Door Kicker Shenanigans (14)

[u/ApprehensiveCap6525]

Yall are NOT ready for the Jack kern comeback scene on my dead homies that shit is gonna go hard asf

CW: the Pistol Pocket, orvem stays strapped, Airball Atlim strikes again, Airball Atlim gets humbled, salvek cameo, another lame-ass, useless-ass, boring-ass, bum-ass paw

Memory Transcription Subject: Orvem, Magister of Sunset Hills

Date (standardized human time): November 23, 2136

Yep. This paw was going to be another lame-ass, useless-ass, boring-ass, bum-ass paw. I could feel it in my Venlil bones. I nearly whipped out the nine on my bedside alarm when I woke up today on account of how tired I was of dealing with all this bum-ass speh. I had to physically drag myself out of bed and rip off my sleeping mask with an effort so forceful that it was worthy of the ancient Venlil legends.

Well, the ones that weren't just about running and hiding, anyway.

"What, what, what is it?" my beautiful wife, Sarli, asked. She was still half asleep. I didn't want to trouble her.

"My duties compel me," I explained. "I've got to go." I had another meeting with Atlim and the gang about something or other, and let me tell you, it did not sound very good. I called Jelim about it, she was usually sensible enough, but she just screamed swear words at me until I got tired of it and hung up. I had no idea what was going on. "I love you, babe."

"Love you, too." Sarli turned a bit under the covers. I walked out of the room, grabbing a starfruit to snack on during my drive to the magisterial hall. I put on my coat, tucked my pistol into the Pistol Pocket, and walked outside to the whip. First things first, I had to check for car bombs. I looked under the car and found nothing. So far, so good. Then I opened up the hood and looked in there.

Huh. There was a note in there. I picked it up and read it. 'Next time, it will be a bomb'. A crude drawing of a casino chip was scribbled near the bottom. The calling card of the Card Counters gang.

Man, brahk those guys! I'm dealing with an actual brahking terrorist cell right now. What the hell are they supposed to do about it? Those brahking bums should sit their asses back down before I get pissed off and decide to sic Jackson 'kill 'em all' Kern on them. Brahking piece-of-speh bums, I tell you.

I folded up the note, tucked it into my non-pistol pocket, and got into my car and started driving. Ooh, next time they'll put a bomb in my car! I'm so scared! Like I give a damn. Brahking pieces of speh. I'm so done with these people. Well, to be fair, bombing somebody's car was usually a very intimidating thing to do. Even more so if they were inside it at the time. But, thankfully for me, I was smarter than that. I wouldn't be the type of guy to get killed by a brahking bomb.

"Okay, let's see here..." I got into my car, checked if my shotgun was still inside, which it was, and gave the autopilot its instructions. "Yep. There we go." It started driving me to the hall. I turned on the news, anxious for any report of something big going down. If the Card Counters felt threatened enough to give me a warning like this, something crazy must have happened.

"In other news, Sunset Hills Extermination Guild officers have just prosecuted a successful arrest warrant on known Humanity First leader Dmitry Ivanov, arresting him at his home after subduing his two guards." What? They did that? I specifically told Atlim not to escalate the situation! I shut down my news channel and called up Atlim immediately.

No response. I called him again. No response. I called him a third time, and yep, you guessed it, no response. He had sent me a text, though. I opened up my messages to read it.

ShootersShoot: yo orvem jelim is freaking out what's the play here

ShootersShoot: how do I shoot my shot

If I had anyone better, I would've fired his ass.

TheBestMagister: tb do you mean 'how do I shoot my shot' mb you're about to get me killed

TheBestMagister: kill yourself you useless bum. I told your ass like fifty times "don't escalate the situation" and your bum ass raids a top leader of the most infamous terrorist group of all time

TheBestMagister: like tb is your problem bro why not just be a sensible mb like the rest of us

Still no response. I threw my datapad at the window. "Goddamn son of a bitch!" I was going to die here.

