The Bounty hunter
Screams split the air like sirens as the once-hypnotic music cut out mid-beat. Panic surged like a wave through the crowd. Clubgoers scrambled in all directions....heels clattering, glass shattering, bodies colliding in blind fear. Tables flipped. Bottles crashed to the floor. Smoke from shattered lights mixed with perfume, sweat, and the sharp scent of burning ozone.
A man in a ridiculous tuxedo made entirely of raw meat, now soaked and flapping loose, was crawling on all fours, trying desperately to stand. Before he could get his footing, a woman in stilettos barreled through the crowd, stepping squarely on his hand.
The heel punched through skin and tendon with a wet crunch.
He howled, collapsing onto his stomach, face twisted in agony.
People screamed louder.
Someone slipped in a puddle of spilled wine and cracked their jaw on the edge of the bar. Two dancers leapt off their platforms and vanished into the stampede. A bouncer tried to restore order.....only to be knocked flat by a flying bottle.
The crowd didn't care who they trampled.
They just wanted out.
And at the eye of the storm, untouched by the madness, stood Desert-Hawk and Blood-Weaver, still locked in their silent standoff.
The chaos raged around them, flashing lights, crashing glass, fleeing bodies...but neither man flinched.
Predators.
In a room full of prey.
"Guess I won't have to cut myself today," Blood-Weaver muttered, eyes locked on the body of his fallen guard.
The man lay crumpled in a pool of his own blood, the crimson liquid spreading slowly across the floor.
With a flick of his gloved finger, the blood twitched… then lifted.
A thin ribbon of it rose from the body, snaking upward like a summoned serpent, suspended unnaturally in the air, shimmering under the club's dying lights.
Blood-Weaver's voice turned ice cold.
"Like you said... my move."
Desert-Hawk didn't flinch. He didn't even blink.
He just watched.
Studied.
The blood twisted, forming a smooth arc that hovered midair....sharp as a blade, vibrating with deadly potential.
Then Blood-Weaver slashed his hand through the air like a conductor leading a violent symphony.
The blood followed.
It snapped forward with a sonic crack, slicing through the smoky air at terrifying speed.
Desert-Hawk's instincts flared. He dropped low, coat flaring behind him....as the crimson arc blurred above his head.
WHOOSH.
A beat later, a bikini-clad woman who had been running toward the exit screamed...then stopped.
Mid-stride.
The scream died in her throat as a perfect red line opened across her torso…
…and then her body split cleanly in half, her upper half sliding off like meat from bone, hitting the floor with a wet thud.
The club froze in that breathless, ghastly moment.
Then came the screams again.
More chaotic.
More desperate.
The blood wasn't just flying now. It was hunting.
Desert-Hawk rose from his crouch with a gleam in his eye, the lone iris glowing beneath his battered cowboy hat like the burning end of a fuse.
"Now that's what I'm talking about..." he muttered, almost giddy.
His twin pistols were already in his hands before the last word left his lips. With a practiced flick of his fingers, barely a twitch, he squeezed the trigger pads.
Two concentrated beams of heat-energy erupted from the guns, searing yellow bolts of destruction, slicing clean through the VIP booth and detonating the wall behind it in a flash of blinding light and splintered concrete.
Blood-Weaver vanished, moving faster than the eye could follow. One beam grazed his cheek, scorching the skin and leaving behind a steaming red line.
He reappeared mid-air, suspended just long enough to fling a spike of blood toward his attacker.
The spike screamed through the chaos, twisting with aerodynamic precision.
Desert-Hawk spun sideways, the projectile missing his head by inches before embedding itself into a reinforced speaker, which exploded in a blast of sparks and static.
The club had become a war zone.
Panicked patrons trampled one another trying to escape. The dancers had long since disappeared, and the lights, once hypnotic and colorful, now flickered madly, casting strobing shadows over the shattered booths and overturned tables.
Desert-Hawk surged forward, moving low and fast, twin pistols glowing with deadly rhythm as he fired again and again....blast after blast ripping through the bar, the ceiling, and what was left of the champagne racks.
Blood-Weaver deflected one with a sharpened shield of hardened blood, redirecting it into a marble column that detonated on impact.
He spun, flung another jagged blood lance—
But Desert-Hawk ducked and returned fire mid-roll, the beam tracing a line across Blood-Weaver's chestplate, cracking the armor and sending him tumbling over a table.
The impact shattered the furniture, bottles flying.
Blood-Weaver growled and threw both hands forward, summoning a dozen blood darts from a fallen victim's puddle, firing them like a shotgun blast.
Desert-Hawk skidded into a slide, beams flaring as he countered mid-dodge. The two forces collided in a dazzling explosion of light and gore, melting one of the VIP walls completely and exposing the nighttime skyline beyond.
