Chapter 24: Rivalry

Alan Stockholm was howling with laughter seeing his enemies retreating. The Mad Dogs, being led by Hugo, had lost their first attempt to take back the blocks the Skull gang had claimed. Originally it was just one block that the Skull occupied, but seeing that the Mad Dog's forces were thin, he advanced deeper into their territory. By now Alan had captured five blocks so far.

Alan's forces, a total of seventy people, were now becoming too stretched out to patrol their newly captured territory. None of his men had been killed, but seven were badly injured in the initial skirmish and couldn't fight. They could, however, still serve as lookouts as they recovered on the top floors or roofs of tall buildings. He also still needed to convince other Hands from the Skull to join in. He could probably convince a few of them, but the rest were likely going to follow the Head and aim for peaceful intentions. Some might even try to force him to retreat from the boarders and give up the invasion. The thought of a potential attack from his own side actually excited him rather than deter him. Also, if they did, he would have the chance to prove himself in a two-sided battle, which was totally exhilarating!

This is what had happened during the fight that day.

Hugo had come with one hundred and thirty gangsters to counter the small Skull invasion. Though even with so many people, he couldn't break the Skull forces. They were just too crazy! Though both sides nearly used the same kinds of handheld weapons, it was the way in which the Skull gangsters attacked that was very unorthodox.

Previously Hugo's forces had at first marched along the streets openly. They did not see the Skull gangsters as a threat at the time. Then as they approached the area that had been taken over, a few Skull members suddenly started to taunt them with rocks from further ahead in the road. Hugo sent his troops to give chase, only to find that Skull reinforcements quickly begun attacking them from the houses on their flanks. Then even more Skull gangsters crawled up out of the manholes in the street and attack them from behind. All his men could do was scatter to form a defense, defend themselves or retreat.

Hugo, being a renowned Match Fighter, was able to singlehandedly fend off several Skull attackers easily. Together with two other Match Fighters, Hugo broke through the rear attacking Skull forces and opened an escape route for his men. This stopped themselves from losing to many men in the first fight.

Doing a quick count after retreating to somewhere safe, Hugo found that three of his men had been killed and ten were missing. This made Hugo absolutely furious!

"I should have known it was a trap!" Hugo yelled and he punched out a car window in frustration.

"It's all right boss." One of his guys said calmly from nearby. "We'll get them next time. I didn't count that many of them."

They had retreated two blocks away from where the fight took place. Here they started to regroup and while they did, Hugo tried to think of a plan after calming his anger some. From the fight, Hugo had counted the Skull's forces and estimated that the Mad Dogs did indeed out number them. After giving this problem some thought he called over a skinny man nearby.

"You can run fast right?" Hugo asked with a serious expression.

"Yes sir, I can." The skinny man replied.

"Good. Go back to base and get Darius to come here with his men. Make sure you tell him to hurry, because the Bone Flayer is here." Hugo said with a faint smile.

"Get Darius, hurry and Bone Flayer. Got it boss." The skinny man said with a nod. Then he turned towards their base a took off at a quick jog.

Being a messenger was nothing new to most of the lower ranking gangsters. They didn't have the means to have cell phones for communication due to the lack of electricity. Meaning they could only use word of mouth or written letters as their only options. Only the higher ups had any connections to the outside world. It wasn't ideal, but they made do with what they had.

Hugo then called to the other two Match Fighters that were with him. "Harry, you take thirty-five guys with you. Go right one block and get ready for my signal. George, you take thirty-five as well and go left one block. Don't attack until I give you the signal."

Both men nodded as Hugo continued.

"Here's the plan. We probably can't beat them in a head-on fight. So, we need to use our numbers to our advantage. When I give you the signal, Harry you are to attack, but don't try to win. Just charge into them and try to cause some damage to their forces. After a while you are to retreat. Then I will give the signal to the other group and George will do the same thing. Then I will attack with this same pattern soon after. We will repeat these attacks and it will hopefully cause those mindless Skulls to wear themselves out trying to stop us."

The two men smiled knowing that this plan was a good one. Hugo had given them similar attack pattern orders before and hadn’t steered them wrong yet. Then George asked, "What if they try attacking us even after we retreat?"

