Windstorm

A stiff breeze blows through the dunes on the outskirts of Twin Peaks village, causing rippling, ever shifting storms of sand to whip up through the desert. In the distance, the double cliff peaks that give the village its name stand tall and proud, immovable and immutable in all their glory. The village is quiet, though people still populate it. Everyone keeps their heads down, focused on their work, focused on staying invisible.

In the center of the village lies a ten-story tall clock tower that has long since failed from neglect. It stands at an eternal twentieth-hour watch, as if to taunt the villagers with the promise of the end of the day, the cool of the night. Inside this clock tower, an order is made. Blood is to be spilled.

A man silently nods and makes his way out of the village, as silent and stoic as the cliffs in the distance. The villagers make a concerted effort to avoid him and his gaze, and he does the same for them. No one else needs to know his mission. He soon enters the outskirts of town, a great sense of dread emanating from him. As if in response to the sudden arrival of the man, the sandstorms die down, the dunes quiet, the world waits in silent anticipation of his next move. The man takes a second to stretch his large, muscular arms and legs, cracks his knuckles and neck with one smooth, practiced effort. He squints against the harsh blue sunlight as it beats down on his dark skin and bald head, scanning the horizon for his target: a small outpost town a few miles to the east.

After a few moments of searching, the man finds the outpost, its location given away by a small water tower that just barely peaks over the dunes. The man bends his knees and closes his eyes, summoning the power of his mind. Thin green flames envelop his body as he focuses his own psychic power into his muscles, causing them to bulge even larger, granting him strength beyond what anyone could ever hope to naturally achieve.

His eyes snap open, green light glowing from within, and he sprints off in the direction of the outpost at superhuman speeds, leaving a long trail of green flames and destroyed dunes in his wake. As the miles blaze by, his mind is focused solely on his mission, the targets he must remove, and how he will do it.

Mere seconds later, he arrives near the edge of the outpost. He hides his approach behind an outcropping of stone. He comes to a dead stop behind the rust-colored boulders, a trail of dust and wind following closely behind him, billowing all around him and pouring out into the outpost. A guard patrolling the outskirts notices the sudden rush of air and dust and makes to call it in on a small, chunky personal radio, but by the time he has pulled the device to his face, he is already down. Sullivan bursts out from his hiding place, using the wake of sand as a distraction to sprint up to the guard and take him out with a quick, brutal, psycho-enhanced punch to the solar plexus. The guard collapses silently, and Sullivan instantly rushes off to his next target.

A second guard notices her comrade go down in a brief flash of green. She raises her rifle and starts sweeping around, looking for any signs of trouble. With her eye to the rifle scope, she doesn’t notice that same flash of green approaching her until it is already on top of her. The man clotheslines the guard and throws her down into the sand with a dull crack, knocking the wind out of her and rendering her unconscious.

One by one the other guards fall, a scattering of unconscious bodies and broken bones across the otherwise empty desert, all claimed by the same instant flash of dust and green light. As he takes out the guards, the man slowly makes his way towards the main hub of the outpost: a simple, single floor supply shack with a few spare rooms attached to the sides. After taking out the last of the guards, he quietly approaches the shack from the side and peers in through a slightly stained window, checking for any sort of internal security. Upon seeing the room empty, he silently breaks the latch holding the window shut and opens it, sneaking his massive bulk in with surprising grace and mobility.

He finds himself in a mostly empty storage closet, with only a few spare rifles and bullet cases lining the shelves. He makes his way to the closet door and opens it with just the barest creak of ancient wood and hinges. Once outside the closet, he can hear voices coming from the main room of the shack, at least five different people from what he can tell. He walks closer to the central room, his steps completely silent, his focus never once wavering.

He approaches a corner and slowly peeks his head around it to examine his quarry. There are indeed five different people, each one huddled around a small, circular table with some sort of territory map sprawled out over it. They are arguing over the map, as if planning out their next targets. They yell and gesture at each other, one debating the wisdom of pushing their luck any further, another claiming that they need to capitalize on their momentum now for it to mean anything, a third pitching in simply to say that he just wants to shoot something.

