I Am The Very Model of a Robot-Slaying General
Title: I Am The Very Model of a Robot-Slaying General
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: KAT-TUN - Nakamaru/Koki/Taguchi; Taguchi/Komine Rena
Summary: Nakamaru thought they'd never be able to mount another strike if they weren't prepared. If only the rest of the idiots he'd fought with could be as logical as he was.
Notes/Warnings: For jentfic_remix. A remix of Bass Your Car Streets and Party Fresh Beats by je_levy. Graphic violence, drug use, language, groping. Oh, and AU - KILLER ROBOT APOCALYPSE (not lying).
It hadn't been easy to get this place in order. Stockpiling food was a challenge, but Nakamaru had discovered that some people valued cigarettes over basic staples. It had been two months without a smoke, but the rice he'd traded for wouldn't go bad for a while, and the little bit of electricity and gas he was leeching would keep his cooker and hot plate going. The water pipes were unreliable, and he didn't dare flush the john during the day. After lights out, the neighborhood wasn't patrolled as heavily. That was how he lived now. He'd become nocturnal.
Someone had told him, he couldn't remember who exactly, but there was a little design flaw in the patrol bots' sensors. They detected life signs based on heart rate - sleeping heart rates were too slow to be detected. So long as he spent most of the patrol hours asleep, it was unlikely they'd dig him out of his bunker and send a flash of red to disintegrate him. That was the reason so many had died so quickly in the early days - they ran. Well, that was the quickest way to get detected.
Which was why it surprised him that people like Taguchi were still alive. Nakamaru had known the guy a long time, and they'd even fought in the first resistance together. The guy was one big moving target - no sense of strategy other than charging at a metallic wall of death with guns blazing. He wasn't sure where the hell the guy was holed up from day to day. It was something Koki knew and didn't talk about.
The sun had set four hours earlier, at least according to his watch. He only rarely ventured out now - his name got him in pretty much anywhere, but now that he'd gotten his little "mansion" in order (Koki's name for it, not Maru's), there was little point in putting himself at risk. It had been six months since the resistance failed, and with all their top brass exterminated, Nakamaru thought they'd never be able to mount another strike if they weren't prepared. If only the rest of the idiots he'd fought with could be as logical as he was.
Nope. He'd heard over the wireless about Akanishi's stupid suicidal charge right at the Tokyo mainframe. About Koyama's failed schmoozing with the traitor class. Haste wouldn't destroy them. Sucking the right cock wouldn't destroy them. It was about tactics and small, localized strikes. It would take a bit more fucking time.
He went back to his work table, sighing at the state of his current effort. A magazine that used to hold 30 normal rounds, reengineered to hold 10 pulse rounds. If all went according to plan and the marksman wasn't a complete idiot, it would penetrate the titanium and fry all the positronic circuits in a bot's body. The problem was the metal - it was absolute shit. It would get too hot to get more than three of the special rounds off. It was too risky. He could trade some of the body armor he'd stitched together with Koki's help for stronger stuff, but that would only deplete his surplus. Eventually he'd run out of things to exchange.
A general's work was never fucking done.
He fiddled with the metal, wondering if he could melt it down and simply fuse it with something else. There was more scrap in some of the abandoned bunkers in the neighborhood, but that meant using a forge. And a forge was pretty much a burning beacon to the patrol bots. "Hey fuckers, I'm right here!" Nope. He'd have to trade this time.
The empty beer cans that served as his personal alarm system jangled suddenly with a ding of aluminum. Someone had set off the tripwire. Fuck, and he was just getting to work, too. He tossed the tarp over the work table and hurried out of the room, slamming the door and hearing the locks tumble into place. He reached right under his dining table for the P220 taped there - the service weapon hadn't done him much good in the resistance, but bots rarely came close enough to hit the tripwire. But nobody had passed on word that they'd be dropping by. Best to be prepared.
He flipped off the safety, hearing the shoddy metal exterior door scrape open noisily. A shitty door would trick any brainless bot - who would be stupid enough to leave up such a shoddy defense? Well, it was only the second line after the tripwire. Nakamaru was smarter than a fucking bot.
Then there was the pathetic knock at the interior door - three inches of solid steel between Nakamaru and a bot's laser. He didn't like wasting power for CCTV. They'd trace that shit back to him in seconds. Instead he waited. Another knock and finally an identification.
"Oi, General, you home?" Fucking Taguchi. Thank god he'd locked the work room. More knocking. "Yu-i-chi!"
Another voice, more of a giggle. Koki. "General Nakamaru, special delivery!"
He undid his deadbolts and pulled the door open. Before he could get his P220 in their idiot faces, they were embracing him, the three of them tumbling back into the "mansion." The smell, almost like they'd been drinking rocket fuel. He held his breath as Taguchi's long limbs wrapped around him like a boa constrictor and Koki ruffled his hair.
"General, how are you, good evening, how do you do, charmed I'm sure," Taguchi crowed, drunk as a skunk. Nakamaru shoved him off, attending to his deadbolts. "He smells like peppermint. I told you."
Loud, he was so fucking loud. Thank god it was after dark. He observed the two fools before him. Six months after the defeat, and they were different men. They'd given up caring. He crossed his arms as Koki leaned back against the door. Maru looked down and sighed. "Koki, your pants are open like a traitor class rentboy's..."
Koki didn't bother to zip them back up. Taguchi laughed, as though his whole body was consumed with the need to expel it. "We were having a good time. We love to have a good time."
The two of them were swaying. It wasn't just drink, was it? Booze and hasty back alley sex (if Koki's open fly meant anything) and something else. For those still alive, it was almost too easy to just give up and drift away on drugs. He eyed Koki suspiciously. "What the fuck are you two on? What did you give him? You know Taguchi doesn't have the brain cells to spare if you're hopped up on something."
