Kabal turned the corner quickly. There was a mass panic on his hands. A small riot here or there was fine, he expected it, but this wasn't just one or two riots. There were several large masses attacking the streets with torches, guns, everything. It's been an hour since the banks blew. How did they get those guns already? He obtained the answer once he saw the nearest gun shop's window smashed to pieces. Almost all of the firearms were missing, save a few broken shotguns and pistols. From his position on the streets, he saw that further down the road, a line of people were approaching him. Well, not exactly him, but it was his location.
He ran into a nearby alley, watching as a car passed by on fire, with someone still driving. Kabal turned his head questionably, but decided to ignore the car afterwards. He found a ladder leading up to the roof. It was rusty, and he doubted it would hold his weight. But the streets were no longer safe.
Kabal dashed towards the ladder, grabbing the first rung. It creaked in protest, and continued to do so as Kabal grabbed the other rungs. Just as he got to the top, several bolts popped out of the top. His eyes widened in shock. Kabal ascended on the rungs as quickly as he could, but as he climbed, more and more bolts popped out. The ladder fell backwards, Kabal grabbing on for dear life. Thankfully, the alleyway was quite narrow. The ladder became lodged between the two buildings. The vigilante gave a small sigh of relief as he grappled to the other side of the ladder.
Once he got to the top of the roof, he looked down at the streets. He watched as a man dragged a woman into the shadows, hearing her screams. He saw a group of men and women throwing Molotov cocktails into random buildings. It seemed that all it took was a couple bombs to throw a city into a mass riot. In less than an hour, actually. It didn't exactly fill one with a lot of hope for the way humanity processed attacks by masked terrorists. Although, to be fair, that wasn't a common occurrence in life. Not many people would prepare for this large of an attack.
During this thought, he heard footsteps approaching. Kabal's hand quietly made its way to his sword. Moving quickly, he took out the hooked blade, and pointed it at his stalker, who was a man with a… blindfold on? Looking a bit more closely, it was apparent from this man's apparel that he was a cop. But he did his best to hide that fact. The only way Kabal knew was from the badge around his neck being jostled out of its hiding place.
He moved around the blindfolded man, who kept his attention forward. The vigilante asked, "How did you find me?"
"It wasn't hard, Kabal."
Wait, what? "How do you know my name?" Kabal demanded furiously, but kept his voice level. He was now on the man's right side, the hook sword not drooping an inch.
"We did some digging on you." He then paused for a second. "My partner and I, that is. We still haven't found much, and we only told our captain."
"You told the captain? Don't you realize he's on the take?"
"Briggs?" The man sounded genuinely confused. "No, a few of us aren't on the take, him included. My partner as well."
"So?" He was now facing the cop's back, his sword still leveled at him. "You're a cop. You need to take orders from your superiors. And I'm guessing they want you to take me in." He stopped when he saw the katana on the cop's back. That certainly wasn't standard issue for a police officer.
"I'm not bringing you in because my superiors told me too." He then turned to face Kabal, who stepped back slightly. "I'm bringing you in because you've broken the law."
The vigilante snorted. "You can try."
But before he could react, a fist was sent into his gut. Kabal doubled over in surprise and pain. He looked back up at the cop, who was now pulling out his sword. He said calmly, "We can still do this the easy way."
Kabal then picked up the dropped sword, whipping the other out of its holder. His trench coat billow in the wind, as well as the cops blindfold tails. For a brief moment, neither moved. Then, they charged.
Kabal lashed out first, swinging both swords in the cop's direction. The officer blocked both weapons, kneeing the vigilante in the stomach. The cop then brought down his sword, but the masked man blocked it by crossing his swords. They both stood like that for a few seconds, both struggling to get some form of leverage on the other.
The cop broke the struggled by jumping back, letting Kabal swipe at empty air. A slight snarl form on his lips. How the hell was a man with a blindfold this good? How did he even see? The cop slid his katana back in its sheath, before getting into a fighting stance Kabal didn't recognize. Well, if the cop did not want to use swords, fine.
That did not mean Kabal was going to. Taking a deep breath, he charged at the cop with astonishing speed. The cop could not even react to this speed. Hooking his blade on the scabbard, Kabal spun the cop around for a brief moment. When the spinning ended, the cop staggered slightly. And yet he was able to dodge Kabal's next attack. The officer sent an elbow into Kabal's back, forcing him to drop his blades. He then fell to the floor with a loud oomph.
This was something Kabal did not expect to happen today. Getting his ass handed to him by a man with a blindfold. To him, the bombing of most banks was more probable than that. Footsteps drew his attention to the blindfolded man. Kabal formulated a plan. When the cop got next to Kabal, the masked vigilante used his speed to trip the cop up. As the man was falling to the floor, Kabal grabbed the hilt of the katana.
He had it pulled out before the cop hit the ground. Kabal raised it into the air, ready to bring it down onto the police officer. Just as it was inches to his face, the cop snapped both hands against it, stopping it just in time. For a brief moment, Kabal did not apply force. He just stared at the cop in surprise. The cop took that moment to wrench the blade from Kabal's grasp.
