There Ain’t No Hope for the Hapless

…Those fuckers die easily. I just slit their throats and split their ribs, then I feed them to the bleeding tree!

Did you know hapless means unfortunate or unlucky? Yeah, neither did I. I was pretty sure it meant unskilled or something down that line of thought. Although, they say you make your own luck. In that respect a hapless person is probably an unskilled.  I of course mean unskilled in the respect of someone being a weak piece of shit. Fuck semantics. Fucking words.

Enough rambling, who remembers Nemesis?
I’d be surprised if anyone does at this point. He was kind of a foot note I left hanging a few months back at the request of the assholes who give me my orders. I killed his pet runner or some such shit. I saw him the other day.

That went something like this:

I was walking down the hallway. We don’t get much traffic; it’s just the four of us here after all. I could hear footsteps behind me. They were too heavy to be Firecrackers or Fractures. (Fracture walks like a little girl.) At the same time, they were lighter than Trent’s footsteps. (Trent also likes to drag his knuckles against the nearest wall when he walks for some reason.) Whoever was behind me wasn’t supposed to be here, probably. I slowed down a bit and pretended something ahead on one of the walls had caught my attention.

After a brief moment of changing pace I heard the footsteps speed up to further gain on me. When they got really close an unfamiliar voice called out ‘Black Blood’. I was ready for him though. I side stepped a stab and then grabbed by attackers forearm and slammed it hard into the nearest wall forcing him to drop his knife. I then jerk my arm back hard elbowing the attacker in his fugly fucking face and finally turned my head just enough to see who the fuck it was. I recognized the piece of shit immediately. I never forget the ones I intentionally let live; those fuckers always seem to show back up one way or another.

Without letting so much as a moment pass as to not give up my own moment, I grabbed his forearm again and slammed it against the wall harder. I couldn’t help but grin as I heard something snap confirming that his primary hand had been ruined. Too dazed from the Elbowing and far too busy screaming like a girl to properly respond, I spun behind Nemesis and bashed him hard in the back of the head with the hilt of my now drawn knife as I pulled a leg out from under him with my own leg. Fuck face fell hard on his fucking face. It didn’t take Nemesis more than a few seconds to start crawling forward weakly. It seemed he didn’t have much left anymore. Pity, I was just getting started.

I looked forward curious as to what exactly that idiot was crawling toward. His knife had flown a little ways down the hall to the other side of a chair Trent likes to keep there by his door for some reason. Further down the hall I could see Fracture standing there and watching, most likely drawn out by all the screaming. I felt my grin grow a little wider. I don’t particularly care for an audience but I wanted him to see this.

“Still trying to get your little revenge?” I asked him as I started walking toward him.

“Y-YOU’LL FUCKING PAY FOR WHAT Y-YOU FUCKING DID TO JENNET!” he yelled and crawled more desperately slowly getting closer to that chair. I could see him swelling with hope. Maybe this wasn’t over yet. ‘Maybe he’ll be too cocky and I can turn this around on him,’ I could imagine him saying. ‘Just a little further yet.’

“Oh?” I asked as I leaned over and slit his back open up the length of the left side of his spinal column in one swift motion. The pain stopped him in his tracks and left him cringing. “Your pet’s name was Jennet? Adorable,” I said as I walked ahead of him and stopped in front of the chair turning to face him.

“BLACK BLOOD!” he yelled before he started crawling again, slower now. “Wh-Why i-isn’t that w-working?!” he whined pleadingly, the desperation finally starting to show in his voice.

“You must have been reading me all this time,” I said as I started walking toward him again. “Studying your pray. How Commendable. I guess you do actually know how to hunt,” I told him as I leaned over and slit his back open up the length of the right side of his spinal column, but much slower this time to drag out the pain and the screaming. “Pity you suck at your job.”

I looked up at Fracture to see how he was enjoying his show. So cold was his grimace as he stood there watching intently taking in every word and every action. I could see Firecracker running towards me from behind him. She looked quite focused like a hell bent bitch on a mission. I’m not sure if she was going to help me or put an end to my show. I never found out. Fracture close lined her when she tried to pass sending her hard on her ass. I took the opportunity to get back to work. Fuck face had started crawling again. I followed again, this time keeping pace to his side.

“You’re just going to bleed yourself out if you keep pushing yourself like that,” I teased him.

“NOT BEFORE I KILL YOU!” he yelled with renewed hope and vigor in a mildly impressive display. ‘Just maybe,’ he must of thought. ‘Just a little further.’

“Just a little further,” I whispered to him. “Almost. Come on. This is for her. Redemption is just ahead.”

Before too long he found himself just out of reach of the chair’s leg. Just a little further and maybe he could pull himself forward to his knife and just maybe there would be a chance of winning this fight yet.

“You know, I just might have let you live. But I’m afraid you broke rule 926.”

“Oh?” he asked with a weak and failed attempt to laugh. “Wh-What rule i-is th-that?”

“Don't ever piss me off,” I informed him as I pulled his head back by his hair and slit his throat and saw the last of his fire drain from his eyes, his wrath and his passion now my burden to carry.

“What a lame line.”

“Don’t fucking start with me. I’m not here to amuse you,” I growled and got to work cleaning and resharpening my blade as I headed for my room. “Clean up this fucking mess and double check your security measures. I don’t want anymore of this shit getting through. Trent, check on Firecracker. Oh, and give Fracture a good slug. He did that to her.”

And then I disappeared into my room.

Good bye Nemesis. I hope you rot in hell.
Oh, for the record, rule 926:
‘Keep no pets. They will die on you.’

It’s in the handbook.
Swan out.

Leading is Hard

First off, I am impressed with Fracture. He seems to have recovered from whatever was in the cylinder rather fast. Granted I haven’t seen a lot of him around, he keeps sneaking of to somewhere. But when I do see him he is chipper and impatiently awaiting orders.

