The desert highway is barren with barely any cars passing by in the hot morning of a summer day in the good old state of Texas, being the hottest it’s been this week.
A white van comes swerving down the highway, driving recklessly down the road switching between lanes and loud blaring music coming from the inside.
Inside the van are four people all in their early twenties. They are all dressed up like the typical trailer park trash, wife beater on or black stained hoodies with a random metal band on them. Weed smoke is clouding up the inside, beer bottles and cans litter the seats and floor.
“That was a great payout!” One of the guys said with some messed up teeth and black hair all messed up, with his eyes bugged out. He pulled out a huge two sacks filled with straight cash. “And all for a fifteen year old!”
“She was so fine though.” The driver of the car said with a little bit of a lisp. “Wish we coulda keep her.”
“Are we gonna pick up another one!?” Another guy with bright pink hair said, sipping on a beer. “You know how many bags we can buy with this stuff! We could fill up a whole warehouse.”
“Good Idea, maybe we’ll find someone in Jontel.” The guy in the passenger seat of the car said, looking out the window as he took a big smoke of weed, blowing it inside the car and the smoke carried back and hit the two men in the back seat.
As they drive closer to a city that is looming in the distance, a silhouette of a person appears long along the road. The further they approached, the silhouette became clearer and clearer.
The silhouette was a teenage boy with bright blonde hair that shines in the sun, white skin, wearing a teal baggy shirt and dark blue jeans with torn up black shoes. He looked to be about sixteen or seventeen, somewhere in that age range. The teen was a bit tall, being about 6”0 at the least.
“What about that kid?” The guy in the passenger seat asked.
“Don’t know. He looks like he won’t sell for much, probably not a lot of people’s type.” The driver said.
“You never know.”
“Yeah, fuck it. Let’s get him.”
The driver slams down on the pedal and speeds towards the kid, kicking up dirt from the road as he accelerates.
The teen is walking peacefully, humming a little toon as he turns his head to face the van speeding down the highway. He stops walking to look directly at it with a calm expression. The van approaches him in a screeching halt, drifting towards the teen, splashing the kid with dirt making him cough and rubbing the pebbles out of his eyes. The driver door on the van opens up and the guy driving leans out.
“Need a ride kid?” The guy asked the teen.
“Let me think.” The teen strangely responded, putting his hand on his chin looking down at the ground, his orange eyes being covered by his own shadow. “No thank you.” The teen walked away from the van and headed down the road.
“This little-” The driver closed the door and slowly trailed right next to the teen, with his window down. “Come on, it's really hot outside, look at you! You’re probably sweating bullets out here. We have ac in here, you can cool down. We promise to not hurt you.”
“Like I said, I’m good.” The teen sped up and the driver also sped up as well.
“Kid I don’t want you to die of a heat stroke out here, you should really reconsider your choice.”
“I already said no.” The kid started to speed walk.
“That’s it,” The driver closed the window and put the van into gear and pressed hard on the pedal. He drove the van off the road and swerved in front of the kid, cutting him off and forcing him to stop walking.
“Come on guys, this one wants to be a smartass, let’s teach him a lesson.” The driver said as he motioned everyone else to leave the van. Every person in the van gets out and crowd in front of the van, the driver takes a gun out of his pocket and points it at the teen.
“You get into the van or we blow your fucking brains out! Got it?” The driver threatened, pointing the gun at the teen.
“Ok.” The teen started walking towards the driver.
“I’m not bullshitting! If you do anything stupid, I’ll pull the fucking trigger!”
The teen walks up directly in front of the driver, still with a calm expression on his face.
“I will shoot!” The driver starts getting scared, his hands shaking as the teen walks up to his face. The teen takes the hand of the driver, the hand that is holding the gun, and presses it up against his forehead, making sure to press it down hard to leave a little imprint.
“Do it then.” The teen said. “I won’t resist.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you!?” The driver exclaimed.
“Do you want to die, kid!?” One of the guys on the sideline said.
“So, are you going to shoot me?” The teen said.
“I will if you’re not going to get in the van.” The driver said.
“I’m not, so do it.”
“Uh, I-I-”
“Too scared?”
