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Rekrap is not opposed to a bit of terrorism. Not if he can gain hearts from it.
What Rekrap is opposed to is having to commit said terrorism with his newfound enemy, Clownpierce. Who he hates for being Branzy’s new boyfriend.
Listen, Rek loves the shit out of Branzy. They’re best friends! He thinks really highly of him!
But Branzy and Clown dating is like the lion becoming down bad for the gazelle. Either they both have brain damage, or someone is up to something. The part of Rek’s brain dedicated to sensing traps is telling him that their relationship is, objectively, an awful idea.
Also, Rek can’t exactly give the shovel talk to the most deadly assassin to ever live. That’s also another bad mark on Clown’s “allowed to date Branzy” score sheet.
Currently, Rek, Clown, Branzy and Parrot are in what is considered Rek’s war room underneath his apartment. Hunched over a map of Steeal city. A knife stabbed into the heart of the city’s harbor.
“So, we plant the bombs before they exit from the harbor. Once the airship is above the water, one of us will detonate the trap. Then all the crew members are just going to fall into the lake where we’ll be waiting, and can reap their hearts easily,” Clown explains.
Rek frowns, leaning on his elbow. It is actually a very good plan.
“How do we escape the lake before the coastguard comes to the rescue?” he asks, attempting to poke holes in said plan so he doesn’t have to do it.
“That’s the thing!” Branzy grins, “The bombs will be placed to collapse the harbor bridge. We aren’t just blowing up an airship, we’re making a crater where both types of ships are supposed to dock,”
“So there won’t be any coastguard coming to the rescue because we’ll kill them all?” Parrot raises a brow.
“Precisely,” Clown nods.
“And we’re severing the supply chains of the entire continent for our own goals? So we all get to twenty hearts?” Parrot continues to press.
“Us and everyone we’re allied with. Plus a cache to keep,” he says with a soft jiggle of bells, “Plus leverage to overthrow Zam. But that’s just a plus,”
He can hear the smile in Clown’s voice. Rek likes the sound of that. No. Not his smile, the plan.
He may not like the fact that Clown came up with this plan, but fuck it. It’s a really good plan.
“Yeah, overthrowing Zam sounds fun,” Rek sighs, raising his hands in the air, “You got me! I’m in,”
“Same,” Parrot raises his hand.
“Yes!” Branzy cheers.
Triumphantly, Clown yanks the dagger out of the table. The space where the harbors lay entirely annihilated by the resulting slice.
Rek can’t help but to smile while thinking about how glorious it would be to truly, literally, wipe this place off the map. To blow the Steeal Kingdom and Prince Zam to kingdom come? To also get twenty hearts for doing so?
Sounds like heaven.
—
Steeal is a gorgeous place. Rek can admit that much. Prince Zam does know how to decorate and how to legislate.
Spiraling copper towers that glint in their bright orange polish, stonework streets carved generations ago by their ancestor’s ancestors, the hustle and bustle of pilots and mechanics whirring around market places.
Those pilots and their steam powered machines are the problem, really. They are very root of why criminals like Rekrap and his friends exist at all.
In a world where killing someone makes you stronger, there is supposed to be a delicate balance keeping everything in check. Back in the day, before Rek was born, social taboo and honorable hand-to-hand combat was enough to make some semblance of order.
Then somebody discovered steam power. That somebody started making robots, then started making guns, then got killed for their blueprints and then someone else started making guns.
Now there is nothing but the remains of that previous social order keeping people, like Rek, from plunging the world in darkness for a couple extra hearts.
Why would you behave? When there’s guns, massive murder machines, bombs, and worse? Even if you run out of people to kill at home, now people have airships and steamboats to knock on someone else’s door to slaughter them!
Prince Zam is one of the people who made an effort to restore the world that laid in bloody ruins. Rebuilding Steeal wasn’t a small feat.
He enforced strict gun control. Enforced licenses for robots, steamships, and airships. Limited bombs to military use and mining quarries.
