"Well, comrade, have you made preparations with death?"
Hong Ernu stands with you at the end of the street leading to the Sunflower Medical campus. A gateway building- yellowish concrete with red letters spelling out SUNFLOWER MEDICAL AND PHARMACEUTICAL CENTRAL CAMPUS- walls off the campus proper, which is on a hill hewed to make a flat plane. There's a giant set of stairs leading up to the gateway building You can see glimpses of rentacops in blue clamshell armor, the snubby barrels of 20mm grenade launchers poking out in the windows. You flip around for a good comeback.
"Death needs to make preparations with me," you shoot back, cracking your knuckles.
"Well, if you meet Yama make sure to forward the science even in Hell. Have fun, comrade! I'll be right behind you the moment you win!" She waves at you as you walk down the boulevard. You can smell the rot. The street is full of it, the corpses lie splattered across the stones. Palm strikes, you realize. The Neo-Maoist assault teams that went against Metalhead and died. There. A woman, thirty five. The crows pecked out her eyes after a strike shattered her spine and tossed her over a streetlight, where she dangles, dripping rot. There, man of nineteen. His body was smashed against the wall and dragged about like a brush.
Well, the upside of this is that you can snap Metalhead's neck and not really feel bad about it, like the poor guy from Zhenyan. You wonder about him. You never knew his name, which put the intimate way you ended his life in a vaguely guilty light. Should you be offering incense? Maybe. You nod. You'll poke around for a temple to offer incense to the Buddha so his next life ain't so shit. Actually no. A next life that isn't so shit probably involves him being a bougie dog. That is a bad. Chairman Mao disapproves. And hold on. The fundamental tenet of Buddhism is that there is no self. Why, then, are you bothering with incense? The answer is obvious. As a ritual to man.
But hold on. That's a reactionary ritual. Nonsense superstitions. But even then…
Fuck it. Sort out your thoughts on religion later. Fucking fuck. Maybe you should kiss all of this goodbye and become Christian.
You're here. Metalhead stands at the landing halfway up the stairs. His name becomes obvious up close. He's just wearing this helmet, a featureless inverted egg that looked like it was jammed onto his head and then riveted on. The last one isn't a metaphor. You can see the rivets going into his bare chest. Is he metal, through and through? If you hit him, would he ring like a bell? There's one way to find out. Go right up to him and knock.
The moment before could touch your knuckles to his helmet he decks you with the force of a roaring locomotive. Your head snaps back, feet stumbling around to re-establish balance even as your jaw flaps around in the wind.
"Fuck you," you snarl when you get your wind back. "I don't feel nothin'. Hit me again."
You are the King Bad Decisions of all the world's bad decisions. The second one would have smashed into your temple like a hammer, dashed your skull over the landing. Except your knees gave out at the last movement and his fist whistled over your head.
What are you doing?
Not even in the concrete sense. You know what you're doing right now. But in a more abstract thing. It's like… "What am I doing, Metalhead?" you ask his loafers. They're really good shoes too. Rich, supple leather. He did well for himself. "When you get down to it, really."
He might have twitched his shoulder. "Why do I even care who I am? I could fuckin. Fuckin' dissapear. Wipe my name and get a new ID. Then I could be somewhere sunny sippin' pina coladas as the world burns." He is impassive. "Right. Because somehow I'm a communist now. An' even the Shakyamuni hung around preaching the pure dharma before he fucked off."
Right, but you think you're Shakyamuni? Do you have the true dharma locked in your crackhead brain? How about communism? Are you hiding a doctorate in philosophy, economics, and history there?
"Yeah, that's fair." You take a breath, facing Metalhead. "Okay. Thanks for waiting. I'm back."
Then he gores you with a shoulder charge, his arms wrap around you like iron bands and squeeze until you hear ribs cracking. He is taking you to the ground, now, to plant you deep under the stones as paste. So you jump with him, feet kicking the stones away. You fly again, this time with a metal choke chain to the web of dust. You see the ground rushing up to you in his reflective helmet, you twist and Metalhead smashes to the ground in a spray of rubble. The two of you struggle to stand, each trapped each other in a clinch. Knees and elbows are exchanged, and each time Metalhead lands a hit your entire skeleton rattles. Each time you land a hit on Metalhead your entire skeleton also rattles. It's all you can do survive in his iron clinch, twisting and tensing up before his blind blows land.
He's honed the Iron Body Skill to the uttermost pinnacle. How many could compare? None. No Shaolin Abbot, no Metal Sect Grandmaster. There is only Metalhead standing on the summit of that mountain.
He pushes you away. You enjoy freedom for one second before he teeps you into a trash can.
You throw away the rotting banana peel that covers your face, set yourself in a spearman's stance. Curl your hands like you're holding a spear, strain your fingers into claws. You face Metalhead, ambling to break your skull.
Faster than a speeding bullet. Faster than sound. You explode outwards like a cannon, driving Metalhead down the length of the street. The stones grind as he digs in his feet but you're still driving him forward even if it's like moving an entire mountain range. His back hits the stairs and you keep on, crossing his slow, flailing strikes and turning over his abortive knees, forestalling them by means of low kicks and clawing his helmet with strikes that would have rent stone. Then Metalhead caught your leg and threw you like a discus, spinning wildly through the cold winter air.
This time your body smacks the electric streetlight that had the rotting corpse. It snaps and electricity sparks in the air. The corpse, face half red half white, grins at you, but it's not like corpses can do anything else.
You try to stand up. Your body hands in a resignation letter and simultaneously organizes a mass strike in solidarity with their comrades in Sunflower. Tendons howl. Bones are holding themselves with spit and glue. You fall onto the cobbles and the corpse grins at you harder. Comrade, you are going to die, and not just because Metalhead is unequaled.
'He ain't shit,' you mutter facedown.
You are doing a wonderful job at disproving yourself.
'He's blind,' you think. The ground shakes. Metalhead is coming. 'I don't think he can actually hear out of that. He sealed himself in. Is that why he's so strong?'
He can't hear you. He can't see you. He's punching and hitting something that might be mist. And that is why it hurts so much. But you hadn't hurt him once. He doesn't know you're there. Maybe if you wake him up he'll notice how much you've hurt him. Not good chances, though.
'Can't move either.' You decide. 'Not as good as I can. He moves slowly, like an avalanche. Slow but sure, that's his thing. I could run circles around him, if I wanted.'
See? There's a way. Now go, comrade. Don't disappoint yourself. Don't disappoint Uncle.
"Who's Uncle?"
But then the corpse is silent and Metalhead arrives to tear you a new asshole.
Break Metalhead
[]- Conductive Metal: He's metal. You have a live wire. Shove it up his ass and let's see how his Iron Body Skill fares, the indestructible asshole.
[]- Dropping Turtles: When eagles want to eat a turtle, they fly them up to the sky and drop them. Let's do the same for Metalhead. Again and again until he stops.
[]- The Icebreaker: Hey, he's blind. Why don't you just lead him through the campus and have him friendly fire Sunflower and Zhenyan, and have the Neo-Maoists come in after you?
