10 Demon Touch

Obligatory Disclaimer : I do not own anything (except maybe OC characters) all characters, places, worlds, universes…etc mentioned here belong to their respective owners and/or companies.

This is purely a work of fiction. Not meant to offend or incite, but to entertain and (maybe) inspire.

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DEMON TOUCH

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The heavy wind resistance no longer rattled my insides or leave my organs stirred within me, the astounding velocity did not threaten to shake loose my bones from their joints and the inertia could no longer compact my brain to the back of my skull, in simple terms, the speed of my jet-bike had little effect on my enhanced being.

What I felt however was the noise, I already possessed advanced senses, senses that received a great update, with the good came the bad. I could hear things in incredible detail, the groan of the wind on my helmet, the crash of snow against metal, the whoosh of the bike's less than stellar aerodynamic form cutting through the harsh breeze, the whistle of objects rapidly cutting through the air.

The whistle of missiles.

I banked a hard left, the shark stenciled aerodynamic warhead cut to my left and took a hard turn, sticking to my tail while another cut to my front, heat seekers or smart missiles then.

I retrieved the desert eagle and—watched the missiles separate into a mega cluster of micro missiles, the mass of explosives formed an inescapable cloud of silver bullets that closed in on me. I could gun them down but the resultant blast would create a powerful cascading explosion that would swallow me whole, leaving me unscathed—I would heal—destroying my very expensive bike and equipment in the process.

I jumped off the bike and dove down towards the snow, the bike ran off into the blue horizon, free from my control and the chase of the micro missile cluster which eagerly followed after me while I freefell to the earth.

Where was I diving to?

"Oh, you rat bastard!" The bastard who shot the missiles at me lost his grin and began running, tossing away the missile control console in an attempt to gather enough speed. I hit my teleporter and phased out a distance away, shooting up from the snow with the excess speed of my once descent. The missile cluster thunk, thunk, thunked! Into the snow and—

BOOOOOM!!—a mushroom cloud bloomed up into the atmosphere, a consuming fiery haze melted the snow into steam and turned rocks to dust, the explosive force tore a massive crater into the ground and sent far reaching shockwaves that echoed through the quiet tundra, rumbling the very earth beneath it.

I landed with a flip, bleeding off the concussive force of the blast. I approached the explosive radius and found him quite easily, even without enhanced senses, one would have to be blind to not notice the man crawling through steam with the clear lack of legs. His suit was as burnt off as his disfigured skin, from his torso downwards his intestines trailed behind him, leaving red on the ground as he crawled with a badly damaged arm away from the epicenter.

"Stop! Stay right where you are! T'is but a scratch!" He yelled, gurgling blood through his torn mask. I couldn't help it, I really couldn't. I took off my helmet and laughed my ass off. It really was Deadpool.

"You have a little something on your chin." I gestured in good humor, standing above him as he flipped on his back.

"Did I get it?" He asked, smearing the blood all over his chin. "Are you proud of me now, Alfred?" I had to chuckle at his childish sing song tone.

"You're a long way from Gotham, Bruce."

"Haha yeah…wait a minute, you got that!?" He gasped, eyes wide in disbelief.

"What? Don't you have DC movies here?" I pulled back the helmet on.

"You know them." He whispered in self realization. By them I assumed he meant the audience or perhaps the watchers or perhaps the other assassins choosing to reveal themselves.

"Are you talking about Candice.?"

"Who's Candi—!"

I tilted my head to the size, letting the bullets whizz past my ear. "You might be slightly challenging." Said Bullseye, expert assassin, trainer and role model of lady Bullseyes, shit eating grin and all. Yeah, the Hand definitely hired them.

"I thought you didn't miss." I retrieved my chainsword, pushed the switch and let it hum in my hold. No offense to these guys, but this was going to be very short work.

"Heh, that was just the distraction." He chuckled and chucked a series of explosive pellets at me. I hit the teleporter, phased away from the explosives—that sent Deadpool careening into the crater as he yelled "Asshole!" —and appeared behind Bullseye.

He reacted quickly, as fast as humanly possible even, I however was beyond a human standard at this point, so the chainsword with its ferociously hungry grin, fell on his shoulder, it generously ate through flesh, grated through bone and tore through ligament, and spat a part of his clavicle and still attached arm to the snow, dyeing the white crystals in splashes and splotches of angry red.

It was so swift a strike, Bullseye was still in mid-motion when he noticed his arm on the ground. "Fu--!" A chainsword shoved through his mouth threw everything above his chin away in a grisly malevolence that appeared as slow motion to my senses—his split jaw, his shredded teeth, his painfully widened eyes that realized he was already dead. His knees crunched into the snow, his hand fumbled above his exposed tongue and lower jaw in a cartoonish attempt of locating his head, lines of blood spurted out the terrible cut as he fell backwards into the snow, dead as the ice beneath him.

I know these things should seemingly take time, but reality was different from fiction, when faced against someone prepared and willing to kill you, you reciprocate. People die, regardless of skill, regardless of might, a lucky strike, a chance encounter could just as well render ages of training and experience useless, just ask Ogun. Regardless of what your name was or how valuable you thought your life was or how important you thought your existence was, the world did not revolve around your presence. Life goes on, fan favorites die. The important fade. Unexpected and unpredictable things happen.

