Breaker Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own DC nor do I own Percy Jackson.

East End, Gotham City

New Earth

August 18th 2009

A small boy clad in a blue oversized tattered t-shirt and a pair of jeans supported by a belt comes flying around the corner in the middle of the day and blazing sun. Drenched in sweat his shirt attempting to cling to him he turns the corner into the alley and pushes himself against the wall in an attempt to blend in with the fading the chipped paint covering the brick. Hurriedly making her way past him is a slightly bigger girl in similar age to that boy similarly dressed as well except with a purple shirt instead of a blue one.

Heavy footsteps make their way down the street in pursuit of the two children as the boy attempts to make himself smaller and fade away into the wall as a form of protection, while the girl crouches herself behind a dumpster using it as a form of cover. The footsteps slowly slow down to a standstill as three older guys dressed in tattered and torn clothing stop in front of the alley and turn around looking for the disappeared pair of children.

The two younger looking bums turn towards the man who must be their leader, before one of them decides to speak up. "Where the hell did those two brats go?"

The leader of the bums instead motions of the two other bums to be quiet, while also gesturing towards the alley where the blue shirt stands out against the faded beige paint.

Nodding their heads at the signaling the second bum speaks up "Damn, we must have lost them. But we'll find them again, that fat drunk tub of lard they were with will be back for more."

The boy audibly gulps at the mention of the large walrus of a man that is his Stepdad, while the young girl sighs at the mention of the pills that the bums were selling, the same ones that her mom takes when she wants to "relax".

Smirking at the audible gulp from the boy the three bums decide to lightly step down the alley in an attempt to jump the kids with the element of surprise. Lightly tip toeing down the alley the bums slowly grab the trash around them to use as weapons. The leader instead arming himself with an old run-down revolver he had tucked away in his waist band.

Turning onto the boy the two bums grab their broken bottles and grab his head covering his mouth as they do so he cant scream to alert anyone, most importantly the girl that he was with.

Leaning in close the bum covering his mouth whispers to him. "If you so much as make a single noise, or an attempt to escape my buddy here will bring the bottle down on your neck before anyone will really hear you. So I'd suggest staying quiet."

Tears building up in his eyes the boy with fear drenched eyes looks the man in his narrow eyes and attempts his best at a nod that they will allow him. The bum seeing this gives the boy a grin showing his yellow and decayed teeth as a smile.

"Theres a good boy. If only Gabe would listen as well as you then we'd really be making progress."

While this was happening the Bum leader was slowly making his way down to the dumpster where the little girl had chosen to hide and draws his gun before pushing it to the back of her head making her jump in fear before his raspy voice draws her back to the real world.

"My two boys already have your friend, and unless you want to never see him again, I'd very much suggest not making a single sound." A very nervous sounding squeak escapes the girls voice as she nods trembling in fear, allowing the man to pull his gun away from her head and bring it down to her side.

"There's a good girl, now come with me and I'll be able to have a nice chat with both you and your friend."

Not even allowing her to respond he nods back into the lighter areas of the alley as she slowly comes out of her hiding spot. Being marched over to the man she ends up standing next to her friend as the two other bums stand behind the two of them with their bottles pointed right at their necks, incase either of the kids decide to act up.

Facing the two of them the homeless bum looks down upon the two children, completely dwarfing them with his height. "Now I like to think of myself as a reasonable person but with this one here's daddy would listen as well as you two, we wouldn't be in this situation. But unfortunately, your drunk of a father thinks he can get away with robbing me of my pills and I'm sorry but that's just not allowed."

Nodding in fear the boy looks the man in his eyes, seeing nothing but anger in them. Attempting to defuse the situation the boy speaks up, "I'm sorry mister, but why should we be punished for what Gabe wants. Something happening to the two of us will do nothing to him, he couldn't care any less for the two of us. So why don't you just let us go and take it out on him?"

Laughing at the little boys reasoning the leader nods towards the two of the men behind the kids. "You hear this boys? He wants to know why we can't just let the two of them go." Turning his attention from the other two bums back towards the kids he focuses again in on the younger boy. "I couldn't care less about Gabe now. This is about sending a message to not fuck with me. And you two are the perfect two to use as an example to not fuck with me. But I'll be generous. One of you two can go. Someone needs to live in order for the message to pass."

Not even missing a beat the boy speaks up. "Let her go, she can go free." The girl attempts to turn he head as the bum behind her pulls the bottle from her neck and allows her full range. Rage in her blue eyes she stares down the boy who seemingly decided her life was worth more than hers, but before she can speak up in disagreement, she is getting pushed out of the alley leaving her standing back in the main street unable to do anything but watch as her friend has a gun placed against his head and hearing the head bum asking if he has any final words.

Looking around for help the girl is frantically scanning her head around for anyone on the street that would be able to possibly hep her friend out of the situation they got struck into. "Why does he have to be a hero? Why couldn't he just have kept his mouth quiet about Gabe. Now he's ruining his entire birthday. All because he had to be a hero."

"Because who had to be a hero?" A deep voice cuts the girl out of her thoughts of anger towards her friend. An older man probably in his late 50's walks up to the girl with an arm full of groceries before he slowly sets them down and crouches down to be able to hold eye contact with her.

She looks around alerted for a second, with the long day she's had being extremely distrustful of the strange older man in front of her. Her nervous and distrusting blue eyes lock and make contact with the older man's blue eyes instead of being distrustful like hers though his were full of hope, and warmth, something she only really feels around her friend and his mom, and on rare occasions her own mom.

