Ironically, Desire isn’t a particularly desirable woman, at least by my standards.

She towers heads above me and everything else in the store save for the doors and the torrents I can’t seem to stop looking at.

Her eyes are a dead, cold grey and her mouth is kept busy, chewing on some stick as she fixes me with a stare.

A heartbeat has passed since her introduction and another, I find myself standing there not saying anything. But then, just a second later her eyes finally take me in, all of me in.

Which means she’s noticed my little armband.

I let myself smile up at her and speak for the first time since entering, “Hello, Desire.”

She doesn’t smile back, instead she just repeats her greeting from earlier, “Hello, welcome to Desire’s Gun Shop, how may I help you, I’m Desire.”

“Right, you’ve said.” She doesn’t blink. Clearing my throat, I continue, “Ah, right, so uh, you know why I’m here right?”

I ask this with folded arms and a finger tapping the armband as loudly as possibly.

Unfazed, her eyes roll about her skull as she mock tries a guess, “Hmm, if I had to say, I say you’re here for guns or ammo?” With a shrug and a slight tug on her lips, I almost feel bad for blurting out my next line.

“You know better than to act dumb, Desire.” I glower and pull out the slip, “You owe three months of unpaid protection fees, you know very well why I’m here Desire.”

To her credit, she does a fantastic job of acting surprised. With her hands flown up in surrender she spurts out, almost laughing, “I’m sorry, I really had no idea you were sent here for that.”

She shakes her head and ducks behind the curtained doorway she came through earlier, shouting out from the room, “So Rey’s gotten tired of sending his goons over here to stain my floor with blood huh.”

Uh…what?

There’s some shuffling and the ever-distinguished sound of things falling over and breaking followed by a curse and an angry grunt.

I don’t wait long and I don’t bother panicking. I already know whatever she’s retrieving from the back is no bit of good news to me so I ready myself and pull out my pistol, hammer pulled back.

She ends up coming out with a large white…cloth? Fabric? I’m not quite sure what it is.

She hits a button underneath the counter and it parts into itself seamlessly, making way where there previously was none.

Huh, so that’s how she gets in there.

Grunting and pulling on the long white thing, she huffs and forfeits it to the floor. “Ha! You know what this is, kid?”

“No?”

Desire chuckles, her hair falling out of place as she shakes her head and wags a finger, “Too bad. If you did, you would have probably run out of here the moment you saw it.”

“What is it?” I demand, trying not to be fazed by her taunts and the deafening sound of those turrets whirring and tracking my every move.

She picks it up and with a single, accurate spread of it, she manages to cover the entire half of the room we’re standing in.

The thing splays over my feet in folds where it couldn’t get past and looking down at it, I begin to recognize what exactly the thing is.

And rightfully, like she said, I get nervous.

“It’s a tarp!” She gleefully announces, dusting her hands off. “Please step on the tarp.”

Her eyes, dead barely a minute ago, are now alight with psychotic glee.

“I’m going to need you to get the money, Desire.” I say this and gustily pull my gun on her.

Her smile doesn’t fall, in fact, it grows. She snaps her fingers and the turrets begin to rev, “I think I have you outgunned.”

I sigh and shake my head, lowering the pistol. She looks disappointed but I just want to ask, “Do you even have the money? Let me know whether or not this is a waste of time.”

Her eyes narrow at me as she bites down sensually on her lips, an unnerving sight, “You’re not afraid, are you?”

Oh, I’m terrified. But I know well enough when to play my cards.

“I am. Which is why I’d like to still have the option of leaving here…” I trail off, looking down on the white tarp, “…alive.”

She chuckles but nods, “Yes, I’m good for it, business has never been better. Earlier I thought you’d just come to buy a gun or some ammo! Your people are still buying from me.”

Here she cackles, the contrast between the woman from behind the counter and the one with the tarp is stark.

“And so do Lynxes men, they all know I sell out the best! And so they’re giving me protection, at a much lower fee anyway, that’s why I stopped paying your dumbass boss Rey.” She tuts.

“You’re paying protection to the cannibals?” I look around the store, there isn’t a single sign that it’s affiliated to any one gang. A dangerous way of gaining customers from all the pools but more interesting is the fact that there aren’t any actual protectors, there isn’t any one from Lynx lingering around.

“So where are your guards then?” I ask, “There should be some, an important business like this.”

“I obviously don’t need such crude protection, not when all I need is right up there.”

Solemnly, I shake my head, “I’m sorry Desire, I’m really going to need that money.”

“I thought you wou-”

Pause.

I don’t bother listening to a word she says next, it’s been obvious from the beginning that there’s no talking to these people.

Feeling my bubble of time take over the room and I nod, satisfied, but still cautious.

Looking at the one thing I’m unsure of, the turrets.

A quick dance in front of it tells me I don’t have anything to worry about from the machine as it too has been frozen in time.

Pulling out my gun I walk up to Desire and sigh.

“A shame…you should have really questioned what would prompt Rey to send a kid to do this job.”

Bang! Bang!

***

 

Two shots, straight through an elbow and a knee cap, just like I did with Ramon.

The shattering, squirting sound of bone and muscle being shredded puts me off even more than the intense smell of copper. I buckle over, disgusted by the result of my own actions, time slips away and I’m treated to the usual.

“Aaargghhh!!!!” Desire’s screeching scream of shock and pain as she crumbles to the floor, unable to support her own weight any longer makes it a lot harder to not puke.

Slapping a hand over my mouth I force my breakfast down and keep the gun raised and pointed at her.

“W-augh What do you say now, Desire?”

She doesn’t say anything, far too busy screaming her lungs out, writhing on the floor as in quite a turn of irony, the tarp she brought out for me is being used for her.