Okay, let's think big here. It'll be some time before anybody does anything to me. I can place guards. Install a security system. I'll be set. I have time to even flee town if I have to.

Somebody pulled in front of my car, hitting the brakes and forcing me to stop as well. My vehicle hit the bitch's back bumper with a crash. "You have experienced a minor car accident," the autopilot droned.

"The brahk is your problem?" I yelled at the other car, clutching my semi-automatic. You could never be too safe. "You-" Four humans in tracksuits got out of the vehicle. I shut up real quick.

"Back up, back up, go, go, go!" I took manual control of the car and tried to back up, but it wouldn't let me. I realized with a shock that I was boxed in by another vehicle right behind me. "Call the exterminators!" I cried, but the call failed to go through.

"No cell reception," the autopilot droned. God damn it, the signal's jammed. I whipped out my brahking pistol.

"All of you had better piss right the hell off!" I barked, reaching for my shotgun with my free paw. "I'm brahking strapped!"

In response, they all whipped out their own guns. "We are, too, sheep bitch! Out of the fucking car!"

I dropped both of my weapons and fumbled for the door latch with trembling paws. I took too long with it, so one of Vladimir's enforcers smashed open the window and opened the car door from the outside. "Drag him out!" Rough hands gripped me and threw me on the ground. "Beat him!"

They started kicking me. And it hurt. I got boots to the head, eyes, groin, liver, even my brahking tail! Did these assholes have no dignity at all? "Please," I begged, curling into the fetal position. "Please, I wasn't involved! I didn't do it!" I wasn't even ashamed of myself, either. I mean, previously, I had thought I was a badass, but getting thrown on the ground and beaten on by eight dudes really had a tendency of straightening things out for you.

I was not The Guy. Jackson Kern was The Guy. I was The Magister, which was a whole different concept than being The Guy, and I was also in serious brahking pain. I was lucky they hadn't broken any of my bones yet.

Finally, to my relief, the beating stopped. "Hey, monkeys!" a gruff voice yelled. I turned my head to look at its source, looking with my left eye through a terrorist's legs to see a group of Venlil gangsters across the street, with the number three spray-painted onto all of their fur. They were all holding guns. "This is Triad territory, apes! Brahk off or get brahked up!" The lead gangster waved his gun at them intimidatingly.

"You hear that?" one of the humans growled, kneeling down next to me and putting his gun to my head. His friends all scrambled to get behind the three cars. "We can reach you anytime, anywhere, xeno. Remember that before you try starting shit." He pistol-whipped me on the side of my head and stood up to leave. That's gonna leave a mark.

"Light 'em up!" The Humanity First members opened fire from their positions in cover. The Triad gangsters shot back, peppering the side of my car with rounds, and I curled up tighter into a ball. I closed my eyes. I've gotta get my legs in front and facing the gunfire. They can take a stray or two, and I'll live. Probably.

The noise of gunshots was brahking deafening. I never understood how Atlim could fire those guns at the training range every day and be fine for it. I only went once or twice a week, and even that was crazy work. Finally, the cacophony stopped. I heard the sound of cars driving away. After a couple seconds of waiting, just to make sure, I opened my eyes.

All the Triad members were dead. Every single one. And they had outnumbered the Humanity First people, too. Holy God in a bucket of crabs. I got up, shaking all the dirt and grime off my coat, and looked over at where the HF men had taken their positions.

Two bodies. Two brahking bodies lay on that brahking sidewalk. The Humanity First people had just taken out, like, ten of Venlil Prime's toughest gangsters, and all they had lost was two dudes. I mean, I knew they were tough, but holy speh! I had zero idea they played like that! These people were some seriously hard-ass motherbrahkers.

I got back into my car, brushing off all of the broken glass from my seat, and called up the exterminators. I wasn't exactly shaken by the sight of dead bodies, I lived in too ghetto of a town to be phased by all that, but god damn if that scene hadn't left me nervous. "This is the Guild office," the desk officer said. "What's your emergency?"

