Proactive?
Phesx Caolia sat for a few minutes. Some of the girls accompanying him, needing only a few words to know he liked silence, drank with him. A few of them returned to the dance floors, while others came to him, drawn to know more about him. It seemed like the idea of having an ex-soldier Preutian did more than interest them.
They started rubbing their faces on his shoulders, shoulder blades, arms, and others whispered silent words into his neck, just wanting to blow their hot breaths onto his skin. Phesx Caolia drank in tranquility. That was until he decided to release himself a bit.
“Ladies, I will go to the bathroom now, alone. If you’ll let me.” Phesx looked left and right before saying. Some giggled, while one of them spoke after tracing his nose over the mask, from above to below. “Hahaha, very few would be willing enough to not call us some things else. Go ahead… This seat is yours when you return.”
Feeling the female breath and heat, and hearing her heartbeat ask for things he couldn’t give, Phesx gulped, jumped his right eyebrow and walked off to a nearby bathroom. He felt their hot gazes on his back, making him sigh as he walked past some dance floors.
“Hey, you. What are you hiding from?!” A man suddenly shouted. Phesx turned, immediately finding who addressed him. The man was startled when Phesx directly stared at him, but smiled wide open before nodding and pointing at him. “You must be a Preutian!”
“What are you doing with a mask, though? Afraid you’ll find some fanatics or the ‘bad side’ here?” The man asked again, still moving and bouncing to the music, although it was a bit too slow for that.
Phesx Caolia smirked. His mask contrasted his lips even more, turning that smirk into something straight males would bully him for daring to make them doubt their sexuality. In a slightly loud voice, Phesx echoed with, “Yes. But no. Afraid I’ll find some without a gun. It’ll be too much of a pity!”
With that, Phesx went on his way to find a bathroom. The man left behind smiled, still moving on and on as he walked elsewhere, dancing that belly and his hands at the sides of his hips.
Phesx Caolia took his time. He cleaned his hands after dropping the gloves, ensuring none of ‘that’ remained, and watched his face a bit before taking his mask off after checking for cameras.
Poking his nose’s tip with his left ring finger, Phesx covered his face with a theatrical mask, similar to Riverlye, and red, but of a reindeer shape. Once he was finished, he exited the bathroom.
Walking back into the open space, and to the smallest bar, he found the girls gone, replaced by a few suited men, looking like guards. Some had glasses, a stupid thing under a dark ceiling. Phesx walked to them, about to sit down, when his left shoulder was grabbed by one of them.
“You can’t sit here,” he said. Phesx looked up, noticing a young man with a slender figure and short, wild-exotic hair. He looked dangerous, with small, slit eyes and small features, almost looking sickly. He played with a kunai, quite a foreign type of knife in Lýmoca.
Phesx couldn’t help but tilt his head to the right when he saw this, but he still looked at the man whose hand grabbed him first, “Why? What happened?”
“There’s another seat for you. Elsewhere,” the man spoke sternly, taking no for replies. Phesx Caolia looked at the bartender, who looked troubled but lightly nodded at him. Phesx gulped before nodding at the man, “Okay.”
“Don’t worry, here. Let me bring you in. My brother doesn’t like young boys, well, he does. Just not like that. Have you felt bored so far? Lýmoca isn’t like Preut back then, but some groups can give you exactly what you want…” The young man hugged Phesx Caolia’s shoulders with his left arm, bringing him to the inconspicuous door at the side with the other suited men.
Phesx walked in without troubles, feeling relaxed with the young man’s words. He even made chatter with the fella, “Do you have any information when Preut’s war will finish?”
“Nah. But it will be obvious when it happens. Why? Want to return there?” The young man gave Phesx a glare at the end of his words. Phesx jolted his neck mockingly, “I only want to know when that damned place stops existing.”
“Hahaha,” the young man heartily laughed before patting his back. Phesx stopped before another gate in the dark, whose circular windows at the top of both sides showed a lot of brightness, making it impossible to see the other side.
“Let’s go. My brother will like you.” The young man said before opening the left gate. Being gestured to go in, Phesx stepped forth after taking a couple of deep breaths. What welcomed him was a ‘golden’ room. That was the first combination of words that came to his mind.
White sofas with pale gold flooring, beige walls, and a disco ceiling. A white blond man with short, steep hair combed upwards sat on a sofa, wearing a leather coat with fur around the neck. His feet had sandals, with 2 thin young women massaging his toes. They wore superficial, large white glasses.
‘Oh dear.’ Phesx mentally commented while his face showed he was awestruck. The man was contented with this, offering Phesx, “Take a seat.”
