| GCB Fanfics: The Fanfiction Project |
July 30th, 2003Preshow Tommy Vercetti was polishing his brass knuckles. He didn't like the way things looked at the moment. He had a grenade clipped on his belt, and a submachine gun ready for action. He wasn't exactly a one man arsenal, but he was tough enough. Usually. The mortality rate for fighters like himself had been pretty high. Almost all of the humans who didn't possess any obvious supernatural abilities had already fallen. Their poker table was just about the last refuge of the "normal" fighters. "**** freaks." Tommy Vercetti mumbled. So many of the strange fighters seemed spineless too, like Yuna. He was tougher than all of them. It took guts to do what he did, on the wrong side of the law. He had to work for what he was able to do, it wasn't some freakish ability he pulled out of his ass. The whole thing wasn't right. That, and his first opponent made him nervous. He had never even seen the guy before today, and no one had heard of him. About an hour ago, a man decked out in red with green hair had sauntered into the training center to greet him. He had informed Tommy that he was Kite, his opponent for the day. The man was polite, but he put Tommy on edge. Something just felt wrong about him. Kite had two daggers at his sides, and showed entirely too much confidence. Tommy was used to people being intimidated by him, or at the least, showing a little respect. The stranger acted like he wasn't worried about the mob boss. Just as Tommy was assessing the situation, the man's next comment had thrown him off guard. He had asked Tommy's permission to use the maze for their fight. Tommy had declined instinctively, but he was now questioning his decision. It just doesn't make sense, I was gonna ask for the maze myself. Tommy mused. If he's so sure of himself to beat me, the best place would be out in the open. What's he afraid of? The whole thing smelled wrong. Tommy knew something about most all the other fighters. Kite had come out of nowhere, and so far as he could tell, no one had even seen him before today. Tommy felt a tap on his shoulder and whirled around. Max Payne was smirking at him. "****, you're ugly. What do you want? If you're looking to place a bet, I'm trying not to wager on my own matches." Max shook his head. "I'd give you good odds in any case. There's nothing to get stressed about, this guy isn't a major player or we'd know about him already." Tommy relayed his encounter with Kite to Max, and the ex-cop smirked at him. "That does sound interesting. Maybe this'll be fun to watch after all. Bet you wish you didn't have to go into this blind." "Just shut up, Payne," snapped Vercetti. "I didn't ask for your help." "No you didn't." Max paused thoughtfully. A few seconds passed. "But would you like it?" Tommy sighed. "Sure." ---- Max left Vercetti to stew over his opponent. It was time to track down the elusive Kite. His training as an undercover cop began to return to him. He had snuck up on Vercetti without too much effort, hopefully he could do the same to Kite. Zero had given him a lead on Kite. Max had asked him because he was the only one not likely to be confused by the ambiguous description of a red fighter. Zero had seen someone a man in red practicing in the forest, and had only recently left for the hotel. Max ran over to the hotel. He heard an elevator door close somewhere above him. Taking a gamble, he raced up a flight of stairs. A door slammed shut to his right. He peeked through to see a man in red walking down a hallway. Max squinted at him as he got farther away. The man in red stopped several doors down the hall and entered a room on the left. Max began to tiptoe down the hall, and faced the door. He readied his pistol, preparing to make a break for it if things got tight. The man had left the door part way open. Max held his breath and peeked into the room. Kite was standing motionless in the center of the room. He didn't even look like he was breathing. A teenager was standing in front of Kite, beaming at him. "All right! Good job so far. We're gonna win it out there today." The kid was fiddling with what looked like a handheld video game. Max groaned. What a waste of time, Kite isn't even talking. The kid pressed down on a button, and Max watched Kite take a step forward and swipe a dagger in the air. Max's eyes bulged. This is impossible. I have to let Vercetti know. Max backed away from the door, and towards the hallway. The door to the hallway closed shut just