“No!”
“Then kill me, right here, right now.”
“I will, just give me a second-”
“Fucking do it now!” The teen yelled out. “You fucking pussy!”
“I’m not a pussy!”
“Then fucking prove it!”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” The driver screams and presses hard on the trigger and the gun goes off, the bullet flying out of the chamber. The bullet hits the teen in the head and bounces off as the teens head leans back like he got hit by a dodgeball. The teens head flops down and he looks up at the driver, completely unfazed by the bullet.
“What the-No fucking way!” The driver trembled. “I shot you in the head, you should be dead.”
“Yeah.” The teen said. “I should be, that’s weird huh?”
The driver backed up from the teen and proceeded to unload the entire clip of the gun into his face, each bullet bouncing off the teen. He ran out of bullets and the teen was still standing there with no injuries whatsoever.
“No way.” One of the other guys said scared shitless.
“How are you still alive!?” The driver yelled out.
“I don’t know.” The teen said. “Maybe you should do another clip, maybe that’ll do something. Come on, reload and try again.”
The driver stood there, mouth agape.
“Don’t know how to? Don’t worry, I’ll show you.” The teen walked up to the driver and picked the gun straight from his hand, rummaged through the guy's pocket and took out another clip.
“See, you pull this lever and the old clip falls out.” The teen goes through the process of reloading the pistol. “Then, you’ll put the new one in, and pull this lever.” He cocks the gun and everyone else around him is still standing there in shock. “Once that’s all said and done. You can finally.” He lifts up the gun to the driver’s head. “Do this.” He shoots the driver’s head and it pops like a balloon and blood splatters on the teen and the surrounding people. “It’s that easy.”
The other three people freak out and scramble to get inside the van. One of the guys gets into the driver's seat of the van and realizes that he doesn’t have the key to the van. The only person with the key, is currently laying on the ground dead.
“Oh look.” The teen kneeled down and pulled out the keys from the driver’s corpse. “I wonder what these are for.” He said it in a sarcastic tone, almost letting out a chuckle.
“Fuck!” The guy in the driver's seat says. “We’re fucked!” He flings the van door open and runs out in the open desert to get away, and the teen guns him down with one shot in the head. The guy drops immediately to the ground.
The teen walks over to the van and opens the sliding door to the backseat, where the two other people are hiding. When he opens the door he sees the two men holding each other.
One of the men lunges at him and he shoots him in the head and his body stumbles off the van and onto the teens feet. The other guy is in there, left traumatized as his buddies blood was sprayed on him. He tries to open the door, but it’s locked by the teen. The last guy turns around to face the teen, to see his surprisingly calm face, like he’s done this more than once.
“Who the fuck are you!?” The last guy cried out.
“Kyle Kyldrip.” He said calmly, pointing the gun at the guy. “At your service.” Kyle shoots the guy in the head and his body goes limp.
Kyle climbs inside the backseat of the van and opens the door on the other side of the backseat, and pushes the body out onto the dirt. He closes the two backseat doors and climbs into the driver's seat of the van, puts the keys into the ignition and drives off in the direction of the city. He tosses the pistol in the backseat of the van and opens up the window.
“God it fucking reeks.” Kyle said, he turns the radio on and changes it to a station he likes. He looks through the rearview mirror and sees the sacks of money on the backseat of the car. “That should be enough money to spend. I heard that strip clubs take a lot of money. Even if it doesn’t, it’ll still be a great eighteenth birthday present. For me, by me.” He drives past a sign that has bright white text that says.
‘WELCOME TO JONTEL’
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Kyle drives through the hustling and bustling city, with tall buildings littering everywhere, normal office buildings. This city is like a small New York, condensed in the big ol’ state of Texas.
Kyle sits through traffic at a stoplight and drives through the relatively nice looking part of the city and into a more dirty looking part, something out of downtown LA. He drives past a snazzy looking building with the sign on it saying.
‘DIAMONDS’
He stops the car and makes an illegal u-turn into the parking lot of the building, and he gets out of the van, holding one of the sacks of money.
“This sure looks like a strip club.” Kyle said. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Time for me to be a big boy.”
