Shattered Ladder 1-26 (Patreon)

Ken bit back the urge to gag, District air warring with the meat in his mouth. He already had his own bad decisions giving him enough trouble. Having to deal with the taste of so many others’ was just adding a sprinkle of sulfur into the back of his throat.

His tongue worked around his mouth, near-silent smacks of his lips irritating his as much as anything else. Why did I even say yes to this?The this in question was many things, but also one in particular.

And that one in particular was staring Ken right in the face as he crouched on the edge of a rooftop. Rough ‘crete bit hard into his palms even through the calluses, Ken barely even paying attention as he peered down into the alley below. It wasn't dark, exactly — nothing in the City was ever really dark, even with the lamps set — but the light down there was more gloom than anything else. A dying neon strip lined the space in between roof and ground, yellow glow sputtering against wet brick over the seven men clustered near the dumpster.

They were loud.

Ken’s mouth turned down in a frown. If you were going to be stupid, you should at least be quiet about it.

“-eard he broke Kree’s jaw clean off. Just a backhand.”

“Scrap-shit. Feedin’ me some scrap-shit right now.” The voice was gravel grinding on glass, each word coming from a big man in all-black leaning against the wall. “No way some skinny little runt did that. Kree probably pissed off somebody or tripped down some stairs. Idiot too heavy in the head.”

“Boss ain’t happy.” Another voice slid up all the way to the roof, high-pitched and raspy. “And?” The big one spit on the ground. “When Big Gren ever happy?”

Ken chewed slowly as he listened to them talk, gristle fighting his teeth hard as anything. Eyes flicked up to the ‘flick-stick’ in his hand, the chunks of ‘flicker-tail’ meat in it harder and harder to get through as he made his way down the skewer.  It tasted like salt and burnt hair, but his stomach rumbled anyway, the beast in the belly demanding its due. 

Shaking his head, he watched the biggest of the men take a pull from a hand-rolled smoke, the paper glowing bright red. The guy had a chain wrapped around his other hand, the metal dull and pitted with rust that stained his fist.

Junker Fists.

“I mean, makes the whole gang look like tin-scrap, though.”

Ken’s eyes narrowed, tracking the sight of metal on another man as he finally spoke up; a crab-like pincer where a hand should be. The thing was hissing audibly even from twenty-something feet up, and it wasn’t the only one. A hydraulic leg on another ganger leaked something dark onto the pavement, a stain spreading near his boot, while another had a chunk of his bare shoulder exposed as nothing but servos and motors. Half of them were walking scrap-piles, meat stitched to bad tech with cheap solder.Junker Fists, huh. The name 

“If I see that little freak,” the big man exhaled a cloud of dull gray smoke, “I’m g-”

He didn't get to say what he was gonna do.

Not as a blur of aggressively bright pink and bright blonde rushed past Ken’s nose and dropped right into the alley.

Zee landed in the center of the group, her impact flat and heavy enough that it shook a puddle of standing water into a spray. Their glorious leader stood there for a second, knees slightly bent, that neon-pink puffy jacket nowhere to be seen as she stood there in a pink mesh crop top, matching shorts and a pair of sneakers even brighter than the other two.

The men jumped, the nervous one nearly dropping his smoke.

Zee stared all of them down, her voice cutting through their panic like a scalpel. “Pay what you owe.”

The big man blinked, brain lagging behind reality. “The hell i-”

Zee moved in the space between words, exploding forward as everything about her went from zero to a near-blur in the space of a heartbeat. Linear, aggressive and powerful, she didn’t waste a moment or a motion.

The big guy brought his arms up, a clumsy block that left his centerline wide open. Stupid. Zee didn't even slow down, fingers curling into a rigid claw as she jumped up and drove them straight into the soft part of his neck.

Ken winced, a phantom pressure touching his own throat as the trachea compressed with a choking wet gag. The big man’s eyes bulged, cigarette falling from his hand as his hands clawed at his windpipe. Zee jumped back, a spin of a kick sending the smoker to the ground with the grace of a sack of wet cement.

“Get her!”

Someone swung a fist, the attempt a wide undisciplined haymaker even Ken could see coming a mile away. Zee didn't bother to look, already spinning on her heel as her toned leg lashed out in a perfect arc.

The crack rang out through the alley, the sound of a snapped femur sharper than a gunshot. It echoed off brick and crete both, almost loud enough to drown out the screams of the thug that had tried his luck. A second snap-kick silenced the scream before it could spiral higher than the rooftops, and Zee was already moving to the next one before the Junker dropped.

“Mmm.”

