chapter one
Prologue
The dark figure sat on the edge of a eighty five story drop to the busy streets below. The rain pounded his athletic frame as he sat looking out over the city skyline. He wore a solid black outfit made of a durable Kevlar in the center was a large red X, a black pair of boots, a long flowing black cape and a solid black mask. He wore over his hands a pair of black gauntlets with sharp claws, much like a monster out of medieval stories. The man under the mask was maybe eighteen, with deep brown eyes and a handsome face. To him this was his life; it was what he was destined to do.
His name was Johnny Street, the billionaire orphan whose parents had been murdered by the Italian mob boss, Giovanni Torte. His father, had tried to provide evidence of Giovanni's drug smuggling campaign which brought in over two million dollars worth of cocaine to Liberty City. Giovanni had gone down but not before he had paid off a hit man to wipe out Johnny's' family. His father and mother were shot dead walking out of their place of business. Next Giovanni had tried to kill Johnny while at school in the eighth grade. He only succeeded in injuring Johnny, putting him in the hospital for a number of months. From that day on Johnny set out to become the masked man who stood over the precipice of Liberty City. The masked vigilante known as red X.
X watched as the red Subaru pulled up to the first national bank of Liberty City. The four masked men walked inside and a few moments later a series of machine gun fire echoed through the streets. Leaping off the building and dropping down about twelve stories, X pulled a repell gun, which he fired into a nearby building slowing his descent. He landed on top of the bank without so much as making a sound. Moving to the skylight window he looked into the building. Four armed men, wearing black ski masks stood in the center of the building. One was shouting which X assumed was the leader of the group. Two of the four went to the vault and started emptying money into a bag.
"Drop through the skyline, knock out the lights to darken the room. Take the leader first and then move to the nearest thug. Drop him and then take down the two in the vault." X thought to himself. It sounded easy enough but it always did.
Dropping through the skyline sending a wall of broken glass down onto the man below, X landed in an easy crouch. He then moved forward to the leader and slammed his fist into the mans jaw. The thug staggered back and looked to see what had hit him only to find him self staring into darkness. The lights had blown out shortly after the crash of the window.
"Shit!" the leading thug said, "It's the masked freak! Its gotta be!"
He was silenced as a boot smashed into his left temple sending him into the wall. The leader sprawled to the ground, out cold. X quickly moved to the next man, flipping the gun up and stomping out the mans knee cap. X was rewarded with the sound of a crunch as the knee gave. The man screamed out but was silenced buy a knee to the face. The last two stood in the vault not knowing what had happened to their two counter parts. Behind them appeared X, his movements as silent as death as he moved up behind them.
"Not a good day to be a bad guy." He rasped startling the two men. "Lay down your weapons and I won't hurt you. If you don't you'll end up like your two friends in the lobby."
One did the smart thing and laid down his gun, but the other chose the hard way, swinging around to point his weapon. He never made it that far as the masked mans fist connected with his temple dropping him. The other robber apparently believeing that Xs concentration lay elsewhere swung on him. Grabbing the mans are, X brought his knee up into the elbow joint snapping the joint in two. The man screamed as he clutched his wounded arm.
"An extended limb is a broken limb. Remember that next time." X rasped as he heard the sound of sirens closing on his position. "Time to go."