The second Kyle finishes his sentence an explosion goes off in the tall office building behind him and people scream and run away. Cars start speeding off, and people from inside nearby buildings start running out and getting in their cars.
“On second thought.” Kyle said, looking back at the burning building. “That looks more interesting.” Kyle puts the sack of money back in the van and walks over to the building, crossing the street and entering through the front door of the building.
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An office worker on the eighth floor of the building, where the explosion went off, is crawling away with his head bleeding. A huge smoke cloud fills the office cubicles and the only opening out of the building is a huge hole in the wall that leads to a drop that will definitely kill the worker.
A figure slowly walks out of the smoke and is holding a baseball bat. The worker crawls away, turns himself to be on his back and looks at the figure.
“What the fuck do you want!?” He screams as the figure comes closer. The figure comes closer into view and is revealed to be wearing a brown hoodie with some black shorts, his brown hair covered in ash, and his gray eyes blending in with the smoke. He looked to be around in his early twenties, while also looking very muscular, and his white skin being covered by the ash from the smoke.
“Nothing in particular.” He said, as he walked into a clearer view. “Just doing this for fun.”
“For fun!? You’re killing countless innocent people for fun!?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of monster are you!?”
“I’m the kind of monster to take a baseball bat to a person's skull until they no longer have a head.”
“You’re sick! Fucking sick!”
“I know I am.” The guy with the bat lifts it up in the air, ready to swing it down onto the worker.
“No! Please!” The worker cried out. “I have a family!”
“Does it look like I care?” The guy said. “I’ll make sure they’ll never see your body ever again!”
“NO!”
The guy slams the bat down on the guy at an inhuman speed that shouldn’t be possible for a human like him. Once he slams down on the worker a huge wave of air gets blasted down, taking down the support beams of the building. The whole building collapses on itself and a huge puff of concrete dust, with huge pieces of concrete being sent flying.
The guy is at the top of the wreckage maniacally laughing to himself as everyone else in the building was now dead or critically injured.
“That was fucking awesome!” The guy laughed out loud. “I haven’t let that out in a long time! This whole city is a perfect place to let it all out. Maybe I’ll just go building to building and knock them all down, that sounds great.”
The guy begins to walk away until he hears a little movement from under the huge pile of rubble. “Looks like we have a survivor.” The guy said, turning around to walk towards the rubble.
A person's hands pop out of the rubble, and they place them on top of the rubble to pull themselves out. Kyle pops his head out of the rubble, then his whole body. He’s completely covered in concrete dust and he dusts himself off while he sneezes.
“Damn, I haven't seen a building go down like that in a long time. Pretty sweet.” Kyle looks at the guy walking over to him. “Did you do this?”
“And what if I did?” The guy snarkily responded.
“I would congratulate you. It’s pretty hard to do this.”
“What?” The guy stops walking.
“How did you even do this?” Kyle asked. “You don’t have anything on you that would cause this, are you a superhuman?”
“What the fuck are you on about? Also, how the hell are you not scared?”
“Me? Scared? Why would I be? Are you trying to say I should be scared of you? Because if you are, then I’m not.”
“How could you not be scared of me!? I mean, come on! Look at me, I’m the most threatening person you’ll ever meet in your life.”
“You don’t even look half threatening at all. That hoodie and shorts combo you’ve got going on is pretty casual, you look no different than any civilian on the street.”
“Do you even know who I am!?”
“Nope, not at all.”
“I’m the batter! I’m the most feared person here in Texas and all over the country! Every town and city lives in fear that the next day I would be right around the corner, lurking to strike and take everything in their lives away from them! I am the boogeyman that makes people cower at the sight of a baseball bat.” The guy puts the bat in both of his hands. “This thing is the ender of thousands of lives, I’m an absolute unit, nothing can stop me!”
“The batter?” Kyle looked confused. “Still haven’t heard of you.”
“How could you not!? Have you been living under a rock!?” The batter said, getting frustrated by the second.
“Probably the reason I haven’t heard of you is because of that dumb name.”
“What?”
