Part of a short story (with some minor "site relevant" content)

[Quagmire]

I've got more than one unfinished fanfic laying around my hard drive.  When reading a thread mentioning stories that feature toilet-related content without it being the primary focus, it made me think of this one.  It started life as an attempt to document the tale of a real-life vigilante.  ...at least I may have a good excuse for not getting this fic finished if that's it's ultimate fate: the more I think about it, the more I realize that the reason there are no vigilantes in real life is because they'd all end up getting arrested and/or shot! 

...though I really should try to remember what justification I had at the time for the "end of the world" panic going on that leads up to the story, or come up with something else..... 

Anyway, all original characters.  "X" isn't the Mega Man robot, but a human vigilante who earned the nickname as you will see...

"The hell are YOU supposed to be," sneered the 'good ole boy' who seemed to be in charge of the mob.  There was scorn in his gaze as he sized up the masked man before him - but also a trace of apprehension.

"I am X."  Part words, part animal growl.  "There are people inside this store.  I'm getting them out, before these thugs level the place."  The masked man made no overtly threatening moves, but he did carefully flex his fingers as his gaze narrowed behind his mirrored goggles.  He did not like the odds here if he had to fight.  He could do some damage, to be sure.  But as a vigilante, he always relyed more on stealth than brute force.  This was the price of trying to be a costumed hero in a rural town as opposed to a big city.  Not many places or crowds of people to melt away into, to preserve one's "secret identity."  And of course, "super powers" were hard to come by in real life.

"Jake's already got dibs on them fine pieces of ass in there," the leader sneered.  "But, well...I suppose I could be persuaded to let you have a crack at it too."  He held out his hand as if demanding something from the vigilante.  "Whadda you got for me?"

X cocked his head and tensed his muscles.  Apparently time was even shorter than he realized, these people were even more depraved than he had first thought.  Property damage, some looting and general 'raising hell' was one thing, but rape...

The leader started waving his fingers impatiently.  He'd heard stories of some masked freak running around carving up the faces of criminals.  For a second he'd almost thought that this guy was him.  Must be getting edgy.  "Come on, man, if you want there to be anything left for you, you'd better start getting "persuasive" with me pretty quick, know what I'm saying?"

"Yes."  With that word, X moved amazingly fast for a man of his size.  His left hand grabbed the leader's outstretched hand from below, while he seized the thug's fingers from above with his right hand.  With a sickening crack, he broke all four fingers and bent them down until they were parallel with the back of his hand.  X quickly turned to fend off the next attcack - but none came.  Luckily for X, the leader immediately lost consciousness from the pain before he even had time to cry out.  Luckier still, no one from the mob seemed to have even noticed what had happened.  X dropped the leader's hand with distaste, and could not resist growling a quip.  "I guess I persuaded you..."

X quickly and quietly made his way inside the store, every sense on the alert.  No, "Super Powers" were indeed hard to come by.  He instead had to rely on thick denim for protection - faded jeans and a darker jean jacket.  Comat-style steel toed boots and black leather "sap" gloves that had lead hidden in the knuckles.  A small -  but very potent - stun gun.  A wicked serrated pocketknife with a 6-inch blade.  And for today, an "ace in the hole" just in case.  He stealthily made his way to the sound of voices towards the back, using the aisles to remain hidden.  Getting closer he could hear an angry male voice, paniced female voices...and moans of pain coming from a man.  He peeked around a corner to take in the scene:

There was a man with a gun...a Tec-9 9mm, it looked like.  While there were no superpowers in the real world, X took a moment to be grateful that the real world had some advantages too.  It was a wicked looking gun, but since this wasn't Hollywood he would bet money that it was "only" a semiautomatic.  Not quite as dangerous as a full-auto machinepistol like an Uzi, but still dangerous enough in these tight quarters.  The moans were coming from another man laying on the floor, with a considerable bloodstain on his store-uniform shirt around the shoulder he was clutching.  Looks like he'd tried to play hero too, with disasterous results.  Finally there were two women, redhead and brunette, also sporting unifom shirts that marked them as employees.  They were naturally terrified of the gunman, who was screaming assorted threats at them. 

"You don't GET it, you stupid bitches are waiting for help?  It AIN'T COMING!  It's the end of the world baby!  Now I'm getting impatient here, you two can come with me and at least have a good time before the end comes - or you can end up bleeding on the floor like that dumb sonofabitch over there - " he gestured to the wounded man.  He aimed the gun back at the two women, as the redhead moaned in horror as a wet spot began to spread from the crotch of her khakis. 

