A new day meant new opportunities to try and fix this decrepit world.
I woke up with a lightness surrounding me I only felt after a well deserved killing. My whole outlook suddenly became sunny because, if I was able to take care of one bad guy, then I could undoubtedly take care of them all.
The mornings after killing a bastard were always the best.
As I expected, the department's sheriff strolled up an hour after I had woken up and knocked on our front door. My father answered the knock and spoke a bit with the woman, all the while mom and I prepared our breakfast in silence.
Mornings with my family were never warm. My parents weren't necessarily the most tender of people, and they weren't the kind to show any kind of love if it wasn't absolutely necessary.
"Wally! Sheriff wants to talk to you!"
"Coming, dad!"
As I passed by my mother as she ate the kitchen counter, I could see her begin to shake her head. A few seconds after, I heard her scoff and murmur about having a no-good troublemaker for a son.
When I got to the living room, it was to find a blonde haired woman with haunted green eyes sitting down on our recliner. Rudolph was on the couch. And he quickly motioned for me to sit beside him, apparently already accustomed to procedure when a minor was to be questioned by law enforcement.
"What's up?" I questioned my father, then looked over at the woman with a completely innocent curious expression on my face. "Did something bad happen?"
"Unfortunately, it did, son." The woman breathed out, shoulders slumped, "Your English teacher, Mr. James, was murdered last night in his classroom."
I felt nothing but happiness upon hearing this. There wasn't any doubt in my mind about the man's death, I made sure to hit everything that would cause a fatality. Call it the sickness within me, I became happy just from hearing about the bastard's ultimate demise.
"No way!" I gasped out, eyes widening in what I knew was a face of unsuspecting shock; I'd seen it on others dozens of times, I knew how to replicate it. "I was with him just last night!"
"It's a tragedy, but there's no way to get away from it, son." The woman murmured, eyes shifting downwards before she cleared her throat and looked up at me. "An investigation has begun to try and make sense of what is happening. The picture is rather muddled, but we're trying to clear it up..." The woman... The sadness in her voice made her sound as if she knew the victim personally. "I need to ask you some questions. Is that alright? I already asked your father, and he had no problem."
For a second, I looked at my father with unsure eyes. Not because I wasn't sure about what I was doing. But because he usually wasn't the kind of guy that allowed me to do anything that might bring ill onto the family.
With a stiff nod, he motioned for me to look back at the woman.
So I did. And I answered all of her questions with a tone that was completely honest and genuine. A voice I had perfected over years of having to lie my way out of all the situations people thought were appropriate for Wally West.
If there was anything that I was truly proud of, it was the fact that I was able to seem like a normal, run of the mill teenager at the drop of a hat. My acting skills were superb; no one questioned my real intentions.
The questions were routine ones, simply wanting to make sure that I had, in fact, been the last person to have seen my teacher alive. They were all easy to answer and the Sheriff had seemed somewhat relieved with knowing that everything had been normal during our little study session.
"Although, I gotta tell you," I murmured after a while, my eyes narrowed down at the floor as I put on a thinking face, "He had a paper sticking out of his desk."
"And why would that be of any importance?" The woman questioned, clearly intrigued.
"Well, Mr. James was a stickler for cleanliness." I shrugged, scratching at the back of my head as I looked her in the eyes. "He always had everything in its place and never left anything out of it. For him to have a paper sticking out was kind of odd."
This paper had been the reason why Mr. James had been scavenging through his desk the past night when I had gone to end him. A simple paper I had snuck in before Wally had met him to review notes.
I knew what the paper was and what it said. Mr. James had undoubtedly been able to read it, but had not been able to connect two and two. And the police had clearly missed it among all of the scattered papers left on the floor.
Pursing my lips slightly, I finished with an unconvincing, "Just found it weird."
The blonde woman seemed to look for something within my face. As if she wanted to find all of the answers to this case in just my face. So I stared back at her with a completely open and confused look, carefully schooling my features to conceal any kind of knowledge I held.
"I guess we'll have to look in on that." The woman offered after a few seconds, then stood up and straightened her jacket out. "Thank you very much for allowing me this interview, Rudolph."
"Of course." He stood up quickly, motioned for the woman to begin walking out of the home, "Is that all? I'll walk you out."