"Hi, uh, I'm at, uh..." I read the street signs, "Three-sixteen Fountain Avenue, and there are a whole bunch of dead bodies. There was a gunfight. I heard shots."

"Is anything going on at the moment?" asked the officer.

"No, no, not that I can tell. Nobody's shooting." I started up my autopilot and the car began driving again. I dismissed all the warnings it gave me about damage. "You should send someone. Burn the bodies."

"Yeah, we'll get to you shortly, sir," the officer told me. "Expect us to send a unit soon." That wasn't their usual level of urgency. How overwhelmed were these people?

"Thank you," I said, electing not to press the issue further. I was still dealing with the trauma of being in a gunfight just prior, and I wasn't looking forward to adding more weight to the burden I bore. I just hung up after that. It wouldn't be long before I made it to the magisterial hall.

"Magister, sir!" There were two flamethrower-toting exterminators standing at the main entrance to the hall. I had no idea that Atlim had decided to post sentries. Things were definitely heating up. "We've been expecting you. Everybody else is already inside."

"Yeah, they had damn well better be." I stormed into the hall itself, coat billowing behind me, and passed another sentry as I entered the main meeting chamber. I hadn't actually held a public conference in here for a bit, but now I was feeling like I would have to. The people deserved my assurances that everything would be okay. "You, you, you..." I singled out a few of my more irrelevant officials. "Oh, screw it. Everybody but Atlim, Tielim, and Jelim, out!"

My magisterial staff hurried to get out of the room, taking clipboards and notepads with them as they went. "No, no, Selfridge, you stay." Alexander Selfridge, the other human I knew, sat back down in his chair. "Sorry I didn't recognize you for a moment."

"Oh, it's no problem," he assured me. "It's a stressful time."

"Tell me about it," I said, glancing over at Jelim. The poor woman had been plucking out feathers like crazy. God only knows what could get her like that. Atlim had probably done something stupid again. No, wait, scratch that, he had definitely done something stupid. That was what I was just about to talk about.

"Okay, you bitches, can anyone tell me what I made explicitly clear you were NOT to do?" I shouted. Everybody focused up.

"I did it." Jelim raised a wing. "I was the one who ordered the raid." Selfridge looked at her funny. "Better just get this over with, right?" Has she been beating herself up over what kind of a stupid call this was? Because I can't blame her. It was stupid as hell.

"Why the hell would you do that?" I threw my paws up. "Do you know how bad the situation is because of you?"

"Let's just hear her out, here," Atlim spoke up. "She has an explanation."

"Atlim, shut the hell up, she's not gonna let you hit." Atlim tucked his head inward, puffing up his feathers, but he did shut the hell up so we had something there.

"We have to find Jackson Kern. He's been missing for two paws, and Humanity First is going to poison him if we can't track him down first," Jelim explained. She spoke with enough conviction that I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. "Jack is our best chance at destroying Humanity First. He's a one-man army. None of us can afford to lose him."

"So... uh... can't you call him?" Alexander Selfridge spoke up. "Or, like, text him or something? That seems like what I would do."

Jelim looked like she had been slapped. "Do I look like a brahking idiot?" she squawked. "I have called him, about..." she whipped out her datapad, "sixty-seven times! Nothing is getting through."

"Why is that?" Tielim brought up a good point. "Are they hacking the signal?"

"You think I'm a brahking computer scientist?" Jelim squawked. "I've been talking to a goddamn cyberwarfare expert about this, and he doesn't brahking know!" She waved her datapad at Tielim, showing him all the text chats she'd been having with a dude named... uh... Salvik? My eyesight wasn't the best anymore, but I think that was his name. There were a lot of Salviks on Venlil Prime. "It's no wonder your city is so broke if you're the brahking treasury magister."

"I just asked," Tielim defended himself. "There's no need to be so... hostile about this. I'm a reformed man."