Don Lee sat next to Ken, legs dangling over the edge of the roof, kicking at the empty air. “This got a good crunch to it.” The redhead held his own skewer of questionable meat, using it to gesture vaguely at the carnage below.

“You see that?” Don mumbled around a mouthful of gristle, a stray piece of sauce heavy on his lip. “Leg ain’t doin nothin’ after this. It’s a mess, Ken-bro. Ain't walking on that without months down or a full replace.”

Ken didn't look his way, Don’s words barely even getting through as he eyes on the girl on the ground below. She was dismantling the third man now, a rusted pincer swinging at her and missng every time. With a grunt that was more a scream than anything else, Clamp tried to clench his weapon down on her arm, servos whining loud. 

Zee twisted inside his guard, grabbing the wrist and using the gangster’s own momentum to hurl him face-first into the dented metal of the dumpster.

The hollow, ringing vibration vibrated in Ken’s teeth.

“So, uh…” Don sucked on his fingers to get at the greese caked on each one, every smack of his lips louder and louder as he did it right next to Ken’s ear. Finally, with the last bit of sauce off his thumb gone with a final swallow, he continued with what was on his mind. “Why ain’t you down there, friend? Thought you was the heavy hand here.”

Ken took another bite of his stick, methodically grinding the tough meat down between his teeth as if he was working it in a pestle. Below, Zee ducked a swing from a pipe, the movement from her almost lazy, before she retaliated. Ken wasn’t even sure the idiot saw the rapid-fire series of punches she threw into his chest. 

He certainly felt each one though. The ripple of force was not all subtle, the thug’s breath exploding out of him in a fine mist of spit and blood as his ribs gave up the fight before he had the chance to.

“She said she wants this one.”

Ken didn't look at Don as he answered the question, voice a low rumble that barely made it past his lips as he watched Zee step over a groaning body. Amber eyes scanned for the last two standing, everything about her coming off as bored despite what she was doing.

…not even breathing heavy. Scary. “Pretty sure she’s in it for the exercise, I’m thinkin’.” Ken shook his head. “Either that or she’s just crazy.”He didn’t need to look to hear Don’s head snap over to him. “H-hey-hey, friend. Maybe not say that about our h-honorable lady-boss?”Yeah, no. I know she’s crazy. Ken rolled his eyes, barely holding back a snort of laughter. He’d seen enough from her over the last three days to be able to say that and be sure about it. Being honest, all he needed was the first couple hours with Zee to put that little puzzle together. Pretty or not, something wasn’t right with her upstairs. Takes one to know one, I guess.

His eye twitched, that last thought coming out of nowhere to slap him in the face. Breathing in as he pusehd that to the back of his mind, Ken gave Don a smile that was only the slightest bit forced. “What? Not like she’s gonna kill me. She needs my ‘muscle’, remember?”

The bigger boy nodded slowly, clearly no argument against that. “...true-true.”

“Be-sides,” Ken added, clipping the end of the word as he ground it out. “Cra-Zee down there said I get the next one.”

“Hmm.” Don nodded sagely, as if this made perfect sense. 

Ken didn’t bother looking his way again, too busy tracking Zee as she caught a swinging fist in her tiny palm. Said palm twisted like she was turning a giant key, the elbow joint locking up as yet another scream of pain filled the alley. Seven men already lay broken in various heaps of groaning misery around her, barely half that number left as she dragged the still-screaming man to the ground with raw muscle she shouldn’t have. 

Sloppy on the footwork. Part of Ken’s brain, the same part he’d shoved the possibility of craziness into, whispered the evaluation in his ear. But plenty of force.

He fought the urge to speak out loud, wincing at the thought. Okay, but what does that mean?

Before it could answer Ken back, the limb snapped like a twig with a casual jerk, Don letting out a quiet “ooooh” even as the redhead kept nodding. “Right. Right. Gotta share the wealth. Keep the table clean for the lady.”

The redhead held out a hand, fingers wiggling.

“Pass me the rest of the flick-sticks, friend. This show’s making me hungry.”

Purple eyes pulled themselves away from the fight and trailed down to the greasy paper bag of multi-tailed rat meat sitting between them. Hmmm. The breath left him in a long, weary exhale as Ken picked up the still half-full bag, grease already sticking to his fingers, and shoved it into Don’s waiting hand.

“Don’t choke.” The muttered advice was all he had.

Don just grinned, a piece of meat already stuck between his teeth as he pulled it clean off a skewer. “No promises, friend. No promises.”

Down below, Zee made sure the very last Junker regretted all his life choices leading up to that point.

“-y leg!”