Bring The Heat

22. Deathgrips

Rebound was focused. His mind practiced by running some simple problem-solving smoothly and efficiently. Cold. And calculated. He drew in a deep breath. BM started playing D4C on the radio.

"Hey, man. I'm trying to psych myself up over here."

"So am I. This is a good song!"

Rebound sighed.

This was his first mission for a while... was he really ready when he had been so easily defeated by both Wren and Dominic? Well, to be fair, Wren didn't defeat him. She just took his weapon of choice. He could throw other stuff! And Dominic was powered up by that evil essence stuff... yeah, he was gonna be just fine, Rebound assured himself half confidently.

BM was more excited than anything, though. He only went out on particularly tricky or dangerous missions, and it was good to finally be able to stretch his legs. As much as he valued diplomacy, fighting was undeniably fun. Still, he would try to talk this out first...

"Hey, BM?" Rebound began to ask, seemingly nervous.

"Mhm?"

"How... how did you convince Robin to come back to the compound?"

"Well, you know how she is. She got stressed out and left. She was just as eager to come back as she was to leave two years back - she wanted that security, but also a change of scene."

Rebound grunted in understanding, but BM knew he wanted more guidance.

"Look, I know you, her and Cecelia better than I know myself. Trust me when I say you all just need to let yourselves sort it out naturally. Maybe try to talk about it a bit more though..."

BM sighed. It wasn't a sigh of disappointment, it was more content, as strange as it may be. He was a caretaker right down to his soul, and got no greater joy than that from helping someone who he cared about. Try as he might, he couldn't help but feel strongly paternal to everyone back at the compound. He loved being around such defined and strong personalities!

"Alright. We're h..."

BM was cut off by the sight of some guy barbecueing whilst having multiple knives, stakes and general stabby stuff impaling his whole body. Nonetheless, he seemed not to notice.

"Huh." BM muttered.

"Is... that our guy?"

"God, I hope so."

BM and Rebound exited the car. They had pulled up on the side of the street in a cute little suburb, in the middle of a hot, sunny day. It really was a great day for barbecue.

The two approached the man who was whistling a tune at the grill, plucking at sausages with prongs. He had completely white thick hair, was wearing sunglasses, thick eyeliner and black lipstick, an baggy blue and green Hawaiian button-up left unbuttoned, loose over a black mesh that covered his top half, and mid thigh jean shorts and crocs.

"Um... are you ok?" BM asked, intrigued.

"Hm? Oh, yeah. Don't worry about these. They don't hurt. I'm not on drugs, by the way. I ran out!" the guy returned.

There was an awkward pause.

"Kidding," the guy continued, before turning to Rebound, saying "don't do drugs, little man."

"Hey, so, what's with the knives?" Rebound questioned hesitantly.

"Well, that's rude. You two are an odd pair yourselves."

They were right. Rebound was wearing a mostly studded leather edgy punk getup, whilst BM wore one of his many immaculately clean and business neutral grey suits. Both were completely different styles, and neither were suited for the heat, but nobody was willing to admit that and lose their pride.

"No no, not like, as a style choice. I meant like... why? How?"

"Ohhhh. Well, it's weird. I'm immortal."

After dropping this bombshell, the guy took the handle of the large steak knife lodged directly in his head and pulled it out, gesturing proudly to it like he intended to win show and tell, before sliding it back in.

BM gulped. That was his version of a discontented sigh. This was gonna be a handful.

"What's your name?" he asked, hoping to go back to basics.

"I'm Nick. Or Nicki. Depends how I'm feeling. If you don't want to get it wrong, just yell 'asshole!' and I'll be right there. Oh, and they / them pronouns. There's two of us now." Nick gestured to their left hand, which was pretty much the only part of their body left unharmed. "You guys cool with that?"

Both BM and Rebound nodded, trying to figure out what 'there's two of us' meant.

"Oh. Great, cos it's not like that, I just prefer they / them. I do think this thing's alive, though!"

"What do you mean by that, asshole?" BM asked, calm and collected as ever.

"Well, it can heal alllll my wounds. Even my brain! But... I don't think my brain's in my head. I think it's in my hand. Look, I can't heal my hand cos I can't reach it. It's still burned from the grill! So even though I think my body is it's own thing... I think if I hurt the hand, it dies!"

BM now understood. He was about to give the whole 'come with us' spiel (which yes, was a spiel, it was trusty and way more effective than it should be) before... BOOM! Nick went flying off to the left as their chest was demolished by a shotgun slug!

Without thinking, BM threw himself between Rebound and the origin of the shots, and another blast struck BM in the back hard. Part of his immense physical capabilities was incredible resistance, but he still gritted his teeth at the pain as a round slammed into his back.

He turned to see a man holding the shotgun, now looking up in fear at the bulletproof behemoth before him. BM quickly examined the gun. Double barrel.

Almost in an instinctive rage to protect, BM flew to action, and lunged at the man struggling desperately to reload with sweaty, shaking hands. But BM got there first. He grabbed the gun barrel and squeezed his hand to a fist, effortlessly crushing and snapping the metal.

"TWIG MADE ME DO IT!" the man screeched loudly, pleading for his life.

Suddenly, the back of his head burst open, and he fell to the ground dead.

BM just stood there, holding the broken gun. Shit. He wasn't gonna kill that guy. What happened, anyway? It seemed like an explosive that was inserted into the man's skull. It was commonplace for assassins to have a means of suicide for if they're about to be caught. But the man seemed scared to die... was it a remote explosive? Who set it off? Was it this 'Twig', the same person who had sent him?

As BM mulled over it logistically, Rebound came up next to him.

"Jesus christ..." he muttered, before turning to BM, "thanks for taking that shot."

"No worries..." BM returned, deep in thought, before he snapped back to reality;

"Where's Nick?"

"Right here!" Nick yelled, crawling out from under the barbecue they had been slammed into. As they did, they held their left hand to the whole where most of their chest should be, which seemed to reappear right before BM and Rebound's eyes. "What was that guy's problem?"

"I'm not sure... but you're being hunted, just like us." BM began. Oh yeah. This spiel was gonna be a good one!