Chapter Two: The Mission

After taking the gifts into the vault, we leave my home in my heirloom Foose Coupe which has been used in generations past by the Blaster bloodline. We start up the car and hover out of the parking lot and into highway I-38 or as I like to call it: Clusterfuck. As we accelerate to the speed of sound I take inventory. I took two of the three major gifts with me for the mission – the mission that I still have no idea or clue of what we’re doing.

“Yo, what does this mission entail oh wayward brother from another mother?” I say while looking out into the utterly anxiety-causing, seizure-inducing traffic. Neon Gash traffic, by the way, is like looking at a rainbow of grainy bright colors going so fast they could cut your head off with a spoon. In every direction, mind you.

“The mercenary guild I’m from said we’re going after some new hotshot who kills for ritualistic fun calling himself ‘Mr.Fix.’ Apart from the location, I know nothing about him. The man is like a shadow.”

“Like a shadow, huh?” I mumble to myself, while I am bewitched by the instant change of scenery. Neon Gash is and always will be one hell of a trip. I can’t help but be in awe at the amount of change this world has gone through.

Over 300 years ago, expeditionary forces from the Solus Coalition and the Xenos Council, collectively known as The Bloc, stumbled upon the third point of the Spacious Bermudas planet alignment, Xzipit, which they quickly renamed Neon Gash. Xzipit originally was made up of high atmosphere mountain ranges, acidic oceans, killer gas storms, and it was occasionally racked by 11.0 earthquakes. What lived here were indigenous mutated monsters, demons, angels, and a whole mess of trouble. The Bloc jumped at the thought of terraforming this crazed landscape. With the help of some refugee founders, mercenary races, and hyper-evolved demi-races from the outer rings of Sentiency, Neon Gash became the new safe-haven for thousands of changed beings from across the universe who would otherwise be ridiculed and massacred by The Bloc’s more hostile members. After some time clearing out a portion of the planet’s surface, The Bloc moved in on Neon Gash and began the hard work of colonizing the would-be moon.

After the first 200 years, the number of immigrating races increased, so the centuries-old government came to a conclusive decision: The District Prerogative. This project was meant to fix the problem of interspecies conflict which had gotten out of control. They decided to categorize each resident and immigrant family, tribe, or party as one of 15 different slots. Are they wealthy? Are they capable of flight? Are they at all mutated? Who do they despise? These characteristics were a few among many that the ruling elite had to analyze so that the initial jump to a new location would be suitable.

It was a much needed solution. For quite a bit of time hate crimes had been going on throughout Neon Gash, vile things had happened in the main district. Some beings just didn’t cohabit well with other beings. After some designing, electing, and a good honest 50 years of work, the 15 precursor districts of Neon Gash were born. To this day, the original 15 have thrived peacefully, and seven more districts have been added to the list.

I live in the Lower Residential District, one of the precursor districts. It houses 500,000 different beings within it. Not all districts are residential. There’s The Pit District, which is entirely upside down, The Cloud district, which as you would guess is hidden in the clouds, and The Atlas District, that’s where the top of the top live. Every warden of every district goes to talk shop and wreck politics. Most districts have their own way of electing officials like gladiatorial combat, debates, or contests. Even though each district is completely different from the last, every district warden follows the same rules of conduct within Neon Gash:

Do good to your subjects.

Do good to Neon Gash.

Do good to The Natives.

Never give the title of Warden to your kin.

Conduct jolly cooperation within the Atlas District and,

Allow revolution.

If only my family could visit more often, they’d love it here! Too bad last year’s Thanksgiving didn’t go so well. I take all the blame really. Who’d a thunk it that they’d deliver the Plutonian Mountain Turkey alive? I certainly didn’t, and Dad’s suit payed the price. Ah memories . . . What was I doing again?

“Yo Sphinx! Stop looking at the traffic. We’re here.” The car comes to a stop in mid-air and levitates slowly to the ground of the landing lot. Oh right going to The Midnight district, the 20th district to be made by the demand of the nocturnal races.

“Holy mother of Sol, this place is bonkers!” I say, mouth agape. The building in front of us looks like a gothic cathedral. It’s so big, my neck and back cracks as I arch back to take it all in. It has spires that reach high into the clouds above. They’re giving off a midnight purplish glow today. Due to the Volcanus Glower, a strange mountain that shoots out a non-lethal gas molecule that forms into different colored clouds, on the other side of the planet. The sky changes to a different color at the beginning of every day, on particularly vexing evenings I’ve seen the sky be two different colors at the exact same time.

The purple shines across the cathedral as a stunning,nightmarish shadow stretches over Rex and I. The outer part of the cathedral is made of digiplast. Digiplast is a type of metal that has the consistency of water, but the durability of metal. It’s like really grey Jell-O. If Jell-O were made of steel, of course. The digiplast, however, waves around and moves individual parts as if the entire outer appearance of the building was the ocean surface. I half expected my hand to ooze into the grey substance, but I was denied this pleasure as my hand abruptly stopped on the metal surface. If only . . . One day I will stick my hand in a large amount of jello, and I will laugh about it.

