A Dog That Can't Learn Is A Mad Dog
'Mother…fucker!' Fox fiercely furrowed his eyebrows. Looking ahead, his sight became a little blurry as he cursed for not keeping on speeding up, having to reset it now. The other bikers fell behind, giving up on hope, rather to stop chasing out of fear than anything worse.
Fox desperately waited his bike’s acceleration. When the white truck was far ahead, disappearing in a slow angle towards the right along the rest of the highway, his bike began impulsing with towering speed, building momentum.
The unfinished prototype had a slow start, but its speed wasn’t mediocre. Fox was supposed to keep the speed in check so it wouldn’t implode on the streets, but this moment wasn’t for thinking. Even the other bikers who saw him yelled out to him, but their voices became muffled thumps falling on screens made of gum. Fox rushed forth with the unfinished prototype.
Wee wooo weee wooo- waaaaaanng! Sirens echoed from behind. With the evening gone, the night revealed yellow lights everywhere, cautioning all vehicles, all except Fox.
While he could feel at least a couple of vehicles stopped more or less where the young man was slaughtered, there were half a dozen cop vehicles chasing behind Fox. However, Fox knew that the cops who stayed behind were mostly to apprehend the bikers, who just stopped and were easy targets. As for those behind him, they followed his every action, not intending to speed up to catch the only murderer here, and increasing their km/s as his bike did.
“STOP your vehicle!” A cop car shouted with a hands-off microphone on his left cheek, sounding from the sirens and lights. Fox ignored it. As the car advantaged and illuminated Fox’s bloody murder face, he seemed to grow quiet. But after a while, his voice sounded again, “Mr. Fox! This is a matter belonging to the SPD! Calm yourself and- Mr. Fox! Damned mad shit! Carajo!”
Veeeeeeeerrrm… Fox listened to his bike’s humming engines as they weren’t well protected by the prototype infrastructure. He shook his head unnoticeably, thinking from the corner of his mind, ‘I’m sorry, baby. I won’t let this go. Accompany me.’
Fox’s eyes gained a bit of clarity, but only enough to distinguish his surroundings, avoiding other vehicles as he zoomed through, closing in on the white truck!
In no time, with the driver none the wiser until his mirror reflected too much of a set of obvious yellow lights, Fox was just at the white truck’s rear, and still rapidly driving ahead!
The driver didn’t notice Fox because of the lights, only realizing once he heard a light, soft hum that made his unstable mentality a little focused. He looked outside his window, only to see a riled up Fox, the worst kind anyone who has shortly lived it in Lýmoca has seen.
Confused, then enraged, the driver prepared to open the door with a slam. When Fox neared enough, trying to slow down his bike by pressing with force from his left arm in the middle, the driver slammed the door open, but Fox avoided it like he was the one doing it.
Startled, the driver looked at Fox before his eyes slowly discerned a face, and with it, memories.
“Oh, holy… shit!” The driver exclaimed, becoming a little flaky. Fox’s strange eyes looked at him, thirsting of blood and murder. The driver wasn’t too idiotic, driving with his right hand and gesturing with the other towards Fox, filled with fear.
“No, a- ah- ah, I didn’t know you were with them! Wait, look, I shouldn’t have done that. I’m so so sorry. Fox, I’m actually an admirer of yours! My son, too, he’s just about to learn how to drive from his pa. Please let me- GASP.”
Before the man continued, Fox’s polycoria eyes trembled intensely. His right arm flashed, pulling his small pistol out and firing once, penetrating the driver’s ribs in the middle. Twice, hitting the collarbone. Thrice, hitting the chest. Four times, blowing his brains. Five times, disentangling the half-blown head from the neck. Six times, destroying his groins.
Bang bang bang bang bang!
Fox saw a young man sitting on the co-driver’s seat, paled and panicky as he squirmed up from his seat with the belt still on, looking down at Fox with the muzzle slowly aiming at his face. The young man wasn’t really so, just about 16-17 years old, with exotic, smooth black hair and light cinnamon skin, like his father.
Bang bang bang! Three consecutive shots ruined a young face, barely younger than Fox, never having seen or done what he did, but practically immune to similar terror unless it happened to himself, like now.
Not knowing what, how, and when, the teenager became paste from his head to his neck. Seeing it was almost blown off, Fox aimed again, not worrying of the vehicles ahead who all rushed forth, disregarding civil order.
As the white truck deviated a bit, losing speed along Fox’s slowing bike, Fox’s right arm stably aimed at the second corpse’s shoulders, bursting with a spray until a fourth of the body splattered everywhere. A semi-clean cut was left behind at the shoulders. Bang bang…!
