Match 26
Red Rose, Red Heart, Red Blood
Starring: Dominic Scorava, Vivian LoVullo
Dominic took a long, slow drag of a cigarette as he walked around the side of one of Vivian LoVullo’s houses. As the head of the Grindhouse and an exceptionally wealthy woman, it was only natural for her to own more than one.
The one here was more wide than tall at only two stories, with a slanted roof that made it look almost like a piano. The interior was mostly pinks, reds, and oranges; fleshy, like internal organs. The outside was normal enough. It all sat at the top of a hill, past a gate, up a road.
The backyard was taken up by a pool. Its waters were a cherry red.
There were seven people back there, all on deck chairs around the pool. He recognized three of them, though the other three were new, and one was at an odd point of being strangely familiar, but feeling as though she was in the wrong place. A woman with a mammoth tattoo...there was something there, he just–
“Ooo, Dommy, you cheeky boy, staring at a young lady’s ass like that~! You could at least try to be a little more subtle~ Or at even less least focus your attention on my lovelies instead~” Vivian LoVullo crooned as she stepped through the sliding screen door of her house.
Dominic did recognize Tongue at her side. The pink woman shot him a smirk, displaying an undue amount of humor for a mere lieutenant. A topless one at that.
“Donna LoVullo, I thank you for meeting me,” Dominic greeted with a short incline of the head. He crumbled the cigarette in his hand, curshing it down into ash. “May we discuss business inside?”
“Aw, so serious, so cute~! But no, I just finished some work so the place reeks~ Human bodies are beautifully disgusting when you look below the surface level, and there’s always such a need for clean-up!” She sighed dramatically and tugged off her surgeon’s cap to show a red fuzz of shaved hair. The stitches and staples in her head were still largely visible through it. “So no, we’re staying out here, especially since I plan on relaxing for a change~”
He had no idea how she managed to shape her pupils like hearts. The irises were a brighter red than his father’s. More like cherries than blooming roses, or the pools of blood in Victor’s eyes. So many red-eyed people, and Dominic only had brown. It rankled. “If you would prefer that, certainly.”
“Oh I would prefer a great deal of things, kid~ Ton-Ton, be a dear and hold my coat,” LoVullo requested as she removed her surgical mask with one gloved hand and undid her coat with another. Stitches pulled tight vertically down her face and up her cheeks, curling like a constant smile. More wound across her neck, and as the white coat slipped from her body, she bared even more of them.
A red one-piece bathing suit covered most of her fair, stitched skin–every joint had stitches binding the segments of her body together and more crossed vertically down her limbs, as though acting as pockets of skin–though it had openings along the side to allow her additional arms through. She had six in total–two natural, four added, though that was just speculation based on placement–and Dominic took note of a missing patch of skin on one, baring the black flesh that hid under her first layer.
“Oops~!” LoVullo giggled and clenched that hand into a fist, bringing it to her lips and giving her discolored joint a kiss. “Naughty boy~ Didn’t your father ever tell you not to stare at an underdressed lady~?”
The joint was fixed as she brought her hand back down and walked past him without a hint of care. Her legs were too long. They weren’t proportional to the rest of her body, but she moved with an easy grace that looked all the more wrong with the open back of her swimsuit. Across her back were six pustules shaped like screaming faces, all in red.
Dominic wondered if they really were beating, or if it was a trick of the light
A table by the side of the pool was where they sat. An umbrella covered it, keeping them in the shade.
“My, you haven’t even considered my dears yet, now have you?” LoVullo asked with a pronounced pout that pulled her stitches taut, “I even have an even selection, if you’re looking for masculine or feminine~ I do have more esoteric too, though they’re still in some planning stages~”
“I’m not interested in buying one of your creations,” Dominic replied. He hung his jacket on the back of his chair, showing the obvious holstered guns on his suspenders. None of LoVullo’s people had bothered to take them.
“Aw, why not~? They’d love to go home with you~”
“No, thank you. I have other matters to discuss.”
“Mmh, just ask about one, alright~? I like to brag~”
He glanced at the creations by the poolside. There were six of them, not counting Tongue–who was watching him with a small smirk, still holding her boss’s coat–and the tattooed woman. On the right side of the pool were three men, one gold, one teal, and one purple. They all seemed injured, with casts and braces on their bodies, though they didn’t seem to mind the bandaging. The blue one was even sipping a fruity drink through a mass of bandages over his head.
