Chapter 15: Tales from the jungle

It was the middle of the night, but nobody could sleep. Tracer suggested that Jaguar should tell about one of his adventures in the jungle.

"Well, I started out alone and spent most of my time hunting prey."

"One question about that..." Genji asked. "How did you hunt the wild animals?"

"For lighter animals like deer and capybaras I jumped on their backs and bit their necks. Dead. Out... It's a classic. With heavy animals like tapirs, it was like this: I sneaked up on them as close as I could, then I stormed up on them and hit as deep a wound as possible and then chased them. A combination of shock and blood loss, ends the life. Not very elegant, I admit, but it works... Hey don't judge me, otherwise I would have starved to death. But that's how it was, I was 6 years old and I had to survive alone in the jungle. Whatever."

".....When I found Tomala on the beach, a lot had changed. He was much more sociable than me and made me seek closer contact with the natives. And that's when it all started.

It was a normal Sunday, in the course of time a rhythm had formed. Every Monday we had a bath... Well, every first Monday at least and every Saturday, the local missionary came to visit our temple, so we were never home that day. Ha ha ha. But every Sunday we went to the next town. But recently a rich businessman had tried to buy our part of the jungle to cut it down, we couldn't just accept that.

.........

10 years ago:

Jaguar had thrown a linen bag over his shoulder, he had just turned 18 and was already wearing his black coat then, but there was still a lot missing until the gentlemen of today. The only thing he still wore was a pair of beige trousers torn off under his knees, on his exposed chest were spots of dirt and dust. Apart from that he looked just like he does today, except his hair was a little longer. The dark-skinned young man next to him didn't look any better either, he was wearing a torn light brown shirt and an amber necklace.

The two had just shot 2 capybaras and wanted to exchange the remains in the nearby town. Last year Jaguar had killed a poacher and took two laser pistols from him. Although he is now a skilled sniper, he refuses to use them for hunting.

The local restaurateur Chulk was standing behind his counter cleaning a glass when the two of them came in and handed him the bag.

"Well? It's rare to see you two around people. Thanks for the meat, all the lumberjacks, boozing and eating your head off. God, you look terrible," said the bearded man, pointing to the two boys who were covered with numerous cuts.

"A certain somebody thought it would be a good idea to plunder the nests of Curl-crested jay ," said the pale young man, pointing to his guilt-looking blood brother, who just shrugged his shoulders.

"Admit it, you wanted a breakfast egg too."

Then 4, big and very muscular men came to a table and asked for more schnapps.

"Speak of the devil," said the restaurateur, shaking his head.

Tomala turned to the lumberjacks and yelled.

"Hey...HEY.!" but nothing happened.

Jaguar approached an ashtray from the table and threw it at one of the men's head. The man fell unconscious to the ground.

"Was that necessary?" Tomala asked.

"If you won't listen, you have to feel." The other three men rose and walked threateningly towards the two boys.

"What is this? Do you want to catch a cuff?" said the first one angrily.

"I predict it right away. We're tired of you destroying our home and chasing the animals away," said Jaguar, who, despite his 6'1", was half a head shorter than them. The three men began to laugh.

"The rascals here need a good thrashing. Come on, boys!"

The first man tried to slap Tomala, but he ducked and punched the lumberjack in the stomach. Then he grabbed his arm and threw it over his shoulder, onto a table. Under the man's weight the table broke. The second wanted to hit Jaguar in the face, but Jaguar dodged and hit him with the underside of his fist, right in the forehead. The man went down and remained lying there.

The third took a chair and hit him Jaguar on the back, the chair broke, but Jaguar stayed standing as if it was only a mosquito. Then he grabbed the man by the shoulders and threw him out the window.

"Thanks, folks. There's a round on the house for this," Chulk said happily.

"Welcome to the jungle," Jaguar said, stomping on his stomach. "Tell them when they wake up they'd better be on the next boat home or we'll be back."

As they were about to leave, Jaguar went back, grabbed one of the unconscious men by the collar and dragged him behind him.

"You shouldn't take things that don't belong to you," Tomala said, with feigned seriousness.

"I just want to ask him a few questions."

Some time later:

The lumberjack slowly woke up, the first thing he took was something green and leathery, then that something splashed water in his face. He opened his eyes and stared, right into the open mouth of a crocodile snapping at him. Only now did he realize that he was hanging upside down from a liana, hanging over a river. Shocked, he looked around and recognized two young men standing on the riverbank, grinning at him. One had strangely long and sharp fingernails and the other had an amber necklace around his neck.

"Don't worry, they won't like you anyway," said the pale boy.

"What did you want from me?" asked frightened.

"Who sent you here?" asked the boy with the necklace.

"A man named Trut, he and his men are sitting in the town hall, but he is only the middleman. Who the head man is, I swear I don't know."

"You'll take the next freighter home, understand?" the pale boy yelled at him.

"Okay, okay."

A few hours later:

Jaguar and Tomala stormed into an office antechamber where a small man with glasses was typing something into a computer. The man jumped up in shock and stood in front of Tomala with his hands outstretched.

