick with a little dick!”

With that important task completed he turned his attention back to his companion, who promptly threw up on him.

He looked at the sick looking girl, and then his vomit soaked pants, before inhaling deeply and slowly letting it out as he decided that, (Yep. This is about par for the course for me.)