“…” Without shaking or hesitating one bit in his seat, Fox aimed at the fuel port next, located at the other side of the truck. With impassive, impenetrable black eyes, Fox shot until he smelled gas spreading, aflame around the truck port. He disassembled his pistol with 1 hand and threw the parts to the sides as he attempted to speed up.
Vveerr- Booooom!
But before Fox could get away, just as the white truck slowed down and scrapped against the side, sending off many sparks thorough its right side, and his bike barely began speeding up, it exploded.
Fox felt his back stabbed by a few small broken metal parts, too thin to impulse him physically, more than the explosion did, lifting him slightly in the air, but not too much. His breath resisted the otherwise might-be-lethal penetrating of those metal shards, turning a few small spots on his back into piked skin and blood.
Fox was thrown off, sent forwards by the inertia as his bike was impacted by the shockwave. He forced his legs to hug the belly of his bike, keeping it steady as cop cars far behind stopped due to the sudden explosion, turning a few tens of meters in diameter ablaze.
Cars behind them had long stopped, nearly turning the ordeal into a green alert even. Those fore Fox had long fled, so only he was affected, though it did scare the shit out of some cars on the other side of the road.
With his legs forcibly steadying the bike, Fox’s veins all over his body bulged. His nose threw off some red blood from the force he was to breathe in. Only his left arm was at ease, but his back and right arm felt more and more sore. His bones could be felt slowly dislocating.
Pakkkuff- screeech~!! Vee- vee e- e- ee- ee- vee- veem… When the bike finally landed, Fox sweated to control the bike, which he heard suffering a hit when the explosive wave reached them. Many things inside must have become disarranged, at best.
He worriedly stabilized the bike after a furious speed wobble. Having to drift it, hard leaning on his right, as he felt his right leg slightly crushed along his foot before finally riding it on its two wheels. However, its engine failed, slowing down rapidly after already slowing down previously.
At the same time, the yellow lights behind him returned, becoming more prominent unlike before. The cops went all out to catch him. Fox looked down at his bike, even more worried as its lights flickered and its engines had gone off before he even landed.
Wee woo wee woo wee wooo!
Multiple sirens went off behind him before surrounding him. Fox heard screams everywhere, but he didn’t process them, simply feeling his heart like it had grown as big as a fourth of his torso. Each heartbeat, slow and tremendously mighty, sent slightly ticklish/painful waves across his veins and tendons.
Strangely enough, it excited him further, but those around him were cops, not targets he could pick… anymore. He stopped trying. The bike lost all power, becoming a shaky construct whose wheels fell off by the time the cops caught up to Fox and slowed down, surrounding him and forming a reverse ‘U’ shaped blockade.
Fox had no thoughts of stopping, but before he could even bump into them, the wheels disassembled on their own, and he felt to the ground with his back facing up. The cops, who took their handguns out and were so ready to pull their triggers, stopped upon seeing his youngish face and the wounds on his back.
They looked at each other before their state police sergeant cuffed Fox, who let his body cool off with the night’s coldness and raw ground.
***
2 hours later. Proteros, presidential precinct. President’s office.
Fox was brought into the office by a national guard wearing armored gloves. The latter placed the former before the President’s desk. Receiving a nod from the president, the NG nodded in return before departing with a firm stance walking.
After the doors closed, Luis leaned forth, harshly supporting his chin on his right hand with his fingers spread, looking up at Fox, who remained handcuffed. Fox looked down at the president, still nothing to say.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“… Do you know what it costs to even have you here instead of through legal process?” Luis Heartez asked Fox, sitting with a relaxed back. Fox looked ahead before returning his eyes to the president, “I don’t.”
“Of course you DON’T!” Luis let him finish, but still barked on with all his rage, standing up in a moment. His face reddened, nearly growing dizzy. Fox shrank his neck with calmness, staring at the president with impassive, impenetrable black eyes.
“Hah!” Luis derisively scoffed, “How can you understand? You’re a damn monkey at this point! You just have no idea what it means to expose yourself to my opposition!”
Fox threw his head and swayed his neck around. He was being yelled at again. Luis saw this, and just as he was sitting down, he flashed back up to straighten his legs and point at Fox with his right index finger. “Don’t you even have an attitude! You don’t have the right!”
“…” Fox impassively snapped and looked at Luis with basically no emotion. Luis choked on his next phrase, not knowing what to put out of his mouth. At the side, the observing Roam lowered his head, knitting his eyebrows.
“You…” Luis sat back down, supporting his chin again. He looked at Fox with hardened eyes, clearly debating something. It had to be very important. But even then, Fox didn’t offer any word or reaction again, which tempted Luis even more to get rid of him.
