Season 1, Episode 6 - The Tree Plot XIII - "Babs vs Tomasz"

TUESDAY.

Sitting in the passenger seat of the Revere Gang’s (original) white van, Babs checked her watch.

They say the waiting is the hardest part.

She strummed her fingers along the side of her door, moving them in time to an imaginary beat. Through the windshield, she saw the Revere Gang’s other white van parked just up ahead, looking nonchalant and inconspicuous in its spot along the curb, overlooking the artificial river that ran through northern Elizabeth Pond.

They had been parked for some time now, lying in wait for their prey. Babs strained her neck until she felt a satisfying crack; her eyes drifted past an uncomfortable Marty in the driver seat (he didn't like neck cracks), through his window, towards the slope of Blueberry Hill beyond him. Babs had been up Blueberry Hill before - when you looked southward, you saw Elizabeth Pond in all its glory. But when you shifted your gaze a little to the left, you would see the northeast corner of the Pond. Cracked streets connected rundown buildings that had seemingly been tossed in there by a giant wanting to forget about them, to keep them out of sight.

Her gaze shifted back to the other van. That’s right, the Revere Gang could afford two vans now. They could afford a lot of things once Babs got the hookup for the New York smuggling routes. Shoutout to Isaac, Audrey, and Reed for taking Panama and Jackson and the smuggling ring down - that left some prime real estate open for somebody to move in. And Babs - well, if she had to describe herself in a simple phrase, she would say that she was one smart cookie.

And not just the Pond. No, ever since they started working with the Dorrites, the Revere Gang could sell New York goods all over Narragansett now. Well, they had some…problem areas…that still needed to be settled, but the time would come. For now, Babs wanted to consolidate her rule over the seedy areas of Elizabeth Pond. And this corner right here was the final one.

Babs noticed Marty continuing to glance over at her watch. It was a great watch - imported from Shanghai. Just another thing Babs could now afford. Maybe if Marty had been the brains of the entire operation he could afford a watch, too.

Babs then heard the faint clicking of a typewriter. She tilted her head backwards, looking through the small rectangular window that separated the van's front cabin from the cargo area.

“Marie,” Babs said in amusement. “I thought I told you to leave the work at home.”

Sitting in the cargo area next to Mallory, Marie wore a bookie’s green visor and her hands typed fast. “These accounts won’t balance themselves, Sir.”

Babs grinned. “We’re almost making too much money.”

When she turned her head back around, her grin grew wider. The vans were parked at the top of a slope; the street ran straight ahead for a little bit before veering right to form a bridge over the river. A paved walkway ran alongside the river at the bottom of the slope, heading below the bridge; when Babs angled her neck just right, she could see over the bridge.

And on the other side of the bridge, the last members of the Dawes Gang strolled along that paved walkway next to the river, heading home from boxing practice at their expected time, just as the Revere Gang’s reconnaissance operations informed her. Before they disappeared from her sight below the bridge, she counted five members of the enemy gang, all dressed in their typical woolen jackets and gray scally caps, resembling the attire of mill workers.

Babs cracked her knuckles. “Alright, let’s go!”

She slipped out of the passenger side door and leapt onto the grassy slope, not even waiting for her compatriots. She slid down the knoll, feeling the sharp rush of wind and excitement on her face, arriving with a shark’s grin on her face as she arrived on the pavement in front of the five Dawes Gang members right as they emerged out of the tunnel.

Bursting out from the back of the van, Marie and Mallory slid down next to her, Marie leaving the typewriter behind and tossing away her bookie’s cap and looking stoic behind her glasses while Mallory smirked with ambition, raising her palm and punching it. On the other side of the tunnel, coming out of the other van, Samuel and Martinez blocked the rear of the Dawes gangsters. Their targets were now tapped by an artificial river on one side, a slope on the other side, and the Revere Gang on either end of them.

Babs smirked, because she knew what really kept these last five members of the Dawes Gang standing there was their honor. Leading them was Tomasz, by far the biggest in the party of five, with fierce eyes and chiseled jaw. He stood more than a head taller than Babs with a wide frame. When he raised a hand to stop his group, Babs saw that his hands and upper arms were covered in tape, courtesy of his earlier boxing session.

“Nowhere left to run,” Babs told them. “Not for you five. Not right now, and not in this district. It’s all over.”

Tomasz stared her down. “Our families arrived in Elizabeth Pond decades ago, back when there still was a Pond.”

Mallory smirked. “We didn’t come here for a history lesson-”

Babs raised a hand to cut her off. “Let the man have his final words.”

