Sewage

There were many things in life that were still unknown to the Bastard, or Andrew, as he preferred to be called. Things he had yet to learn of, experiences that were meant to be part of any ordinary man's life. Until tonight, the pain of failure had been one of those things.

The sounds of his ragged breathing reverberated throughout the sewers; putrid shadowed tunnels that were never meant to be traversed by the citizens of the city they ran under. The Bastard trudged through the sewers with a hastened pace, though severly impaired by a noticeable limp in his left leg. That was where the hero called 'Deluge', or the man called 'Sean Collin' had tried to grab him with his aquatic whip, and in the process wounded him. The pain was...bearable, but the fact that it slowed him down irritated Andrew to no end. In a sense, it was more of a bother than the wound in his shoulder, which had been caused by a bulletlike aquatic projectile, again courtesy of the hero he had tried to assassinate earlier that night.

Andrew was fleeing. But not from what he thought he was fleeing from. The police would have arrived at the site of his battle with Sean only moments ago, and launched their search for him by now. Normally, Bastard would have easily outrun them, even fought them down. But in his current state, they just might be able to catch him, take away his freedom, his only possession. As much as the prospect of incarceration frightened him, since it would imply being stripped of his freedom for a period of time that far exceeded his own age, this fear did not weigh upon him the most. It was his failure.
Not shame; he had rejected that concept for the most part. It would do him little good.

No, it was what his failure implied, the doubts it spawned that were gnawing upon his psyche. Working as a freelance hitman and criminal enforcer was a lifestyle he had finally gotten used to a bit. It was a dynamic occupation, and required all of his mental and physical faculties to be used. In a way, it kept him from being bored, and in the same time provided a comfortable living. But most of all, it distracted him from the questions. 'Who am I? Where did I come from? Why do I exist? What meaning is there to my life?'

And now these thoughts had returned to him, a fugitive in both mind and body. The questions all lacked an answer, but it was that very lack of answer that drove him. It wouldn't end here. It wouldn't end without him understanding. He would not accept that, no, he could not. He would survive this. If that wasn't a fact, the Bastard would make sure it would become one.

Gwharr knew his little kingdom of tunnels and catacombs like the back of his hand, but there was a rather large amount of underground tunnels he had only briefly visited or scouted out. For various reasons he had decided to not include them. Sometimes it was because there where tracks within them. strange tracks that meant that occasionally the giant metal worms whizzed by, filled up with people on their way from point A to point B to do whatever it they wanted to do in point B. Gwharr didn't care enough to find out what made Point B so interesting that all the people from Point A needed to go there every single day. All he cared about was that the strange 'tracked' Tunnels were rarely suited for habitation.

Another type of tunnels he generally avoided were the sewers. Gwharr did not like the stench of poo-gas, and thus he preffered to stay away from them. However, he could not deny that they occasionally made good shortcuts. Especially since his ape-like arms allowed him to swing above the excrement-laced water that made up the bottom of these tunnels untainted by their foul content. Gwharr was not usually considered the squeamish sort, but he really, REALLY didn't like excrement. He had never done it, even back when survival was paramount and all that jazz. Still, if it was nessecary he would bathe in the poo-waters, but if it could be avoided, he prefferably stayed above it.

Our Brutal, Boisterous Bruiser was traversing one of these tunnels for this very reason. To get from point A to point B without taking the unnessicarily long route that passed Point C wich was a rather quaint point that held nothing that was of any interest to anyone at all. Especially not a hungry caveman that was on the way home to eat alot of fried dog drenched in barbeque-sauce, for wich he had recently aquired a certain taste for. Thus our Superstrong Slow-witted, Simian was in a fairly good mood when he saw the shape that stumbled down the tunnel, looking almost like a drunkard. However, the sweet, somewhat sticky scent of blood hung around the man like omniuos cloud, wich suggested that he wasn't drunk but injured. In fact the man had probably never wanted to be drunk as much as he wanted it right now.

Gwharr slowly approached, sticking to the roof where he could utilizethe lack of light to his fullest advantage. The fact that his feet did not touch the water was another factor that would probably keep him hidden for longer, as he climbed up in the roof, like a massively oversized spider, carefully following the bleeding man, to see what he would do. Even though Gwharr was ancient, perhaps even the oldest living being in the world, he still had an ample amount of youthfull curiosity. He wanted to see what the man was up to. Besides, if it decided to fall down dead before he got to do whatever it wanted to do the Gruesome, Grizly Gourmand would have some fresh meat for dinner rather than the stale old dogs he was planning to eat. Over the years he had noticed that eople went very well with barbeque-sauce too.

The Bastard, oblivious of the fact he was being followed, continued down the sewers, hoping to find a place of respite soon. New York's finest were still some distance behind the Bastard, and had probably split up.
When he found a dry corner in the catacombs, he took the time to shred his shirt and bandage his wounds.

It was then that Andrew thought he heard a noise nearby. Instinctively he turned around and pointed his gun at the place of the sound's origin, which strangely enough came from above.

Gwharr snarled as the man turned around, looking in his general direction, pointing his gun against the area, assuming that the puny little weapon would be a threat to the king of the caves below the city of light. The Chaotic, Crude, Curmudgeon narrowed his eyes, He was well aware of the fact that his darkvision was ranked above that of an average human, but he was not yet aware how much better it actually was. The absence of proper light-sources caused it hard to see much besides silhouettes, and Gwharr wa uncertain wether the man could actually see him, or if he was merely reacted to the sounds. If that was the case, the human had quite a sense of hearing to say the least. The Humumgous, Halfwitted Hunter may have a four didgit bodyweight, but he was also a very acomplished sneak with millenia of experience, literally speaking.

Gwharr quickly harkened back to reality, he had already decided that it was a moot point anyways. It did not matter wether the man could or could not see him anymore. He had manage to deduce his presence somehow, and even if he could not establish visual contact in the gloom, he was still aware of the cavemans general whereabouts. If he was going somewhere in particurlar or had some sort of mission to acomplish in these dark, dank tunnels, he knew that he had found out, so the plan of merely observing the man had gone out the window. Time for a more, practical appraoch. . .

Gwharr quickly started climbing towards the man, using his arms, to swing himself from pipe to pipe in an almost ape-like manner. The caveman may not be very fast on the ground, but he was able to brachiate forward slightly quicker than the average man could even run. He landed in front of the man, his feet standing on a relatively dry area, wich pleased him imensely.

The caveman snarled viciously, beating his chest as he slowly walked towards the man, warning him that he would attack at any sign of agression. "To drop weapon! To be useless against Captain Caveman anyway!" The caveman spoke, his inhumanly deep voice hinting at the anger combined a bit with confusion.