Phesx obeyed and sat in the 3-seater sofa in front of the man, with an isle table in between. The man’s sofa was a 9-seater one with a lower height, so Phesx felt tiny in front of it. A few guards posed behind his sofa’s corners, with the rest forming a line on each side in between their sofas.
“I heard you know very well how to use guns.” The man took a drink and said with upturned eyes after dropping his glass on the table, pressing on Phesx. Phesx was immobile, so the man believed he startled him.
Nevertheless, Phesx grinned behind his mask. He never said that, but the man wanted to fish. Unfortunately, his lagoon only had nuclear bomb metal remains. Phesx raised his volume and voiced, “To have a bar where you conduct your meetings. Guards who all wield a gun at their waist or hidden between their butt cracks. And more than anything, paying even the rats to whisper you any information or inconvenience inside your ‘private’ club.”
“You want control, and you have power, so you want to use control to enhance it.” Phesx Caolia stood up, making the guards behind him a bit tense, reaching for their handguns. Phesx looked down at the man, who stupidly stared back up at him.
“That’s too lame. Besides, you have no protection around your club. What was I expecting?” Phesx tilted his head to the right, letting it hang loosely. He looked quite comical, and a bit cute. “Of course, I couldn’t have asked for more, coming from people who scam an old man.”
The man knitted his eyebrows, feeling about to remember something, with his eyes also shining, noticing Phesx no longer wore a small mask covering only his eyes and nose.
Puh- pam- dash~… But just then, Phesx looked behind his left. The guard there had just let go of his handgun’s hold when seeing that the young boy wasn’t moving towards his boss. Phesx kicked the sofa’s lower front side with his right sole, striking the guard’s right shin. At the same time, with his eyebrows furrowing fiercely, Phesx dashed to that guard, slamming his right shoulder on the guard’s solar plexus.
Phesx grabbed the handgun with ease with his left hand. He brought his head upside down and lowered his body with his upper back first towards the floor. As his shoes flew over the sofa’s backrest, he aimed the gun at the man, who looked at this with calm eyes, not even registering what was happening.
Bang bang bang. Phesx opened holes in the beautiful white and pale golden clothing before falling to the ground. He dropped on his bum, immediately breaking the man’s right arm with a quick movement from his, before pressing his left foot on the right jugular as well.
He aimed the handgun at the guards to the left of the 3-seater sofa, shooting between their eyebrows and sides of their brains while the guard he held squirmed but tried to free himself, punching his left knee nonstop.
Crrrjjt! Just then, Phesx saw a tiny glint flash past the falling guards, whose bodies went limp, dropping dead. A kunai flew to his left shoulder, opening his flesh with a new cut, worsening the injury that was still healing. Phesx looked at the young man, whose body heavily breathed and face became terrified.
Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang… Giving his left shoulder a glance, Phesx returned his eyes to the young man before aiming at him, dropping a barrage until the handgun was empty, and the young man’s frail body crashed to the floor in pain.
Hearing footsteps and safety switches being turned off, Phesx didn’t bother looking down. He roughly threw the handgun backwards before rolling forth, bringing the guard’s body to cover his butt with his left heel under the guard’s neck, and his right heel under the right knee to keep the body steady.
Before the guard could land one punch on Phesx’s back, he was shot thrice in the column, and another 4 times elsewhere by his colleagues. Phesx didn’t let his sacrificed ‘comrade’ down, though. Phesx’s position lifted the guard’s body a little, letting him peek with the handgun of another guard below the body.
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Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang- bang, bang, bang, bang bang, bang bang.
The guards shot his ‘comrade’ until they nearly headshot Phesx twice without even realizing, penetrating the disfigured skull and neck of their colleague. But while they opened fire like crazy over the sofa, Phesx only needed a few precise paused shots to kill them in one go.
The guards took the sofa as a reliable cover for whatever reason, which Phesx used to blast their genitals before headshooting them after they knelt or stumbled backwards. Even those who fell behind the table back-first were accurately headshot though the furniture and glass. Other guards farther to the side, with no clear vision, and running towards them, tripped with their feet being cruelly shot.
Phesx finished them as well, killing everyone in the room before his legs suffered any other grazing bullet. He kicked the guard’s corpse off his feet, slamming it against the sofa before standing up. He walked to his left, with his handgun nearly out of bullets.
Still in his left hand, he casually aimed at the closed gates before firing thrice. One on the left side lower half and another through the glass, while the other on the other side’s lower half. 3 corpses opened the gates, leaving them wide for Phesx to hear better the screams of others in the open space.
