Still Alive

Rated T for violence and language. Just a warning, some of the characters will get a bit mouthy so if it's not your cup of tea just skip it.

The night was clear and dark. No chance of rain tonight. A sliver of the crescent moon hung low in the nighttime sky. It was a perfect night for a just crime.

A slight wind tousled Dean's hair as he crouched on the edge of a twenty-story building and gazed at his target through a pair of night binoculars. His target several buildings away was hidden in a supposedly secure vault on the seventh floor of one of the most guarded towers in the whole city.

Piece of cake, thought Dean wryly to himself. Having seen what he needed to see, Dean stowed the binoculars away in his pack, adjusted his hood, and set his watch. Now Dean just had to be patient and wait for the guard change, which took place, according to his insider source, at a quarter to midnight.

Dean quietly breathed in the fresh and chilly air. His trained eyes were always on alert for any sudden and unexpected movements, constantly sweeping and surveying his surroundings. He checked his weapons again for about the fifth time that hour. There was no room for error on this job. Finding everything in order, Dean shifted from his crouched position to more of a kneeling one and tapped his right hand on his left shoulder as his fingers drummed lightly on his collarbone, his only sign that he was slightly nervous.

The waiting was always the most nerve-racking part. Once it was show time, Dean knew he would execute the plan perfectly and felt confident about his abilities to improvise if the plan went awry. He had done jobs like these numerous times before. But no matter how long he had been doing this, Dean could never quite get rid of all his anxiety that built up in him right before a job.

Dean's only consolation was that he was alone this time. For some people that would not have been a very consoling reality but Dean who cared deeply about the men under his command was relieved that none of them would be accompanying him tonight on this dangerous excursion. Dean had reconciled himself to the fact that he probably would be dead before he reached the age of thirty, but for the rest of his men he hoped that one day all of their efforts would make a difference and that they would be able to spend the rest of their lives in peace, stability and happiness. That's why Dean did what he did.

Dean looked down at his watch as the face lit up signaling to him that it was a quarter to midnight. Time to get to work, thought Dean giddily. Standing up on the edge of the building, Dean took a second to stretch and warm up his muscles. Feeling his body coming alive, Dean took off on a slight run along the edge of the building and built up his momentum as he came closer to the right corner of the east side of the building.

Launching himself in the air, Dean jumped about five feet from the building he had been on to the nearby tower crane. Dean landed easily on the construction crane and keeping his momentum ran along the top of the horizontal part of the crane able to maintain perfect balance. When he got to the end of the crane, he dropped down ten feet to the roof of the next building and went from a graceful landing into a neat roll.

Springing to his feet, Dean ran to the edge of that building and paused for a second, as he made sure that no one had noticed him. Hearing no alarms going off, or dogs barking or men shouting, Dean figured it was safe to assume that he was clear.

Dean then tic tacked off a lower wall up to a higher one and pulled himself up in one, clean movement. Just as Dean predicted, the parking garage for C Tower was empty. Making sure to stay out of sight of the security cameras, Dean made his way to the third floor of the parking garage to the service door that led directly onto the seventh floor.

Sliding his electronic key in the scanner, Dean let out a breath when it worked like a charm. He had been about 99% sure that it would work, but there was always that 1% chance that it wouldn't. He closed the door as quietly as he could behind him and headed off down the long hallway. The plans for the seventh floor had shown that there were no security cameras and because of the guard change, no one was on the floor.

It's almost too easy, thought Dean as he slid a second electronic key by an innocent looking door that to anyone else would have looked like it was a broom closet. Hissing, the door slid open to reveal a crude looking elevator. This would be the tricky part.

Dean knew from researching the building that the floor of the elevator was sensitive to weight and that it was only authorized to carry three passengers who had a very specific weight. If Dean walked in and didn't match any of the three weights, the elevator would stop working and the cable would detach and make the elevator free fall seven stories to the ground with Dean inside. Thankfully for Dean, it was only the floor that was sensitive but the rest of the elevator was fine.

Using the thin railing that ran about waist height along the side of the elevator, Dean climbed into it. The elevator shut the door behind him but didn't move. It wouldn't move unless it registered the weight of the passenger, but that was fine Dean didn't need it to move. After all this was an elevator that went to the holding cells and he didn't need to save anyone from there at least not tonight.

Balancing on the railing, Dean stood up and pushed aside the top hatch that served as an emergency or service exit from the elevator. In one motion, he hoisted himself through the opening in the top of the elevator and now found himself in the elevator shaft.

