Tsuchigumo-The Hunter in Repose

Once upon a time there was a story that walked like a man, talked like a man and acted like a total bastard. This story walked the world, strutting like a mighty bull unafraid of all challengers and he changed the world to make it how he wanted.

His life was no longer a genre it was real. His life was a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel, with just a splash or pornography. He was everything a story ought to be.

The problem with a successful story though. There will always be imitators.



--- Sophie Thomson

There’s a bullet on the ground and the sound of wheels across the sand. Gulls scream overhead and the waves hiss gently as The Hand of Jack makes his way toward the shell. He’s dragging an oxygen tank on wheels behind him, the clear tubing runs into a mask he wears over his mouth. It fogs up with every other step he takes, slow inhale and a slower exhale.

He comes upon that little bullet in the sand, he kicks it a few times to turn it over. Probably still toasty to the touch. He scratches at his bald head, fingers running along some faint scarring across his skull. He removes the mask for a moment to cough and then puts it back on.

“That ain’t happened before.” He said through his breathing mask. He turns the dials on the tank, lets in more air. He bends over, feels things scrape under skin and picks up the spent shell. “Yup. That’s new.”

He puts the bullet into the pocket of his thick woolen sweater. “Make a new one.” He tells himself and turns around. He walks back down his own footsteps on the beach, retreading each step he took. He lives alone. The island is deserted except for him but he does this incase someone follows him, double back on yourself to create doubt. He also put up a bunch of fake landmine warning posters around the beach.

So if someone walks in his own steps he could pick them out far easier. Not that he’d need to. He was The Hand of Jack. He didn’t need it to be made any easier for him.

He walks down the lonely beach, the sand isn’t white it’s a kind of off yellow. The water is nice and salty, stains it all wrong. He’s lived on this island since he became The Hand of Jack and he’s had trouble leaving it since that one Cuban kid showed up all those years ago. His tank skips over a stone, wobbles up his arm and he nearly goes over onto his knees. Grumbles as he hacks into the mask with the sudden effort.

Only the help he received from The Will of Jack kept him alive. If you could call it living, he always thought miserably. He used to race The Blades of Jack each and every day. Mad missions of slaughter, violence unparalleled...well except for Wine...but nobody could compete with Wine.

The Hand is off the beach and walks a well worn, smooth tarmac path toward his trailer home. It sits in the middle of a field on an island off the coast of Scotland. The only way to get there is by boat or jumping out of a plane. There’s only two roads on the island. One leads to the trailer and the other used to lead to the little town. Full of Jack Recording slaves. His little hand reared maniacs who would eat their own lips off if The Hand asked. The towns not there anymore...

So all roads lead to the trailer and that’s because The Hand wants to see you coming. He’s not young anymore, not spry, he’s held together by spite and The Will’s instruction.

He needs all the help he can get. His pockets rattle as he gets closer to his home. There’s a small deck chair outside and a wooden table with a fine inlay across it’s smooth lacquered surface. Resting on top of the table is a device that resembles garden sheers save with holes down the length of the blade.

The Hand collapses into his chair and props his oxygen tank against the table. He takes a few breaths. Lets it all get back into him. He reaches over with one calloused hand and grabs the wooden handle of the device. Slides it over. Grabs both handles, sighs and forces the shears apart.

It takes a lot more out of him than he’d care to admit. Sweat builds up on his forehead, his back aches and his ribs feel like they might shatter with the effort. He used to do this one handed until that one guy…

That horrid thing that dropped out of the sky. The smiling young man from Cuba. Told him that the House of Jack wouldn’t accept contracts on some little nobody. The Hand laughed at him and told him to leave while he was in a good mood.

It took fourteen hours. Forty seven thousand rounds of ammunition and every Jack Recording slave on the island to stop that damn thing. Had to put a knife in it’s skull to put it down, that grinning screaming horror of a thing. It kicked a rock through The Hand’s chest...now The Hand isn’t half what he used to be.

He heard the Cuban kid got back up too. Insult to injury, wound salted and he was forced to bow to the wishes of this kid. Lest he come back and finish the job on him. The Jacks didn’t like that, everyone was a target. Except for one name, it didn’t mean anything to any of them. Until they couldn’t touch her.

Then Lucile Black became the single most sought after target in the world. Student, historian and archeologist. They knew everything about her. They knew all of it. But they also knew the couldn’t touch her. Or that thing would come back and it would kill all of them.