Koki looked offended. "Why the fuck do you assume I'm the one handing out drugs here?"
Taguchi was still giggling. "We're in your mansion now, General. And a fine time for a visit, right? See, there are people trying to kill us, Na-ka-ma-ruuuu."
"What do you mean trying to kill you?" His eyes widened, and he tightened his grip on the sidearm. "You didn't lure any fucking patrol bots with you, did you? I swear, if you ruin everything I've worked for..."
Koki grabbed hold of his arm, shaking him a bit. "Guch has a hit on him, two possibly. I don't know how many of them were chasing us. They've got guns, and they're not joking. They want him dead, and me too for protecting him."
"But who? Why?"
Taguchi dragged himself to Maru's sorry ass couch. "I fucked up, Yuu-pi! I can't help myself when it comes to girls, you know that, but Rena found out..."
Nakamaru froze. If it wasn't Taguchi's stupidity getting him in danger, it was Taguchi's dick. Rena. Komine Rena - her family had been one of the first to turn traitor class, ally themselves with the bots and turn in their friends and others to save their own asses. The patrol bots didn't touch them, and they could do whatever they liked. Parties, drugs, you name it. Taguchi had been fucking around with her even during the resistance, waxing philosophical about being star-crossed lovers or some shit. Hadn't done much to make him the most loyal little pet though.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Let me get this straight. You can't keep it in your pants. You've managed to piss off your traitor class girlfriend who could get you chipped and tracked. You probably have thugs AND bots after you. You drag Koki into it. And then you think, oh you know who can save my ass? Nakamaru."
"General Nakamaru," Koki giggled, "and his fucking awesome mansion full of high-powered plasma rifles!"
"Fuck you," he muttered. "No seriously, fuck you for bringing this shit here."
He had to think. God damn it, he had to think this through. Taguchi was lazy enough to come to him, Koki wanted Taguchi's dick enough to follow along. And it was up to Nakamaru to mop up the mess, just like in their resistance days. And these were two of the guys he expected to help out once he was ready to make a move again? He was fucked.
Coffee. They needed coffee. He wasn't handing over any weapons until whatever they were on had been pissed out of their systems. He emptied two of his precious remaining cans of instant coffee into a clean enough pot and set it on the hot plate to warm up. No luxuries here. He poured it out into two cups and set them down. "Drink it. Now."
They were all smiles, all laughs for two idiots with people trying to kill them. He wondered how much of a jump they had on their pursuers. If it was bots, maybe Taguchi had a tracker embedded somewhere in his dick. He wouldn't put it past someone like Komine Rena. But they'd already be under attack if that were the case. According to Koki, the two of them had been wasting time at some traitor class nightclub, drinking sake and getting high. Nakamaru couldn't think of a stupider plan than that, really, but maybe Taguchi thought that if he fucked enough traitor class girls that he'd build up some sort of immunity. He'd thought wrong.
So it probably wasn't bots. It was humans set to end them for good. Nakamaru could probably kill a man in fifty different ways, a few of them with nothing more than a box of dental floss (unwaxed). He was just a little out of practice was all. He'd spent night after night teaching himself better ways to annihilate bots without it alerting the whole fucking grid, and now he was tasked with eliminating flesh and blood. Well, you never forgot how to ride a bike.
He watched the coffee dribble down their stupid chins, finally holding out his hand. "Alright Taguchi, hand over whatever the fuck pills you're on."
"Haha, what?" Taguchi asked, slurring. "They make me feel good."
"You want me to keep your ass alive, you'll hand them over as the cost of my services." Narcotics could buy him all the metal he needed to build a better pulse round magazine and have enough leftover to install some more security around the "mansion." At least enough to keep these two jokers from getting in again.
"No way," Taguchi said, patting his pocket. "Not on your life."
The asshole. Nakamaru was not going to take this lying down. He lunged for Taguchi's pocket, feeling Koki back up and away as the two of them ended up clawing at each other like a couple of kids. The cups of coffee overturned and puddled onto the floor, and Taguchi's hands were all over him. Half trying to keep Maru out of his pocket, the other half just fucking around and trying to grope and grab. It was this kind of shit that always got Taguchi in trouble.
He ended up slammed against the counter of his makeshift kitchen. Even on god knows what, Taguchi was bigger and stronger than him. Maru always had been a little too cerebral. He'd never been a front line brute force man. He knew Koki was watching, probably getting hard. This constant grab-ass bullshit never would have flown in the resistance, but now they didn't even care as long as they got off and could forget the world for a while.
"Stop," Nakamaru warned him, feeling Taguchi's slippery hands sneak under his shirt and head straight for his belt loops. Nights were long in his "mansion," and his hand had been decent company for long enough. He had to stay in control. Fuck the pills, the hitmen would be there any minute. He tried to shove Taguchi away, but only got a more urgent press of Taguchi's erection against his thigh. It stunned him long enough for Taguchi to attack his mouth, breaking his defense to slip his tongue inside. He felt something on his tongue that wasn't just another tongue - something quick-dissolving and salty sweet. He ignored the twitch of his own cock in his pants to bite down on Taguchi's tongue and send him back.
"Guys," Koki said, trying to break them apart. Taguchi jumped back with a laugh, wiping a crimson stain from the corner of his mouth down his chin. Nakamaru held onto the counter, wishing the two of them had never come there. Wishing he wasn't so irritatingly willing to help the bastards who'd once been under his command.
