Survival is Crucial

Altered Beast IV

Ryder had made himself a makeshift gun, wrapping around his arm as the end of it pointed out on the end of his broken arm, pointing completely straight as it lay hidden under a long sleeve. His other hand held a button, thumbing it highly, fully prepared for what he was about to do, meandering about inside the halls of the ship before slowly approaching the deck. Ryder threw his hat off from the deck and slicked his hair back, keeping his stiff and broken arm behind his back as he made his way over to the front deck of the ship, maneuvering through crowds of guards as they search in methodical melancholy for Ryder in the ship, though, due to the guard's description of him, they haven't encountered found Ryder yet.

Ryder gulped down a pool of saliva that rimmed the edge of his teeth, stopping in front of Nixon and the others while narrowly missing the only guard that could've recognized him.

The engineer that Ryder talked to earlier placed his hand on Ryder's arm, causing him to whip his head around to look over at the engineer, "What?" Ryder raised an eyebrow as he saw the engineer's concerned face appear in his peripheral.

"Where've you been?"

Ryder took a deep breath before looking at his arm, "I've just been wandering."

"Really? Hopefully, you weren't inside the cruise ship at the time since," The engineer pulled his collar, "Sheesh, it seemed to be a bloodbath in there."

"Really?"

"Yeah, you haven't heard, everyone's been talkin' about it!"

"You didn't really seem to care earlier."

"Well..." The engineer looked away, "Dunno, I dunno how to put it. Guess it just didn't seem to be that big at the time... I guess."

Ryder's eyes hung low as he glanced at both the engineer and Nixon, who was just standing a few feet away from him.

"You okay?" The engineer asked, leaning a bit in front of Ryder to get a better look at him.

"I'm fine, just a bit tired."

The engineer sighed, walking away, "Okay."

Ryder immediately pointed the makeshift gun at Nixon as he white-knuckled the button. It fired off at Nixon, shooting out a bullet Ryder had found within the cargo area of the ship. The aim on the weapon was poor so instead of hitting where Ryder wanted, it had hit Nixon in the shoulder instead. Ryder tried running at Nixon in a last-ditch effort before being restrained, Nixon falling to the floor while gripping his shoulder a hard as he could.

Ryder's consciousness quickly faded as he was pinned to the ground, the slight pain in his arm feeling more of a warm embrace before he realized last second, before completely falling into slumber, that his arm was completely obliterated. A massive purple bruise, the flesh around it torn open slightly as blood spilled out -- the bone is visible.

Back in California, a few miles away from the hospital, all of the bounty hunters that had confronted Balrog earlier were all waiting within an abandoned construction site as Balrog stood at the entrance, hands in his pockets. "You'll all die here."

The fire-red-haired man sighed before suddenly appearing in front of Balrog, attempting to knee him in the stomach. The Balrog casually blocked the man's attack before lowering himself slightly and wrapping his arms around the man's leg. The Balrog lifted the man in the air before slamming him onto the floor, knocking him out instantly. The baggy-clothed man threw himself forward as the Asian man stepped back, grasping at where his gun used to be. The Asian man panicked, checking his entire body to try and find the missing gun before a gunshot rang out through the construction site. The Asian man whipped his head back over to the Balrog as he witnessed one of the other bounty hunter fell to the ground, dead, as the fire-red-haired one stayed knocked out on the floor.

The Asian man panicked, falling to the ground, vomiting onto the ground beside him as another gunshot shook the area around them, a pop before a drop. The Asian man pushed himself as far back as he could, his back meeting the wall of a fence before a cold sweat came across his entire body. The sound of dirt cracking under steel-toed boots brought the Asian man's attention back over to Balrog, as he loomed over him.

"Hey! Man!" He smiled, "Couldn't you leave me be!?" Balrog sighed as he continued to stare at the man before him, "Come on! I'm a bounty hunter, not a hitman! That doesn't mean I don't have my confidentiality, I'm just saying that this is more of a hobby rather than a full-on job, y'know!?"

The Balrog kneeled, "How far would you go for 20 billion dollars?"

"What?"

"How far would you go for 20 billion dollars?"

"I wouldn't go that far! I would only go as far as being able to succeed, but I clearly can't here so I'll leave, okay!?"

"I asked, and I want a real answer, how far would you go for 20 billion dollars?"

"Come on, man!" The man nervously chuckled to himself, hands raised in the air.

Balrog took a deep breath before rising up from the ground, readying the pistol he had in hand.

"Okay! Okay! I'd do anything okay!? But I wouldn't go as far as to risk my god damn life like this man! Not without good reason! If I had that money I could save my whole family from debt, alright!?" Tears welled up in the man's eyes as his heart pumped audibly through his chest. A moment of silence sat between them as sirens blared in the distance.

Balrog closed his eyes before taking another deep breath of the "fresh air" around him before opening them again, staring the man straight in the eyes, "That miasma that fills the air... do you like it?"

"What?"

"Of course you don't, you're a liar after all."

POP!