The shears came apart. Bullets rolled from their moulds and onto the table. There was one at the back. Lucile Black. The name was etched into it, fine filigree. Carved with care and precision, the work of a real master. That’s not the bullet he gets to fire today. There’s four others sat in front of it, less fancy. Names just etched in.

He grabs one close to the front. Louis Niccals. He picks it up and looks it over. He reaches into the pocket of his woolen sweater and places the spent casing on the table. Louis Niccals.

“Let’s try this one again.” He said lifting a gun from beside the chair. It’s a simple weapon, small weapon. A pistol with an unassuming calibur. He loads the single shot and he aims at the ground.

He fires. The bullet hits the ground and The Hand has never in his life looked more confused than he does at that moment. Well...I tell a lie he looks a lot more confused two seconds later when the oxygen tank explodes and he’s sent shooting away from his trailer by the force of the blast.

Sophie Thomson moves for probably the first time in thirteen hours. Her whole body aches, everything tight and rigid and sore all over. Standing up is a chore, she feels her knees click as she does it. She’s wearing a coat of artificial turf over her back, it feels now like it weighs a tonne. Sitting in one place is a lot harder than they say it is. Sniping is a lot harder than you’d think it is, honestly.

You don’t realize how hard it is to stay still and do nothing but think and wait and focus for a shot to line up. She’s been here waiting long enough in one spot for a chance to nail that tank. She has no idea what ability The Hand has but he needs that tank to live. Best case the explosion killed him. Worst case he dies slowly and painfully.

The Hand is pretty sure he can feel something hot and metallic in his liver, it’s not supposed to be there. Also sure he’s lost some bones, not broken they just vaporised by shrapnel or blunt force or something. His thoughts feel heavy in his head but he’s The Hand of Jack so he defaults to what he knows.

He gropes on his right side and finds a hand gun, small gun but ready loaded. He rolls onto his back, lungs burning. World on fire. He pulls back the slide, takes everything out of him. The next parts easy but he wants to savour it. As his hand falls flat to the Earth he points it sideways, takes a deep breath.

Pulls the trigger.

Sophie doesn’t hear a bang but she gets knocked off her feet. All the air in her lungs leaves in one torrid scream. “FUCK.” She yells out, her whole arm feels numb and her shoulder sings with fresh agony. She looks at her suit, bullet proof. Heavy weave material it’s fine but she can feel it in there...under her skin. She can feel the red hot horror of a bullet that’s found home.

“I didn’t!” The Hand screams, it’s killing him. “I didn’t get to be The Hand of Jack for being a fucking pussy!” He tells himself this is the lady coming for the Kings. This is the lady trying to save Louis Niccals. Her name is Sophie Thomson and he has seven bullets with her name on them.

She’s not him. She’s not…

--- Nathan Black

Do you know what the taste of your heartbeat is? Nathan does. He has more senses than he knows what to do with. He knows what everyone sounds like inside, right down the sounds bones make when they rub and lock and grind. He can taste blood in the air, smell our skin die and that’s what makes him so very good at picking a needle out of a haystack.

Murphy sent him to Tokyo to find Boss Boso. Boss Boso hired Louis Niccals to steal from a lot of people. Louis Niccals works for something called Tsuchigumo now. Murphy wants answers and he’s sent Nathan to find them.

Nathan’s good at finding things. When he was a lad aliens abducted him and did stuff to him. Pulled things out, crammed things in, broke things to put in better things. They made him the ultimate hunting dog. He’s built to find things and kill them dead.

Nathan is also good at finding things and moreover has Murphy’s trust because he’s not half as stupid as he makes you think he is.

He has no idea where to find the leader of a Rocket Bike gang like Boss Boso. So he found the bottom feeders, made an example. Did a murder. Coated the other one in a tracking chemical, aka Nathan coated the guy in a nice thick layer of his nano-active blood. Now the guy is broadcasting a signal Nathan can feel in his bones, electricity slides down his spine and pumps his heart hard.

Tracking people and hurting them gives him a simulated high. It’s like breathing crack and he loves it. That was the idea, drug the hound into loyalty.

But even without the tracking, the signals and all that shit. You get covered in blood- you wash it off. That’s common sense. He’s not at all surprised when his trail grows cold around some kinda giant techno nightmare that might have once been a quaint business. There’s signs all over it, great neon characters and caricatures. Washhouse. The signs seem tacky and pointless but Nathan sees deep, his eyes don’t work like a human’s.

