The Book of New Mutants #3 : Lend Me Your Ears

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The Book of New Mutants #3
Post by Amelia "Heaven" Chow on Dec 1, 2006, 11:33am

The Book of New Mutants #3
Lend Me Your Ears

Cover Description: One of Apocalypse’s shock troopers, on his knees, obviously beaten, staring in horror at the figure in the foreground. All we see of this figure is a knife, dripping blood, held in a clenched fist.

Angel’s Heaven, pretty much the only place worth going to on the East Coast these days. The crowd’s pretty thick tonight, come to see Scarlett sing or conduct illicit business in the back rooms or hassle those inferior to you or just generally chill out and watch the fireworks. There’s always fireworks here, it’s just the way it is. It’s almost like watching a movie in some ways, except you’re right up close to the action and don’t have to go through the hassle of finding a movie and something to show it on.

You can tell the people who want to start stuff from the people who just want to see stuff happen pretty easily. There’s a certain aggressive posture that some people walk into this room with, and you can feel them looking around, sizing up any possible competition. Sometimes that pans out and sometimes that doesn’t. The people who are just here to observe tend to just hit the sides of the room and stare at the center, interacting as little as possible with what’s going on in the middle. That’s where we are, you and I. We’re on the outside looking in, and we’re hoping for a show. Don’t feel bad, that’s what half of us are here for. Hell, it’s the cheapest entertainment you can find, and getting a few looks at Scarlett doesn’t hurt matters either, now, does it?

I have to tell you the truth, though. I don’t think we’re in for anything special tonight. Sure, some of the Elite Mutant Force and some of the shock troops might get into a bit of a tussle over who’s more of a man, and then maybe there’ll be some flatscan that the winner of the other tussle will want to take care of on general principle, but I don’t see Hunter around anywhere, and the best fights always happen when he’s involved.

Who’s Hunter? You been living under a rock? Hunter’s a legend here at Heaven…a flatscan that has escaped cullings, fought shock troops and even EMF members, and still lives to tell about it. Well, if he did much telling. He tends to just sit there and act like he doesn’t want to be bothered, but that’s more or less a dare to some of these Apocalypse minions that come in here, wanting to prove themselves. Legend has it that Apocalypse himself allows Hunter to continue living, thinking he’s the fittest of the flatscans. The best part is…he’s still only a kid. Can’t be much more than 16, 17.

Yeah, it’s hard for all of us to believe too. I remember a few years back when the legend was firmly established, Hunter was barely out of puberty. We’d heard of him before that, apparently he escaped a culling when he was five by fighting his way out. Anyway, he was in here, and some shock troops started harassing him. He didn’t seem to have much of an issue with it, and kind of let them talk whatever shit to him them wanted to talk, which only pissed them off more. Eventually, a knife came out, and the troopers were talking about making sure he could listen or something, held him down on a table and held the knife by his ear. The whole place got quiet…we were here to see a fight, not some kid get his ear cut off. We didn’t really know how to deal with it, but there was Hunter, calm as could be, unconcerned. We all heard what he had to say next, “You better make sure you do whatever you want to do the first time, since you’re only getting one cut.” Bold words for a scrawny kid, facing off against ten battle-hardened men. They laughed at him, and off went the ear. What happened next was something nobody was prepared for.

Hunter, who had laid there patiently until the ear came off, bucked against the table, which broke one of the legs, and the troopers holding him down lost their grips. He came up with that broken leg off the table, and nailed one of the troopers right across the face with it. I saw teeth fly out as that guy swooned to the ground, knocked cold. The next guy got the other end of the leg right in the gut, followed up with a vicious headbutt. He went down, holding his nose. The crowd started to get a little excited, and everybody loves an underdog, so Hunter had their undivided attention.

He takes a chair off the floor, it’s made of some kind of chrome, like some 1950’s style diner thing. He swings it around a little to give himself some room, and the troopers are looking decidedly unsure of themselves. It looks like the knife was the only weapon they came in here with, much to their current chagrin. In the moment of indecision, Hunter quickly kicks the shattered table leg back up into one of his hands and rams it into a trooper’s face so hard that the leg shatters. And it was at least a couple inches thick.

Three down, seven to go. Hunter takes out the legs of two of them with a quick swing of the chair, but it’s obviously kind of crappy and bends from the impact. No matter, he kicks out and hits one of them in the sternum as they’re going down, and that guy’s bent over clutching his chest. At this point, some of the troopers decided they should be leaving, but the crowd had encircled the fight so closely that they had nowhere to go. He wrapped that bent chair around one of their necks, pretty tight I’d say, and that guy was down. Now he’d gone through half of them, and showed no signs of stopping.

It was only a matter of time before it came down to two of them. Just Hunter and the guy that took off his ear. Hunter’s got a broken bottle in one hand, and his coat in the other. No words are exchanged, the two just stare at each other. Finally, the trooper makes his move, charging knife first. Hunter sweeps his coat at it, tangling up the knife and making it fall useless to the floor, then follows up with the bottle to the trooper’s face…almost. The bottle stops about a millimeter away.

“I’d finish this up, but it’s not your face I’m after,” he said gruffly.

The trooper was clearly wetting himself in panic, staring at the broken glass.

“You took one of mine, well, I’m going to take both of yours.”

Realization dawned on the trooper, and he began shaking his head and gibbering. Hunter tied his hands behind his back with the jacket, then picked up the knife and walked back over.

“In fact, I don’t think I should settle for just two. I came in with two, but I’m leaving with twenty-one. And then maybe YOU will listen when I say that I don’t want to be bothered with.”

Sure enough, he got the ears off all ten of those troopers, asked for a bag from a customer who was too intimidated NOT to give him one, and walked out of the place. They’d say into the sunset in the old movies, but this was well after dark. We never did see any of those earless troopers again, not sure if Apocalypse took care of them or if they just decided it wasn’t such a good place to pick a fight after all. We might never know. Hunter’s been here plenty of times since, if you’re lucky he’ll make a stop by tonight. He’s never looking to start anything, but he’s more than willing to end it.


Re: The Book of New Mutants #3
Post by Roxanne "Madrock" Madison on Dec 3, 2006, 8:45pm

For some reason, I can't shake the image of some old guy with a beard telling story while he sits on a ricketey rocking chair on a ricketey front porch, with a pipe in his mouth, no less. Rather odd.

And I can't help but wonder what he did with all those ears.

But cool story.


Re: The Book of New Mutants #3
Post by Amelia "Heaven" Chow on Dec 4, 2006, 8:29am

Thanks! I was kind of going for that vibe, but replace "porch" with "bar". :)

As for the ears…they may come up later. If I get around to writing another one.


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