BLOODWORTH 3: Blut und Stahl by Tai Goodman (distant reading TXT) 📕

"Alright, so make a plan old man. Go to that alley, get in the building. Get to the top floor. Kill them snipers. Get through the parade." Phoenix retracted his choppercycle and headed into the clear alley with nothing obstructing him. And then grabbing at his feet, there was a a homeless man. 

"Spare change, sir?"

Phoenix pulled out his wallet and searched for five dollars. His two fingers took a hold of a five dollar bill, and before he donated the dollar.. He noticed the homeless man's face twitching and then being frequently replaced by a vision of Tyler's face. A sharp ringing echoed through Phoenix's ears. "GAH! WHAT IS THAT NOISE? MAKE IT STOP!"

The sound was at a high pitch, enough to pierce someone's ear drum. As the static died down, the homeless man had disappeared.  

"The hell was that, Phoenix? You going crazy? Well at least your conscience is still here."

Phoenix donned the mask, and the screen displayed the words, "MISSION IMMINENT IN 3 SECONDS." Step after step, the countdown reached 0 and the mask went blank. Phoenix walked through a long hallway, and heard somebody talking on a phone before he passed a doorway.

He stopped and pulled out his cyberpistole. Overhearing the conversation, Phoenix listened to a long line of dialogue.

"LISTEN. I've got nothing to say. We've got this uh, parade in town. No, NO! I don't care! We operate when things under the third reich isn't causing havoc or any shit in our town- You know what Ben, you can suck my cock, I don't give two shits WHAT you think. This is my day off, whether you-"

A quarter flew in the room from the doorway and destroyed a monitor in the man's workspace. "WHAT THE HELL? Hold on, Ben, one second." The employee stared at a cracked computer screen and screamed, "OH HO HO, YOU THINK THAT'S FUNNY, ASSHOLE?"

Phoenix passed by as he was distracted by the screen. He passed an intersection of hallways in the building and went to the stairwell. There was caution tape over the door. "Nah. Caution's for PUSSIES." Phoenix ripped the tape off and opened the door. He headed upstairs, passing floor after floor. Then he reached the third floor, where the stairs met their end. He opened the door, and inside was just a bunch of people playing a round of poker at a table. Eight people to be exact. All muscular, under the influence of German beer, having an entertaining segment. One of the players looked over his shoulder, noticing Phoenix standing in the doorway with a pistol. 

"HEY! WHO THE HELL IS THAT GUY? WHAT'S HE DOING HERE?"
Another player stood out of his seat, aiming a knife. "I DON'T KNOW, BUT LET'S JUMP HIM. NOT LIKE ANYONE CARES, RIGHT?"

Phoenix holstered his pistol, and then he heard a voice say, "You think you have power and control?"

He pulled out his flask of Pink Fury. "You know you need me." 

His thumb popped the strapped cap off of the bottle. "You will win with me."

His lips constricted around the round end of the flask. "YOU WILL BE POWERED BY ME."

The alcohol entered his system. "YOU ARE WEAK WITHOUT ME."

Veins in Phoenix's eyes surrounded and encompassed the pupils of his eyeballs. 

"NOW DO WHAT YOU MUST."

Phoenix's muscles expanded a little. The surrounding of his vision was turning pink. And out of pure rage and fury, Phoenix cried, 

"I'LL KILL ALL YOU BITCHES!"

Phoenix was approached by two muscular men. The one on the left with a scar on his face grabbed Phoenix by his arm. "Snakebite." Phoenix constricted his arm around his, and with the lift of his arm, CRACK! Phoenix then slapped the side of the man's face with the palm of his hand, and kicked him into the poker table. The other one had a baseball bat in his hands. The blades on Phoenix's wrists extended, and their beam outlines shined with blue electricity and neon glow. "PUT THAT SHIT UP!" 

He swung the two of his blades, slicing the bat's top end into three pieces once the thug swung it: One big top chunk, a small middle puck-shaped chunk, and the handle. "SON OF A-" 

The thug wasn't finished off in Phoenix's mind. He only represented a punching bag. "C'mere!"

Phoenix suplexed the man over his head and behind him, ending with the thug's back breaking open and bleeding continuously. He turned around to finish him off, and stomped the man's head into bone fragments and brains. One of the thugs pulled out a 9mm pistol right besides Phoenix, ready to fire a bullet into Phoenix's cerebrum underneath his skull. "I can take a fucking bullet, asshole." Phoenix ripped the arm off of a corpse, where the bone end of the stump was a sharpened right-triangle shaped "blade." The patriotic hero whacked the man in the throat, slitting it to bleed. Blood poured out of the neck like a river downhill. Phoenix then sliced off the man's left arm and then behalfed the man's body diagonally. The top half slid clean off, revealing a scared thug in a corner. "SOMEONE DO SOMETHING!" 

The other four thugs were surrounding Phoenix like the room was a dogfight. Phoenix watched one go for the pistol on the floor. And swiftly, with the toe end of his foot, he snatched the pistol over to his vicinity. Phoenix picked up the pistol, and unloaded the magazine into the ceiling. "Not gonna need it anytime soon." With his bare hands, Phoenix crushed the gun into steel and copper pieces. One man whacked Phoenix with a chair, breaking the chair, and causing Phoenix to hit the floor. 