as he heard the kid leaving his room. The match would be starting any minute now. Max ran back to the training center as fast as his legs would carry him. His mind raced. The kid must have wanted to use the maze in order to be able to hide. Now what's he going to do? Max arrived at the training center, and looked around. Vercetti had already left. He checked outside, by the medical ward, in the vicinity of KOS-MOS... Vercetti was nowhere to be found. He must already be at the arena... Max ran towards the arena. He made his way into the contestants' entrance to find Tommy about to enter the ground floor. Max stood in his way gasping, a little short on breath. "Listen Tommy, I saw Kite hanging out with this kid..." "Forget it, Max." Vercetti had regained his confidence. He was strutting around, flipping his gun in the air. "I'm good, go ahead and worry about the other guy." Vercetti walked out into the arena before Max could stop him. Max gasped for breath and watched the mob boss greet a mix of cheers and boos. "*** **** it." Max muttered. The Battle Shino Takagawi was sitting down in the fan section, his keyboard out, waiting for his match up with Vercetti. Vercetti being far from punctual, but that hardly suprised anyone. Shino was worried about his poor avatar, it looked expensive he'd hate to ruin it. Vercetti rushed out on to the field clearly disorganized. He had all his weapon's in his arms, and he was clearly a little hung over. Vercetti threw down his weapon's in the middle of the field, and began putting them in their appropriate holsters. Apparently he wasn't aware that when an opponent was tardy the match began as soon as they arrived. And so the match began. Kite moved on the offensive. Vercetti was down focusing on his weapons and didn't even see him coming. Kite greeted Vercetti with a hard kick to the stomach. Vercetti greeted the kick with a stream of obscenities but no attempts at a defense. Vercetti got up cracked his knuckles and got pissed. "Alright kid, that was ****ing cheap, I wasn't even looking and you kicked me right in the ****ing stomach you ****ing cheater." "You let your guard down," pointed out Kite. "Yeah, shut the **** up kid," Vercetti said pulling out his 9 mm and blasting away at Kite. Shino had the avatar dodge the bullets. Kite ducked and weave between bullets, but wasn't able to close the gap between the two of them. Quickly Shino pulled down the scroll menu and selected a spell. "Ap Vorv!!!" yelled Kite, still dodging the oncoming spray of bullets. Suddenly a wall of fire appeared around Vercetti engulfing him in the flames. Vercetti got up his trademark Hawaiian shirt burned but not too badly tattered. He looked up at the boy standing in front of him and twitched. "I was gonna let you live, boy, but now I'm gonna have to kill you," he said whipping out his Sub Machine Gun. He let the bullets fly at Kite again, Kite was very adept at dodging bullet fire, but the automatic weapon fired to many shots. A bullet tore through Kite's ankle, it didn't affect him at all. Down there it was all just joints and wired, no real vital material. Kite kept running. Vercetti looked on puzzled from behind the still firing his weapon. I could of sworn I got him there. Nah, no way a little guy like that can shrug off a bullet I must've just barely missed or something. The ominous click gunfighters fear most rang throughout the stadium. Vercetti groaned and quickly began trying to reload his gun. Shino saw the opportunity, he needed to close the distance and fast. Kite rushed in slashing his twin daggers. "****!!!!" yelled Tommy Vercetti dropping his rifle and jumping backwards. He pulled out his brass knuckles, and came back at Kite swinging hard. Kite blocked his first attack with his daggers. The vibrations shook Tommy's hand, it hurt. Kite seemed to think this was his chance to attack and drew his daggers back for a stabbing attack. But Vercetti used the recoil from the blocked attack to spin around and bring his right fist directly onto the top of Kite's skull. A resounding 'Dong' echoed through the stadium. Vercetti was in convulsions from the recoil. He threw the brass knuckles off of his hand and began nursing the hand he had connected with. "WHAT THE ****ING ****!!!!!" yelled Vercetti. The crowd looked up anxiously as this had suprised everyone. Even people like Link and Sephiroth couldn't stand a full blown, unblocked, brass knuckle to the head, without showing any sign of taking damage. Vercetti with lighting