Watch Me Rise

Chapter 3: Schadenfreude

Act I: The Rotten Apple - Chapter 3 - Schadenfreude

"There're people in there," Marcus said, mouth agape.

"Yeah. Could be. Probably should do somethin' 'bout that," said a gruff, slightly southern accent.

The figure possessing the metal hand was the first answer the call to action. He pulled back his hood, revealing his dark brown hair, which was cut shorter in the sides and back than it was in the front. Then, he rolled up the right sleeves and pulled a strip of fabric from the right shoulder, buttoning it to a button point inside the bottom of the hoodie's sleeve. The true sight was the man's entirely mechanized right arm, now visible from the lower bicep down. There was absolutely nothing organic to be found. While was made in the shape of a normal arm, it was colored a shiny steel, had a few small, blue glowing, dot-like lights on throughout the design, and a reinforced plate with the number "215" engraved into it.

"The hell?" was all Enapay could get out.

The vagabond leaped about twenty feet in the direction of the building before extending his palm to a building to his right, sending a thin black cable to attach to it. With the cable, the cyborg pulled himself further towards the smoke plume, retracted it, and, when he came within distance, used the cable once again to yank himself through a window on the third floor.

"Huh," Enapay said as he jogged to the smoldering opening in the front of the ground floor that the explosion had made, followed by Roar. As his associates moved towards the smoke, Marcus hesitated for a split second as he argued with a voice in his head.

"You know what you should do," it said.

"Yeah..." he answered.

"So why aren't you doing it?" it replied.

Marcus pushed his hesitation aside and followed the other two. "I've got a bad feeling about this..." he muttered. "We need to put this fire out," Enapay said to the others as they all neared the flames, raising a hand to shield his face from the heat of the flames. "Anyone in there?!" he yelled into the blackened smoke.

-

The cyborg calmly combed through the wreckage as his clothing collected soot. It was as if he had been inside a burning building multiple times before. After a short while, he found a woman huddled in a corner, scared out of her mind. The vagabond's intimidation factor, plus the soot covered visage, didn't help things. He extended his left hand, which was still very much organic. The woman still looked very unsure, causing the man to lose patience. "Get over here, lady!" he commanded as he picked her up out of the corner and smoothly used his cable to rappel them both from an adjacent window. He unceremoniously let go of her when they were about three feet from the ground, allowing her to be escorted to an ambulance for oxygen treatment and yanking himself back into the blaze without a second thought.

As the vagabond searched for more civilians, he noticed an odd, twitching shape in the middle of the orange tinted, smoky hallway. It was a very disheveled man, wearing very dirty, loose, and tattered clothes. The figure, possessing wild, unkempt, short hair, held a freshly lit Molotov cocktail in his right hand. As the lunatic threw the explosive in a random direction, hissing, chuckling, and twitching his head, the cyborg noted that he had light grey skin and the whole of his eyes were jet black. There were no pupils or irises to be seen.

The lunatic noticed the cyborg's presence, as well, snapping his mangy head to the man. "Die!" the lunatic screamed in a disgruntled fashion as he swiped at the cyborg. The bearded man skillfully sidestepped and pushed the madman away with his left arm. As he did this, a two foot, double edged blade extended from under the reinforced forearm plate of his mechanical, right arm.