As he did this, the vigilante had regained his wits. He smashed his fist against the cop's jaw sending him to the ground sprawling. The cop got to his hands and knees, but a hand grabbed his hair and slammed his face into the ground.
He was then turned over to his back. Kabal had his right fist raised, and his other hand went for the blindfold. He ripped it off quickly. It took a moment to ingest the fact that this man had no pupils to speak off, but had the faint blue outline that showed where his irises used to be. Kabal came to a realization. He was fighting a blind man.
The cop's brows furrowed, and he slammed his forehead against Kabal's nose. The officer got to his feet, grabbed his adversary's head, and sent it into his knee. Kabal jerked upright, swaying slightly. Before he knew it, the back end of a boot smashed into his face, plunging his world into darkness.
As Kabal dropped to the ground, Kenshi did the same. He did not do so to pass out, but he was exhausted. And the pain was finally getting to him. The last thing he expected was to get into a fight. Hell, he did not even want to. But, it was plenty obvious that Kabal was not going to go quietly. So, Kenshi surprised him. Because that worked out so well. True, the cop was dominating for most of the fight, but if the vigilante had not hesitated when he took off Kenshi's blindfold, the officer had little doubt he would have lost.
Although the fact that he was punched in the jaw and had his face slammed into solid concrete was not the only reason he was tired. At the end, without his sword, he had to call onto his sixth sense to pinpoint just where Kabal was exactly. Despite the gift that sense gave him, it was always tiring whenever he used it. He was just so happy he had not thrown up this time. That was never a good time.
Kenshi begrudgingly got to his feet. Thankfully, no matter what, his Sword of Sento was always visible to him, as well as a few inches of the building around it. He picked it up, getting some sense of where everything was. He then walked over to his blindfold, wrapping it around his eyes tightly. Taking out a pair of handcuffs, he put them on Kabal as he sat back down to the ground.
The blind swordsman rubbed his temples gently. He felt a massive headache coming along. Super. He fell to his back, breathing deeply. He took out his communicator attached to his vest. He pressed the button and called out, "Stryker, you there?"
"Kenshi? Where are you?"
"I'm not entirely certain. But I've got Kabal handcuffed on the top of a roof."
"Why are you on a roof?"
"Because the streets aren't safe anymore. Have you looked outside?"
"Hold on. Let me look." The sounds of footsteps made its way through the communicator. "Oh. Yeah, it's pretty bad out there. Why would you go out there?"
"Because it wasn't that bad when I walked out of the damn building, Kurtis. I'll be back in a little bit."
"Just make it back safely. God knows, I don't want to file for a new partner."
"I'm happy you care so much about me." Kenshi dropped his hands to the ground. Now... how the hell was he going to get back to the station?
Stryker closed the blinds and looked back at the captain. "Kenshi's on his way."
Briggs nodded, not looking up from the television. It was replaying the last Anarky message. Stryker hated it. They didn't have a name, a location, hell, they did not even have a gender to put on this character. Everyone was just referring to this guy as male, since the voice sounded like one. Then again, it could be a voice changer. There was an incident when Kenshi first started working as an officer, but that was a story for a different time. It was also nowhere near as disastrous as this.
"…Well, you will have to answer that question yourself. What is the one place people cannot go without being shot dead on arrival by those who swear to protect you? Solve the question, or live under the democracy… of Anarky."
The DVD automatically started over. "Hello, Citizens of Deacon. I hope you are having a nice day. You see, that's all I want…"
Stryker asked, "Figure out anything new yet?"
The captain shook his head. He slammed his fist down onto the desk, causing his fellow officer to jump at the loud bang. It was quite evident that he was mad. A vain was about ready to burst at the top of his bald head, pulsating quickly. Stryker wanted to make a joke, but it would be a quite uncomfortable time. Instead, he just took another sip from his coffee.
Tonight was going to be a long, stress filled night for the both of them. Outside, an explosion tore through the city. Stryker mumbled to himself, "If this keeps up, Anarky won't have to blow up another building." He paused to finish off his beverage. "These people will do it for him."
Briggs heard what his co-worker had to say. "Then he'll have his city all to himself."
"Look, I don't care what you have to do, Gor, just figure it out."
The police commissioner, Gor Roh, rubbed his forehead. His other hand was gripping"Look, Rain, I don't know what I can do. This Anarky guy, he's crippled the city, and it's only been an hour since he blew up the buildings. What about you? Are you safe?"
"So you do care about me. I'm touched."
"I couldn't give a rat's ass about you, but I do like having money."
"Heh. Figured. Yes, I'm perfectly healthy here in my humble abode. The security is working diligently at keeping these anarchist at bay."
"It's going to put a dent in his plans."
"Don't worry about him. He's not even in the city. All you need to do is send out your men to calm these folks down."
"They'll be calm once this guy is found. Until then, I'm not sure what any of us can do."
"Well who the hell is working the case?"
"Briggs."
"Well then, why are you worrying?"
"Because he's a boy scout. Instead of killing this guy, he'll probably just bring him in."
"Trust me, Gor, after all Anarky's done, I have little doubt that he'll be put to death. Just stay calm, send out SWAT, and get this problem fixed."
"Alright. Goodbye."