Obscuro, Page 2

  “Well what kind of royal-tee do you expect to find out here on the Double Cross Ranch son?” Funk asks him in his slithering Texas drawl.

  “Some Wrestling Royalty.” Sarcastro extends his hand to the Icon, palming a supercharged joy buzzer designed to incapacitate it’s intended victim. Terry grips the clowns hand but as the buzzer goes off there is no effect to him, confused, Sarcastro looks down and sees that Funk is wearing thick leather riding gloves and glaring at him with an almost pitied look that scares even the nightmarish clown and he tries to pull away, but his hand is trapped in a vise-like grip that pulls his entire mass forward and down with a masterful lock, then the notorious left hand clenched into a fist clocks Sarcastro so hard upside the head that drops of paint fly from his face and he is hastened to the floor by gravity, then the hardcore legend grabs a bullwhip off the wall and moves to take Blue Varlet to Funk U., Varlet is caught off-guard and starts to back up as Funk moves toward him, but then Executrix appears, standing in front of him with her finger extended in a swirl.

  “You would not hit a woman would you cowboy?” She asks, now backing Terry up as he clearly will not even risk hitting a woman because of his old school belief in Texas chivalry, then she pulls a tazer from her belt and zaps him with fifty thousand volts, sending the Icon to the barn floor in a contorted pile. “I did not think so. Bring him you Idiots!” She tells Varlet, who is helping his dazed partner from the ground, then they drag him off.

  Tupac Chopra makes his way to a backstage area and finds Reggae royalty in the person of Damien Marley in his dressing room. “Oh good evening Mister Marley,” Chopra interrupts a conversation between Marley and three huge bodyguards. “But you must be coming with me now.”

  “And wot is you thinkin mon?” Damien replies. “You be not one to tell me about. What makes you think I would go anywhere wit you?” His bodyguards move in unison and approach Chopra.

  “Because I..” Tupac starts to say as Fatoichi falls from the ceiling landing on the three Security Guys, flattening them to the ground. “..brought the World’s fattest Ninja. And now You will be coming with Us.” Marley is belly bumped and sent flying by the sandal wearing blubbery menace, and Chopra follows them out.

  Chapter Five:

  In the court of the Chromium King.

  “From this pattern I think I have a good Idea who they will take next.” Obscuro tells Octubre when he finishes listening to the police report of the kidnappings. “We must hasten to the lair of the Biker King.” They rush out of Obscuro’s office, but not before Obscuro pauses to stick the bottle containing Pedro into his inner jacket pocket.

  They arrive there beneath the painted symbols of a round shield with a bronze era sword in the center that hangs over the door of the Hoplites Motorcycle Club stronghold, Infamous gang of Bikers that are obsessed with the ways of the ancient legion they take their name from.

  “I seek an audience with the King.” Octubre offers to the imposing figure at the door, “It is of great importance.”

  Obscuro looks at him in surprise but the burley doorman actually accepts his offering and disappears through the door for a a few seconds before returning and bidding the duo entrance.

  They enter the great hall and the eyes of a room full of leather clad bikers and dancing girls observe them from behind steins of beer and pool cues while the Club band plays an energetic if not great version of Runaround Sue.

  “Great King..erra” Octubre looks at the door guard for help with the name and he receives a whispered name and continues. “Leonkneespikes, We have reason to believe that you are in danger from an insidious gang.”

  “I should be so lucky that it were only one.” Leon laughs. “There are a dozen clubs that would see my head on a pike, It’s not new to me.”

  “Perhaps word has reached you of the spate of kidnappings underway right now?” Obscuro asks the very casual demeanored leader who stays semi-reclined in his golden barber’s chair while a bikini wearing bar maid brings him another frothy mug of beer. “They were perpetrated by the same people that will come for you, We are just here to warn you to be cautious, The danger is imminent.”

  Just then a wrecker yard sized electromagnet crashes through the roof, trapping Leonkneespikes in his metal chair and he barely gets out a “What the f..” before he is gone through the roof, spirited away on a cable by Tupac’s helicopter while all those assembled can only look on in disbelief.

  “More imminent than I thought even..” Obscuro says to break the silence, He turns to the Doorman again “We need a bike now!” he yells at the shocked man who hands him some keys and points to a motorcycle near the door, Obscuro grabs Octubre and pulls him along toward the bike which he mounts and straightens from the kickstand, “Get on!” he tells Octubre who gets on the back part of the dual level seat and grips the sword shaped sissy bar on the back, and the back tire peels out, then they are off chasing the copter at a breakneck speed going down the wrong way of a one way street.