Long story short, Rek is sort of the bad guy in the wider scheme of things. A terrorist, even. Definitely a terrorist.
His excuse is all his friends are terrorists. If they jumped off a cliff, he would too. For the extents and purposes of the metaphor.
Rek steps off the sidewalk and into an alleyway market place. Hawkers and food vendors yelling every which way.
He’s scouring the area for easy places to hide their bombs. Well, once they get the bombs.
The mass amounts of TNT needed for the project are requiring them to gather the materials in any way they can. Handcrafting the bombs themself, pulling from personal stashes and allied storage, Clown also bought shitloads of the stuff from these two kids he met a while back.
Rek wants to grab Branzy by the shoulders and scream about how Clown uses child labor, but that would be hypocritical. If a toddler offered to sell Rek a bomb, he’d totally buy it.
His communicator buzzes. Rek checks his wrist, it’s Parrot.
Parrot whispers to you: Help Branzy and Clown won’t stop giggling and won’t tell me why
Parrot whispers to you: sos
Parrot whispers to you: sos
Parrot whispers to you: sos
Parrot whispers to you: sos
Rek sighs.
He’s been friends with Parrot and Branzy forever. In fact, they all jumped off the cliff of morality into the ravine of terrorism together while holding hands. Clown is a very recent addition to all of that.
Of course, they all knew who he was for years. Sort of a living legend. Doesn’t make him less annoying.
Branzy also has been frustratingly vague about how exactly he met Clown. Something about indentured servitude and a casino? They’re glued at the hip now, that’s for sure.
You whisper to Parrot: if we betray them we die :(
Parrot whispers to you: I’d prefer that tbh
You whisper to Parrot: :((
Rek lowers his wrist to continue his search. If they’re going to sink the entirety of the harbors infrastructure, they need to hit the top and the bottom at once. Simultaneously knocking over the table cloth and the table legs, so to speak.
The harbor street is a busy place. Again, full of hawkers and travelers. Not to mention docking and departing airships and their crews. Vacating this area long enough for them to get any contraband through will be difficult. Clown did say they might use smaller, contained explosions to ward off passerby for a couple minutes.
Rek frowns. Listening to the trickling of water beneath the stone, collecting from yesterday’s rainfall.
That’s when it hits him. The water ducts! They can hide the TNT in the water ducts!
There’s about four inches of space between the trickle of water and the roof of the passageway. That’s more than enough space for single sticks of TNT to be placed side by side in long rows. They can be tied in just beside the grates for easy access and instillation.
Stringing the sticks together, then scaring everyone away so the bomb crews have time to lay them down? It’s fool proof.
Excitedly, Rek types into his communicator.
You whisper to Parrot: I got a plan
Parrot whispers to you: good. I’m about to slam a bottle over Clown’s head
You whisper to Parrot: DONT!!!
—
Rek’s plan worked exactly as intended.
Him and Clown ran around blowing shit up and chasing police away from Parrot, Branzy, and the couple of goons they hired for more manpower. Giving them more than enough time to place and secure every last bit of TNT allotted to the top section of the harbor. Even gathering an extra heart or two by going head to head with some officers.
The lower half will be loaded up hours before the blast, to make certain that no one will be able to stop them.
They all reconvene back into the war room. Sitting around a shitty fold up table, opening even shitter cans of beer.
“A cheer!” Branzy smiles wide, raising a beer can in the air, “To a job well done!”
“To a job well done!” everyone else chimes. All their cans clicking together.
“Great job, sweetheart,” Branzy leans into Clown.
“Sweetheart,” Parrot mimics in a mocking tone.
Clown clearly has heart eyes, even with the mask, “Thank you, darling,”
“Darling?” Rek’s jaw drops in disgust.
Branzy kisses what should be Clown’s cheek. It is perhaps the worst thing Rek has ever seen. Him and Parrot make a show out of thinking so, but the couple ignore them.
Whatever. Lovey dovey couples being gross aside, he’s still excited.
