Max stood still. He listened intently to his surroundings, knowing that something would soon be coming. The slow breeze pushed some small clumps of dirt along the ground near his boot. There were some loose leaves crinkling.
Max made sure his breath was low as he calmed himself to the point that his heart was beating lighter than average. He couldn't keep this up for long, but he didn't need to.
"Found you." A monotone, gravelly voice shook Max's bones. A swift, efficient blur of red came down above his head. Max just barely blocked it in time.
"How can I help you, friend?" Max said, his genuine politeness made the Devil of Hell's kitchen falter. He couldn't be serious!
"What?" The red figure questioned as he broke away from the oddity in front of him. A distance was kept between them. the red vigilante had a snarl on his face as he struck a pragmatic defence stand, while the Texan stood, barely defending any of his body, smiling.
"Are you enjoying your stay in my fair city?" Max asked. He still stood, and he still smiled. The New Yorker knew that Texans had a reputation for being amicable, but this was just insane.
"I just tried to use an escrima stick to bludgeon you into a coma, and you are being pollite. I can tell you aren't scared, what are you hiding?" The man still stood, he still smiled.
"I'm sorry, but I can't tell you that. but rest assured, I am not going to harm anyone who doesn't deserve it, and you are free to tag along if you would like." Max watched the curious man before him. He turned his head slowly, as if saying no to the offer, but his face, or what was showing, didn't show anything.
"Okay, what are you doing?" He asked, posing as if he expected max to run.
"I can't say that yet. Somebody might be listening." He said, looking nowhere in particular.
Just after this was said, a crack sounded and the man in red fell vilontly. A forcefull hit met the back of his head. And then another. And then there was nothing.
Matt Murdock awoke as always to the low beep of his alarm clock. He got up, washed himself, and got dressed. He wore a suit of the same style as always, and hoped his shirt and tie matched well. He had a protein shake for breakfast, put on his glasses and grabbed his cane. it was a perfectly ordinary day.
As Mr Murdock walked into his familiar office, and sat on his regular chair, he noticed something odd. There was a pile of unfamiliar paper on his desk. He reached out to touch it and noticed that it was covered in a variety of bumps. Who had put a braille newspaper on his desk?
"Read it." Foggy said. "Or touch it, or whatever the right word is. Run you fingers over the bumps on that paper!" Foggy Nelson never was great with words. It didn't help that people usually just laughed without correcting him.
The paper was smooth, with the obvious exception of the specifically placed lumps making up the words. It was a story about a wave of crimes being stopped in Texas. Apparently, a man had been donning a costume similar to that the Devil of Hell's Kitchen had first worn. Speculation had come up with three theories. One was that this was the original, and the one in New York was a different entity. Matt knew that this was not accurate. The second was that this was a group effort, and the change between the first and second costumes marked a promotion within the gang. Matt knew with certainty that this was also false. That left the third and final commonly believed theory, that this second character was just a copycat vigilante who was using the first's look for publicity. This was definitely the moat convincing theory for Matt.
"So,what do you make of this situation?" Foggy asked.
"I think that this is a matter for the Texas cops, and that you could have saved us both some time by just telling me." Matt replied, smirking slightly.
"But where's the dramatic value in that?"
"Miss Paige!" Matt called out to the lobby.
"Yes Matt?" She asked, walking in. The office had had no incoming calls or appointments for today. She was there to sort though paperwork and wait for any more calls. Matt and Foggy were only really there as a formality. As such, she was confused at Matt calling her this urgently, as It was only Foggy who refused to make his own coffee.
"What do you make of the guy in Texas?" He asked sweetly.
"There are a lot of them?" She responded.
"There's a guy copying the Daredevil. He's wearing a convincing copy of the original suit. He's going around stopping drug-dealers and muggers, not that there are a lot of them there." Foggy chimed in.
"Oh, well n that case, I think he's interrupting my workflow." Karen said, turning around and going back to her small pile of forms and memos.
"Can you get me some coffee while you're up?" Foggy asked.
"The machine broke." Karen called back, sitting down in her soft chair, getting ready to get back to work.
"No it isn't, is it?" Foggy asked to nobody in particular.
"It will be if you don't stop asking me to get you coffee!"
Matt woke up. He stayed still, keeping his eyes closed to feign sleep. he knew that his assailents were still in the room, his creepy southern copycat sitting on a table to his right, his attacker stood on the left, dangling one arm to his side, and resting his other on an aluminium baseball bat. Matt was in the middle of the room. Directly in front of him was a locked, solid oak, door. he was tied to a sturdy chair, his arms bound behind him and rope around his chest keeping him stuck. His legs stuck tight to the chair's own. The rope was thick and tied too tightly for him to even lean forward half an inch. He was trapped.
"Okay, I'm awake."Matt said, defeatedly "What do you want?"
"We want to know why you're here, you dick." The man with the baseball bat said. He was from Britain, clearly. Matt could never tell the difference between north and south, but he was definitely not Scottish.
"Now, let's not be too rude to our guest. We've kidnapped him, the least we could do is be polite. So, Man in the Mask, he did ask a good qestion. What brought you down to this part of the country? From what I hear, you tend to prefer to play in New York." This mystery man was still standing comfortably, he was still being genuinely nice, and he was still smiling. Matt knew that his only chance of escape was to be equally sincere.