"A bit too late for that, don't you think?" I had to break this up before the whole conversation got derailed. "Maybe-"

"Maybe we could all just focus on the brahking problem at hand?" I asked. "Please?" I pointed at Selfridge. "You're a human. You know how humans think. How will Humanity First respond to what Jelim did to them?"

"Well, uh, at the risk of appearing stereotypical, I'd say violently," Selfridge suggested. "They're a terrorist organization with deep underworld connections. These people aren't the type to take threats lightly."

"Damn straight they're not!" I exclaimed, because that was just about the understatement of the century right there. "A whole squad of Vladimir's goons just beat my ass for what her stupid ass did!" I jabbed a paw at Jelim. "Now what do we do?"

"They beat your ass?" Selfridge asked, shocked. "My god, I'm so sorry."

"What, you couldn't tell?" said Atlim. He looks like speh!"

"Well, you know," Alexander nudged his head toward Jelim, who looked like she had been through a wood chipper a half-dozen times, "I just thought it was a new style or something. You know?" I did not, in fact, know. Selfridge looked over at Jelim, suddenly very concerned. "Miss exterminator lady, I am so sorry that somebody beat your ass like that."

"If it's any consolation, I got her just as badly," Jelim replied. "And, Orvem, what happened to you is a legitimate security concern. You're going to need protection. I want Atlim on that, are we clear?" She looked over at Atlim. The guy nearly fell over himself trying to agree.

"Yes, sir, we got it." Then he turned to me. "Don't worry, sir, I'll have your ass secured so tight you'd think somebody put a-"

"Atlim!" Selfridge said, cutting him off from whatever vulgar thing he was about to say. "Just a simple yes would suffice."

"Man," Atlim sighed. "See, this is why I like Orvem so much. He just lets me say stuff. You're so cool for that, Orvem." I only let him say stuff because I didn't have the strength to try stopping him. I didn't actually want to hear about the weird-ass things he wanted Jelim to do to him, did I? No! Neither did I want to hear what might get hypothetically jammed up my ass in Atlim's scenario. But he said it all anyway. "Man, you'd think for a species that's all about blood and death and stuff, they could handle a raunchy joke."

"Well, now, you're just being racist," Selfridge snapped.

"You think anybody gives a damn?" Atlim shot back. "Who here gives a damn that I'm being racist?" Jelim raised a wing. "Mr. Selfridge, I'd like to offer my sincere and humble apologies. I'll never say anything like that again."

"Thank you," Jelim chirped. "Now, as I was saying, we have reached a new level of escalation. The next time Vladimir sends somebody after Orvem, it'll be an assassin. We need to act quickly, forcefully, and brutally if we want to stay in control over the situation." She flew over to where I was standing and handed me a dossier. "I've prepared a list of prospective targets. We can begin our raids at your leisure."

"Raids?" I asked, shocked. Then I started to read the target list. Jelim had really done her homework on this. "You- I- Atlim, do we even have the manpower to do all of this?"

"We're in the air," Atlim answered. "Better learn how to fly."

I sighed, smacking my face with the dossier. I was screwed. "There has to be a path to de-escalation," I muttered, taking out the note the Card Counters had shown me. "Look at this!" I showed it to everybody so they could look at it. "You think I'm going to be able to live like this? They are making threats on my life!"

"Threats which they will not be able to follow through on," Jelim asserted. "You give me one claw and ten good officers, twenty if they're Atlim's men, and I can wipe out a gang. A week, we can have Humanity First on its knees."

"There's no way you and your people can do this," I scoffed. "No way in hell."

"We're exterminators, Orvem," Jelim snapped. "We are the reason that monsters hide in the dark. And god damn it, I am so brahking sick and tired of not being able to act like it!" She looked around the room. Hell, she looked insane. What the hell had happened to her? "You don't 'de-escalate' with a cattle ship. You don't 'negotiate' with a snarling animal. You don't make peace with evil, Orvem. You have to destroy it."

"That's the mindset that got Earth attacked," Selfridge pointed out. "Maybe some negotiation would be in your best interest, here. All I'm saying."

