CHAPTER 5: The Head

Pain. Fear. Resentment. Fury. Sadness. Despair. Loneliness. Hopelessness. These emotions swirled inside of Midnight like a rampant beast clawing and tearing at its cage, Its only desire to be released and wreak havoc upon the world that had done it wrong. One arm lost. Destroyed by a certain Bomb lucky enough to find its mark from the heavens above. Eleven bloody holes bored through his skin by the awesome power of rotary cannons. One eye, its twin lost to the searing heat of a high power laser. Things have turned to shit for Midnight. Every slight movement he made brought about a severe, flinching pain that shot up through an entire section of his body. He wanted to die, to be done with it, to feel safe, calm, collected, and without pain. But he could not die. Not while he still had things to live for. With this, he continued step by step, moving at an excruciating pace. His one remaining hand clenched tightly on a dirty backpack hoisted over his shoulder. He was almost there. He could smell it, literally. The same stench that man gave off led to a grand building that stood in contrast amongst the small, poor, outdated houses amongst it. He wobbled forward, intent on not letting his knees suddenly give out beneath him. He was close to hyperventilating. Must be the Bloodloss. He thought. Minutes passed, feeling stretched out like days. Midnight's eye caught its first glimpse at the door. His eyes widened with euphoria and relief, and he only barely caught himself from falling over. He let out an exasperated, weezy chuckle and picked up his pace ever so slightly. Two men stood beside the double-door on each side, their stance and sleek crimson uniforms demanding fear and respect. The men saw him in his sorry state, but remained in their spot unflinching. Midnight slowly walked up to the guards and whispered a faint sentence.

"I'm here on business, I would like to propose a job for them."

"Did you schedule an appointment? And why would we let you in like that?" One of the guards spoke in a calm, emotionless voice. Midnight scoffed.

"No, but I've got the next best thing..." He took the backpack off of his shoulder, and poked his arm in. He pulled out the contents of the bag, and saw the composure of the guards' faces turn to unsuppressed horror. Midnight glared at them, his facial expression unchanging.

Inside the building, the man called OMA resided in his chair, managing the outpost's business requests. The great room he resided in was adorned in different shades of sweet, potent crimson that TA embraced as their color of pride. It was an organization built on strength, sacrifice, and most of all, blood. The hallway was peaceful, void of sound and disruption, then all of a sudden, the sound of doors slamming open echoed throughout. The two front guards came walking in, their rifles, armed with bayonets, trained strictly on a half-dead man. It was a sight to behold. OMA stood up, wondering why the guards bothered to take such a man to him.

"what's the matter?" OMA spoke loudly.

"Sir... this man, he..." the guard couldn't finish his sentence. OMA looked at the grotesque face the guard was making, and then looked straight at Midnight.

"Something's happened, it seems. Go ahead, speak, boy." OMA said sternly

Midnight revealed the contents of the bag yet again. OMA's eyes widened with surprise. Midnight dangled the bloody, severed head of a man by the hair. It was cut off sloppily at the neck, looking as if it took several hacks to come off. And when the head rotated, a hole entering the skull from the back of the neck was visible. OMA let a short "hmm" escape from his mouth before pausing and speaking again

"You must be Midnight. Coming into a lion's den with its cub's head, you're damn suicidal." OMA said, in a half aggressive, half calm tone.

Midnight stood unfazed.

"But I know that the lion cares not if it's cub is already dead." Midnight said in a faint, but confident voice

OMA stood motionless and silent. Screw the avenge risk policy OMA thought. Midnight continued.

"I know the Ethiopian government was behind my kill request. I've come here to negotiate a deal with the TA as a whole. They had probably offered you a sizable fraction of their money and resources to hit me. How about I offer the TA all of the money and raw resources that the government possesses. I don't need any of it. Just need to destroy them as a whole."

OMA thought about this. The TA needed both money and resources for its own goal, and The Boss would do anything to get his hands on more. The TA was considering overthrowing Ethiopia, anyway. It had recently lost most of its allies and was now more vulnerable than ever. In, Addition, the TA had done its research. Midnight really only did care about his mission, and didn't do anything that would suggest otherwise. The American incident happened because the military was onto him somehow and he needed a quick escape. He only killed the assassin William Barasta because Barasta wouldn't stop coming until he died.

"I'll see what Boss thinks. I bet he'll say yes" OMA concluded.

A few seconds went by in silence, followed by Midnight collapsing of exhaustion and blood loss. OMA rolled his eyes.