On the other side were the four women. LoVullo’s creations stood out. The closest one was a royal blue, relaxing in a gold bikini. Turquoise speckles traced down her skin while yellow tipped her fingers and toes, and he could see green eyes spaced across her body; at her shoulders, at her collarbones, at her belly, at her thighs. The upper, natural set were closed, but he could see more staring at him. Her hair looked more like feathers, more a sunflower yellow than the gold of her fellow monster. There was enough of it to be braided, resting on her chest as she relaxed.
The second one, further down, was a mix of a mint green and an icy white, like a plant frosted over. Mostly along her joints and over the spread of leaves sprouting from her head, which looked completely iced. He couldn’t see much of the third, but it looked like her hair was brown and her skin was...somewhere between yellow and orange. Not natural, that was certain, but there was an odd quality to it. It was something to look into later. For now...
“Who is your guest?” he asked, focusing on the woman he was most curious about
“Aw, mean! You’re not interested in any of my boys or girls? Well fine, if you’re that curious about Tusky, you should know she’s just a little guest of mine, so no touchy touchy~”
Tusk. The name sounded familiar. “Skalk’s lieutenant.”
“...God, you can be a real bore sometimes. Yes, Skalk’s former lieutenant, now my guest, and a prospect of Tombstone, so again, hands off.”
“She’s a Tombstone prospect?”
“That she is~! One with two notches too~” LoVullo’s smile widened, the skin on her cheeks opening to compensate. “She used my pool for the second. Rhodey’s giving her a nice little push along, and I do wonder just where she’ll wind up~”
Dominic made a non-committal noise in response, looking back towards the dark-skinned woman. She glanced at him as she relaxed on her front, her head resting on her arms. Two bands were tattooed on her upper arm, by her shoulder; one was a muddy gray, the other a murky blue.
His mind turned towards the stories of Tombstone, the cult of death, and drive they had to be reborn through dead births, before he directed it back towards the matters at hand. “My father needs to die.”
Her eyebrow raised, her smile remaining. “Ooo, you’re starting off very strong here, Dommy~ Now why would you say your dear papa is deserving of death~?”
“Everyone in our line of work deserves death. It’s the one thing we’re all entitled to, immortals though we are. And the simple fact of the matter is that I am my father’s successor. I need to take all matters of the family into account. That includes the issue of his inevitable removal, for the good of the Family.”
“You didn’t answer my question, Dommy~ Why are you bringing this up now~?” Her smile dropped. “Is it because of Gigi?”
The air felt heavy. The 17th stared at the 18th and nodded, firmly. “It is because of my father’s mishandling of the Paradiso issue, yes.”
“‘The Paradiso Issue’, what a quaint little way to refer to it~ So you’re not happy that Papa Cissy massacred poor Gigi’s paradise and left her to die~?”
“His reaction put pride over the common good. The Scorava name is more important than just one man.”
“Or five women. That’s what it started over, isn’t it~? His poor kitties being killed~”
“While their loss was regrettable, it was not wholly the fault of Miss Summerton. We have a common enemy in the mix, and we were allies until my father’s rash actions drove her to her untimely demise.”
“Her deserved demise, remember~? We all deserve death~”
“There is always a tragedy in a death. No matter who it is.”
LoVullo giggled. “And what about the issue of the slaves, hm~?”
“Business is business. I have no cause to interfere with another’s business, particularly when my Family profits from it.” He let a scowl show through. “If my idiot brother had remembered that, we wouldn’t be having any of these issues.”
“Mm, so you say~ And what about Altamirano~? She needs to die too, doesn’t she~?”
“She does, which is why I am willing to offer the full might of the Scorava Family to be directed at this reckless climber. She needs to die, before she drives the entire world to Hell through this naive belief she can change the world.”
LoVullo tittered. “Now that’s an interesting read of her character~ I don’t think she care about change~ It’s a thing that happens, nothing we can stop, and if things go wrong as a result of her ambitions, I doubt she would care~”
Dominic disagreed. He did not say that. Instead, he said, “Then that makes her worse. A naive fool can be pitied, but a reckless idiot needs to be put down.”
