Crushing Blue

🇫🇮

“Oy, oy, choir boy!”

Super Handel stood on the water’s edge, the waves lapping at his tattooed ankles (his tattoos were brilliant renditions of Clive Warren and Karl Dilkington riding dragons). The sky was the color of blood oranges; as the sun began to set behind the horizon, the light shone against the stone walls, giving everything a peach-bronze tint. The sand beneath Super Handel’s feet clung to his boots like snow. There was a cliff-face just ahead of him, with crumbling stone walls and entryways growing out of the rocks like tumors. Once a port had been here, but not anymore; decades had passed, at least, since the last semblance of civilization had graced these shores.

Now, a ruin greeted the leader of the Red Dragons. A rusted cargo ship had beached itself in the shallows, the storage units it had been transporting split onto the sand where they had half-sunk below the golden dunes like ancient statues. Palm trees and moss grew along the rocks and sand, dotting the landscape with a few sparse signs of life.

Super Handel shook the water out of his hair and spit up a bit of seaweed. He detested the taste. He had never liked seafood; he’d always found it too salty, too slimy. “Fuckin’ schwein. Fuck me.”

He could see eyes watching him, like mini lighthouses buried in the cliff-face. “Fair play,” he said, walking towards the rocks when a loud crack echoed through the beach, and a bullet whizzed past his ear. “Faggots. Motherfuckin’ cunts!” Super Handel grit his teeth and took cover behind a storage container. “I’ll bleed every one of you bitch-ass fuckers!”

The first bastard poked his head out of cover too early. He was eager, and he died. Super Handel had had a red energy blast waiting between his palms, and as soon as he saw the lil bitch poke his head out, bam! There went the fucker’s head. The sound reminded the Red Dragon of an exploding melon. Super Handel’s belly rumbled. He wanted some cantaloupe. Taking his chance, he jumped over the container and sprinted towards the man he’d downed. This one had not been with the main host up on the cliff, but had crawled down to the beach and tried to take cover behind some rocks. Super Handel wondered if there were others trying the same thing.

“Fuckin’ piranha dome,” Super Handel lamented, when he came upon the corpse. Picking up the beast’s rifle, he looked over the thing he had killed. “The fuck is this? Fuckin’ animals.”

Indeed, what greeted Super Handel appeared not to be a human, but a beast of such fine quality that it had grey-blue skin, a lanky body, and armor like a meth-addicted Saiyan. Its face had been like a mixture between a monkey, a bird of prey, and a cannibal fish, as far as he could remember. This thing was not human, but it looked vaguely humanoid (sans its missing head), that Super Handel thought this could not be an alien. He never believed in aliens anyways. All those ‘Ayy lmao’ youtube vids he’d seen hadn’t convinced him. He was highly skeptical of weather balloons (he preferred 99 Luftballons). They just made him want to smoke more weed than he used to.

Other eyes permeated the rocks, like a Sigur Rós music video. Super Handel picked up the rifle and aimed down the sights. The creatures wore ornate head-dresses, like they were priests, or something similar. Super Handel thought their misshapen heads went well with their scale armor and tattered capes and all the disgusting little chunks of dirty rags and pieces of cloth covering their bodies. When he pulled the trigger and heard the sweet pop of a foe’s head, he nearly began to drip. “That’s right shovelheads,” he muttered, “I’ll be your fuckin’ altar boy. Time for the money shot.”

One time Super Handel explored for the starfish of a woman he paid money to mate with. It was a long exploration, and he looked all over her body for this mythical five-pointed starfish, but he never found it. Peeking around a rock, Super Handel took another shot, missing the nearest pair of eyes by a cunty mile.

“Fuckin’ holes,” Super Handel swore. “Die Zicke!” He reloaded the rifle, brushing the sand from his fingertips. “Pop out your fuckin’ pumpkin heads again, and I’ll pop those fuckers like my sister’s cherry.”

The beasts sneered and growled in throaty, high-pitched tones. They sounded like kindergartners high on Oxycodone. Just thinking about that made Super Handel sad for the old days. He desperately wanted to fingerbang an older woman.

