Skulltaker Pt. 5

Masir was passing through and I was able to land on him. Thank God, my counting wasn’t too far off. On the sixth floor, I only had the faint image of their shadows passing by to understand their positioning. Rocco and Masir were likely hovering around the tenth floor because any higher would be too high to see the ground and any lower would allow me to shoot them. Making sure to count in my head this whole time, I was able to coordinate my jump out of the window to be at the same time one of them was hovering by.

The brat started screaming and wriggling about all messy. Calm down, boy. Too much of this and you’ll just end up killing us both!

(Rocco)

What the hell? I should’ve passed Masir at least twice by now. I figured he must’ve gone up to the roof to take a break but he ain’t there…

“Hey, old man!!” That was no doubt Lars’ voice. What did he do!?

I flew over to the neighboring building’s roof where his yells came from.

Before touching down on the roof, I assessed the ground we were on. The roof was completely flat with no machines or elevations of any sort to take cover behind. All it would take is one shot and he’s dead!

The second my foot made contact with the roof, I unholstered my gun and pointed it right at him.

“W-wait, you don’t want to do that!”

Like hell, I don’t. If he has anything to say, he can say it after I put these bullets straight into his kneecaps. I pulled the trigger and… nothing.

“...Hahaha! I mean, come on, I-I did tell you to wait. This is kind of awkward now.”

Lars knew this would happen. “What the hell did you do to our guns?”

He put his hands up as if he were caught red-handed. “Look, you got me, alright? Whilst you beautiful people were discussing your plans to kill me on the elevator, I may have taken it upon myself to leave all but one of the guns powered on throughout the whole elevator trip. Those things can’t really do much of anything if they don’t have any battery in them. Kind of makes you miss the guns of the old world, doesn’t it?”

“...All but one of them?”

Lars seemed a bit taken aback. “Come on, old man, I was trying to make some real conversation with you. All of those people, I know who they are to a degree. At least enough to outclass them entirely. You, however, I have no idea what to expect from you… Yes, my gun is still entirely functional. D-don’t blame me now though. I told you guys so many times to holster your guns, but you all didn’t want to listen! I gave you a chance!”

This idiot talked way too much for his own good.

“So this is it for me then…? At least tell me what you did to Masir.”

Lars scoffed and shrugged sarcastically. “Oh my God… don’t be so dramatic, mister. You’re going to make me tear up over here…. Nooooo, you’re not going to die. Yeah, I do have a gun and I can shoot you but that would be sooooo boring. Like I said, I don’t know what to expect from you and that’s kind of exciting, isn’t it? Hell, maybe we can even be friends when this is all done-”

“What did you do to Masir?!”

“... Well, if Bane spent a reasonable amount of time with you, I can understand where he gets his exaggerated nature from… Masir was an interesting kid, you see. Yes, you heard me right, was. That kid was not cut out for this life in the slightest. He’d have probably made an amazing supplement farmer or a greenhouse worker back in a shithole like Milona. Live a comfortable life, get married, have kids, and die of old age. In a world like this, that’s more than most people get. That path was there for him, I could see it in his eyes…” Lars began to tear up. “So when you people… When you told him that he had a chance to become an all-oh-mighty scavenger, what the fuck did you think was gonna happen, huh?! Tell me, did you really think he was going to end up doing this for twenty years and even reach Lord status…? No… That’s right, you guys don’t even think of that, do you? None of you give a shit about these kids… That’s why someone like me has to show you what’s right. Who can and who can’t be a scavenger.”

Lars reached into his bag and through the cloth, anyone could already see the maroon stain. He pulled out Masir’s head with his spine still attached. Masir’s eyes were still open and they looked as if his final moments were drowned in nothing but fear and regret.

Lars continued, “It hurts my soul to know this is how you treat the youth of the new world. All of you messed up bastards think the surface is your punishment but this is just the beginning. God is testing your resistance against fire for he has all reserved your place in hell.”

“I’m sorry to break it to ya, Lars, but you’re crazy. If you ain’t gonna shoot me, where do we go from here?”

Lars sighed, “Well, for a second, I thought we may have been able to build a genuine relationship, but you’re just like the other after all, Rocco. I won’t shoot you. You have my word on this. Even if you’re uninteresting as a person, as a fighter, that could be a different story.”

He threw his gun off the side of the building. It made a large rumbling sound. Did his gun discharge on accident when it hit the ground? No, it had to be something else… The ground began to shake even more.

Lars laughed again, “Rocco, look! It seems the world holds our battle in high spirits. I could feel them. I won’t pressure you to take a look but three walkers are scaling our building as of this current moment. It’s for this unfortunate reason that we will not be taking off our hover-packs for this fight, but I hope you still entertain me anyway!”

I didn’t hesitate to fly over the building to see the three dwellers around us. They seemed to all be of the same species. They had rounded bodies with centipede-like tentacle legs. There were about twenty legs all around the body and the ones off the ground would wiggle vigorously while the ones they used to walk were held in place like steel. They seemed awfully powerful and hostile. If all goes well, I should be able to-

I woke up with Lars waving his hand in front of my face.

“Helloooo, Mr. Rocco, are you awake? Change of plans. I thought of something a lot more exciting. Unfortunately, I did deprive you of your hoverpack but the good news is, mine still works! I left it over there in the corner just for the winner! There were a couple others on here as well, probably belonged to your friends. Naturally, I had to throw those off the roof. I also had a few bottles of water in my bag, so feel free to wash your face and hydrate yourself quickly. I don’t want to fight you half-asleep.”

What the hell is going on? “... Fight? Are you crazy, Lars? How the hell are we going to fight with no guns?”

Lars nodded and made sounds of agreement. “You’re right, that’s a very good point. With these walkers scaling the building, I’d say we have roughly about five minutes before they make it to the top. In any other scenario, we would fight with our fists but you’re an old man so that doesn’t really seem all that fair and it may take a while… That’s why I gave you a few knives as well. I’ll fight with my fists as they’re all I need, but you can take a stab at me as you please! Heheh, see what I did there…? Yeah, ok.”

To call him insane was an understatement. He was an insult to just about everything that makes humanity human.

“You’ll pay for Masir…”

“Still on about that? I guess I could respect it.”

Lars entered into a fighting pose. “Rocco, I killed Masir and I’ve outsmarted the rest of your crew. If you all want to stand a chance at defeating me, it looks like you’re the deciding factor. Masir was only the first of six to die. I thought of finishing off the rest but I wanted to know if you could make things any more interesting…”

I picked up the two knives and got into a fighting position as well.

“In another world, you could have been one of humanity’s greatest leaders, kid.”

Lars smiled. “I respect your praise, old man. I’ve talked and shown you enough. Now let’s see… Do you understand how I fight now?”