“Putting ‘the’ and ‘batter’ together isn’t really clever at all. It’s like a name a person with no creativity comes up with. Come to think of it, maybe I’ll come up with a better name for you. How about…’Home Run’ or ‘Strikeout’ Oooo! I like Strikeout a lot.”
“Shut up!” The batter speeds towards Kyle and hits him at full force sending Kyle flying all the way back into a neighboring building. “I was getting fucking sick of his ass.”
The batter was about to walk away again, but hears Kyle’s voice as he walks back up to the batter and the batter looks in shock. “How the fuck are you still alive?” He asks Kyle.
“I’m just built differently I guess.” Kyle jokes, letting out a little giggle.
“No, you’re no normal human. What the fuck are you?”
“Oh, my name is Kyle Kyldrip and i’m eighteen years old and-”
“Not your name you idiot! I mean, what the fuck even are you. Are you a superhuman or something?”
“I wish.”
“Then what?”
“I’m just-Gah! What do you call it?” Kyle looked up at the sky. “Oh, indestructible! That’s it.”
“We’ll see if that’s really true!” The batter lunged forward at Kyle and hit him up in the air, with Kyle smiling as he did so. He soars high up in the air higher than any building around him.
“Woo!” Kyle cheered as he flips around. “This is fun!” The batter comes up from below him and hits Kyle all the way down onto a farther away street, landing directly in the middle of an intersection. People in their cars leave them and run away from the whole ordeal.
“Damn, well being in the air was fun while it lasted.” Kyle said, laying down on his back in the broken cement of the intersection. The batter comes flying down on top of Kyle, slamming him further into the ground, breaking the cement even more.
“Not so tough now are ya!” The batter said in his cocky tone. Kyle takes the bat that’s being pressed against his chest and lifts it up off of him. The batter lets it happen as he is frozen in shock that Kyle is still living, without a single scratch on him.
“Look, I appreciate your effort in testing me.” Kyle said. “But I’m not here to hurt you at all. I’m just here to talk to you, not attack you. Even if I tried to attack you, I couldn’t even do anything to you. Despite how it looks, I'm completely powerless.”
“Bullshit!” The batter said, backing off of Kyle.
“I’m not lying. Since you were willing to test to see if I’m really indestructible, how about I punch you in the face to see if I’m really telling the truth or not-”
“Fuck no!” The batter then flies away using his bat and is now nowhere to be seen.
“Aw, and I was about to prove him wrong.” Kyle got up from the little hole the batter created as an on-looking crowd watched him come out unscathed. The crowd cheers him on and Kyle is left standing there, scratching his head. “Why are you guys all cheering?”
“You warranted him off!” A guy wearing a business suit said. “You saved us!” The crowd around him starts to cheer him on.
“Guys.” Kyle said. “I don’t know how to tell you this but I literally did nothing. I shouldn’t be praised as this hero that saved the whole city. He still killed like, I don’t know how many people before I even ‘stopped’ him.”
The crowd basically drowns out Kyle and he stands there with nothing to do but just take in the praise he’s getting from them. He eventually smiles and looks around at the diverse crowd.
A line of explosions all chain react on a huge street next to them, shockwaves knock people around, including Kyle. Buildings along that street all collapse or get torn apart by the explosions. The brick, concrete, and other steel all get thrown at Kyle’s general direction, crushing several civilians and injuring many.
“Do you want more people to die Kyle!?” The batter yelled in the air, keeping himself in the air with his bat. “Cause I won’t stop until there’s only us two left here alive!”
“Please help us!” Another teenager cried out to Kyle, her leg being pinned down by a piece of concrete. “You’re our only hope!”
“I can’t really help you.” Kyle said, trying to keep a calm expression on his face.
“Please!” The teenager started to cry and sob as she was pinned down.
“Goddammit.” Kyle said under his breath. “I’m only doing this because I have nothing else to do.” Kyle looks up at the batter. “Listen here batter! If you wanna fight, then let’s fight right now!”
“Meet me at the top of that tower then! That’s the only place where I’ll accept a fight from you!” The batter flew away to the top of the tower he pointed at, which was only a block away.
