Burnt Orange

(Part 1. Present.)
You ever had those moments at night where, you try to move, but you can’t? It feels as though someone’s placed stone-slab weights on your arms and legs, your entire body, even? Yeah, this is one of those moments.

My senses come back to me, slowly, one ticking in after the other. My head feels like I got tossed around by an Ursa. I see nothing, the darkness enveloping my eyes. My hearing slips its way back into my consciousness, but it’s warbled, scrambled and confusing. The sensation in my mouth comes next, and it’s as pleasant as sand paper on skin; tasting of iron, and dry saliva. My legs... I can’t feel my legs… No. No, my legs are still there; I can move my toes, roll my ankles. Nothing’s broken, but… Chains. They've chained me to the floor. My sight finally comes back to me, the darkness dissipating as I crack open my eye lids, only being replaced by blurred, misty vision. A few blinks later, and my sight’s fully restored. Looking around the room, I can tell I’m not where I was when I first arrived. Myself, I’m… I’m shirtless, that much I can see. I was wrong about the floor, I wasn’t chain down, it’s was up. I’m chain up to something, not sure at first what, but from the chill down the center of my back, it’s quickly apparent that I’m chained to a metal pole. I give my shoulders a roll in an attempt to move my arms. There’s nothing there. Any sense of security I had drops a few notches as I look around, glancing down both sides of my body. The bastards took my arms.

I snap my head up, and look about the room. From the way the place is built and set up, it looks like they brought me into a warehouse. Pulling my field of vision across the warehouse’s interior, I spot my robotic-prosthetics a few feet away, off to my right. They don’t look damaged, and that’s reassuring, but I’d feel a hell of a lot better if they were attached to me, and not on the floor. Pulling my eyes away from my only tools of combat, I try to make sense of why I’m here. That question’s quickly answered when I happen to glance at the floor. The spot where I stand, chained in place, is covered in black soot. Charred, decaying strips of… something litter the concrete floor, and ever so faintly, the smell of rot and chemical fuel trickle into my nose.

I remember.... I know why I’m here.... Huh, I should’ve known better. They wouldn’t just let me leave.

(Part 3. Present.)
A door on the far left side of the warehouse opens up. A line of men enter the spacious building, single file, stepping up to where I’m chained. From my point of view, it looks like they’ve all assemble to watch something, waiting to enjoy the messed up, twisted as all hell expulsion ceremony that’s about to take place. Entering the warehouse last is Taggard, his second-in-command tailing him like a little dog after its abusive master. He makes his way through the line of men, Taggard’s second taking his place in the line. Stepping up to me, the elder man gives me a once over, his aged face showing little to no emotion. He looks over at my mechanized arms, and from what I can see, he gives a bit of a sneer, before looking me in the eyes.

“The hell are you waiting for? Get on with it…. All of them came to see, get it over with, you old piece of trash!” In the heat of the moment, I ball up some liquid in my mouth, and spit in Taggard eye.

Taggard flinches, his eye shutting closed when the spit hits his upper eyelid. Casually and slowly, he wipes the glob off of his face, and of all things, he begins laughing. Slow at first, then gradually ascending into an amused tone. Before I can say anything, Taggard throws a hard right, busting my jaw and dislocating the joint. My eye sight goes fuzzy, a thin line of blood oozing out of my mouth.

“You wanted out, kid? You’re out. But not before giving back what we’ve given you.”

Taggard slaps my limp face a few times, like one would a well-known associate. He walks over to the line of men, and takes something from them. When he comes back, he shows it to me. It’s my vest, jet-black leather, with the MC’s logo on the back. But that’s all there is. He’s stripped me of my ranking, my allegiance, and the area of the city that I belong to.

“You can keep the Vest. You have no rank, and you belong to no chapter. You’re no longer allied with us.” Taggard tosses my Vest over to my un-attached robotic arms, the leather piece of clothing landing with a soft whump. Walking over to a few of the members lined up, Taggard whispers a few words to them. They give curt nods, and both head off to some other part of the warehouse.

“Now, with the vest de-patched, you’re no longer associated with us.” Taggard walks up to me, then around me, stopping behind the pole I’m chained to. I hear a rustling of metal on metal, and I feel my chains loosen. They fall around me, hitting the floor with a ragged jingle. On impulse, I try to take a step away, but I forget about the chains around my ankles. There’s a tug, and I immediately fall to my face, unable to slow the decent since my arms are ten feet away. The impact makes me grunt, and there’s a small flash of pain in my chest.