Dean glanced at his watch to check the time. Perfect, right on schedule. The outlaw gave a tug on the cables that he was planning on using to climb about twenty feet to the vent that led straight to the vault. The cables seemed sturdy so he wasted no time and immediately began climbing hand over hand using his legs as well to propel him up the shaft.

In no time, he reached the particular vent that he needed and swung himself easily into it. Dean crept silently along the vent until he came to the grate that led directly to the vault.

Easing the grate up ever so carefully, Dean slowly lowered himself to the floor and immediately began looking for the plans. According to another source, all of the information that he needed was on a thumb drive.

Dean began sifting through the files in the many cabinets. He was beginning to get worried on how long it would take when he stumbled across a file entitled, "Armageddon".

He peeked inside the file and smiled when he spotted a thumb drive inside of the manila envelope. Dean quickly got out his iPad from his bag and plugged the drive into it in order to check and make sure that his suspicions were correct.

After a minute of looking through the files, he smiled again in satisfaction. He had found it. He quickly stowed the iPad and the thumb drive securely into his pack and made his way back the way he had came.

Dean had no trouble getting out of the building and he was beginning to think that he would run into nobody tonight when as he was walking out of the parking garage he heard someone say, "Stop!" behind him.

Nope, thought Dean as he immediately broke into a run and jumped from the parking garage to the lower wall that he had used earlier to climb up

"Stop! Stop or I'll shoot!" warned the voice now considerably much farther away.

Good luck with that, thought Dean amusedly to himself as he ran along several roofs, jumped easily to a flag pole and slid down it fireman style. He heard gunshots behind him but it didn't concern him, he knew he was out of range. Alarms sounded in the distance, but Dean was already out of the danger zone. Chuckling to himself, Dean blended into the night and began to make his way back to base. It was like taking candy from a baby.

"Fuck!" Mayor John Cena shouted as he threw a vase at the wall of his office, which shattered into a thousand pieces. Mayor Cena had just been informed of the latest breach in security at the C Tower.

Sheriff Kane winced slightly at the mayor's reaction. He really hated this part of his job.

"How is it that you've let this happen again?!" yelled the mayor as he punched his desk for emphasis. "Is this Dean Ambrose a ghost? Can he walk through walls? Is he a fucking god? Why is it so hard for you to keep one man out of my business?"

"He's not just one man…" began the sheriff. He thought Cena wasn't being fair here. His few informants had at least been able to gather that this Dean Ambrose had a whole underground network of people working for him. They called themselves the 'Merry Men'.

"Excuses!" the sheriff ducked as a sizable picture from the wall was torn off and thrown at his head. "All I hear are excuses! Why do I surround myself with incompetent jackasses who can't even find one man? A man who continually waltzes into our buildings, my place of business, and apparently just takes whatever the hell he fucking wants!" said Cena as he spat into Sheriff Kane's face.

Taking a deep breath, the sheriff wiped the spittle from his face. This wasn't looking so good. He hadn't even gotten to the worst part of the news yet.

"I mean you still can't tell me what he even looks like! For all we know, Dean Ambrose, might not even be a man!" finished the mayor as he glared at the sheriff in disgust. "Well, go on, spit it out! What did he take?"

"The 'Armageddon' file."

John Cena blinked. He turned around and looked out the window of his office, which provided an excellent view of the city and clasped his hands behind his back. After a few moments he let out a slow, deep laugh.

The sheriff gulped nervously. That was not a good sign.

Mayor Cena slowly turned around and fixed Kane with a murderous look. "You have…one minute," said Cena really slowly holding up one finger, "…to give me…a solution…to this problem. Otherwise, I will find myself another sheriff."

Blood pounded in the sheriff's ears as he wracked his brain for something, anything to present to his boss as a viable solution. After about half a minute, he thought of something. Granted it was a shot in the dark but at this point Kane had nothing left to lose. "What about the kid? He's been dying to prove himself!"

The mayor, fortunately, didn't scoff at his idea outright but instead nodded for him to continue.

"I mean yeah the kid is young but he's hungry! The undercover work he did for us a couple of months ago helped us to gain leverage over the Helmsley gang. Perhaps if we had him infiltrate 'the Merry Men' and find out the identity of Dean Ambrose we could finally bring him down."

John Cena nodded. "I like it. It's good. It better work though," declared the mayor pointing a threatening finger at Sheriff Kane, "because if it doesn't…I will no longer have need of you and your services. Now get out of my office."

Kane nodded his understanding and practically ran from the room. He had a lot of work cut out for him.

