DarkWing (Final Editing in Progress)

Chapter 15 - Outnumbered

It might've been a long time since Drake had a good fight, but I wasn't so lucky. Everyone was back at the warehouse training for the action, and here I was, right in the middle of it.

He dropped his trenchcoat. His long, raggedy hair covered most of his face, and seemed very out of place against his pristine dark suit. Through the hair, though, peeked a very toothy smile. I turned to face him, and I began to clench my fists.

"Don't let him get to you," Death whispered.

"Where is Shadow," I said sternly. "Did you give her the same advice, or did you just take her while she slept like the coward that you are."

"Ha. Pretty fiery for a bird. Polly want a cracker?"

"Don't let him get to you."

I smirked. I was mad, but Death was right. When I get angry, I lose control. Against humans, it just gets messy, half humans on the other hand, top of the line, fresh off the operation table mutants, I had no idea what they were capable of.

"You know," I spoke in an as a matter of fact voice. "Crows and ravens. They are relatively similar. The biggest difference is the muscle mass of a raven. The biggest similarity though? What they symbolize. It comes from their color, pure black, blending into the shadows, the darkness, and from where they tend to be found, cemeteries. They symbolize Death." I looked around.

Slowly, from the shadows of the gravestones and of the trees surrounding us, ravens began to fly out and land around us. I smiled as I saw the man's face tighten. He overplayed his hand. "Crows and ravens have always been seen as a bad omen, and this one isn't looking too good for you. You are about to see for yourself just how accurate of a symbol they really are." I sounded way more confident than I really was. "You thought I was alone. You should've known, birds never travel alone, we travel in flocks."

Simultaneously, all of the birds surrounding us flew towards me and began to fly circles around me, creating an ebony tornado. The sound of flapping wings, the cracking of the air, it was deafening. It was beautiful, dark chaos. Then, all at once, the birds flew straight towards the man. He stepped backwards and put his arms over his face, but all the ravens tore through his suit and thick skinned arms. Ripped fragments of fabric filled the air, and blood littered the ground. Soon, the ravens dissipated and left, leaving no trace of themselves. The man stood frozen for a couple of seconds, blood dripping off of his destroyed suit.  

"It's fitting we are in a cemetery," I said. "We won't have to go far to bury you." He dropped his arms slightly, to look over at me, but I was gone. His eyes shot open, and his mouth dropped slightly. He didn't have time to react.

I was already behind him and I ripped through his spine and through his chest with my right hand, his blood painting my skin and nails. I lifted him off the ground with my single arm thrown through his chest, and his body went limp. His mouth fell open as he began to gasp for breath. Instead of air coming out, though, blood poured from his mouth. I quickly pulled my arm out, and he fell to the floor face down. He was motionless, staining the ground crimson. I watched as the puddle slowly spread.

I blinked and it was as if I woke up from a trance. I looked down at the ground. I was speechless.

"What am I becoming..." I thought to myself. Death looked at me, but was silent. I am not sure whether she learned what privacy was or just didn't have an answer. Death bowed her head, and just looked at the ground. I looked down at my hands, painted with blood. Instruments of violence. They weren't my hands, they were weapons. They disgusted me. Here was a man, a mutant, quadruple my size, and now here he was. A lifeless, broken heap of thick red fluids and tissue.

Death's head suddenly shot up. She spun around, still perched on my shoulder, and I knew what that meant. I dropped to the floor. Whheew- A stone slab flew over my head. It crashed on the ground a few feet in front of me, and I turned around. There, about 10 feet away from me, stood three more black suits. They were grinning, showing all of their disgustingly powerful teeth. The one on the right threw the blank gravestone at me. His suit had granite dust all over it. There was a pile of blank slabs next to him.

"Today's not a good day. If you guys know what's good for you, you'll just leave now." The more I talked, the bigger their smiles got, more toothy too. "Get out of h- " They all sprinted and lunged at me.

These guys knew what they were doing. I dodged two and they flew by me, but the third landed directly in front of me. He stood straight up, towered 6 inches over me, and smiled down at me. He picked me up with both hands, and slammed me into a nearby tombstone. It shattered against my now bleeding head. Death darted toward the black suit's face, but he slapped her away like she was a fly. He watched her as she fell lifeless to the ground, tumbling across the ground. He shouldn't have lost focus. When he looked back at me, I was on my feet right in front of him.

With all of my strength, I threw a punch into his stomach. It hit so powerfully, we both slid back, ripping up the ground with our feet. He was unharmed though. He began to laugh, and I froze. "That was all my strength," I thought to myself. He dashed at me and picked me up again, and threw me a good 40 feet, out of the graveyard, and into a tree. I landed on ground facing upwards, the tree and ground knocking the air out of me. I lied there motionless, gasping, panicking.

I quickly pulled myself up, my lungs failing and my face covered in streams of blood. I dizzily struggled to take off, but just as I got off the ground, another black suit grabbed my hips, and threw me back into the graveyard. I bounced off the ground, tumbled and broke my arm against a tombstone. Now I couldn't move, it took everything I had just to simply keep conscious. But the final black suit walked over and stood over me.

He pulled my head up by my hair, and breathed into my face, his moist, sickening breath making my flesh crawl. I slashed his face, sending four parallel cuts across his right cheek. He staggered, still holding my hair, then got angry. He rammed my head into the grave I broke my arm on, and everything I had wasn't even enough to keep me conscious anymore.

Bright lights piercing my eyelids. "Where am I..." I thought, the question directed towards Death. There was no answer, something was wrong. It slowly came back to me.

My eyes shot open, bright lights overhead momentarily stunning me. I was strapped to a horizontal chair in a room similar to the one in the Corrector Corps building where I first got my injection. I tried to lift my head, straining my sore neck and almost letting out a sharp moan as the pain shot down my efforts. Then, a few figures came in between me and the lights overhead. The three black suits were surrounding my chair, still grinning.

"That's enough, boys." A voice echoed through the speakers in the room. It was familiar, but not comforting familiar, definitely not comforting. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The black suits, still smiling, slowly backed away from the table. A camera in the top corner of the room focused on me.

"You seem to be coming along quite nicely. It's good to see you again. It's been awhile, a little more than a month to be precise." There was a pause as he laughed quietly. "You missed our appointment."

"No..." I whispered. My fists flexed, every single muscle in my body tightened, anger flowed through my body like blood, hatred acting as my heart. "Vaine." The name tasted disgusting as it ran across my tongue. I could hear a dark chuckle.

"Time for your check-up, DarkWing."