The location sends shivers down my spine and makes my stomach ache with both excitement and a tiny drop of terror.

“Well, this guy ain’t your average psychopath,” I say. “Glad I brought my gifts and my lucky dueling pistols.” I take out my pistols from their old leather holsters. Each could be classified as a force of nature. There names are “Jade Dragon” and my custom “Light ‘em up Colt Maximus.” I call these two masterpieces: “The Blitz,” my most face-blasting, mind-numbing, trustworthy pistols. The Blitz offers many many advantages in a fight: Want to melt the skin and muscle off your opponents? Use The Blitz!, Ever felt like decapitating a monster with nothing more than a storm of hellfire in the form of bullets? Use The Blitz! Can’t go wrong with em’!

The Blitz comboed with my gift is quite the doozy. My gift from my mother is called “Focus”. It’s a helmet piece that makes me look like a way more western and insane DJ from Space France that also doubles as an enhancement for my visual systems. “Focus” projects a digital “Heads Up Display” in front of the entirety of my face and changes sound into sight. Whatever makes a sound gives off a large wave of echoes that light up the battlefield in black and white. Those things that are in white are in motion, while those highlighted in black are the exact opposite. Coupled with the cybernetic mutation in my eyes, these make me a humanoid entity of gunfire, lasers, and a walloping fist of loud and quick justice. Anyway, enough with monologuing. Let’s fuckin’ do this shiyet!

“Alright. Let’s do this!” I say to Rex, my brother-in-massacre.

“Amen Brother Sphinx. Amen,” Rex says as he takes out a second grenade launcher. We enter the cathedral and are immediately at the entrance of a mammoth, beautiful garden. The garden is amazing to say the least. Thousands of species of interstellar plants mixed with robot handiwork and robot-house staff really make the place shine. Ah, robots! The garden is filled with robots. Robots watering plants, robots leaning on stone pillars, robots sitting on the roof looking at the night sky, and even in the back I can see a whole bunch of robots dancing like funk machines high on life.

“What the fuck are these guys doing here?” As I open my mouth, the robot cleaning staff stops what they are doing, take out large butchers knives and charge at us.

“How depressing to get robot blood all over such a beautiful garden,” I say as I put Jade Dragon inside my holster. Looks like Light ‘Em Up is gonna get the spotlight today. The battle kicks off with a rolicking, explosive fireshow from Rex sending a barrage of grenades into the sea of flowers. Explosions of white light up the battlefield while sounds echo off of twisted and mangled robot corpses.

“This is a raid, you trash cans with arms!” Rex roars as he sprints into the explosions. I kick off the performance with six shots fired into the charging robots. All of the insanely hot, firey bullets pierce through the robot horde. One bullet bangs into a robot’s generator and ricochets in the robotic body. The robot in question explodes in a fiery plume of shrapnel and electricity, destroying five other robots. Bliss, pure bliss is shooting through my body. My God! Gun metal has never felt so good! I continue to fire and reload until I run out of bullets. As soon as I don’t feel anymore bullets on my bandolier, I switch my pistol to “Laser-Sling Mode.” I close my hand around the weapon and gunsling at speeds not capable of human hands. Lasers pecker the endless horde of robots. At the same time, Rex lets out even more grenade barrages making the scene a laser light show of robot death. In total, I would estimate it took five minutes. Not nearly enough of a righteous battle to get a great rating on the battle scale. Otherwise known as The Super Righteous Boom-Out-Ya-Brain Battle Brother Scale. Scaled from one to A+. Last week, I ranked my raid on the Spaaaaace Craaabas B+2 out of A+. How fun!

“Goddamn it. And it was just getting good.” I say, begrudged.

“Well, whatever. Let’s get moving,” Rex says as he kicks a severed arm out of his way. We wade through the fires, burning flowers, and blackened robot corpses into the main building.

We slump through the main door. Beauty. Pure beauty. There are stained glass windows letting in the neon light from the rest of the city. Walls to our right and left are made from granite and feel cool and refreshing. The path before us leads for a long way until we find ourselves in complete darkness. During the walk, the floor changes from granite to a nice, velvet rug.

“Great demons of fire and explosion! How long does this place go on?” Rex says as we begin to pass paintings of the same dude, over and over again. A man with long black hair and side burns, connected manfully to a moustache, is on every single one of the canvases. His skin is the same color as the moon Luna, and he is always holding a big sword while standing next to a fireplace.

“This could be Mr.Fix,” I say as we walk past another portrait. This time he is on a veranda overlooking a small Austrian village.

“Nope, that would be the Duke Archibald Von Gash. The Vampian Lord related to the founders of Neon Gash.”

“Hey, whoever knew you were such a history nut Rex?”

“I’m not, my dear Brother–in–Destruction. It says his name and his station as “Descendant of the Founders” on the portrait.” I stop for a second and think. Why would there be so many pictures of this dude in another person’s crib. Maybe this is his pad.