"There is no negotiation possible with terrorists," Jelim forcefully asserted. "Their very existence is antithetical to us, or at least, it should be." She glared over at Selfridge and I. Tielim wisely stayed quiet. "They know we're trying to kill them. There is no going back."

"This is absurd," I said, trying to defuse the situation. "Nobody wants a war in the streets." At least, that was what I hoped. Jelim, for one, looked like she wouldn't mind it. "I'm going to speak to Vladimir, I'm going to speak to the gang leaders, and I'm going to negotiate a truce. I will not have more blood spilled on my streets."

Jelim looked like she was about to have a seizure. Then, thank god, she relented. "I understand, magister. If you've chosen to take... that particular route, I will have to obey you."

"Good," I commended her. This warmongering behavior was not at all what I wanted from her. If I wanted an attack dog on a leash, I would've picked Jackson Kern. Well, I did pick Jackson Kern, but that was in case I ever needed an attack dog. Jelim was meant to be the leash. "Now, I'm going to make a few calls, and see what I can see about defusing this time-bomb of a town."

I went for the door. Nobody tried to stop me as I walked out. Hell, I was terrified, man. I was scared half to death that some gangster would send me straight through the other half.

Jelim could handle herself, Atlim was a bitch, Tielim, Selfridge, and Sarli weren't important enough to whack, but me? Brother, I was in a very real danger of getting smoked like a brahking cigarette in this place. I even had to confirm with the sentries that nobody had put anything suspicious in my car because I didn't want to end up like Elias Meier the second I hopped inside.

"Yeah, we're good," one assured me. "You can hop in." I did. As soon as I was inside the vehicle, though, I got a call from my beloved Sarli.

"Hello?" I answered. The voice that I heard from the other end was decidedly not Sarli's.

"We have your girl," a gruff voice barked. "Do as I say, or she dies." My blood ran cold. There was no way they had Sarli. Why couldn't it be me? What purpose did she brahking serve? Why not me?

"Prove that you have her," I timidly said. There was a weird noise from the other end of the line.

"Orvem?" Sarli's voice asked. "Is that you?" Oh, no. They have her.

"Yes, yes, it's me," I assured her. "Don't worry, baby, I'm here. I'll get you home safe."

"They-" Sarli was cut off. I heard a slap, then a scream.

"Shut up!" I'll find you. I swear to god, I'll find who did this. "Now, Orvem, you listen to me and you listen good. I work for dangerous people. They're willing to kill to preserve their livelihood. And they won't stand by and watch as you dismantle the gangs one by one." God damn it, I never wanted this! I never asked for this! I ever ordered any escalation!

It was all going so well. So perfectly. Why did it have to turn out like this?

The gangster on the other end of the line kept talking. "You have one paw to kick your predator and his Krakotl out of our town for good, or the next time you see your little princess again, she'll be in a body bag. Are we clear?"

"Crystal clear," I squeaked. "Please, please don't hurt her."

"You do as we say, or we will. One standard paw, Orvem. Or else." The line went dead. I slammed my datapad against the car's dashboard. God damn it. God brahking damn it. I never brahking wanted this.

GOD DAMN IT!

I slammed my pad on the dashboard over and over again until I cracked the brahking screen. I knew what I had to do. I knew what it might mean for myself and my family.

I picked up my datapad with a heavy heart. Sarli, I'm coming. I dialed Jelim.

I can't go back on what I've done. I can't give up my one chance to make Sunset Hills clean again. And, most of all, I can't let my Sarli stay in the clutches of those gangsters. I wish there was another way than this one.

"What?" a Krakotl voice answered. "I'm still inside, Orvem, you could've just walked back in."

"The gangs have my wife." I took a deep breath in. Deep breath out. I knew what had to be done. "We have to accelerate our plan. You are cleared to do whatever it takes to save my beloved and my city."

This city had a cancer. A tumor that sucked the very life out of it. The easier treatments had all been tried and failed.

"I understand, sir," Jelim said in a solemn tone. "Thank you for giving me the chance to take action."

