Blade kept wishing that he would wake up and this would stop happening.
His boots echoed off the white tile as he made his way down the hospital hall. Reverberating voices around him from the staff as they milled about went into his ears and dispelled into formless muck he couldn't focus on. It was just another day for them. He approached the room he'd been told to visit, simultaneously trying to hurry and also trying to delay the inevitable, resulting in a stilted and stiff stride.
Blade stopped at the threshold, peering into the room. He saw Helios Canicco, head of the KOB Hospital, taking notes on a clipboard with a grim expression. Again, two clashing emotions filled Blade's head. He was relieved Helios had managed to appear in Las Vegas on such short notice, but he was also very concerned that he was present at all. Helios was one of the best doctors any Kobber had ever seen. The man was quite literally a miracle worker. So for his presence to be required this far from either Olympia or Agama was grim tidings indeed.
Blade put a gloved hand against the door railing to stabilize himself. He closed his eyes and took a deep, long breath. Helios looked over at him sympathetically and made a gesture with one hand. Blade's eyes cracked open and he took in Helios' hand beckoning at him. He sighed, shook his head, and stepped inside.
Together, the two of them looked at Sally Bishop.
Heavily swaddled in bandages, hooked up to a large beeping machine, and out like a light. It had been years since she had stepped in the ring, but Silence still had some fairly impressive muscles. They did her no good here, though, and the tall, strong woman had never looked smaller and more weak to her long-time friend. Her skin was pale and her chest slowly rose and fell with each slumbering breath.
Blade let out a choked noise. "G...grgh! Why... why couldn't I have been there... I should have been there."
Helios did his best to comfort Blade, placing a hand on the biker's back. When Blade flinched, Helios flinched in kind, but Blade calmed down enough to let Helios keep his hand there. "Don't blame yourself. You couldn't have known this would happen."
"...You're right. Blaming myself won't do anything." Blade fell silent for a time, his fists clenching and unclenching. "I should be blaming the rat bastard who did this to my best friend."
"I can at least tell you she's not in pain right now. I've made sure she can get all the medication she needs, and get lots of sleep. If anything else comes up, I'll let you know. A private detective has already offered to investigate the case and has hired help with boots on the ground as we speak."
"Private schmivate. They can investigate all they want, but I'm not sitting by waiting for them to figure this out." Blade gently placed his hand on top of one of Silence's hands, taking in a shuddering breath. "I'm... I'm gonna get this guy, Sally. You can... c-can count on me."
Blade removed his helmet to see Sally better, and tears dripped onto her hospital bed.
"Because we're friends."
---
Jenny LeClue looked at the photograph of Sally Bishop tagged in her notebook with a paper clip and sighed. "Didn't expect to jump into the deep end like this. And it's not in Agama, either. I'm just glad I've got some boots on the ground in Vegas. That bounty hunter I asked for help is a little... eccentric, but I hear they're good. Really good. If anyone can find who did this, it'll be them." Jenny grimaced as she realized she was talking to herself about stuff she already knew and shook her head. When she was trying to think things through, she'd often speak aloud, even if - especially if - no one was around to hear her. It helped her get the facts straight in her head.
The case was as mysterious as they come. Silence had been found alone in a large parking garage shortly after midnight. Specifically, she'd been found in the Circus Circus parking garage. Her vehicle, a motorcycle, was found elsewhere in the garage. Jenny suspected Silence had gone to meet with someone there, but an interview with Blade had come up empty-handed, as had another interview with Silence's sister Mary Bishop. Neither Blade nor Mary knew who Sally would have been meeting with in the garage, and while some people would go to a quiet corner of Vegas for an illicit deal or bargain, both of them swore up and down that Silence would never do such a thing - with the common Kobber exceptions of sugar, caffeine, and alcohol, Silence was straight-edge and had never taken steroids or illegal drugs. Trusting that her best friend and her sister knew best, Jenny set that avenue of pursuit aside and moved on to other possibilities.
