Ambush

#1

((...))

A sputtering car came to a stop just outside a roped-off fence, a building of concrete and glass looming in the far distance. The car door flew open, and a man holding a black mask stepped out onto the desert sands. He didn't close the door behind him, instead removing the keys from the ignition and circling around to the trunk.

The road that had led the man to this point had been long and treacherous. He hailed from Los Angeles, and had originally been the type to participate in underground fight clubs; the kind where everyone was allowed to use their Gifts however they wanted. He had made a lot of money betting on himself—it was hard to lose when he could see every possible outcome a few seconds in advance. He wasn't super strong or fast, and he couldn't do anything out of the ordinary, but he didn't need any of that. All he needed was knowledge and fighting experience.

Opening the trunk, he rummaged around through his supplies, slipping a few metal batons into his waist belt, and feeling the perpetual ache that haunted his elbow and shoulder flare in response.

The man eventually grew tired of the constant injuries caused by his hobby, but didn't want to give up fighting and the rush that came with it. He decided that if he was going to get injured either way, he wanted to do so by helping people. So he saved his money and set out to make that new goal a reality, though he had no intention of following the law while doing so. The law was too frequently unjust, in his eyes. Instead he would rely on his own sense of right and wrong, and act accordingly.

Continuing his rummaging, he pulled out an old, red switchblade and tucked it into his pocket.

Most of his new job boiled down to keeping an eye on individuals with dangerous Gifts and bad attitudes, using his own Gift to make sure he could intervene before they hurt anyone. Over the course of his career, he had managed to prevent more than a few murders, stopped a dozen rapists in their tracks, and ended a few muggings before they were even able to start. He got into a groove doing it all, and earned a positive reputation within the communities he protected.

From out the trunk came another weapon, this time a canister of bear mace, placed into the other pocket.

But everything about what he was doing and why changed when he found Jessica. She was different from his usual marks. Not because she had started out all that differently—he had become fairly accustomed to the gradual escalation in brutality that occurred with every criminal with a violent power—but rather because of how unique her Gift was.

He took out a package of zip-ties, still unopened, and tossed them in a duffel bag along with some extra rations.

The moment that Jessica managed to talk her way out of an arrest, right in front of his eyes, he realized the magnitude of the threat she posed if she was allowed to run rampant. Unfortunately for him, he didn't understand how her Gift worked, and stopping her at the risk of becoming enthralled wasn't one he was willing to take.

He slipped a pair of brass knuckles over his fingers on both hands, and then put a pair of worn MMA gloves over top.

Instead of risking himself, he had opted to track and follow her, and she became his own personal obsession. He tried to catch her out, but over and over again, no matter what situation he trapped her in, she would always escape. As he would put it: "it was like dealing with a Machiavellian Houdini". With time and repeated failures, his apprehension at confronting her only grew, directly in proportion with her own growing power and ambition, all enabled by his inaction.

Only now she had gone too far. He didn't have another choice.

He slipped the black balaclava over his head, an old one that he had worn from the very beginning.

She was going down.

Crocodile stood, duffel bag in hand, held aloft and open as Bear plucked another one of the cameras out of the sand and placed it inside, with the others. The two of them were standing a few feet away from the black sedan that had brought them here, trunk open and full of similar duffel bags to the one he was holding.

"So," he started to say, "how do you think it's gonna work out for Walt and Jesse?"

Bear grumbled.

"I think they're both gonna get what's coming to them," she said. "We can get back to watching it when we get done with this..."

"If we get done with this," he replied, regretting the words almost as soon as they came out of his mouth.

"Don't say shit like that," Bear snapped, "we're gonna make it through this, insane as it is."

It was unfortunate for them that their masks acted as blinders, obscuring the masked man slowly approaching them from behind.

"You think we can finally just go?" he asked, "'cause I don't think I want any part in this anymore."

"I'm not going anywhere, like it or not," Bear replied, "but I think she'd be okay with you-"

The two of them startled in unison when they heard the sound of a footstep crushing dry underbrush a few feet behind them.

"What- WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?"

Crocodile dropped the bag, yanking his gun out of his pocket and leveling it at the new arrival. He screamed, closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger until he heard the gun click. Twelve shots rapidly fired off, rattling his bones and filling the air in front of him with smoke. When he reopened his eyes, he expected to see a corpse, but instead witnessed the masked man unharmed and coming straight for him. Crocodile wasn't able to register the shock before he watched the stranger twist, and felt a metal baton slam into his hands, knocking the gun out of his grip and sending him stumbling back.

"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!" he heard Bear shout, before seeing her disappear into thin air.

If he had the time to process the fact that his only lifeline had abandoned him to die, he might have cursed her for her cowardice, and begged his assailant for mercy. However, he had no such luxuries, not even processing that she was gone before the stranger's fist collided with his face, and everything went black.

Crocodile awoke a few minutes later, kneeling in the sand, groggy and aching, mind buried underneath a fog. He immediately noticed that he had been unmasked, now properly able to see all around him, and then tried to move, only to realize his hands and ankles were bound. His walkie-talkie, still on his belt, came to life, with Tiger's voice coming through, saying something that sounded like incomprehensible babble to Crocodile through the fog.

Then he felt a cold metal tube press itself against the back of his head, and the fog cleared itself away in the ensuing panic.

"HEY HEY," he exclaimed, "OKAY WAIT WE CAN TALK ABOUT THIS, LOOK, IF THIS IS ABOUT TIJUANA, I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT SHIT, IT WAS DIEGO, YOU'RE LOOKING FOR DIEGO-"

"Shut up."

Crocodile ceased his babbling immediately, swallowing the lump in his throat.

"Where is Jessica?" the stranger asked.

"I-" Crocodile started to say, wanting to sell her out more than anything, but not finding the willpower to actually do so. "She's- I can't-"

"You will lead me to her," the stranger interrupted, "or I will kill you."

Crocodile was silent for what felt like an eternity. He was sure that he was about to be shot at any moment, abandoned as a dead end and left to bleed out on the desert sands. Only the shot never came, his fear and anxiety growing with each passing moment, until finally, like a dam bursting, he found the courage to speak again.

"Okay," he stammered. "Okay, man, whatever you say. Get in the car."

The stranger grabbed Crocodile by the scruff, pulling him up to his feet in one quick, painful jerk. Crocodile felt the pistol, his pistol as he was now realizing, press into his back as he was led towards the passenger side door. The stranger opened it and roughly shoved him inside, then circled around and entered the driver's side, keys—Crocodile's keys—already in hand. Crocodile stared at the stranger as the man shoved the keys into the ignition and the car roared to life, the gravity of the situation he now found himself in only beginning to dawn on him.

The last words that came out of his mouth before the car started moving were a quiet prayer to a higher power he knew wouldn't answer.

((...))