" H-hold on! You can't go in there," stammered the man.

"Take it easy, we just want to have a nice talk with the boss," said Tomala and simply pushed him aside. But the man stood in their way again.

"I mean it. The boss and his council are in an important negotiation."

Tomala, who is actually known for his patience and gentleness, slowly became angry.

"Listen, little one! You're about to get a big kick out of this. If my brother takes a deep breath, what do you think will happen then?" said the prince and Jaguar grabbed the man by the back of the head, he got a frightened expression on his face.

"What do you think should I do it?" said the mutant with a grin.

"No! It always makes such a mess."

"Oh, what a pity," he said with a feigned illness in his voice.

"O-o-okay. You can go in," said the man with a stammer.

"I hope they have cookies," Jaguar said somewhat grumpy.

"C-cookies?"

"Yes, with chocolate filling. I killed a man for those once."

The man sat down in his seat, trembling. ... and a loud noise came from the room. CRASH... BOOM... CLANG. After a few seconds they came out again. Tomala let his shoulder circle and Jaguar made strange movements with his hand.

"The cookies were too old," he said dryly.

The leader told them that the head boss, a businessman named Evan Junk, lived a mansion nearby, so they left immediately. Outside the mansion were several cages, far too small, with animals inside. An anaconda, two tapirs and a sloth. Loving animals as they are, they freed the animals, which then disappeared immediately into the forest. Only a big, black jaguar crawled into his cage and refused to leave.

"Hey, don't you want to get out of here? Why don't you go to the harbour, there are many tourists there, juicy and tasty," Jaguar said and tried to lure him out but the big cat stopped there.

Instead of just breaking down the door and slaughtering everything like John Wick, they just rang the bell. A stressed voice answered from the loudspeakers.

"What do you want?"

"We have an important message for Mr. Junk. So please let us in," Jaguar said.

"What message?"

"A personal one. So open the door! In 30 seconds, we're out of here and you have to explain the situation to Mr. Junk. 30, 29, 28."

"WHAT KIND OF MESSAGE?"

"27, 26, 25, 16, 15, 14."

"Hey you skipped numbers!"

"Yeah? Well, then you better hurry up !"

"5, 4, 3, 2...."

A whirring sound was heard and the door opened. A butler stuck his head out. At that moment, Jaguar slammed the door on the man's head and he went down. Jaguar handed Tomala one of his pistols and they entered the house. Immediately, two giant bodyguard Omnics came rushing towards them.

They shot them in the head and kicked in a door that led to a large office space. In that office sat a sturdily built man, middle-aged. The sight of two teenagers pointing laser guns at him was clearly new to him. Startled, he raised his arms.

"Here's the thing," Jaguar began. "You pack up your people and get out of here forever or we'll finish you off right here and now."

The man waved his arms. "Wait, wait, wait. Surely we can come to terms?" he said, pointing to a wad of money on his table. Jaguar leapt forward and took the wad off the table.

"We'll take that so you can't bribe the crocodiles. And that's where we're sending you now."

The man took advantage of this short, unobserved moment, took a revolver out of a drawer and pointed it at the young men.

"I do not know who you are, but one thing is clear. I paid a fortune for this project and I won't let two savages like you ruin it!"

With a trembling hand the man pointed the gun at them, then a roar could be heard. The black Jaguar from earlier, jumped into the room and right in front of the nervous man.

"NO, NO, stay away from me!" he yelled and fired. The shot just missed, instead of firing again, the man ran to the windows in terror and jumped out. A short scream, followed by a rattle and a choking rattle, then all was quiet. The black Jaguar ran out of the room and back into the forest. Tomala stepped to the window and looked out.

"Uh. Apparently, our friend forgot that there's a metal garden fence one floor below him."

............

Tomala and Jaguar just went to the harbour to look for the ship of the deceased entrepreneur. They finally found it and stopped in front of it.

"So what are you going to do with it now?" Tomala asked.

"Well, I thought we could take you back to your home."

"Really? And what about you? Will you come back here, then?"

"No! We belong together, brother," said smiling and patted him on the shoulder.

On the ship, a surprise awaited her. The black jaguar from the cage stood at the railing and stared at her.

"Hey this is no coincidence, he wants to stay with us," Jaguar said.

"No, maybe he's got his eye on you, he wants to mate with you."

"Whatever. Come on, let's get you home."

End of the tale.

.........

In the lounge, all was quiet. McCree spoke first.

"Man, you guys were like Pulp Fiction."

"Yeah, we sure did."

"Are you sure you liberated the animals and not ate them?" Mercy asked.

"I don't eat sloths, they're too cute," he said and Lena gave him a lovely smile.

"Draw a question," said Torbjörn. "You were captain of a band of pirates for six years. What was that like?"

"In a nutshell. "I was in charge of a crew of 30 people. It's not easy to feed so many mouths. I was more of a babysitter than a leader.

"Yeah, I do know that." Torbjorn nodded.