New story test beta
A black SUV sped through the streets of downtown Sentinel City. It was clearly on a mission.
There were five men inside it, all wearing some form of face covering. Carrying large duffel bags, they pulled up to the First Bank of Sentinel City. One of them stepped out and hastily walked towards the entrance. He had his hand in his jacket pocket and was rushing towards the doors. Two of the masked men ran around the back.
The man who ran up to front opened the doors and walked in, looking suspicious even to the most oblivious of people. A bank security guard approached him and put his hand on his holstered weapon. The man looked him in the eyes and drew his hand from his coat. In a split second there was a loud pop and the guard's eyes widened. He looked down at the gunshot in his chest and then fell backwards as his eyes rolled up into his head...
Then there was chaos...
"Everybody down!" the man shouted and fired at the ceiling. Everyone in line for the teller shrieked and hunched down right where they were standing. The guard in the front had this under control. Three other men wearing ski masks rushed into the main bank with the first man. The other two were busy in the back.
"So where's the silent alarm?" one of them asked. The other, who was busy with an electrical box on the wall, looked at him and rolled his eyes.
"If you could hear it then it wouldn't be silent would it, smart one?" he mocked and went back to the box. He cut a few wires and then picked up a pair of wire-strippers from his duffel bag. He stripped the rubber from one of the wires, and then twisted it around another.
"What's that do?" the other robber asked. The guy at the box was getting annoyed.
"It intercepts the signal from the silent alarm. I rerouted it from the police lines to the bank's lines. When they hit the alarm they're gonna be calling themselves ha-ha!" the man laughed. The other guard chuckled as well. "Alright, we're done. Let's get back to the..."
He turned around, but the guy who was with him was gone...
"Hey? Hey! Yo, Jenson! Where'd you go?" he called. He looked around warily. He looked down the alley next to them and saw Jenson leaning against the wall. He wiped his brow and walked over. "Dammit Jenson you scared the living shit outta me! I thought you ran off or something..."
Jenson didn't answer; as a matter of fact he did absolutely nothing at all. He remained against the wall. The man walked closer to him.
"Hey, Jenson!" he said and grabbed his shoulder, spinning him around. Jenson flopped over onto the ground, his neck slashed open with cruel precision. The man looked wide-eyed down at the body and mumbled incoherently...he started backing up out of the alley. He turned around and began to break into a run, but stopped dead when he saw a large figure standing no less than three feet away from him.
The figure was hooded, wearing a pair of fabric pants with a symmetrical stitching design on both legs and a shirt with the same symmetrical stitching along the chest and arms. He wore a mask that encompassed his whole head, covered in strategically placed stitches around the eyes and mouth, which was also sewn shut.
The figure took a step. The robber backed up and drew his gun, trembling in fearful hands.
"Back up man! I mean it!" the man yelled. The figure stepped closer and cocked his head...
"Alright, ladies and gentlemen! We'd like to make this as short, sweet, and to-the-point as possible! So, if you please, place all jewelry, cell phones, wallets, and spare cash into the bags as they come around!" a man shouted forcefully. The terrified patrons of the bank did as they were told. There were three men in the main building at the time.
Then one male stood up. A red fox. He stood up and looked at the men.
"I work too hard to let punks like you steal from me..." he said quietly and drew a pistol from his jacket pocket. One of the robbers caught him out of the corner of his eye...
"Gun!" he shouted and fell prone. The other robber dropped to his knees and jumped behind a desk, but the other wasn't quick enough...
The bullet ripped through his jacket and left a slowly growing patch of red...
He looked down, shocked. He looked back up at his accomplices and then fell over. The fox with the gun started walking over to the other two and firing wildly at them. He managed to hit the one behind the desk in the leg, but completely missed the other one. The one he missed jumped from his position and fired back at him! The fox ducked and then fired his last round, hitting nothing but the wall! The robbers heard the click of an empty gun and raised their weapons at the fox. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open slightly...
The duo began firing.
Their bullets ripped through the fox, making dozens of holes in his chest, neck, and torso. The fox fell to his knees then flopped to the ground, sputtering in his own blood. The two criminals got to their feet and walked/hobbled in front of their hostages.
"Now! Would anyone else like to be a hero?!" the leader shouted. At that moment, there was a shattering from up above! The skylight in the roof crashed open and a huge black figure fell like a shade upon the tile floor, surrounded with broken glass and droplets of blood. The robbers looked astonishment at the large creature kneeling on the floor in front of them.
