Dead to Rights
Disclaimer: I don't own Dead to Rights. Bandai Namco owns the rights to that IP.
Foreword: Hello, everyone. I would like to talk about this story that I am about to do. Lately I had been watching some videos on YouTube related to the old video game series known as "Dead to Rights." This will be a re-imagining, maybe an alternate continuity based on the first game, with elements from the second game (because it was a prequel) added in. It's going to be more like a crime thriller, with action, mystery, and some suspense thrown in. I also want to give this a grittier feel than how the games were.
Why am I doing this? Well, let me start by saying that I loved the first game when I was younger. I never played the sequel (or prequel as it's stated to be), but watched the walkthrough. However, as much as I loved the first game when I was younger, I will say that the story was a total mess and there were a lot of issues with the writing. There were even some good points made from the commentary on the Let's Plays for it.
I am also including elements from "Dead to Rights: Retribution," well, to a point, anyway.
One other thing, I also found out that there was a comic book that tied into the first game. I didn't know of its existence until not too long ago and went ahead and ordered and have since read it. So I might use some characters from that as well.
If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in a review. That's all for now, enjoy!
Grant City, hardest place on Earth. People aren't born here, they're forged out of broken bones and blood money. Fortunes are lost and found on a daily basis, and if you're not one of the lucky finders, you're probably dead.
That's not to say there's no justice here. It's just hard to reach sometimes under the layers of crime and corruption, the stretch between the gutter and the glamour.
It was another gray autumn. The leaves were changing from "go green" to "caution yellow." Pretty soon they'll be "danger red," then "dead brown."
The streets were somewhat empty. Grant City was crime-ridden wasteland. Not just externally, but it had been speculated that there was a lot of corruption in different areas in the city.
There was a time when Grant City was a peaceful place to live. For years, it wasn't the case. Gangs ran the streets, fought for supremacy in ruling the city. Drugs being pushed, illegal arms were being sold, among many other crimes being committed.
It was a dark night in Grant City. Jack Slate, a young police officer assigned in the K-9 unit with his partner Chris Jones, an African-American police officer in the Grant City Police Department. The other person in their party was Shadow, a Malamute/Wolf hybrid who was also Jack's personal pet but was signed up for the K-9 unit.
"So tell me something, Jack," Chris said. "Do you ever wonder if you're cut out for any line of work for this? Or even leaving this shithole of a city we're in?"
"Good question, Chris," Jack said as he drove his squad car around the streets. "I sometimes even wonder why I'm still a cop when my old man was thrown off the force, and I know my old man was and is a cop."
"Yeah, well, at least your old man is still doing his thing even as a private detective," Chris said. "I know my old man didn't have shit to do with all of the drugs being sold out of his church, yet he is rotting away in Iron Point because the system is so fucking shitty."
"Your father is a good man, Chris," Jack said. "Even my dad figured that something was up when he got busted. But what can you do?"
"Exactly what I wonder everyday," Chris said. "I often try to go and visit my pops in jail every chance I get. I hear that Iron Point's warden is a real asshole. My pops had told me that the warden had given him shit. If only I had the money to bail him out and then we get the fuck out of here."
"Faith, Chris, faith, it's the only thing we have right now," Jack said as he maintained focus on the road, but at the same time he sighed and had looks of mixed emotions on his face.
"I guess you're right, man," Chris said and looked towards his partner. "Anyway, man, what's up with you? You seem kind of stressed right now. Is everything going okay with Ruby?"
"Ruby and I are trying to work stuff out," Jack said. "We've been getting along, but sometimes she wants a little excitement in her life. It's like she doesn't want to commit. It's hard when I somehow get attached to my CI."
"It's never a good idea to date or fuck around with your CI," Chris said.
"Yeah, I know," Jack said. "But like I said, we got close and she has been helping me with stuff. She also had been using some of her expertise in her line of work at the Den of Iniquity and the Blue Fly."
"The Den of Iniquity?" Chris said. "That strip club? Also, the Blue Fly? What does she do to help you?"
"I have been curious about some stuff going on over there ever since Augie Blatz had gotten my dad thrown off the force," Jack said. "She may work as a dancer at both places, but she is doing this for me."
"You better hope that she is doing a good job at helping you," Chris said. "I know Augie Blatz helps out with the community, but I know that guy is shady as fuck."
"I'm not worried," Jack said. "My old man had tried to take him down so many times, but Blatz has his ways."
"Attention, all units in the area, we have a 210.5 at a supermarket," said the voice on the police radio. "Shots fired, but no reports of fatality or injury. Suspect had been reported holding customers hostage and possible bomb threat at hand. Please approach with extreme caution."
"Slate and Jones here, we'll check it out," Jack said though a police radio and hung up. "Well, looks like we got a problem on our hands, let's go check it out,"
"Right on," Chris said.
