This probably isn’t good, Courtney thought. He was sitting in the back seat of a car. He couldn’t see a thing, he deducted that this was most likely due to the fact that there was a bag over his head. He could tell it was raining hard outside, and every now and then he heard thunder ring through the air. He knew that something unpleasant awaited him, but he managed to keep his cool. His friends would come for him.
The car was rushing through the near empty streets of the industrial district of Grand York. They drove by countless warehouses and past massive complexes that were seemingly strangled in a random order of pipes and dominated by towering smoke stacks. Through the rain splattered windshield the destination came into view. It was a huge grey building. It was nearly ten stories high and somehow managed to seem even more ominous and eerie than the rest of the buildings in the district. It had very few windows and almost seemed abandoned.
The car pulled up to the front of the building and the two men in the front seat got out, ignoring the rain. The driver was just under six feet and of an average build, the man who got out of the passenger seat however, was a massive form of a man. The large man opened up the back door of the car and yanked Courtney out into the rain. They entered the front of the building and walked down a long hallway, stopping in front of two large metal doors at the end. The skinnier guard pushed a button on the wall and the two large metal doors slid apart revealing an elevator. They all got inside.
Once the elevator had reached the top floor, the two heavy metal doors slid open and through them walked two guards dragging Courtney along behind them. The room was large and filled with machines, blinking lights, other sorts of equipment. It was in fact a large scientific laboratory. Courtney’s hands were still tied behind his back and the bag was still over his head. The two guards threw him to the floor. Courtney could do nothing but lay there and wait.
The sound of footsteps on metal stairs filled the room. The two guards looked up at a long spiral staircase that extended down from the ceiling. The source of the footsteps soon came into view as the guards saw their boss slowly taking each step, as if he were savoring each one individually. He was not a tall man; five foot nine at the most. He wore the finest Italian suit you had ever seen. He had straight black hair that was slicked back over his head. His face revealed no emotion. As he slowly neared the bottom of the steps another set of footsteps filled the room. The guards, as well as the man in the suit, looked up to the top of the metal staircase to see what was causing this extra noise. The footsteps were moving down the stairs fast. The onlookers saw a long pair of legs coming down the stairs. Attached to these legs was a tall woman in a short black dress and underneath a head of long wavy brown hair.
The man in the suit got off the last step and stood with his hands on his hips. A look of annoyance crossed his face. The woman hurried down the stairs to catch up, making a ruckus of noise as she did so. When she finally caught up to him she leaned on his shoulders and tried to catch her breath.
“Sorry I’m late baby,” she said.
“C’mon, babe! You ruined my evil entrance,” the man in the suit put a pout on his face, and crossed his arms.
“Awww. Honeykins. I’m sorry. We can do it again,” she said sympathetically.
“No, it’s too late.”
“Awww…” she said as she went over to him and gave him a hug. “Better?”
“A little bit,” the man shrugged.
“Good,” she said with a smile. “So is that him? The one who can sense cupcakes?” she said as she grabbed onto the man’s shoulders and raised her foot into the air behind her excitedly.
“Yes, that’s him, Mari,” the evil man said. He brushed Mari off of him and walked towards Courtney and the two henchmen. Once over Courtney he stopped and looked down at him. The man squatted down and pulled the bag off of his head. A look of fear fell over Courtney’s face once he saw the man.
“Jon,” Courtney said astonished.
“Yes, it is me. I go by Baron von Jon these days.”
Baron von Jon, still stooped down over a frightened Courtney, took out a handkerchief out of one of his pockets and shoved it into Courtney’s mouth, assuring he couldn’t talk anymore. Then he stood back up, took one more look at Courtney, and then kicked him hard in the stomach. Courtney moaned and recoiled in pain, curling up into a little ball on the cold metal floor. The man then turned to the large man.
“Welcome back Wosikov. Did you have any trouble brining him here?”
“No trouble at all,” Daniel Wosikov replied in his heavy Russian accent.
“Good. And you?” Baron von Jon said looking at the other crony “Did you leave a warning note?”
“Yes sir. Yes I did sir. After reading it I highly doubt they will try to rescue him,” the man replied confidently.
“Hmm. That’s funny, because I had one of my assassins monitoring them. He followed them to Aly’s house. He said they were trying to analyze a hair that they found at the scene. He killed Aly,” Baron von Jon paused as though it was hard for him to say that part, “And the last thing he told me was that he was about to kill them too. So…. I’d say your note didn’t do the job that it was supposed to. Wouldn’t you?” the baron said with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes sir. I’m sorry sir. It won’t happen again,” the man said with a little fear seeping through his professional voice.
“No, it won’t,” Jon reached underneath his suit coat and drew out a gloss black Desert Eagle pistol. He points it at the man’s chest and pulls the trigger. The impact of the bullet knocked the man backwards onto the cold lonely floor where he slowly bled to death muttering something about invisible potatoes.
Wosikov, ignoring the fact that his partner was just killed, stepped over Courtney and hoisted him to his feet, face to face with Baron von Jon.
“Ah, Courtney, Courtney, Courtney. My old friend. Its been so long,” Baron von Jon said putting on a smile as if this was a happy reunion.
Five years earlier
There was a room filled with talkative people, anxiously awaiting the spectacle that they were about to see. At out in front of this crowd was a table. The table had a draping pink table cloth with blue dots placed over it. Sitting atop this table were two plates, each with 12 frosted cupcakes on them, along with two glasses of milk beside each plate.
A door behind the table opened up and two men walked out. The crown hushed. Taking their seats behind each plate were Courtney and Baron von Jon, at the time he was still just Jon. Both men stared at the plate of cupcakes in front of them and waited.
“GO!” a voice rang out.
Both of the men started eating the cupcakes as fast as they could. Frosting found a new home around their mouths. In the time it took Jon to eat one cupcake, Courtney had eaten two. When Jon made it to his third cupcake he was struggling to keep it down. With a strained swallow he pounded on the table with his fist in exasperation. He reached out in front of him and grabbed the glass of milk, tilting his head back, opening his mouth, and pouring the milk down. He moaned and leaned over the side of his chair heaving, trying his best not to bring the cupcakes back into the world.
Meanwhile Courtney was just about to finish his plate. He had not even touched the glass of milk. As he finished the last cupcake on his plate the crowd erupted with applause and rushed the table. The exuberant crowd pushed their way towards the champion. As they flowed around the back of the table to hoist Courtney into the air they seemed to not even notice Jon sitting in his chair with milk all over his face. Jon’s chair was pushed over and he fell to the ground, although he tried to get back up he was pushed back down by so many feet trying to get to Courtney. As he looked up through the bodies pushing him around on the floor he saw Courtney’s smiling face illuminated by a shimmering golden trophy as he was lifted into the air by the crowd. That was the moment his soul died.
* * *
The smile that had previously occupied Jon’s face was now gone. His face was now overwhelmed with hate. He looked down at the floor for a moment. Then he looked Courtney square in the eye, after a moment he slugged him right in the gut.
“Oompf,” Courtney groaned. He couldn’t move because his arms were still held behind him by Wosikov.
Baron von Jon then punched Courtney hard in the face. Blood flew out of Courtney’s mouth from the blow. Satisfied, he turned his back on Courtney and Wosikov.
“String him up and get him connected to the machine,” Baron von Jon said to Wosikov.
“Yes sir.”
Wosikov picked Courtney up by the collar and hauled him off into the depths of the laboratory. Baron von Jon turned and looked at Mari, who was still standing in the same place, twirling her hair in her fingers.
“I think I’ll call my assassin and see how he’s doing with the other two.”
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