Gravity chapter 5

Story by jenfoxworth on SoFurry

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#517 of my stuff

FINALLY GOT THIS DONE


Black Hat was seething with uncontrollable rage. How the hell did Flug survive?! It was impossible! No one had EVER survived his venom! Let alone all the wounds he had inflicted on him would have started to bleed again, there was just no way that he could have lived! What's more, the idiot had walked out in front of him with a bit of a swagger, confidence, dressed professionally, and was staring him down! AS IF HE HAD THE RIGHT OR THE BALLS TO DO SO!?

The demons hands gripped the ends of his desk tightly, claws crunching into the polished wood, he had to keep himself from grabbing the computer and crushing it lest he would lose the connection.

"I didn't feel like dying, actually." Flug said calmly, still staring at him through his black goggles. The scientist wasn't even wearing his fucking bag! He was flaunting all the scars the demon had given him for all to see! THOSE WERE HIS TO LOOK AT, HOW DARE HE KEEP HIS FACE UNCOVERED?!

"FLUG!!!!" Black Hat screamed at the monitor.

"Yeah?" The scientist said, not even addressing him with a respectable sir, boss, or mister.

"YOU! ARE! GOING! TO! DIE!"

"I don't feel like I am." Now there was a hint of snarkyness, the scientist still hadn't even flinched.

This only angered him more, he was already past his tipping point as he began to deform into a monstrous beast, right in his office. Dementia had been watching from the door, now she took off running, she was smart enough to know to get as far away as she could when he was like this. Flug wasn't dead, she couldn't believe it, she was hiding in her room under her bed. How could he even still be alive?! She had never seen Black Hat this angry before, well she had, when he had been chasing Flug's truck, but other then that...

Now it was Flug's turn.

"You want to kill me? You've tried three times already. I'm still not dead yet! I've survived every encounter with you, all on my own, I came here to make a deal for some equipment, but since it appears he's already one of your clients, I think that deal will have to be canceled. Sorry, Bishop."

Flug tilted his head and glanced at the other doctor, who nodded understandingly. Flug was covering for HIM now, he didn't want the demon coming after him, and he was making an ally doing so.

Flug looked back that the computer screen and allowed a grin to come over his face. If he was going all out on this, he might as well. He had forced his terror down, and was letting himself loose. He didn't care if he died. He was sick of being afraid, and having Black Hat control the way he felt. If the demon was gonna be the death of him, then so be it, but he was gonna fight til his very last breath, and he would never give him the satisfaction of doing it himself. Insane? Absolutely, but that was why he was called a mad scientist, and instead of cowering in fear, he was going to act like fear didn't even exist for him, for once. Complete unfettered arrogance. The adrenaline in him was surging out of control.

"If you want me, you'll have to find me first, and I'm not going to make that easy. But I won't keep you waiting for long, you'll see me soon enough, I'm sure you miss me!" He put up a gloved hand and gave a little wave.

The connection went blank, obviously Black Hat's rage had finally gotten the better of him and he had completely annihilated the computer and everything within a 10 foot radius of himself.

"I'm sorry I've caused you all this trouble. I'll be going immediately, I don't want him to even think of looking here, you've already saved my life once, and I won't let you be tarnished for that." Flug said, turning to the other man.

Bishop looked at him with amazement. So much change in so little time. When he had found him he had been a broken, nearly dead boy. But this person now, such confidence. He was being quite brave, or extremely foolish. Either way, he admired him for it.

"I wish you good luck. Dr. Flug. I will continue doing business with you, of course. I doubt that Black Hat will want me to buy anything from him now anyway, not that I would need to. Take anything you need, but leave quickly, your former boss isn't someone who will let himself wait." He said to him.

Flug had left within 20 minutes of the ending of Black Hat's call. He had plenty of supplies from Weyland-Yutani, though funnily enough nearly everything was stuff he had designed, so he was quite familiar with it. Weapons, shields, bombs, so many things. His all terrain military vehicle was quite capable of carrying it all as well with how big it was. Driving it across the desert, he knew he had to find a good hiding place, and fast. The desert was not a good place to be. He was heading north, getting lost in the western mountains would be a good way to do it.

In the wilderness, he stopped for a minute to stretch his cramped legs. Looking around a bit, he let 5.0.5. out for a few minutes to play. What a strange place he thought. It looked like this place had once been a junkyard for the military or something, out in the woods... There was metal, twisted and broken, parts and who knows what else lying in giant piles everywhere.

"Hmmm... Even getting away... He'll still be able to follow my tracks. I've got to find a way to take care of that. This thing is so heavy it leaves marks everywhere it goes." He stood back and looked at the vehicle for a bit, his genius brain trying to figure it out.