Around the land, he saw half-sunk statues of cloaked figures, humanoid and tall as the Kritios Boy. It gave him a chill to the bone seeing those weird-ass statues. It looked like the the ancient Greeks had taken some meth before carving out these ones. Super Handel really wanted some meth, but he wanted several lines of coke even more. The cloaked figures were covered completely in black-faded robes, except for their raised claws which looked vaguely reptilian and their long lizard tails curled around their robed legs, sharp-tipped and spiked. He scurried over to a couple of them and took cover anew, looking for a better opening against the monsters.

There they came for him, waddling like overborne toddlers, weapons in their hands, their lanky forms hunched over like collapsed trees. Each one held a weapon, and each one was sprinting at Super Handel. He counted four of them. The others were holding back, waiting. The Red Dragon’s adrenaline started pumping, and he felt the pulse of his heartbeat in his ears. His fingers slicked over with sweat, and he had to hold his breath to steady his rifle. He took the first one in the throat, the second in the forehead, and missed the third altogether. The fourth squealed when he shot at it, disappearing behind a pile of bones and sand and stone like a manic gopher. The third shovelhead used that distraction to come waddling up to him, sprinting all hunched-over like he was seeing colors with his waking eyes (Super Handel had once had such a hallucination; that trip had gone great until he had tried to cut Gangrene’s legs off with a chainsaw).

“Empty flesh!” the beast screamed when it reached Super Handel, shooting its pink spray-painted shotgun at him. He jumped aside easily, and aimed his rifle at the creature.

“The fuck’re you?”

The monster clicked its throat and sucked in air, producing a ghastly, congested sound. “Attaaack!” it shouted, and a host of bullets came raining down from the cliff-face, forcing Super Handel to run as fast and far away as he could. When he came to another storage container much further away that was upended in the sand, he shouted:

“The fuck’re you saying? The fuck dya want?!” Super Handel became angry; it was terrible because there was no cocaine, and not even a single bit of acid for him to trip on. He was left to face the realities of the world like an Amish pederast. The sea wind blew, dusting sand into Super Handel’s delicate eyes.

Super Handel didn’t know where he was or who he was facing; it didn’t even seem like he was on Earth anymore. Maybe he was a man, a lonely man, who was in the middle of something he didn’t really understand. This was all so very foreign to a cold-blooded drug addict such as himself. He peeked his head over the storage container and nearly lost it when the monsters unleashed their shots on him. Diving for cover again, he swore himself up a storm and thirsted for some molly.

“Fuck these fuckers. That’s it! That’s fuckin’ it! Fick dich ins Knie, shovel-cunts!”

He popped his head up again, like a prairie dog in heat. The last shovelhead was still chasing him down, like he had tunnel vision. Super Handel ripped a bullet through the beast’s shoulder, but the monster didn’t even drop his weapon. He continued on towards the man. Super Handel reloaded and hit the creature again, this time in the breastbone – and it didn’t even drop its weapon. It continued running at him, crimson blood flowing from it like a frayed cape.

“Fuckin’ Spongebird McGee.” Super Handel was more than a little annoyed at how many shots this bastard was taking. “Alright, you cunts. You asked for it.”

Super Handel threw down his rifle and stood, briefly making a target of himself. Bullets sailed around him, but he had the perception to dodge them. Internally, he called forth his energy, like he would when he was smuggling speedball anally. Those were the days. But, suffice to say, it took little more than three moments for Super Handel to conjure up enough energy to create his patented Red Comet attack. He materialized the red energy between his hands, grit his teeth, aimed, and released the beam on the cliff-face, where so many shovelheads lurked, like roaches.

“Wrraaraackakack! Skyfire!” the nearest priest shouted in dismay as Super Handel’s attack flew past him. The Red Dragon didn’t even wait to see it make impact. He had already turned his attention to that one.

The explosion rocked the world, sending ash and smoke into the sky and causing much of the cliff to collapse into the sea. Super Handel didn’t give a fuck about that. “Y’know, if you were a girl, you wouldn’t be so fuckin’ bad. I’d fuck you, with the lights off… if I had four grams of coke in me system.” He licked his lips wistfully and felt a burning in his nose. “Now, I haven’t introduced myself yet. I’m the fucking leader of the Red Dragons. The name’s Super Handel. I’m a fucking legend! Proud to make your acquaintance, cunt-mouth.”