He sees signals and coded messages. The signs are transmitting little messages through morse code. It flies the length of the streets, dozens of signs blinking into a new rhythm. They’re calling for help, telling Boss Boso someone has the feelers out for him. It’ll get back to the guy and he’ll send in his boys to have a look.

Seems a little low tech, a little pointless. Nathan has to suppose they’re paranoid about their signals or their message runners. Heck maybe it’s one of those ‘how we’ve always done things’ kind of things. They love that whole tradition thing on this side of the world.

Nathan can’t help but smile. People, easy once you get them down to a science. He drops from the roof of a nearby building soundlessly landing on his bare feet. Shoes haven’t fit for a long time, besides he can’t feel through them. Little vibrations tickle at his soles, send signals all over. He heads toward the bath-house. Eyes follow him as he towers over the crowd and a fair few point at him as he walks closer, hushed whispers.

He must be a criminal. He picks up, he supposes they’d be right. He doesn’t look like much else. Still, words hurt. He didn’t ask to get bigger as he got older, he used to be runty. Used to be tiny but well...they ripped things out and put things in. One of those things turned him into a wall of muscle. Not very practical, if the ultimate predator stuck out a head above everyone else you’d clock him right on.

Not to mention all his clothes had to be made to order these days...Damn aliens didn’t give a toss about fashion did they?

He walks into the business. There’s a lady behind the counter she looks at him, she doesn’t say anything. He just waits for a moment, listens to the air, listens to skin pruning, tastes himself in the air. The guy he wants is still here.

“Mixed bathing.” He said to her and dumped coins on the counter. He walks into the changing area, strips as he moves. The clothing, he had it made a few hours ago. It’s fantastic, breathes and feels just right on him. He wants it hung up good and proper, finds a tall locker and a couple of coat hooks. He has to grumble at it, cheap wire hooks. The things cut into a suits lining, they can mess up the seams if you use them too much. He supposes beggars can’t be choosers.

The pants go on a similar hook and he tries not to hiss at the rough metallic feel of the hanger. He can practically smell the ghosts of clothing past in this locker, dozens of different outfits. They really need to clean these things, though you could drown the room in bleach and he’d still find a lingering something in the air. He could walk into a restaurant and smell every dish cooked in the past three weeks there, never did good for the appetite.

He looked at the towel, it was meagre….rather...small for him… He took two more. Then he took a slow breath, rolled his shoulders. Knuckles clenched, he walked forward and thought about murder.

There was a sound like a bear trap being wound tight, he smiled.

---

“It won’t come off,” Akiyama savages his face with a scrubbing brush, “it freaking burns.” He tells his men who are trying to scrub the dark coloured substance from his own hands. That big guy did this, that monster thing.

“Bro, who the fuck was that?” He thinks he has it off, there’s a fine red film around his scrub brush. He lifts it, his hand is bleeding from how hard he’s scraping at his skin. The strange coloured substance persists. He whines like a scolded child. “Who did we piss off?”

“Shut up.” Akiyama keeps scrubbing at his face, keeps scrubbing at his face. His spine feels like ice. It was supposed to be simple. Shake down some suit for some lunch cash and then that giant appeared. Killed Goro and covered them in his own blood, now the blood won’t wash off. No matter how much they try. Sent word to the boss that someone was asking about him...he’ll send someone down to find out what is happening.

“Bro...bro…”

Akiyama turns to look at his brother, he’s pale and his face is a mask of horror. He turns and he sees him. The giant is here. He’s massive, he has to duck to get in the door but he feels larger than that. He feels tremendous, the building ought to shake with every step he takes. Akiyama hears a dozen faucets turn off, splashing as dozens of men suddenly finish their routines early and start to leave.

Every step he takes seems to match a thunderous pounding in his chest, his heart scratching at his ribs as though it wants out. Akiyama feels himself slink lower still as though he were a boy again, hiding from his father or a relative. A child avoiding a punishment, the giant lets everyone flood past him doesn’t slow down an iota as he makes his way to the onsen bath at the back.

He turns his head, Akiyama can’t see him from the wall but he can feel it. The giant can see him through the wall, the giant can see him. There’s not a shred of doubt in his way, he waits for it to peer over the wall. He waits for it to come, he’s frozen to the spot pinned by a monsterous will. His brother slaps at his arm and tries to get him to move, he’s a fool can’t he tell if they move the giant will get them! He’ll kill them if they try and leave, the giant found them here the giant can find them anywhere.

