Bloodshed

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Bloodshed is a quick story about XTUX doing his thing: "taking out" creatures that "know too much". When the Moose In Black fail to do the job, Benny sends his secret weapon. Austined penned this dark tale to keep his writing skills sharp.

Chapter One: the Assignment
XTUX sat at the table, across from Director Benny.

"I am here, Master."

Benny smiled, a saccharine smile which really did not fit him.

"Good, XTUX. I need you to... silence ...this skeptic. He's figured out the BoF, refused to join, and he's spreading the word. Most are regarding him as crazy, but he's starting to get a lot of attention. We offered him more money-he refused. The stubborn fool refuses. I can't lightning him, because he has those dang lightning rods all over his house. The moose have failed me. -and he won't go outside if he sees a single storm-cloud."

"Silence....mmhmm, I understand, Master. He will be SILENCED."

XTUX got up from the table, polishing the steel gun that protruded from his flipper. He quickly walked through the halls, and opened his office. His office was just like the others. Or so it seemed. He pressed down on a panel, hidden under his desk, and a trapdoor opened. It slowly creaked open, and he walked in, shutting it behind him. He walked past his wonderful collection of skulls. FiHe stopped and pulled one out of his inventory and stuck it on the desk. Then, he continued walking, past several crates of various ammunition-and came to his box. He pulled out a knife-long, sharp, and lethal, and ran his flipper across it, checking to see if it wassharp enough. It should have cut him, but he was bloodless. The opposite of a vampire. Putting his hand into the crate again, he picked up several rounds of large ammunitions, and loaded them into his arm. Finally, he grabbed a quart of gasoline, and a cheap lighter.

Closing the door, he walked up out of the office, and headed towards an exit. Tonight, the suspect would be... silenced.

Chapter Two: the Target's Home
Bob Meterson retired to his sleeping chambers with a smile on his beak. He had gathered a crowd of nearly 200 to listen to "The Secret", and had nearly 3 reporters interview him. One day, he hoped to reveal the secret to the world. He would be proclaimed as a hero, and be RICH! The only reason he was doing this was for the money. Sure, the "Sky Bureaucracy" had offered to hire him, but he'd be much richer and much grander if he destroyed them.

He didn't know how powerful the "Sky Bureaucracy" was. Before going to bed, he set several alarms around his room. He had dug deeply through conspiracy theories, boxes of classified documents, and had found out that he was not the first one to try this. All the others...had died.


 * Ben Cracker. He had died in 1971. Supposedly, he had inflitrated the Bureau and made a lengthy documentary covering as much of the place as possible. His house caught on fire by several purple lightning strikes, and he had died in the fire, along with all the copies of the documentary.


 * Flavoraide19. Died in 1985. He had gathered a mob of nearly 3000 to lead them to an entrance to the Bureau, only to be suddenly struck dead despite being in perfect health. The mob vanished with him.


 * Ivan Jones. He met his end in 1998. He was actually rather commonly known among conspiracy theorists. He had been swept up by a tornado. Killed in an instant.

Maybe, he would be next. But he doubted that.

That was foolish.

Chapter Three: XTUX Comes
The wind howled like a demon as XTUX waddled through the small town at night. It whipped around him, causing his cloak to whap around his face, and lightning illuminated his harsh face. It was raining, which meant XTUX had to don an long black cloak. Rain wasn't good for him. He slowly walked through the town.

Supposedly, the conspirist lived on the third house down. He would have to die. XTUX smiled, a freakish, inhuman and demonic smile. Death was his specialty. He had even died before. It was an interesting experience. Horrifying, and yet... not. He was the harbringer of death. Demon Penguins had heard of him and they trembled at his name. He had killed a Demon Penguin who worked for the Bureau of Entropy and had attempted to sabatoge part of the BOF, and ever since, even they were wary of him.

"Blood Reaper" was his urban nickname.

The fitting name came from his early career. He wasn't very careful, and got seen multiple times. Even pictures started showing up. He was convicted with first-degree murder in Westshield, Trans-Antarctica, Weddell-plenty of places. He had no remorse, though. After all, it was his job, and it was virtually impossible to catch him. XTUX couldn't be cornered.