“You son of a bitch.” Kyle said, facing the tower. “Fine then.” Kyle started taking little steps then to a full stride, past the people hurting on the ground, bodies that were crushed by the rubble from the torn apart buildings, and supposed friends and families crying over their loved ones corpses.
Kyle walks past them all, with his normal calm face still plastered onto him. Kyle looks up at the tall tower looming above him. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
“Can’t believe I have to deal with this shit on my birthday.” He says with a little bit of a rumble in his voice. “How did I even end up in this situation in the first place?” Kyle entered the tower's doors, it’s a nice little lobby with fancy written all over it. He goes up to an elevator at the far end, but it’s broken down. Right next to the elevator is a door that leads to the stairs. Kyle sighs and opens the doorand goes up the dimly lit staircase.
“This’ll be a long walk up.” Kyle says with him letting out steady breathes. “Maybe I’ll take this time to reflect on everything that has happened. It all feels like a blur.”
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“I remember ever since I was a kid I felt like I didn’t belong.” Kyle said to himself. “Maybe that’s why I've wanted to run away from day one ever since I was in kindergarten.”
It’s a nice cloudy day in the kindergarten, five year old Kyle is sitting by himself on the playground swing set. A couple of kids come up to him and push him off of it, landing in the wood chips that surrounded the area. They all laugh in his face and kick wood chips at him. Kyle begrudgingly gets up from the ground and slowly walks away.
“Even to this day I don’t know why I was picked on so much as a child. I never did anything wrong to them. I was just a little punching bag.”
The kindergarten teacher goes up to Kyle because she sees him crying, and tries to console him.
“It’s not like any of the teachers or adults helped. They would hear me talk about being bullied and barely do anything about it. Surprisingly, just telling a kid ‘no’ isn’t enough discipline.”
Kyle walks up to his house on the corner of the street and enters through the front door.
“At the age of six, I found out I had a weird power.”
Kyle steps in the dark inside of his house where his father is sitting on a little reclining chair, he is guzzling down a beer with the TV being the only light shining on him. His dad looks behind him at Kyle, and immediately gets up from his chair. Lunging at Kyle he picks him up and starts yelling at him for no apparent reason. The dad throws Kyle across the room and into a cabinet in the kitchen.
“Even after throwing me into a cabinet, I didn’t feel an ounce of pain.”
Kyle’s mom comes running down stairs and starts reprimanding the dad. They take Kyle to the hospital on the disguise that he just fell down the stairs. Though, in an x-ray, Kyle had no injuries whatsoever, not even a bruise.
“That’s when I experimented with every way I could hurt myself. From trying to give myself a papercut, running straight into a wall, trying to stab myself with a toothpick, and even with a knife. Even the toothpick or knife could even penetrate my skin. Then, I decided to do a bigger test. At the age of eight I was able to sneak into my parents room.”
Kyle sneaks into his parents room while the dad is sleeping, he looks through a drawer, grabs a handgun, and sneaks out of the room without being noticed. Kyle walks out of his house and into a nearby hiking trail in between two canyons.
“I was really scared at first, but then. I went through with it.”
Kyle points the gun on himself and pulls the trigger, with the bullet hitting him in the head and bouncing off of him.
“After learning that bullets didn’t affect me, I then tried shooting myself at different angles.”
Kyle puts the gun to the roof of his mouth and pulls the trigger, the bullet bouncing off the roof and back into his throat where Kyle drops the gun and starts choking. He punches himself in the stomach and coughs up the bullet onto the ground.
“Though I did learn that I don’t have a great gag reflex. But that wasn’t the point, I could literally survive anything. No matter the circumstances.”
Kyle comes running home but leaves the gun on the hiking trail. Later that day, his dad hit Kyle with a beer bottle because he figured out that Kyle stole his gun. Though, the bottle didn’t hurt Kyle at all.
“Even with having the power to not feel pain at all, the bullying at school just got worse. Especially when I was a freshman in high school.”
Fourteen year old Kyle is tied up on a tree with around ten people surrounding him, holding various weapons. They all take wacks at him like he was a pinata, punching him with their bare hands, baseball bats, tire irons, and other various objects. Kyle was beaten for a straight hour until they stopped and left him there still tied up. Kyle eventually wiggled himself out of the restraints and plopping onto the ground. He was forced to walk home in the dark.