Phesx directly walked to a guard he killed, which he saw holding the only firearm here not a handgun. It was a submachine gun. Although it was second-hand, it was better than what the military camps in Preut had. It should have been military grade a few centuries ago.
It was dark green, with a bricked pattern atop, and a reverse trapezoid shape for its main structure with a short barrel. Not only that, but it had a thin, low-quality strap, which Phesx put it around his right shoulder before heading back.
Phesx lowered his presence but ran back into the open space. He feigned walking out the door before immediately retreating, whereas gunshots fired at where he would’ve stepped. One came from the left, a bit farther from the wall, as the one in the right was stuck against it. A good idea.
Phesx instantly peeked out after the guards at the sides stopped shooting, firing only 2 bullets before silence stupidly invaded their atmosphere. Phesx lowered his body, nearly sticking his chest to the floor, and aimed left and right with 2 handguns. Headshooting them at once, he retreated again as bullets rained towards him.
Phesx covered his body with the smallest body of the 3 corpses who opened the gate for him before, dragged here to cover him from the reflecting, bouncing bullets now. After the enemy stopped firing, he checked the front and saw a couple of guards head towards the inconspicuous door in the center. Phesx aimed while crouching and barraged bullets into their necks and heads.
Trrrrr. Phesx only needed a few, small bursts. Immediately after, he kicked the floor and rushed out, rushing to the right where a bar was now empty. Everyone else in the club was pushing against the white doors that wouldn’t open no matter what.
They were desperate and sobbing, with some pissing themselves on others or at a few corners. A few were around the club, bawling and paralyzed. But when bullets sounded even closer to them, they looked back only to see a masked figure rush into a bar that was immediately turned into a beehive.
Bang bang bang, bang bang bang, bang trrr rrrrr rrrrrr-
“Stop, stop, stop!” - “What?!” - “My sister is behind that bar, you fucking idiots! You might have killed her just fucking now! AAAH!”
“…” Phesx blinked as he looked at the one-eyed young woman with a tiny gun held between her limp hands, now loose on the floor, and lifeless. When he heard them shout some more, he threw the metal tray he was placing before him, as protection against more rounds in piles, above the counter.
Bang bang trrr- trrrr rrrrrrr rrrrrrr rrrrrrr.
They shot at the tray before aiming at the bar again, but this time, Phesx slid to their right, to a speed they couldn’t comprehend. Just as Phesx was 20 meters away, still sliding fast through the dance floors and going up some step stairs, he fired at them. Cleanly mowing them like dead grass with their faces gaining at least 3 bullets each, he went up the staircase.
Phesx reloaded the submachine gun before going to another bar, killing everyone hiding behind it except for those who he saw dancing away and not like the girls surrounding him before, spying on him. Then, he went to another bar.
All the guards were finished. Most had handguns, with only 2 of them with submachine guns. It might seem little, but to own submachine guns in such a small club, and dozens of guards, as well as light armor for each guard, it wasn’t easy talk.
Even then, Phesx aimed at their heads, and everything went smoothly. To put it in other words, in a video game setting, Phesx had perfect autoaiming cheat to fire at the enemies, also automatic fire to overkill each enemy with 3 bullets to their faces.
But this was real life, and reality, as always, naturally surpassed fiction. Just watching Phesx insta-annihilate each guard made the people crazier, scratching the white doors and pushing each other out of the way to try charging at it.
Phesx cleaned each bar, killing even the bartender who attended him earlier, not giving him any chances, before semi-running to the crowd. Phesx’s arrival didn’t make them silent, only louder. It got worse as he purposely reloaded the submachine gun before them.
“Ah, dammit! I’ll save you all, just run!” A hero wearing a green shirt and long, curly hair shrilly screamed before rushing at Phesx. Phesx hit him with the submachine lightly. The young man didn’t understand and tried to take the submachine gun, thus gaining another hit below his left eye, this time knocking him cold.
Another young fella, looking like a friend of the last hero, looked at Phesx before moving towards him. Phesx slightly rolled his eyes. As he did, he grabbed one of his hand guns with his left hand, still holding the submachine gun with the other, and fired the second hero’s left knee.
Bang. “AAAAAAAAAH!” A young woman shrilly screamed to the top of her lungs. Phesx saw a few animals’ testosterone tremble, making them turn around and charge towards him instead. Phesx Caolia stepped back 4 times in a row, breaking knees and ending athletic careers before walking to the right, where the craziest people were pushing and stomping on each other.
