Running From Himself 3-27A

The Mossberg 590 Cruiser.

A pump-gun with a pistol-grip instead of a shoulder stock, Hughie had heard the far-too-recognizable chk-chk of it more times than the weapon had gauges. The thing was apparently supe-tough, at least compared to normal guns, considering the amount of times he’d seen it get knocked around, dropped onto concrete soaked in everything from water to mud to blood and treated like it was landscaping equipment.

Hughie knew all that and too much more, month after month after month of being one room over from Frenchie and Mother’s Milk getting him real familiar with all sorts of things he didn’t think he’d ever need to know.

More than anything, he knew it was heavy in his hands.

Heavier than he expected, at least; that was the main thing that kept surprising him about guns honestly. He knew they were loud and he’d gotten used to that since he’d fired off his first automatic weapon like a crazy person, but the weight…

Just the way it sat forward past his hands, threatening to point at the ground unless he kept it high.

But it fit those hands anyway, the weapon settling into his grip from the moment Frenchie had shoved it at him a minute ago. Where the man even pulled it from, that was a question for the ages, but also standard for Frenchie. The gearhead pulled guns out of thin air the way other people had sticks of gum on them.

The gun didn’t matter much, though, not compared to the feeling it gave him.

Safe and solid, it was something to grip tight to and focus on — the facts of the weapon repeating in his head; everything from the smooth action to the top-mounted safety flitting through his thoughts like a mantra.

“-ughie!”

Hugh Campbell Jr pressed his back hard against the shredded tire of a wrecked truck, jaw hurting as he sunk his frame into the wheel well. “Yeah?” He nodded his head slow as he turned to face MM, the big man crouched tight next to him and Frenchie with a frown as deep as the smile on Hughie’s face was wide. “What’s wrong, MM?”

“Wh-” That frown deepened further, MM’s nose wrinkling at something that wasn’t just leaking transmission fluid and something chemical hissing under the rain. “You seriously askin’ what’s wrong?”

“Y-yeah.” Hughie’s nod came quicker this time, a laugh coming with the smile he didn’t remember wearing. “I mean, other than the obvious.” His chin jerked at the chaos all around them, the air still shuddering as Vikor was still pushing himself to his feet; Thrymr still lying in a growing pool of his own blood and trying to keep his insides on the inside.

All the gang members were still throwing down in the fray — a half-dozen alone clambering onto the sluggish viking-man — even as a returned Norska blasted down on their heads. 

The white-caped woman wasn’t alone, the rest of Stormfront’s family trying to pull itself together against the Rojos. The spear-throwing girl was dancing in tune with some shirtless guy in a leather jacket, both of them throwing gold light and ball bearings out in tandem as they tried to defend both the bearded giant and the dying blond man.

“Kid, you’ve been mutterin’ under your breath and gigglin’ like a crazy person since Frenchie handed you that pump, man.” MM’s eyes slid down to the weapon in question. “On some Fullmetal Jacket shit.”

Born to kill, huh? Sounds about right. Hughie shook his head, thoughts about the duality of man pushed aside as he glanced over at Frenchie for confirmation. Not that he didn’t trust Mother’s Milk, but a second opinion didn’t hurt.

All he got back was a nod and simple, “He’s not lying, Petit Hughie.”

“...well…” He didn’t have more to give them other than a shrug as his eyes went high again, peering around the side of the car to try and track Annie through the smoke and chaos. “Just thought of something funny.”

Like how their ‘fearless leader’ had taken his wife and her kid and went running for Reggie’s Escalade. Mother’s Milk may have given them the go-ahead but Hughie wasn’t going to pretend for a second that Butcher had wasted a moment in even looking back after that.

His hand tightened on the grip of the Mossberg, mouth twitching as he forced another laugh down under the watchful eye of MM. “Real funny.”

He was willing to find a joke where he could, anything to take the edge off another fight he couldn’t contribute to even with a gun in hand.

“...whatever you say, kid.”

Hughie shook his head again, attention going back to the fight as a mess of blood splattered across the ground; one bald-headed psychopath enjoying himself even while Kimiko acted like a human meat grinder against his body, standing all of 5'2".

If the other Nazis looked like the classic kind, blond and neat and proper, this guy was definitely the Neo brand; his head shaved and his scarred-up chest layered in tattoos that seemed to glow the more he got hurt. 

He was fast, too.

And not human fast — supe fast.

Kimiko could outpace any car not on the highway, but this guy could blur at what looked like double that as he charged back at the small Japanese woman with a laugh on his lips. And that laugh made perfect sense, because as much as Kimiko put him through a car hood and tore chunks out of his body with each swipe, the man was still not losing.

If anything, she was.

He didn’t hit as hard as Kimiko but the guy really didn’t need to when he could land two or three of his own for every single blow she landed. Hughie watched it happen a few more times; the skinhead darting in with two or three shots and by the time Kimiko swung out, he was already gone.

“Roknar!” He came back laughing, hands to his own bare chest and thumping it proudly. The guy didn’t even seem to care about the blood running down the side of his neck; veins pumping thick red from where Kimiko had taken her (literal) pound of flesh. “That’s the name! You oughta know what you’re gonna be screamin’ soon as I get that little geisha ass in the air—”

Jesus Christ.

“—’cause you will.” His face split wide in a grin almost as ugly as those ropey faded scars littering his body. “Be honest, I bet that sideways pussy is wet just thinkin’ about it.”

“...oooh. Ah, non.” Frenchie sucked in a low mouthful of air through his teeth, the man wincing for entirely different reasons than Hughie. “He has made her angry now.”

Mother’s Milk raised an eyebrow at the Japanese woman splattered in blood, her eyes narrowed. “She wasn’t already?”