“Siiigh!” Luis exhaled with fury, almost sounding like a kid grumping about before being slapped the shit out of his mouth by any of his parents. It irritated Fox a bit, yet he remained unmoved.
“You will use the remaining honorary merit to atone for this petty crime,” Luis’s voice echoed as he looked down, rubbing his forehead’s sides on his palms, trying to release tension. But Fox gained some instead, widening and hardening his eyes as he looked down, “No, I can’t.”
“Oh, my fucking heaven,” Luis harshly expressed. He slammed his desk lightly, lifting his chin again. “You don’t, you can’t. Is there something you can are able of? At least? Do you just not understand everything that has been happening? Why? Now I see it’s daring to choose ‘fox’ as your alias, what a puny lament!”
“I won’t do it,” Fox started, but he was interjected by Luis, who laughed it out off of anger, speaking in quick succession and gesturing. “Hahaha, there it is. Now, you won’t.”
“… Because I must use it for Teon.” Fox finished his sentence, calming down. Luis was about to deny it and laugh more in anger, but the word ‘Teon’ seemed to stop him. His eyes changed the glint cross them, and his face warped, even seeming relaxed, if a little.
“No, you won’t use it for that. You can’t use it for that. You don’t have my permission to,” Luis looked up and decisively declared after thinking it through.
Fox’s eyes were set on the desk. A few seconds after Luis’s words, he lifted them, staring at Luis’s face, and ran his mouth in a low volume. “I think the president can show the Lys what is all about ‘marking a difference’. Absolve me of the crime I so-called committed.”
“So you think I rule every piece of the country? I say this and they do just that?” Luis shook his head, staring to the side, already losing hope. Fox didn’t care, further stating, “Then grant me another honorary merit. It’s not by decree, but by honor. Saving the vice president is a note several times worthier than killing a morbid murderer.”
“My first honorary merit by saving hundreds of lives, my second, hidden for stability, by saving the vice president who, from what I have heard, president, is beloved, unlike you.” Fox paused, exchanged glances with Luis’s glare, and continued. “While you hide here, wherever I go, if it happens, I just so get recognized for saving her, not serving you.”
“Mm. So that’s what the people would want. Is that so?” Luis nodded when he asked Fox, further opening his eyes, pressing his lips decadently. Fox shook his head. “Whatever new honorary merit, just ‘appoint’ one to me. Though you are no emperor, the people will be with you. Their will alone, for the vice president’s sake, will be enough a reason to support… you.”
“…” Luis wasn’t half-convinced, but his last statement… those last few words… they got to him.
Luis looked at Roam, whose eyes were fully opened, darting between him and Fox. Then, he fell pensive.
All this long, for more than a decade now, Luis has been through a fever dream, and a bad sleep. A first term of being puppeteered, falling at every little project, accomplishing essentially nothing, and a second term that had brought differences between the war in Preut, and the growing restlessness situation across Lýmoca.
Before, when Fox first appeared in everyone’s eyes and was discovered, Luis barely felt a tad trace of hope from them: his people. Something he hadn’t felt since the first few months of his time as Lýmoca’s president.
Now, it was back. Product of the worst person he could think of currently, and far into the future, from the looks of it. Luis didn’t know when, but his body felt relaxed, and his mind was thundering about no more. He felt a bit thirsty, so he extended his left arm to Roam, who hurriedly gave him a bottle with coffee. After drinking, he looked down at documents on his desk but addressed Fox.
“In an hour, a delegation will be sent to speak in your behalf. From now on, I forbid you from speaking on camera, be it by news reporters, interviews, or spontaneous. Disobey that and I’m done with you.”
“Oído[heard],” Fox exclaimed before tapping his feet repeatedly on the floor. After quite a bit of tapping, Luis looked up with askance, “What now?”
“I’m handcuffed,” Fox stated. Luis blinked his eyes, dragged and slowed, before gesturing towards him. “You can get off them, then. Roam, call that chief of police. The reinforced handcuffs were a nice touch, but too costly for such a ‘safe’ individual. Remind him th- …?”
Clack. Fox waited for no one before flicking the locks with his left index finger, just once. The handcuffs broke off and fell to the floor, powerless and pitiful, Then, he looked at the president, analyzing the man’s image before impassively speaking, “Whether the presidents seeks to exile me to PSD services only, just remember I’m not much of an unknown figure as I was before.”
Fox walked away without being told to. Not that it mattered, but it was a reminder of his nature to Luis Heartez, who still thought of ‘conquering’ him. And, of course, how could Fox not know why he was give an easygoing task like becoming a ‘baby’ celebrity’s bodyguard?