Hugo nodded understandably as this was a fair question. "Simple: keep running and I'll send my men to attack them from behind, like they did to us just now. Then we can crush them! However, I did call for more reinforcements, but hopefully it won't come to us having to rely on them for help."

The two guys agreed with the plan and didn't seem to have anything else to say or add. So, Hugo sent them on their way to get in position. Fortunately for Hugo the town roads in this area were designed in square blocks. Which ended up making his plan very easy to implement. Soon the Mad Dogs gangsters had spread out into their trident like line of attack. Seeing that everyone was ready, Hugo waved to Harry and Harry's forces charged forward.

…

Alan was watching the Mad Dogs as they ran away in disarray. He had perched himself on top of a three-story apartment building to get a better look at the battle ground. He had expected as much from these pathetic weaklings, as soon as they faced a difficult situation, they would always run. He couldn't understand how they had managed to become the strongest gang here in town.

As he was thinking to himself, another Skull member with him tapped his arm. "Bone Flayer, their forces are splitting up and forming ranks."

Alan looked at the Mad Dogs and saw they were indeed splitting into three groups. "What were they up to?" He wondered to himself.

The two on the roof watched them carefully. Suddenly, the group on the Skull's left, Hugo's right flank, started to charge. Alan was about to jump down and send his men to counter, but he noticed the other two groups didn't move. In fact, they didn't even look like they were going to attack. Some of them even were sitting on the ground relaxing.

"This is odd." Alan said as he turned to the guy with him, his rank was a Finger. "Tell half of our men to go attack those coming at us. The rest are to get ready to fight the others if they attack and try to flank us."

The Finger nodded and dashed over to the ladder they had used to climb onto the roof. He slid down it quickly to relay the message. In a matter of moments, the half pf the Skull's forces had set off to counterattack.

Alan watched as the two groups collided and fought. The little forces didn't fight long or very hard at all and soon the Mad Dogs retreated. Alan frowned seeing this. Then he saw the Finger he sent earlier, was now waving up at him. Apparently, he was asking whether or not to chase them. Alan felt that it was too risky to chase them, because he wasn't too sure of their intentions just yet. He then motioned for the Skull forces to hold position and the Finger gave a thumbs up in reply.

Just as he did this, the Mad Dog gangsters on Alans right started to charge similarly to the way the others had done. Seeing this, he leaned over the edge of the roof and called out for those waiting below to go counter. They quickly did as he said, each gangster was already anticipating being in a fight and could hardly control their enthusiasm.

Alan looked wearily at the group still waiting around in the center road. They still hadn't moved one bit. Looking at the group that had attacked first he saw that they stopped running two blocks away and were catching their breath. By then the second fight was already taking place. Yet again only after a brief fight, the Mad Dogs ran away.

Then the middle group of the Mad Dogs started to form up. It was their turn to attack. Alan's first group had just come back from fighting off the left side attacking Mad Dog's and the others on the right hadn't got back yet. This time Alan decided that he himself would join in. He was ready to pound some guys to vent out some of his pent-up excitement. However, the chance never ended up coming. The middle Mad Dog group attacked, and Alan's forces countered the same as before, but by the time Alan joined in, the enemy had already retreated again!

"What are they doing?" Alan yelled in frustration. This kind of attack was pointless. Where was the fun? The thrill of battle and putting your life at risk?

…

Hugo's plan was going well. They repeated this kind of attack style several more times. He could see that each time they attacked that the Skull forces were getting tired from running the three different streets to defend these attacks. So far it seemed that he would win the battle of attrition in the end.

Hugo chuckled to himself, "Good, good. Let's keep this up and by the time Darius gets here with the reinforcements, we can crush them quickly."

He waved to George again signaling that it was his turn and they advanced yet again on the tiring Skull forces. These shorter fights had been good for them. Unlike the first fight, they hadn't lost any men yet to serious injurie. Only a few had minor to moderate wounds, but Hugo had guessed that it wasn't the same for the Skull gang.

The battle of brains or brawn wouldn't last long, and he was winning. Hugo smirked and rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "The boss will be surely pleased by this inevitable victory!"