"Fuck," Maru grumbled, desperately scraping his fingers across his tongue, the insides of his cheeks. Whatever Taguchi had slipped him was already in his system. It was strong stuff, fast acting. Or maybe Nakamaru hadn't experimented enough in the old days to have built up a ready wall of resistance against it. He fell to his knees, trying to focus. People were coming - people were coming to kill them, all of them now. Plasma charges, plasma charges, no fucking need for that if it's people coming. Combat knife, sidearm. He laughed uproariously. Dental fucking floss. Unwaxed. The drug was seeping into his brain, curling around all his logic centers and making him into a laugh-a-minute fuck-up like Koki and Taguchi.
Taguchi was dabbing at his mouth with a rag from the counter and giggling. "You hear that? Look Koki, they found us!"
Sure enough, Nakamaru heard the scraping of the shitty door. He'd thrown all the deadbolts, right? Yes. Deadbolts yes. The drug was fusing with his cells, mingling with his blood. Resist, resist.
He wasn't going out like a bitch. He was the motherfucking general.
"Guch, what the fuck did you give him?" Koki was muttering as Nakamaru got up and got to work. The bastards were at the door, the enemy was at the god damn gates.
Taguchi was still laughing. "Same shit we're on. Guess it unhinges the tightly wound, huh?"
He had Koki by the hair, Taguchi by the collar and pulled them to the work room. "Unlock it," he ordered, and Koki's hands made quick work of it.
"Tough shit's going down here tonight, gentlemen!" Nakamaru announced. It was like that last night, that one last charge against inevitability. He could still smell the alleyway, the red laser beams puncturing the darkness as they all waited, sweat dripping with their fingers to the triggers of their useless rifles. They'd thought themselves invincible that night. "Prepare your fucking stones."
BANG!
They were trying to break down Nakamaru's three inches of steel door. Well, he thought, he had a few more inches they hadn't counted on. He shoved Koki and Taguchi into the work room. They'd only get in his way. They protested in their strange, drugged up, freaked out giggles, and he just hoped they wouldn't leave piss puddles in his shop. He didn't have the budget for cleaning supplies.
He threw the lock and took back his P220 from the counter by his hot plate. Guns were messy, especially head shots. No budget for cleaning supplies. Last resort.
BANG!
Knife with the dulled blade, taped behind a plastic bottle of soy sauce. That would hurt like a bitch. He settled it between his belt loops and stuck the sidearm behind his back, just inside his waistband. Back-ups one and two.
BANG!
They'd get in the next time. They were battering it with something. Would be costly to replace the door. No time to think. Time to act. Lights off, and he lowered the night-vision goggles he had resting beside his toothbrush at the sink over his head, switching them on. It would be a drain on their juice, but he didn't need them to see him until it was too late.
He opened his cabinet with the squeaky hinges. "Hello, beautiful," he said reverently, grabbing the old cookie tin with the cute cartoon turtle on the front. He pried open Turtle-kun's lid, lifting out a handful of four-point throwing stars with a grin. They were going to shoot up his mansion, but they weren't going to shoot him. They'd chosen the wrong fucking man to mess with.
BANG!
The steel gave way as the shadows of three marksmen with handguns entered, dropping their metal battering ram to Nakamaru's floor. He was crouched behind his crappy couch, waiting. If they were traitor class, they were nothing more than baboons with pistols. They hadn't fought against the resistance - that was what the bots were for. They had no actual combat experience, especially at close quarters. Their guns were accessories to make them look intimidating, not weapons they were well-experienced with. If anything, they were probably packing Browning pistols - the traitor class always liked to show off the shit they'd excavated from the ruins of America.
"The fuck is this?" one of the gunmen complained. "Where are they?"
Nakamaru didn't really want to give himself away so early, but reducing his targets from three to two right off the bat could only help. He was on home turf, too. Every second counted. He flicked his wrist, throwing his first star right at the sound of the voice he'd heard. The quick slicing sound of metal piercing flesh and the mournful gurgle confirmed a direct hit - he couldn't confirm a kill since the night vision goggles had seen better days, but the heavy drop of the body to the ground at least kept that one out of commission for now.
Then there was the light, the spark of the guns cracking like fireworks in the night sky over Nakamaru's hometown. Well, when he'd still had one. Gunman 2 identified, to his left. Gunman 3 advancing to the right. Another star flung, only to incapacitate, in each direction. The one on the left hit, the one on the right clanged against the wall. Shit.
He pulled the knife from his belt, leaving the stars behind him. A bullet went flying just past his ear, and he leapt. The drugs fueling his rage and his strength made him feel like a lion pouncing on prey, and he knocked the man to the floor, hearing the satisfying crack of the man's skull against the concrete floor. He heard Gunman 2 swearing, sending off more rounds, and he had to make quick work of Gunman 3 beneath him. He immediately lifted his hands up and plunged the dull blade into the man's belly, hearing the agonizing scream as he stirred the knife around like soup in a pot to mix up his innards. He quickly thrust the knife up and yanked it back out, rolling to the side as Gunman 2 dove for him.
It was a mistake, Nakamaru thought with a grin. He stabbed the knife right into the man's calf, dropping him to his knees. Maru got behind him, finding the man's head with each hand. If he was an asshole like Taguchi, he'd make a joke first. Instead, he twisted until he heard the decisive pop, dropping Gunman 2 to the floor beside his equally unfortunate comrade. Just Gunman 1. He pulled off the goggles and snapped on the lights.
Gunman 1, star embedded in his neck, had already bled out steps from the doorway. And he had been so damned concerned about gunfire making a mess. Ugh, this would take an eternity to scrub clean.