Trrrrrr rrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrr…
“… … …” Now, there was finally silence after Phesx emptied ⅔ of the magazine. A few young people’s legs were shot, but none were fatally injured. Those who were being stomped met their new floor partners as everyone grew quiet.
Phesx brusquely flicked his submachine gun before everyone stared at him quietly. Phesx checked them before aiming his rifle. It was a drastic change, from ‘threatening’ them, to actually aiming, anyone could realize the change. They tensed up, and to their horror, one of them was shot dead.
Trr. Phesx made a man with white shirt drop dead, holding a communications device, probably from other ‘employees’ resting or in other parts of the city. Then, he aimed at others. Trr. Trr. Trr. Trr…
Phesx proceeded to take down every person he marked before entering the inconspicuous door. His submachine gun did all the talking. He didn’t want his voice to be recorded, as some would most likely video shoot for evidence later, or in case they died. And Phesx didn’t want to massacre more than a hundred people for nothing.
When his targets used others as shields, cowering away and whatnot, Phesx tilted his head brusquely to the sides until someone understood and pushed that person outside the crowd. Then, Phesx immediately shot their head, saving them the trouble from lifting it, not wanting their ugly eyes to just stare at him.
From the on, anyone who cowered was pushed out. Not everyone was his target, so Phesx ignored some, making it clear some people weren’t his targets. The bizarre situation brought everyone comfort. They only hoped the police would arrive already, and that they wouldn’t offend this madman.
Even more bizarre was when a short girl was pushed out of the crowd again and again by a tall, muscular man surrounded by hot chicks. Phesx got bored of him and shot his hands and both shoulders like smacking a dog’s butt. Keeping it quiet.
After Phesx finished, he took a device from his rear pants pockets, scaring the shit out of the crowd. But when he pressed the button, they didn’t become 20% of their current bodies, nor did they decorate the club. The white doors just opened.
“RUN!” A person shouted, without need. Everyone picked their feet up, even helping each other to not fall down, and rushed outside, not noticing a few trails of blood coming out from some doors in other hallways to the sides. They ran and ran until they were a few streets away, near the plaza, where some officers in cars without lights on became startled. From then on, another scandalous event surged…
When they left, Phesx went to one of the bathrooms, into one of them in particular. Some saw him remain inside for who knew what reason, but they didn’t care, if only a little curious. Once in the bathroom, he went to the booth dedicated to a janitor’s tools and pipes’ reading.
Looking inside the booth, Phesx sighed with a sad face before taking his mask on, keeping any of his features from showing for the camera above, facing the floor. Then, he put the toxic mask protection at the side on before grabbing a hammer. Then, he struck the ground below the pipelines’ readers. Phesx didn’t have to wait for much, as it was purposely a weak foundation.
Once Phesx broke a hole he could fit in, he closed his gloves tight around his wrists before going down. There, he just had to open the barred gate leading to the sewers, whose key only the janitor could use, but Phesx didn’t have time to look for it, so he used his new hammer to escape the club.
He had to drag his body for a few hundreds of meters before he could set foot in the man-walking sewers.
. . .
Riverlye HQ. 3 hours later. Principal workshop.
A clean, good-smelling, and innocently smiling Phesx Caolia stood on a stool beside Pheli’s counter. He just went into her workshop, gave her a glance, greeted her briefly, and brought the stool to sit near her.
Pheli blinked. She didn’t even bother to close the tabs showing all the different angles of his doings, from the moment he came into the dance floors to his fearsome appearance before the crowd’s eyes.
He shot, bashed, and even punished those accordingly, although that hardly mattered. After seeing the ease at which he showed the world the secrets of the underground, nothing mattered…
“You know why the Head or the Instructors have still not cared about what you’ve done?” Pheli said, not refusing to entertain him. Phesx shrugged, “No. Tell me.”
Pheli hung her head to the left, looking at him like an elder sister would to their bratty baby brother. Phesx bit his lower lip softly, covering it with his upper lip and teeth. Pheli finally rolled her eyes and relaxed her elbows behind her chair. “Because your previous actions made their sale only bigger. Riverlye also gained prestige, and now, they will be more than glad to ‘hint’ at other lags whose rabid dog did it.”
“So, want to go on a date to that pizzeria?” Phesx Caolia nodded before blurting out. It was his heart and instincts; his soul— speaking.
“…” Pheli lifted her left eyebrow and hooked the right corner of her mouth downwards. She smirked from the other corner as her face relaxed, feeling something in her chest with Phesx’s eyes roaming all around her visage. “Yeah. I think you’ve earned it.”
…