Salvo

Author's Notes:
The series is meant to be a series of non-chronological oneshots, but they're still all done in the same storyline. For example, this chapter takes place before Bullet Time. Any radical differences in attitude and actions with Axl (as with this chapter) are intentional. You'll have to piece together why on your own, though!

It was hard not to notice the new Red Alert boy. He stuck out like a sore thumb, even to temporary associates. He was entirely harmless, all grins and excitement, and remarkably talkative for one of the Syndicate. It wasn't a rare sight to see him start on a touchy subject and get elbowed into sheepish silence, or to act like a complete brat. There was also an air of innocence and cluelessness about him and, combined with the fact he wasn't too hard on the eyes, he attracted his fair share of negative attention.

Red did his duties, looking at the small group of mercenaries he'd hired, staring them down with his single eye. Some of them moved nervously, intimidated, but others stood their ground.

"If you lay a hand on Axl, trust me, you won't like the consequences."

A simple warning that could be interpreted as a threat. He heard a few of the group plot, when they thought they were out of earshot, and he shook his head. Their funeral.

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They'd baited the wide-eyed kid with a promised comic book, and he'd fallen for it hook, line and sinker. The three of them had managed to corral the confused boy into an empty room, and they'd crowded into the room, blocking his exit. They'd felt him up, murmuring lewd things in his ears while he'd cringed and shrunk back, face bright red. One of them groped him and traced the armor's red lines, murmuring something about getting a turn on Red's child-whore, and...

Now the other two were dead, their heads, chests and crotches perforated. Axl kept the third pinned down, sliding his gun in and out of the would-be rapist's mouth quickly. His face was split in two by a sick grin, a gleam in his eyes, and he talked, angry and low and covertly excited.

"Who's the whore now, huh? Come on, suck it harder! Bite all you want, all you'll do is break your teeth..."

He slid the gun harder, feeling the teeth rake and crack against the gun's slide-case, gasping a breath. A hand raised to grab for his gun, and he squeezed the trigger until the back of the Reploid's neck and head was a fine paste. He waited for the death-twitches to pass, then resumed sliding the gun, smearing blood over it as he laughed dizzily, nearing his peak.

And they'd thought Red would be their biggest worry...