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“I can see your point, I really can, though I have a question in all this~” She tilted her head, smiling coyly as though sharing a secret. “What do you know of the revolvers she carries?”
“Nothing,” he lied, “I have no reason to seek out information on firearms.”
“You do if you want to climb to the top~ But I’m getting ahead of myself~” She flicked her wrist, and a white revolver formed in her hand, engraved in red with two ruby ♥’s on its ivory handle. “Luck and Wealth, two things everyone wants~ It’s natural, because we want to feel favored, and we want to feel secure~ I am chosen by God, because I am fortunate. I am richer than God, because I earned it all. Those promises inevitably lead to Hubris, but then none of us have really gotten close to that peak, have we~? Your name hasn’t, certainly.”
“My name will,” Dominic stated, his eyes on the crimson and alabaster metal. The story behind it was obscured. Some said the queens crafted the revolvers, others said the revolvers crafted the queens.
“None except for the First, of course,” LoVullo continued, unbothered by his contradiction, “Now, perhaps these aren’t significant~ Maybe I’m ascribing something to nothing, talking up an idea thrown out into the universe that gained substance, gained interest, and started being spoken more of, but the simplest story here is that this gun is one of a set, crafted by a skilled man, and stolen by a differently skilled thief~ Now, would you like to guess it’s name?”
“Lively,” he answered before he could stop himself.
“Ooo, close, but no~! Sorry~ Her name’s Healthy~ Healthy, Lucky, Wealthy~ I am blessed by God, because I am never sick~ The drive to be well, to never suffer, to live without pain! Ah, what a wonderful drive~ Do you think anyone’s ever achieved it~?”
“No. Never.”
“Wrong again~ One more guess, if you would indulge your senior~?”
He nearly scowled. “I have a higher number than you.”
“Yes, because you skipped~ That aside, what do you think Healthy does when you shoot someone with it~? Do you think the bullet rockets straight for your heart and sinks in deep? Do you think they begin bleeding from every orifice until they choke and drown? Do you think it grants immortality?”
“I would prefer we move along, Donna LoVullo.”
“Stories say all of those things, but they also say these bullets can heal any wound for those shot. No matter how deadly, no matter how lethal, an individual shot with the bullets in this gun will be fully fixed, fully repaired, made whole once again. Instant regeneration, perfect and pure, almost like killing someone with a Rank. But it can’t fix death. No one can fix death. There’s no bringing someone back after they pass, not in this world, not in this place, not in any true way. You could stitch together whatever corpses you want, but you wouldn’t make the original person. You can’t. I can’t.
Her smile was gone. “So, Dominic Scorava, what do you think I should do when one of the only people I’ve ever loved is dead?”
The tension was thick in the air. Dominic was not oblivious. He was not stupid. He was a rational man. “I am sorry for your loss. If you work with me, we may avenge her, Donna LoVullo.”
“I should’ve given it to one of my boys,” she noted, examining her revolver and ignoring him, “I don’t let it out of my sight, in case I ever need it, but if I had sent it away, maybe she could’ve been saved. But then, she didn’t deserve that, did she? All of us, the murderers with numbers on our skin...we deserve to die, don’t we?”
“...” The table under his hand was mostly metal. “Donna LoVullo, I implore you to be reasonable. We would be better working together than opposed to one another.”
“Maybe. Tell you what, Dommy. If you’re really willing to work with me, if you fully trust me to be your ally, if you’re willing to call me a friend–” She leveled the revolver at him. “–let me shoot you, once. I know what these bullets do. I’m not doing this on a whim. It's a matter of trust.”
He stared, unflinching into the barrel of her gun. “If that is what it takes, Donna LoVullo, then–”
The spike from the table shot up and through her head in one swift motion, piercing up through her chin and out the top of her head without too much mess.
He was already moving, turning towards LoVullo’s monsters as they made no move to get up or even react to their master’s demise–only Tusk seemed the least bit surprised–when he heard the laughter from behind him.