  “Do you know how to ride one of these?” Octubre yells to be heard over the wind.

  “What could be so hard?” Obscuro quips as he skillfully jumps across a median, turns off onto a coastal bridge and barrels after the helicopter, which has now angled toward the heart of the city, making a beeline pursuit on the ground impossible.

  Chapter Six:

  At the Chopra, Chopra Cabana.

 

  The helicopter sets down on a massive and gaudy night club that has so many fake palm trees and faux marble pillars edging the brightly lit front side that the helicopter pad is totally concealed from outside view, The sign in front reads “Chopra-Cabana” in purple neon. Chopra exits with the knife, followed by Fatoichi, and the rest of his crew with the prisoners in tow.

  “Why are you doing this Little Lady?” Funk asks Executrix as he stands in the middle of the chained prisoners.

  “It’s my job,” She replies. “And I always execute my duty.”

  “Ya, well this might be the time to be rethinkin your duty and think about your humanity.” Terry tells her.

  She huffs at him as they are thrown into a cell in the fortress hidden within the nightclub lair.

  “Alright You so-called Psychic,” Obscuro says, pulling the bottle containing Pedro from his inner coat pocket while Octubre steps off the bike in relief.

  “Dammit Obscuro, I’m a worm not a divining rod.” Pedro answers.

  Octubre gasps when he hears Pedro and he says “Octli, spirit of the Agave!”

  “You can hear him?” Obscuro asks.

  “Yes, “ Octubre elaborates “Octli is the guardian of The Agave desert, He appears in times of peril to protect the land from evil.”

  “Please,” The glowing worm says to Octubre, “just call me Pedro, the ones who called me Octli are all gone, Well except for you looks like.”

  “There are a few of us who have returned to the temples to protect the heritage of our people,” Octubre tells the worm. “But the thing we must do now is save the people who have been taken, Can you help us Octli?”

  “I think I can attune myself to the knife,” Pedro stretches himself out straight and seems to pivot on an axis until his head points in just one direction. “I got it! just follow where my head points.”

  Obscuro hands Octubre the bottle and they both get back on the bike and head out in the direction Pedro is affixed to until they reach the Chopra Cabana.

  Obscuro is on his cell phone as he gets off the bike, then he hangs it up and turns to Octubre. “I notified the Police that we have found the prisoners.”

  Octubre shakes his head. “We cannot wait for them, if the ritual is completed all of their forces will be as nothing.”

  “Let’s go then.” Obscuro says, and the pair walk purposefully through the front door.

  Blue Varlet happens to be looking at the security cameras as Obscuro and Octubre come through the front, Octubre stiff arms Obscuro to the side and steps aside the other way as Fatoichi lands where they wer
e just standing, then they put the boots to the blob-like Fatoichi until he stops twitching. Varlet turns to where Chopra and Sarcastro are checking the chains and manacles on three stone tables that are ominously arranged around a carved image of the eight armed goddess Shiva in the marble floor. “We seem to have some company of the unwelcome sort.”

  “Go stop them at once!” Chopra rages to Varlet and the Polka dotted nightmare. Then he turns to Executrix and Talibanny. “Bring the prisoners, the time is being of the now!”

  Luisa turns away and moves down the hall before Tupac can see the distaste painted in her wavering expression, and Talibanny runs after her to do his employers bidding.

  On the second floor above the dance floor there is an area with tables and chairs for the nightclub food service, this is where Tupac’s most vicious team (commonly called The Aristocrats oddly enough) meets the charging heroes, Who both duck a pair of chairs thrown by the Villains and collectively lift a table and pile into the dastardly duo, sending them sprawling back toward the next set of stairs, which they crawl up then sprint and slam the door behind them.

  “Fire stairs.” Obscuro indicates the side door and they bolt through it.

  The cell door opens and Talibanny points his Kalashnikov at the prisoners and starts to motion for them to move out, then consciousness leaves his eyes and he falls flat to the floor. Executrix stands behind him with her still sparking tazer, then she walks over him and unlocks the shackles on the three. “We have to go now or you will die.” She tells them, and they follow her out without any argument.

