The Komodo-man went down, a fresh entry wound in his neck. Aurin's heart skipped an entire beat.
The Father jumped behind his men; the human gangsters raised their weapons, and more gunshots rang out, brass shells hitting the dirt. The air was alight with muzzle flashes; chaos broke free. Everyone dove for cover behind open car doors, behind concrete barricades, anything nearest to them. Aurin slid to the ground, behind an empty steel barrel.
As he tried to regain situational awareness, he looked up and saw that Gramps was halfway out of the driver's side window, a pistol firing off in his hand. His eyes were wide as dinner plates, and his lips were drawn back in a drooling, rabid grimace. The idiot.
"DIE YOU ANIMALS! DIE! YOU DAMN-"
He was cut off as a bullet pierced his chest. He fell back into the car, and Aurin could see him no more.
The barrel next to Aurin toppled over in a flash, and the dog-man was standing over him; there was a gun pointed directly at Aurin’s head, and precious milliseconds ticked by.
The dog-man pulled the trigger, and the gun became white hot in his hand, exploding in a fireball of shrapnel.
The creature shrieked, recoiled, blinded from the sudden burst. Aurin jumped to his feet, grabbed the creature by its face, and slammed its head as hard as he could into the side of the shipping container.
Aurin had only a second to realize that the granite-man had his pistol trained on him before pumping off shots. Aurin grabbed the dog-man’s limp corpse and shoved it in front, and bullets started hitting center of mass, the body jerking in response to the impacts.
In the time it took for the body to fall, Aurin had fashioned the blood on his knuckles and on the dog-man's body into sharp, fast-moving spears. The iron spikes shot forward at a large fraction of the speed of sound, piercing the granite-man’s chest and eyes; he bellowed in pain, toppled over.
Aurin sprinted forward, tackled the granite-man’s upper half with a scissor hold that put him into the ground, wrestled the firearm away, and shot the nearest Khagilosi in the face as he turned his head. The granite-man choked on blood, and Aurin put a round in his temple to silence him.
There were three Khagilosi nearest to him, all quickly becoming aware of what had happened; They turned their guns on Aurin, and were impaled from below by spikes of ice that had formed up out of the ground.
A beastman was stuck in place, his legs shaking, and he stared Aurin down valiantly. He was a majestic creature, with the head of a white tiger. With venom in his icy eyes, he raised his gun to fire.
The frozen spike buried in his chest shot up slightly higher into his heart, and the Khagilosi's hand fell, the gun clattering on the ground.
Aurin stood up, and when he did, he realized that the area had become deathly silent, save for the blowing of the wind. He raised up the gun he had wrestled from the granite-man, studied the remarkable craftsmanship; watched as it turned red, then orange, then to yellow, finally melting away in Aurin's untouched hand.
All of the attendants of this meeting were on the ground, dead or dying. A man, one of Fathers bodyguards, seeing the huge pool of blood forming below him, lay his head on the ground and made peace with the Gods. Aurin eyed the car nearest to him, at the fluid leaking out in a weak stream from a hole in the fuel tank.
Aurin stepped over the carnage, picked up the suitcase from the Komodo-man, and made his way to the car he had arrived in, the windshield made almost opaque by spider web-like bullet holes. He peeked into the shattered passenger window; Gramps lay slumped against his seat. He had blood running from his mouth and glittering shards of glass in his lap.
“I couldn’t help it,” Gramps wheezed. “Just seeing them bastards... reminded me of my ‘pa. What they did to ‘em. They deserved it.” He groaned and clutched the bullet wound on his chest, his hand soaked crimson. “The whole lot of ‘em.”
“Yeah,” Aurin replied. Hardly an affirmation, but it was all he could say; were it not for Gramps everyone could have walked away from this with their lives. He briefly thought of ending Gramps' suffering then and there, but it would all be over before long. He flipped the lid to the vehicle's tank, and unscrewed the gas cap.
Aurin turned to his right, and saw the Father propped up against the body of his hovercar, his white suit now adorned with blooming red flowers.
“I suppose...” the Father began, and coughed. Blood splattered on Aurin’s shoes. “Ugh. I suppose you’ll want to know... what is in the briefcase.”
“No.” Aurin answered. “I just need to deliver it, right?”
“Right,” The Father replied. “There is forty mils in the briefcase in the trunk. Forty for now, and another forty... when you get there. Estate of the old eagle… Atop an inland hill. Go, and meet your contact.”
“How much were you gonna give them?”
“Nothing,” The Father chuckled, and broke into a fit of coughing. He was fading fast. “To hell with them. Let them rot.”
From the driver’s side door, Aurin pulled the trunk release button. Taking a few steps over, Aurin peered inside, and saw the white briefcase.
Aurin took a final drag, and grabbed the white briefcase by the handle.
“Hey... Boy...” The Father choked. “You’re not still mad about that little girl, are you?”
Aurin didn’t answer him; instead, he transferred both handles to one hand, walked again over by the Father, flipped the lid to the gas tank up, and unscrewed the gas cap as he did with Gramps’ car.
“What are you doing?” The Father croaked. “Giving me a proper send-off?”
Aurin continued to ignore him, and walked toward the darkness. Kept walking until he was a safe distance away.
“Hey, Alcoleiz!” The Father bellowed with the last of his breath. “I made you remember!? I made you!”
With his cigarette still lit on the ground near the car, Aurin ignited the oxygen in the nearby air, and an electric spark snapped into the open gas tank. A series of explosions pierced the air in quick succession and the meeting place was engulfed in blue hellfire, incinerating all organic matter in a matter of seconds.
Aurin set the suitcases on the ground, and pulled out a small black device from his pants pocket. He dialed a number onto the interface, and waited as a musical tone sounded.
“Hello?” A gruff voice answered on the other end. “Who’s this?”
“I need a car,” Aurin muttered.
He snapped the device in half, and tossed it into the flames. The ever-present red sphere of Khagilos watched from the sky.
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