As the sheriff scurried from his office, the mayor sat down and leaned back in his chair trying to quell his anger. It was never good to be angry while doing business and he had a meeting shortly. Mayor Cena sighed as he rubbed his temples. Dean Ambrose had been haunting him for years and frankly he was at the end of his rope. This man, symbol, rumor…whoever he was; needed to be put down for good.

Everyone in the room whooped and cheered. It was tradition among the Merry Men to celebrate a job well done with beer, food and good company. Guys patted Dean on the back as he passed them, shouting out greetings and praise to their fearless leader. Dean smiled wide as he made his rounds around the room trying to acknowledge everyone, answering questions about his recent exploit and making sure that everyone was alright themselves.

The hour was getting late and since an outlaw's job is never done. Dean decided it was time for a little speech, which usually concluded the end of the festivities.

Dean sprang onto a wooden table that was situated in the middle of the large room and almost immediately the entire room grew silent. That was the kind of respect that Dean Ambrose was shown by his men.

After a couple moments of complete silence, Dean spread his arms out wide, beer in hand and stated, "They can't touch me!"

That statement earned a laugh as the crowd of men gazed at their charismatic leader in adoration.

"Yeah, that's right. Our beloved mayor, John Cena, is probably getting his panties all in a twist at the mere thought of a piece of 'filth' like me running around his prized C Tower," said Dean sarcastically as he grinned as a chorus of boos at the mention of the mayor's name greeted him.

"Yep…that's why we do what we do," said Dean simply as everyone nodded their heads in agreement. "We stand up for the people of this city that have been slaves to a system that has treated them like dirt for years," exclaimed Dean riling up the crowd. "Corrupt officials like Cena think they own the world. They seem to think that they are gods in their own right. Well to that load of bullshit, I say FUCK THAT and FUCK THEM!" shouted Dean as the merry men loudly voiced their approval of Dean's words.

Dean waited for the crowd to die down some before he continued. "Now it has come to my attention recently that our asshole of a mayor is cooking up a new plan. And trust me, it may be hard to believe, but this new 'plan' of his surpasses all of the despicable and unspeakable acts that he has committed so far," said Dean matter of factly. "Some of you know a little bit about this already and all of you will be informed in the coming days, but what I can definitely say for sure right now is that war is coming," said Dean growing very serious.

"War is upon us gentlemen. We got a fight coming our way and I don't know about you but I can't wait to meet it and punch it in the face!" declared Dean as the crowd roared its acquiescence.

"So…get some rest…you're gonna need it," grinned Dean as he looked around the room at his men and raised his glass up high in a toast, "We're still alive!"

"STILL ALIVE!" shouted the rest of the room as they finished up the evening with their usual toast.

Dean drained the last bit of beer from his glass and jumped down from the table. Setting his glass down, he nodded to two of his most trusted men: Little Rome and Randal Scarlett and gestured to them to follow him to the back room.

Once they closed the door behind them, Dean's bravado disappeared and he sighed as he slumped down in a chair at the table. Dean ran his fingers through his hair as he closed his eyes for a minute. He was dead tired but there was still so much he needed to discuss tonight with his men. So many lives were at stake. Sleep would have to wait a little bit longer.

"Nice speech," said Little Rome as he joined Dean at the table. He said nothing about the fact that Dean looked like he was about to keel over. He knew from experience that Dean would just protest. The man was as stubborn as they come.

"So how are they planning on smuggling in the drugs?" asked Randy who as always got straight to the point.

"Take a look at this," said Dean as he handed his iPad to Randy, which had the thumb drive already inserted into it.

Randy took it from Dean. His eyebrows furrowed as he concentrated on skimming the many files. After about ten minutes, Randy's expression grew dark and he raised his eyes to meet Dean's. "Am I reading this right?" he growled as he passed the device to Little Rome.

"I'm afraid you are," said Dean as he rubbed his eyes, "there will be multiple points in which this new drug will be smuggled into the city, which will prove difficult for us to contain."

"Difficult but not impossible," stated Little Rome.

"That's what I'm hoping for at least," said Dean, "what worries me even more is that the files seem to indicate that they've already started introducing the drug to the population. But the thing is I haven't heard anything about this. Have you guys?" questioned Dean.

"Not a word," said Randy as Little Rome shook his head as well.

Dean sighed deeply, "There will be chaos if this drug is released. Once you have a taste, it's manufactured so that the person will want nothing but that drug. They won't crave food, drink, or sleep. All they will want is another taste of that drug until it literally kills them."

