Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (Book 3)
Savage Dawn (Book 4)
Savage Vengeance (Book 5 - this story)
VIOLENCE WARNING: The two stories in the Savage Gang saga, and especially the second story, involve a gang practicing extreme violence toward everyone — women, the elderly, the protagonist, etc. The stories contain mature sexual content and violence as well. I am placing this warning on all chapters, including those without such violence, so you can choose whether to continue.
CHAPTER 8
Maximus Savage jolted awake from his nightmare and sat up in bed, his body damp with sweat.
“Fuck,” he muttered, and swung his legs off the bed.
He thought he had overcome this nightmare two years earlier through force of will. But it was back with a vengeance, haunting him every time he slept over the last week. Why now?
Was it because of Sapphire Angel? No. This was the first time she had been present in the dream, which otherwise had repeated itself night after night. It wasn't because of her.
Anyone else might attribute the dark dream to guilt over his recent deeds — the mayhem, death, and destruction he was inflicting across the country. Or perhaps the nightmare traced its roots back to his massacre of women and children when serving his country, years earlier. But Maximus Savage hadn’t felt guilt for a long, long time. It wasn’t guilt.
He knew the cause of the nightmare, and it was from nothing he had done. No, it was because of what had been done to him. His country had cast him aside, for doing exactly what his superiors had ordered him to do. The people of his own country had cast him away, as if he were garbage. The mistreatment had birthed a rage in Savage, and that rage fueled his twisted dream.
The rage would heal him and drive him forward, helping him get his vengeance. But it would harm him, first, if it continued to interfere with his rest and his thoughts. He needed to get it under control. He just wasn’t sure how.
As Savage found his boots and pulled them onto his feet, his eyes scanned his surroundings. Large rectangular heaters hung in the corners of the small room. Their glowing coils threw a mosaic of dancing light on the walls, where water trickled down thick moss before disappearing into cracks on the floor. His bed wasn’t much of a bed at all, but a mattress resting atop a utilitarian metal frame. It sat across from a television propped up on a plastic milk crate. A coaxial cable ran from the television to the ceiling, where it disappeared. Savage’s black body armor lay scattered on the floor a few feet from the bed.
Savage, wearing spandex shorts and a black t-shirt, reached for the television remote on the floor. He stopped short, deciding he didn’t need to hear the latest news. The anchors would discuss Sapphire Angel’s defeat of the gang, as they had done nonstop after the chaos at Market Square ended.
Savage’s free hand rose to touch his jaw, which was still sore from the blows landed by the woman. He ran his tongue over the broken shards of several teeth, damaged in the fight with the superheroine. The jagged edges would serve as a reminder of the fight for at least the next few hours, until his men located a dentist to treat him.
He balled his fist as he thought of the fight. She had challenged him in front of a throng of people. And, some would say, defeated him! She would pay.
The new part of his dream came to mind — the part with Sapphire Angel — and he thought of her naked. Was the dream a premonition, telling him he would defeat her? Or was his subconscious telling him what he wanted to hear? The dream had felt real, as if he had been connected to her — as if she had experienced it, too. But it was just a dream.
A doorway stood open to his left, though which came the sound of running water, louder than the rivulets of water running down the walls. Even the air felt damp down here, in these old tunnels below the city. This was Maximus Savage’s kind of place — foreboding, not too comfortable, and hard to find. For the foreseeable future, it was home.
Most people of Harrisburg had long forgotten this place existed. It was part of a hodgepodge of underground aqueducts the city had abandoned decades earlier. Some aqueducts connected to a subway system whose construction had started almost one-hundred years earlier. The government never finished the construction, as World War I arrived, diverting the nation’s needs elsewhere.
Even if someone discovered the underground labyrinth, the passageways were a tangled maze and would confuse even the most capable navigators. Best of all, the tunnels spread underneath much of the downtown. This gave the gangsters easy access to many parts of the city, and provided convenient escape routes. Maximus Savage had used one such escape route when fleeing his encounter with Sapphire Angel.
Fleeing. Just the thought of the word left a bitter taste in Savage’s mouth. Maximus Savage didn’t flee from anyone. Yet that is what he had done once he had realized he wouldn’t be able to defeat the famed superheroine. He rubbed his sore knuckles, which he had injured not in the fight, but when he had punched these stone walls upon his return. His fury had been slow to subside. She would pay.
Perhaps he had been too harsh in his judgment of Rocco Lynch. Lynch had been in charge of the gang in Harrisburg only five days earlier, before Savage’s arrival. But Sapphire Angel had dealt a mortal blow to Lynch's group, prevailing against the men during an epic fight in a blizzard. Her victory had occurred near the gang’s prior hideout, which was the reason the gang had relocated to this place. When Maximus Savage had arrived in the city with a fresh batch of fighters, his first order of business had been to establish this new headquarters.
His second order of business had been to make a grand appearance in the city, terrifying its citizens during their moment of celebration. A frightened populace was a compliant populace. Or at least that had been the idea until Sapphire Angel had thwarted those plans. She would pay.
Savage turned and walked through the open doorway, entering a large room half the size of a high school gymnasium, but much darker and more foreboding. Dim light fixtures hung from thin metal rods and cast shadows about the room. More heaters hung in the corners, fighting a losing battle with the cool, damp air.
Hallways extended beyond arched doorways at either end of the room, and a channel of water, almost twenty feet wide, ran the length of the far wall. Barbells, treadmills, and other exercise equipment filled much of the concrete floor, making the place look like a makeshift fitness club.