Jack set up the siren and the lights flashed at the top of the car. The two officers were on their way, even though this may seem like an issue beyond their reach. It also felt like these two cops were the first to respond to the report. Not that it mattered, as it was just another night for the two GCPD officers, as well as Shadow.
The squad car pulled up. Many other cops were all on the scene. One cop had a bullhorn in his hand.
"Listen, if you let the innocent civilians go, we promise we can work out a deal," said the cop on the bullhorn. The cop was Inness, one of Grant City's police captains.
From the inside, it looked like the lights were shut off. Many lights from the squad cars present on the scene glared on the windows, as well as headlights from some of the police vehicles. If that wasn't enough, even a couple of news vans were seen, with Kip Waterman, one of Grant City's well-known broadcast journalists.
Jack pulled up a little far from the scene.
"You sure this is a good idea?" Chris said.
"Can't say it is, but when has that stopped us?" Jack said.
"Good call," Chris said. "So what do we do?"
"We go in through the back," Jack said. "Shadow can tail one asshole, I go after one guy. You try to find others and cover me and then we get the hell out of there. Maybe you can try to get the hostages to safety"
Chris took a deep breath. "This better work."
The two officers stepped out of the vehicle. Jack went to the backseat to let Shadow out of there. It was night and dark outside. As the two officers approached the store to head to the back area, they went towards the crowd of people.
"…Grant City Police Captain Inness tried to reason with the captors, but they didn't comply," Kip said to the camera and saw Jack, Chris, and Shadow walking by. Kip quickly turned around and saw them approaching Inness.
Inness looked around and saw the K-9 officers approaching him.
"Slate, Jones, thank goodness you guys showed up," Inness said.
"How many people?" Jack said.
"What do you mean?" Inness said.
"How many hostages and what's the number of suspects?" Chris said.
"From what I understand," Inness said. "Four people are held at gunpoint by the main guy and it appears that he has a bomb on him. There are two other guys in there. Hennessey is on his way with the GAC squad."
"What? Hennessey's bringing in the GAC unit?" Jack said. "Fuck this, we're going in."
"Slate, as your captain, I don't think that's a good idea," Inness said. "I know you and Jones have your ways of handling things, but this isn't a good idea."
"Yeah, yeah, but we're not waiting for Hennessey to bring his goons," Jack said. "Come on, Chris, come on, Shadow."
The two officers and Shadow looked around for anybody who looked like they could work there. It wasn't long until they found a young guy with an apron. He looked to be in his late-teens to early-20s.
"Excuse me…," Jack said and saw the name tag. "Dan, do you know a way to enter the store through the back?"
"Sure, officers, follow me," Dan said.
The young grocery store worker led the two cops and police dog to the back. It wasn't long until they got there. They finally reached the shipping dock area where the trucks bring the inventory, as well as the freezer area for any of the foods that needed to be kept cold.
"Thanks, Dan," Jack said.
"No problem, officers," Dan said. "Be careful. Those guys are dangerous."
The two officers were now inside. They had gone in through the storage area. The lights were off inside the store. The only light that was visible were the blue and red lights from the squad cars, headlights, and spotlights for the news crew. So it wasn't totally dark.
"What's our move?" Chris said quietly.
"Shadow will go and search the area for the scumbags," Jack said quietly. "I'll try to find the leader. You go and take down at least one of the guys. You and Shadow try to keep any hostages safe if they're alive."
Chris nodded his head. The two officers then split up, while Shadow crawled around the aisles to find anything suspicious. Jack snuck around to look for the ringleader of this operation. Chris slowly searched for anybody watching the aisles. There were other customers held at gunpoint. Some stood away in fear of what could happen. The person guarding that aisle held a SPAS-12 shotgun. Chris got out his GLOCK 22 and had a suppressor at the end of the barrel.
"Drop it," Chris said. "GCPD."
The terrorist holding the people hostage in the aisle dropped his shotgun.
"You won't hurt me," the man said.
"Oh yeah? Why not?" Chris said.
"Because you're a cop, and there are rules for cops," the man said.
"Yeah, that's what my captain keeps telling me," Chris said.
The terrorist quickly reached for a sidearm he had in his arsenal. Chris did not hesitate to shoot him in the arm and aimed for the leg. But the man did not want to cooperate. He swung his left hand right to Chris's gut and tried to throw an elbow right to his face. But Chris quickly ducked and elbowed the man right in the gut and kicked the man in his left calf and drove the man's face right to a shelf and shoved him to the floor.
"You're under arrest," Chris said. The terrorist held his arms up. Chris went ahead and cuffed the man.
Meanwhile, Shadow crawled through some of the aisles. He saw that these guys had put some explosives on the shelves. He reached out his right paw and pushed the bomb off of one shelf. He repeated the same process farther up the aisle. The dog noticed that the bombs had wires at the ends of the explosive units and the two bombs happened to be connected. He ducked his head down and gripped the wire with his teeth and hung the bombs from his mouth.