It hit him like a light bulb. Of course! He just needed to make it so it DIDN'T make tracks! Which meant to have it not touch the ground! With the help of his bear, the garbage parts littered all over the place, and the equipment from Weyland-Yutani, it took him only a few hours to make the modifications. He stepped back to admire it.

Fucking all terrain armored aircraft. Try to find that, you asshole, he thought with a grin. They got back in, and he drove the newly modified vehicle into a nearby river. He had modified it into a ship as well. All terrain meant, ALL TERRAIN. Looking at the GPS inside, he saw there was a waterfall a few miles down river. Perfect he thought. Fly off the waterfall, then there would be no tracks whatsoever and they could go wherever they wanted, and he already had so many plans to get started on.

It had taken Black Hat all day to literally calm himself down enough to a point where he wasn't a deformed beast. His manor was not in good shape by then.

"DEMENCIA, GET OVER HERE NOW!!!"

The lizard girl reluctantly came out of hiding, cowering before him. He still was shaking and barely able to control himself, even SHE didn't want to set him off.

"Y-yes, Black Hat?" Now it was her who was stuttering in response to him.

He clipped a leash chain to her and without a word started to drag her out of the house again. He wasn't about to leave her behind in his manor, alone. She wondered though, what was the point of her being taken with him to keep her from destroying it, when he had already done so....? The structure was still mostly intact, but nearly everything inside he had mutilated. She tried to keep up with him, and he suddenly snapped his fingers. In response nearly everything in the manor became right again. Of course she thought, if he messed it up, it's an easy fix, if SHE messed it up, it would be a tad bit more difficult, his dark magic only worked on repairing things that HE broke.

Before getting into his car, he turned to her with a deadly glare.

"DON'T. FUCKING. TEST. ME. TODAY."

The crazy girl just nodded. That look was absolutely terrifying. If she didn't listen she was the only person in his immediate range, and he would rip her limbs off. Oh god, she thought. I'm turning into the coward, like Flug was!

Flug was relaxing quite comfortably in the hiding place he had picked. It was a decent sized cave on the side of a mountain, deep in the wilderness of the forest's of the west. He had taken a shield projector and modified it to cover the caves entrance, which also projected a hologram of the side of the mountain as well. From outward appearance, there was no cave whatsoever. The only way someone would be able to tell is if they ran directly into it with a great force, then the hologram would momentarily shudder, but it would take a pretty strong force for that to happen, and who the heck was gonna do that if they didn't even know he was there in the first place? No tracks, he thought, grinning. The only thing that could go in or out was air.

5.0.5. was playing in the cave as well, Flug wouldn't let him leave it. No point in taking unneccessary risks... not yet anyway. Give the asshole a while to cool down, the scientist thought. He was watching TV, something he had never gotten to do before when in the demon's employment, he had always been too busy working himself to death. He found the news very interesting to watch, it gave him a lot of ideas.

He glanced over at the table next to him, twitching as for a moment, he nervously feared his medication wouldn't be there. It was still in the same place he had left it. Flug sighed, he was dependent on it more now then ever, increasing his doses to try to keep his confidence up, and his terror of being found unprepared down.

<b>4 months later</b>

Black Hat was beside himself. It had been four fucking months, and still he couldn't find a trace of the disgusting human or the bear! He had searched endlessly, and had only finally started slowing down a bit. He needed to work on his business... He hadn't sold anything in months, and he still had stock. Appointments and calls had gone unanswered, and if he didn't go back to it soon, his reputation would start to flail, if ever so slightly. Any at all was unacceptable, and he was sure that all the other villains, as inferior to him as they were, were beginning to wonder, and he still wanted them to buy his merchandise. He grumbled, and one of the large villain conventions was coming up. He had never missed this one, since he was pretty much deemed the best, everyone expected him to be there.

Flug had completely disappeared, and no one had ever been able to pull that off with him before, not in all the hundreds of years that he had existed. He was getting far too distracted. He wanted nothing more then to obsessively hunt down the escapee without mercy, but at the same time Flug was just a lowly mortal human, to allow such a puny maggot to get under his skin was unacceptable.

The demon let out a reluctant and rare sigh. He had to put his obsession over Flug down for a while, as much as he hated to do so.

The next week, as he entered the convention, (dragging Dementia along with him, a spiked collar, chained leash, and a dog muzzle on her face) he could feel the stares at him, more then usual. Of course he was always stared at when he went, he was the best there was, they feared and looked up to him, he was their supplier for weapons and equipment for beating the shit out of heroes and assisting their heists. This time though there were whispers in addition, no doubt about his previous actions the last few months. Whatever, I don't have to explain myself to them, it's none of their business, he thought to himself, giving them glares to silence them.

