WAR: WIIGF 14 (Patreon)

Chapter 14: The South Docks Shuffle

“Whoooo boy, what you got for us tonight, Mr. Magic Eyes?”Kenny King rolled his (currently non-magical) eyes at Lucky’s little joke as they left Tyke’s beater van behind. The fact that it was actually his mama’s van answered one of his questions about why they used it, but it also brought up more questions about these guys’ funding. Questions for later.Questions that he might forget as they walked through the South Docks, the greasy soup of salt-choked air that was low tide, diesel fumes, and so much fucking fish doing it’s very best to distract him. He had the weird idea that he’d be used to it after that first night out with Weegee, but noooo. Hell, even after training for days in that stinky church basement, he also figured that he’d be used to smelling all sorts of bad shit.

He was wrong there too. 

Bad smells aside, it was that blur of bruises, exhaustion, and Marcus’s smoke-rough voice barking corrections as he trained in those catacombs that had led to this. 

His first official hunt with the crew. 

The crew that had saved his ass.

He’d gotten a call yesterday that he’d be going out for real with the Crosscutters and he’d been hyped the whole last twenty-four hours for this. He wasn’t nervous or nothing, honest. After taking down plenty of newborns with his bro, he was ready for the smoke.

Unfortunately, Luigi wasn’t as ready. Apparently, heneeded a couple days to recover his ‘od’ or whatever. Should have given man some juice boxes, Ken realized now with a click of his tongue. Next time.

His hands went up to his hair as he did his locs up, rubberband tied tight as he pulled them all back into a ponytail. Nodding to himself, he walked a half-step behind Tyke, the big man’s silence a wall against Lucky’s motormouth and Mei Mei’s snark. Tall as fuck and built like the fridge he probably emptied every week, the guy held a silver tipped black club in one hand, longer than Ken’s arm (and almost as thick) with spikes on the end of the thing that just screamed don’t fuck with me.

Lucky was half-laughing with every step the little guy took on his right, but Kenny didn’t need his Sharingan on to notice the blond’s twitching hands on his spike-thrower. You’d think he got magic eyes too, fast as his eyes are moving, man. Mei Mei, on his other side, moved like she was a tiger or something, the Latina’s hand tapping slowly on the silver-bladed Bowie knife she wore at her hip.

Ken stuffed both of his in the pocket of his hoodie. Man, I should have asked these guys to bring me some body armor. It was too late now, though. He had already run out of the house making a bunch of hurried excuses to his mom about where he was going before he jumped in the minivan. Damn.

Tyke, on the other hand, was fully tac-ed out more than everyone else, which didn’t make sense until you thought about it. Why was the super-strong guy loaded up with body armor?