speed, whipped out his magnum and fired a shot into the chest of the taken aback Kite. Nothing, no blood, not a drop, in fact a few sparks came out of the whole from the damaged wiring. Tommy began to laugh, "You're a robot, hahahaha, why didn't you say so." He pulled out a grenade pulled the pin, winked at Kite and hurled it over. Kite ran away from the grenade, but Vercetti had shortened the fuse time, and it detonated shortly after it got there. Kite took a bit of the blast but kept on running. That ****ing cheater thought Tommy If had known I was up against a ****ing robot, I would've brought my rocket launcher. That's probably what Max was trying to tell me. Tommy primed another grenade and lobed it over at his robotic opponent. Another near direct hit, that didn't seem to affect the young robot. The robot ran in and dropped kicked Vercetti in the chest. God damn ****ing cheater, I thought all AI controlled robot's had to declare themselves. This guy is ****ing cheating, those ****ers upstairs are gonna hear about this Tommy loaded another clip into his machine gun and began blasting away at it. Bullets tore through the robots chest and head, but it came in for another drop kick. Vercetti rolled aside this time. ****, where is the god damn AI control unit. They said that they had to put the vital machine parts in the same place as vital organ's so it would be fair but where the **** is it. Tommy's machine gun ran out of bullets, and he was out of clips he hurled the gun at the oncoming Kite, it hit him in the face but bounced off with nothing but a metallic pang. Tommy rolled aside from a gale of swords from Kite and got up expecting the attack to stop, but it didn't. He kept on attacking the same spot Vercetti had been standing. Vercetti pulled out his magnum and fired a clips worth of shot's into the robot's back. Hmmm...that's not a very good AI system, unless..........OF ****ING COURSE!!!!! How could I have been so ****ing stupid, it's a robot under control of someone else. But who? Max probably was gonna tell me that too. He didn't have time to finish his thought process as the android came back on the offensive. The android's moves had become predictable, it always attacked directly at Vercetti's chest, he was able to dodge pretty much all of the android's assaults, but it required a lot of attention and a lot of energy, he wouldn't be able to keep it up long. He dropped another grenade behind his back and dove backward, whipping around with his magnum and shooting it right as Kite was under it. Gotcha thought Vercetti, but when the smoke cleared Kite was still sitting there apparently still functioning fine. "**********er!!!!" yelled Vercetti. The android slowly began to walk towards Vercetti, he was running out of ammo. Who's controlling it and from where? Vercetti demanded in his thoughts It's gotta be some contestant, but who I haven't seen be........of course. Vercetti remembered a bunch of people inquiring about a 14 year old boy who seemed to have access to all of the player only areas, but Vercetti didn't see him. God I hate kids they all look alike Vercetti thought as he began to scan the arena. there's a lot of ****ing people here today. **** robokid is getting closer. Where is he? Suddenly Vercetti remembered running into a kid right outside the hotel, it was obvious the kid had been coming out, That's gotta be him thought the gangster, he began scanning for the boy he'd seen earlier. And much to his surprise, in the front row, not 30 feet behind him there was a small boy on a keyboard, looking intently into the screen. Shino was having a blast, "Oh Boy, this is way more fun than The World," he said aloud. He had recently seen The Terminator for the first time and was trying to have his avatar mimic the scene where the robot walked out of the flames of the exploded gas truck. Tommy began to run away. "I can't blame him for running away," Shino said aloud, "I know I would." Then a light click came from right above the screen, and Shino heard a gruff, tired, and above all angry voice say, "Start running, kid." Shino looked up to see the muzzle of a magnum and the look of a maniac. "I don't mind fighting a robot, but I think that's a little cheap don't you. Why don't you shut it down." Shino was scared out of his mind, he had never had his life threatened before, much less by a man, who most people thought would kill a 14 year old kid. He was so petrified, he couldn't move. "Listen, kid," said Tommy obviously losing patience, "I