There were about a hundred booths in the convention hall. Every so often he used to have one there himself, he'd make Flug attend to it, but the need for it eventually became moot, since he was so popular and reliable in his products, or more so, no one dared to buy his products and complain, or not buy them at all, they had no choice in the matter really. Clients came to him, he didn't have to advertise at the convention, not unless he was showing off something he particularly liked himself, which he had done several times before. He remembered when he had Flug demonstrate one of his electrocution machines, how lovely the scientists screams of pain were... He wanted to hear those again...

The demon shook his head. Thinking about Flug again, how ridiculous! He attempted to distract himself with the boring vendors, who were trying to impress everyone, especially him with their products. He usually just rolled his eyes at them and continued along. The only thing he would find interest in here is if he could possibly find another scientist. He doubted he would find one as smart and obedient as Flug had been, but he didn't have much choice.

He noticed a rather large booth over on the other side of the room that people seemed to be flocking to, it had a huge crowd around it. The demon raised one of his eyebrows, slightly curious himself now. The other villains quickly moved out of his way as soon as his presence was noticed, no one dared to accidentally bump into him, for instinctively fearing they would be fried on the spot with his laser eye. Getting to the very front of the booth, he leaned on his cane and listened with slight interest.

There was a scientist there, dressed quite professionally, for someone in his field anyway. He was wearing some sort of space/aviators helmet on his head with a black tinted face shield, so no one could see what he looked like. His voice was also distorted by some sort of device in the outfit as well. This one certainly is new, Black hat thought to himself, having never seen him before. Though a tad odd looking, with the helmet, and the weird backpack on. However he WAS a scientist... He was starting to get ideas...

The man on the podium reached into his lab coat and pulled out what appeared to be a complex controller and started pushing some buttons and switches on it. Out of seemingly no where, on the wall behind the booth a machine about the size of a large dog appeared, having been de-cloaked. It moved around like a bug on the wall with ease, it's camera 'eyes' on long tube-like arms studying the crowd.

"The Magnacrawler Assassin has a full range of 360 degrees. It can climb on nearly any surface, in nearly any environment. 6 'eyes' have full movement upon the stalks in any direction, with a processor capable of microsecond upon microsecond multiple reactions. Stealth features obviously available, it is a silent predator! While it does have an extremely high AI intelligence so it can be capable enough on it's own to make decisions, it is under complete control of the owner and will not disobey orders, unless it is for the sake of it's master." The scientist explained, putting the controller back in his pocket.

"It is also voice reactive, for the most part an AI intelligent droid. Magnet, approach the crowd, feature component 86."

The robot leapt from the wall with ease, onto the floor in the crowd, which immediately backed away, except for Black Hat of course. He just stood there watching it, this scientist had his full attention now.

The mech stood up on two of it's six legs in front of him, reaching just about his height. How interesting.... He thought. It whirred and clicked with dozens of purple, red, and blue lights as it inspected the demon with mechanical interest.

"As you can see it has located the largest threat within the crowd with ease, it is able to detect power levels despite repression of any sort, making it's targeting system quite capable of defense as well as extreme offense."

The machine gave a little whirring noise, and and then a huffing sound as it backed off to join it's owner. The scientist looked at it, and seemed to nod in agreement with it, giving it a little chuckle in response as Magnet climbed back onto the wall and recloaked itself.

The helmeted scientist pushed another button and curtains went all the way around his booth, concealing it. Demonstration was over, the next time any of them would probably be able to see it was either at auction or catalogue reel, however he was selling it. But Black Hat wasn't interested in the product, he was interested in the scientist. This one seemed to be just what he wanted. He certainly was smart enough, he just would have to beat... er convince him, into obedience. Everyone wanted to have the opportunity to work for him anyway, so he doubted that convincing this young thing to work for him would be difficult, especially since he was new.

The crowd dispersed, chatting excitedly about what they had just seen, while the demon walked up to the curtain. Demencia was pulling on her leash, trying to get his attention about something. He ignored her. Black Hat tapped his cane on the floor and made a noise like clearing his throat to get the scientists attention, who responded by peeking out. He looked at Black Hat for a moment, then closed the curtain, promptly ignoring him.

THE NERVE!

Black Hat growled at him, and started to pull the curtain back himself. No one treated him like that, such arrogance! Just because he was new he wouldn't go easy on him, he was about to teach this stupid scientist his place!