Tomorrow, history is never going to attach their names to their deed, but it will know in infamy their legacy. A legacy sparked with a lighter and set down the line with a spark.
There will be blood. Where there is blood, there is hearts. Where there is hearts, there is power.
Rekrap could get used to the idea of being powerful.
—
The day of the explosion is bright, warm, and beautiful. The sky a massacre shade of baby blue. Making the grassy plains beneath the city a brighter green than normal.
“That should be it,” Parrot heaves up one last chunk of the explosives.
In the shadow of the city, underneath the great pillars that support it, hundreds of pounds of TNT lay at the wide pillar bases. Prepared for their duty of blowing out the bottom while the top gets blown sky high.
“You going to be ok over here?” Rek asks.
Parrot nods, “Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll get away with time to spare. You know that,”
He thinly smiles, still worried for his friend.
“I know,” Rek offers his hand.
Rek and Parrot fist bump.
He hesitantly jumps on his hover bike. Putting on his goggles. Revving the engine before speeding away. The steam powered miracle pumping a trail of smoke as he jets off up the hill. Far away from the circle making up the blast radius.
Leaving Parrot to ride off to the control room. Leaving Parrot to detonate the bomb.
Nerves are just getting the best of him, Rek thinks. That doesn’t change the fact that he can’t shake the feeling off something being off.
Rek normally trusts his instincts though. Perhaps that’s why he’s so worried. He just shakes his head, trying to clear it like an etch a sketch.
Once he crests the hill, Rek parks and jumps off. Joining Branzy and Clown at their remote vantage point. Far away from any flying debris that may fling off the explosion.
“Are you ready, Branzy?” Clown asks.
Branzy squeezes his hand, “Ready,”
“Rek, tell Parrot we’re ready,” Clown then orders him.
His ears go red as she shoves his goggles onto his forehead.
“Stop acting like I’m the third wheel!” Rek squeaks, “Because it’s you! You’re the one third wheeling here,”
“How can I third wheel my own boyfriend?” Clown tilts his head, threat in his tone.
Rek refuses to think that’s intimidating. Instead, he shuffles his way to stand in between Clown and Branzy, breaking up their hand holding session. Forever choosing to ignore how Branzy laughs at their bickering.
He can worry about getting killed by Clown later. Right now, he needs to secure his best friend from his absolutely terrible life choices. And also commit a grievous act of mass terrorism bound to claim the lives of thousands.
He clacks away at his communicator.
You whisper to Parrot: ready when you are
Then, they wait. The sun beating down on their shoulders, making the wide lake glow. The wind swaying the long blades of grass and the speckled spots of wildflowers.
Rek just gets more nervous the longer Parrot goes without responding. Swallowing dryly.
“Did Parrot-?” Branzy starts to say.
He is interrupted by a blast clouding the sky. Their targeted airship bursting into flames right over the lake. Hearts, glittering like fallen stars, fall from the fire into the water.
The serene view of Steeal and her surrounding wild land swiftly turns into a ball of black and orange smoke. Dust rising high on the wind.
The chain reaction has begun. Rek gasps in awed disbelief.
They watch, victorious smiles splitting their faces, as the great Steeal airship harbor collapses onto its shipyard docks. Rendered to nothing but smithereens in this massive, sun caught cloud of dust and rubble. The air split by the booming noise of stone cracking, metal collapsing in on itself, the massive echo of the bombs. The resulting plume of smoke rises for miles. Stretching upward as distant screams sound out until they lie muted.
In celebration, Branzy leaps into Clown’s arms. Pushing up his mask to steal a kiss.
Rek is too proud of their accomplishment to be shocked or disgusted by the sight. Letting them be annoying in his peripheral vision. Cheering on his own.
It worked! It actually worked!
His stomach suddenly twists. A bad feeling curling in his throat.
“Uh, guys?” Rek says.
They’re both too in their own world to hear him. Or feel the ground start rubbling.