At the top of her list was the chance that this was a targeted murder attempt, premeditated and planned. Silence was not the sort of woman who would end up a random victim. She was a celebrity, a famous face, and considering she was six and a half feet tall and over 250 pounds, she was absolutely not the sort of woman to get jumped by your average petty thug or mugger. Her injuries were what really stood out, though. There was a stench of gasoline reported at the scene, as if one of the vehicles in the garage had been leaking, but none of the cars around Silence's location had been doing so. Despite that, she had been severely burned by scalding gas, and puddles of cooled gas were nearby, as well as traces of oil and grease. She also bore marks on her neck, as if her assailant had strangled her. As best as Jenny could figure, Sally had been burned and strangled at roughly the same time and then left for dead. She had managed to cling to life long enough for Dr. Canicco to make the trip to Vegas and save her, but she was still unconscious, and Helios had said she might remain comatose for some time, preventing Jenny from interviewing her.
Who could have done this? Who would have gone after Silence? She'd had enemies in the past, true, like The Black Mage and Dahlia Vandelay, but both of those criminals were put down by the Kobbers years ago, and all of their associates - Sundowner, Mr. X, Clippit, and the like - were similarly deceased. Had Silence made any new enemies since then? Doubtful. She'd stopped hanging out with the Kobbers regularly after they left Las Vegas in November 2016, and had mostly led a quiet life since then. She occasionally aided the Kobbers now and then, particularly when their adventures drew them back to Nevada's neon lights, but the majority of her time was spent working as a VEW trainer and doing a little baking on the side. There were a lot of psychos in the world, but even with that in mind, this would be a pretty weak reason to try and murder a former Brawl champion.
No, Jenny decided. This was probably something further back. Something or someone buried in Sally Bishop's past. She would have to dig deeper. This was a new fresh case... but she had a suspicion, churning in her belly, that it had dark, cold origins.
---
Midnight.
Rain pattered off of their umbrella as they slowly walked out of the parking garage. The deed was done. Just one of many, but progress was progress. Steadily and with practiced ease, they strode down the street, neon glaring in the distance but none of the light managing to pierce the gap between the brim of the stranger's hat and the top collar of their large trenchcoat. One foot stepped in a puddle, leaving behind the telltale rainbow glaze of oil and water. The stranger left a footprint on the sidewalk afterward, but paid it no mind.
Silence had put up a fight. They'd expected that, but even then, she had struggled more than they'd planned. She hadn't gone quite as soft in retirement as they'd believed, and she'd managed to injure her attacker several times before they'd finally gotten the gas on her - and then got their hands around her throat. They'd wanted to burn the body to make sure, but she'd successfully dragged out the struggle long enough that they couldn't spare another moment. It had been time to leave.
Even if she was brought back by those Kobber doctors, it had been enough. The pain and agony she'd gone through, and that she'd have to endure on her possible road to recovery, that was all that really mattered. Merely killing them wasn't enough. No.
All that mattered at this point was making them suffer. Then they too would know this feeling. This misery.
As the stranger rounded a corner and stopped behind a dumpster, safely away from any prying eyes, they pulled a ragged, oil-stained notebook out of their coat and flipped it open. A red pen was resting in the spiral, and they pulled the pen free and put it to the page. Much like Jenny LeClue's notebook would have less than 48 hours later, this notebook too had a photo of Sally Bishop inside. The difference this time was that numerous other photos were present as well, depicting other people. The pen made sure, strong motions as it crossed out Sally's photograph numerous times, forming a thick and jagged red X. Next to it was a photo of Blade, and this was circled twice and underlined once. The stranger tapped the photo with the pen tip, leaving a dot of red in the center of Blade's helmeted head.
He was next.
Seconds later, the stranger was gone. Vanished, like dissipating smoke. And the secret of how they pulled off this crime vanished with them.
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