With that, Super Handel lunged forward at the veritable Spongebird fuck, boot first. The monster squawked and tried to roll aside, but Super Handel was coming too fast. It shot at him wildly, taking Super Handel in the shoulder, ripping skin and muscles from his body. He knew he’d feel that in the morning. Screaming, the man did not stop. He’d kill that freak if it was the last thing he ever did.

When he made contact with the ghastly priest, a satisfying crunch followed as the monster’s skull fractured against the impact and its brains spilled out onto the sand. Super Handel landed and looked up for anyone who had survived. The cliff had become a burning black crater, chunks of molten rock trickling into the ocean below. None now stood against him. All of those shining eyes were gone, and he didn’t miss them.

Feeling successful, Super Handel brushed himself off, took a strand of kelp out of his hair, and swallowed hard, trying to get rid of that twitching inside his throat. He fingered his ruined shoulder, feeling warm sticky blood against his fingers, and grimaced. He knew he needed drugs – any and all kinds. Spitting, he looked around, hoping for any sign of a town or city in the distance, but there was nothing. To his back was the sea; ahead, a desert expanded out in a rocky, sandy, and semi-mossy expanse for as far as the eye could see. A bleak wind was howling across the desolation, upending sand into the air in mini tornadoes.

“Well this fucking sucks.”

He looked down at Spongebird McGee, whose brains and blood were painting the sand like a Beksiński. Everything looked so fantastically surreal. Above, the sun was beginning to set. The last breaths of day were upon the world. He really hated that he’d have to spend a night out here, but…

“Alright shovelhead fucker,” Super Handel said, grunting and flopping down onto the sand next to the corpse. “Let’s see what kinds of holes you have on that disgusting body of yours.”

There came old shovelhead, limpin’ up slowly through the dust and heat. Sweat rolled down Super Handel’s scarred face into his unshaven beard, and upon his back was the body of the last monster he’d killed. He wore its shovel-shaped hat and was singing hoarsely, trying to keep his spirits high. He came to a mountain pass, where at last he was given reprieve from the sun’s scorching gaze.

“I just wanna fuck ‘n suck, fuck ‘n suck, fuck ‘n suck!!” he bellowed, slightly out-of-tune. His voice reverberated down the rocky path. “Oh, I just wanna fuck ‘n suck all the whole night through! I love cocaine! I love cocaine! I love cocaine, I love cocaine, I looooove cocaine!!”

“Nice,” came a grouchy old voice that to Super Handel sounded like the bagpipes of a three hundred year old chain smoker. He whirled around, confused, and saw a woman sitting on a rock, not far away from him. She was smoking, much to his surprise. Dark vapor fluttered out of a hole in her throat, where she held the cigarette. She looked truly detestable, like the desert itself, old and dry and covered in wrinkles. Her hair had been braided into grey-white dreadlocks, and she was hunched over like one of those monsters he’d found on the beach. “I ain’t got any snow, but I do got this… if you’re interested.” Her voice was withered and bare, but Super Handel detected a faint Australian accent. The woman held up a bag of what looked like blue ice cubes.

“The fuck’s that?”

“Blue.”

“Crystal?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Super Handel licked his lips. “How much?”

“Hundred thousand.”

“Fuck.” He dropped the monster and stretched his neck. “Ya know, lady, I was just fuckin’ shot by that shit,” he complained, pointing to his shoulder, which he had haphazardly bandaged up with some supplies he’d found in one of the sunken storage containers. “Come on, I’m hurting. Gimme a little… just a pinch… just a squeeze… just a sniff…”

“Y-you killed one o’ them!” The woman’s voice shook. “Why’d you do that?!”

Super Handel looked down on the corpse of old piranha dome, may he rest in several pieces. “What’re you on about, woman? Those fuckers attacked me.”

“Were you intruding on their land?”

“Fuck if I know. I saw some stupid statues and a beached ship, but…”

“Yeah, that’s it,” the woman sighed, running a hand through her hair. “That’s their lair. No one goes there. Not anymore. You’re not supposed to go there!”

“The fuck are these things?”