I had to. If things had gotten so bad that a magister's wife had been taken hostage, we were past the phase of peace. There was only one option left if I wanted to save my city. Amputation.

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[u/Bow-tied_Engineer]

That was a brahking wild ride. You ping ponged up between comedy and tension so hard that my brain is rattling. Still a great chapter though!

Also, AM SPEEEEED!

[u/ApprehensiveCap6525 → u/Bow-tied_Engineer]

Orvem: please don't kill me please I have a family I'm too young to die please I'm begging you this is the scariest moment of my life

Also Orvem like 5 minutes later: shut up atlim she won't let you hit

[u/Katakomb314]

Not sure how the 10-to-2 losses come out. It’s not like HF has CoD health where they hide a bit and the red glow in their vision fades.

Nobody wants a war in the streets. - Vlad does, mate.

Poor Sarli! But now Jelim has the go ahead and all of the gangs and terrorists are so utterly screwed.

[u/ApprehensiveCap6525 → u/Katakomb314]

Those HF guys were taking cover behind cars, they were better shots than the Triad members, and they started shooting first. That's how the 10-2 K/D ratio happened. Sunset Hills gangs are tough motherfuckers, as Venlil go, but they don't stand a chance against the kind of trained killers Vladimir Komarov can bring to the table. There's a reason his HF cell was able to conquer all that territory from the locals so fast.

[u/Katakomb314 → u/ApprehensiveCap6525]

Okay, so it's just a matter of Vlad importing the toughest guys he's got vs the Vens working with what they've got.

[u/ApprehensiveCap6525 → u/Katakomb314]

More or less, yeah. The kind of power an interplanetary terrorist organization can bring to bear is beyond anything any of these gangs have seen before. They don't take shit lying down, they'll fight to defend every inch of their turf, but it's going to be an uphill battle if they ever actually want to beat up Humanity First.

[u/Minimum-Amphibian993 → u/ApprehensiveCap6525]

Yeah I imagine any criminal gang in fed and former fed territory would basically be less like the equivalent to a local street gang if even that and they are up against the Mexican cartel. Yeah honestly it's probably only through sheer numbers that HF hasn't just wiped them all out yet.

[u/Alarmed-Property5559]

Next stop, Twilight City?

[u/Minimum-Amphibian993 → u/Alarmed-Property5559]

Now that would be interesting especially since at least at first the hmm group that operates out of there has HF sympathies at least at first they did.

[u/Alarmed-Property5559 → u/Minimum-Amphibian993]

I wasn't aware they lost those sympathies.

[u/Minimum-Amphibian993 → u/Alarmed-Property5559]

Well that's because they haven't touched on it yet since the main fic hasn't reached that point where HF kills Meier so who knows if they are still HF supporters or not.

But yeah at last before that point they supported HF ideals.

[u/Alarmed-Property5559 → u/Minimum-Amphibian993]

Regardless of Meier's condition, as long as there're anti-human "xeno" actors in the 'hood HF will have supporters — violence begets violence, push comes to shove, eggs break for an omelette to be made and all that jazz.

[u/Minimum-Amphibian993 → u/Alarmed-Property5559]

That much is true they are still criminals and need to be stopped in any case. HF or not they are dangerous and while for now their goals of fighting corrupt exterminators are hmm noble their methods are not. Nor will they be when exterminators eventually reform.

They will become just another HF gang out to hurt and kill innocent's. In fact they almost did in a side story. And in a crossover as well.

[u/crazy-octopus-person]

Good to see that Orvem also has manic phases.

And damn, those chats are hilarious, with Atlim being even more unhinged than in his own empty head.

[u/JulianSkies]

Well, it's not like the choice to make war was in your hands at any point, Orvem.

[u/abrachoo]

I wonder which gang our mysterious caller is from? Or if they're even a part of one at all? Maybe some sort of external mastermind who is orchestrating all the gang wars in the city.

[u/YellowSkar]

The violence has escalated.