Sometimes, I wondered just how I was so good at fooling everyone around me. But then I took a look at how my parents interacted with normal members of society and I didn't have to ponder anymore. Acting skills, apparently, were hereditary.
My feet padded almost mutely against the rug that encased my whole floor as I made my way back into the kitchen. The birds were still chirping, it was still rather early in the morning. And, after a few seconds, I could hear Rudolph and the sheriff talking outside of the house.
I began to serve myself some of the leftover coffee as I listened to the muffled words, then leaned against the microwave as I my red mug heated up. Once the contraption dinged to signal the end of the heating, I heard a car being started up- the sheriff was leaving.
As a speedster, one would expect my drinking coffee to bump up my heartrate to near deadly levels and cause me to become an insufferable chatter box. But to me, coffee worked like a tea, as a sort of sedative. It helped calm and soothe me rather than excite me.
The police having missed my calling card was something I had expected. It had been lost among the rest of the bastard's papers when I had scared him last night. But now that Wally West had nudged them in the right direction, I was sure that the sheriff would begin to see this man differently.
The sheriff... She must have had some sort of connection to the guy to have seemed so heartbroken about his death. But I was sure that once the truth came out, she would regret ever having felt anything positive towards that waste of oxygen.
Drinking the hot coffee helped center me, aided in pushing away the wonderful memories of Mr. James' last moments.
Even though there was nothing I loved more than relishing in a kill, I had other work to do. Work that needed to be finished sooner rather than later, seeing how I had quite the busy agenda with the Team and my own school.
After my Final Exams ended, I would be able to focus on only two responsibilities rather than three. But, until then, I would need to continue juggling three very different realms of living.
As I drank, I grabbed an apple from the arrangement on the counter and looked at my surroundings.
My kitchen was supposed to be perceived as a nice and cozy one, designed for ease of access and decorated for a chill kind of luxury that my mother loved to show off. Even though we weren't rich, she liked to believe she deserved only the best in life.
It was such a fake atmosphere that I found myself wondering just why this was considered anything near beauty more times than not. How did people not choke on the fumes that emanated from these plastic and inhuman contraptions?
After I had eaten my whole apple and drained my mug, I did away with my waste and made my way towards my room. Once there, I grabbed my beat up old backpack from the very back of my closet and bounded down the stairs. Once on the first floor, I shouted up at the top to let my parents know that I wouldn't be at the house for the rest of the day.
"I'm gonna head over to the library and study all day! Don't expect me to come back until way late!"
I was outside of my house's front door before I heard any kind of acknowledgement. Not like I would get any. My parents didn't care where I went as long as I came back without the police on my ass.
Today was a free day from school; we were allowed a day in between tests to rest and study up. And the Team had allowed me to take the day off as well for this very reason, the Bat thought I needed to study.
I wouldn't be studying today. I really didn't need to. English was easy, just like every other subject I was made to learn about in school. Everything was easy to me, there was no way to get around it. But I didn't need people knowing just how truly smart I could be, so I only allowed myself to excel in the science and math branches. English, Art, History, P.E: these were all subjects that made Wally West normal, made him be less of a genius. And that's just the way I liked it.
Today's schedule was filled, just like yesterday's. Luckily enough, though, I wouldn't have to worry about dealing with any pesky liars, A.K.A. the Young Justice Team. I only had to focus on just one thing today. Well, one person: Cesare Anastasia. And dealing with that person meant having to go down to Archer Central.
Star City was bursting with gang life. Ollie and Roy were doing a somewhat okay job of keeping the lid over the powder keg that was their city, but I had to step in. I needed to go inside and clean up the mess those two weren't even aware of being right beneath their noses. Gang violence was on an increase due to civil unrest, crime was slowly but steadily reaching the records from years ago, and those two weren't even aware of this.
Cesare Anastasia said he was Albert Anastasia's great grandson. And, like the Mad Hatter himself, Cesare had a knack for violence and wasn't very good when it came to sharing. He didn't play nice with others. And this had caused him to become rather powerful rather quick.
Cesare wanted to instill mob rule over the underworld of Star. Delusional was a word I would use to describe him; he wanted to bring back a bygone era that was best left in the past. He wanted gangsters to dress in suits, follow the mob hierarchy, and the police to forever be in the family's pockets. With this, he also wanted to see the streets flooded with drugs to be able to gain a wonderful income from the suffering of others.