“This went on for a straight two years, with nothing seeming like it wouldn’t change at all. So, when it was my junior year of high school.”
Sixteen year old Kyle is sitting in his math class with his head down and other kids in the class are throwing papers at him without the teacher noticing. The papers say vile things to him and tell him to off himself. Kyle then gets up and picks up the desk he’s sitting on and throws the desk at the kid that’s been bullying him the most and walks out of the classroom, leaving the whole class in shock of what just happened.
“I left my whole life behind and just started walking and walking. Two years have passed and I have explored what the west coast has to offer. Now, the day I turned eighteen I made it almost halfway through the middle of the USA, specifically in Kansas.”
Eighteen year old Kyle is walking through a small town in the middle of Kansas and a huge machine that is being controlled by an evil scientist attacks the town. He sends a huge missile on the whole town, almost like a nuke explodes and sends Kyle flying really high up in the air and very far away. He flies through several environments, woods, to plains, and deserts until he lands on a desert highway creating an almost crater-like hole.
“I got sent all the way from Kansas and into the middle of nowhere, or so I thought. I landed right on a desert highway in the middle of Texas, pretty crazy. Then those people in that van come by, I kill them, and now I’m in this city. Crazy how life goes sometimes.”
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Kyle reaches the top of the stairwell to a door that leads to the roof of the tower, he opens the door and the first thing he sees is the batter on the edge of the tower overlooking the city. Kyle steps out the door into the windy outside on top of the tower.
“Welp, I’m here.” Kyle announced himself.
“Good.” The batter turned around to face him.
“So are we just going to have a normal fight? Are there any rules?”
“Nope, just a one on one fight, all dirty tactics allowed.”
“Ok, before we start. Can I ask a question?”
“Sure, get it over with.” The batter said annoyed.
“Why are you even doing this in the first place?” Kyle asked, turning his head sideways when he asked.
“What do you mean?” The batter looked in confusion.
“You at least have to have a pretty good reason to just be tearing up a city like this. Like, a really good reason.”
“Just for fun, nothing else.”
Kyle looks skeptical at the batter. “No, there’s gotta be something more than that.”
“There’s not!” The batter snapped back at him. “Nothing else, now let’s fight!”
“So there is something more. Heh, knew it.”
“Stop talking about that! It doesn’t matter right now.”
“Oh I think it does. It does matter a lot right now.”
“God why are you trying to poke the bear, just shut the fuck up!”
“Tell me batter, were you beaten as a child?”
“Are you my therapist or something!?”
“Answer the question.”
“N-No-N-Y-Yes. Yes I was.”
“Ok, were you bullied a lot?”
“N-Y-Yes.”
“Tied up and beaten for hours outside of the school.”
“Y-Yes.”
“Came home to an abusive father who would hurt you to the point where you had to be in the hospital. But you’d always say that you fell down the stairs or something along the lines of that, is that all correct?”
“How-How do you know!?”
“Because, I’ve been through the same thing. We’ve lived the same life.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
The batter kneels down and puts his hands on his face and takes a moment to think.
“But.” Kyle said. “There’s a difference between you and me.”
“What’s that?” The batter asked, muffled behind his hands.
“I was able to escape.”
“Huh?”
“I was able to run away and start a new life for myself. Though, this is my assumption, you couldn’t and stayed in your own little personal hell until it all got overwhelming. You started taking your anger out on anything, starting with the ground, then other people’s property, then hitting stray animals on the street, finally ending on taking your first human life, all with your trusty bat.”
The batter starts to hyperventilate, his eyes start watering, and his whole body shakes.
“You wanted to take your anger out on the world, killing person after person, all because you had a terrible childhood. Now, look at me. We’ve grown up the same way, yet I’m better off. How strange is that? It’s almost like you're blaming the world for your trauma, which I understand why you would do that, but it seems like you put your blame on the wrong people. It’s not these innocent people trying to get by, it was your father at the forefront.”
