Take The Curve At 95

[ItzToxie]

Fisk’s lips peeled back into a wicked grin as he heard Verity say her answer.

“No mercy...” He repeated. He slapped the side of his gun with a “WOO!” Visibly giddy about the events that were to unfold. This was fun again. It wasn’t like with Gregory, where once the chase was finished, the weight of his actions bared down at him as he crossed the line he never knew he had. Wasn’t like with Junji where he was still reeling from the hangover of a lifetime with rage to keep him going.

This was like, before, when his friends were here. When this was a game. When it was fun, when they knew they were going to win. That rush he felt, cutting Seth into ribbons, or laying his mark on Ivan. Power. Reason. Pure cured conscious.

He knew why. He hated Ivan. Hated him for everything because of this game. His luck, his tenacity. The fact he won one on one. The fact he took EVERYTHING he ever cared about away from him. Not only that, bastard had it coming. Fisk knew Ivan had it coming. Soon his friends could rest; maybe not Fisk himself, but if there’s some afterlife and they were all waiting for him, when Ivan would breathe his last, they’d know. When it was Fisk’s time to go, he could tell them with a smile, that’d he got him, and they’d reply with so did they when Ivan showed up on the other side.

Of course he’d make that bastard suffer before he goes. Fisk was waiting for that too. Repeat performance of Gregory but worse. Instead of tears, there’s be laughter. Too much, much too much. People’d think Fisk crazy for it, but he was waiting so, so, so long now. Every plead, every time Gregory asked ‘why?’ that cut through Fisk’s heart as Gregory drowned in the pain of a world that forsaken him would be repeated by Ivan. Instead of it hurting Fisk; instead of contemplating his actions for punishing someone who was led astray by the environment around him, someone who really didn’t deserve his fate, killer or not, Fisk would rejoice.

Ivan deserved it.

He’d keep going long after Ivan was dead. Flay the body, but a patch of skin to leave Fisk’s trademark. Nail him up on a wall, cruicify him for the others to see, the world outside too. Cut him open pull his guts out and spread them around the ship like Christmas ribbon. Splash him with chum and let the birds eat him. Find the remnants of the cocaine or any medical drug he could to prolong that bastard’s suffering for as long as possible.

Then just stand at the railing and laugh. Laugh at the yacht of spectators. Laugh at the drones, the occasional sky chopper. Laugh at the cameras. Laugh long, laugh loud. Laugh last until his voice went hoarse.

Fisk inhaled a rattley laugh just thinking about it. “Yeah we’re gonna get that motherfucker, gonna get his friends too...” They were experts at the raiding party tactic at this point. Fisk and Verity survived large scale assaults. Mandy had to survive them with Seo Yun.

“We pull the sleight of hand, easiest magician trick in the world. Divert, distract, destroy. We go at it from all sides, U shaped. I get their attention, you guys come along the sides. We get them in a fatal funnel, and just killzone the shit out of them with bullets. With Ivan, blast his fucking knees out, I want him alive and helpless. Everyone else, dealer’s choice. They’re all going down regardless.”

He knew why he felt good about this. For once he was hurting people for a good cause. Because his friends that he lost deserved some closure. Because his allies deserved to go home. Because why should some no-life, no-matter, nobodies go home off of the work his friends made to get to where they’re at. When there’s at least 8, no, 9 people who’ve deserved it more tenfold than any of these useless whelps. Because how many of that trash would sacrifice their own friends, their own mothers even, for their chance at fame, for their chance to go home and be a leech after peaking their entire lives through some one week span of events. Because anyone of those selfish hypocrite fucks who’d value their own measly miserable meandering lives over their friends deserved what they got coming to them. Fisk aimed to give it.

That, in the purest essence, was the meaning of The Respects. The musketeer code, the only real team in this game. The inseparable ones. The ones who understood the meaning of being bound by fire. The ones who’d give their lives for their friends in a heartbeat. They were the ones to make it back. The fittest wasn’t some unga bunga who just killed everything it met. It was the wolf pack, the family, the civilization. Strength in not only numbers, but by blood, by purpose. You couldn’t force that with a bandanna. The producers want to prove him wrong, that it can’t work, that it won’t. They’ve done everything in their power, even cheating, and yet here they were. Proof that real bonds couldn’t be beaten. Mandy was proof of that. Fisk was proof of that. Even Verity who may not have understood it acted upon it and was proof of that.

“Let’s go tear these bitches up.”

Forever Respects. Respects forever.

“Viva la Respects!”

((Fisk Bateman continued elsewhere.))

[MurderWeasel]

Mandy pumped the hand that wasn't holding a gun and went "Woo woo" because, like, she didn't really know what else to do. They had a plan, and that was what she wanted, and it sounded like something simple enough to execute. Pincer, shoot 'em up, call it a day. Easy-peasy, excepting the part where all Mandy had ever successfully shot was the ceiling, but she'd somehow managed a way better impression than she would've ever believed possible so that information didn't need to become common knowledge right now. They could all laugh about it when and if there was a later to do so.

The good thing was, it wasn't like she was forcing her enthusiasm. She was stoked, not to be killing and not really about whatever arcane grudge Fisk wanted to settle, but because she was now once again part of a team with a plan and some real hope to carve their way through this. A whole lot of the time, Mandy was just kind of tolerated as a tag-along by her classmates, and if that was what she'd met with the rest of the Blue Team she would've been totally content with that, happy to ride along and do what she was told and simply be thankful not to be thrown to the wolves. But nope, they were inviting her in, trusting her and treating her like she belonged, like she was a friend, and that was something she hadn't really expected to find again after Seo-yun left.

A name could mean a lot. Mandy knew that firsthand, because how her last name was spelled was something her classmates had found endlessly hilarious for as long as she could remember. Before now, she hadn't felt any real attachment to her team, hadn't viewed them as anything other than hypothetical tools to be used after Seo-yun got out. When Kamille had been killed, his affiliation was why Mandy was upset—it was one fewer tool for her to use. As a person, he meant less to her than most of the others. That was why all that stuck was the color. Give him red or pink or black, and she would've been fine with anything happening to him. What she cared about was her friend, and that had defined and directed her path.

But they weren't the Blue Team anymore. They were the Respects, and she had no idea why or what that meant to Fisk, but she knew what it meant to her. That word, "respect," was simple, but it was something Mandy hadn't known a whole lot of in her life. Seo-yun had treated her with respect. Now Fisk and Verity were too. Whatever happened next, that was all she could ask for in a team. It meant she had something to look out for besides just herself, and that was in many ways easier for her to understand and work with.

"Let's do this," she said, redundantly. "No mercy."

Time to get back to work. She'd helped one killer make it home. What was two more?

((Mandy Gross continued in Hotline Miami))