He hurried up to the gravel driveway of the target's house. It was rather easy to identify. For one thing, it was a house made of flame-retardant, bulletproof metal in a neighborhood of typical igloos. The the windows were barred with iron, there were five lightning rods on it, and the doors had several bank-grade locks adorning it. He laughed, a grating, cold, and robotic laugh. Locks. Such amusing things. He turned on his laser, and melted the locks. With inhuman strength, he ripped the door off it's hinges and threw it into the snow nearby. XTUX entered.

Chapter Four: the Entry
Right as XTUX opened the door, he stopped, and looked back and forth. It appeared to be an average hallway. He turned on his infared vision. His pupils vanished (the only noticeable result of the X-ray) and he smirked. Invisible infrared lasers were all across the whole hallway. Well, those would be no problem.

He turned on his laser and then turned it to the correct frequency. He had dealt with infrared laser systems before. An infrared beam went across the hallway, hitting a socket on the other wall. When the circuit was broken, the alarms would go off. And jobs like these were best done silently. Quickly, he aimed his laser into the socket with impossible accuracy, and then walked past the first laser. He then continued on through the hallway, repeating this.

The target's bedroom was also secured by a titanium bank vault door. XTUX frowned. There was no terminal on the thing! A computer terminal would have been great, but there wasn't one. The stupid vault appeared to be only able to be opened from the inside. There was probably an electronic terminal on the other side.

There was only one thing to do.

 SLAM 

The vault door shuddered, as XTUX's fist nearly broke a hole in it. He angrily punched it again, hurling his body and igniting his rockets at the same time.

 CRACKKKKKKKKK 

One more time...

 CRASH 

The bank vault door, bent concave and beaten to pieces, fell to the floor.

Chapter Five: Target Eliminated
Bob Meterson, brandishing a shotgun, crouched in the back of the room, away from the vault door, as it shuddered from something smashing into it. It was the Sky Bureau. They had sent something after him. It wasn't the Moosers (his name for their secret agents). It was something much, much worse if it had managed to get this far without alerting him or setting off any of the alarms.

The door, shuddering from one last impact, slowly fell over. Bob couldn't see what it was in the darkness, but then the thing slowly moved forward. It was a penguin, a head shorter than Bob. But it wasn't a penguin. The monster's flipper had an iron cannon extending from it, it was shrouded in darkness from the cloak and hood, dripping water, and the one thing he could see were it's eyes. The bloodshot eyes of the...agent? stared into his. The agent's red flipper flicked off the hood, and pulled a long knife out of it. Bob gasped in horror. The agent/assassin's head was slowly dripping with...something, from a large scar, the bloodshot eyes had no pupils, and the grin was anything but human. It was...the Blood Reaper. The Bureau's ultimate agent.

"Goodnight, Bob." it said, in it's robotic voice.

The assassin laughed a chilling, robotic laugh, and then brandished the knife. Immediently, Bob leapt up and fired off a round from the shotgun. A large amount of it hit the Blood Reaper, and it went sprawling back into the hallway, flippers askew. It slowly stood up again, dripping a small bit of... black ...liquid onto the floor. It wasn't blood; it was oil.

Sadistically, the voice remarked, "Honestly, a rather nice try! A shotgun, though, doesn't have the strength to break through my shields, completely."

It lunged forward at incomprehensible speed and grabbed Bob, lifting him into the air.

"Take a good look, Bob. See these eyes? These will be the last things you will ever see."

With an awful crack, he snapped Bob's neck and threw him to the floor. He died instantly, but XTUX didn't want to take any chances. He pulled out his knife and slit Bob's throat. There. Nothing could survive that. He probably couldn't even survive that. He was dead. Just like that. XTUX stepped back. Would he take a trophy tonight? Nah, he had enough penguin skulls for now.

Quickly, he started pouring gasoline all over the room, then proceeded back through the hallway, pouring more as he went, being careful not to break the circuit of the lasers. Once at the door, he turned on the lighter and hurled it back into the hallway. It bounced, once, twice, and then set the gasoline alight.

He left, leaving nothing but a shattered door and the shell of the burnt house, as purple lightning flashed in the background, illuminating his grim silhouette. The house fizzled away in purple mist, and ashes were all that remained.

The job... was finished.

$$ Fin. $$

Author's Note
Well, that definetly got my writing back into shape. I might come back on this more, add some detail, metaphors, maybe even a picture to flesh this out, but I think the result was good. I would have done this all in one sitting, but I had to spread it out to about 2 or 3. Anyway, my next project might be something a little longer. Or maybe I'll finish one of my older stories. I really don't know, but anyway, yeah.