The ceiling was higher in this room than in the rest of the complex, extending over thirty feet above the floor. A metal balcony ringed the room and looked down from above. A rusted metal staircase hugged the wall to the left, climbing from the floor to the balcony.
Five men moved among the exercise gear, sweat dripping from shirtless bodies rippling with massive muscles. They looked at Savage when he entered. There were more men scattered in other rooms in the tunnels, but their numbers were less than even a day ago, thanks to Sapphire Angel. She would pay.
“Griff!” Savage barked at one man and nodded his head back toward the other room. Savage walked back into the room as the man scurried after him.
“Yes, sir?” the man, Griff, asked, sweat dripping from his face. The perspiration wasn’t entirely from his workout.
“Go fetch Benjamin and Larry,” Savage said with some effort because of his broken teeth and sore jaw. “Whoever gets here first, send him in. Tell the other to wait until I’m done.”
Griff gave a nod and bolted from the room. As Savage waited, he once again took in his surroundings. This was a dank and foreboding place, but not his worse accommodations ever. Not even close. When his country had betrayed him years earlier, he had gone into hiding for over a year, living in places unworthy of roaches.
“Y… You summoned me?” a voice sounded from behind Savage. Savage turned to face a man in a dirty white lab coat, whose wiry brown and gray hair stuck up in sparse clumps from a mostly bald head. The man, Larry Oberkfell, looked around the room, focusing on everything but Maximus Savage.
“I did,” Savage said. “How soon until you can give me the next injection?”
Oberkfell bit his lip and wrung his hands in front of him. He stared down at the ground as he spoke.
“Th… this is an… an all-new substance I’m w… working with. I —”
“Cut through the bullshit, Larry,” Savage interrupted. Oberkfell had been evasive about his latest concoction. Savage sensed Oberkfell had obtained the substance for these injections from unusual sources. The doctor was worried about their safety, but the gang leader didn’t care. The injections just needed to work, so he could make Sapphire Angel pay.
“To minimize the risk to y… your health, I can inject you again in th… three more days, at the soonest.”
“Fuck the risk to my health!” Savage snapped. “This is taking too long! I need to be stronger! Faster! Tougher! I want you to ramp this up, starting this afternoon. No more screwing around. I need to be more prepared for the next time. That little girl must take something to make her so tough. You can do better! She will pay.”
“She —” Oberkfell started to ask, before recognition crossed his face. He closed his mouth.
“Just get things ready,” Savage said.
“But —”
“No buts!” Savage snarled. “Get it ready for this evening. It will be your turn after I get these damn teeth fixed.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Oberkfell said, nodding and scurrying from the room.
Oberkfell was only gone for a few moments before another man ambled in. This man was half as thick as Savage, with wire-rimmed glasses, neatly cut blonde hair, and a thin, almost boyish face. He gave Savage a calm nod.
“Benjamin,” Savage said, addressing his most-trusted advisor, Benjamin Drummond. “What’s the damage? How many men did we lose?”
Drummond sighed and pushed his glasses up his nose.
“Of the four on the stage with you, only Crusher slipped away. He’s in the back, getting looked at now. She gave him quite the shock with that whip gadget of hers. The other three are in police custody, thanks to Sapphire Angel, as are three of our men who were attacking people and cops in the crowd.”
“Son of a bitch,” Savage muttered. “That settles it. We’re going in today. I need you to check the normal channels, to make sure there aren’t any surprises waiting for us. We’re doing it this afternoon.”
Drummond raised an eyebrow. “This afternoon? We have a dentist lined up to see you. And usually we spend more time —”
“Fuck the dentist! I’ll see the dentist when we’re done. And I know what we normally do. We spend more time prepping. But this ain’t normal. Sapphire Angel is making us look bad! We need to send a message. She’s going to regret crossing us. But first, we have a loose end to take care of. Time to go punish Rocco Lynch for his failure.”
Savage considered his thought of just a few moments earlier — that he had been too harsh in his judgment of Rocco Lynch. Sapphire Angel was indeed a formidable opponent. But he couldn’t let his men believe that failure was acceptable. Lynch had to pay the price. It was time.
Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (Book 3)
Savage Dawn (Book 4)
Savage Vengeance (Book 5 - this story)
As one of your most consistent readers, I have to say that if you wanted to make Maximus Savage the big threat this time around, then maybe having him (technically) lose his very first personal bout against Sapphire Angel wasn't exactly one of the best things that could've happened to him. Still, with the constant repetition of the phrase "She would pay", I think Savage could still use that encounter as motivation to keep himself pressing forward, if nothing else.
Speaking of Savage, it looks like his dependence on the drugs that Oberkfell is giving him is beginning to override his rational thinking; part of me thinks he'll go down because of the drugs before he even gets another shot at Sapphire.....but then that would probably throw a wrench into the silver-eyed man's plans. Then again, the silver-eyed man practically radiates control; like he's pulling a lot of the strings behind a lot of things. Even if Savage does go down relatively early, the silver-eyed man would probably waste no time in finding another subject to be his "champion".
Adding on, I would've thought that Savage's first personal encounter against Sapphire Angel would've taught him to go lightly on his subordinate Rocco Lynch for all of the latter's failures.....but unfortunately, it doesn't seem so. I'd definitely say we'll be seeing Lynch again in the next segment (or at least, the next segment that focuses on the Savage Gang), and it might be one of his last appearances. Maybe Lynch can stand up to Savage and say "See? She's very tough; you saw it for yourself!" or something to that effect.....but I don't think Savage will buy it.
Let's see! And I wonder how Smash is doing, if he really didn't get taken out/arrested for good during that blizzard.....