  Tupac sees Executrix leading to prisoners to safety on his security cameras and he stops arranging the shackles on the stones. “Beautiful even in the betrayal Executrix,” he laments while grabbing the knife and moving toward the fire door. “But I still am of the having..” The fire door bursts open at the same time as the main entrance with all the combatants surging in at once, but Chopra surprises Obscuro and front kicks him back down a flight at the same time as stabbing Octubre in the gut. “..a plan!” he finishes as energy courses from Octubre into the knife then into the sultan wannabe, who begins to grow in size even as he continues. “Because I learned why you were after the shiv Octubre, and I learned who you were, Descendant of the royal house of the Mayans and Keeper of the forbidden powers. Your blood will grant me the strength I need to retrieve the others, then I will be the new god of this world!!” He starts to laugh and it becomes more and more booming as he grows to mammoth proportions, pushing aside the roof and stepping onto the street where Luisa and the prisoners have joined the line of Police and Hoplite MC members that have just arrived. Tupac puts the knife in his sash and stomps the ground a single time sending all the assembled personnel flying back from the repercussion.

  Obscuro makes it back to Octubre, who is bleeding on the floor and he presses a scarf from the coat rack into the wound. “Hold this here.” he tells the injured Shaman.

  “The worm..” Octubre says from semi-consciousness. “Drink the worm..” then he passes out.

  “Really?” Obscuro says, looking into the bottle then at the giant Tupac out terrorizing the Police and the Hoplites. “That’s your best idea? to get drunk?”

  “You must do it Obscuro.” Pedro says to the disheartened Luchador. “I will give you the power to fight him.”

  “Well what do I got to lose?” Obscuro puts the mouth of the bottle to his tongue until the worm falls to the bottom, then he swallows the worm and a good amount of tequila to wash it down. The shock of starting to grow to the same massive size as Tupac is dulled a good deal by the effect of the tequila and Obscuro stumbles out of the building and toward Chopra.

  The onlookers flee in terror as Tupac is distracted by the now gigantic albeit stumbling Obscuro. “Allright yous big bootyhole..” Obscuro slurs at the building sized bad guy. “It’s assskickin time!” Obscuro charges him but Tupac sidesteps and sends him into massive power lines that surround the street they are standing on like ring ropes, and he bounces off and Chopra takes him off his feet with a combination right armed clothesline with a chop to the small of the back. The noise is deafening from the fall but the crowd stops running and turns to watch as Obscuro kips up off the ground and throws a wild right hook at the smirking anti-guru, who slaps it aside and puts Obscuro in a camel clutch.

  “Great googly moogly.” Gueedo says to Blopton and Stetson, and is once again looked down upon, and then they return to watching the two titans fight it out.

  Obscuro starts to focus and he sees the three former prisoners and Executrix all yelling for him in the crowd of cops and bikers and he is suddenly strong and he reaches across right shoulder with his left hand and grabs Tupac by the head, pulling him over his shoulder, then dropping the point of his elbow into Chopra’s chest after he hits the ground. Then Obscuro inexplicably gets up and gloats, raising his arms over his head and showing himself to his audience while they all yell “Finish him!!” frantically.

  The roar of motors comes out of the dark in the persons of Varlet and Sarcastro astride two stolen motorcycles holding a thick rope between them and they take Obscuro off his feet as they roll through him. “Get those two!” Leonkneespikes order several of his guys and they take off after the shady pair on their own bikes, tire irons in hand.

  Tupac steps to the top of the power pole in front of the remaining crowd and faces them. “Witness your hero now.” He says as he moonsaults back onto where Obscuro was but he meets only pavement and he only looks up in time to see Obscuro wrapping his fist with several segments of safety railing and he has time for one “Ahh crap” before Obscuro clocks him across the jaw and he goes down hard enough to crack the street. The combatants both De-size back to their original state and Chopra is taken into custody by Blopton and Gueedo while Obscuro celebrates with the crowd while Octubre is loaded into an ambulance.

  “You’re going to be OK.” Obscuro tells Octubre as the paramedics hook an IV to his arm and load him in the ambulance. Then Octubre passes out again.

  When he comes to he’s in a hospital room with Obscuro and Luisa.

  “I believe this belongs in your keeping.” Obscuro hands Octubre the shiv.

  “Thank you,” Octubre takes the knife and re-wraps it in a red sash. “I will see that this does not trouble us any more.”

  “They are still looking for the rest of that gang, but their leader is in jail.” Obscuro tells him.

  “What about her?” Octubre indicates Luisa.

  “C’mon man!” Pedro’s voice cuts in. “She’s good now.” Pedro has appeared out of Obscuro’s coat pocket in his bottle once again. “And don’t ask how I got back in here!!”

  Laughter ensues and a new day starts in the Emerald City.

  The End?