Nathan feels like it’s quite rude, probably a lot of these guys were looking forward to a nice soak after a long day. Walking in here engines revving and putting out about as much fear aura as he could was not good for them or very considerate. Still there was a chance gangsters were coming here and they might come armed, he didn’t need unnecessary distractions or a collateral casualty on his hands.

He’d tip the building as he left, that only felt right. It’d make up for the possible drop in business here, it might even do to ask THEM to do a mindwipe on the area, he could cause a scene and make it mandatory. Erase any worries or doubts and possible damage to the place. Yeah, that might be an option.

He stepped over the low tiled wall and into the onsen bath. An old man had remained behind, he looked up at Nathan and said nothing just moving slightly. Nathan sat down, the water rose and spilled over the edge of the bath. He nodded to the old man.

The fear aura always worked but some people had a sort of...resistance. Seemed to be mostly in the older crowd, he’d never really worked out why that was.

“How do you want the water?” The old man asked him. Nathan paused and looked around, his mobster goons were flat on the ground looking at him in total horror. Yeah they’d keep.

“Like a bath drawn in the depths of hell.” Nathan said, he heard it in a movie once. It sounded cool, the Old man didn’t say anything but his shoulders shook as he turned at the taps. A little levity always helps.

Nathan relaxed in the heat but he kept his eyes on his little runaways, they dare not move. They look at him frozen in total horror and agony, he could kill them in a second. He lets them think about how, that’s enough to keep them in place until such a time as he decides to hit them or let them leave.

“You seem to be giving the youngins a harsh look.” The old man said to him and Nathan looked to the old man. He could hear his laboured lungs work, he could see the slow pulse of blood through his veins. He had ten years of life left in him at best. That said he smelled of...family. There was the scent of two others mingling with his, a woman and a child. Little things tained, perfumes that cling...Nathan couldn’t help smile at that.

There was a slight unhealthiness to his skin, pigmentation and bad ink applied through a dozen stabs to the back. Old school tattoo, traditional sort of thing. Nathan clocked on at once and bowed his head.

“I’ll find another bath,” he said and rose to his feet, “I had no idea you were a senior in your group.” The Old Man waves him back down.

“I’m a senior in a lot of groups,” he smiles at Nathan, a toothy thing. “I’m not part of theirs though.” He nods in the direction of the two men cowering. “They’re part of the that new sect of mad men, they give themselves things much worse than tattoos these days.”

“I’d heard,” Nathan replied simply, “I’m sorry regardless to bring business to your doorstep. It’s coincidence I’m afraid.” He said eyes cast down to the water, you show the right people respect and it opens a lot of doors in the future. One of Murphy’s golden rules. “I’ll be gone as soon as their superiors come to collect them.”

“It’s not my business,” the old man went on, “this is just where I take my baths.” He rattled, the tap still running. Nathan felt the heat and he had to wonder if the old guy had forgot about it, but he wasn’t gonna grab the tap. Maybe the old boss loved it scalding.

“It was out of convenience at first, close to where I worked.” He rubbed at his jaw. “Then they started bringing in the tattoo bans,” he laughs a little, “made it hard for a dishonest man to get a proper bath.”

“I can imagine,” Nathan said, “tourism started to pick up though and all the army guys and others with tattoos would just walk past the district. Meant the owners missed out on a profit.” Nathan went on resting his arms over the bath wall. “Started to lessen after a while.”

“Spot on.” The Old Boss said. “It all started to get a little more open. You could use the baths so long as you covered up or made sure to rest against a wall.” He let out a little laugh. “One of the few times an influx of foreigners did me a favour.” He shakes his head. “The other times were the old cons. You know the Yakuza walking tours, ever hear of those?”

“I’m sure I can guess.” Nathan said with a grin.

“You’re a Dekasegi?” The Old Man asked him. Nathan had heard the term before, it was a yakuza member not necessarily the public face of the group. Usually made up of second or third generation Brazilian families with Japanese ancestry. Families are given legal living status thanks to Yakuza members swearing up and down to the closeness of their relatives...the trade off is the strongest men and boys do the dirty work. Murder, torture and body disposal is the life of a Dekasegi.

Nathan can’t fault the guy for thinking that while looking at him.

