ix.
[If you think Spades Slick is stupid enough to eat a completely unknown, possibly poisonous human food, well GUESS WHAT you are completely right. Slick is not afraid of any fucking mushrooms!
Turns out, maybe he should have been.
Mayfield is gone. This is good! He's back in the vault. This is bad, but not unmanageable. All he has to do is activate the code on his arm, and...
...where the hell is it?
The code on his arm is gone. So is his other arm, and judging by the raw ache and sudden darkness in his vision, so is his eye. Fucking Snowman. Bitch wouldn't be satisfied until she'd sucked the life out of him drop by drop. It was her fault he was in this mess, her and those grey brats- he should have killed them when he had the chance.
Droog was gone. Boxcars, Deuce; gone. They might still be alive in some other timeline, but it sure as hell wasn't this one. The Felt was gone, but so was the Crew; as far as Slick knew, he was the last one left. It was just him, English... and her. And Slick wasn't going to stop until those last two were gone as well.
He gropes around in the shadows of the vault, searching for the entrance that will let him move forward, when he hears a noise. He turns, and there she is, giving him that same cool, icy stare she always has. Slick sneers in contempt.]
Back for more? I'm starting to run out of body parts, toots. Why don't you come down here and we finish this the way we started it?
[And Snowman only cocks her head, never saying a word. She raises one deceptively delicate black claw, and for a moment Slick thinks she's going to strike him with the whip again. He braces himself for the impact, grits his teeth-
-and then he sees where her hand is going, and it's worse than any crack of the whip. The vault door.] What the fuck do you think you're doing? Cut that shit out, she-witch. We both know you won't-
[He wants her to snipe back at him, to say something, to show him that the seething hate he feels for her is mutual. But the look she's giving him is devoid of animosity; it is, in fact, devoid of anything else at all, perhaps save for a bit of pity. It's the look a normal woman might have given her dog shortly before putting him down.
That's when Slick knows: she's serious. And for the first time in a long, long while, the icy grip of fear starts to creep up his spine.] Snowman. I'm serious, don't you fucking dare-
[CLANK. Before he can say another word, she plunges the door shut, and it's as if she's ripped out his other eye. The whole world goes dark, and as Slick pounds his fists against the steel wall in futile rage.] This isn't funny, bitch! Let me out of here! LET ME OUT!
[He's met with silence. She's gone, she's abandoned him like a broken toy, and that's all he ever was; all his anger and rage and rebellion only feeding into her plots, and the plot of the cueball. Slick thought he was special, thought he had accomplished something, thought he had clawed his way up and earned his place as her enemy- but in the end, he was only just another pawn.]
No. No. I'll kill you, you hear me!? You and Scratch! You think this vault can hold me!? I'll bust outta here, you'll see, and I'll cut you both into little tiny shreds! Do you hear me!? DO YOU HEAR ME!?
[But even as the words leave his mouth, Slick knows that even if she can hear him, Snowman isn't listening.]
[Anybody passing through the park may hear incoherent screams of rage and the sound of fists pounding against wooden walls.
Closer examination will reveal the noises to be coming from someone apparently locked in the outhouse.]
Turns out, maybe he should have been.
Mayfield is gone. This is good! He's back in the vault. This is bad, but not unmanageable. All he has to do is activate the code on his arm, and...
...where the hell is it?
The code on his arm is gone. So is his other arm, and judging by the raw ache and sudden darkness in his vision, so is his eye. Fucking Snowman. Bitch wouldn't be satisfied until she'd sucked the life out of him drop by drop. It was her fault he was in this mess, her and those grey brats- he should have killed them when he had the chance.
Droog was gone. Boxcars, Deuce; gone. They might still be alive in some other timeline, but it sure as hell wasn't this one. The Felt was gone, but so was the Crew; as far as Slick knew, he was the last one left. It was just him, English... and her. And Slick wasn't going to stop until those last two were gone as well.
He gropes around in the shadows of the vault, searching for the entrance that will let him move forward, when he hears a noise. He turns, and there she is, giving him that same cool, icy stare she always has. Slick sneers in contempt.]
Back for more? I'm starting to run out of body parts, toots. Why don't you come down here and we finish this the way we started it?
[And Snowman only cocks her head, never saying a word. She raises one deceptively delicate black claw, and for a moment Slick thinks she's going to strike him with the whip again. He braces himself for the impact, grits his teeth-
-and then he sees where her hand is going, and it's worse than any crack of the whip. The vault door.] What the fuck do you think you're doing? Cut that shit out, she-witch. We both know you won't-
[He wants her to snipe back at him, to say something, to show him that the seething hate he feels for her is mutual. But the look she's giving him is devoid of animosity; it is, in fact, devoid of anything else at all, perhaps save for a bit of pity. It's the look a normal woman might have given her dog shortly before putting him down.
That's when Slick knows: she's serious. And for the first time in a long, long while, the icy grip of fear starts to creep up his spine.] Snowman. I'm serious, don't you fucking dare-
[CLANK. Before he can say another word, she plunges the door shut, and it's as if she's ripped out his other eye. The whole world goes dark, and as Slick pounds his fists against the steel wall in futile rage.] This isn't funny, bitch! Let me out of here! LET ME OUT!
[He's met with silence. She's gone, she's abandoned him like a broken toy, and that's all he ever was; all his anger and rage and rebellion only feeding into her plots, and the plot of the cueball. Slick thought he was special, thought he had accomplished something, thought he had clawed his way up and earned his place as her enemy- but in the end, he was only just another pawn.]
No. No. I'll kill you, you hear me!? You and Scratch! You think this vault can hold me!? I'll bust outta here, you'll see, and I'll cut you both into little tiny shreds! Do you hear me!? DO YOU HEAR ME!?
[But even as the words leave his mouth, Slick knows that even if she can hear him, Snowman isn't listening.]
[Anybody passing through the park may hear incoherent screams of rage and the sound of fists pounding against wooden walls.
Closer examination will reveal the noises to be coming from someone apparently locked in the outhouse.]
