NEWSFLASH! Dieselpunk Flash Fiction From The Legacy Universe

11TH FLASH: HE TOOK A POWDER (Winter, 1911)

Pop goes the weasel, along with Ishmael's incisor. Knocked out the mouth faster than gossip. 

Ivan took one in the abdomen, a solid strike from the slithering lash as it sprung from the darkness.

Thugs with fearsome reputations screamed out in terror across the dark alleyway. Moskva did not breed soft men. But as the now fell on the Russian capital, as the Romanovs slept safe in their palace while the poor tossed and turned, those with less loving demeanors attempted to ferry firearms across the river into the city, into Khitrovka, slum of slums.

The new guard would have none of it.

Seventeen men, armed with clubs, brass knuckles, stilettos, .22 caliber revolvers. But the guardian of the city, the American exile, stopped them at the frozen, rickety pier. He lashed out as if made of multiple shadows, fearsome, growling, beast of the night. 

Men fell like raindrops. Crystal red rain,spattered on icy wooden planks. Sergei. Ivan. One-Eyed Luka. Big Mikhail and his stout little brother Anton. The Rukoff triplets, acrobats from an Armenian circus. Other nameless lug nuts from the cold back alleys and regrettable neighborhoods of Moskva. One hit. One grapple with many arms from one man. An ankle wrapped up securely, with the whole man dragged off into the night, screaming for help.

And Ishmael, he of the broken jaw. Laid out on the pier, one leg dangling in the old boat. Watery eyes gazed out, stared at the orphaned tooth, ejected blood. Beyond the spittle...

Boots.

The interloper, Anonymee Kontakti, to be precise. 'Anonymous Liaison' in English, the Czarina Alexandra's polite way of saying 'masked vigilante'.

Ishmael knew he would want to know where he got the guns, the illegal guns, from. Who is the supplier? Where were they headed?

He didn't want to answer. The jaw screeched fire. But to not answer, was to lose more blood. Bones broken by those arms. Those ghastly, unreal arms.

"Ishmael Petrovich..." the liaison whispered, voice as raspy as the rubbing together of two iron nail files.

"Cuh...cuh...Cobalt...Cloak...!" Ishmael gasped.

Ahead of him, in those impressive heavy boots, the Cloak. A bulky shadow of a man obscured by the infamous blue hooded cape. Little could be discerned of his appearance in the moonless winter chill, save for the slightest tit of steel from a pair of broad goggles. The size of the hero, as some viewed him, mattered not, despite his prowess as a fighter. The cloak was irrelevant, though some in the underworld claimed it allowed the Cobalt Cloak to glide on the air. Was it the night vision goggles, made by an inhuman paranormal, that brought up the terror from the deep bowels of grown men?

Nyet.

In the shadows, what should have been fists balled up to pummel answers out of Ishmael instead, unfurled. One, two, three. Five. To each forearm, three arms exactly as those on an octopus, suckers and all, writhing down to the pier and inches beyond, as if each had a mind of its own. With the three, two even longer appendages, tentacles, slimmer, ending in broad bulbs equipped with an intimidating hook.

Kobalt Plasch. The Cobalt Cloak. Favored Son of Mother Russia. He who heals from pain, but each time, returns a bit more creature than man.

"Ishmael, it's time for you to talk to me. Or else..."