"He might be more useful to Boss alive." he told the guards. One guard quickly ran to get a unique-looking first aid kit, while the other went to get a stretcher. Thankfully, injuries weren't that uncommon here, As the mercenaries occasionally got injuries that needed treatment. OMA stared Awkwardly at the head on the ground laying beside the disgusting, bloody backpack. He reached for his tablet to summon the cleaning machines and checked his calendar to plan a funeral date for his close friend.

Midnight opened his eyes and proceeded to look around to render his environment. He was inside a light purple room, with small square purple tables sitting snugly against the walls. He gazed down to see violet bed sheets and a needle in his arm supplying him with what he assumed to be nutrients and blood. He stared at the two bags attached to a hanger that were delivering him life. He moved his eyes over towards his missing arm. It had already scabbed and was in the process of slowly walling flesh over the wound. The wonders of being a genetically modified human. How long would it take for the skin to seal my wound? How long until it grows back? Midnight thought. He remembered the scientist saying two days and one month, but were those accurate? They seemed close to the truth, but what about any unforeseen circumstances? He stared back at the blood. "OH SHIT." Midnight said in a whispering shout. He yanked the needle supplying him with blood out of his arm as fast as he could. He knew that the genetic modification affected all of his cells, which meant blood cells, also. He didn't quite know what the human blood would do to his body, but he didn't want to take any chances. Just a little blood should bring him back up to recoverable blood pressure, but the blood itself couldn't do anything useful besides just that. GMH's blood is more efficient at carrying and delivering oxygen, so as long as he forcefully stays in his dormant state, his metabolism should lower enough for him to recover slowly, but steadily. He was surprised he made it this far. He took a big risk, showing them the head of their assassin. He was too short on time to schedule an appointment, and many other assassins would have been ready for him here to finish the kill, anyway. Midnight wouldn't be surprised to see if his bounty was in the billions, so every assassin would dub that worthwhile. He was also lucky that no mercenaries were searching through the business requests. Midnight snapped out of his inner thoughts, and his body moved by reflex to his pocket where he had stored several palm-sized rocks. Realizing that they changed his clothes while unconscious, his next instinct was to dive for cover. With a single hand, he pushed up on the bed from in between his legs, withdrew his legs from out under him and placed them on the back wall, and sprang off the wall, rolling sloppily behind one of the box-shaped tables. All within a mere fraction of a second. A sound erupted in the room another split second later, and Midnight observed as the concrete wall he had just been sitting up on had a half-dollar sized hole through it, the edges of the hole cracked and chipped from the shock. No ricochet. He had seen this before. Midnight spared no time getting back on his feet, preparing to use the chipped wall to his advantage. He shot forward, his feet landing sideways on the wall near the hole, and quickly tore out chunks of semi-loose concrete from the wall. He then hurled the small rocks, spreading them out in a spray motion before drawing his feet back under him to catch his fall to the ground. The spray of projectiles hailed through the door opening and along the sides of the wall with great force, cracking the concrete and scaring any attacker that would be waiting by the door. Midnight caught his footing on the floor beneath him and propelled himself towards the door with his body positioned horizontally. Without even touching the floor again, he reached out his hand and grabbed the door frame, using it to swing himself ninety degrees in the direction the attacker was heading based on the trajectory of the bullet, based on Midnight's observation of the bullet hole. Sure enough, a woman in a scarlet outfit was retreating backward with a pistol sized gun trained at midnight. He was sprinting, advancing on her quickly as she shot the gun again in a desperate attempt to react to his astonishing speed. The bullet line was dead center through Midnight, but Midnight reacted fast. He clenched a single chunk of concrete that he had managed to save between his fingers in the palm of his hand, and threw it at an angle as hard as he could. The rock exploded, leaving the projectile unharmed but its trajectory slightly altered. The bullet barely skimmed his side, unable to cut his tough skin at such an angle. He dove and planted his hand on the ground, using his strength and flexibility to swoop his legs up to her waist and put her in a scissor lock. He then hoisted his upper body upright and stretched his only arm out past her shoulder to grab the wrist with the gun before she could react. She attempted to loosen his grip, grasping at his hand, trying to pull it off. She started thrashing him around, smashing his upper body onto the walls, creating a large thud with each hit. The first blow hit the part of Midnight's head that was uninjured, which did practically nothing. The second blow smashed him onto the injury around his left eye so hard that the concrete chipped. A "Gaaah" escaped his mouth as he groaned in pain, and he looked at the attacker with a deadly, savage hatred. No more mercy. His hand clenched down on the woman's wrist, crushing it so badly that the hand twisted grotesquely and was no longer parallel to the rest of the arm. As her hand twisted, the pistol dropped loosely to the ground, and they both collapsed. Midnight scrambled to secure it. The woman didn't back down, though. She wrapped her arm around his waist, and attempted a one-armed throw. Midnight simply dropped his hips down and used his hand and his waist to pry out of the lock. He turned around and got into a stable stance, then suddenly he heard a thundering "STOP!!!" echo through the hallway. The woman halted in her tracks, a mix of frustration and anger filling her eyes.

