Scrap Metal Philosophy 19 (Patreon)

Scrap Metal Philosophy

Chapter 19

-VB-

Jin gasped with each running step he took, and ignored the tense screams of his legs as they cried out at the pain he was inflicting on them.

But better they cry now and rest later than die, yeah?

Because he had picked the fight with the wrong cape. He missed his target and struck another cape. Instead of dying to uranium-tipped armor-piercing round fired from a Steyr Scout because why else would anyone not die when they got a bullet to their temple, the new cape merely looked around, found him from across three blocks, and began chasing.

And that was an hour ago.

As he whirled around a corner deeper into the Docks, he finally allowed himself to stop and coughed and gasped as his lungs protested his every move.

“Where~ Are~ You~?”

But then he heard her voice and booked it again.

He wanted to scream but that would only help that monster find him faster!

He wanted to cry but his despair would be like sweet lure for it!

So he ran and ran and ran-!

“I. See. You.”

“AAAHHHHH!!!!” he just screamed as he bolted out of the alleys and into the street. He even ran all the way into the middle of the road. Some passersby looked at him oddly before shrugging and walking away when they didn’t see anything else. He remained firmly standing there, completely ignoring the fact that some of the people looked at him uneasily for being Asian in ABB colors, but he just kept staring at the alley he ran out of.

His legs shook from the strain and the rest of his body shook along in its fatigue.

In broad daylight and surrounded by all of civilization, Jin never felt more alone and helpless.

This was what it meant to fight a cape one-on-one.

He shouldn’t have missed.

He shouldn’t have missed.

He wanted to cry and vomit because he knew that he was going to die. That monster existed to devour people, and he was its latest victim. He was going to die!

And then he froze.

A single eye stared out of the alley, surrounded by nothing but unnatural darkness that couldn’t exist during the day, even in an alley as narrow as that. It stared at him without blinking, without moving, and unerringly locked onto him.

Ah.

It was here.

Slowly … ever so slowly … the eye smiled.

“I. Found. You.”

Just like that, his heart exploded in his ears and chest. A tightness formed like a knot and wouldn’t leave.

Jin knew Lung and Oni Lee wouldn’t save him. He failed his task. Why would they save him?

He was going to die.

He’d long lost his rifle in his frenzied run, but he still had his knife.

He was going to die… but he could still choose how he died. He wasn’t going to be some toy or food to a monster. If he was going to die, then it would be his own way.

Jin pulled out his knife and placed the blade against his neck. He ignored the screaming people, telling him to stop but he wasn’t going to stop.

With one swift pull, he felt his blood spilling out. Everything started to grow cold from the tip of his fingers and toes. He fell to his knees and then to his side. A bunch of people rushed to him but his eyes were firmly upon that alley.

The eye … looked irritated.

Heh.

Fuck… you…

-VB-

Silly hummed as she drew away from the street.

She didn’t think that her toys would be that effective. Father did say that anything above medium would be ill-advised.

She giggled.

Well, it doesn’t matter. Someone who was apparently aiming for auntie was dead, and that was all that mattered to her. Perhaps he’ll even be a message to whoever he took orders from.

She hummed as she allowed the -.

Creaaakkk…

She sighed as she manually pushed the device back into her back.

Father … his tinkertech were wonderful, but they all had a catch for some reason; they came out rough and rusted. Oh, most of them didn’t need much maintenance, no more than regular machines would, but they made such ear-piercing noises when they weren’t lubricated properly.

She really needed to go and ask father to get some of that lube in her, because that kind of creak coming from a girl was a nuh-uh.

“Well, at least father’s mind disruptor works,” he hummed. According to father, it was supposed to be a mind soother for medical use, but something didn’t quite work out, and ended up doing the opposite by activating all sorts of stress-response from the body of those near it. It was why he couldn’t use it but she could.

She giggled.

It was perfect for her.

Too bad that there was currently only one of its kind, even if father had the blueprint for it. She imagined rigging up an abandoned part of the city with these and driving people to frenzied fear. It would have been … perfect.

In her downtime, of course.

With only acceptable targets.

… Probably in a different costume to keep Auntie from suspecting her.

Maybe.

Hmm, well, this could become a hobby for her. Enacting justice without actually murdering people. Or something.

Like she thought before, she didn’t care about other people. Her auntie, grand-uncle(?), and father were the only ones she really cared about at this point.

Humming, she left the alley and headed back to where Taylor was.

She’ll just tell her that she managed to successfully chase the sniper away.

-VB-

Taylor let out a sigh of relief after Silly proudly told her about how she chased the gunman away.

She was half-scared that she’d subject that guy to some kind of nightmare scenario and break his mind or something.

‘She nearly did that to me for “training,”’ Taylor thought with just a bit of grief over the experience because it was still horrible weeks after she last went through it.

“How did you lose him anyway?” she asked. She managed to spot the sniper briefly before both he and Silly got out of range.

“He ran into his buddies, and one of them looked way too much like Lung in his civvies.”

“Ah.”

“Yup.”

“I guess that’s a good thing? I don’t think Alan would have been happy if you fought Lung on your first day.”

Silly giggled. “Father gave me some tricks to use against the lizard man. I can take him.”

“Uh-huh. Well, I don’t want you to.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do~!” Silly grinned mischievously.

Taylor rolled her eyes and led the patrol again.

“Well… I want to go back home. You should get him to look at that,” she replied while pointing at Silly’s broken temple. Her gold yellow blood no longer flowed but it still looked pretty bad.

“Ah. Right, I should.”