Clown and Branzy only come to their senses when a noise louder than god splits the sky like an egg. Causing a tremor that ripples through the lake below them in one giant wave.
Rek thinks he might throw up as he turns to the ruined harbor. Watching a gargantuan shadow sprint up out of the roadways turned boulders.
The shadow spreads its large, mechanical wings. Glinting in the sun. The chug of cogs and smoke loud enough to be heard all the way from here.
A fucking clockwork dragon has exited the dungeons beneath the city. And Rek did not put it there!
“What the hell!” Branzy screams.
Stunned, Rek just lets his jaw drop. Watching the great metal beast climb higher into the atmosphere.
He gulps, “Did, uh. Did we do that?”
“No,” Branzy says quickly, “No. Right? We didn’t do that,”
The dragon roars. A noise that sounds like the inner workings of the earth’s molten core, trembling the ground in a small earthquake.
“It’s going to destroy the city,” Rek says quietly, in one silent breath.
“Shit,” Clown swears, “It’s going to destroy the city!”
He darts toward the hover bike he brought.
“Where are you going?” Branzy calls after him.
“We have to get the hearts if we’re going to get rid of that thing!” he calls back.
Something about that sentence snaps Rek out of his trance. He climbs back onto the bike, hurriedly slapping his goggles back over his eyes. Racing down the hill. Jumping from twenty miles to ninety in a few seconds. The bike bumping as the ground beneath it suddenly shifts from grass to water.
He zooms over the lake. Clown and Branzy not far behind. All of them quickly begin snagging the celestial droplets of life and strength as if they were just little pearls. As if they were just objects, as if they didn’t kill people for these.
Then, together in V formation, the three speed off toward the city they destroyed. Toward the dragon they released. Armed with lives that they stole.
Rekrap isn’t a hero. Branzy, Clown, and Parrot certainly aren’t either. There is a small piece of doubt in his heart. Questioning why he’d run toward the danger instead of away from it.
He decides to leave the philosophy for later. Making a b line toward complete and utter disaster.
The dragon swoops around one of the tallest of the city spires. A strong wing shattering the high reaching brick, sending the entire thing cascading over the unexploded parts of the city. The hearts of those trapped inside shooting out like comets.
Rek’s own heart nearly stops as the damn thing opens its maw lined with razor sharp, jagged scrapmetal teeth. Letting loose a blow torch of hot red fire. Bright enough to melt the copper as it rains down onto its victims.
The sight of it hits him like a brick. That thing can breathe fucking fire. Which means it has something within it that’s flammable. Flammable things tend to explode. This little band is very good at explosions.
Rek gets a wicked, stupid ass grin. Now, that’s a plan.
“Clown!” Rek calls over the communicator.
“Yeah?” he responds, skirting around a rock that’s tumbled into the lake.
“Your scythe! You think you can use its, fuck, wave thingy to blow up whatever’s making the dragon spit fire?” he asks.
“That’s a good idea, Rek!” Branzy chimes.
They slam their feet even harder on the pedals. Darting up the road back into the city. The road shriveled up and crumbled like it was always paper and not once solid rock.
“Guys?” Parrot shouts down the communication line.
“Parrot!” Rek happily exclaims, “How you doing?”
“Had to dig myself out of some debris. How’s the bomb doing?” Parrot asks.
Shit. He doesn’t know what’s going on.
“There’s a dragon storming through the city right now and it might be our fault!” Branzy yells.
“What?” Parrot stutters.
“We got the hearts, though,” Clown adds quietly.
Rek knows the situation is dire, still he can’t help but roll his eyes. How very in character for Clown.
As they make it past the gates, now abandoned by the guards meant to keep post, they meet up with Parrot. Soaring a few feet above them on bright blue wings.
“We just need to blow it up, however we see the opportunity to do so. Any weapon should work if it can get inside that thing’s mouth,” Rek says, maneuvering through shattered airships and pockmarked fires.
“We got that much,” Clown grumbles, “But how do we get that close?”