"You're lucky I didn't have my knives on me." she said in a condescending tone. Midnight decided not to reply.

OMA walked up to them with a considerably quick pace, his bald head wrinkled as his bushy eyebrows furled with anger and disappointment

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" OMA spoke to the woman in a furious tone.

"We don't need him. We can do it by ourselves. Ethiopia is weakened. We can deal the finishing blow now." She said in a pissed tone.

"We could, but that wouldn't be easy. We could avoid many unnecessary casualties if we keep him alive. He only killed your husband out of self-defense. You should have been prepared for this. Mr. Barasta worked some of our most dangerous jobs." OMA replied. The woman's light brown face flushed a pinkish red and furled with rage as tears streaked down her face. She slowly started shaking her head.

"He wasn't supposed to die. I had never thought that he'd be done in like this. He was so strong and experienced. He was never injured on any of his other missions. Yet he died like a dog. This bastard cut his damn head off, don't you get that? I don't care what Mr.Tangente says about the avenge risk policy. This man needs to pay for what he's done" she croaked, her voice trembling and pitiful. "He was my life, and now he's gone. What do I even do anymore?"

They stood in silence as she wept. OMA had clearly known this woman for a long time, and he seemed to now feel sorry for her. Midnight could not speak. How could he? He had not the courage nor the speaking skills to remedy the situation. So he didn't bother. The damage had already been done. Perhaps he could say something later, when the initial shock of her situation had dulled. Then it hit like a truck. His adrenaline subsided. His knees felt weak, and pains new and old shot throughout his body. He let out a few exasperated coughs from the sudden pain, and his eyes suddenly glared with a pang of ravenous hunger. "FOOD... WATER..." he said in a desperate, raspy voice. Whatever nutrients came through the IV, it wasn't enough. He stood there, hunched, wide-eyed, and looking borderline insane. OMA pulled out a bar wrapped in slightly reflective gray plastic from his back pocket. Midnight snatched it, and bit one corner with his teeth, using his hand to grasp the other side and rip it open. Like an animal, he took many quick, large bites, devouring it in no time at all. OMA signaled him to a room with a sink, and he rushed to gulp it down. After a couple of minutes, he returned, looking slightly less crazy as he combed back his long, jet black hair with his fingers. He felt his unkempt, scraggly beard while traveling towards the door of the room where he had slept, saying "I'm gonna need a buzz. And Mrs.Barasta? You should've gone for the hair." Mrs.Barasta was part of the TA, but she was only a bodyguard and escort able to use a gun and basic close-quarters combat skills, for a GMH. She had never seen such a fast human before in her life, and she was unprepared for it. She, in her anger, had forgotten that though Midnight was critically injured, he was still the single human responsible for the destruction of half a nation's military. He had the upper hand in their fight, even though he was deprived of energy, blood, an arm, an eye, and had other injuries he sustained. He was too weak to even use the power of his X enigma. She thought of what Midnight's full power would look like, and thanked God she wouldn't have to fight him full strength ever. Her husband, William Barasta, was famous in the TA for his accomplishments and had roughly the combat power of three tanks, as proven on one of his most well-known missions. He had trained his body to become harder than steel. Yet his head was delivered here, cut through the bone and a hole going through his skull. Not even the pistols created here at the TA could do such a thing, to a GMH's skull, at least. If Midnight had used William's pistol, he would only have luck shooting through soft tissue. What could have caused this? She wondered. Midnight sat back down on the bed, and casually pulled up the sheets preparing to sleep.

"Make sure that woman doesn't kill me in my sleep." Midnight said to OMA. OMA stared back, dumbfounded and perplexed by Midnight's audacity. He closed the door to Midnight's room, and escorted the emotionally unstable mercenary down the hallway.