“No, no, no. Before, she is fighting.” The Frenchman gave a small shake of his head, rifle tucked against his chest — an HK417 that Hughie didn’t remember him having a minute ago. “This is personal. Now… eh, she peels his face.”

“Peels his face.”

“Oui. Like orange.” Frenchie looked back at Hughie, one hand curling in a slow claw across his cheek. “Not banana. Banana is too easy.”
Kimiko rushed the skinhead with a silent snarl.

The fight was as messy as before, Kimiko’s tackle slamming them both against the caved-in door of a ruined Nissan. Leverage was all the woman was looking for as she caught the man in a clinch, the next motion angry and desperate.

Hughie heard the shoulder come out of the socket from forty feet out over the sound of everything else, Roknar’s scream-laugh overwhelming even that a second later. A headbutt was his follow-up, Kimiko rearing back as her nose caved in and blood went flying free to splatter the Nazi’s face again.

A dirty thumb from a still-working hand went in her eye socket immediately after, both supes tearing across the ground as Roknar dug deeper until Kimiko finally let go.

Laughing even louder, the Nazi kicked free.

By the time those combat boots hit the pavement, that dislocated arm was already dragging itself back into place — clicks and cracks almost as loud as fireworks by the time he was swinging it into Kimiko’s face with a grin.

Hughie had the shotgun up.

Up and waiting the whole time, actually, but he’d never had anything close to a clean line to aim for — not when the two regenerators kept rolling over and across the crumbling asphalt like alley cats.

Then the street farther down filled up with the same man a dozen times over and Hughie’s eyes went white. …wait.

Kenji was in the middle of all the men, twelve different copies of the same shirtless leather jacket wearing supe in a silver chain — all of them on the move.

“That’s Galdar.”

“Who?” MM blinked his way again.

“Galdar. He’s…” Hughie’s mouth worked for a second, trying to find the words. “He’s kinda like a street magician? Like a supe magician, kinda? More Criss Angel than David Blaine, I think, and does something with illusions and telekinesis or magnetism or something, it was a little vague honestly. He had a special on Vought+... that you probably haven’t… seen…”

A parking meter wrenched itself out of the sidewalk, Hughie trailing off as it went at Kenji sideways. “...whatever.”

Kenji kept turning, eyes snapping from side to side to whichever clone was closest as his hands rose to block whatever kept flying his way. A split second later, he spun to face the Galdar standing dead ahead and almost sacrificed the integrity of his skull to a piece of rebar that came in from behind.

With a roar in a language Hughie was still learning, Kenji gave up trying to find the real one and went for the street instead.

Two parked cars left the ground, doors torn off the front of a shuttered Rite Aid, and whole broken slabs of asphalt joined in ugly rebar-packed chunks; a wide sweep across the street that didn’t care which Galdar was real.

Half the Rojos left in the street dove flat and eleven different copies failed to do the same as they vanished under flying rubble. The last one dodged a car, a clean graceful dive that had Hughie almost believing the man was a magician.

The second car caught him with both feet off the ground, the man folded around the front bumper as he was slammed bodily into a parked truck.

Then Kenji turned both hands over and the whole tangled wreck — Galdar included — was brought down hard enough the shocks blew out on the truck and the alarm blared loud for all of a second.

Somewhere, a girl’s scream tore above the noise; every single one of the pale-gold spears in the air winking out like dying stars. “GABRIEL!”

The blonde Nazi supe tore down toward the wreck fast enough to leave a wake behind her in the rain — “Gabriel! Answer me! Answer me right n—!"

A beam of bright yellow tore through the air, a blast that was familiar as his own hand to Hughie taking the girl out of the air in a single shot.

"...Galdar."

The skinhead froze as Kimiko swung at him, the man stumbling with the hit as he looked over at the crushed car. “Galdar? Gabr—” A stumbling step took him that direction, the blue of his tattoos fading as his skin paled. “Gabe!”

Nothing came back out of the wreck.

With a roar, the regenerator roared at Kenji.

He didn’t get a chance as Kimiko tackled from the side before he could pick up speed. Both bodies tore a mailbox out of the ground, the two supes a mess of limbs and blood as they rolled twenty feet down the sidewalk. “Get the fuck off—!”

An elbow into Kimiko’s face sent her reeling, two more at blur speeds rocking the woman’s head back. She caught his wrist, two fingers crushed to a mess of red pulp. A snarling Roknar bit down into Kimiko’s forearm, and tore a chunk free with just his teeth, already on his feet and moving again as his hand straightened itself.

The fast regenerator might have been a good bit weaker than Kimiko but he used that speed for what it was worth, hitting her again while her arm hung limp with so much muscle missing. A roar and a throw put Kimioko through the shoulder of a delivery van, Roknar already on her before she could get her bearings.

One yank did to her what she did to him just minutes ago, her arm nearly torn clean from the socket and, with a yell, he put both feet into her stomach.

Kimiko went through the van door and Hughie was moving before he’d decided on it.

"Petit Hughie—"

"I know, Frenchie." 

He knew but it wasn’t going to stop him as he stepped out from behind the truck. Water running down the back of his collar as the rain kept going, the whole street suddenly looked a lot wider than it had looked from behind a few tons of Ford.

Roknar stood over the van, breathing hard as his runic tattoos refused to glow as bright as they did just seconds ago. With another grunt, he spat blood onto an unmoving Kimiko and turned to face Kenji.

“You…” He turned his back. “You killed my little brother!”

Hughie walked closer and closer; cheek against the stock of his gun, he breathed low through twitching lips, well aware this would probably be the last shot he ever got at this.

“Hey.”

Roknar didn’t turn around.

Hughie fired anyway.