“You ever heard of the Makyan War?” Super Handel shook his head impatiently. “It was a long time ago. Quite the bloody affair. Tens of thousands died, far as I remember. Eventually, the samurai fought them back, and a magical cat slew their leader… or so the story goes. Now there ain’t no more Makyans.”

“Haha, yeah fuckin’ right.”

The woman shrugged and dropped her cigarette butt, stamping it out in the sand. “Stories are stories, mate. Believe what you will.”

“The fuck are Makyans anyways? These cunts don’t look human.”

“They aren’t. The Makyans are space aliens.”

Super Handel’s face flushed. “Alright, I’ve heard enough. Fucking hell. Bloody space aliens,” he muttered to himself. “Really? You think I’m that fucking stupid, do you? You think I’m a proper div, eh?”

“It’s true,” the woman spoke. “There used to be a city here, but the Makyans destroyed it. You’ll see the ruins with your own eyes if you continue on. Good thing the Makyans moved east, otherwise most of ‘em would still be here, I’d bet. The samurai would’ve had a helluva time getting to this island. But anyways, those creatures you found are a cult of Makyan descendants that interbred with some people a long time ago. They worship a demon of the sky, as far as I can tell, but I don’t know anymore about it than that… no one does. There’s a shanty town ahead, but not many people left there… you can ask some of them if you want more answers. Now, are you gonna buy some Blue or not?”

“Why’s it so fucking expensive?”

“Best stuff around. Guy name Heidecker makes it. Chemist, that one. Best crystal you’ll ever have, I guarantee it.”

“You have any girls I could fuck instead? I’ll pay good money.”

“I’ll fuck you sir, if you’ll have me,” came a voice from behind another rock. A girl jumped out, barely-clothed and holding a rifle. There was a scarf around her neck, an onyx-goggled mask over her face, but her breasts were bare, and she was wearing the bottom half of a bikini, white with pink flowers, and a pair of fur boots. Her skin was tan and freckled, and he thought he could make out a bit of blonde hair jutting out of the sides of her mask. “I’m good at it, I swear. I’m well-trained. I’ve had a lot of practice.”

Super Handel cracked a smile and rubbed his sore shoulder. “Let’s get it on, baby. Fuuuck yeah! You got some nice fuckin’ tits on ya.”

“I’m not free,” she countered. “Three thousand zeni.”

“I’ve got that much. Don’t worry, baby,” the Red Dragon replied. He didn’t have that much, though. He didn’t have even a single zeni on him. “I’ll give you your money once we’re finished.”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

He expected more of a fight, but Super Handel quickly realized that few people probably came around these parts. These women were desperate for money. He was desperate for pussy.

Out from behind another rock came an elderly black woman with curly white hair. She sat down next to the white-haired woman and began to knit something. Above, in the empty blue, buzzards circled and rode the sweltering winds.

“Here,” the younger girl declared sheepishly. “We’ll do it here, alright? In front of Mommy and Gram Gram.” She smiled; he noticed how her teeth were bright white and straight – something he would not have expected, given the condition of this girl’s mother. There was something different about this one, something a bit more proper and classy.

“You’re one fucked up girl,” Super Handel grinned. “Fine, I’ll give them a fucking show. I’m a legend. Your mother should be proud.” He turned to face the old woman with the dreadlocks. “Watch me plant my fucking seed in your daughter,” Super Handel said with cheeky defiance.

“Mmhm…” agreed Gram Gram. “Back in my day, we didn’t worry about no one watchin’ us! Heh, we’d breed on the front lawn while my Ma watched, I do say.”

Super Handel felt his desires rising, dulling the pain in his shoulder. He licked his lips, tasting salt.

He pulled the bikini down off the girl, who still stood masked, her scarf flapping in the warm wind. What he saw next made Super Handel’s Lil Handel get as small as it would if someone had rubbed an ice cube on it (which had happened before, but usually, Super Handel liked it when girls covered his ween in vanilla pudding).

“Huh?! You got a pair of fuckin’ bollocks! And your clit… it’s the size of a fucking hamster! Blimey. Blimey right in the mouth, mate. Fucking hell!”

“O-oh, sorry, I forgot to mention that I’m a–”

Super Handel’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t say it. Don’t fucking say it, you puddin’ pop bitch.”

