Bring The Heat

38. Black Flames (GOJS ARC 9)

Mint staggered down the street, continuously collapsing and pulling herself back up again. Her muscles were locking up, and she'd been running and hiding in bursts for about 4 hours. She panted heavily, her body no longer filled with the energy that had inhabited, and her wounds returning. She had to get somewhere to recover, the sun was beginning to rise...

Something hit the back of Mint's leg. There was a quiet pop noise in front of her and air rushed away from her, causing her to slam heavily into the ground. The world around her was turning a faded blue, transitioning from the black of night to the sweltering light of the day.

Blood dribbled from Mint's mouth as she slowly rose to all fours, turning to look around. There was a man right next to her. Twig!

"Well well well, what do we have he-" Twig jeered, cut off suddenly by a bullet scraping off a chunk of his ear.

Mint had spun around and fired a wild, disoriented spray of what little ammo she had left in her uzi, valuing speed over accuracy in her desperation. Swiftly, she pulled herself to her feet and began to stagger down the road away from Twig, throwing the uzi aside and pulling out her pistol containing only two bullets.

Twig yelled in anguish, before shooting out his Tape Deck to strike the side of a nearby building, teleporting a small wall of bricks to stand in front of him as cover. He leaned over the side, crossbow in hand, narrowing his eyes for the shot.

Mint heard the twang of the crossbow, and spun around at the speed of light, lining up her pistol and firing within a split second. The crossbow bolt shattered to pieces in mid-air! Mint had spent the past decades here keeping busy training her shot, it had seemed...

As Twig lined up another shot, the ghost of that spray of bullets from earlier shot out once more, nicking the top of his head. Infuriated, he watched as the woman desperately hopped out of his reasonably accurate range of fire.

"FUCK!" he yelled, and jumped out from cover, warping himself repeatedly up the road. Mint turned and shot at him, and a bullet whizzed right between Twig's legs as he jumped back. He could shoot her now... but he wanted to get up close and personal. The idea of turning her into a convulsing little pincushion was just too irresistible! He shoot her hands, then her arms, legs, feet... he wouldn't stop until her voice had gone coarse from all the screaming!

Twig laughed. It was a funny thought, after all!

He shot his tape out towards Mint to drag her back to him, but again, what seemed to be nothing more than a little gun smoke collided with the tape at the same angle as it's predecessor had hit the crossbow bolt.

Twig seethed with rage and murderous intent, before realizing that he wasn't losing. She could only hold of his attack for so long...

Twig shot out his tape once more, but this time Mint turned and threw the pistol itself, clattering into the tape and falling to the ground at Twig's side. Smart, but... futile.

Laughing again, Twig approached lazily as Mint limped powerfully towards an alleyway. He manually pulled his crossbow from his shoulder, getting cocky and thinking it was over. Mint had seen this one before... they always forget about the ghost bullet!

Suddenly, the bullet which had first gone between Twig's legs now slugged him in the gut, sending him crashing down backwards.

"F- fuck-" he fumbled as blood pooled around him on the floor.

Twig raised his crossbow again, and shot rapidly at Mint's general area in a blind rage. Every time a bolt fired, it was instantly replaced with another one, teleported from the quiver before the latch could reset. But despite his speed, not a single bolt could hit Mint before she threw herself into the alleyway and out of Twig's sight.

"FUUUUCK!" he screamed, before sobbing as he fell back, his arms landing weakly spread eagle beside him.

Twig just laid there on the ground, sobbing in rage like a toddler. He wasn't afraid to die, but... that bastard Ben? Those damned feds? He wasn't taking a single one with him, he was furious, he was-

A chill ran down his spine as he heard footsteps clopping behind him. He rolled his head back, whimpering like an injured animal.

It was a shadowy figure, holding up an umbrella despite a wide brimmed hat and also the fact that it was a dry morning. She walked with a deadly slow pace, like an animal sneaking up on you, but somehow still moved terrifyingly fast. With her, she brought a thick, cool air, with an exaggerated freezing bite. In this strange aura she held the absence of life, and the memories of all of it that had been extinguished by her hand.

"Oh, Twig..." she said, with words of faux sympathy but an empty, croaking voice, "look at you... don't worry. I'll sort this out for you."

Twig lay on the ground whimpering as she towered above him, and thick slimy black tendrils shot out of her wrist, sliding through his skin. Suddenly, he stopped bleeding.

"There. I've taken your ability to bleed. That might kill you. I don't know, I'm not a biologist. You'll be fine."

Twig sighed on the ground as blood stopped gushing from his stomach, stretching out lazily as consciousness slipped away.

"That bitch... I'll take her agency for you, Twig."

The woman turned the corner into the alleyway, staring silently as Mint tried and failed over and over to climb the wall at the end, unaware of her new opponent. The woman just watched for a bit, before approaching slowly. With the clatter of her footsteps, Mint felt her blood run cold, turning quickly to see who was attacking.

"Who the hell ar-" she began to ask, before being cut off by a long black tentacle shooting into her chest and stabbing straight through her, "S- shit..."

The tentacle dragged her straight into the woman's clutches, and Mint's mind faded away into a blaze of black flames...