The man takes this moment to make his presence known. He steps out of the shadows, leans casually against the corner, arms crossed idly over his chest, and clears his throat. The gang of five men whip around to see him, each one instantly pulling out a pistol and aiming at his head.

“Who the heck are you?” One man asks. “This is a private event, son. Best make your way out while you have the chance,” another threatens.

“The name’s Sullivan,” the man replies, maintaining his casual posture but examining the others with an intense, predatory stare. He scans each one for flaws in their positioning, the way they hold their weapons, the way they stand, making a mental list of all the different ways he could avoid getting hit if they were to start shooting, and a second list of all the possible ways he could take them out. “You boys are trespassing Ryker Brothers property. Leave, now.”

“Ah, so yer with the Rykers,” a third man says with a thick drawl. Sprawled all over his face is some sort of gang tattoo: a stylized version of a devil viper coiling around a crushed skull. He steps forward from the table, his gun leveled evenly at Sullivan’s head the whole time. “Well, I hate to tell ya, but this outpost and the surrounding land now belongs to the Viper Gang.” He accentuates his words by releasing the safety on his gun and pulling back the hammer, priming it to be fired. “And we don’t take kindly to trespassers.”

Sullivan raises an eyebrow at that, but says nothing. The room falls silent for one long, tense moment. The man with the viper tattoo keeps his gun aimed at Sullivan, while the rest of the gang members stand back, silently waiting for things to get messy. Sullivan simply stares back at all five bandits with a blank expression, as if they weren’t even in the room with him. He finally fixes his gaze on the man with the viper tattoo, maintaining the uncaring expression while planning his form of attack. The viper man’s trigger finger twitches, and that’s all he is able to do before he is suddenly and violently thrown out of the shack.

Sullivan erupts off of the corner, grabbing the man by the chest and hurling him out through a window with a powerful shove. His arm burns with green psychic energy as he attacks, further enhancing his already immense strength and tossing the man several dozen feet away with minimum effort. As the other bandits realize what just happened, it is already too late. Sullivan lands one single, high-impact blow on the nearest criminal’s jaw, shattering it and knocking him out cold. Sullivan hoists his unconscious body over his shoulder and hurls him forward at another criminal, sending both flying through the front door of the shack, shattering its ancient wooden frame in the process.

The other two finally manage to get some shots off at him, but he is simply too fast for them to hit. He dodges the bullets with proficient ease and rushes up to face the criminals head on. He grabs one by his gun hand, wrenching his wrist around so he is forced to drop the weapon. The second criminal tries to fight back to help his friend, but Sullivan deflects his formless punch with a simple brush of his hand before stepping back and delivering an immensely powerful left hook, launching the man out into the open desert with a reverberating thud. He then tosses the last bandit out with casual contempt, piling him onto his pals like dirty laundry.

“Final warning. Leave. Now,” Sullivan says gruffly as he stalks out of the shack, his fists still engulfed in green flames, his eyes still holding their fiercely predatory gaze. One of the rival criminals manages to turn around and get off three shots at Sullivan. They all strike true, landing in his chest, gut, and shoulder, but none of them do any damage. They simply collide with and bounce off of his body as it shimmers with a protective layer of green light. Sullivan cracks his knuckles and neck, still slowly walking towards his victims.

“We gotta scram, boys!” One of the Vipers exclaims before detangling himself from the dogpile and bolting off away from Sullivan. The other bandits quickly follow suit, so terrified that they don’t even bother to help their guards back up, or even to check on them.

Sullivan scoffs at their incompetence. He flicks his hands to put out the green flames of psychic energy that still burn on them. With his mission complete, he once again channels his energy throughout his entire body, enveloping himself in a shining aura of green fire before launching off towards Twin Peaks village at Mach speeds, kicking up a massive cloud of sand and dust in the process.

***

High in the ancient Twin Peaks clock tower, a man watches Sullivan’s approach through a small spyglass. He grits his teeth in a disappointed scowl as he scans the results of the outpost raid. He can see the leaders of the Viper Gang making their escape on a dune buggy they had stashed in a separate shack. He also takes a moment to count how many guards were left sprawling on the desert floor; ten to be exact. Sloppy. That’s the only way he can describe this work. Sloppy, and weak. He puts down his spyglass and turns around, preparing to give the arriving hitman a piece of his mind.