won't ask you again, turn the robot off and ****ing surrender, or I'll blow your brains into the person behind you's stomach." His mind was telling his body to turn off the computer and kow-tow before the drug overlord but his body was on lockdown. Tommy Vercetti's eye's twitched and suddenly a loud shot rang out through the arena. The people sitting next to the two competitors gasped fearsomely. Shino slumped down to the ground, fainted. Tommy picked up the computer keyboard he had just shot, and tossed it into the air like a clay pidgeon and dispensed the rest of his rounds into it. It exploded in mid air. The robot stopped in its tracks. "****ing kids," said Vercetti as he climbed down and began to gather up his weapons. The announcer declared Vercetti's victory, but Vercetti didn't care, he had come close to being defeated by a 14 year old kid, and he was too pissed off to celebrate, well for now at least. Aftermath The Locker Room Tommy Vercetti swore as he stormed into the locker room, practically ripping his tattered Hawaiian shirt off, throwing it to the side. ****ing kid...I liked that shirt... The gangster slammed his hand against a locker, slightly denting the metal. "God damn..." he growled to himself. The brown-haired man tossed his unused grenades on the floor, and his magnum, brass knuckles, and submachine gun shortly followed. Ordinarily, Vercetti would have been meticulously checking his weapons--one didn't become as powerful as he had without having top-of-the-line, mint-condition equipment...but he was just too annoyed to care right now. The Vice City magnate swore again as he heard the locker door open behind him. "**** it...they put me up against a kid. A goddamned KID, for chrissakes...what do they expect me to kill next, huh? A cute ****in' baby bunny or something? Jesus, Max, it ain't fair." Max Payne shrugged, throwing a fresh towel to the crime boss, who caught it in one hand. "You look like something that crawled out of the devil's whorehouse." As Tommy wiped his face clean of the dirt and grime, the sweat, blood, and smoke that had accumulated during the match, Max walked over to the other lockers, leaning back against them. "And you didn't kill the kid, for whatever that's worth." "Yeah, but it ain't worth a whole lot. I bet there are a couple-hundred people in the stadium right now thinking, 'Oh, Tommy Vercetti didn't murder a little kid! I guess he's a nice guy, after all!'" The New Yorker raised an eyebrow. "And you seem to have a problem with people thinking you're a nice guy?" Walking over to the sinks that lined the walls, Vercetti turned the water on, and began to wash his face. "I don't give a rat's ass what people think about me. But I'll tell you something, Payne: I ain't a nice guy." Tommy began to rinse the various cuts on his body from the match. "I got no problem killing, you know?" "Nor do I," said the ex-cop. "And you're right...Mafia bosses generally don't have reservations when it comes to killing." Tommy laughed a short, bitter laugh. "Hell, Sonny could've written the book on backstabbing...but that's not the point, Max. I'll kill junkies, pigs, rival gang members, traitors in my own gang, and not feel a twinge of guilt when I go to bed." As he talked, the gunman walked over to his locker to get a fresh shirt. "That's Tommy Vercetti. That's the real me. I got the **** kicked out of me by a robot controlled by some teenager who's probably got nothin' better to do than post on geeky message boards all day long. But he's a goddamn KID, Max. I'll kill men, women, cops, gang members...I ain't gonna murder a little kid, though." The other man was silent for a while, before finally responding, "...was there really a point to that, Vercetti? You didn't say anything I didn't already know. You're a criminal, probably will always be...your hands are redder with blood than Satan's ass. But, you know what? You ain't just another pusher, just another Jack Lupino." "Nice guys get killed, Max. You know that as well as I do." "Yeah, well, bad guys get killed, too. We ain't immortal, Tommy. And nice guys don't always finish last...and whatever you're saying, you've proven that somewhere inside the black, black depths of your heart...lurks one of those nice guys. You didn't kill the kid, Vercetti. More power to you." Smirking, Max Payne threw a mock salute at the crime boss, and then left the locker room, whistling to himself. Tommy Vercetti just stood there, and sighed softly. Goddamn it... Next Entry Back |