"Think, THINK OLD MAN." Right besides his right arm was one of the chair's legs. The flat top had four nails sticking upwards. Phoenix grabbed it, held it like a two-handed blunt weapon, and whacked a bloody crack into one of the men's skull. Phoenix then impaled him through the side with one of his wrist-blades. He removed the blade. "You wanna see how violent I can get? You got it." He plunged his hand deep into the crevice, and his fingers physically located a long coiled organ with a weird pattern indented in it. Blood was soaking Phoenix's hand, coloring his hand red above the wrist. The object was excised from the man's body, revealing itself to be the large intestines. 

"Great. Now get outta my face." 

FLICK! With one finger, Phoenix pushed the man backwards off his knees and then onto the floor. Phoenix then slung the intestines at a man, who dodged it successfully. Another of his mates, with a bottle of alcohol, bashed it against the wall into pieces. The bottle was now broken, with sharpened ends. It would serve best as a blade. Phoenix leaped into the man he targeted, wrapping the intestines around his neck and attempted to strangle him. The thug punched Phoenix in his mask once, doing no damage. And again, where Phoenix felt the impact. And once more. The thug with the bottle thrusted it at the corner of his arm. "GRR! WHAT THE SHIT?"

The sharp edges of the bottle seeped their way through the flesh on Phoenix's arm. Phoenix kicked him away. "Ding ding ding." His arms contracted the two ends of the intestines, and he kicked the man in the back of his chest, separating the skull and the body from each other. "Five guys. Three left."  

The thug with the bottle stabbed Phoenix in the back with the bottle, and Phoenix fell to his knees. He laid flat on the ground. No movement. No breathing. The second and third thug walked over to his body and stood there looking at it. "Dude. I think we did it!"

"YEAH!"

Then the vest on Phoenix's body electrocuted all three men. Phoenix stood up, and his mask displayed, "TIME UNTIL DEATH: 5 SECONDS....."

Phoenix pulled out his knife and jabbed the first one in his face. 

....3 SECONDS...."

Phoenix then yanked it out of the man and plunged it into the second man's heart. 

...2 SECONDS..."

Last but not least, Phoenix pulled out his pistol, flipping it upside down, grabbed the barrel of the gun, and then stabbed the last thug in the neck. To top it off, he hammered the grip of the knife into the man's neck twice.

"All of them are dead. Get a move on." Phoenix sheathed his blades and pulled the slide of his pistol backwards. The thug laying on the poker table leaned forwards and cracked his back. "Urrgh... My damn BACK!" he grunted, straightening himself out. Phoenix was by the window, crouching down and examining the snipers from his perspective. The thug looked around, and his eyes locked onto a shillelagh underneath the table. He stole it, and patted the palm of his other hand with the weapon. 

"I'LL KILL YOU!"

The thug darted towards Phoenix. "Batter up, asshole." Phoenix dragged his knife out of his sheath, and tossed it a few inches into the air. And with the grip of his pistol, Phoenix batted the knife into the man's face. 

"IT'S GOOD!"

 Phoenix stood out on the balcony and noticed all of the snipers. "Wait... I can just get across." He looked up and noticed a black power line ranging from the building he was in to the roof directly across from him. Phoenix pulled out the handlebars and hung them over the line. 

"You're a genius." And then he jumped off the balcony, flying across the line and then noticing he was about to hit a brick wall. 

"You're an idiot." Phoenix crashed into the wall face-first.  

Phoenix brushed himself off and composed himself. "Ugh." 

He proceeded into the building and then witnessed another flashback. Phoenix was in the army. He was younger. Peter was also with him. The two were in a tent, torturing a Nazi. "Alright, asshole. When I take this tape off your damned mouth, you're gonna talk. You don't talk, here's what's gonna happen to you... Show him."

Peter uncloaked a set of tools from underneath a blanket. The Nazi squirmed back in forth, screaming in fear. "Now choose to not talk, I'll give you a tiny bit of freedom. And that bit of freedom's gonna be used to choose which one you'd rather have." The choices were: A power drill, a chainsaw, a crowbar, a pair of hedge trimmers, a cement saw, and a cattle prod. 

Phoenix tore the tape off of the man's lips. "MMRGH!"

"Alright. You got the floor. Tell me what you know. Where's your commander? Where's everybody?"

Peter pressed record on a tape recorder. "I vill not give in." Phoenix said, "Alright. Your choice. Now choose how you wanna die." The Nazi spat on Phoenix's shirt and said, "FUCK YOU, AND YOUR ARMY." Phoenix shook his head and said, "FUCK IT!"

He picked up the hedge trimmers and clipped them a few times. "Just gonna take a little off the top." Peter grinned as he sipped on a glass of water. "Fuck him up right, now!"

"You bet I will."

Phoenix then flashed back to reality. "The fuck?" he thought. He had exited the building, and he was on the other side of the parade. Then he watched a trio of men in blank white outfits with pointy hats. Phoenix walked over to him and questioned them, "Hey, why are you guys dressed as damn ghosts?" 

"Ghosts? No no no, we're the KKK."

"The.... what?"

"Ku Klux Klan. We're a new submovement. We are working with the Third Reich to abolish all except