King of Nothing Part 3

Ricochet Pov

Maybe it was the fact that I went into shock a couple of hours ago or the simple truth that I've been frozen and tenderized like a raw chicken, but recently I've been in a mood for self-reflection. Like how this current situation is (let's not kid ourselves) altogether one hundred percent my fault, and that everyone in the world who's ever given a damn about me might just end up with a foot in a grave.

Not that I wasn't already afoot in it by the time I got out of that dreadful meat locker, Yet despite all of that, no one is even attempting to bring that up, not even the person that I expected to hear it from the most. In the hour after Damage's ultimatum, he had piled us into Glass Joe's Boxing Gym, another in a long list of abandoned locations in the lower levels.

Damage talked at length about every nook and cranny of the place, but I'll spare you from the finer details. The place served as the first of many underground superhuman slugfests, and the owner eventually grew so successful that he left this place behind to rot. In the decades to come, it became a community center, orphanage and now, under his tutelage, it has returned to its former glory to become what may be our tomb. This is why I had to ask the principal question in this borderline locker room.

"Why aren't you angry with me, Eternus?!"

"Who said I wasn't?" a shirtless Eternus said while practicing various fighting forms in a relaxed manner with his eyes closed.

"Because I don't see you maniacally licking your lips and rubbing your hands while feeding me whatever fucked up challenge this freak has waiting for us!?"

"You and I both know that out of all The Cons, I'm the best choice for whatever he dishes out," he said as he started to stretch his shoulders with hissed breaths.

"You're the most injured out of all of us, and I can take a beating too," I said in a pleading tone.

"He has a point, Eternus, hell we might not even have to fight; Fury probably can," Gum said while warming her hands.

"I'm not going to transform again, Gum. I nearly killed all of you back there, and I'm not doing that again; besides, there is nothing stopping Damage from beating me again and punishing all of you for it," Fury said in calm adamance.

"For once, I agree with someone," Port said from the back of the room while Frag silently watched.

"Fury and Port are right, guys. That breakout we just did was pure luck and surprise. We will not have another shot like that again, they'll be ready this time, and I don't like our odds with the injuries we've sustained against all their forces. We can both take a beating just fine, Ricochet, but the fact is that any wound I sustain is temporary, and I don't trust you with both that wound and the cold on top. Gum is too injured and too cold to work a sweat up while the rest of us are unreliable, so let's not kid ourselves; I'm the only one who can do this. I've seen his type before Ricochet. Damage doesn't want the money anymore. He wants us to break; if I back down, he notices that it sends the message that I bark more than I bite. He'll have us around his thumb, and that's it, we're finished," Eternus said in a rather dower tone.

A storm of silence fell over all of us as I said what each and everyone one of us was trying to put off.

"Then why don't we join him or hell any other Monarchy of Misanassholes? You constantly say that we are the worst of the worst, but you never let us be that with anyone else. Why?"

Eternus face flashed a hint of aggression, only to then soften into brutal honesty.

"Because I spent my entire life taking shit from nut cases like Damage, and I thought the only way to succeed was to get people more messed up than me, so messed up that they would follow my lead without question. That's why there are rules. That's why their only 6 of us, and that's why per rule #3, I refuse to back down to anyone; because I want to prove to all of them that they were wrong to look down on me, wrong to think that they were the better ones. I don't even know if we can do that even now, but I'm definitely not going to stop trying. Whether we get out of this or not," Eternus said as he walked out into the ring, leaving us with nothing more to do than to hope for the best.

At that moment, I realized that I hated the direction my path of least resistance has offered me for the first time in my life.