“No, I’m not a member of any clan.” Nathan replied simply. “More of a meddlesome outside force, a group wanted to make use of our skills. We like to vet clients before meeting them, I’ve been sent to do just that.” He turned to face the old man who just sort of smiled, his head tilted to rest against his shoulder.

“At least that’s what you’ll tell me.” The old man said, Nathan grinned and nodded slowly.”I know how it works, you’re one of those...what is it they call them now. Are you still The Outfit?” He asked and Nathan chuckled, deep in his chest. Now he was a mafia goon? That’s fine, he’d admit that sort of has a cool image to it even overseas.

“Sure. Society now,” Nathan said simply, “we’ve always been fraternal, now more so than ever.” He hears the old guy let out a little breath, maybe it was supposed to be a whistle. Maybe it’s something inside him failing, he isn’t sure.

“Sounds very official. The Society,” the old man says it in the kind of voice you hear those old samurai use in movies, big and bassy. “It’s very good.” He goes on to say rolling it around a little bit. “Yakuza will always be Yakuza, the brand got away from us.”

“It’s a good name.” Nathan states simply. He can hear an engine idling outside now. He can hear footsteps, he thinks everything will be okay. Then he hears something snap into place, a swift sliding sound of steel on steel.That’s a gun, big one. He grabs one of the plastic shampoo buckets from the side of the onsen.

“Old man,” Nathan begins to say as the door shatters inward. To Nathan it’s like they’re moving in slow motion, he can count the hairs on their head. Adrenaline sings through him as his programming screams into life as he contemplates just about every way to eviscerate the two idiots who just broke in.

Their bodies are like Christmas lights to his senses, bright and gaudy. Their bodies infused with strange chemical stimuli and something like sludge in their veins. They don’t seem to have hearts just something cold and steel thundering inside them. Their skin is pocked with little sorts of ports and holes all over, digital tubing that would allow them to plug into something. He can see their bodies dying from the inside out.

Helluva gang commitment. Turning yourself into a machine certainly trumps a tattoo.

They’ve got assault rifles. In Japan of all freaking places. That’s like turning up to a behind the school brawl and the kid has a katana. It’s overkill and it’s certainly not easy to sneak in or around with them. Rocket Gangs, he considers. They show up with heavy weapons and have enough speed on them to escape the scene.

Gun has forty five in a magazine, there’s two of them. Ninety bullets, he could travel the whole room and not get hit once. Could he do it before they started spraying? He can already hear the metal sliding back, the mechanisms prime. No, he couldn’t. Chances were they’d get off a few rounds, he can’t help but see the old man. He reacts in tableaux, it’s barely even hit him this is happening.

Nathan puts a hand on the man’s shoulder and twists in front of him.

Akiyama was torn from his total terror by the sound of whooping and bullets. The giant moved but every shot seemed to slam into his bulky frame, his limbs spasmed and twitched as the Engine Boys plugged him with some of those fancy imported rifles from the states. They were laughing their heads off, voices like booming explosions that drowned out even the stiff barks of their weapons.

Once they were done Akiyama was on his feet cheering, they were heroes! Susanoo slaying Yamata no Orochi! Tawara Toda slaying the great centipedes! Heroes is what they were, he found himself clapping for the pair.

“Outside!” One of them barks. “The Highway Star is waiting for you.” One of them snaps pointing at the door. Akiyama doesn’t need told twice and he goes to move. The Engine Boys move toward the back of the room, kicking aside buckets and tile as they move. Their bodies creak and groan as they move, their joints aren’t designed to hold up in motion this long but the rules are Engine Boys go first. That’s how it works.

“Somethings up with my visor, I can’t see him.” Said one to the to the other. His head shaved bald and the top of his skull replaced with a high tech visor, it’s lenses whirring as it cycles through a trillion different modes and settings.

“You were just blind firing!?” The other Engine Boy replies with a laugh. “Not that it matters with your freaking aim.” He can see the big dark skinned guy, a huge rippling back shredded up with ammunition. No tattoo and nothing but scars of the past. “Yeah he’s there, must be a mutant or something. Can’t show up on your camera lens.”

“Maybe he’s a demon like they were saying, too unreal for me to see.” He snickers as he says this. “Hey...hold up I’m getting a pulse, real weak. Not from our guy. I think...there’s someone else in the bath tub.”

“Don’t shoot!” The old man screams out. “I was just in here to bathe.”