The wind blew; a tumbleweed rolled by. In the distance, a vulture screamed. Super Handel tasted sand. In a blur, his pistol was in his hand, and he planted a bullet right in the girl’s forehead.

The shot echoed through the rocky pass; the man pulled up his pants and turned to the two women.

Gram Gram was stricken, having dropped her knitting equipment. “Lawdy, I got the vapors!” she complained, fanning herself madly before taking a handgun from her apron. Super Handel was so surprised that he didn’t point his own weapon at her. But she didn’t point hers at him, either. Instead, the old woman laughed carelessly and slapped her knee. The shot that followed fired with a loud echo, and Gram Gram dropped like a sack of gelatin, bleeding out into the cracked earth.

Ol’ Dreadlocks McGee sat there stoically. Eventually, she lit another cigarette and said, “So you paying for that Blue or what?”

Bang.

Super Handel picked up the bag of blue meth. He’d never seen blue meth before (when he thought of Bryan Cranston, he thought only of Malcolm in the Middle). Furiously, Super Handel punched the bag until the meth cubes inside had been reduced to fine powder. Then he opened the bag, took a little bit of the Blue out, and snorted it.

Instantly, he felt a heavy force rising in his chest, snaking through his veins in an unstoppable tide of euphoria. “Woo!” the man whooped, his voice echoing in the mountain pass. “That’s what I’m fucking talking about!” The pain in his shoulder was gone. He kicked the sand triumphantly, spraying it all over the rocks around him. He felt like he was on top of the world.

And for someone like Super Handel, that meant it was time for him to mount it.

The shanty town was an old scab. Its buildings were rusted and falling apart, the wood structures decaying irreparably. Almost none of them had doors, but instead thin, colorful curtains masking their insides. Nearly all of those veils were sun-worn and ripped. The roofs of many of the buildings were collapsing inward, and it looked like much of the place was abandoned. No one was walking outside, but Super Handel could hear music and conversations leaking out from a ramshackle two-story building just to his right. He knew that would be the town’s pub.

Inside, Super Handel was not disappointed. The smells of cigar smoke and drunk men permeated the building like a hanging cancer. The Red Dragon loved it.

“One Blue Hawaiian,” Super Handel told the bartender. “Make it fast. Make it sweet.”

He sat down at on a stool and tried to concentrate. Euphoria pumped through his veins like snakes on a train. Around him, everyone was talking and playing pool and throwing darts and watching television, but he didn’t care about them. He was Super Handel. He was a great guy, a beautiful guy, the best guy ever. He was going to make the world great again. He was the leader of the Red Dragons, and he’d fuck shit up. He promised he would. He wanted to fuck everything up and have everyone in the world nurse at his cock like it was their mother’s breast.

Super Handel was served his drink, and he began to play with the little umbrella that was sticking out of it like it was covered in catnip. Next to him, a tall man sat. He was bronze-skinned, bald, muscled. The man ordered water, and sat still as a statue. He wore no shirt, and half of his face was covered in strange hieroglyphic-like tattooes. That instantly made Super Handel feel better about himself, because he had much better tattoos on his ankles. He screamed out in jubilation and felt the pleasure of a thousand prostate orgasms cascade through his body.

The man gave Super Handel a look that Super Handel found most disagreeable. It was like he was a piece of meat, or worse, a plebeian. Super Handel stood, and shouted. “You wanna fight, cunt?!”

The man sipped his water and didn’t look at Super Handel.

“Hey?!” the Red Dragon shouted. “Look at me, motherfucker.” When the man didn’t, Super Handel lost it. He was so jacked up he wanted to jack off. “Come on you beautiful alien, touch me with your fucking light!”

The first punch he threw, Super Handel didn’t remember. He only realized what he had done when the man caught his fist and bent it back, snapping his wrist. Super Handel laughed uncontrollably, took his Blue Hawaiian, broke the cup against the bar counter, and shoved a jagged piece of glass into the man’s face. The man stood up then, catching Super Handel’s other hand and squeezing it so hard the Red Dragon was forced to drop his weapon.

Super Handel staggered back, confused. He’d never met anyone this strong before. “Who are you, cunt?! Why are you so strong?!”