"What the Hell?" the leader mumbled.
"No...Patchwork..." the shadow muttered, its voice dark and foreboding, monotonous and yet ever so condescending. It stood up to its full height, easily six and half feet! It flexed its fingers, revealing that, on its left hand, it had an array of what appeared to be sewing needles poking from a painful-looking glove fixated to its skin. It began walking forward.
"Stay back tough guy! I mean it!" the leader called.
"So did your man on the roof," Patchwork said. The two men's eyes widened.
"They're dead?" one of them said to himself, shocked. The creature said nothing, only continued walking forwards slowly. Then the two raised their guns towards him again!
"Don't move another muscle!" one of them shouted.
"Let's see...two weapons, projectile, commonly referred to as guns, first weapon: model "Jericho 941" handgun, firing a 9 millimeter bullet, magazine containing approximately 12 rounds. Second weapon: model "Browning 9x19 Hi-Power" handgun, firing also a 9 millimeter bullet, magazine size relative to comparable weapon. Number of rounds presumed similar," Patchwork said. The robbers were awestruck and terrified! This thing had, without even a second glance, generalized their weapons! They didn't drop their guard though...
"Interesting..." it said. "We know that right now, neither of you are ready to flee. Far too headstrong. If one of you were to be terminated, however, the other would be more predisposed to escaping. Presuming both of you are even slightly intelligent."
"Oh yea? Well what about if WE kill YOU then? How does that sound?" the leader said and pointed his gun directly at the creature's head.
"Sounds wonderful...after you..." it invited...
The two men screamed and opened fire on the creature. Everything seemed to move in slow motion...
Patchwork ducked low and spun on the smooth floor, dodging the first volley, then it pushed off from the ground and slid along the tiles, sliding towards the closest man. It slid past his legs and dug one of its needles into the back of his knee! The man started to fall, but was caught when Patchwork's claws leapt upwards and jabbed into his spine! As he fell, Patchwork held him upright and spun to face the leader! The bullets thumped and splattered into the other robber's body...
Then they stopped.
The creature had his eyes closed most of the time, but when he opened them, he saw the leader was gone! He dropped the body and looked around. He saw the man holding a hostage at gunpoint, a lioness with her two cubs crying and huddled under the teller desk. She panted heavily and held her hands up fearfully, trying to cooperate as best she could...
Patchwork turned to face the two of them.
"Alright, now I'm gonna dictate how things go from now on. Here's what I'm thinkin': I'm gonna walk out the back door alright? I'm gonna get in my van with this bitch, and then I'm just gonna drive right on outta here without any resistance, comprende compadre?" the leader said, holding the lioness by her hair and forcing the gun against her head. Her cubs huddled close and cried out for their mother.
"Sounds fine to us, compadre," Patchwork said and shrugged. The lioness started panting faster and looked at him with pleading eyes. Patchwork's mask displayed not a single emotion. The robber looked at him, befuddled.
"You...you don't care?" he asked.
"Not at all," he responded.
"Depressing, now I wanna see your hands at all times! Understand?" the robber yelled and aimed the gun at Patchwork.
"You would have had a better chance of escaping if you had just kept your weapon trained on your hostage," Patchwork said solemnly. The robber looked around for a minute and then looked back at Patchwork.
"Fuck you!"
"Clever. Oh so easily angered! Your biggest flaw, subjective to the opinions of others," Patchwork said and chuckled.
The robber got mad...he got really mad! He aimed his gun at Patchwork.
"You might be fast, but let's see how fast you really are..." he said. He aimed for Patchwork's torso, and then pulled the trigger...
His hostage screamed as she saw him pull the trigger and Patchwork looked unfazed.
There was a sharp click...
"Aww...how unfortunate," Patchwork said as the robber started hyperventilating and looking at his gun. He looked up at Patchwork, who was beginning again to walk closer to him.
"What'd you..." the robber asked, amazed.
"Me? I didn't do anything! What'd YOU do? Waste all of your precious bullets? Empty your clip into the ceiling and that fox?" Patchwork cocked his head at him. The robber stopped backing up and held his gun above the lioness's head.
"One more move, and I pistol-whip the brains right outta her head!" he cried. Patchwork laughed.
"Do you have any idea how hard it is to break through a mammalian cranial cap? Particularly of one so large?" he chuckled. "You'd need to be a superhero or something to kill her with one hit, compadre..." Patchwork said. The robber looked behind him and saw a door, it read: "Exit to roof, Employees only!"