He removed the P220 from behind his back and flipped the safety back on. They had some bodies to deal with. From here on, it was Taguchi's mess. Would he still have a target on his back? Maybe. But that wasn't Nakamaru's fucking problem. He unlocked the door, and the two of them were on him like leeches. The drugs were probably settling in his system by now after his initial mania, so he allowed it briefly, feeling Taguchi and Koki nuzzling him.
Just as Taguchi's grateful lips tried to descend on his, Maru grabbed hold of his shiny hair and pulled hard. "This'll teach you about trying to drug people," he said, hearing Taguchi whine. That was gratitude for you. "Don't be naive enough to think I'd actually let that slide."
Koki squeezed his ass. "General, what would we do without you...holy shit, would you look at the way that guy's neck is twisted?"
He finally laughed. Such idiots.
--
If there was anything Nakamaru had in good numbers, it was tarps. They were a fine bartering tool since people used them for bedding in their own little shelters and bunkers. And they were a fine way to carry bodies around. Not that it was terribly easy when he and his two useless asshole companions were higher than Bot Central HQ in what used to be Midtown Tower.
It was slow going since they had to get them as far away from Nakamaru's "mansion" as possible before the patrols started up again. The gunmen were heavy on account of being dead, after all. They were finally on body number three after several hours of carrying them through the abandoned neighborhood and past buildings covered in charred black remnants of bot laser attacks.
Taguchi was holding on at the head, Koki in the middle, and Nakamaru had the feet end as they hurried over long destroyed sidewalks and thoroughfares. They'd place them in another neighborhood, another jurisdiction. Let the people who lived there find it. Of course, Nakamaru was no fool - three dead traitor class men was suspicious, if it was obvious they'd been taken out by humans. But Nakamaru had one of his plasma rifles strapped to his back - three dead traitor class men, victims of bots? Well, they must have deserved it.
They'd hidden the other two down a narrow alleyway, and he complained as Taguchi and Koki shuffled slowly. "How much longer?" Taguchi asked, as if the necessary disposal of bodies of people who'd tried to murder him was a huge nuisance.
"We're almost there," Koki said, always trying to play peacemaker.
Nakamaru could already see the faintest pinks and oranges in the sky. Sun would be up soon, and they had to get moving. "Maybe another fifteen minutes before we need to be as far from this area as possible."
They finally dumped the third gunman beside his two friends. Koki gathered up the tarps. They'd dump those elsewhere, and Nakamaru pulled the rifle from his back. The plasma burns at close range would mask the stab wounds and the broken neck. They wouldn't be that recognizable. He had the two idiots back away, and he took aim. The rifle had a good kick to it, and he only wished they were more effective against bots. It was a gun that felt great in his hands.
Taguchi and Koki looked away, courage draining along with the effects of the drugs they were on. Nakamaru was looking forward to sleeping, getting his heart rate back down and avoiding the bot patrols. A few quick shots and it was over.
"Come on," he told them. "I don't care if you're scrubbing until your hands bleed, you will make my place spotless."
They followed him back. He wasn't looking forward to them sleeping there, but it was the safest arrangement. If they went running around the city at this hour, they'd probably get themselves zapped, and all of Nakamaru's efforts would have been for nothing.
Nakamaru swore he'd reset the tripwire before leaving, and he immediately had the plasma rifle at the ready. But Taguchi, beautiful and stupid as always, barreled past him inside. "Rena-chan!" he squealed with all the joy of a child eating candy.
Koki looked almost devastated as they entered Nakamaru's place to find traitor class Komine Rena herself standing in the middle of the room. The sharp, pointed toes of her glossy boots rested just at the edge of one of the gunmen's bloodstains. Nakamaru wasn't fond of killing females on principle, but this devil woman and her hypnotic traitor class thighs had ensnared Taguchi for far too long.
She held up a handgun of her own, frowning. "Junno. You're alive."
"Yeah," Taguchi said, smiling. Why the fuck was he smiling?
"You were with those filthy bitches at the SkyBurst, weren't you? I knew it. I know you, and that's how they found you."
This was all a very lovely story, but Nakamaru was about to elbow Taguchi aside and leave a plasma burn in the middle of the bitch's face. Instead, Taguchi opened his arms for an embrace. "I can't do things the way you want me to, but look...if it's you Rena-chan, then I'd gladly die. I survived because you're the only one who can hurt me."
It was probably the dumbest thing Nakamaru had ever heard in his life, especially after he'd killed the three men Komine Rena had sent to put bullets in Taguchi's empty head. He only survived because of her, huh?
"You're an awful, awful person sometimes, Junno."
Taguchi held up his hands in surrender. "Do your worst. I accept that I deserve it. Go ahead and shoot."
He'd had enough. Maru stepped forward, yanking the gun from the woman's hand before she could even blink. Damn thing wasn't even loaded. Koki rolled his eyes as Rena leapt forward and buried her face in Taguchi's chest. All was forgiven. Star-crossed lovers. What the fuck ever, Nakamaru thought, slipping the gun into his back pocket - maybe he'd get a good price for it.
He looked around the "mansion" he'd spent so long putting together. For nothing now if a traitor class knew where it was. Well, at least he wouldn't have to waste time bartering for cleaning supplies. It was time to move, but it was daylight now. Bots on patrol. Komine Rena's status meant little in a warzone during the day. He deadbolted the door as best he could considering the thugs had nearly knocked it off its hinges. As Taguchi and his lady love kissed and made up, Koki followed him to his sleeping area.
"Thank you, General," Koki said sadly. "For helping Guch, I mean."
Well, Nakamaru thought, he still needed soldiers. And what kind of commander would he be if he couldn't protect the men beneath him? Even the stupid ones. He pulled a tarp over Koki who collapsed in Maru's futon. He pulled up a chair and covered himself with a tarp, shaking his head.
