Double Or Nothing: A Coin Flip Away

A Bloody Ambush

Embers drifted across the haunted wasteland of the city with explosions shaking the ground. Bodies sprawled from broken windows, flattened beneath tires and slumped over smashed fire hydrants. Blood pooled on every surface, sloshing with mud and debris to form a kind of sickly red paste, like a hellish red velvet batter. Worse still was the arrival of new souls daily, each soul immediately gunned down or taken hostage by some rampant faction in the war zone that Pride had become. The dead were slaughtered and those who survived were left to die on their own terms.

Carlyle, Darryl and Grymm slipped through building after building, like trenches dug into a desolate battlefield, following the Scorpions and their clicking flamethrower nozzles through the tunnels forged from couches, cabinets and furniture. Grymm followed up the back of the line while he caught his siblings up on their mission. "This transfer is a blackout stealth operation. Under no circumstances should you ever be seen, and in the event that you are," Grymm paused, sliding three ringing steel blades from his gauntlet, "kill on sight. This is not a drill."

Darryl rubbed his clawed fists together, sliding a mask over his horned jaw. "How will we know who the enemy is and who isn't? Asking since, you know," Darryl gestured to his glassy eyes. Grymm chewed at part of his lip, his steel jaw plate sliding up and down. "Darryl, you'll be with my boys escorting the civilians to the subway system. Carlie, you're with me. We slice, slash and slaughter anything that doesn't wear our patch." Carlyle nodded her head, keeping a sweaty hand on her cutlass hilt. "Darryl, you gonna be okay walking around blind?" Darryl chuckled through his face covering. "I'll be alright, Carlie."

Grymm's mechanical talons stopped at the edge of a balcony, his gauntlet motioning for the team to stop. The Scorpions moved into defensive positions while Darryl and Carlyle ducked low, moving to the balcony. Grymm kept his carbine hand against the fractured stone wall, using his gray gauntlet to shine a light toward a building across the road. After waiting a few moments, a light blinked back in flashes. Carlyle moved toward one of the Scorpions, tapping a crooked one on their shoulder. "What's he doing to those people across the street?" Carlyle asked.

The Scorpion's orange goggles flashed with embers from a fire somewhere beyond the building. "He's making sure the people are who they say they are. If they're not ambushing us, we move across the road and get ready to transport the people to that metro system," the Scorpion pointed to a tunnel at the end of the road, "to the bunker, a catacomb system under Pride where we're guiding other survivors." Carlyle nodded, rubbing her chin. "Cool. So once Grymm identifies the people, we go?" "Yup." Carlyle rose from a crouch to a hunch, shuffling toward the window closest to the opposite building to get a better view.

As Carlyle made her way to the window, however, the whole building seemed to come alive as shells and bullet fire screamed through the windows and broken walls, slamming into the room and nicking Carlyle across her cheek. While the succubus stumbled backward, clutching her face with a bandage from the floor, Grymm and the Scorpions ducked low. Not a word was said as they moved with Darryl, grabbing Carlyle and leaping out the door toward the hallway. Darryl ran ahead as one of the bigger Scorpion firefighters wrapped Carlyle in their flame retardant coat, turning to Grymm's rough location. "You said we'd be safe up here!"

Grymm spat a chunk of tobacco before slamming his fist into a laundry chute, hauling the large metal frame up. "I said we'd be stealthy, not safe! Get in!" Darryl placed his hands on the frame, hesitantly swinging through and sliding down the chute. Grymm hauled his Scorpions teammates through as a smoke grenade clattered into the hallway. "GRENADE!" Grymm roared, sprinting back to punt the grenade at the window it came through. A terrorist leaping from the window was struck in the face, shrieking when tear gas exploded right in their eyes.

Grymm's carbine blasted into the fog while Carlyle and the last Scorpion leapt down the chute. Then Grymm leapt back, his hands grasping the edge of the chute when his leg exploded with stripes of red and black, slamming the vigilante to the floor with a roar from his steel jawplate. Adrenaline gushed from his wound as Grymm swung his razor talons, slashing at something and getting a wicked snarl in return. "Ooh, you fugly little SHIT!!" A voice growled from the smoke, seizing Grymm at his waist and throwing him into the wall nearby. Grymm rolled over, gasping for air through tear gas.

A slim man's outline materialized with wisps of smoke curling from his shoulders. The snapping of steel blades screeched as the man approached. When their cardiac striped, deep crimson suit, the man cleared his throat with a bubbling chuckle. "You pack a punch, you slippery son of a bitch! My boys have been tracking you all over Pride the last eight months." The man leaned forward, his face putrid against the air around Grymm. "But I'm not too fond of that. You helping people? Stop it. Nobody's free here as long as I'M in charge."

Grymm coughed out a laugh, sweeping his talons through the man's legs in a spray of blood as the man crashed to the floor. Grymm crawled to his good leg, hefting himself to a window ledge. "Well, a ringleader's visit means I've struck a nerve." The red suited man on the floor glared at Grymm with malicious intent, but Grymm dropped into the alleyway and vanished from sight. As the bloody man rushed to the window, he screamed in anger to find that Grymm had disappeared, not noticing a garbage lid closing as Grymm buried himself beneath the trash bags. Separated from his family and his leg, Grymm exhaled in defeated agony.