Rek tries to think of a response, but is distracted by another metallic roar. The dragon hits its mountainous form against another spire, topping the entire thing over.
Rek has to speed through the wreckage. Avoiding falling rocks larger than his entire body. The stray hearts of the victims within that building catching in his hair and on his clothes like goddamn glitter, not quite absorbing into his being.
It suddenly occurs to him that their goal was truly achieved. Everyone has sparkles littered across their clothes. Everyone made it to the maximum of twenty hearts.
“We can afford to throw ourselves at it until it breaks. We got the hearts,” he calls as he twists around a crater.
“I can make us a respawn point and we can stash these extra hearts there!” Branzy says.
“Then let’s all follow you!” Rek says, carefully turning around to trail behind Branzy.
They ride until they find a stable enough piece of rubble, one with a space below it for the respawn ritual to be preformed.
They all park the bikes and huddle together below the outcropping. Rek wouldn’t want this to be their first choice, but shit had firmly hit the fan.
Branzy reaches into his inner vest pocket, taking an enchanted mock bed and setting on the ground. Everyone taking turns claiming it as their worldly anchor. Letting the certainty of it bring them a sense of safety. Even if they do die, they’ll come back right here.
“Wooh, alright. Let me get something real quick,” Branzy sighs.
Before anyone can stop or question him, he reaches into his inventory with a wet squelch. Arm getting enveloped into his chest in a way that still, after how many times he’s done it and seen it, looks plain wrong.
Rek flinches. He knows that is not a good feeling.
“I would’ve done it, darling. You didn’t need to,” Clown softly speaks, leaning close to Branzy.
“No, I got it,” Branzy extracts a bundle of TNT from his inner inventory, “Mr Expendable, right?”
No one has time to find the joke funny. Clown bumps his head into Branzy’s in a way that might mimic a kiss. It’d be sweet if they weren’t fighting fuck off huge dragons right now.
They all brush off the extra hearts into a corner. The glowing shards of starlight illuminating the tiny hidey hole. It’s significantly more than just twenty, Rek can count that much.
They’ll never need to kill for hearts again. They’ll have a stash so large, they’ll be on twenty each forever.
Rek steps into the light behind Parrot. Faces turning to the sky in time with the next thunderous roar. The dragon’s extensive size temporarily blotting out the sun.
“We have to make it land if we’re planning on throwing anything into that mouth,” Parrot crosses his arms.
“Where can it even land?” Rek questions aloud.
Clown tosses his head to the side, the little bells jiggling. He hates how that’s the sound of Clown thinking.
“The park. It’s the only wife flat space within Steeal,” Clown says.
“Then let’s go chase it there,” Branzy claps his hands together, ready to get to work.
The three on the bikes mount again. Setting off at breakneck speeds toward Steeal city park, Parrot flapping his wings just above them.
Refugees and stragglers run the opposite direction of their race. Fleeing the city in a bare, desperate rush. Absorbing any stray hearts they just so happen to step on.
The rubble of towering spires fades into the rubble of townhouses and apartment buildings. Growing closer to the open space of the park.
“I’ll lead it there! You guys go!” Parrot shouts.
He flings himself higher. Flying up toward the winged machine.
Parrot takes a gun that was strapped to his thigh and sends out a shot. The bullet so tiny compared to the automated beast that he can hardly see it harmlessly ricochet off.
The dragon glides downward. Finally taking notice of them. It starts landing, in an up shoot of earth and plant matter, in the park before they can reach it.
Rek has dedicated so much of his time to escaping traps. As he increases his speed directly into the path of the largest thing he’s ever seen, he wonders where that bit of him went. It certainly isn’t here now.
A falling wall crashes against the side of Branzy’s bike. Causing him to spin out. Hitting a standing wall at a harsh speed. Blood splatters against the brick.
“Branzy!” Clown cries out.
Clown reaches for his scythe. Directing the bike with no hands as he swings a wave of strange blood magic into its widening maw. A blast of fire beginning to curl in its metal throat.