Shadow saw another guy holding some more shoppers hostage. Shadow growled quietly. It was enough for the man to turn around and see the dog right in front of him. Shadow dropped the bombs from his mouth and quickly sprang from his feet. He jumped right onto the man, with all four paws up against the man's body. Right when the man hit the floor, Shadow started to bite the terrorist. The hostages could not help but with this police dog go to work on this man. Even they were shocked at the sight of this.
The man yelled loudly, enough to draw some extra attention. From a distance, in the deli area was an African-American man dressed in black and had his hair done in cornrows and for some reason wore a pair of shades, despite that it was dark on the inside and outside. Of course, there was still the light from outside. He had to be the ringleader. He stood behind the counter with four people sitting before him, two of which were children.
"Don't you fucking move, got it?" the leader said.
The leader walked out with a Mossberg 500 shotgun. As soon as he walked out into the store a little more, he was met with a GLOCK 22, with a suppressor and also to someone saying "Freeze." The leader went full-stop. He glanced to his right. It was Jack.
"Okay, you got me," the leader said. "Or do you?"
The leader opened up his jacket and quickly pulled out something that resembled a gun, except it wasn't. It had a clock on it, as well as a red button and a green button. The jacket opened more, revealing some explosives on his chest, causing Jack to widen his eyes a bit.
"Pop quiz, hotshot," the ringleader said. "Terrorist holding an entire store hostage, got enough explosives strapped to his chest to blow a building in half. Now what do you do?"
Jack was at a loss. Though Shadow had taken down some of the bombs, as did Chris, this man in front of him had some explosives strapped to his chest. The ringleader set the timer on the clock.
But out of nowhere, Chris and Shadow came out. Chris was strapped with his weapon. Shadow had undone more bombs that were in the store.
"You're surrounded, fucker," Jack said.
"Not likely," the ringleader said as he tossed the detonator in the air and started to run away.
"Jack, I'll get it," Chris said. "Go get him!"
The leader of the group started to run away. Shadow quickly went forth and chased after him and bit the man's right leg, causing him to drop forward. Jack caught up to the man and caught him as he was falling, as he didn't want to risk the explosives hitting the floor.
"You're under arrest, asshole," Jack said. "I'm taking your ass to jail."
"Fuck you," the leader said. "Don't fuck with the Scorpions."
Jack raised his arm and decked him right in the face.
"No, fuck you," Jack said and quickly got out his handcuffs.
It wasn't long until the hostages were freed and the three officers took two of the members of the Scorpions outside, while the other one was hauled off on a stretcher after what Shadow did to him.
Suddenly, a team of people in black uniforms and helmets with goggles and masks showed up. The vests read GAC on them. Then finally, an older cop walked up with the same type of uniform with a grizzled look and a mustache.
"Well, I'll be damned," the older cop said. "Slate and Jones, you took them down yourselves."
"Nice to see you, too, Hennessey," Jack said.
"Hennessey, these two took them down, you should give them some credit," Inness said as he stood between Jack and Hennessey.
"Inness, I had told you that I was going to bring the GAC unit to square things out," Hennessey said. "You should have told these two cowboys to lay off. This was some heavier shit than what a couple of dog cops do."
"Excuse me, Dick," Jack said, addressing Hennessey by his first name. "But as an officer of the law, we are all supposed to respond to anything happening. Jones and I were not going to wait for GAC to come in. For all we know, the hostages wouldn't have made it if it weren't for Chris and I."
Inness cut in. "He's right, you know?"
Hennessey sighed. "Okay, Jack, you win this round. We'll talk more about this later."
Jack, Chris, and Shadow all walked away. More journalists were at the scene. A blonde woman ran up to Jack.
"Excuse me, Officer Slate," the blonde reporter said. "Marla Bales, GC News 40, tell me what went down."
Jack just kept walking but stopped and looked at the reporter.
"Sometimes you just need to respond to a crime that's going down, that's all I have to say," Jack said and continued to walk away with his two partners.
There was just something that didn't sit well with Jack when he dealt with Hennessey. Although he didn't agree with his own captain's methods, but Hennessey took a bit of time to get there before anything else would have gone down. It was time to relax after what they went through.
Another note: That was the prologue. Chris is a completely original character, by the way. Like I said before, this is an alternate take on the original game, but I will include characters from the original, and implement some elements from Dead to Rights: Retribution, as I am aware that was a reboot.
Oh, and the ringleader was inspired by the bomber in the intro to the original game. The Scorpions was a gang from Dead to Rights II. I decided to combine them.
I also was inspired by some elements from Cobra (1986), Die Hard (1988), and Speed (1994) in some areas for this scene.