The Engine boys cackle out loud. “JUST HERE TO BATHE!” one mocks in a voice thick with false fear, his knees shaking and clacking together. He nudges his companion with the weapon. “Look at this dangerous geezer! He pulled the big monster in his way to hide behind, devious!”

“Oh what a cruel devil.” The other Engine Boy said, not laughing but at his sides exhaust fumes spew out in a chugging rhythm. “You should be ashamed old man, this guy had his whole life ahead of him.”

The old man could only see Nathan’s face, a mask of grim determination. Teeth like fangs inches from his face, those eyes were bloodshot, jaw clenched in rage. He was….he was alive.

“Old. Man.” Nathan breathed, his fingers crushing the tiles of the bath beside the old man. “Don’t….no matter what you hear….don’t open your eyes until I tell you.” He exhales, a thick blast of steam. “Please.”

---

Outside Akiyama and his brother run into The Highway Star. He’s sat on his Rocket Bike, a beautiful piece of machinery that resembles a bullet on wheels. It’s tight and compact, sleek and shines like a star in the night. He’s got hair slicked back by the speed of his ride, it’s like something from a kid’s anime show but you’d never tell him that. He’s wearing his overcoat, stark and beautiful white save the text on the back.

Thick red letters that read. FASTEST IN THE WORLD. THE HIGHWAY STAR.

The Jacket has been passed down to each Highway Star in succession for years, since the first biker gangs to the rocker bikers of now. To wear it is a badge of honour and pride in the street racing circuit. It makes you a hero in a way no cape can, it means more to the outcasts than it could mean to anyone else.

“Oi,” a slap to Akiyama’s face, “you’re making a lot of noise for a grease monkey!” The HighWay Star’s second tells him, he’s another rider. He’s got a name but Akiyama never bothered to learn it. Who else matters but The Highway Star?

“Apologies, sir. It’s the giant he’s after the boss.” Akiyama states and a guy by the door hisses out a little laugh. He’s not wearing a shirt, his chest is a mosaic of fibreglass. Moving images bleed across his chest, replaced his body with some heavy mods. At his waistband is a fat American Pistol, one of those Desert Eagle things.

“A giant?” He scoffs. “You were scared out of your mind cause you saw a giant outsider?”

“He gutted two of my guys like it was nothing and he’s shouting up and down about going after Boss Boso. He’s bad news.”  

“Dead now, two engine boys with full auto.” The Highway Star says. “Someone give him a ride, we’ll take him to Boss Boso and he can decide what this was and what to do wi-”

There’s a loud crunching sound and something flesh shaped and crumbled hurtles out one of the tight, little windows for the onsen. It hits the building across the street, starts leaking fluids. The group looks at what was once an Engine Boy, it gropes blindly at the air toward them. A large chunk of it’s skull seemed to be missing, something pink and quivering exposed to the light of day. There seemed only to be one finger on his hand and they couldn’t even pick out his legs...

“Ease...kill…..me.” It rasps out in agony.

“Get on.” The Highway Star points at Akiyama, we’re going to the boss now. You’ve seen the guy. He looks to his two seconds. “Hold him back, kill him if you can.” Akiyama climbs quickly onto the back of the bike, arms fastened around The Highway Star’s waist. He feels his skin stretch against his skull as the bike fires off into the night like a bullet. He’s riding with the fastest man in the country.

“I saw him too….” Akiyama’s second states desperately before he’s grabbed by one of the other Engine Boys. They hand him a machete and point him toward the building. He’s going first….

He makes his way inside he can hear something like gasping, long ragged horrid breaths. He sneaks around the lockers, slowly, the machete rattling in his hands. The air tastes wrong, it feels heavy, he’s sweating through his clothes. He can’t hold onto the weapon his whole arm feels like it’s made of jelly and his legs won’t lift from the ground. He has to drag them to move forward. His mouth hurts, he’s only just aware his teeth won’t stop chattering.

He’s never been more afraid.

“Stop.” He hears someone rattle out. Then a thumping sound. “Stop.”

“I’m not here.” He hears a new voice say. “I’m somewhere else watching it happen.” Nathan tells the Engine Boy as he rips out the parts of him that keep him alive. He’s learning how they work, it’s not malice. It’s research, know the enemy. He’s got a hand around the throat of the cyborg as he prowls through his entrails with the care and precision.