Mallory grumbled but kept quiet. Tomasz continued. “The Dawes Gang was merely just a neighborhood watch group back then. We had to stick together to survive in that changing world. The stories I’ve heard of that time are beautiful. Everybody in the Pond knew each other. Everybody worked together in the same mills. It was tough, but there was a community.”

Tomasz grimaced. “Then the First American War occurred. Much of Elizabeth Pond was burned down, sure, but what really broke our community was the men who died in combat. Very few came back, and those who did, didn’t really come back at all.”

His fellow gang members nodded, having arranged themselves so some faced the threat from the front while others faced the threat from behind them. “This is the world we were born into. The current rendition of the Dawes Gang was formed by the children left behind by the adults who got swallowed up by the war. But then…my first memories are of breadlines and reconstructed mills. The Academy-”

He basically spat that word out. “Arrived in the Pond, buying out our mills and our land. We welcomed it at first, thinking it would be our savior - but the rug had been swept out from beneath us. Our homes were demolished, our mills outsourced. The old community has been gradually forced out of the Pond.”

He clenched his fist. “But, even as the walls closed in on us, we still had each other! But now…”

“Now, many of your men work for me,” Babs concluded. “And even more have been swallowed up by the Pond Free Corps via the Vocational School. Your homes have been destroyed for modern apartments and the Dunn Electric Factory. Your mill jobs are now outsourced to the other parts of the country. You have nothing here except for the five of each other. The last five of the Dawes Gang, of the old world.”

Tomasz kept quiet. Babs extended a hand. “It doesn’t have to be that way. What if I told you I could bring that old world back? Join me.”

Tomasz scoffed. “Join a Rddhi user after a Rddhi academy destroyed my home?”

Babs tilted her head. “You think we’re all alike?”

“Then let me rephrase. Join you in particular after you helped break apart my gang?”

“The tides of history did that,” Babs corrected. “Your time was over. I’m on the up-and-up, and the smart fellas among your group saw the writing on the wall and joined the rising force. Others went and joined the Academy and its system. But you five…you stuck to the old ways.”

She took a step forward. “I’ll offer it again. Join me. There’s plenty of work to be done.”

“Like what?” Tomasz questioned. “Compete with all the rural migrants for a rare factory job?”

“That’s not the only work around here,” Babs clarified. She pointed toward the pavement. “There’s plenty of work below ground in this city.”

Tomasz slowly looked toward the ground, his face gradually contorting in thought.

“I can guarantee that you’ll be compensated,” Babs called out. “Food and money. But better than all that - a chance to reclaim the old world.”

The other Dawes members saw the conflict on their leader’s face.

“Don’t do it, boss!”

“Don’t let her get to you! She’s been fighting our gang all year!”

Tomasz made up his mind. He looked towards the gray sky right as a drizzle started. Wet raindrops touched his face. “I’d rather be a poor man under the open sky than a rich man stuck underground.”

Babs clapped. “How poetic. Guess all that boxing hasn’t done your brain in yet.” She stretched an arm behind her head. “I suppose that’s where we come in.”

She looked over at the other Dawes members. “Last chance for anyone to join me.”

The Dawes Gang tightened their circle and raised their fists in a fighting stance.

Bab did the same. “Excellent. We’ll make this fair for you guys. We won’t use any Rddhi, you got that?” The forceful tone in that last part was directed more towards her own fighters once she saw frowns on some of their faces.

Nevertheless, the other members of her gang got ready to fight, ambitious grins and eager eyes facing a ragged, determined look on the faces of the Dawes gangsters - a look that indicated the time had come for their last stand.

The rain picked up intensity. A fierce wind sent ripples through the water and dead leaves swirling around the fighters.

“Marty!” Babs called out. Up above them, her driver did as instructed, pressing play on Marie’s boombox inside the van. Her choice for this week's 1990s music? Drum rolls and hi-hat rolls mixed with the occasional trumpet and saxophone that managed to survive the two hundred years since the apocalypse in cassette form.

Right as a saxophone played a sharp note, Babs felt the rain on her face as she charged, her gang members following behind her. She raised a fist to punch Tomasz, but another Dawes gangster stepped forward, his own fist raised. Babs was faster - her fist smeared his nose across his face and he crumpled to the ground.

As the two youth gangs battled around, the fighting swirled around the two leaders. After sizing each him up, Babs sent a quick strike at Tomasz, but he moved faster, easily sidestepping it. Babs ducked under his own punch, then jumped in the air to deliver a spinning back kick. She made it through his arms, hitting him square in the chest.