Mr. James had been high on my hit list because he was an immediate danger to my city. But Cesare now had the great fortune of finding himself on the top, seeing how the English teacher had been dealt with.
Really, I was amazed at how I had managed to keep my head when it came to this bastard. Cesare had boasted throughout the underground about how he would be able to take on any kind of superpowered freak that came at him, he was unbeatable. And I couldn't just allow this guy to run his mouth. I didn't take lightly to anybody saying that they were better than me. It's actually because of this that I'm surprised I haven't lashed out at Artemis for her constant boasting about how she's better.
I had to put up with Artemis' shit for the sake of the Team... I did not have to put up with Cesare's. Not anymore.
My backpack was a ratty little thing that no one would suspect. It was old, had clearly seen its fair amount of use, and looked inconspicuous enough to not draw too much attention.
If anyone were to look inside, they'd be caught completely off guard. Because within, there were more than a few more than just conspicuous things. The attire I wore on my hunts was hidden within, along with all of my weapons and instruments.
Last night, I had not worn my uniform because it would have been a hassle explaining to my team why I was dragging my old backpack around. And then, if I had returned home before I had gone to meet my teacher, I would have to shut off the alarm. And this would have alerted my parents as to my return, which would have done no good. That, coupled with the fact that there aren't any cameras on school grounds and that there was only one person that would see me in my work, Mr. James, had made me decide to just not wear the wardrobe.
But now, I would have to deal with more than just one person. Along with various different cameras set to protect the grounds I would hunt on. Even though I was excellent in my work, there was always room for error. And it was better for me to be captured wearing this uniform, rather than someone actually seeing my face.
Trench coat, cowboy hat, boots, gloves, and black bandanna were my uniform. The coat was long and dark, covered in all kinds of unseeable blood stains because of the color. The hat had been a gift and I wore it with pride, and it helped cover up my rather striking hair. The bandanna covered up my face, preventing the lower half of my face from being seen. And the gloves were just thick enough to not allow any finger prints to be left anywhere I went.
Admittedly, I had chosen a cowboy persona without any hesitation or doubt. I had willingly picked the hat and bandanna to make myself look like a dustbowl avenger, as if I had stepped out of a Clint Eastwood movie. Partly because it was so different from Kid Flash and Wally West that no one would connect the dots. But it had mostly been chosen because of my savior, the true Vigilante. The man who had saved my sorry ass when I had needed it the most.
The man that had let me see the truth of this wretched shithole I called a world.
It was a pitiful kind of funny to see someone's whole demeanor change when their life was threatened.
The squealer wasn't any older than twenty, was taller than me by a few inches, and had some muscle over me. But with the revolver jammed right against his temple, he could've been the smallest man in the world. The bitch was at my mercy.
"I swear, that's all I know!"
"Yuh sure? Is that really all yuh know?"
I tended to adopt a southern accent whenever I had to speak while I was at work. It wasn't a purely aesthetic reason, I'd chosen this to make myself as alike to the true Vigilante as possible. Even though our methods were very different, and I was much smaller and younger than him, the world didn't necessarily know that. I was now called the new Vigilante. And even though this had struck a mortal blow to the real Vigilante's career, he'd accepted it with true grace. I was now the Vigilante the world knew. Even though I wasn't the true Vigilante. That would always be him.
Tears streamed down his face and he whimpered as he struggled to remain frozen against the wall behind him. But I merely cocked my head to the side, quirked one eyebrow up, and made a show of releasing the safety on the gun.
"Warnin'," I began with an easy drawl, completely at ease with my actions. Holding a gun against a guy's head wasn't even close to the worst thing I had ever done in my life. "Withholdin' information from the vigilante will result in permanent bodily harm. Possibly from a bullet ta the brain."
A sharp, whimpered gasp came from his lips, then the man finally broke. I had known he'd been keeping something from me when I'd asked him about Cesare's whereabouts. My gut was never wrong.
"O-okay! Please, don't k-kill me!" He pleaded, eyes blood red as they bore into my own. I merely shifted before I forcibly turned his head to look at the gun, my finger pressing threateningly over the trigger. "He has a new bodyguard!"
An unseen smile found its way onto my lips. "Is that right?" I questioned, intrigued. "What's this new feller's name?"
"I don't know!"
