Feed Them to the Flame…

It’ll take away their pain.

This is operative Ugly Duck reporting in my progress in regards to what I have affectionately entitled, ‘Operation: Kreeger Fuckery’.

As of about twenty minutes ago Trent, Firecracker, and I have successfully cleared all six marks from my list which was a bit more of a hassle then I had originally thought it would be. First off, I had to do some driving to even get to these fuckers. For a second thing, these guys had way better security than what I’m use to seeing in my marks.

Most of the trash I’m sent after are living on roof tops or in alleys or the fucking bus. Most of them have a very limited arsenal of improvised weapons: Pipes, bats, canes, crowbars, ice picks, hammers, shovel, ect. I once had a guy try to fight me with a hose for some reason. Once I had effectively disabled him I went ahead and asked him, “what the fuck were you thinking trying to fight with a hose?” He just wheezed for air, desperately trying to grab at something to pull himself free. At the time I didn’t care enough to actually get a response but the question haunts me sometimes.

Fuck, rambling.
Right so most are restricted to improved and less than ideal implements for fighting back. Then you have those cocky fuckers who managed to get their hands on an actual weapon: Knife, gun, spear, sword, and the sort. Regardless of whether or not they can actually use what they got their hands on, having the item shows a certain level of resourcefulness and ingenuity and certainly seems to draw other to them and why not? They have weapon after all.

About 90% of the people I hunt fall in these two categories.

In my last category you have the actually dangerous people. Ex-proxies, rival cult members (Both in and out of service), ex-cops/military, hardcore LARP geeks, runners who have been left alive way to fucking long, and Konaa with whatever the fuck category he is supposed to be in because I don’t even know or care at this point.

People like this cover about 10% of my list at best.

… fuck. That whole thing was a tangent.
Point is, most of the people I deal with are pitiful with the occasional diamond in the rough thrown in. All six of these fuckers were well armed and perhaps more concerning, were waiting for me.

It took me about an hour to slip into what I can only describe to be an abandoned school turned into a fortress just to get to my first mark. There were security cameras everywhere. I wasn’t sure they were working camera until I was greeted with a knife as soon as I opened the door to the Principal’s office. Sloppy knife work. I used his own weight and momentum to twist his swing back into him. Used my own knife to gut him.  Hard to feel sorry for the guy, the room he came out of had guns in it.  With the advanced warning he received with cameras he should have tried to shoot me through the door or something. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.

I let Trent and Firecracker hunt down the next two marks on the list while I collected things from the fortress. Apparently they caught the first one prowling through an alley and ambushed her. They slit the second guy’s throat while he was sleeping.

Collections of items from the homes and possessions of these other two marks combined with what I had already figured out about the fortress revealed what I was afraid of. These targets were very closely related to each other. Numerous missed calls from the same numbers on the phones of all three burned marks meant they the other three marks not only knew something was wrong but were likely preparing for us. We had to strike now and fast before they could properly regroup.

And we did, or tried to.  They had an ambush prepared. We took out the blond and the guy with an eye patch with realative ease. I stabbed eye patch guy through his good eye and struck deep into his brain. We found out later his eye patch was actually covering a fully functioning eye and that he could see through the patch. Poor attempt at a psych-out I guess? Trent and Firecracker cornered and tazed the shit out of the blond.

The fight fell apart from there. After a bit of a back and forth with Firecracker and Trent, the last chick took out Firecracker with a roundhouse kick and then pinned Trent to the wall and was in the process of collapsing his throat when I finally finished with captain eye patch. Too much distance to cover to close in time, I fired a shot in the air to force her attention away from her prey which Trent used to kick himself free. I then fought the bitch on my own while Trent checked on Firecracker.

She was something fierce. Unfortunately for her, she was also incredibly fucking stupid.
To many openings in her technique, far to predicable movement patterns, and a tell I could probably spot from the other side of the room. Funny thing about adrenaline is you can’t seem to grasp just how much pain you should be in and just how much blood you’ve lost.

He wound up for a strike and in what I’m pretty sure she didn’t realize was going to be the last thing she ever did, she charged at me screaming, “Prepare to meet your maker!”

I tripped her. “Prepare to finish bleeding out.”

She struggled to stand up but she didn’t have it in her. “Wh-why….?”

I wanted to ask her why ask why but she was already gone. I'm sure that’s going to haunt me too.

Time to finish collecting information to send to Fracture I guess.

Trent and Firecracker should be on their way to him now with the blond for interrogations.

Ugly Duck out.