It should’ve been enough to knock the wind out of him, but Babs felt her foot bounce off of him like she just hit a solid wall. Suspecting something was out of the ordinary, she backflipped backwards in time to the beat, trying to strike with him with an uppercut in the form of a front kick along the way. It missed contacting Tomasz’s body, but it drag his jacket a little, enabling Babs to see the tape crisscrossing his stomach.

Babs landed nimbly on her feet and wiped the rain off her face. “I see. That’s not boxing tape - that’s Fleece Tape. Simultaneously loosens and strengthens muscles, right?

Tomasz nodded. “I had a certain bandana-wearing ally of mine steal it off of a Free Corps truck he was working on. Guess I’m not so alone after all.”

Babs just shrugged. “Having fun dealing with the consequences of that. Not only will you have your face bashed in by me, you’ll have your insides ripped up from the strain of overusing that, too.”

Tomasz charged on her. “I’ll do anything to protect my home!”

Babs sidestepped his massive fist, then dropped to the ground and spun, hoping to sweep his legs out from beneath him. Instead, her leg just bounced off her ankle - it must’ve been covered in Fleece Tape as well. Tomasz tried to stomp down on her, but then Babs rolled out of the way, twisting and contorting to the drum roll. Her goal was to strike an area of his body not protected by the Fleece Tape - his face. Considering how tall he stood, she needed to find a good opening.

But Tomasz, of course, was no slouch when it came to fighting. He blocked a kick by her faster than expected; she couldn’t move out of the way in time from a punch by him. The punch, reinforced by the Fleece Tape wrapping his hands, struck her in the temple. Just one punch was enough to make her teeth rattle; black spots danced in her vision.

Babs gritted her teeth and spun underneath his follow-up punch. Her hand trailed along the ground; it came up with a handful of dirt and sand blown off the riverbank onto the sidewalk by the wind. She launched it straight into his eyes; Tomasz groaned and stumbled backwards. But when Babs leapt up to strike him in the face, Loukas unleashed a deadly backfist. Even firing blind, it was enough to force Babs to contort her body out of the way - right into the path of his other fist.

Tomasz timed his strikes perfectly. Babs felt the air in her lungs leave her as the strike flung her away, into the crowd of fighting. She smacked right into Samuel, and the two collapsed to the ground. Samuel looked at her in shock; when a Dawes gangster tried to take advantage by kicking them while they were down, Babs caught his foot and rolled with it, twisting it and spraining it until the gangster landed face first into the pavement.

Babs stood and grabbed a shocked Samuel by the collar to toss him back up in a standing position. She then spun around just in time to see a flicker of Rddhi. She frowned, her eyes ablaze, when she saw Mallory reduce the coefficient friction of the sidewalk below her shoes to zero and glide around. She held a Dawes gangster by the back of the neck, pressing his face into the pavement as she slid around.

When she slid by Babs, Mallory gave her a grin; Babs gave her a haymaker across the face. The Rddhi disappeared, the Dawes gangster remained unconscious on the ground, and Mallory collapsed to her hands and knees in surprise.

“I told you!” Babs exclaimed, kicking her in the stomach. “No Rddhi!” She gave Mallory one last kick, forceful enough to launch her into the river. She then sidestepped out of the way when Tomasz swung hard, trying to finish things with that blow.

Babs kept herself light on her feet, wiping the mix of blood and rain off her face, having the absolute time of her life. She used the unconscious Dawes gangster as a stool, propelling herself off of him. In a single motion, she spun in the air, deflecting the punch of Tomasz, sliding off her letterman jacket, and tossing it over his face. As he struggled with it, Babs landed on the pavement then immediately launched herself back upward.

Rather than take the time to remove the jacket off his face, Loukas predicted a punch to the face. He brought his arms across his face just in time, but no punch came. Instead, Babs grabbed both of his arms and pulled herself even further upward, just enough to headbutt him through her own letterman jacket.

The fierce blow sent Tomasz stumbling backwards. He tried to shake Babs off or at least grab her and fling her away, but Babs planted a foot in his stomach and propelled herself over him. As she sailed over his head, her arm trailed behind, her fingers hooking him by the brow.

When she landed, his head landed alongside her, smashing into the pavement with a loud bang. When Babs caught her breath and pulled her letterman jacket off of him, she saw that he was down for the count.

She threw the jacket back on and flexed the collars for good measure. She then gazed around the rest of the pavement; the fighting had died down. Samuel taunted the five unconscious Dawes gangsters while Martinez and Marie helped Mallory out of the river.

“It’s a great day for a swim,” Babs told Mallory with a grin. Mallory didn’t look exactly enthusiastic about it, but that was her loss.

“You know why?” Babs asked. She stepped over the unconscious Tomasz and spread her arms wide. “Because every corner of the Pond is ours now.”