I just shoved the gun right between his eyes, forcing him to quite literally look down the barrel of his to be murder weapon, and squeezed the trigger a little tighter. Immediately, he began to sing like a canary.
... Wonder if Black Canary would sing like him if I had a gun pointed to her face...
"Okay! He's under the protection of a man called the Hood! The Red Hood!"
I growled at this and put my gun back into its holster. This was taking up too much time, so I decided it was about time to make living seem like a much bigger torture than dying. "Either you give me the answer I'm looking for, or you start losing fingers." I growled as I grabbed his right hand and forced it against the wall, then pulled out my outlaw bowie.
It wasn't a flashy knife. It wasn't meant to look pretty. It's main function was to get the job done. And boy, did it look menacing when pointed at someone's hand.
A strangled yelp escaped him as the knife glinted in the moonlight, eyes wide and clearly terrified. "Okay! Okay! The Hood's in there as a body guard to DiMaggio! H-he asked to be protected from the people that would show up!"
"Wasn't the Red Hood the Joker?" I knew this bit from Robin. Joker had once been a small time hood before he'd fallen into some nasty serum that had driven him cuckoo.
Even though I had asked this more to myself, the squealer still offered his piece.
"I-I don't know! The people from Gotham are crazy, you know?"
My smirk had become cruel at this point, I knew this, but I didn't mind. I just dragged the knife from the palm of his hand all the way towards his neck, "Answerin' ain't that hard. See?" I murmured softly, "Now tell me all yuh know 'bout the Hood. An' then I won't have ta deal with yuh no more."
"I-I don't know much about him!" He cried. "H-he showed up a year or two ago and now he's running most of the gangs!"
"What's his policy?"
Every man like him, a man that had gangs under his control- because protection to these guys meant control-, had a policy to protect them. For some you had to pay a hell of a lot of money. For others you needed to follow all his rules, and if not... well... Let's say you'd be better off dead. Even some of the things these guys did were horrendous to me.
"No giving drugs to kids! Y-you can't drag anyone younger than eighteen into this life!"
I nodded at this, feeling a revolting sense of respect for this 'Hood', then slammed the squealer against the wall. "Is that all?"
"That's all I know! I swear!"
"Is that right?" I questioned, smiling at the idea that came into my mind.
He stopped sniffling and crying at this question, but when I moved the knife's tip to touch his neck, he answered, "Yeah, it is! I don't know anything else!"
For a moment, I allowed him to hope. I slowly moved the knife away from his neck and took a step back, allowing him to breathe.
The light that entered his eyes in that split second... It was intoxicating.
It's a shame it had to end so quickly.
Swiftly, I plunged my knife into his stomach. Momentarily, I found myself lamenting the sudden shift in his eyes. From bright and hopeful, they had just gone straight into dark and disbelieving. But then he began to splutter and gasp like a fish out of water, and that was a symphony to my ears. And when I twisted the knife, ensuring his consequent death from the huge ass hole it would be leaving in him, he let out quite the beautiful scream.
As I slid the knife out of his body, finding no trouble because of the nice little holster I had created within him, I moved my head so that I could whisper into his ear and he could hear me without any trouble. "Too bad yuh didn't know nothin' more... Coulda used some more information."
His breath hitched and he keened in pain.
I just took a few steps back and watched as he fell to his knees, then slammed his face against the concrete below. Blood flowed from him and soon encompassed his body like a halo. The only beautiful thing to come from him.
Stepping out of the piss and alcohol infested alley, I wiped the blood off of my knife on my coat. Then, once sure it was dry enough to return to its proper place, I placed it within the holster attached to my thigh.
The moon tonight was rather beautiful. A perfect full moon. Somewhat clouded, I could smell humidity that foreshadowed rain. Just the perfect atmosphere to make a mobster worry over his life.
After a few minutes of just staring up at the beautiful sky, I decided to get a move on and made my way towards the warehouse district.
Quite frankly, it was appalling how most major cities had warehouse districts. It was as if the government wanted criminals to use these places as hideouts to rule from. But, then again, they most probably did. If the criminals were disgusting, the government was vile. They were even more corrupted than my own team. But I couldn't risk cleaning that up. It would ruin our whole system if I did. So I just worked on those that were seen as completely bad to not have to mess with the ticking time bomb that was the government.
Anastasia had holed himself up in an abandoned steel making warehouse. This was their center of distribution, from where they handled boatloads of drugs and weapons that were smuggled into Star.