“For attempting to leave the Tribe during a time of conflict, I label you a coward, and a traitor.” Taggard makes a move, kicking me hard in the side. I can feel my ribs crack, maybe even a few break. Taggard always liked to wear steel toed boots.

“You’re all idiots! Fools, the crap-lot of you! Torchwick can’t be stopped! He’ll kill all of you, take this turf for himself. He’ll be running this city in a year’s time!” The words leave my mouth, anger fueling them forward. I was trying to knock some sense into them, trying to get them to understand; things where changing, everything was changing, and you can’t fight change. Another hard kick from Taggard knocks the wind from me, silencing me for the moment.

From my position on the floor, my eye sight is severely hampered. The most I can do is glance from left to right, and even then, the most I can see are the boots and lower pant leggings of the other men around me. This was the part they were waiting for, the sick bunch of them. From my left, I can hear the sound of heavy boots fast approaching, they stop about a foot from me, and I can hear the sound of commotion as they make an exchange. The two men sent on the retrieval job came back, and from what I could tell, they’d gotten what was needed.

“Last, but not least, your oath.” Taggard says, motioning for a few men to come closer. Four of them approach, and take positions, holding me down. “When you joined, you took a verbal oath, and a physical one. I released you from the verbal oath when I punched you in the face, sorry if you lost any teeth.” I can hear Taggard take a few steps closer, followed by the unmistakable sound of a cork popping. Suddenly, the cold splatter of liquid hits my back. The smell, oh, the smell. Booze, liquor, hard alcohol. Whatever it was, Taggard was dousing me in it.

“As for your, physical oath. You are also released.” Taggard drinks the rest of the bottle, I can hear it. He throws the bottle off into some unseen corner, and I can hear it shatter on impact with the floor. There’s a squeaking noise, and the sound of rushing air reaches my ears. What hits my nose, however, is something else entirely. Chemical gas, and a lot of it. A scraping noise echoes out into the silent warehouse, and after a few seconds, the sound of rushing gas is replaced by the blaze, heat and rasp of fire.

“With this torch, I brand you….. A pariah. No MC will accept you, no organization will work with you, or allow you to work with them. The scar you’ll carry, from here on out, will be your reminder of what you’ve done. You chose your path, now you must walk it.”

Without a second thought, Taggard crouches down, and touches the torch to my skin. In an instant the alcohol on my skin is set ablaze, and the heat from the torch begins searing, burning, melting…. Cooking me alive. The physical oath Taggard spoke of was my tattoo. When I joined, I got a tattoo of the MC’s logo on my back. As the law of our brotherhood goes, you must return all you take, even your tattoo. As Taggard worked on burning the inked skin off my back, I couldn’t help but think of all the reasons why I was here right now. I joined because I believed we were protecting the people of this city, like the police, but without all the inhibitions. But as the years went by, and the leadership changed; everything we did, every action we took, we ended up hurting the people of Vale more than helping them. We changed for the worse, and I wanted out. I got my wish.

The heat from the torch, and my skin, already starting to bubble from the flames, began to take its toll on me. My mental state fractured, the pain, physically and mentally, was like someone taking a leaf-rake, covered in razor blades and doused in acid, and running it across my back over, and over again, eating away at my flesh. Taggard would leave the torch on one spot for too long, once in a while, and increase the pain delivered. After what seemed like hours of him doing this, I snapped. I began to writhe in pain, and struggle, the men holding me keeping me down. I had clenched my teeth to the point that something had chipped, I can taste the blood in my mouth. Enough was enough, I can’t take it. I opened up my mouth, slowly, letting out a howl of pure agony, and anger. The wider my mouth got, the louder the pained yelling was, to the point my throat ran dry, and a copper taste invaded my mouth. I couldn’t see any of the men watching, I could only assume they were either stone-faced, or enjoying the show. It would all be over soon…. I prayed that it would.

If having a future meant walking through fire, then so be it.

I began to lose consciousness after a while, my vision fading in and out a couple times. Slowly, my senses began to leave me, one at a time, once again. The last thing I hear is the sound of the torch being shut off, the last thing I smell is the flesh of my back, burnt to all hell. I nearly throw up at the scent.

"Take him to Vale General Hospital.... They'll know what to do with him there." Taggard says, his voice fading along with the rest of the world around me. Just like that, everything goes black again. I'd find myself in the hospital a few days later, stuck in intensive care, my entire body wrapped up, and my mechanical arms re-attached to my shoulders. There was no way in hell the memories of that night would ever fade, and I have the scar to prove it.