That brings us to the more title related topic; I’m struggling with this order giving thing. It’s kind of a pain in the ass. I realize the merits of team work and getting shit done faster and more effectively but when I look at my squad I really want to just tell them to go home and then hunt the marks myself.

I mean, what if they do it wrong? What if the mark gets away? What if they get the wrong person? What if they miss something important on the corpse?

Fracture tells me that it’s my job to train them to make sure they do it right. I was unaware leading them made me their mentor as well. That can’t be right. No one trains collectors. You get the list and you figure it out or die. That’s really what it comes down to. Besides, the idea of training my own replacement kind of sickens me. If I’m going to be replaced I’d prefer it be by someone who found the strength by their own merit.

In fact the more I think about it the more I think that is what this really is. They are having me train my own replacements. I want to go run the both of them through and see if either of them are worthy of that. I already know Firecracker isn’t. I don’t hold high prospects for mister never talks ever.

I… need to calm the fuck down.

So I’ve been doing all the hunting on my own. I think that was the point I was trying to get out. The list is getting out of hand though. Four red marked names came up last night, each with the same 24 hour time limit. That is insanely unheard of in my experience. I've never seen anything listed beyond a yellow and I certainly had lots more time to deal with the situation than this.

I can’t get all of them, they are too spread out. I think Fracture might have fucked with my list to create this situation. I mean he can apparently have my list locked out, I don’t see why he couldn’t fuck with its listings. I’m sending Firecracker and Trent to deal with the two out of town marks, Fracture is going to track one of our local names for us, and I’m going take out the remaining guy with the bold printed name. “Creeger.”

Fracture, I swear to god if I find out you are fucking with my list I will break your legs again.

No more time to waste writing.
It’s time to kill Creeger.
Swan out.

This is What Happens When You Put Something Off Too Long.

So in an interesting turn of events, early yesterday morning while I was reporting in after a fun little round of commenting a car came crashing through the front door of our second floor motel room door. I had to double check to make sure subject 926 was still in the room with me and wasn’t on the drivers end of this little stunt as he has been known to pull this antic when he is particularly piss off at his mark and I thought he might be trying to blow off steam of something. You can never quite tell what a lunatic is going to do when troubled.

Out of the car emerged Picasso. By that point Duckie had already sprung to his feet on the bed and was in his ready stance. I started to give him shit about wearing shoes to bed earlier this week but apparently he does it in preparation for shit like this. Picasso started flinging throwing knives at Duckie. He dodged most of them and even caught one of them. She was going for a gun when I pulled one of my own and opened fire. I grazed her arm.

She growled and took off firing a few blind shots in what I assume was an effort to deter following. I turned to say something witty to Duckie about how his girlfriend seems to want his attention or something. I can’t remember, the moments passed. It passed because he was already gone. I didn’t see much more than a moment of him disappearing out the window in what I assume was him leaving to chase after her. He took his knife, his coat, his gun, and if I’m not mistaken a few of the throwing knives too because I found more holes in the wall than I did knives.

I gathered the rest of our shit and left. I am so not paying for property damage.

Before I forget I should probably take a moment to tell Duckie where he can find me. I’m at a hotel, in a bed once full of ember, and watching the movie Next. He should get it. He’ll probably be really pissed off after he does, but at least he’ll find me. Not to say I couldn’t just call or something.

I fear this may be the last we ever hear of Picasso. I don’t think he’s figured out this non-lethal thing yet but I don’t know that he’ll delay the issue any further after what she did. It’s a pity really.

She was looking rather terrible though.
 I thought Duckie looked like a rabid dog but she’s absolutely lost it. He apparently broke her mask the last time they fought right? It looked like she super glued it back together on her fucking face. She had a piece (And I’m just assuming glued right now.) glued to her forehead, each cheek, her chin, and her nose. When we brought her in for this she wasn’t anywhere near this fucked up.

To be completely honest though? I consider it a personal victory that I was able to help push her this far over the edge, even if it is counter intuitive to even my own wishes and wants.

On a side note, something seems to be missing from our collection of stuff and I can’t quite put my finger on what. I don’t think I left anything behind though. How curious.

Whatever,
Fracture Out.

Closing In

I think Fracture might be a creeper. His face absolutely lit up when he heard the Doc may still be alive and may have turned proxy. Or maybe I’m misreading him and he’s all giddy because of the severely small chance this gives him to consort with another individual in the medical field. I’m not sure how many doctors exist in/under the Bureaucracy.

I’m beginning to think my overseers might hate Fracture more than I do. I didn’t get in trouble for beaming him with the laptop. I just got a short call later informing me that my conduct was inappropriate and that I was not to do it again. I swear I could almost feel the man who said it winking over the phone. This mutual distain is kind of taking the fun out of mistreating him. I need to move past my conflict oriented nature so I can properly hate him for who he is.

Putting the whiny pettiness of my day to day aside, I finally found my mark. The assigned hunter for this one is long dead. She apparently threw herself off a building jumping at another mark on a roof. I’m thinking she might have been a little new to the game. It didn’t leave me with a lot to go on. I managed to track the mark a town over and a hot lead brought me to the hotel he was hiding out at. I just need to try to keep tabs on him until tonight.

I’ve been waiting for activity near the roof access door. He hasn’t come down though. He must move at night. I’m curious what this one looks like. There wasn’t a description attached, just a name. I want to just go up there and be done with this one but I’d prefer it if I could catch him freshly asleep. I’ve got fracture moving in so he can keep an eye on door while I take a nap. With any luck this will be good and settled by this time tomorrow.

That’s a knock on the door. It must be Fracture.
Nap time.