Unable to find any better words than to just point down the alley and mutter out the word "Help."
Following her arm, the man's eyes narrow slightly down at the alley before softening when he looks back at her. "Don't worry about your friend. You just stay here and call for some help. I'll get this sorted out."

Pulling his cellphone out of his pocket he passed it along to the girl before putting his hands together in order to crack his knuckles as he slowly walks down the alley. A feral grin spreading along his face as he does.

As he steps further into the blackness of the alley it seems as if a weight has been lifted off his shoulders, he rolls back his shoulders and stops his slouching as he continues his walk down towards the three bums in the darkness.

With the other 2 having turned their backs onto him and the leader having focused his attention onto the young boy they didn't notice the older man walking towards them with a look on his face that is more akin to a fighter walking into an arena.

The leader grins down at the young boy as the two behind him begin to slowly press their bottles into his neck. His discolored teeth a stark contrast to the pale white that the boy had turned as a little amount of blood begins to trickle down his neck.

"Alright boys, I've had my fun here. But now its time to just end the twerp now." Tears begin freely fall down the boys face as he's unable to hold it back anymore. But just as the two bums are about to press the bottles into his neck the older man makes his move.

Picking up a lose brick he smacks one over the bum on the boys left before turning and punching the bum on the right in the gut. With the element of surprise at his advantage the left sided bum drops down to the floor with blood already beginning to pool around his head while the bum on the right hunches down onto his knew and begins to cough blood into his palms.

Turning to the boy the old man motions for him to get out of the way as he advances on the leader of the bums who out of shock is fumbling to grab his gun from his waistband. As he finally manages to grip the handle in order to draw it he's net by a fist hitting him directly in the face. A crunch breaking the still stunned silence as his nose shatters under the power of the fist. The gun clattering to the floor the old man walks over to the old revolver picking it up and snapping it in half between his two hands.

Tossing the two broken pieces of gun aside they clatter to the floor as he advances on the leader and grabbing the neck of his shirt before lifting his head to look the bum in the eyes. Seeing the true fear as the man becomes a bleeding blubbery mess the man punches him once more as more of the skull cracks under his power before stepping away and turning to the boy who was standing still shocked at the scene that he had just witnessed.

Wiping the bum's blood off his knuckles onto his jeans the man crouches down to make eye contact with the boy and shoots him a smile before reaching out his hand.

"Hi there, my name's Ted. What's yours."

Staring warily at the man's hand the boy looks at it for a second before reaching out and allowing his much smaller hand to be enveloped in a handshake by the mans much bigger and heavily calloused hand. "I'm Percy. Where's Steph? Is she okay? Can I go see her now?"

Seeing Percy's nervousness for the girl now known to Ted as Steph he motions for Percy to follow him out of the alley where the sounds of a Police siren start to cut through the noise of the rest of the city.

"She's absolutely fine. She's just out there waiting for us." Hearing this Percy smiles at lets loose a toothy grin and a sigh of relief as he hears that his friend is alright. "But what about you Percy are you alright? How old are you anyways?" Ted inflects more curiosity and care into his voice as the boy is absolutely tiny looking like he would probably only be around 7.

"I think I'm okay, I'm more happy that Steph is alright than anything. But I'm 9 actually. Today is actually my 9th birthday." He looks prouder at the mention of his age as the duo make it to the end of the alley where Steph in tears is talking to a police officer offer until she see's the pair fully emerge the alley.

Rushing over to them she envelops Percy into a hug as he tentatively returns it still in a little shock before he returns the hug full force. Seeing Ted standing there as well as soon as the two become unraveled she rushed over to him and hugs him as well just repeating her thanks to him for getting Percy out of there.

The officer waiting for a moment before seeing the hug ends walks over to the now trio as she bends down to check in on Percy. "Hi there Percy, my name is Sargant Essen. Are you sure you can be safe with this man…" She trails off as she looks over to Ted motioning for him to fill in his name.

"Oh, um Ted, Ted Grant. And the kids have been through a traumatic day but if you need to ask someone about anything you can either ask me or wait until one of their parents shows up." At the mention of parents Percy's eyes light up as thinks about how happy his mom will be when she gets off work and she can celebrate his birthday with him, Steph and hopefully the nice man who helped him.

"I want my mom, but she'll be mad at me if I'm not home with Gabe when she gets home from her job. Wait you're a police officer can you possibly give me a ride home?" His eyes turn into puppy dog shaped ads he runs up to Sargant Essen and begins to beg for her to take him home.

"Sure kid, I'll take you home. Would you be alright if Ms. Brown were to go back with you? I understand that she is very close to you." Percy's grin grows even larger at the mention of Steph going home with him being he also looks at Ted who was off giving a statement and gesturing to the alley and talking in very hushed whisper.

"Of course, she could, she's my bestest friend in the world. But if it's possible would Mr. Ted be able to come with us as well? My mom would love to meet him and he did help save me from those guys Gabe set upon us."

Making a mental not about the mention of Gabe and seeing the other officer let Ted go without arresting him Sargent Essen nods to herself before looking down at the kid begging before her. "Sure kid, I'll just need to finish this report and I'll take all three of you home. And if he's there I would love to talk with Gabe as well."

Walking off to finish her quick report about the call Steph made Sargent Essen heads over and preps her squad car for the 3 passengers she's going to have to fit into the back of her car while also collecting a background report on that Gabe guy Percy kept mentioning to her.

Whats good people? I hated how the last attempt at this story went so I decided to sit down and work on a rewrite to better improve what I had planned. Special thanks to Double for taking over beta duties and to Silver119 for being an adequate person to storyboard this fic with. Also make sure to join the EL Discord here at discord. gg /v7EVxd2dd6