[The Kill List]—❈—10:: Dead On Arrival

Monday, 11 April, 2011

Morning.

Bakuda (because she’s the kind of chuuni loser who goes by their cape name even in their own heads) was a lot of things, and a follower sure as shit was not one of them.

Lung knew this of course, it was obvious from the way she’d reacted when he’d tracked her down and ‘asked’ her (in a totally super polite way, honest) to work for him.

Now, if Lung wasn’t a deluded megalomaniac drunk on his own power, he would have quickly realized that trying to force a tinker to work for you, especially one who has shown herself to be as unscrupulous and unhinged as Bakuda had shown herself to be, was a stupid fucking idea that could only end badly for him and for everyone.

But that required Lung to not be what he was; a deluded megalomaniac drunk on his own power, so he never realized that. Not that it would matter much in the end.

It would have, if a certain suit-wearing weeb wasn’t going around with a list of names to check by Christmas.

Bakuda didn’t know about any of that though, neither about the kill list nor about the cape checking said list, so, right now, on this Monday morning just past twenty-four full hours since Oni Lee was murdered, she was busy following Lung’s orders while doing her own plotting on the side.

Lung’s orders were simple; prepare for war.

Apparently, the capes who’d killed Oni Lee had also stopped Lung from killing some sort of bug cape (it was hard to get any clear details with all his ranting). So, Lung (in proper Lung fashion) had decided that a straight up challenge was better than any sort of subterfuge.

In pursuit of that, he’d asked her to make lots of small bombs of varying effectiveness, and when she was done, he was going to hold the city hostage and force The PRT and Protectorate to root out The Undersiders from whatever hole they were hiding in.

Bakuda approved of the plan, not because she gave a shit about Oni Lee or Lung’s vengeance, but because if Lung was giving her free reign to build what she wanted, then this was the perfect opportunity for her to set her plan in motion.

She’d been under his thumb for three weeks, and in that three weeks she’d literally been locked up in the warehouse he’d given her as a lab and accommodations, complete with at least six guards round the clock.

Since he knew that he couldn’t truly control what she invented (seeing as tinker tech was barely understandable even to tinkers), he’d controlled the resources that got to her.

The warehouse was stripped of damn near all electronics, and two of her guards came in every day to make sure she hadn’t so much as messed with what they did let her have.

Honestly, in the last three weeks, she hadn’t actually done any tinkering, and she’d been about to go mad from the hunger; like a junkie in need of a fix.

That had changed now though. Now, Lung needed her, and yes, her guards were still there and yes, she was still restrained to the warehouse, but she was getting supplies now. Not as much as she would have liked, but they were coming in, and if she played her cards right, it would be enough.

A week or two, maybe even less if she rushed, and Lung would be handled and this city would be hers to play with.

“What are you working on?” someone asked from right beside her, and Bakuda almost jumped out of her skin with fright.

She looked at the intruder in her workspace, noting his posh suit, subdued Asian features, and amused expression.

Bakuda hated him immediately.

“Who the fuck are you?” she asked.

“Name’s Vinsmoke. Prince Vinsmoke. People call me Black Leg,” he said.

Black Leg? Was that some kind of street nickname or some gang shit?

Bakuda eyed him suspiciously, checking the door to the warehouse and finding it closed as always.

“How’d you get in?” she asked.

“The door,” Prince, or Black Leg or whatever, said. “You were really absorbed with whatever you were working on.” He gestured carelessly at the table with Bakuda’s latest unfinished project.

The sight of someone being so casual about her genius work set her blood boiling in her veins.

God, how she would love to blow him up.

Hey, there’s an idea; she could get like a bazooka or something, so she could blow up disrespectful assholes who sneak into her lab.

Focusing back on the primary disrespectful asshole, Bakuda asked; “What the fuck do you want, Black Leg? Did Lung send you here?”

“Nope,” the piece of shit lieutenant (or whatever the hell he was) said. “Lung didn’t send me. I’m here to kill you.”

Bakuda blinked. Then she realized why this whole situation felt weird from the word go.

Fuck, she was unarmed. Of course she was, she was in a cell under Lung’s control, she was supposed to be safe, for fuck’s sake.

Bakuda searched for a ready weapon within reach; her bombs were great, but everything present would take her along with this motherfucker.

…There! The huge monkey wrench that Lung’s idiot lackeys had gotten her for some reason, that was perf—

“If you reach for that, I’m going to cut off your hand,” Black Leg said calmly, “and then you’ll hurt and bleed before you die.”

Bakuda froze, scared despite herself.

Trying to put on a brave face, she said; “You’re not really gonna kill me.”

“Oh, yeah, why is that?”

“Cause if you were gonna kill me, you would have done it already,” she said, beginning to believe it as she said it.

Black Leg laughed. The piece of shit actually laughed.

Oh, God, Bakuda was so gonna kill him.

“Yeah, nice guess, but no. The actual reason I haven’t killed you is because I wanted to be sure that you didn’t have any nasty surprises that would come up if you died.”

Shit, that was a great idea; a dead man switch connected to a bomb so fucking terrible that no one would dare to fuck with her.

“Of course, I see now that you haven’t,” Black Leg continued looking around. “You’ve barely even made anything. I guess you’re just starting out.”

He focused back on her.

Bakuda took an involuntary step back.

“Wait,” she said, “maybe we can—”

Like a bullet train on crack, Black Leg zoomed at her, and as a black shoe covered foot attached to a black pants covered leg swung at her face too fast for her to dodge (or survive), Bakuda thought to herself; ‘Ah, Black Leg. I get it now.’

The world went forever black.