I sidestepped an angry bestial howl, and the tail swipe that sent up an explosion of snow crystals. I breached its space, lashing my sword up against the hairy, trunk sized, down swinging limbs. Severing them cleanly in a feat of brute strength and skill—a surprised snarl covered its face as I easily turned on a step and swept my blade across the creature's neck while the separated stumps were still in the air. The snarl was frozen on its face as its head rolled away, its heavy body thumped to the snow in tandem with the airborne stumps and the rolling head in a satisfying triple synchronicity. Its white fur blended perfectly with the snow, the only clue it was there apart from its gigantic size was the puddle of red soaking the snow beneath it.

His name was Paul Cartier, aka Wendingo, assassin, cannibalistic hunter and former mountain climber who in his beastly form possessed enhanced strength, durability and an extensive healing factor. He was however killable, you needed to either cut his heart out or behead him.

The man was cursed to become the Wendigo after having generously consumed human flesh in the Canadian wilderness. Don't ask, only the creator understands why Canadians do the shit they do.

I picked its head up and made to stash it, you don't get to see a Wendigo every day, plus I bet it'd make a lovely wall mount, I thought, until the head reverted back to human form.

Then came a horde of ninjas in white camo, then went the ninjas chopped up and strewn about in bits and pieces over the landscape like tomatoes splattered against a concrete wall.

"Taskmaster, is that you I see?" I tossed the head right on top of a nondescript snow mound.

"…Yeah, longtime no see kid." My—for a very short stint—once former teacher, slowly rose from the mound as a zombie would from a grave, muttering a silent "Fuck" as he left cover. I could smell his fear and the sweat soaking his very cool looking skull-face mask, I could hear his heart race as his eyes scanned the carnage, confirmed the bodies and then settled on me. "Looks like you have this handled." He chuckled nervously. "I, ah, I think I left the stove on."

"You didn't doublecheck?"

"You know me kid, I get forgetful, h-hehe." Said the man with a photographic memory. Yeah right.

"Bad habits right?" I shrugged.

"Right." He whipped his head up and down.

"You should head on then."

"Huh?" He balked. I can leave? His gesture conveyed, guarded and unsure.

Sure. I nodded, I liked the guy, he was nice to me once upon a time, plus he'd piss off the Hand by running away now. Unless? I flicked the blade, throwing a line of blood off it and against the pristine snow. You want some?

"No, no." He hurriedly waved, making it clear he did not actually want some of this. He left a nervous chuckle behind, taking a swift about turn and booking it into the tundra, away from the battle, away from me. I could hear his barely muffled burst of joy as he ran with his head still attached to his shoulder.

"Ok, the rest of you can either run away now, or, make my day, and come catch this smoke." I invited every assassin hidden under layers of snow to make their pick. "You have five seconds."

There was a great shuffling of snow; boots, heels, tires, crunching down on snow crystals as a mass exodus occurred.

"Fist of the Beast, the Archpriestess demands your return."

"Yuki of the Nail." Yes, the Hand had Nails, who knew? Hah. The Nail is an all-female, elite assassin subdivision of the Hand, in essence they were meant to be a smaller, minimalist black ops unit. Yuki was the vice leader when I left, looks like she got a promotion. "Long time no see." Behind her was Ozumi Aizawa, Colleen Wing's mom, presumed dead of course.

"Will you return?" I have a thing for icy beauties, blame it on my unaddressed trauma and vile upbringing.

"Could you come a little bit closer and ask me that again?" Despite her calm exterior and the frigid expression on her face, sweat trickled down the arch of her spine, the fear on her was almost as overpowering as the arousal. I can't tell you why ninja assassins and mass murderers picked up by the Hand had the certain biological tendency to be aroused in the face of true threats. The excitement might contribute to fearlessness and a willingness to execute reprehensible acts.

"That's what I thought." I stowed my weapons. I had to go back to the Hand for another round of eradication anyway, soon enough at least. I knew why she was stalling; it was here already.

"You cannot run from the Hand." She said, I laughed in response as they clung onto a rope which promptly fell from a stealth hover jet and swiftly extracted them from the arena. The more people spread what they saw here today, the higher my prices went and the greater my exposure became. I won't be surprised if SHIELD calls me in to take care of some alien threat.

I could smell it. Musk, testosterone, roasted Cuban tobacco leaves boiled in rum and rage. It whistled to the earth as wrath hurled from the heavens and broke the ground as it landed with a great gust of wind. Slowly it arose from the steam of vaporized snow crystals and shattered earth, its beastly gaze upon me, its mouth pulled back into pearly, beastly snarl.

My voice came out as a growl. "Bastard." What a fucking entrance. Hate and wrath soaked his eyes, fury and animosity painted mine.

--SNIKT

--SNIKT

KrRAKOOM!

Lightning split the air between us, sparks ran across the outer coating of my armor from the massive electric discharge, plumes of vapor vanished as bare ground came exposed. "Thank you, Ororo." Said the bald man to Halle Berry as they hovered down from the­­—familiar long-nosed X-men stealth transport jet—floating Blackbird.

"Please, let us be civil." He spoke like my granddad; kind, caring and calm. "Please."

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Hope you enjoyed it. I know, I know, Rain's here now, don't cry my sweet child. I will bring joy and quality entertainment back to this world.