My whole day had been spent digging around the nastiest holes of Star to try and find someone that had worked for Anastasia.
If there was one thing I could respect about this man, it was that he could clean up his tracks rather well. Most that worked for him where either completely loyal, or never found. So having found that little squealer had taken all of my day. But it had been worth it, seeing how I now knew everything I would need to take care of this bastard for good.
Of course, I'd had to scavenge around the underbelly for a while. Which meant that there had been more than just that one guy's deaths today.
The silence that surrounded me as I sneaked around the center of distribution was not lost on me. My steps thundered within my ears, much too loud for my liking. But I tried my best to not think on this too much, seeing how I was always aware of my body.
A little voice in the back of my head told me that I might be walking into a trap. But hearing this made me smirk. And I couldn't help but voicing my confidence out loud, "A trap fer them, yuh mean."
The roof of the warehouse was solid concrete. There was no way to peer into the inner working of the building through it. But just as I was wondering myself how I would be able to spy on the people inside, I heard the answer to my unasked question.
"Did you hear 'bout Joey?"
"Yeah, killed by that Vigilante a coupl'a hours ago."
"You think he's coming here?" The biggest and dumbest looking one questioned. He seemed genuinely concerned by my visit.
Good.
"Could be. But, remember, we're under the Hood's protection. He can't hurt us none." The last one spoke with a confidence that could be heard even though his voice faded as he and his little colleagues began to leave my sight, leaving me with a smirk.
Ah, Joey. I remembered that guy. He'd been the first man I had questioned. But he'd been tight lipped, the stupidly loyal kind. I'd left him dumped in the back of the dump he'd been drinking in before I'd left to find another, more willing, informant.
It seemed news traveled fast in Star.
This Hood feller must really have been something to make these bastards feel safe even though they knew I was on the case. The Vigilante wasn't just some run of the mill murderer. I'd made sure to make a name for myself. So for them to feel actually safe... Well, I guess I would need to see just who this Hood was.
Quietly, hidden within the shadows, I trailed after the group. And when one had found himself having to tie his shoe, hence being left behind by his friends, I took the chance and left a bug on the edge of his jacket. I had literally walked up to him and placed it on him, but he didn't know this. All he knew was that he'd been smacked by a sudden gust of wind at one point as he'd tied his shoes.
They'd seemed to be on patrol. Because, after they'd walked the whole warehouse's perimeter, they had entered.
They were out of sight and I wasn't about to run into this situation without making sure I had my ducks in a row. So I ran up to the roof and settled into a crook that was unseen by the cameras around the place- a shame, really, that there was such a blatant blind spot in the security. Once comfortable, I pulled out my little Bat Computer- an unwitting gift from the Bat himself that I had managed to snag while Uncle Barry and I had worked with the bats-, and began to listen in on my bug.
What I heard at first was the usual mindless chatter, dull hum of machinery, and a bit of laughter here and there.
Soon enough, though, I heard the voice of the man I had come to kill.
"What happened with Joey?"
The voice was one I knew. Anastasia. He had a deep voice, heavy with disinterest, with a small hint of an Italian lilt.
"Murdered by the Vigilante." The man I had bugged, the big oaf that had seemed genuinely worried about dying, answered back.
There was a scoff, then a new voice I could not pinpoint spoke up, "You're getting your asses kicked by what very well could be a teenager."
My eyes widened at this, immediately feeling anger beginning to bubble up within me. "And why do you think that?"
"... Just got a hunch..."
"There's no way a kid could have done this!" The thug exclaimed and I agreed. There was no way some kid could have done this. Because I wasn't a kid.
"Do you know how many sidekicks there are on this Earth? Robin's only thirteen and more than capable of taking down a man twice his size. Don't underestimate the wonders of this world."
This guy's voice... It wasn't one I could place. But there was something within me that told me I had heard it before. I just wasn't sure why I felt like this.
"There is no need to bother the Red Hood, Mickey. Now get back to work." Cesare interrupted, letting me know that the situation may have escalated more than I could tell from just hearing them.
After this, I could hear the oaf, Mickey, muttering to himself as he clambered to his work place.
I shut off the computer. I breathed in a large gulp of air to calm the fire that wanted to spike within me. And then I smirked.
Heads would roll tonight.
..~..~..
Please review!