Organs rehooked into strange machines, he tugs on something and the Engine Boy whimpers. Yeah that’s how they do it. These kids hook into their bikes, living power sources. Better to burn out than fade away, suicide youth culture. Live fast and die hard. Nathan has to wonder what appeal they find in becoming human weapons. These strange perversions of their bodies make them stronger but without constant upkeep they die.

“Who did this to you?” Nathan asks slowly. “Who does this?”

“Boss Boso and his...organic mechanic.” The Engine Boy replies to the figure rooting around inside him. “Please. Please kill me”

“I will.” Nathan tells him flatly, he crushes something and the boy wheezes, a smile on his face.

“Thank you.” The boy falls silent and Nathan drops him to the floor. He knew what he wanted to know. He can smell himself in the air, he turns to the lockers. Someone there, someone he tailed. He flexes something, feels a burning in his chest. Bullets are pushed out of the holes in his body, thin mechanical tendrils shove them free and slowly retract back into his body.

Flesh knits back up, pinker and fresh. The world is slowly turning around in his head. Murphy said he wanted Boss Boso alive, does killing this mechanic mean their relationship is soured? Would Murphy let him kill this guy once he was done, he wanted more than anything else to turn the man creating these human weapons into several little pieces. You don’t do this to people. They don’t know what they’re asking for.

He walks past the lockers a blade blurs, he was lost in thought. The blade meets skin and shatters. Nathan was built to adapt to his targets, the targets started to rip and stab and gouge at his skin. He grew better skin. Little glittering shards of the blade stuck in a thick black carapace grown across his chest, he looked down at the trembling hand holding a stick with broken steel attached to it.

“Don’t scream.” He told the man. He pointed into the onsen. “There’s an old man in there. Go get him, bring him here. Get him dressed. Do not let him see what I have done in that room.” He pulled the quivering man to his feet. “Do this and you get to go home tonight.”

He didn’t need told twice he was up and running. Nathan could hear more of those awful engine organs pumping outside, they were biomechanical and that always caused problems with his fear-aura. Heck one of them couldn’t even see him, fancy skill that. Invisible on cameras and surveillance by default. He can still smell gunpowder on one of them, large gun. He’s going to try for a kill shot. His friend has...some kind of weapon, Nathan has no idea what.

Doesn’t matter. He takes a slow breath. Raises his hands, slow in and slow out. He walks out of the door. The gun comes up on one side, fancy thing ought to shatter the guy firing it in half, but the guy is a machine. He’ll compensate, Nathan hears ozone boil and realizes the other guy has some kind of laser sword. Kid is letting out a big Kiai as he swings, whole diaphragm into it. It’s pretty superb but there’s nobody Nathan has to keep out of harm's way here. The fight is over before either of them realize they’ve lost.

Nathan’s hand blurs out, pushes back the slider of the big American pistol, pushes the release as his hand tears off the slide. The magazine falls free of the weapon and Nathan catches it in his free hand, whipping it backward at a diagonal angle while gripping the stopper at the bottom for leverage.

The slide of the pistol finds a home inside it’s owners eye socket shoved neatly into the fine mess of his brain. He dies before he can register pain. The fellow with the impressive shout has all of a second to enjoy it before the magazine and all it’s bullets are rammed through one side of his skull up to the stopper. He is thrown back at the strength of the impact.

“Bakemono.”

Nathan turns at the Engine Boy he tossed out the window, shocked he was alive. “I’m sorry.” Nathan said walking over slowly, a step away he raised one leg his own shin touching his forehead. He brings the foot down, there’s a sound not unlike leaves in Autumn underfoot. He throws bodies into the backstreets and walks back to the Onsen. The old man is at the door, his eyes still fastened shut.

“It’s fine now. “Nathan tells him and the man looks at Nathan. Still shirtless but without a single wound. “Go home, forget tonight. Both of you.” He looks pointedly at the gangster. “This didn’t happen and I’m sorry for any disruption to your lives.”

“You’re not a mobster are you?” The Old Man asks Nathan. “You’re a monster.”

“That’s a fair assessment.” Nathan replies. “That doesn’t have to be a bad thing,” he said, “I mean monster didn’t always mean monster.” He walks past the pair, allows them to go free. He returns to his locker where he finds his shirt and he founds his trousers. He slowly starts to pull them on.

Monster didn’t always mean monster. A man on a plane told him that years ago.