“Sphinx stop thinkin’ important shit. There’s a light up ahead. Hurry!” I run through the velvet hallway to a set of large wooden doors, completely open. I burst through them and find myself in a galaroom. In front of me is a large pristine granite floor that stretches for 50 yards. The ceiling is beautiful and has 10 glass chandeliers dangling from chains. To the sides of me are 20 foot walls that go up and turn into a colloseum-like audience space. At the far end are three large pedestals. Atop each one stands a person. On the lowest pedestal is a one-eyed tiger cyclops holding a large shotgun-hammer. The middle pedestal has a man wearing a multi-cloak and a gas mask while at the top is a man with a TV for a head wearing a long vest with checkerboard sleeves beneath. All that is on the screen is a toothy, lipless grin. It begins to speak.

“Welcome gentleman. To the abode of myself, Mr.Fix. Before you are three powerful enemies, myself included. The two of you may choose which one to fight. Shall it be Rampa, the berserk cyclops or Dmitri, the anarchist bomber? No matter what, you both will battle me. So, don’t worry about that.” The TV head is our target, so there is no need to even approach the other two. Before I could get out my Jade Dragon to shoot the grinny bastard, the cyclops leaps over and begins to shoot rounds at us. Rex and I both run across the large gala towards our opponents. The tiger shoots and hammers away at me. Each of us trying to get a shot in, the hammer wooshes around me and I go in for a couple sucker punches to wrench out an opening. Each of us colliding with each other until I get a good couple shots in on his solar plexus. He droops for a second and then roars towards me with the colliding force of a triceratops on speed. He goes into a mad rush of hammer swings and ferocity. The fight turns into a tornado of stone, shotgun blasts, and faster than sight combat. The hits continuously come until one crushes into the side of my body. I feel ribs crack and shatter into my internal organs as I’m launched to the far left of me and into a stone wall. I feel blood rush around my ribs as my body kicks into high gear and begins to mend my wounds. I feel woozy and pissed from the sudden shock of being launched into granite.Granite for fucks sake! Granite!

“Now! You one eyed-space forsaken-poor-enemy o’ mine, now you’ve got my attention!” I roar furiously as I duck into his next hammer swing as it whizzes closely by my head. I press the Jade Dragon into his shoulder and fire, melting his skin, bones, and muscle. I slam my knee ferociously into his groin. I walk away leaving him in a whining, crying mess. For good reason. The dude just got kneed in the balls by the force of four supernovas. I turn to where I hear explosions and cursing to see a fiery party of grenades, bombs, and destructive unforgettablilty. Dmitri, all the while, is flipping and sliding away from the concussive force, while Rex is embracing the explosions and fire like a bear hugging a tree. At some point, they run out of grenades and begrudgingly begin fighting hand to hand. Dmitri barrels towards Rex, while Rex merely waits, crosses his arms, and as soon as the anarchic bomber is two feet away, and gets ready to plant his fist firmly into Rex’s face, Rex’s foot shoots out and breaks Dimitris leg on impact.

“You gasmask-wearing-piece of unholy feces-amateur-bomber! Made me waste my grenades.” Rex says coldly. As Dmitri is on the ground writhing, Rex lifts his elbow above his head, jumps up, and slams his entire body down onto the mad bomber. He stays there for a second and gets up, then continues his elbow-drop-fest of the century. It’s glorious. After half a minute of righteous dropping, Rex stands up and walks over to where I am. We each look over at our handiwork.

“Sphinx?”

“Hmmm?”

“Did you do your Supernova Knee to his balls?”

“Yup.”

“Radical,” he says and outstretches his fist to me.

“Did you give him The Elbow Drop of The Gods?”

“Totally dude. What d’you take me for? Some frillyfart-calm-as-shit-pacifist-idiot?”

“Sweet!” I bump his fist, and we begin to slump our way to Mr.Fix. Mr.Fix is sitting down at the edge of his pedestal, giggling. The giggle turns to laughter. The laughter turns to a bellow. And then the bellow turns to a cackle. The laughter takes up the entirety of the room with a destructive echo of twisted glee. He finishes his laughter slowly and procedurally. He then levels his head to us.

“You two will do fine. Just fine for my type of work.” Then, he disappears and reappears standing before us.

“Holy Space Dinosaur From Pluto!” we both scream. Like little girls, if I may say.

“Ohhhh do shut up! We three will be working together for quite sometime.”

“But, I can’t work with a demon. I’ve already made that sort of commitment. I mean I can’t do that – that’s morally wrong,” Rex says.

“Demon? What are you talking about?” What was once a strange and alien-pitched voice was now a European lord.

“Wait, just who are you?” I ask the figure. Pain shoots through my side, and I slide to the floor.

“I, my wounded warrior friend, …” Mr. Fix begins to take off the TV set and what was the face of the guy from the pictures.

“… Am Lord Augustus Bingen Archibald Von Gash … Your new employer.” The light from my eyes begins to tunnel, and I see Rex collapse next to me, unconscious. We’re both beaten, tired, and feel like shit. I close my eyes.

“Oh damn, I’ll get the nurses to help you out if I can” I hear Archibald mutter …

I black out and dream of bunnies with machine guns.