Untitled Guardians Promo
Oct 3, 2016 13:49:17 GMT -6
The Polar Phantasm, Alex Richards, and 1 more like this
Post by Bonnie Blue on Oct 3, 2016 13:49:17 GMT -6
Tuesday, September 27th
Chicago, Illinois
11:37 pm:
A capricious nighttime wind tugged loose a strand from the French braid that constrained Bonnie Blue's mid-length blonde hair, and tickled the delicate curve of her ear with a featherlight touch. Impatiently, she tucked it back and gazed at three other figures gathered on the roof of the Drunken Dragon, tension scribed in the rigidity of her shoulders and tightness of her jaw. Blue-green eyes blazed with a fury barely leashed.
To her right stood a man who should have been familiar, in every way identical to her friend, mentor, and manager, Don Jesus Luis de Guadalupe. His steel-gray hair combed neatly back, that weathered face, the stout form of a middle-aged man. And, indeed, that was the name to which he responded; but that was where the similarities ended. He was dressed in a crisp gray business suit, tailored to fit so well that his jacket hid the outline of the thirty-eight on his hip; he smiled little, and failed utterly to refer to anyone as "Bernardo."
Directly before Bonnie stood the mysterious White Lotus Triad assassin, Ped Xing, his slender frame clad all in black. He peered back at her over a pair of round, smoky-lensed glasses. And to her left, looking bored with the entire affair, was Mr. Hideyoshi of the area's Yakuza organization. Suspicion hung heavy in the air as they stared at one another, representatives of rival gangs, none on what might be considered friendly terms.
It was Bonnie who, letting the anticipatory drama play out just a moment more, broke the prolonged silence at last.
"I'd thank y'all for comin', but I reckon I sorta twisted a few arms to get y'all here. I do, however, wanna 'pologize for the accommodations. This was the one place I knew we wouldn't be overheard," she began.
"And what is it that you want with us, Miss Blue?" asked Don Jesus, voice soft and ice-cold.
"You're all folks I reckon I can trust," Bonnie replied, holding his gaze. "Y'all never worked for the Mayor -- ceptin' for you, Hideyoshi-san, and we got that resolved. Water under the bridge. I may not partic'ly like alla y'all." She gave Xing a meaningful glance before continuing. "But I do know that each of y'all are profressional, reliable, trustworthy -- to a point. Y'all can find things out an' get things done."
"Whom would you like found, Miss Blue?" Ped Xing cut in. "What would you like done with them?"
Bonnie's lip curled in the subtlest hint of a sneer.
"Anyone who had anything to do with legitimizin' Wentworth Updegraff's claim on my friends' child. I want everyone -- from the cops, to the lawyers, to the judge who signed the goddamn order. An' I want them..."
Dead, her mind supplied as she hesitated. I want their heads on pikes in front of the new memorial where the Pit used to be!
"Exiled," she finished aloud. "Give them twenty-four hours to get the fuck out of my city."
"If they don't?" Xing prompted, a hopeful note in his voice.
"Then bring 'em to me, and I'll deal with 'em."
Don Jesus de Guadalupe snorted derisively. Bonnie shot him a look of pure venom.
"Somethin' funny?" she growled.
"You hardly seem intimidating, Miss Blue. With all due respect, of course."
"Don't be an ass, Chuy. You know what I do for a livin'; ya think that shit's fake? Keep pushin', you'll find out how real I am!"
She advanced, and the middle-aged Hispanic man took an involuntary step back, raising his hands in a gesture of supplication.
"Ain't about whether or not y'all think I'm intimidatin'. Let me worry 'bout that. Only thing that matters is the job gettin' done. Now, if y'all look, you'll notice that your bank accounts have each been enriched by ten thousand dollars. Let's call that a deposit on services to be rendered, with another ten for each motherfucker y'all run outta town. Y'all don't stop until you've cleared 'em all out -- an' I mean every single one. An' if any of y'all's folks was involved, then may whatever gods ya believe in have mercy on ya -- because I will not."
With that, Bonnie spun on her heel and stalked across the flat rooftop, to vanish through an unmarked door. Slamming it shut behind her, she leaned against it, breathed deeply, then let it out in a relieved sigh. Nervousness and exhilaration fought for dominance as her heart threatened to burst from her chest. Public speaking, even in front of an audience of so few, had never been her strong suit -- ironic, considering her choice of profession -- thought now that it was over, she felt a small thrill, a sense of accomplishment. The young blonde took another few seconds to regain her composure, then moved down the hall. Below, in the Drunken Dragon, the party was in full swing. She tapped a finger against the small device in her ear.
"How'd I do, Cyrano?" Her soft voice rasped with a tension that was slow to fade.
"On a scale of one to ten?" came Tesla's reply in her ear. "About a six, right up until the end. That ad-lib bumped it to a solid eight and a half."
"Heh... well, at least you're honest."
"Did you deploy the drone mics?" Tesla asked, cutting off her attempt at light banter.
"Oh, duh! The whole fuckin' reason we got them dirtbags together in the first place and I forgot!" Bonnie scoffed. "Really, Tesla, gimme some credit here. Y'oughta be pickin' up their chatter any second..."