He turned back around to face Patchwork, who was significantly closer now! Then the robber turned tail and fled! He threw his hostage at Patchwork and ran up the stairs. Patchwork caught the lioness and laid her down gently.
"Forgive us madam, it was never our goal to put you in danger," Patchwork said as he straightened himself out. The lioness looked up at him, still terrified.
"You...you could've...you could've saved him..." she said and looked at the fox. "I saw you standing on the skylight before they killed him...you..."
"We suppose we could've, but then our friends here might've had a spare bullet or two for you m'dear..." Patchwork said matter-of-factly and walked slowly towards the door. "We'd count our blessings if we were you!"
He called over his shoulder and broke into a run as the lioness crawled quickly to her cubs and cradled them.
"That was nice of you, Donovan," Patchwork said.
"There has to be a balance, Stitches," he laughed as he leapt up the stairs.
He reached the top the opened the door, peering out onto the open roof landscape. The leader was nowhere in sight. He walked slowly onto the roof, looking side to side like a machine. He started walking slowly out onto the roof.
As he walked past a large vent belching forth white steam, the robber suddenly jumped from behind it, swinging a steel pipe towards Patchwork's head! Patchwork dodged out of the way like a cat, spun around, and caught the pipe on the robber's next swing! He gripped it tightly and turned to face the robber. The robber looked terrified and let go of the pipe. Patchwork threw it to the side.
"Wait! Wait! Uh, I-I'm sorry!" the leader backed up as far as he could from the approaching menace. Patchwork kept moving. "I'll go to jail! I'll do community service! I'll do anything! Just don't kill me!"
Patchwork stopped and raised an eyebrow. Then he chuckled.
"Fair enough, worm. We'll let you go," he said and stepped back. The robber looked confused and smiled a little...
The doors opened and the hostages ran out! Some of them screamed, others just rushed to their cars and others still just stood by the stairs and tried to regain their composure. The lioness and her two cubs rushed quickly over to their car and hugged tightly as the lioness kneeled down in front of the car. The cubs were wiping tears from their eyes and they sniffled as their mother consoled them.
There was silence for a time until a scream was heard from up above! A body suddenly fell and smacked into the ground with great force, creating a spray of blood that fanned out over the parking lot!
There laid the leading bank robber, eyes sewn shut and mouth agape in horror. He lay flat against the cold asphalt; not a single being uttered a sound. They all looked up to the roof.
"We told him we'd let him go...a rather tired pun...should've seen it coming," Patchwork muttered to himself.
"Y'know what Stitches?" Donovan asked amid the ear-shattering cacophony of screaming coming from the parking lot below.
"What?" Stitches replied.
"I think I felt kinda bad about that...he trusted us to allow him to live, and we deceived him," Donovan said, sitting down on one of the ventilation pipes on the roof. Stitches cleaned his needles on his shirt, rubbing them all shiny again.
"I don't," he said. "He was a vile cur, he deserved no less. I could smell the evil on him, permeating me with every breath. I could practically TASTE the murders he had committed."
"Is there a difference between us and him? We kill all the time!" Donovan protested. Stitches looked at him.
"There's a difference between murder and killing Donny. We kill, sure, but we've never ended an innocent life," Stitches pointed out.
"Who are we to decide who's innocent and who's not?" Donovan asked the pacing Stitches. Stitches looked at him.
"Donovan, you're thinking way too hard into this my friend! Come on, we'll talk about this later ok? Tonight we'll sit down, just you, me, and Patches," Stitches said and put an arm around Donovan's shoulders. Donovan looked up at him.
"Alright, you little bastard, fine we'll finish this later," he smiled. There were police sirens in the distance...
"For now though, whadya say we blow this Popsicle stand and hit the streets? There may be some more bad stuff going down? Eh? Eh?" Stitches said and patted his shoulder as Donovan put his mask back on.
"Nah, right now I kinda feel like hitting the bar," Donovan said and fired a grappling hook from within his shirtsleeve onto the building next to the bank.
"Aww...Not even a tiny little barfight?" Stitches asked as they climbed up to the roof of the building.
"Alright, just a small one...but later, I wanna be able to down at least three shots before you get us kicked out," Donovan laughed.
"You have my word good buddy," Stitches chuckled.
Ok! tell me what you think, this is just the beta so i left ALOT of stuff out. just tell me what you think the story looks like so far. interesting, lame, could be better, dull, needs more variety, fantastic, start production now, etc. ok? much love!