The man sipped his water, staring at Super Handel. Super Handel felt like he was being mentally undressed, which was no good because he didn’t like getting naked in front of people. Around him, the sounds of men conversing and televisions blaring gave him no solace. No one else was watching what was unfolding here, not even the bartender (usually the bartenders didn’t like it when people started fighting, in Super Handel’s many relevant experiences). Super Handel felt an immense sense of loneliness and vulnerability.

“I am waiting for someone,” the man spoke at last, his voice as thick as molasses-covered cashmere sweaters. “You are not that someone.”

“Oh yeah, how dya know that, fucker?!”

The man’s mouth contorted slightly and his voice grew fervent, “The one I’m waiting for will have the power to cleanse the world of all its filth… like you. He or she will be stronger than me, stronger than anyone who has come before. It is written; it is known; so it will come to pass. I wait for our savior to appear, to help them on their difficult but vital journey.”

“You narcissistic seahorse!” Super Handel roared. “I’ll kill you! I’ll gut you like a fucking pig!”

“You will not. Until the one who was promised appears, I cannot not leave this world.”

“I’m tired of your stupid blabbering mouth! Why the fuck is everyone I meet so stupid?! I’ll cum on your back!”

Super Handel rushed at the man. “You’re the king of the roaches, and it’s time you meet my bug spray, cunt!” The Red Dragon began charging up his Red Comet attack in between his fingers when the tattooed man grabbed him by the shoulders, picked him up like he was a child, and threw him out of the bar.

Super Handel went rolling through the dirt for a while, and he quite enjoyed the ride. It was excellent, and he would have to remember to find a hill to roll himself down later. This was a solid ride, one he’d pay half a zeni for. He took out his little baggie of crushed Blue and snorted another line. Standing up and dusting himself off, the man looked around at the ruined town.

Chickens and party balloons patrolled the streets. In the sky, he thought he saw a UFO, but maybe it was just a shadow. “Come on you alien cucks! Come down here and try to probe me! I’ll send you back to Mars, you fuckers! Earth’s no place for your kind, space trash!” he screamed, shaking his fist at the sky.

“There have not been any aliens here for many years,” a man said sternly.

Super Handel wheeled around and noticed a man sitting up against a nearby building, sipping on a bowl of noodles with chopsticks in his hands. His face was narrow, his nose long, his eyes beady. His straight black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, as if he were a proper lady, and to top it all off, he was wearing a pink chang pao.

“Haha, your shirt is pink, you sorry faggot.”

“Excuse me?” The man looked up, his eyes flashing with menace.

“You heard me, Ponytail McGee. If I wanted to fuck someone like you, I’d go to Thailand,” Super Handel boasted. “Fucking pink-shirt-wearing faggot. Ich bin ein verdammter Legende!”

The man was unimpressed. He slurped down the last of his broth noisily before throwing his cup aside. Cracking his neck, he stepped up to Super Handel. “I’m warning you… walk away. You cannot win this fight.”

Super Handel rubbed his shoulder and realized he was still wearing the monster’s elaborate hat. He felt like the pope (now he just needed to find loads of kids to fuck). “Do you know where I got this hat, you pathetic little bitch?”

“No.”

“Good, because I don’t either.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“No, you are!” Super Handel’s face contorted into a sinister sneer. He bared his teeth like he was a huge wolf. “Ain’t nobody gonna know who you are once I’m through with you. I’m Super Handel, the leader of the fucking Red Dragons! I’m a legend, you know?! Ain’t nobody ever fucked with me and lived to tell about it.”

Trash blew listlessly through the empty streets. A warm breeze caressed Super Handel’s face; he could feel sand between his teeth, could tell the sky was fading to rust and mud as night was making its inevitable return. Super Handel could hear his heartbeat growing faster and more erratic, his heart bouncing against its stifling cage, and all he wanted to do was take another line of Blue. The man knew that old dreadlock-wearing bitch was right: this was the best damn ice he’d ever had. He wanted more… he wanted so much more. Super Handel didn’t care if it killed him. He felt more alive, more in tune with the universe, than he ever had.

At last, the other man cracked a smile. “Very well, if that’s what you think.” He shook out his hands and formed them into fists. “My name is Tao. Pleased to kill you.”