LoVullo was chuckling; a husky, throaty sound as she grinned at him around the spike in her brain. “You like to take the lead, don’t you Dommy? Alright then. Let’s dance~”
A gesture sent the metal under his control spearing outwards, where it should’ve pulped her brain even further, but she ripped the table partially in half and threw it at him.
He caught it, shifting the metal into gauntlets over his fists, while she tore her own head off and threw it next. A snap of his fingers burst it into shreds of metal and gore while he watched the flesh and bone of her head reform–not quite like Victor, who always regenerated from his head first–before he jumped back, standing on the surface of her pool.
Vivian cracked her neck, moving her head around to work out some sort of stiffness, before her wide smile returned and she stepped onto the surface of the pool too, the water rippling where her toes touched. There was a thin membrane of mucus at her feet, slick and slimy, but Dommy couldn’t see that. He couldn’t see most of what was going on inside of the monstrosity that was her body, but then she had no intention of showing him either. Not unless he impressed her.
Dominic snapped his fingers, dismissing steel ingots from his inventory as LoVullo raised an eyebrow. Most crashed into the water and sunk, two he caught in his hands and added to the rippling metal that was stretching across his skin. By the time he’d finished, his arms were fully covered in steel, up to his shoulders, and under his shirt, over his chest, protecting his vitals as he launched forward, his arms held in a boxer’s stance as he jabbed and hooked.
Vivivian whistled, her lips quirking into a smirk as she jerked and bobbed, letting his fists miss her head and deliberately taking a blow to her stomach so she could spit in his face, a giggle slipping out as she saw metal spread over his mouth to block the playful phlegm before she slammed her palms against his shielded ears and tried to dig her thumbs into his eyes, only for his metal to cover them. She kicked off the pool, flipped over his head, and deliberately sunk straight through the water to drag him down with her–or at least to see if his water-walking effect would smash his head on the surface tension.
It didn’t, but that was because he’d shoved his hands upward and smashed her wrists away from his head, then rolled with the momentum to his feet while she was still underwater.
Above her, Dommy looked slowly around the pool, searching for the distortion he definitely knew would be down there as that same mucus flowed around her body, acting as a cover of slime akin to some tentacled cephalopod as she swam. It was a fun little trick, one of many she had.
Dominic had tricks too though, and the ingots under the water started to dissolve, shedding into flecks of steel that began to fill the water. When LoVullo started to surface, he knew in an instant, and was already moving back and whirling with a solid, slicing chop that split through the viscous cover and into her jaw, spilling teeth into the water as she turned, pirouetted, and landed with a reforming grin and a manic giggle.
None of her creations had moved, but Tusk was sitting up, watching with wide eyes as her...patron, maybe? Wiped blood from her mouth and let it form into little spikes of red across the back of her hand.
Vivian let more blood spill down her front, not fixing her mouth just yet so she’d get plenty of ammunition, before she pointed a finger-gun at the darling idiot across from her and started “firing” bullets of blood. Ones he smashed aside and weaved around, his movements nimble and smooth as he darted in close and swung with blades on his knuckles, trying to carve her open and splitting across the mucus she was letting slime over her body, a laugh sending it burbling out of her mouth before a tongue of blood speared out, narrowly missing his throat.
His uppercut smashed her jaw and cut through her throat–the follow through was hard enough to send her head sailing off, flung into the sky as she laughs without air, letting her body fall back–
Then all the steel in the water stabbed straight up all at once, all forming together into solid spikes, piercing through the pustules on her back–two of which were already gone entirely, leaving dark holes in their place–and tearing through her torso. Geysers of gore erupted with each impalement; LoVullo spasmed, seized, and slid on the spears of steel that held her in place. The ingots, the shreds of steel, were attached to the walls and floor of the pool, holding her body in place as she twitched and her head landed with a splatter of blood on the roof.
Dominic sighed and brushed a hand through his hair. Blood was still raining down on him in a torrent. He considered if LoVullo could still be alive enough to use the blood against him. He doubted it, but the red soon leeched itself from the blood soaking his body as he tore the iron from it, leaving yellow plasma dripping down his face and clothes as he turned and walked from the water.
His eyes flicked to each of the creations. None of them were moving, none were reacting. Was that an issue? Would they be an issue? Maybe. Maybe not.