A general's work was never fucking done.
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: KAT-TUN - Nakamaru/Koki/Taguchi; Taguchi/Komine Rena
Summary: Nakamaru thought they'd never be able to mount another strike if they weren't prepared. If only the rest of the idiots he'd fought with could be as logical as he was.
Notes/Warnings: For jentfic_remix. A remix of Bass Your Car Streets and Party Fresh Beats by je_levy. Graphic violence, drug use, language, groping. Oh, and AU - KILLER ROBOT APOCALYPSE (not lying).
It hadn't been easy to get this place in order. Stockpiling food was a challenge, but Nakamaru had discovered that some people valued cigarettes over basic staples. It had been two months without a smoke, but the rice he'd traded for wouldn't go bad for a while, and the little bit of electricity and gas he was leeching would keep his cooker and hot plate going. The water pipes were unreliable, and he didn't dare flush the john during the day. After lights out, the neighborhood wasn't patrolled as heavily. That was how he lived now. He'd become nocturnal.
Someone had told him, he couldn't remember who exactly, but there was a little design flaw in the patrol bots' sensors. They detected life signs based on heart rate - sleeping heart rates were too slow to be detected. So long as he spent most of the patrol hours asleep, it was unlikely they'd dig him out of his bunker and send a flash of red to disintegrate him. That was the reason so many had died so quickly in the early days - they ran. Well, that was the quickest way to get detected.
Which was why it surprised him that people like Taguchi were still alive. Nakamaru had known the guy a long time, and they'd even fought in the first resistance together. The guy was one big moving target - no sense of strategy other than charging at a metallic wall of death with guns blazing. He wasn't sure where the hell the guy was holed up from day to day. It was something Koki knew and didn't talk about.
The sun had set four hours earlier, at least according to his watch. He only rarely ventured out now - his name got him in pretty much anywhere, but now that he'd gotten his little "mansion" in order (Koki's name for it, not Maru's), there was little point in putting himself at risk. It had been six months since the resistance failed, and with all their top brass exterminated, Nakamaru thought they'd never be able to mount another strike if they weren't prepared. If only the rest of the idiots he'd fought with could be as logical as he was.
Nope. He'd heard over the wireless about Akanishi's stupid suicidal charge right at the Tokyo mainframe. About Koyama's failed schmoozing with the traitor class. Haste wouldn't destroy them. Sucking the right cock wouldn't destroy them. It was about tactics and small, localized strikes. It would take a bit more fucking time.
He went back to his work table, sighing at the state of his current effort. A magazine that used to hold 30 normal rounds, reengineered to hold 10 pulse rounds. If all went according to plan and the marksman wasn't a complete idiot, it would penetrate the titanium and fry all the positronic circuits in a bot's body. The problem was the metal - it was absolute shit. It would get too hot to get more than three of the special rounds off. It was too risky. He could trade some of the body armor he'd stitched together with Koki's help for stronger stuff, but that would only deplete his surplus. Eventually he'd run out of things to exchange.
A general's work was never fucking done.
He fiddled with the metal, wondering if he could melt it down and simply fuse it with something else. There was more scrap in some of the abandoned bunkers in the neighborhood, but that meant using a forge. And a forge was pretty much a burning beacon to the patrol bots. "Hey fuckers, I'm right here!" Nope. He'd have to trade this time.
The empty beer cans that served as his personal alarm system jangled suddenly with a ding of aluminum. Someone had set off the tripwire. Fuck, and he was just getting to work, too. He tossed the tarp over the work table and hurried out of the room, slamming the door and hearing the locks tumble into place. He reached right under his dining table for the P220 taped there - the service weapon hadn't done him much good in the resistance, but bots rarely came close enough to hit the tripwire. But nobody had passed on word that they'd be dropping by. Best to be prepared.
He flipped off the safety, hearing the shoddy metal exterior door scrape open noisily. A shitty door would trick any brainless bot - who would be stupid enough to leave up such a shoddy defense? Well, it was only the second line after the tripwire. Nakamaru was smarter than a fucking bot.
Then there was the pathetic knock at the interior door - three inches of solid steel between Nakamaru and a bot's laser. He didn't like wasting power for CCTV. They'd trace that shit back to him in seconds. Instead he waited. Another knock and finally an identification.
"Oi, General, you home?" Fucking Taguchi. Thank god he'd locked the work room. More knocking. "Yu-i-chi!"
Another voice, more of a giggle. Koki. "General Nakamaru, special delivery!"
He undid his deadbolts and pulled the door open. Before he could get his P220 in their idiot faces, they were embracing him, the three of them tumbling back into the "mansion." The smell, almost like they'd been drinking rocket fuel. He held his breath as Taguchi's long limbs wrapped around him like a boa constrictor and Koki ruffled his hair.
"General, how are you, good evening, how do you do, charmed I'm sure," Taguchi crowed, drunk as a skunk. Nakamaru shoved him off, attending to his deadbolts. "He smells like peppermint. I told you."
Loud, he was so fucking loud. Thank god it was after dark. He observed the two fools before him. Six months after the defeat, and they were different men. They'd given up caring. He crossed his arms as Koki leaned back against the door. Maru looked down and sighed. "Koki, your pants are open like a traitor class rentboy's..."
Koki didn't bother to zip them back up. Taguchi laughed, as though his whole body was consumed with the need to expel it. "We were having a good time. We love to have a good time."
The two of them were swaying. It wasn't just drink, was it? Booze and hasty back alley sex (if Koki's open fly meant anything) and something else. For those still alive, it was almost too easy to just give up and drift away on drugs. He eyed Koki suspiciously. "What the fuck are you two on? What did you give him? You know Taguchi doesn't have the brain cells to spare if you're hopped up on something."
