He crouched quietly and stealthily behind the stone gargoyle, trying to avoid any attention whatsoever. His steel-toed, black, leather boots made no noise on the rooftop of the closed bank. He was as surreptitious as a spy. He was Nightmare.
He wore all black from head to toe, covering his arms, legs, hands, feet, and chest. Only his mouth had an opening for him to speak through, and even it muffled his voice a bit. His clothes, all except for the boots, were skintight as a leotard, but twice as thick. The mask itself went over his hair, and had two plastic, red, see-through plates over his eyes, an intimidating sight for guilt-ridden men who saw him.
He hid behind the gargoyle for protection. He had just stopped, single-handedly, a robbery of the very bank he hid atop of. One of the thugs had escaped from him, and just his luck, it had been the one with the Magnum. The cold, New York wind still bit at him, but over the two weeks he'd been patrolling the streets, he'd learned to live with it.
Without warning, the gargoyle's head came crashing off its base to the ground, forcing him into action. Drawing a breath, he jumped off. He hurtled to the ground until he was about four feet above it, then drew his neck, then back, then legs backwards until he had landed feet-first gracefully on the alley's cement floor.
"Damn!" said the astonished thug. He composed himself quickly and fired thrice at Nightmare.
The black-clad figure of the night hit the deck, dodging all three bullets, and pulled back his right arm powerfully. In the blink of an eye, he hit the gunman in the stomach full force, no mercy. He slugged the man twice before the guy was on the ground, knocked out.
Calmly, he picked up the dropped Magnum and fired the remaining rounds into the sky for all to hear.
Five miles away, a cop heard the blasts. The gunman was arrested before five minutes were up.
Nightmare had already left, leaping from rooftop to rooftop without stopping. He was an Olympic-level gymnast and long-jumper, both of which paid off when he patrolled the streets of New York at night.
After he'd jumped ten roofs, he landed on a dumpster in an alley and began changing out of his costume. He didn't get past the mask.
"Well, whadya know, a guy in a costume!"
"Hey, Batman! Or is it Superman?"
"Nah, looks like Spidey to me!"
It was street punks. One was tall and lanky, another the same but with blonde hair instead of red, and the last short and stocky with black curls.
Nightmare quickly pulled his face mask all the way over and turned to face them.
"I'm not going to give you any money, just in case that's what you want!" he said softly, in almost a whisper.
"Oh, really?" said Blondie. "Well I," he pulled out a knife, "think that you will! We're real persuasive, aren't we, boys?"
The other two nodded, grinning evilly and pulling out their own blades.
"Yeah, we're real good at getting' what we want!" said Curly.
"I'm still not going to give you any money!" whispered Nightmare.
Blondie's grin vanished instantly.
"Oh… I think you are. Get 'im guys!"
They all charged forward, hooting and yelling. Silently, Nightmare laid each one flat: Blondie with a punch to the cheek, Redhead a kick in the gut, and Curly with a wicked uppercut. But the fight wasn't over yet.
Blondie leapt weakly up and stabbed at Nightmare's arm.
Suddenly, something seemed to snap inside of the black-clad figure. He gave an angry roar and lunged onto the punk's chest, knocking the knife from his hand. Punch after punch followed, with Nightmare not stopping himself for anything. His eyes raged with vengeance and hatred. A young voice cut through the air:
"Stop! You'll kill him!"
It was a cop. The voice seemed to snap Nightmare back into reality. He ceased punching and got off Blondie. The cop, realizing that Nightmare wasn't insane or anything like that, questioned him angrily.
"What the hell was that all about!?!?!"
"He pulled a knife- stabbed me in the arm," pleaded Nightmare.
"You almost killed him!"
"I'm sorry, but he had it coming. If it had been someone older or in worse shape than me, he could have killed them. I just want to get people like him off the streets"
The police officer stopped, recognizing the sincereness and wisdom of the words. "Yeah? Well you're gonna have to work hard. Real hard."