Tusk was staring, baffled and a little horrified. She knew Dominic Scorava was powerful, that he was the son of the greatest criminal the world had ever known, but it was...ridiculous, almost, to think that Vivian LoVullo could die like that. To think that such a simple trick could do her in.
Dominic stepped onto the edge of the pool, lifting himself up onto solid ground the instant a bullet falling at supersonic speeds punched straight into his forehead.
It was a testament to his talents that he stopped it from punching straight through his brain. His eyes were still wide, a pained, shocked yelp sounded out as he nearly fell back, the bullet resting far too close to his frontal lobe–
He had a second to register the pain before he was staring in Vivian LoVullo’s bright red eyes, her heart-shaped pupils like black pits in seas of glistening rubies. Blood dripped down his face, over one of his wide, staring eyes as she cradled his head almost tenderly with black, clawed hands, a cheeky smile on her open face before she gave him a peck on the forehead.
“What kind of fucking idiot would make her weakpoints that visible~?” she asked as he slowly registered a lack of feeling in his...everything.
Blood soaked the edge of the red pool, still dripping from the stumps where she’d torn his arms off with her lowest set. Her upper set was holding his head in place, his neck twisted all the way around. Of the middle set, her left hand was holding him steady, keeping him from falling. The right was straight through his chest, and holding his still-beating heart.
“You know, I almost think that was meant for me~ Javi always did have the oddest way of sending me presents~” Vivian giggled, then dropped the smile entirely as she stared into Dominic’s eyes. “Dumb fuck. Did you seriously think I’d forgive and forget? Do you know what kind of story you’re in? THAT’S NOT HOW THINGS WORK HERE! But then, you came here with a number higher than me. Even if I gave no shits about Gigi, even if I was completely sunken in depravity and a lust for power, why would I ever turn up the opportunity to go up a rank? Huh, Mister Seventeen?"
Dominic had no answer. The only reason he was even hanging on was pure denial. But then, death didn’t care who denied it, and across the world–including one small skirmish between a rising star and a cannibal–people felt their marks burn as their number shifted.
18 -> 17
Vivian laughed. She laughed loud and long and with a sense of victory she’d been lacking for quite some time, before she sank her teeth into his twisted neck and tore out a good chunk to eat, chewing as she pulled the heart close and let it sink into the ripples of her jet black flesh. Red meat opened and pulled it inside, letting it sink into the depths, and she let out a satisfied sigh as she gained one more life.
Admittedly, she’d spent two on this venture. That wasn’t exactly intended, but she was having fun. She just got too into it. Nothing too bad, easily replaceable even, once she found the right donor.
She glanced at the bullet hole in Dommy’s head, considering the actions of the new 18th, formerly the 19th. Javier had to know the bullet wouldn’t kill her. At most, it would cost one of her lives. But it did guarantee Dominic’s death. Was there something more there that she was missing, or was it planned by that wasted recluse?
She tipped the corpse and let it land on the pavement, stepping from the pool with the idle thought that she was pretty glad he hadn’t actually taken one of her more interesting hearts. She had got so much utility out of the mucus generation that it would’ve been a hard replacement, especially after she’d figured out how to weave it as webs.
Vivian glanced at her guest, and smirked when she saw the open-mouthed shock on Tusk’s face. “Want a taste~?”
Then she laughed again as Tusk’s face showed nervous embarrassment instead of disturbed nausea. Always nice to know where someone’s mind would go first when staring at a naked woman standing over a mutilated corpse.
“Well this was a fun diversion. Ton-Ton, be a dear and let the dregs know we’re at war with the Scoravas. I don’t want our idiots getting blindsided like Gigi’s idiots were.”
“Got it boss!” Tongue replied with a sharp salute, beaming, “What do you want the body for?”
“Hmm...Tusk, does he seem like your type?”
Tusk stared at her. She glanced at the ripped open corpse. She looked back at Vivian. “...uh...I...no.”
“Fair enough, I’d never want to push someone into something they don’t want~ Though if people fail to realize the choices they have, that’s really not my problem~” She smirks down at Dommy’s corpse one last time before clapping her hands together. “Now, let’s get this mess back inside~ I’m having some project ideas~”