“Shut up.” The batter is shaking back and forth in a curled up ball.
“I’m guessing you killed your father and then felt a sort of emptiness inside. Realizing later down the line that you only get joy out of hurting others, starting the domino effect that lands you here today.”
“Shut up.”
“You may think that your trauma made you the way you are today and just blame it on that then move on. No, that’s not the reason for your behavior. I think you’re just a sadistic psychopath who just kills people to get a rush in life. You are the worst person I have ever met in my life.”
“SHUT UP!” The batter rushes Kyle and grabs him by his shirt and throws him off the building.
“So we’re going to fight now?” Kyle asked sarcastically. The batter hits Kyle in the stomach and sends him flying into an office building with empty cubicles all around him.
“I know I can survive this stuff but the whiplash I get from this is insane.” Kyle quipped. The batter came rushing at Kyle again, sending him out of the building with one hefty swing.
The batter keeps hitting Kyle in the air, back and forth like a pinball machine, hitting him then flying over to hit him back.
“I think I’ve figured out why you’re so mad.” Kyle said in little waves as he got hit around in the air. “I think that you’re jealous of the life I’ve had.”
“SHUT UP AND JUST DIE ALREADY!!!” The batter screams out and hits Kyle with all he’s got. Kyle gets launched into a local power plant where he sets off an explosion almost destroying the whole power plant, leaving Kyle leaned up against a torn apart wall.
“I want you gone and erased from this world!” The batter kept screaming as he landed in front of Kyle.
“You probably are very angry at me because I remind you of the life you could’ve had.” Kyle said, looking up at the batter. The batter slammed Kyle into the ground over and over again making a huge hole in the ground with every slam.
“DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!” The batter screamed over and over after each swing. “I want every part of you gone! Reduced to atoms! Nothing left of you! I want your existence to be fully erased!” The batter started to cry as he kept slamming down on Kyle.
“Just die!” The batter starts to slow down with every single swing being weaker than the last. “I want you gone!” The batter stops swinging and falls to the ground and sobs. “Go away.”
Kyle looks up from being laid flat on the ground after all of those swings. A huge crater formed around them. “Look, even though it seems like it. This life I have is really not great at all.”
“How could you say that?” The batter said with tears still streaming down his face. “That’s the life I’ve always wanted, walking around without a care in the world. How could you take that for granted!” The batter continued to sob.
Kyle got up from the ground and dusted himself off, his hair being all messed up, smoke fills the air around them from the power plant fumes coming from an exposed pipeline. He pats the back of the batter.
“You may feel like there’s nothing left for you in life.” Kyle said. “And you may feel like you can never redeem yourself, or even change as a person. Well, you’re wrong.”
The batter looks up with snot running down his nose, and tear streaks left on his face.
“The fact that you’re feeling this way is a sign that you’re willing to change.” Kyle grabbed the shoulders of the batter and lifted him up onto his feet.
“Where do I even start?” The batter asked, sniffing.
“Hmmm.” Kyle thought to himself. “That’s a good question.”
“It’s not like I’m gonna be forgiven for my acts.”
“Nope, not at all.”
“Then what hope do I even have? Even if I change my ways, I’ll always be seen as a murderer.”
“To be brutally honest batter, you have no one else to blame but yourself.”
“I’m fucked then.”
“At the same time, who cares?”
“What do you mean who cares?”
“You’re never going to meet these people in your life. The only opinion that should matter to you are the people close to you.”
The batter looks at him confused. “Kyle, I’m seen as a monster throughout the whole country. Why should I not care about that!”
“Because no matter what you do you’ll never change that opinion. The people close to you can see the new version of you.” Kyle said.
The batter looks down at the ground and sighs. “I guess you’re right.”
“Now come on.” Kyle tugs on the batter’s shoulder.
“Where are we going?” The batter curiously asked.
“You’ll see.”
249Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKjTRs46Aki
A crowd of people are hunkering down near a building that has remained intact, they are too afraid to go outside to seek refuge in their cars and drive off. Kyle and the batter come down and land in front of the crowd.
They all start screaming and try to run away. Kyle comes down off of the batter's back.
