Chapter Text
Three People, One Story
A Mechanics’s Apprentice The Size Of A Bear
The Son Of A Dictator With The Heart Of A True Lion
And A Guerrilla Warrior With The Power Of A Tiger
The heat of Madrugada was fierce, fierce as the people, and in Philly Bárzaga’s airstrip it was no different.
Hidden in the shadows of the graffitied hanger was his apprentice, a man big enough that hiding should be physically impossible, but he blended in well enough with the shadows that it took Philly a moment to notice him.
“Ey, Rafael, what’re you doing with that knife and your face?”
His boss who doubled as an adoptive older brother asked, speed walking over to him so he could snatch the exacto knife away from the giant, somehow.
“It’s these stupid pimples on my stupid fucking face! They’re irritated by the heat from the sunset so I’m going to cut them off!”
Rafael growled, without missing a beat Philly took his wrench out quickly and hit him on the knee with it to stop him from cutting.
“Dios fucking mío! You’re sixteen, it’s natural, and you wouldn’t want to spoil today with a bloody face, would you?”
Philly questioned, was someone coming to the workshop today? Maybe Carlos Montero, the old man.
He was pretty cool, but he always kept Rafael at an arms length for some reason he wasn’t privy to, but if he was allowed he’d replace that damn traitor son.
Or maybe it was his daughter, Camilla, she was always nice to Philly and him, and she always brought him wood he could carve, but the height jokes that flooded out of her had gotten old fast.
“Uhh, who’s coming around today?”
He inquired, but he hoped not, he stunk extra today.
Philly tilted his head in confusion and smiled.
“It’s the eighth year anniversary of me adopting you! Don’t tell me you forgot!”
“You know I don’t do anniversaries and all that.. Can I get back to slicing and pinching my pimples?”
Rafael asked.
Philly shook his head no before beckoning him closer.
“We need scrap metal, tons of it, Carlos is fortifying the houses at the montero stronghold. But the f.n.d have taken over the nearest scrap yards-”
His brother told him… WELL THEN WHERE DID HE EXPECT HIM TO GET THE SCRAP FROM?!
“Yes, because I can make objects materialise from thin air… Where to you suppose I fucking go?!”
“Don’t take that attitude with me chiquito, I’m sending you to Isla Santuario, it’s been completely taken over by the guerrilla’s so you’ll have a peaceful three days looting from abandoned military posts and befriending the wildlife as you often do.”
Philly laughed, Santuario, it was a relatively peaceful place, aside from the rumours of the super killer boar king that was alleged to have eaten a child.
Rafael went behind the hangar, his belongings tucked away just behind it.
Philly had tried to give him a proper bed and room before, many times actually, but in his words Rafael was a little stink rat who enjoyed the mud and dirt.
He first grabbed a truly massive bag, it was layered with the hard end of crocodile hide on the inside and out, making it perfect for taking sharp parts of metal long distances without the sack breaking.
He then grabbed a metal spear, the handle had two hearts cut out, painted then welded back in, turquoise and orange.
The orange one was for Philly, it was his favourite colour, Turquoise was for Camilla, her favourite colour.
Finally he grabbed a medium sized bear carved from wood, small by his standards.
With a childlike grin on his face he ran his fingers across the smoothed toy.
His mother always liked bears, he could distinctly remember her arguing with his sire about naming his little brother Bernardo, but they settled with something a bit more normal.
______________________
Dani Rojas, a Guerilla, a warrior, an orphan and currently a woman about to sweat her skin off under the late afternoon sun.
She was in Valle De Oro, a hellish swampy region with more crocodiles than people, mostly because the crocodiles ate the people and shit their bones on the doorsteps of the sobbing relatives of their dinner.
But it wasn’t completely hellish, she had her albino puma, Champagne.
Champagne was a spoiled little thing, constantly stealing food out of her hands and laying on Dani when she tried to get some rest.
As of now they were taking over a checkpoint, one medic in charge, by a weak alarm, a sniper on the checkpoint building, walking back and forth like a zoo animal, and last but not least, an engineer taking a piss.
“Champagne, take the pisser.”
She told the cat before taking out her bow.
She pulled back the drawstring and aimed it at the sniper’s head, they were still for a moment, and that’s all she needed.
Dani killed the sniper and looked at Champagne, she’d killed the pisser and was now using her tongue to drag money from their pocket, fucking weird ass.
She pulled back her drawstring again and killed the medic, perfect.
She came out of cover and went to the body, snatching the keys and going to the building.
Dani opened the door, nothing out of th- SMASH!