Koki looked offended. "Why the fuck do you assume I'm the one handing out drugs here?"
Taguchi was still giggling. "We're in your mansion now, General. And a fine time for a visit, right? See, there are people trying to kill us, Na-ka-ma-ruuuu."
"What do you mean trying to kill you?" His eyes widened, and he tightened his grip on the sidearm. "You didn't lure any fucking patrol bots with you, did you? I swear, if you ruin everything I've worked for..."
Koki grabbed hold of his arm, shaking him a bit. "Guch has a hit on him, two possibly. I don't know how many of them were chasing us. They've got guns, and they're not joking. They want him dead, and me too for protecting him."
"But who? Why?"
Taguchi dragged himself to Maru's sorry ass couch. "I fucked up, Yuu-pi! I can't help myself when it comes to girls, you know that, but Rena found out..."
Nakamaru froze. If it wasn't Taguchi's stupidity getting him in danger, it was Taguchi's dick. Rena. Komine Rena - her family had been one of the first to turn traitor class, ally themselves with the bots and turn in their friends and others to save their own asses. The patrol bots didn't touch them, and they could do whatever they liked. Parties, drugs, you name it. Taguchi had been fucking around with her even during the resistance, waxing philosophical about being star-crossed lovers or some shit. Hadn't done much to make him the most loyal little pet though.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Let me get this straight. You can't keep it in your pants. You've managed to piss off your traitor class girlfriend who could get you chipped and tracked. You probably have thugs AND bots after you. You drag Koki into it. And then you think, oh you know who can save my ass? Nakamaru."
"General Nakamaru," Koki giggled, "and his fucking awesome mansion full of high-powered plasma rifles!"
"Fuck you," he muttered. "No seriously, fuck you for bringing this shit here."
He had to think. God damn it, he had to think this through. Taguchi was lazy enough to come to him, Koki wanted Taguchi's dick enough to follow along. And it was up to Nakamaru to mop up the mess, just like in their resistance days. And these were two of the guys he expected to help out once he was ready to make a move again? He was fucked.
Coffee. They needed coffee. He wasn't handing over any weapons until whatever they were on had been pissed out of their systems. He emptied two of his precious remaining cans of instant coffee into a clean enough pot and set it on the hot plate to warm up. No luxuries here. He poured it out into two cups and set them down. "Drink it. Now."
They were all smiles, all laughs for two idiots with people trying to kill them. He wondered how much of a jump they had on their pursuers. If it was bots, maybe Taguchi had a tracker embedded somewhere in his dick. He wouldn't put it past someone like Komine Rena. But they'd already be under attack if that were the case. According to Koki, the two of them had been wasting time at some traitor class nightclub, drinking sake and getting high. Nakamaru couldn't think of a stupider plan than that, really, but maybe Taguchi thought that if he fucked enough traitor class girls that he'd build up some sort of immunity. He'd thought wrong.
So it probably wasn't bots. It was humans set to end them for good. Nakamaru could probably kill a man in fifty different ways, a few of them with nothing more than a box of dental floss (unwaxed). He was just a little out of practice was all. He'd spent night after night teaching himself better ways to annihilate bots without it alerting the whole fucking grid, and now he was tasked with eliminating flesh and blood. Well, you never forgot how to ride a bike.
He watched the coffee dribble down their stupid chins, finally holding out his hand. "Alright Taguchi, hand over whatever the fuck pills you're on."
"Haha, what?" Taguchi asked, slurring. "They make me feel good."
"You want me to keep your ass alive, you'll hand them over as the cost of my services." Narcotics could buy him all the metal he needed to build a better pulse round magazine and have enough leftover to install some more security around the "mansion." At least enough to keep these two jokers from getting in again.
"No way," Taguchi said, patting his pocket. "Not on your life."
The asshole. Nakamaru was not going to take this lying down. He lunged for Taguchi's pocket, feeling Koki back up and away as the two of them ended up clawing at each other like a couple of kids. The cups of coffee overturned and puddled onto the floor, and Taguchi's hands were all over him. Half trying to keep Maru out of his pocket, the other half just fucking around and trying to grope and grab. It was this kind of shit that always got Taguchi in trouble.
He ended up slammed against the counter of his makeshift kitchen. Even on god knows what, Taguchi was bigger and stronger than him. Maru always had been a little too cerebral. He'd never been a front line brute force man. He knew Koki was watching, probably getting hard. This constant grab-ass bullshit never would have flown in the resistance, but now they didn't even care as long as they got off and could forget the world for a while.
"Stop," Nakamaru warned him, feeling Taguchi's slippery hands sneak under his shirt and head straight for his belt loops. Nights were long in his "mansion," and his hand had been decent company for long enough. He had to stay in control. Fuck the pills, the hitmen would be there any minute. He tried to shove Taguchi away, but only got a more urgent press of Taguchi's erection against his thigh. It stunned him long enough for Taguchi to attack his mouth, breaking his defense to slip his tongue inside. He felt something on his tongue that wasn't just another tongue - something quick-dissolving and salty sweet. He ignored the twitch of his own cock in his pants to bite down on Taguchi's tongue and send him back.
"Guys," Koki said, trying to break them apart. Taguchi jumped back with a laugh, wiping a crimson stain from the corner of his mouth down his chin. Nakamaru held onto the counter, wishing the two of them had never come there. Wishing he wasn't so irritatingly willing to help the bastards who'd once been under his command.