"That is sick," stated Little Rome as he shook his head at the very thought.

"Which is why we need to stop the drug from being introduced. This could easily kill half of the population in the city. Especially if they sneak it into hospitals and start forcibly injecting people with it," said Dean.

"We will," said Little Rome with certainty, "we always do, don't we Dean?"

"Yes, we need to," agreed Dean, "but…we've never faced anything like this before, Rome."

"But we will and we will prevail," stated Roman as he patted Dean comfortingly on the back, "but I think before we do anything else you need a few hours of shut eye. You can barely keep your eyes open as it is and if we're going to do this right, you need to be in top shape."

"You're right," nodded Dean and with that he left Rome and Randy to hash out some more ideas while he stumbled to his bedroom and was dead to the world the moment his head hit the pillow.

The next night, Dean was coming home from his legal work, which was the managing of one of the last soup kitchens in the city that had not been shut down yet when he heard a commotion coming from an alleyway. Knowing from experience that it was better to survey a scene and plan an attack from above, Dean quickly scaled the apartment building that separated the main street from the alley where he was hearing the kerfuffle.

Dean crouched down and gazed down at the scene from above.

Three thugs were attacking a young man around Dean's age. The guy seemed to be holding his own until a powerful blow to the back forced him to his knees and the three goons were able to capitalize. Dean quickly put his hood on to hide his face, he didn't have any of his weapons with him; he would just have to make do. As quietly as he could, Dean scaled down the other side of the building while keeping one eye on the action.

Two of the goons held the struggling man while the other took out a scary looking needle and began to fill it with an unknown substance.

"What's that?" asked the young man clearly scared.

"Medicine," said the thug with a smile, "it'll make you feel so much better," he continued as he advanced towards his victim.

"No…no," protested the young man as he struggled even harder but to no avail. "I don't want it. I'm clean. I'm clean."

"Sorry," grinned the one with the needle as he grabbed the young man's hair and forced his head to one side so that his neck was exposed to him, "I'm afraid you don't have a choice in the matter."

Just before he could insert the needle into the man's neck, Dean grabbed the thug's arm and twisted it sharply, breaking the man's wrist and causing him to drop the needle.

"Sorry to interrupt," said Dean smoothly over the man's howls, "but I'm pretty sure that no means no." The two guys holding the young man let him go and went to attack Dean but they were too slow and no match for the outlaw. Dean quickly dispensed with all of them and sent them running off like a scared pack of hyenas.

Dean turned back to the young man who was frozen in shock on the ground. Dean went up to him and offered a hand, "What's your name?" he asked not unkindly as he helped him to his feet.

"Seth Rollins," said the man as he grimaced slowly and grabbed at his back as he stood up.

"They hurt ya?"

"Not as bad as they could have," said Seth with a small smile to Dean, "thanks, man, I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't shown up when you did."

"Don't mention it," said Dean as he turned to go.

"Wait, man!"

Dean turned back to Seth, his hood still effectively hiding his face.

"You're one of the merry men, aren't you?"

Dean tensed as Seth correctly guessed his affiliation. Seth walked up closer to Dean trying to get a better look at his face but Dean just turned his head and pulled the hood further over his face.

"I've been wanting to join but I haven't been able to find anyone who has direct contact to them. Will you take me to Dean Ambrose? Please? I don't care what kind of tasks you need help with, I'll do them. Even if it means taking out the trash or washing dishes," said Seth enthusiastically.

Dean sighed, he was grateful for about the millionth time that virtually no one knew what Dean Ambrose looked like. It was a closely guarded secret and one that he intended to keep. However, he could always use more men but with this new plan of Cena's he had no time to initiate new members.

"Sorry, man, the boss ain't looking right now for new members. But I'll keep you in mind," said Dean as he tried to wave the guy off of him. But Seth was persistent.

"Please, you won't regret it. I have nothing left to lose. Everything has been taken away from me, my family, my career. I'm sick of lying down. I want to fight back!" finished Seth as he got up in Dean's face.

Dean could see the passion and resolve in Seth's eyes. Part of him wanted to give him a shot. The other part of him screamed at him to just walk away 'he had no time for this'. Dean debated the matter in his head for a few seconds until he came to a decision.

"If you can keep up and follow me back to base, I'll put in a good word for you. But I make no promises," said Dean. Giving Seth no time to speak or think, Dean took off running down the street with Seth following close behind him.

This is sort of an experimental story for me, let me know what you think.

Please give me your honest opinion, don't worry I can take it :)