She’s covered in blood and the blood keeps pooling and pooling, seeping closer to me with each second.

I need to get out of here.

I pull my feet closer to my body as I lean on the wall for stability, but I doubt that’ll be doing me much good in a few seconds so I stand up, intent on moving where the blood won’t get me.

Over the counter.

“Tell me where you keep the money, Desire.” I demand, my breakfast firmly in its place at last. “I know you’re not so trusting to keep it in a bank and money like this can’t be kept in your little register.” I explain, vaulting over the counter surface to the other side.

She still screams. I try not to look at her writhing and tears. The smell in the room has taken a turn for the worse; there’s a tinge of ammonia in it now.

I squat and check behind the counter, unbothered by the whirring turrets now as I stand protected in their blind spot. True enough, there’s a register and it’s full of money.

Despite only being here for the gang’s owed money I decide to grab some credits for myself, as far as I know, being a goon doesn’t pay well and I can’t exactly trust Rey to keep his word. I can’t trust anyone in Xoxia to keep their word.

Steve has taught me that lesson the hard way.

“Where’s the money Desire!” I yell, getting antsy now. Though this is a region controlled by the gangs and one continuously fought over, it doesn’t mean the place has been relegated to crime.

At any moment, the police or worse, the Suppressors could come around the corner in that ugly vehicle of theirs in some nosy patrol. As far as I know, very few gangs are willing to risk an encounter with the Suppressors.

Invincibill’s gang isn’t one of them.

Her sobbing and screaming have come to a halt now, only little sniffles and curses remain.

“You want the money, kid?” she groans out. I peek over the counter gun hanging lightly by my side.

She looks awful. Everything looks awful. She’s sweating, covered in her own blood and likely soaked in her urine as well.

Fuck, I hate this.

Again, I battle the urge to look away and puke, with a deep breath I respond.

“Tell me where the money is and you’ll get a medic.”

It’s wholly forced but she laughs. I feel sorry for her.

“Protocol 1-b. Activate Butcher.”

“What?” I sputter, confused.

But my confusion doesn’t last long as I’m soon fiercely tackled to the ground by something heavy and metal.

Grunting, I turn around just in time to see a metal fist cocked and flying to crush my face and dodge.

The floor suffers the impact, the tiles shatter and the earth underneath it can be seen.

Fuck!

I look up and take in the thing assaulting me. An orange coloured, half finished droid. Its wires are all exposed and it barely has a head or torso.

Still, it’s heavy as shit and it’s stranding me, intent on smashing my face in.

“I don’t know how you did it kid!” Desire screams, she’s crawled up the side of the counter and is staring at me through the see-through display.

The droid isn’t giving me a second to think, it pulls its fist back and presses its makeshift knees against my sides, keeping me in place, before launching out the metal fist to crush my face.

Once again. I dodge, but only barely. I can feel my hair caught under its fist and the broken ground.

“But I bet you can’t do it while Butcher is holding you down, you wanted to know where the money was? It’s trying to kill you right now!”

My eyes widened at the revelation, but also at a personal realization.

Why does she call it butcher?

“Butcher him, Butcher!” I learn why soon after this desperate, murderous scream.

Bzzzz!!!

Is that…Is that a chainsaw!

Butcher’s other arm has been equipped with a chainsaw rather than another metal hand, and now said chainsaw is descending towards me with intent of chopping me up to pieces.

Pause!

I scream for my powers to work the way it ought to, the idea that I may not be able to use them exclusively with the droid grasping me troubles me but nonetheless, I feel time come to a stop.

The buzzing stops and Desire’s murderous chant comes to a halt as well. I let out a sigh of relief but I notice I’m still in the same predicament I was, and worse.

My racing heart seems to have made time all the more the slippery eel and even worse is the fact that even with time paused, that doesn’t mean I can wriggle my way out of the droid’s death straddle.

The most I manage to do is move my head away from the droid’s strike right before time gets away.

The droid’s arm strikes right beside my head, missing by a mere inch. The saw digs it into the ground, grinding and pulling in the arm as it does so.

What kind of fucking saw digs past tiles and the fucking ground!

With the way I’m panicking and have little chance to relax, I doubt I’ll be able to activate my powers again.

Struck with desperation and sick of the maddening cackle of Desire on the other side, I prepare myself with what free time the droid’s stuck chainsaw arm has given me.

I pull my elbow back, and powered by the need to survive this insane encounter I slam it into the glass windows of the display, where the guns and grenades are.

It hurts like hell, even with my elbow shielded by my clothes some glass manages to find a way through and stab me back. But it seems like it’s been worth it, Desire’s surprised look is reassuring.

But then it twists into another cackle. “Those aren’t loaded you dumb fuck! It’s for fucking display!”

“I know that.” That said, the droid has set its arm loose from the ground and the ominous buzzing of the saw begins anew.

Swiftly pulling out a shotgun as the droid goes for yet another swing at my head, I’m fast enough to have this attack blocked by the hard metal part of the shotgun before going for my true goal.

The wires.

Not giving a flying fuck about the chance of being electrocuted I grab hold of a bunch of the droids exposed wires and start pulling out like a maniac pulling out hair.

“Noooo!” Desire shrieks, banging on the glass of the display. “Butcher! Butcher! Butcher!”

I ignore her screams and keep pulling, my actions are proven effective when it begins to spasm. Arms swinging about violently and without pattern, I eventually get punched in the face and stepped on when it stands.

“Ugh fuck.”

In another turn of irony, the droid spills over the other side of the counter, where the turrets are set in waiting. It’s quickly taken apart by the flurry of bullets, after a few seconds, the droid ‘Butcher’ is nothing more than a heap of scrap metal stuck together with a shitty processor.