"Fuck," Maru grumbled, desperately scraping his fingers across his tongue, the insides of his cheeks. Whatever Taguchi had slipped him was already in his system. It was strong stuff, fast acting. Or maybe Nakamaru hadn't experimented enough in the old days to have built up a ready wall of resistance against it. He fell to his knees, trying to focus. People were coming - people were coming to kill them, all of them now. Plasma charges, plasma charges, no fucking need for that if it's people coming. Combat knife, sidearm. He laughed uproariously. Dental fucking floss. Unwaxed. The drug was seeping into his brain, curling around all his logic centers and making him into a laugh-a-minute fuck-up like Koki and Taguchi.
Taguchi was dabbing at his mouth with a rag from the counter and giggling. "You hear that? Look Koki, they found us!"
Sure enough, Nakamaru heard the scraping of the shitty door. He'd thrown all the deadbolts, right? Yes. Deadbolts yes. The drug was fusing with his cells, mingling with his blood. Resist, resist.
He wasn't going out like a bitch. He was the motherfucking general.
"Guch, what the fuck did you give him?" Koki was muttering as Nakamaru got up and got to work. The bastards were at the door, the enemy was at the god damn gates.
Taguchi was still laughing. "Same shit we're on. Guess it unhinges the tightly wound, huh?"
He had Koki by the hair, Taguchi by the collar and pulled them to the work room. "Unlock it," he ordered, and Koki's hands made quick work of it.
"Tough shit's going down here tonight, gentlemen!" Nakamaru announced. It was like that last night, that one last charge against inevitability. He could still smell the alleyway, the red laser beams puncturing the darkness as they all waited, sweat dripping with their fingers to the triggers of their useless rifles. They'd thought themselves invincible that night. "Prepare your fucking stones."
BANG!
They were trying to break down Nakamaru's three inches of steel door. Well, he thought, he had a few more inches they hadn't counted on. He shoved Koki and Taguchi into the work room. They'd only get in his way. They protested in their strange, drugged up, freaked out giggles, and he just hoped they wouldn't leave piss puddles in his shop. He didn't have the budget for cleaning supplies.
He threw the lock and took back his P220 from the counter by his hot plate. Guns were messy, especially head shots. No budget for cleaning supplies. Last resort.
BANG!
Knife with the dulled blade, taped behind a plastic bottle of soy sauce. That would hurt like a bitch. He settled it between his belt loops and stuck the sidearm behind his back, just inside his waistband. Back-ups one and two.
BANG!
They'd get in the next time. They were battering it with something. Would be costly to replace the door. No time to think. Time to act. Lights off, and he lowered the night-vision goggles he had resting beside his toothbrush at the sink over his head, switching them on. It would be a drain on their juice, but he didn't need them to see him until it was too late.
He opened his cabinet with the squeaky hinges. "Hello, beautiful," he said reverently, grabbing the old cookie tin with the cute cartoon turtle on the front. He pried open Turtle-kun's lid, lifting out a handful of four-point throwing stars with a grin. They were going to shoot up his mansion, but they weren't going to shoot him. They'd chosen the wrong fucking man to mess with.
BANG!
The steel gave way as the shadows of three marksmen with handguns entered, dropping their metal battering ram to Nakamaru's floor. He was crouched behind his crappy couch, waiting. If they were traitor class, they were nothing more than baboons with pistols. They hadn't fought against the resistance - that was what the bots were for. They had no actual combat experience, especially at close quarters. Their guns were accessories to make them look intimidating, not weapons they were well-experienced with. If anything, they were probably packing Browning pistols - the traitor class always liked to show off the shit they'd excavated from the ruins of America.
"The fuck is this?" one of the gunmen complained. "Where are they?"
Nakamaru didn't really want to give himself away so early, but reducing his targets from three to two right off the bat could only help. He was on home turf, too. Every second counted. He flicked his wrist, throwing his first star right at the sound of the voice he'd heard. The quick slicing sound of metal piercing flesh and the mournful gurgle confirmed a direct hit - he couldn't confirm a kill since the night vision goggles had seen better days, but the heavy drop of the body to the ground at least kept that one out of commission for now.
Then there was the light, the spark of the guns cracking like fireworks in the night sky over Nakamaru's hometown. Well, when he'd still had one. Gunman 2 identified, to his left. Gunman 3 advancing to the right. Another star flung, only to incapacitate, in each direction. The one on the left hit, the one on the right clanged against the wall. Shit.
He pulled the knife from his belt, leaving the stars behind him. A bullet went flying just past his ear, and he leapt. The drugs fueling his rage and his strength made him feel like a lion pouncing on prey, and he knocked the man to the floor, hearing the satisfying crack of the man's skull against the concrete floor. He heard Gunman 2 swearing, sending off more rounds, and he had to make quick work of Gunman 3 beneath him. He immediately lifted his hands up and plunged the dull blade into the man's belly, hearing the agonizing scream as he stirred the knife around like soup in a pot to mix up his innards. He quickly thrust the knife up and yanked it back out, rolling to the side as Gunman 2 dove for him.
It was a mistake, Nakamaru thought with a grin. He stabbed the knife right into the man's calf, dropping him to his knees. Maru got behind him, finding the man's head with each hand. If he was an asshole like Taguchi, he'd make a joke first. Instead, he twisted until he heard the decisive pop, dropping Gunman 2 to the floor beside his equally unfortunate comrade. Just Gunman 1. He pulled off the goggles and snapped on the lights.
Gunman 1, star embedded in his neck, had already bled out steps from the doorway. And he had been so damned concerned about gunfire making a mess. Ugh, this would take an eternity to scrub clean.
He removed the P220 from behind his back and flipped the safety back on. They had some bodies to deal with. From here on, it was Taguchi's mess. Would he still have a target on his back? Maybe. But that wasn't Nakamaru's fucking problem. He unlocked the door, and the two of them were on him like leeches. The drugs were probably settling in his system by now after his initial mania, so he allowed it briefly, feeling Taguchi and Koki nuzzling him.