Fuck! Someone was in here! They immediately began choking Dani after smashing the computer into her face, with adrenaline fuelled hands she immediately ripped her machete from her pocket and gut stabbed the attacker all the way through twice.
They dropped down dead instantly, and with a grunt she moved them off her.
Dani reached into her back pocket and took her last Molotov out, lighting it up and throwing it at the billboard of el dictator’s face.
Done, she now had the checkpoint cleared, time to call Clara.
The phone buzzed for a minute and thirty seconds before Clara picked up, fuck, Dani could barely speak to her without stuttering and blushing like a giddy schoolgirl.
“Si, Rojas?”
“I, uhh, i- I got a checkpoint cleared! Okay! Bye!”
Dani yelled into the phone before hanging up, a blushing mess, by the oluwas, she was pathetic!
But then Clara called back, she was calling back! Fuck fuck fuck!
“Good job, mi guerrilla, but I need to know which one.”
“Oh, heh, Cape Santa María.”
She spoke, this time Clara hung up.
Dani looked around before deciding to lounge on the spinning chair by the desk.
Hours passed, it was decently dark by the time five guerrillas arrived to hold down the fort.
One approached Dani, dressed in slightly finer clothes for a guerrilla, meaning a step slightly above shredded rags.
“Clara wants you on libertad island, you get to escort her to the capitolio.”
They said, internally Dani was screaming, but she managed to maintain her composure, with a smooth whistle she called Champagne over and made her way to a car, helping the cat in the back before getting in the driver's seat.
______________________
23:09 in the lion’s den, yet in spite of the late hour two cubs were awake, Diego and Pablo.
Pablo was the youngest son of Raúl Sánchez, he was ten; and 5’9.
Both the Sánchez boys were freakishly tall, it came from their mother’s side, she was said to have been an inhuman 6’10.
Pablo and his older brother were over for the night at Diego’s after a few Guerrilla’s Molotov’d their home, but their father was out hunting the Guerrilla’s, which seemingly comforted them.
Currently he and Pablo were playing Near Whisper 6, but Diego had a better idea of what to play.
“Psst, Pablo.”
“What?”
“I’ve got gta five as a gift from my cousin, want me to get it?”
He asked, immediately the younger but not smaller boy nodded eagerly and wrapped his arms around Diego.
After splitting from the hug he left the room, armoured in nothing but the tacky thin lion pajamas his papa got him, he hated them, but he knew better than to let his father know that.
He snuck into the storage room and slid the disk case out from the crates he’d taken the liberty to hide it by.
Just then he felt it, an ominous presence behind him, quickly he spun around and saw him, Riccardo.
Raúl’s eldest son after the older twin died, Riccardo had his father’s paler skin tone and his night black hair, it was buzzed down to his scalp, puta had been sent to the mandated service for the f.n.d, but tragically they let him spend time with his family.
Diego was confused as to how a 6’6 man could sneak up on him, and irritated that the man was Riccardo, he’d prefer Satan to the sixteen year old, because Satan wouldn’t just parrot José.
“Hola bebito Léon.”
“Hola Riccardo, Vete a la mierda y muérete siendo sodomizado por un caballo.”
He told the older boy who opened his mouth a little in shock.
“You’re a rude little boy, you know that, would you speak to another mane like this.”
He questioned, mane? Oh shit, Riccardo must’ve done his final lion ritual, he’d be in real big trouble for saying that thing about horse butt fucking.
“I’m sorry, please don’t tell mi papa.”
He asked, Riccardo pulled up his sleeve, revealing eighteen deep cuts, Diego knew there was another identical set of cuts on his other shoulder as well.
Then he just smirked, smirked in a way that made Diego want to run and hide like a little lamb, he then watched as the giant of a man pulled out a switch blade.
“Let me give you a lion mark and I’ll not tell anyone that you said you hoped I get butt fucked to death by a horse.”
He was asked, no way!
“Only blood can give a lion mar- blood family and a new mane close to a blood family, by right I’m allowed to give you two marks.”
Riccardo told him, that fucking know-it-all.
Diego was nearly hyperventilating now, he hated lion marks, hated how he couldn’t avoid it, all lions had them, his cousin, his father, Raúl Sánchez and his son, there was no escape.
Diego could feel Riccardo’s hand reach out to brush his shoulder, and at that Diego tried running to the door, but Riccardo grabbed him by the leg, nearly slamming him jaw first into the floor.
Riccardo quickly put the knife in his teeth, one hand acting as an almost muzzle like restraint while the other struck his head over and over till he passed ou-