“Wait! Guys!” Kyle tried calming the crowd down while also getting their attention.
“Kyle!” The same teen from earlier cried out. “What are you doing with the batter next to you?”
“He has something to say! So just listen!” Kyle got the crowd to calm down and at least pay attention, but everyone was still shivering in fear.
Kyle nudges the batter, edging him forward to be the main focus of the crowd. “Come on,” Kyle whispered. “Go ahead.”
The batter took a deep breath and began speaking. “I’m sorry.” The crowd looked in shock and confusion, and several voices started talking, though it was basically incomprehensible. “I’m sorry for destroying your city, killing a lot of your friends and families, and the injuries or mental scars I’ve left on you. I am truly sorry. I know that none of you will ever forgive me and that’s ok. Hopefully you all will make a full recovery.”
The crowd doesn’t make a sound for a little while, then they absolutely start rioting. They protest and yell horrendous insults at the batter’s way. All of them in an absolute rage yelling and shouting at him. Kyle pats him on the back and reassures him to just take it with pride.
“Hey man.” Kyle said.
“Yeah?” The batter shyly responded, their voices barely getting drowned out by the constant shouting.
“Duck.”
“What?”
“Now!” Kyle places his hand in front of the batter’s head and a shot rang out from the crowd. The bullet hit Kyle’s hand and bounced off of him, landing on the ground making an audible sound.
“What the fuck!?” The batter gets behind Kyle, using him as a sort of shield.
The shooter from the crowd emerges and points at Kyle. “Kyle Kyldrip just saved the batter’s life, he must be on his side!”
The crowd then turned the insults they were hurling at the batter to Kyle. Kyle just takes the brunt of it all.
“There you go.” Kyle said. “Now, we’re in the same place.” Kyle turned to the batter who was hiding behind him like a scared child.
“Huh?” The batter asked in confusion. “Did you really do this just so we’re basically in the same situation?”
“Yep.”
“You did that, all for me?”
“MmmHmm”
“Wow, I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t need to say anything. Now, let’s go.”
“Yeah, probably for the best,”
The batter grabbed onto Kyle’s shirt and they both lifted off into the sky, with the crowd still yelling at them. They fly past all of the wreckage and the batter looks back and reconciles.
“Hey, drop down there!” Kyle pointed at the van he came here with.
“Why?” The batter asked.
“Just do it.”
“Ok.”
The batter dropped down near the van in the strip club parking lot, lopping Kyle on the ground nicely. Kyle reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the car keys.
“Woah why are we taking your van?” The batter asked. “We have a nice and perfect bat here that travels way faster than that thing.”
“Well.” Kyle said. “We need to be more undercover if we’re now both going to be fugitives on the run now.”
“Alright, you have a point there.”
“I’m actually surprised the car keys stayed in my pocket after our whole fight. Kind of a miracle more than anything else.”
Kyle unlocked the vans doors and hopped inside the van, with the batter getting into the passenger seat of the vehicle. Kyle started up the engine, roaring the car to life and pulling out of the parking lot. He drives up the street and past the wreckage and goes onto the on ramp of the highway.
“So, where are we going?” The batter asked.
“Whatever this crazy road takes us my friend.” Kyle responded.
“Ok then.”
“I am hungry, how about we stop at a diner.”
“Sounds good to me.”
A little bit of a silence lingers in the air between the two.
“My name's Greg by the way.” The batter said. “Gregory Tilton.”
“Nice to meet you Greg.” Kyle said. “I’m Kyle Kyldri-”
“Yeah I know already.”
Another short silence followed.
“Can I ask one more question?” Greg asked.
“Sure.” Kyle said.
“What was even the point of me apologizing back there? I only got the people more angry.”
“Did you feel better when you did it?” Kyle looked curiously at Greg.
“I mean, I guess. It made me feel a little better.”
“Then the purpose is already fulfilled.”
Greg looks out the window teary eyed. “Thanks.” Greg says under his breath, Kyle barely unable to hear it. Kyle understands anyways as they leave the city limits and head off into the distance, with Kyle turning on the radio station, blasting some tunes as they await what could be ahead of them249Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjrGLlGBHA8