And, as if on cue, Bonnie could hear the faint traces of men's distant voices through her earpiece. With a warning to make herself scarce, Nikola Tesla cut off the transmission. The young blonde wisely opted to heed the scientist's advice, and ducked behind the bar just as the trio of criminals descended the wide staircase onto the main floor, where the crowd covered Bonnie's movements. They had technically exceeded the maximum capacity for the building, but nobody was fucking with the Guardians these days; so what if a fire code got a little bit violated? It was the Drunken Dragon -- everything gets a little bit violated there, eventually.
With exceeding caution, Bonnie poked her head up from behind the bar to see that her guests were steadily making their way to the exit. Trusting in the sheer number of people to conceal her, the Daughter of Time dashed up the stairs and hurried to her room. She was mildly surprised to find a bulky, rectangular object draped in a canvas tarp, before she recalled that she'd had it express-shipped from Dallas just the previous night. Bonnie reached up and yanked the tarp down unceremoniously.
Wholly encased in a block of metal, forever frozen in an attitude of indignant protest, was Wentworth Updegraff, Jr. The molecules had bonded to him so closely, every detail of his expression was visible: shock at having lost -- again -- to Bonnie Blue, despite the fact that he had the obvious advantages in size and experience; the abject horror as what was about to happen had dawned on him; and somehow, something in his face conveyed a sense of menace -- that simmering anger that would one day boil over, but perhaps not for decades, yet. On the side of the block was a panel of blinking lights and a keypad covered in strange symbols, all checking and monitoring Updegraff's vital functions.
The Daughter of Time gazed at the trophy in a speculative way. Here he was: the man who had, in a few short weeks, turned the Guardians' world upside-down. He had assaulted Bonnie herself repeatedly, in the wake of Jay Omega's sudden disappearance; and when that hadn't been enough to sate his sadistic appetites, he had turned his attention to the Bankstons, using the corrupt legal system installed after 1he wav3 to push through a bogus custody order.
"You're alive only by my suff'rance," she told the statue, reaching up with one hand to caress his metallic face. "Alive.... 'cause death was too good for ya. Ever'body else -- an' I do mean ever'body -- wanted your corpse when this was all said an' done. Not just Cam an' Crystal. Not just Alex or Tesla. Everyone on the whole roster hated ya, Wentworth."
"Can ya blame 'em?"
Bonnie turned away with a frustrated sigh, fingers curling into a tight fist as she considered all the things she had learned: the mecha suit, the rash of sudden "unexplained" deaths of sex offenders and drug pushers in the Danbury, Connecticut area; and the flash drive she'd received by courier, full of tantalizing leads that only loosely connected Updegraff with either. It wasn't that she particularly cared how dealers and perverts cashed in, but there had been collateral damage -- not all of it necessarily accidental. Wentworth had been dangerous. Perhaps too dangerous. The young blonde rolled a joint and lit it, trying to bring the maelstrom of emotion under control.
"Maybe I shoulda ended ya, Wentworth," Bonnie said, blowing out a cloud of haze. "That's the kinda world we live in, now, right? The undercurrent of seethin' rage, ready to boil over the second we stop placatin' the masses with our charade, week after week. I feel it more strongly myself, these days, an' sometimes I wonder what it would be like to just give in to them baser instincts. Whatcha reckon, Wentworth? Should I thaw your ass back out an' finish what I started in that ring?"
She took another toke and held it. When she exhaled, this time, the smoky haze came out dark gray and coaslesced into a semi-defined serpentine shape. A shape Bonnie immediately recognized. With a cry of surprise, she leapt back; the chronovore, likewise, shot across the room and huddled in a corner.
"What ...the....fuck?" Bonnie whispered.
The creature formed itself into a question mark and hovered in the corner, half-ethereal. Slowly, it resumed its natural form and slid, eel-like, through the air to the block of carbonite, and began to feed, corroding away a corner.
"Whoa! No, no! Stop that!" the young woman commanded.
Promptly, the chronovore drew away from the chunk of metal, and hung in the air, sulking.
"Wait a minute... are you...? Come here, uh, little dude...."
Cautious, the creature slipped closer to her, swimming in the air around her head and just beyond her reach. Bonnie's heart began pounding afresh as the implications of this dawned on her. How had she summoned a chronovore? Why did it obey her command? Hastily, her mind pushed aside any further speculation on the subject. All that mattered just now was that she had, and it did.
A knock at the door nearly made her jump out of her skin. The crystals of frost forming on the door told her that her partner was on the other side. His voice, a heartbeat later, confirmed it.
"Bonnie? You ok?" he called. "I thought I heard something."
"Quickly," she hissed to the creature, "hide under the bed! And don't touch anything!"
No sooner was the order spoken than obeyed as the chronovore shot into the dark space beneath the bed. Bonnie opened the door and gave her tag partner a forced smile.
"Hiya, Cam," she said, a little breathless. "What's up?"
"You tell me," the Polar Phantasm replied. "Everything all right?"
"Oh, yeah. Totally cool. I, uh... stubbed my toe on Wentworth over there. That asshole. Ow."