"I heard about some guy dressing like I used to. Running around, beating lowlives, and mugging people. I came down to stop it." He said.
"Now," the copycat said. "Only some of those were us. The beating criminals part, not the mugging part. We know who was doing that. Apparently Jack bauer was onto something with his interrogation techniques. We're getting ready for a mission to go up there tomorrow night. You want to come up and help?"
Matt did something he didn't think he should. he knew it was a bad idea, but that hadn't stopped him before. "Okay" Matt agreed.
They kept him tied up, just to make sure, for the time they waited until the mission. Matt was given good meals while he was there. They exchanged names. The odd copycat called himself Max, and the British baseball bat wielder called himself "Ruben". The second guy was either angry or lying, Matt had trouble telling the difference sometimes.
"Okay, so the plan is about to begin." Max said, as he walked towards the back of the chair Matt was bound to. Ruben walked to the side of the chair, making sure to keep a balanced distance between himself and Matt, in order to be able to knock Matt out if necessary, but also far enough away that he could block and attack. Max untied Matt's legs and chest, but left his hands tied.
"Sorry, but I can't trust you yet. You'll have to wait until we need your combat skills," Max explained. He was sincere in his apology.
"I understand," Matt said curtly, "I'd do the same"
They walked through the house they were in. It was small, but it was still a nice place. They left through a back door into a small garden. Matt got his bearings, turning his head both ways in an attempt to both hear his surroundings, and to seem as if he were just looking around. They left the garden through a side gate into a small alley. They walked through until they got to a field. The air was unusually still for this time of the year. They walked slowly, Max and Ruben keeping an eye on the shady man they had just kidnapped and enlisted into a fight against a largely unknown enemy, and Matt making sure to be on guard against his previous assailents. They reached a building withing thirty minutes. Matt heard shouting inside, in a language he could vaguely define as 'European but not Spanish'.
"What now?" Matt quikly made his own plans. They go through the back, Ruben and he knock one guard out. Max restrains the last. They get info and leave to see where they stand.
"We go through the side and put on janitor suits. From there, we can find some guards, restrain them and get some more direct information. Then we either leave, or go further to the boss." Max had clearly done enough research to have a good idea of what to do, but that plan won't work.
"That plan won't work"
They entered the back door, Ruben lead them the moment the door opened, he rushed in and a loud crack could be heard. Max followed shortly after, restraining a guard.
"Left inside pocket." Matt snapped.
Ruben reached in and pulled out a pistol. Glock 19, 33 mag. Old gun, not used much. The rounds had been loaded a while ago. Clearlty this was aa gun meant to intimidate. Honestly, it's a whole lot more intimidating when it's in the other guy's hand.
"What are you doing here?" Max could sound really unsettling when he wanted.
"I'm a guard, what do you think I'm fucking doing?" He was italian, possibly Sicilian, but he'd clearly spent most of his time in New York.
"Listen, you tell me what's going on here and I'll let you go without any broken bones." Max could sound really unsettling when he wanted.
Matt heard someone moving in a nearby closet. Big guy. A head taller than anyone else in the room, wide as a truck. Matt could take him as long as a could get a good punch in at the start.
Matt's hands were tied behind his back. No time to get the rope off. Matt could surprise hime with a good kick. As long as he had minimal training.
The guy burst through the door. Matt aimed a spinning hook kick at the man's temple. The man pushed matt back, jamming the attack. Matt fell and the man slammed his boot into his armoured abdomen. The armour spread the force evenly through his abodomren, lowering the amount of pain in any specific area. Now his abdomen hurt like hell evenly. Three more man came out. Two holding AR-15s, the third, in the middle and approaching Matt, holding a Thompson Contender. That's a powerful gun, to say the least. To say slightly more, Matt was fucked.
"You're bringing trouble to my doorstep? You think I'll let this got unchecked?"
Max had knocked the guard out, leaving him unconscious on the floor next to his gun, which Ruben had dropped shortly after Matt failed to leave a heel shaped imprint in a large man.
The Thompson was pointed at Matt. The hands holding it were still. The bullet in the chamber was leaving the barrel and rapidly getting closer to Matt's chest.
Matt barely felt it. The bullet bounced right off of his chest. Things didn't add up quite right. Firstly, bullets tend not to bounce off of things that they are able to put a hole in. Second, there shouldn't have been any liquid on his chest if the bullet bounced off of him, as blood tends to only escape from holes, which, as mentioned briefly earlier, the bullet had not made.
The last part that made as much sense as a flaming paddling pool, was the fact that the projectile that had left the barrel of the handcannon had the approximate shape, size, texture, smerll and consistency of a meatball. It was so similar, in fact, that Matt could not believe it wasn't one.
Matt then realised that the gun that had been aimed at him, and the other two in the room currently being held, were leaking thick tomato sauce, complete with chucks of Mediterranean vegetables.
Long strands of spaghetti exited the tubes and slithered towards Matt, Max and Ruben. Matt tried to get up, but the spaghetti coiled itself around his limbs, tightening itself like a boa constrictor. Max had tried escape but slipped on the pooling sauce and was being cocooned by pasta, the noodles forcing their way into his pockets. Ruben had tried to bat the spaghetti away, but it was no use. All three of them were having pasta forced into their mouths and noses, it filled their stomachs and lungs.
THE END.