The Sin Hunter: Double or Nothing

Exit and Entrance

The murky sewer water splashed and sloshed as Wrench threw himself out onto the curb beside the tunnel, clutching his shoulder from the impact. Breathing a sigh of relief, Wrench's pearl white mechanical eye snapped to life, illuminating the ceiling above him. Wrench crawled to his feet, keeping his autonomous arm planted on the wall while he steadied himself. "Good, very good," the Traitorous Engineer grinned, jogging through the tunnel while lights somewhere behind began slashing across the dark tunnels. Mechanical pistons and tools to power the broken Sinner's organs hummed and hissed with steam as Wrench turned the corner into a crowd of Demons, one clicking orders into a radio while the other three leveled deadly looking rifles.

Thinking quickly and without care for sanity, Wrench dove into the murky water in the channel, popping a breathing apparatus over his mouth. Flashlights swished and tore at the darkness above Wrench as he floated to the bottom, keeping his eyes muted to avoid light detection. "What the Hell was that?!" a distorted voice shouted. "Must be one o' them 'diles floatin' 'round here. Just leave 'em be." Wrench's eyes widened in terror as he realized the awful truth of the sewers. 'Zhere are crocodiles down here?! Vhat kind of sewers are zhese?!' Wrench thought, gently backpedaling through the murky, clouded water while the flashlights disappeared down the hallway. "Ah, forget it," the last voice called, "whatever it is, it's not bothering us. Let's just go."

Wrench breathed a sigh of relief, snapping his light back on as he crawled out of the sewer water, choking on the residue from his breathing apparatus. "Yeech! Vhat a horrible time to be dead." Wrench tossed himself out in front of the ladder upward, allowing the sleeve of his rusted mechanical arm to hook onto the ladder, slowly and gently pulling the Nazi Engineer upward toward the sewer grate. Wrench tucked his apparatus away as he used his organic hand to push open the grate, flopping out into an alleyway just behind the gala. He was sitting next to one of the large spotlights that shone and waved in the rainy night sky. "Hmm. Zhis gives me a very good idea," Wrench cackled with saliva foaming at his lips.

Wrench swung around the spotlight, seeing a guard with a rifle standing watch. Wrench extracted a pistol from his jacket, leveling the barrel with the guard's head while he coughed abruptly. When the guard spun, Wrench pulled the trigger, splattering blood all over the walkway. As the guard fell, Wrench scooped the rifle into his mechanical, flapping open a hatch over his left eye which scanned the rifle and its components. Wrench then used a blade from his middle fingertip to slash through the barrel of the rifle, watching as the magazine and barrel inserted themselves into his palm, the magazine locking into the side of his arm. Wrench inspected the newly crafted rifle arm with undeniable impress. 

"Not too shabby. Perhaps my comrades vould agree." Wrench left the walkway, leaping across the balcony toward the rooftop across the street from the gala and clutching the ledge of a fire escape. As Wrench locked his hand over the railing, however, his hand slipped on the wet surface. Wrench stumbled, crashing into the wall and knocking some bearings loose as he shook his head, stammering. "Agh! Vhat a wreck!" Wrench tried to stand himself upright, but suddenly he received a nasty jolt through his arm into the rest of his mechanical circuitry, causing the cyborg to collapse. Wrench crashed to the floor while his radio crackled with static. "Wrench! We've reached the checkpoint, are you there, over?" 

Wrench struggled to reach his organic arm across the railing, seizing the radio and clicking the button as acidic rain dampened his circuitry even further. "C-c-can-n-not c-om-comp-pl-l-y. Wa-a-ater da-a-amag-g-ged cir-r-rcuit-t-ts." Wrench released his finger from the receiver in pain. It was agony trying to move anything while his inner mechanics were fried. Wrench could only breathe, in and out, manually, but he could breathe. It was one of very few comforts that Hell had allowed the Sinner access to, and even then, it was stingy with how often that happened. Wrench lathes power shut off while he dragged his cap over the exposed wiring on the back of his head. 'I have to keep dry. If I don't, I'll freeze and die out here on this godforsaken hellscape,' Wrench told himself, falling asleep in a recharging position.

High above the air, Shrap leapt from the edge of a skyscraper, leathery wings exploding from his back as the wire-thin salesman took flight into the dark, rainy night. Shrap soared until he forced himself to a stop, hovering above the gala below. "Well, looks like I got here before dessert was served. Suppose that's nothing to complain about." Shrap reached into his briefcase, pulling out a pair of binocular-affixed glasses which the Sinner happily slid over his mask, inspecting the scene below. "Ah! There's my squad!" Shrap exclaimed with glee. Outside of the skylight, Shrap observed Crow and Deck, admiring the inside of the facility, while through the smeared, soaking skylight, the Sin Hunter and his associate patrolled the floors in theatrical masks.

Shrap averted his gaze from the building while he turned to inspect the status of his final companion, Wrench. But the Nazi Engineer was nowhere to be sighted. "Huh," Shrap told himself, "must still be in the sewers. Well, I know who needs a shower when we get back to base!" Shrap hung in the air for chilling minutes, checking his watch or occasionally adjusting the straps on his crossed, twisted version of a theater mask. One eye curved upward in joyous glee, while the other curved below in utter, drowning sorrow. The smile twisted and warped along the crease from smiling to a sour crescent of spite and pain.

Shrap tilted his mask to the air, the smiling portion of his face reflecting the optimistic, ever-thrilling Sinner's swinging attitude toward life. 'Ah, sure, we're all stuck down here forever,' Shrap once told his team and the Sin Hunter during a meeting about whether tennis or soccer was the superior sport, 'but we're all here together, aren't we? I'd never imagine a better way to spend the rest of purgatory than with some good buddies and a few drinks.' Shrap craned his arching neck back toward the gala below as something shifted his gaze. "Eh? What's going on down there?" Shrap readjusted his lenses on the binoculars to zoom in on the scene. 

But as the wire-thin Sinner observed smoke rising from the gala below, Crow and Deck shattered through the skylight and leapt through, although Crow turned with a shrill whistle to the night before he leapt after Deck. Shrap tipped his hat, crowing like a thorn beak with delight. "Yippee! Looks like we've got ourselves a grand ol' showdown! Let's goo see how can help, bud!" Shrap patted the surface of his gold trimmed briefcase before flipping in the air, arcing down toward the skylight with fierce momentum. One hand clutched his top hat while Shrap felt the wind tearing through the holes of his mask, stinging his skin underneath. "ooh, I just know this'll be a doozy!"