As he moved the curtain, his jaw dropped, and he heard Demencia making a noise behind her muzzle that sounded similar to 'I was trying to tell you'. Sitting there, on top of the uncloaked Magnabot, was a de-helmeted Flug. He had also taken his lab coat and shirt off, and was smirking at his former boss.

"I pulled the curtain shut for a reason, it's wayyyyyy too hot in here, I needed a break!" He said; he was covered in sweat from having so many layers on.

Black Hat was still staring at him in complete disbelief.

The scientist ran a hand through his bouncy red curls and wiped his face off with a towel, then started cleaning his goggles.

Black Hat was still staring at him, but the expression was starting to turn from shock to rage, as if he was going to pounce on him at any given moment, his clawed hands rising.

"AH AH! Convention rules you know...!" Flug said, shaking a finger testily at him. He of course was referring to the rules/laws that the villains had for the conventions. They applied to everyone, including Black Hat. It didn't matter what grudge you had with another villain, the conventions, and routes to and from them, were all neutral zones. Within the first 24 hours before, after, and during the conventions, attacks upon enemies were banned, unless of course they were heroes. The demon wouldn't break those rules, if only for it would destroy his reputation and company if he did so.

"You wouldn't let a little human like me get under your skin so much that you did something you would regret, would you?" The scientist taunted, leaning back and purposely tracing the scar Black Hat had made months ago going down the center of his chest with a finger. The Magnabot was also watching with interest, looking at two other beings with it's many eyes; Flug had put it into a passive defensive mode, it wouldn't attack unless he ordered it to, or there was an extreme immediate danger.

The demon lowered his claws and tried to compose himself. His forked tongue flitted in and out between his sharp teeth as he hissed angrily. "I'M GOING TO MURDER-FUCK YOU, FILTHY MAGGOT!!!" He said in an extremely aggressive whisper, barely able to contain himself, wanting nothing more then to rip open that scar again and tear out his organs.

Flug put his goggles back on, and climbed off his invention, he was still on his booth platform, but it was only a few feet above his enemy. Pulling his gloves, shirt and lab coat back on, he leaned on Magnabot, who churred affectionately at him. He traced another of his scars, the long one on the side of his face this time, again. He was teasing him.

"Murder-fuck, hunh? That's a new one... Wonder what that will be like... If you can even do it, I mean the last three times you came at me weren't very successful, you know. Though at the same time to be literally fucked by you probably wouldn't be pleasant, now that I think about it." Flug appeared to be taking the conversation very literally, and Black Hat knew it was because he was being sarcastic, and now he was insulting him on an extreme level!

Demencia pulled on her leash, trying to get her boss to leave Flug alone, before he lost control of himself. She loved to see her boss go psychopathic and murder people, but not when she was attached to him!

Flug winked at Demencia. "Hows it goin, lizard? Keeping him company, eh?"

She stared at him. This was not the Flug she was used to. AT ALL. What had even happened to him?! Did Black Hat's venom have some sort of effect on him that made him go bat-shit insane?!Did he have a fucking deathwish?! She thought, however, she could see a slight twitch in his expression, as if he was struggling to keep up the farce.

The pair continued to stare each other down, and she noticed 5.0.5. behind the podium, he was looking at a small computer screen. She managed to get herself to an angle to see it. She was no scientist, but even she could tell what it was. It was an energy monitor, for a shield! No wonder Flug was being such a snot, he had a nuclear powered shield between the pair! Even if Black Hat DID go off on him, he wouldn't be harmed, at least not on his first hit. And as soon as the demon threw the first blow, it would be considered an attack within the convention, Flug was TRYING to get Black Hat to lose it!

The lizard girl pulled harder on her leash, to no avail. Black Hat always completely ignored her. WHY WON'T HE LISTEN TO ME, GOD DAMMIT!!! I MAY BE CRAZY BUT I DO HAVE SOME USEFUL THINGS TO TELL HIM ONCE AND A WHILE, FUCK!!!

She ran back up to him and stomped as hard as she could on one of fancy feet, leaving a really nasty, dirty scuff mark on one of his shoes. THAT got his attention. As fixated on Flug as he was, he wasn't about to ignore that!

"DEMENCIA!!!!" Now he turned to her, and as he did, she pulled her leash around his legs, causing them both to topple over. He landed on top of her, which normally she would have found extremely hot, but instead she just pointed towards the direction behind the podium as he glared at her, his hands starting to go around her throat. He looked up, and saw the screen, growling. The demon glanced back at Demencia with a grunt, that was as much of a thanks as she would ever get. He yanked her back up with him, none too gently, gave Flug a parting look of rage, and stomped back off through he convention.