Naturally, he has been everywhere and done too much. It was the president who wanted Fox to pipe down, and the Piya Sanctum District that reminded him who he was now. He wasn’t a ‘Phesx Caolia’ anymore. He wasn’t a Preutian, a pariah. He was Fox, a Ly.
With Fox gone, walking off to whoever gives a care where, Luis rubbed his forehead before blatantly rubbing his face with his palms. Looking at Roam, Luis nodded, feeling tired. Only he knew how bad it was if he woke up in the night and his sleeping hours were interrupted. No other choice but to keep laboring until the next night.
“I almost did, Roam. I really did.” Luis commented. Roam offered silent comfort. “I wish I hadn’t let him in. No. It is my fault; from my decision, from my choice. I shouldn’t have taken that. Now, I’m raising not a fox but a mad pet. And it’s playing pretend as a loyal beast.”
… Fox put on an insubstantial disguise with new clothes, a stolen hat from an employee at the presidential building, and even grabbed a jacket from a tomboyish beauty inside. Hiding most of his face with the borrowed hat, Fox exited the precinct on his own before heading to his boutique. But not without passing by a route he always took whenever he walked certain streets.
As Fox walked out, he read the window messages he couldn’t when he was handcuffed and seen in public beside the police. Now that he was free, he knew Fabiola went to the boutique because a notorious client wanted to buy many pieces but would arrive late and leave early.
When Fox arrived at the boutique, it was already closed, with the youngsters walking away around the corner, and Fabiola walking to the bust stop, relaxed.
Just then, Fox saw a hooded person sneak unto Fabiola’s back, just as he was crossing a narrow alley and Fabiola walked past it, not noticing him, let alone the hooded person. Fox glimpsed at the slightly wet cloth and a pocket knife in the hooded person’s hands.
Kicking his right heel into the air towards his crotch, Fox grabbed a tiny silencer with his left hand, grabbing a small pistol with his right from his rear at the same time, and aimed forth. Not having enough time to place it, Fox used it with its urgency mode, sticking it against the muzzle, feeling the burst of the pistol against his left hand clutching it.
It didn’t hurt nor feel scalding hot, but Fox didn’t even pay it attention, hurrying over to pick the corpse before Fabiola noticed. He was completely silent, practically nonexistent. But the corpse falling down wasn’t. It made a puddle sound to the side, perhaps from a passing rain earlier on, and landed its waist on the edge.
When Fox walked out of the alley, Mena’s cousin, one of the youngsters, happened to come back around the corner and witness him move towards a corpse lying on the sidewalk’s edge. Fox motioned at her with his eyes, and thankfully, she understood.
It wasn’t difficult to understand, considering he was being stealthy, and that the innocent gem Fabiola-rich-parents was the other person and the only one unaware. She skipped over, to which Fabiola noticed. “Ah, why are you still here? Hehe. Wanna accompany me?”
“Yeah, sure. I was hungry, so, do you wanna go for some botanas?” - “Oooh, yeah! I’m starving. Diet is for silly girls and boys, come on. I’ll tell you all about my plan to murder Foxesie tomorrow. He’ll be gladdened! There were sooo many sales. My heavens~!”
Fox watched the girls leave, tilting his head to the left before confirming there were no more irregularities. He even enhanced his senses to make sure. Then, he walked to another alley with the corpse over his right shoulder, towards a person tall fence blocking the way. Dumping the brainless limp body on the ground, near the trash, Fox crouched.
Although the fella was dead, approximately between 25 and 40 years old, hard to tell from the disregard of his health, Fox had means to investigate. He perused the man’s pockets’ even the thick, ugly jacket and shirt’s. Fox found obvious scents from typical drugs that are sometimes used for medicinal purposes, but smelled something more after spreading some pockets.
“…” He looked at the young man, maybe nearing his just a ‘man’ age, and noticed the deformation of his clothes on the back and front of his pants and shirt. Fox identified them as when a person usually wears their pistols there for no reason. A tiny, intricate observation that the special agent untrained eye couldn’t confirm.
Fox also does this, but only when in combat. Otherwise, he assembles his small pistol only if necessary. He carries their parts instead, spread beneath his clothes, which are either strapped with a moderate adhesive function on its ends, or in some tiny pockets he creates.
‘So, you’re a trafficker. And an idiot. To ‘hunt’ here for no reason, you were either on a bet… or expanding. And growing bolder.’ Fox understood right away. PSD’s slightly different studies taught that much, though Fox didn’t know how much it was compared to jobs who dealt with these things professionally. Either way, this was an organized crime’s henchman, and most likely an isolated incident.
‘I have to also patrol my… my street, now, too?’ Fox’s polycoria eyes narrowed just a bit, impassive.
…
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Let It Rain's note: Botana is basically junk, yummy (most of the time) food.