***

“This was supposed to be a kill job, Jones,” the other man begins in a low growl. He and Sullivan are in a secluded room in the clock tower, a sort of main office space where the higher-ups of the Ryker Brothers gang do their business. There is only a single lamp to provide light in the room, so both individuals are staring at each other from behind a thin veil of shadow. While Sullivan looks even more intimidating and ominous in this lighting, the other man, Lyons, doesn’t. His small frame, frizzy blond hair, excitable green eyes, and ridiculous combination of ripped jean jacket and button-up shirt only make him look more childish when covered in darkness.

If Sullivan notices how awkward his superior looks in this light, he doesn’t say anything. He simply shrugs, the bulk of his shoulders tensing up against his already tight, hunter green muscle shirt. “I got rid of ‘em. If they ever do come back, they’ll be in for a world of pain.”

“That’s not the point. The point is, you were supposed to kill them, like you would any other intruders.” Lyons paces around the small wooden desk in the center of the office agitatedly, like an antsy child. “Liam ain’t gonna like this one bit.”

Sullivan raises a stony eyebrow at that and sneers, tugging up on his short, thick goatee beard. “Well if Mister Ryker has a problem with my work, then he can tell me himself.”

Lyons suddenly comes to a dead stop and slowly lifts his head to flash a devilish grin back at Sullivan, all signs of childishness and foolishness suddenly and unnervingly gone from his face. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Just itching for that rematch, eh? Well, you’re in luck. Word is the Rykers will be visiting this little town of yours personally by the end of the week.”

This seems to strike at something within Sullivan. He subtly yet noticeably perks up, his arms get more tense, his jaw clenches ever so slightly. Lyons notices these subtle changes and his grin widens even further, giving him an almost sickeningly evil look. He even takes a step forward, somehow imposing his small frame against the much larger man in front of him. “I’d get ready if I were you. Luke’s not likely to go easy on you a second time. Now get.” He ends the conversation by jutting his jaw towards the door, ordering the hitman out of the office.

Sullivan complies and backs out of the office, makes his way down the clock tower and into the public square. Once again, the villagers do their utmost to ignore him, to act like he doesn’t exist. Everyon, that is, except for one solitary old man. As Sullivan passes him by, he continues to stare at him, examining him, not with any discernible emotion. Sullivan notices the old man and cringes slightly on the inside but keeps on marching right past him, pretending to not see him.

He makes his way further into the village before finally turning a corner and walking down a long, narrow path to a small, humble, picturesque homestead with white slat panels and a short fence surrounding an area that was once a mushew pen. Taking a deep breath, Sullivan enters the home. The interior is just how he left it earlier that morning: spartan and clean, barring the inevitable sand in every crack and crevice in the house. There’s barely any furniture in the house, just a few tables and chairs spread here and there, relics of days long gone.

Sullivan takes off his dusty boots and tucks them into a corner before going any further into his home. He makes his way towards the kitchen and grabs some eggs from his pantry to make a quick meal for himself. No doubt he’ll have another assignment at any moment, so he better eat fast. He quickly fries the eggs, grabs a cactus apple and some slightly stale pieces of bread, and sits down at the dinner table to eat. He sits there in the kitchen, the silence of the old home deafening, the stray particles of sand that flow through the incoming sunlight somehow making the already empty room feel even emptier.

Sullivan takes a bite of an egg and stares straight ahead, directly at an old family photo that he had managed to save during all these years. It has faded and browned with time, but it still holds the same level of emotion and memory that it always has. The picture is a simple family photo of himself, his parents, and his younger sister from when he was young, no older than seven or eight. He is sitting on his father’s lap, while his mother is carrying his baby sister in one arm. Everyone is smiling, even the baby. Sullivan smiles sadly at the photo as he takes another bite of his meal, allowing himself to reminisce over the old photo just a bit longer.

Soon. He tells himself with conviction as he finishes off the last of his meal. Very soon.