Bonnie feigned a minor injury; Cam wasn't entirely convinced, but he decided to let it go, for now.
"Oh. Well, I was coming up here to talk to you anyway. First, I want to say thank you. For dealing with him. For stepping up and stepping in so that I wouldn't have to become a person I don't like to do a thing I don't really want to. Pretty elegant solution, though," said Cam, walking past her to get a closer look at the block of metal. "How'd you come up with it?"
"I can't take the credit," Bonnie told him, edging between him and the bed, where the chronovore lay hidden. "Tesla was the one who came up with it. I tried to explain to him that carbonite wasn't a real thing, but he said he understood enough of the principle to come up with something similar... and there it is. I'm not sure it's completely stable, but fuck it."
"Hang on. If you'd lost, he was going to do that to Jeffy, and you're not sure it's stable? You'd risk my kid's life like that?" Cam asked, incredulous.
"Fuck no! I had a couple of snipers up in the rafters with tranquilizer guns, just in case it went sideways. Alex's idea."
"Alex was in on it, too?"
"He said you wouldn't go for it if I let you in on all the details," Bonnie told him. "Point is, the less ya knew, the happier ya was. There was always a failsafe."
"I guess that makes me feel ...better?"
"Yeah, well, you're welcome," said Bonnie, giving him a wink. "What's second?"
"Huh?"
"You said 'First' when ya came in, so I assume there's another somethin'."
"Oh... Oh yeah! Philadelphia next week. Nightmare on South Street. Seen the lineup yet?" Cam asked casually.
"Been a little busy. Who we got?"
"You won't believe this. Wade Moor -- "
Bonnie rolled her eyes in disgust. Polar held up a hand, as if to indicate the best was yet to come.
"And.... Bobby Cairo!" he announced.
The young woman frowned. "Ain't he dead? I clearly remember him bein' tossed in a volcano."
"I guess that only happened in the other universe. He had to have signed the contract, right?" Cam reasoned.
"Yeah, you right..." Bonnie conceded. "Well, if this one's anything like his counterpart, this should be a cakewalk. We really only gotta worry 'bout Moor. Cairo's old, out of shape, washed-up, an' in this reality may as well not even exist, since we ain't heard of him until now. I wonder if this one does that trashy 'Poon Guinea' nonsense."
"Oh, for the love of all that is rational, I hope not," said the Phantasm. "If I have to sit through one more of those shitshow promos, I will literally scoop out my short-term memory with a grapefruit spoon. Honestly, getting thrown in a volcano was the best thing that ever happened to that man's career. It was a more merciful ending than I'd have given such an uninspired and pedestrian sack of flaming dog turds."
"Right on," Bonnie agreed. "But I reckon it makes sense Price paired him up with Wade Moor; two of the vilest misogynists to ever walk this Earth, or any other. They got a ton in common. They treat objects like women, man. Between 'em, I bet they got every social disease known to mankind, an' probably invented a few new ones along the way. Two more disgustin' examples of humanity could not be found if'n ya scoured history for a thousand years in ev'ry direction."
"They are pretty gross. But we've defeated Wade before, and that was when the tag titles were on the line. If his best wasn't enough then, what's it worth now? This week, we walk through a washed-up has-been and a substance abusing, lardass, could-have-been. We may not be the tag team champions anymore -- but we could be again, any time we want. What's Wade Moor got? What's Bobby Cairo got? Other than the clap, these boys ain't got nothing. Another team may wear the crown, but the Guardians will always be the first champions. And when the time comes that we seek to reclaim what's ours? Nothing in the 'verse can stop us. But for now, I hope Jack and Andre enjoy their reign -- if they can keep it."
"Damn straight. I mean... gay? Political correctness is confusin'. Either way, those two have an uphill climb. Gettin' the titles is one thing. Hangin' onto 'em is another. But hey, Alex is still the World Champ; I'm still the Intercontinental Champ; the Guardians are still a force to be reckoned with. An' besides, half the Tag Titles are still with us."
"True," Polar said. "But ultimately, what we do here is bigger than titles; bigger than buyrates and merchandising; and goes way beyond Chicago as a whole. The UCI may be our home, but the whole of this world is our responsibility. That was the oath we all took."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Sometimes I get caught up in the details an' forget about the bigger picture. Anyway...."
Bonnie yawned theatrically. Her partner got the hint and started toward the door.
"Yeah, it's been a long day," he said. "Um... we're going to get that out of here soon, right? It creeps me out."
The young woman followed his gaze and nodded.
"I'm just holdin' onto him until whenever Jay gets back. An' you oughta be with your family, Cam."
"Yeah, I really should," the Phantasm replied. "We'll hit the gym first thing in the morning, ok? Goodnight!"
And with that, he shut the door. The chronovore, unable to contain itself any longer, shot out from under the bed and danced around the ceiling, reveling in the freedom. Keeping her eyes on it, Bonnie sank down onto the blue comforter with a heavy sigh. What was she going to do with this thing, and how long could she keep it hidden? With another yawn, a real one this time, she decided those answers could wait until morning.