"You're slowing down!" Desert-Hawk shouted over the destruction, voice wild, manic with adrenaline. "That all a 73-rated hero's got?"
Blood-Weaver landed hard near the bar, panting slightly, blood trailing from his shoulder. He flicked his fingers, reabsorbing a nearby puddle to form a spinning blade at his side.
"I was pacing myself."
He threw the blade.
Desert-Hawk shot it out of the air with a perfect beam burst, then vaulted over the bar counter with a grin that looked more like a dare.
Blood-Weaver barely had time to react before a punch from the bounty hunter's pistol-boosted gauntlet sent him crashing into a champagne fridge. Glass exploded in every direction.
Desert-Hawk didn't stop.
He leapt over the wreckage, twin beams charging as he fired again....this time straight at Blood-Weaver's chest.
Blood-Weaver screamed and flung a last-second barrier of spinning blood disks to block, but the blast shattered through two of them, the third cracking against his armor and slamming him through the rear wall of the club.
He landed in the back hallway, coughing.
His visor was flickering. His armor was torn at the shoulder and hip. Blood was now leaking freely from a wound on his thigh.
Desert-Hawk walked through the smoke, casual as ever, twin pistols humming with barely-contained energy.
"You're fast," he said. "But I'm faster."
He tilted his head, one glowing eye fixed on his bleeding prize.
"And now, Blood-Weaver... I've got you cornered."
Desert-Hawk stood over Blood-Weaver, pistol aimed dead center on his chest.
"You superheroes…" he said with disdain, the barrel steady. "You hold your heads so high, like gods walking among the rest of us. All because the people cheer for you. All because they like you."
He scoffed.
"They don't see what a bunch of costumed clowns you really are."
He shook his head, gaze distant for a moment.
"My little brother's the same way. Busy playing hero in New York… thinking a mask makes him invincible."
He sighed, like he was bored of the whole act.
Then his one good eye caught movement.
Blood-Weaver's thigh wound was closing. Fast.
The blood that had spilled moments ago was reversing direction, threading back into the torn flesh like time itself was rewinding. The skin sealed, muscle reknit, and the pain in his expression faded to cold clarity.
Desert-Hawk's eye widened.
"Well, now I get it," he muttered. "So that's why Vanguard keeps you around."
He let out a dry laugh and scratched the back of his head with the barrel of his gun.
"They'll come sniffing for you, I'm sure. Send some big shot in a cape to cry over your body."
Then his voice dropped lower. More bitter.
"But me? I couldn't care less. I just wanted the payout."
He cocked the pistol with a soft click.
"Too bad you're not gonna make it easy."
Blood-Weaver raised a trembling finger, reaching toward a blood-soaked body nearby.
The blood began to twitch.
But Desert-Hawk's voice cut through the chaos... cold, sharp, merciless.
"No, you don't."
His eye gleamed with savage light as his finger squeezed the trigger.
VVRRRRRR-CHAK-CHAK-CHAK-CHAK!
A barrage of concentrated yellow beams tore into Blood-Weaver's chest and abdomen. Each blast drilled into him with pinpoint precision...burning through armor, muscle, and bone with explosive heat.
He spasmed with each hit, gasping, coughing, his body jerking against the couch. Blood sprayed upward, sizzling as it met the heat of the next shot.
The beams ripped clean through him and scorched deep holes into the marble floor beneath, leaving behind small craters that glowed faintly with heat.
Smoke poured from the wounds.
Blood-Weaver's body twitched...trying to heal, but the regeneration was sluggish, failing to keep pace with the damage.
Desert-Hawk finally released the trigger.
The yellow hum died.
He stood over Blood-Weaver's broken form, breathing steady, unshaken.
"Your body's fighting back," he said coolly, watching the smoke curl upward. "But my beams aren't like the hits you're used to."
He holstered one pistol and leaned closer, eye gleaming like a blade in moonlight.
"They don't just cut flesh… they poison the healing. Slow it down. Interrupt the sequence."
Blood-Weaver coughed violently, blood spilling from his mouth.
Desert-Hawk rose to full height.
"And by the time your bones stitch back together…"
He tipped his hat.
"We'll be halfway to New York."
Desert-Hawk grabbed what was left of Blood-Weaver by the torn, blood-soaked collar of his armored suit. The once-proud superhero dangled limply, trails of smoke rising from the smoldering holes in his chest.
Without a word, Desert-Hawk turned and began to drag him through the wreckage of the ruined lounge...past the shattered glass, the burning tables, the twitching lights still clinging to life overhead.
He whistled as he walked,low and lazy, the same pop tune that had been playing when he first stepped into the club.
Like a cowboy riding off with his prize.
The music of chaos was gone.
Now, only the hunter's tune remained.