X had seen enough.  He considered his knife, but then observed something that would give him a nice reach-advantage.  Apparently before their world had been turned upside down today, they had been working at re-arranging some shelves.  X took a smaller one - big and long enough to make an effective improvised weapon, but not so large that it couldn't be weilded effectively as thus.  Without a word he leapt from behind his concealment and rushed the gunman.  Naturally the women turned their gaze to X, but the gunman didn't even have time to register it before X brought the shelf down over his head in a mighty two handed blow.  The hapless gunman collapsed to the floor like a puppet who's strings had been cut.  Just as he had with the mob leader outside, X tensed as he looked around for any more opponents.  He also listened intently, as his hearing was something he couldn't really take advantage of in the chaos outside.

He always knew that this gig as a masked vigilante could only end badly, violently.  Either at the hands of law enforcement, or more likely on the recieving end of a bullet from a criminal who had fewer qualms about carrying guns "on the job" than X did.  Razor-sharp awareness and an eye for detail were the only things that had kept him alive and relatively unharmed thus far in his short career.  He could never afford to totally let his guard down. 

Satisfied that he would remain unmolested for at least a few moments, X turned his attention back to the gunman.  Conveniently, he had landed face-up.  X smiled grimly beneath his mask as he snapped his knife open in a fluid, practiced motion.  He barely cast a glimpse at the store employees before turning back to the gunman and crouching by his face.  "Be right with you," he growled to them.  The gunman was still breathing, albeit very shallow breaths.  X was worried for a moment that he had killed him.  Not that it would have been a great loss for the world, but he much preferred leaving his "victims" alive in all but the most severe circumstances.  As marked men the rest of their lives, walking reminders that crime came with a price and that no one was untouchable.  Starting above the right eyebrow, X quickly made a nasty cut diagonally down the gunman's face, stopping next to the left lip.  He repeated the motion on the opposite side of the face, carefully avoiding the eyes.  He wanted this monster at his feet to be able to see how he had been branded when he woke up - an "X" across his face, cut with a serrated blade so that the wound would not heal cleanly.  If he had more time, he would have made the cuts slower, with deliberate effort to make the wounds even more disfiguring.  But he had to keep mindful of the mob outside, and how at any moment any or all of them could come bursting in. 

Wiping the blade on the gunman's shirt, he folded it and returned it to it's place clipped to his side pocket.  He stood and looked at the three victims - or rather one victim and two would-have been victims.  He wasn't terribly surprised to see that the redhead wasn't any less afraid than before - in fact, he was pretty sure the stain where she had wet herself a moment ago grew bigger when he looked at her.  He was somewhat more surprised that the brunette was tending to her male coworker.  Not so much that she was, but how she was - she was crouched down at his wounded shoulder and had her own knife to it, a small pen-knife with a pink handle.  X stepped over to them.  "Hey...what the hell are you doing?"  He tried to make his voice not sound too menacing, even though he still kept the growl he always used while in costume to disguise his voice as best he could.

"Getting the bullet out, what does it look like?"  Unlike the poor redhead - "Wendy" according to her name tag, this one ("Abby") wasn't afraid of him.  This was good, though she was lacking in medical knowledge.  X sighed a bit and grabbed her wrist.  "This isn't TV, here, lady.  Unless you're the youngest combat medic or EMT I've seen, you'll do more harm than good by poking around in there with a blade.  Just control the bleeding until we can get him some real help.  Here..."  X reached into a chest pocket of his jacket and withdrew a small plastic vial with a brown powder inside.  He snapped it open, and poured it into the wound.  The man groaned - as expected, X knew from experience that the stuff hurt like hell.  But it worried X that he didn't protest more than he did.  He had lost a lot of blood, they needed to get him out of here...damn, as if this wasn't going to be difficult enough!

"Wow."  Wendy was impressed by how X's powder had quickly staunched the blood flow in the shoulder wound.  "What is that, some kinda top-secret powder bandage or something?"

"It's called Urgent-QR," X answered.  He let a little bit of humor slip into his 'mask voice.'  "I bought it at Wal-Mart."

[OrpheumZero]

It's not bad, but it does feel fairly unpolished. I would suggest changing the Part words, part animal growl to something like he rasped with an animalistic growl or something to that effect, as the part words, part animal growl just comes off very strangely as the guy is clearly just doing the "Batman" gruff voice routine.  Still though, sounds like a fun shortish story. Kind of reminds me of a similar little thing I dabbled up a few months ago on a whim.

[Quagmire]

*Nods*  Yeah, that does sound better.  The Christian Bale "Batman growl" was what I saw in my head as I was writing.  I've read people make fun of Bale, but you've gotta do SOMETHING to disguise your voice if you're playing superheroes.

Hm, though I wonder if the fandom would have revolted if they'd have gone the Smallville route and given the bat-cowl a voice changer like Green Arrow used in his hood....