With his last breath before respawn sucks him in, Branzy screams, “Catch!”
Branzy, in a miracle throw, tosses the bundle of explosives to Rek. Fading away back to their point of respite. Time seemingly slowing to an exact needle point as Rek catches it.
Time takes that slow, heart pounding pace as he turns out. Leaning his arm back as be throws the TNT directly into that budding flame. Ducking out of the way to prepare for the bomb to blow.
The near perfect timing of Rek’s TNT and Clown’s blood wave hit their mark. Causing the gasoline chamber in the dragon’s maw to explode in a noise so obnoxious it definitely is going to give him hearing issues until his next respawn.
Shrapnel shards sent out in every direction as, with a somehow louder bang, the giant metal beast falls onto its side. Crushing an entire city block on its way down.
One of the shrapnel bits lodges itself into Rek’s cheek. White hot pain turning into a blunt, cracking ache as it hits his teeth. Getting caught in the enamel and, luckily, not costing him a heart.
The two remaining bikes slide to a halt. Parrot landing beside Rek, bending with his hands on his knees to catch his breath.
The group stares at the fallen dragon laying in the heart of a now fallen city. The ash and ruins strewn with shining hearts, one for each life taken today.
“Nice teamwork,” Clown taunts.
Rek spits the metal shard and a wad of blood out his mouth, “I still don’t like you,”
Branzy sprints up to them. Having used one of the spares in the pile to keep his precious twenty. Rek tries not to think about how his leg was just turned inside out just two minutes ago.
He turns to see people stumbling out of their homes, or wherever they set their spawns. Rubbing wrists now down a heart. Some limp, some run, but everyone has all eyes on them.
“You slayed the dragon!” a bystander screams.
“You saved us!” Someone else yells.
A bead of sweat builds on Rek’s forehead. He doesn’t know exactly what to say to that.
“Absolutely!” Clown says, raising his arms in a theatric pose, “We have slain the threat to the city!”
“Yeah!” Branzy yes-and’s him, “And we did it without needing to be asked!”
Rek gets their memo. Nervously giving the building crowd a polite wave.
They can’t exactly own up to causing all of this. But they can own up to the opposite! He briefly pictures the image of his face in history books as the savior of the city despite being its demise. He’d be down for that.
“You need to see the Prince right away!” someone shouts.
“Uh-“ Rek stutters.
“Of course,” Clown covers, “We need to explain what happened here,”
Clownpierce whispers to you: don’t say a word
Clownpierce whispers to you: let’s play this right
Rek just gulps. Following, at a much slower pace, Branzy and Clown lead the way to Prince Zam’s castle. The cast that, even from here, they can tell it also took a serious beating.
—
Rek got what he wanted today.
He wanted the means to destroy the rebuilding efforts of Steeal. He wanted hearts. He wanted power.
Rek now has all of that in more. Never in his life did he think he’d ever feel a sense of guilt for that.
But it’s hard not to feel like a scolded child when he’s lead into a throne room without a roof. Banners torn from their pillars. Windows blown through.
In the epicenter of the rooms decay a shaking, shell shocked Prince stands alone. His wrist absent multiple hearts.
“Y-You killed the dragon?” Zam stutters.
“Yes, your highness,” Clown confirms.
“Some terrorist has destroyed the gleaming heart of my city,” Zam stares at the ground, “Likely to set loose that dragon, and destroy even more,”
“I’m sorry so many people got hurt, your highness,” Rek lies.
The Prince continues to look at the ground for a moment. Squeezing his eyes shut and balling his fists.
“You have done me a great deed. I formally hire you to find, and kill, the people responsible for this disaster,” he orders, voice thinning.
They all fall silent. Trying not to let the tension show in their postures.
“Of course, your highness,” Clown agrees, “We’ll leave none of them alive,”
Rek fakes a watery smile. Feeling the surging sprawl of twenty little hearts tattooed on his wrist.
What the absolute fuck has he gotten himself into?