The Idea Behind This Post: What if the UOU RP reaches Year Twenty-Five? And what if I stuck a burnt-out, pretty-much-retired-but-not-really Frank in a
Man On Fire situation?
This is mostly just something I have mused about and this is a way to get it off my chest because,
c'mon, this game won't keep going all the way to year 25 unless we do a lot of time jumps.
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July 4th, 2043; 12:14 AM
Outside the El Toro Borracho bar; Mexico City, Mexico
Being a bodyguard... Hmph. Dave said it would be easy. I'd start a whole new life in another country, away from all the violence and the killing. A chance to settle down, do easy jobs, get paid a boatload for sitting on my ass and getting drunk. Occasionally I'd have to put on a real scary face and looking intimidating, but there was never any
real trouble. What'd I have to lose anyway? As Dave said,
"Apart from the weight?" Yeah, haha, very funny. And that
was a fake laugh. Hypocritical dick...
Well, those
were my thoughts... Until something
did happen.
My employers were this rich family, the Dineros: Ciriaco, a popular politician, his hot young American wife Emma, and their daughter Gabrielle, who was just barely entering the double digits age. Gabrielle was a sweet thing. Kind, extroverted, smart. Maybe a bit too curious for her own good, but she was a good kid. In her parents' frequent absences, mostly business trips where Ciriaco dragged along Emma, I had become... Something of a surrogate father to the girl. It was clear she only rarely, if ever, received any sort of parental love from her father, and her mother tried but, well... Emma wasn't too good at the whole 'parenting' thing.
Neither was I, to be honest. But I guess I was good enough.
I think I was cursed with some sort of bad luck hex or something, because wherever I went, Hell itself seemed to follow. Thankfully not literally like my old buddy from Texas, but it might as well have been. Things had a habit for going terribly wrong for me. This time was no different - as if sensing what direction I was going, kidnapping rates in Mexico City hit an all time high not long after I started this bodyguard job, like the universe itself just wanted to make **** hard for me. And it did.
Gabi was nabbed right out from under me. I was beaten half to death and shot while some bastards made off with her. Someone found me, took me to a hospital. I fell into a coma of some kind. When I came out of it a month later, I heard the news that no progress had been made in getting Gabi back. Not a week after that, it was announced she was dead after a botched hostage exchange. The kidnappers got away.
For a second it was 2018 and I was in Isham Park...
...
"Daddy?"
But I pulled myself together.
I got out of bed. I left the hospital. I went back to the Dineros' house. I got a new change of clothes, grabbed my gun, and left.
What followed was the bad old days all over again. Intense gunfights through the slums and ****** dives of Mexico City, all in the hope of finding out who took an innocent little girl from her family so that I could
punish them. I've gone through a lot of **** in my life. I've seen men who cut people open for their organs, killers who brutalized the faces of their victims, even loonies who were so bad a long forgotten god of death used their murders to keep himself alive. Those were all bad. But child killers? They topped them all.
I was at my final stop. The El Toro Borracho. Another seedy joint amidst a sea of seedy joints. Nothing special, not to anyone; anyone but me. To me, this marked the end of my journey. The ****ers were on the other side of the door I stood in front of. With a deep breath, I took off my shades and pulled one of the two Berettas from my shoulder holsters.
This was it. One more time.
I kept the gun behind my back as I opened the door and stepping inside, looking around. There weren't many people in here. Ten or so. And two of them were the same bastards who jumped me.
I locked eyes with them. The others in the room turned to look at me.
I fired off a round, nailing one in the chest, before scrambling over to a table and flipping it onto its side to provide some cover. Bullets chipped away at the hard oak of the table, and I stuck my pistol out over the cover and fired blindly. I heard one, maybe even two, fall over.
I heard the table cracking, before the gunfire died down. Knowing it wouldn't last another round, I threw myself out from behind it and onto the bar to my left, firing off a few rounds that managed to miraculously take out another one along the way. I hit the bar, toppling over and banging my head on the ground but, thankfully, getting into much sturdier cover. I was safe again for the moment...
... At least I thought I was, until I noticed the bartender scrambling to grab a double barrel shotgun from under the bar. Acting fast, I aimed my gun at him.
<"Gonna give you one chance to take your hand off that gun or it's lights out for you, friend.">
"Sì! Sì!" He yanked his hands away, and I motioned for him to head into the backroom. He did so, being smart enough to keep low. Meanwhile, I had jumped for the big old scattergun he had left for me. Christmas came early, I suppose.
I grabbed it, and, still keeping low, leveled it on top of the bar. Slowly, I fired.
*Kra-BANG!*
There were shouts, from at least three different guys. I switched the direction of the shotgun, and fired again.
*Ka-BLAM!*
Even more, followed by some satisfying thuds.
I checked the pistol I had set down. Two rounds. I reloaded the pistol, and pulled out the other Beretta with my other hand once I was done. Heading over to the other side of the bar, I took in a breath to prepare my nerves, before throwing myself out into the open.
There were only three guys left standing, one of whom was one of the two guys who took Gabi, and they all had their eyes and guns locked onto the spot where I last was. My presence was announced with a thud, and I fired off with both guns once, twice, three times. The first two I took out with shots to the chest or - in one's case - a shot to the head. The third, the kidnapping, child killing, no good son of a
***** I took out as non-lethally as I could. A shot to the hand to disarm, two shots to the legs to cripple.
I pulled myself to my feet and approached him. He was writhing on the ground in agony, screaming profanities at me in Spanish.
<"You ****ing ********er! I'll ****in' gut you for this!">
<"Save it. You don't got much left to say, pal, so use your words wisely."> I knelt down beside him.
<"Why the **** did you kill Gabrielle Dinero?">
<"Who?"> That was a dumb question. The only answer he got was a shot to the stomach. "Aargh!"
<"Little girl. Ten. Blond hair, brown eyes. Ring a bell?">
<"I didn't- we didn't kill her!">
<"Say that to her ****ing parents, or the ****ing body they found!">
<"I swear on my abuelita's grave, I don't know what you're talking about!">
<"Hostage exchange, under an old bridge outside of town. She got killed. Sound familiar?">
<"She's not dead, pendejo! I just saw her a day ago! We're planning on something
real special for her!">
<"Where the hell are you keeping my- ... That little girl?">
<"Why the
**** should I tell you?">
Good question. I'll let Mr. 9mm answer that.
I level the pistol at his crotch.
*BANG!*
He screams in mingled horror and pain. After a minute or two the screaming becomes horrified laughter. It takes a while for him to become coherent again.
<"I-I-I-I-I she's at t-t-this fuc-****ing **** **** ****!">
<"Calm down there, friend.">
<"The o-ol-old chur-church outside of t-town! Saint Pa-Paul's!">
I release a sigh. At least I had a place to go after this. Looks like I was wrong: this was just a warm-up for the real finale.
I stood up, leveling the gun at the kidnapper's head and firing.
It felt strange to think about... But that thing I had retired so many years ago, this persona, the Punisher...
He was back.