Just as Taguchi's grateful lips tried to descend on his, Maru grabbed hold of his shiny hair and pulled hard. "This'll teach you about trying to drug people," he said, hearing Taguchi whine. That was gratitude for you. "Don't be naive enough to think I'd actually let that slide."
Koki squeezed his ass. "General, what would we do without you...holy shit, would you look at the way that guy's neck is twisted?"
He finally laughed. Such idiots.
--
If there was anything Nakamaru had in good numbers, it was tarps. They were a fine bartering tool since people used them for bedding in their own little shelters and bunkers. And they were a fine way to carry bodies around. Not that it was terribly easy when he and his two useless asshole companions were higher than Bot Central HQ in what used to be Midtown Tower.
It was slow going since they had to get them as far away from Nakamaru's "mansion" as possible before the patrols started up again. The gunmen were heavy on account of being dead, after all. They were finally on body number three after several hours of carrying them through the abandoned neighborhood and past buildings covered in charred black remnants of bot laser attacks.
Taguchi was holding on at the head, Koki in the middle, and Nakamaru had the feet end as they hurried over long destroyed sidewalks and thoroughfares. They'd place them in another neighborhood, another jurisdiction. Let the people who lived there find it. Of course, Nakamaru was no fool - three dead traitor class men was suspicious, if it was obvious they'd been taken out by humans. But Nakamaru had one of his plasma rifles strapped to his back - three dead traitor class men, victims of bots? Well, they must have deserved it.
They'd hidden the other two down a narrow alleyway, and he complained as Taguchi and Koki shuffled slowly. "How much longer?" Taguchi asked, as if the necessary disposal of bodies of people who'd tried to murder him was a huge nuisance.
"We're almost there," Koki said, always trying to play peacemaker.
Nakamaru could already see the faintest pinks and oranges in the sky. Sun would be up soon, and they had to get moving. "Maybe another fifteen minutes before we need to be as far from this area as possible."
They finally dumped the third gunman beside his two friends. Koki gathered up the tarps. They'd dump those elsewhere, and Nakamaru pulled the rifle from his back. The plasma burns at close range would mask the stab wounds and the broken neck. They wouldn't be that recognizable. He had the two idiots back away, and he took aim. The rifle had a good kick to it, and he only wished they were more effective against bots. It was a gun that felt great in his hands.
Taguchi and Koki looked away, courage draining along with the effects of the drugs they were on. Nakamaru was looking forward to sleeping, getting his heart rate back down and avoiding the bot patrols. A few quick shots and it was over.
"Come on," he told them. "I don't care if you're scrubbing until your hands bleed, you will make my place spotless."
They followed him back. He wasn't looking forward to them sleeping there, but it was the safest arrangement. If they went running around the city at this hour, they'd probably get themselves zapped, and all of Nakamaru's efforts would have been for nothing.
Nakamaru swore he'd reset the tripwire before leaving, and he immediately had the plasma rifle at the ready. But Taguchi, beautiful and stupid as always, barreled past him inside. "Rena-chan!" he squealed with all the joy of a child eating candy.
Koki looked almost devastated as they entered Nakamaru's place to find traitor class Komine Rena herself standing in the middle of the room. The sharp, pointed toes of her glossy boots rested just at the edge of one of the gunmen's bloodstains. Nakamaru wasn't fond of killing females on principle, but this devil woman and her hypnotic traitor class thighs had ensnared Taguchi for far too long.
She held up a handgun of her own, frowning. "Junno. You're alive."
"Yeah," Taguchi said, smiling. Why the fuck was he smiling?
"You were with those filthy bitches at the SkyBurst, weren't you? I knew it. I know you, and that's how they found you."
This was all a very lovely story, but Nakamaru was about to elbow Taguchi aside and leave a plasma burn in the middle of the bitch's face. Instead, Taguchi opened his arms for an embrace. "I can't do things the way you want me to, but look...if it's you Rena-chan, then I'd gladly die. I survived because you're the only one who can hurt me."
It was probably the dumbest thing Nakamaru had ever heard in his life, especially after he'd killed the three men Komine Rena had sent to put bullets in Taguchi's empty head. He only survived because of her, huh?
"You're an awful, awful person sometimes, Junno."
Taguchi held up his hands in surrender. "Do your worst. I accept that I deserve it. Go ahead and shoot."
He'd had enough. Maru stepped forward, yanking the gun from the woman's hand before she could even blink. Damn thing wasn't even loaded. Koki rolled his eyes as Rena leapt forward and buried her face in Taguchi's chest. All was forgiven. Star-crossed lovers. What the fuck ever, Nakamaru thought, slipping the gun into his back pocket - maybe he'd get a good price for it.
He looked around the "mansion" he'd spent so long putting together. For nothing now if a traitor class knew where it was. Well, at least he wouldn't have to waste time bartering for cleaning supplies. It was time to move, but it was daylight now. Bots on patrol. Komine Rena's status meant little in a warzone during the day. He deadbolted the door as best he could considering the thugs had nearly knocked it off its hinges. As Taguchi and his lady love kissed and made up, Koki followed him to his sleeping area.
"Thank you, General," Koki said sadly. "For helping Guch, I mean."
Well, Nakamaru thought, he still needed soldiers. And what kind of commander would he be if he couldn't protect the men beneath him? Even the stupid ones. He pulled a tarp over Koki who collapsed in Maru's futon. He pulled up a chair and covered himself with a tarp, shaking his head.
A general's work was never fucking done.