Mercy : Accidents Happen

Becoming a crime-fighting badass

        "Hey, Charlie. Load the last of the cargo before our boys in blue show up. Unless you wanna be scraping Chuckle's 75 grand out of your ass."

      The smaller boy called Charlie, waves his overseer off. "Cut me a break, Snuff. Hell, Chuckles ain't paying us enough anyways," he said in that obnoxious little whiny voice of his. Snuff pointed his crooked index finger at him. "You just watch what you say, Charles. I happen to know that Chuckles has spies everywhere. So you may wanna lay off the guy and his legs before he breaks both of yours." He warned.

       Charlie shook his head, mumbling, as he slammed a lid onto another crate. "No good, sonuva-"

"What's the matter, bad day?" Asks a voice out of the darkness. Quick as a light, Charlie has his gun pocketed snugly in his hand. He slowly flicks the safety off. "Who's there?" He asks. Snuff, still loading crates, looks over at him. "Charlie? What the hell are you doing?" Charlie holds up his finger, silencing Snuff.

      Snuff rolls his eyes, and continues loading cargo. "Charlie..." Comes the voice out of the dark, just loud enough for Charlie, and Charlie only, to hear it. Charlie waves the gun in the air. "Okay, I promise I'll put a cap in your ass. Hey Snuff, you hear that?"

     Snuff looks at him. "No," he growls. Charlie shrugs and grabs a pebble off the ground. "Eh, probably just some nosy kids." He takes the rock and tosses it out into the darkness and it pitter patters across the pavement. Then, silence.

        Charlie smirks and turns back to the van and the empty boxes. That's when something hard bounces off the back if his head. "Ouch," he says, and whirls around in attack mode. No one is there. He looks down and sees the same stone laying at his feet, looking as if it's taunting him. "I really am losing it," he says. He swings his gun out in an arc. "Okay, show yourself. Coward. Ol' Charlie's gonna color the streets in red!!!!!" He shouts.

       "Will it be your blood?" Asks the voice, mockingly. "Look, kid!!" Charlie says. "SCRAM!!!!!" He tosses the rock out again, this time further. Before Charlie can react the stone smacks him dead in the nose, hard enough to draw blood. "Ahh!!" Charlie groans, listening to the serene crack. Snuff has been oblivious to this whole escapade, looking only to get paid for a job well done.

       "Come and find me, Charlie," Comes the voice, mockingly. "If you're smart enough..." It follows up.

   Charlie sneers, insulted. He hoists the gun up and fires off two warning shots. Then a hand snatches his arm and he flinches, afraid. "D-don't hurt me!!!!!!" He screeched.

       "What are you crazy!! You trying to get us caught!?!" Snuff yells, as he snatches Charlie's gun and releases his arm.

     He places the gun in his slipping pants. "Now get back to the job. Or the boss'll have our heads.

  Charlie jerks around paranoid and finally regains his posture. He starts to load the mysterious drugs into a crate. "Charlie... Aren't you gonna find me?" Charlie jumps around, fear on his face. "WHO'S THERE, GODDAMMIT!!!!!"

     That's when a gloved hand stretches around his chin cupping it, while the other braces the right side of his head. "NO, DON'T!!!!!" He cried as the hands jerked him into the shadows and ended his cries with a brief snap.

     *****

     CRACK!!! Snuff looked up wide eyed. Scanning the surrounding shadows he looked for his mouthy partner. He was nowhere in sight. "Charles?" He growled out. Nothing. "Come on, kid." Again, the silence practically hummed through the air. Is that possible?

      Snuff had been trained from birth to detect the slightest sounds. Hence he wasn't surprised when his ears picked up on the sound if a figure scuffling through the dark. He grinned and his right hand, brushed across Charlie's gun which lay tucked in his sagging pants.

       He felt the coolness of it as it tingled through his hands. His fingers curling around the butt. His eyes narrowed at the sudden silence. And then in one brief motion, he spun around to have his gun barreled straight at the head of his supposed assailant. The masked figure didn't seem surprised however.

      In fact, Snuff had a hunch that he actually smiled. Snuff lowered his gun and tucked it away. "Is he out?" He asked, jerking his head past the figure towards where Charlie had disappeared.

     The masked man nodded. "Bit of a whiner, anyway," Snuff said clasping the strange man's hand as he grinned. "Ajax. Been a long time." Ajax nodded. "Yeah, I mean it was yester-"

      Snuff frowned and interrupted him. "No, I mean it's been a long time, as in, you took your sweet ass time showing up here, tonight. Anyways, where's he?"

      "Who? Oh, you mean him? Eh who knows?" And that's when they heard a voice pipe up through the empty alley. "I'm right here, jackasses." The hooded figure walked up, his young shoulders drooped down as in a way to blend into shadows. To not be noticed. "In fact, I've been here the entire time. Yeah, Mercy. You kinda are getting a little slow," he said, jokingly to Ajax.

       "Bite me," Ajax simply said. "Why ain't you do anything?" Snuff says, removing his bandana. The kid laughed, in a, "Are you crazy" kinda way. "I ain't messing with the Black Skulls. I think you two forget, I'm indispensable. Not super like the two of you. Besides, I was the one doing the voice that creeped the dead guy out. It was taking, Sleeping Beauty here too long to show," he said gesturing to Ajax.

      Ajax just shook his head, laughing. "Yeah whatever Leo. Besides, I think there's something special about you?" Leo just shook his head, his green hood flapping in the wind. "Yeah," chimed in Snuff. "They calk me by my alias, Trap, because I track and trap people. Mainly Evolutions" (Name of mutants) "but I can still sense all super losers. Like Princess Cinderella here," he said nodding his head at Ajax. "I can sense the tech lodged in that brain of his. Your brains probably too small for me to sense anything," he cracks at Leo, though his voice was still stiff.

     "Hey," Leo warned stepping towards him. "Maybe your father was special?" Ajax suggested and Snuff smiled as Leo flinched, taken back by Ajax's words. "And the dreams. You did tell me about the dreams," Ajax continues, sing-songy.

      "Yeah forget the dreams," Leo mutters. "They're just illusions from an insane person." "I don't think so, Einstein. Take a look up." Snuff says, gruffly. Leo and Ajax raise their heads and their mouth drops open. Especially Leo's.

     Up in the air is some kind of flying fire monster with fiery wings. Possibly more like a demon. It bursts forward at them, hovering inches from Leo's face. Leo steps back. "Leo... Typhus..." The creature cries out in a very soft voice, barely higher than a whisper. "Time... Is... Running... Out..." And with that he blasted at Leo, and Leo went up in flames, screaming. Ajax and Snuff looked at each other. "This just got real," they said in unison.