--- Years Prior

He was the first human Nathan had met since his awful transformation that didn’t piss all over themselves, hell the guy looked mad. Some tall skinny creature with hair all slicked back under a top hat. He looked down at the young Cuban boy sat in his first class airplane seat. His grubby clawed feet resting on the oak table. Picking stuff out of his teeth, had this child bathed in it’s entire life?

“Yew can’t talk to me loike dat!” The boy told him. “I’m a monster, folks are supposed to be afraid of me!”

“You know what monster means you horrid little turd?” The man asked him. “It means a divine messenger of catastrophe, back in the old Latin. It was the fucking French who made it mean ‘any creature we don’t understand or makes us piss all over ourselves.’ I fancy geese were monsters to the French.”

“I am a walkin’ catastrophe!” The young Nathan bragged until a large walking stick slapped him clean across the face, a foot found place on his neck.

“The only catastrophe encroaching upon this instant is my foot going clean up your horrid little arse.” The man told him before getting into the seat, tossing the hat onto the table and looking at Nathan. Those bright green eyes of his focused on Nathan. “What are you doing on my private jet anyway?”

“I will kill you! Be afraid of me!” Nathan had said firing out enough of his fear aura to make all the staff on the plane start praying and wishing they could call their loved ones. Birds slammed into windows out of fear, thanking the sweet quiet of death. The blonde man with green eyes looked bored.

“No you won’t.” He said flatly. “Nobody can kill me, I’m too good.” Was all he said. He didn’t say it like a brag or in any form of confidence. He said it with the rock solid conviction that comes from knowing the truth. He said it like a man says the air is blue or water is wet. This man said he would never be killed because nobody was good enough to do it.

Nathan was shaken then and there. He believed him.

“I’ll ask you again.” The Man crossed one leg over the other and held onto his walking stick, though why a guy so young needed it was beyond him. “Why are you on my plane?”

“It was going to America. Boston. They got that new vault in Boston, they say nothing can break it. Not even a monster, I want to show them I can break it.” He said and the man smiled, a big wide thing.

“Why? Do you want what's inside?” He asked and Nathan shook his head.

“No. I want to be the strongest. I want people to leave me alone. If everyone’s scared….they won’t…” They won’t hurt me. “They’ll know what's good for them.” Nathan said and the young man laughed and laughed and laughed.

“I like you boy. I’m going there to break the vault too...I want what's inside it. What say you break it and I keep the insides?” The blonde man asked him. “In exchange I’ll get you there and you can decide what we spend the money on.”

Nathan looked at this man, this beaming creature without an iota of fear. A man so sure of himself nothing could kill him. A thing so utterly human to his core it hurt, there was no powers he could feel, no enhancements he could sense...just a man with a big smile and a head on his shoulders.

Nathan learned soon this was the scariest man in the world.

The man held out a hand, peeling off the glove as he did so. “I’m Murphy Black.” He had said. “It is my very great pleasure to meet you.” He said and Nathan had taken that hand and shook it slowly up and down.”

“My name is Alejandro.” He had said back then because that was his name...before the secret identities, before the cover ups and before the whirlwind life that Murphy Black gave him. All Nathan had to do was help Murphy take everything else from everyone else.

Murphy was the first man who wasn’t afraid of him. The first man to treat him like a man and the man who stole from everyone else in the world….but he only gave to Nathan.

---

Nathan ran a hand through his hair, back to normal. He picked up the phone and sent a text to Murphy. An old man now, long gone was the blonde hair and that glow in those eyes...but he was still the only man in the world who you couldn’t kill. You weren’t good enough.

    Found Boso, tracking his lieutenant now. Should be meeting with him within the hour.

He walked outside, he’d send a message to THEM about a cleanup and repairs, for sure now. He did leave a sizeable stack of notes on the desk of the onsen, those gangsters had plenty of cash they’d not be using anymore. Only right they donate after fucking it all up, isn’t it?

Nathan felt so.

He could smell the exhaust in the air from the Rocket Bikes. It was half the reason he decided to gut that one boy, their fuel source is their own bodily fluids supercharged through mad science organs. He’d got nice and deep in there, rooting around in the guts to collect scents and now he’d pretty much be able to track these bikers anywhere.

He tensed his legs and leapt upward, clearing the rooftops in an instant. There in the distance was his target. He fell back to the Earth, ponderously landing. He took a slow breath and got a running start, leaping off into the night once more toward his target.