I own nothing. I don't own any of the characters.
"Do you have any new information Orwell?" Vince Faraday and the young lady known as Orwell were sitting in Vince's small secluded hole he used as home and office.
"There still isn't anything new to speak of. Fleming hasn't done anything wrong yet, and all we have are your suspicions to go on."
"If I'm right, this is one thing we can't wait around for. What if he does something that is irreversible?"
"The people he hired to do the work are all legit. So far he doesn't have any of his crew or any of Scales crew on the payroll." Vince rubbed his face. He and Orwell had been at this back and forth the past few days. Neither of them was willing to put innocents in harm's way, but they also knew that they had to find some way to stop what they feared Chess might do.
"What if we got it shut down?"
"It's still going to be months down the road before they start the work on the processing plant. He would just put it off and wait."
"What if we don't give him the chance to wait?"
"What do you mean?"
"His whole scheme seems to hinge on getting the approval to do the city renovations. Are there other people willing to do those renovations?" Orwell typed furiously at the laptop she kept with her.
"A few others. Are you even sure that he has a diabolical plan? We are doing a bunch of guess work here."
"It's Chess. I don't think he would be doing this for no gain."
"Then why don't you do some of your detective work like you usually do?"
"Because of our new friend."
"I thought you put him in a trance to keep him in hero mode? And speaking about him, where is he?"
"All I did was put the suggestion in his head. He went with it from there. And last I saw of him, he was going out to do more hero stuff."
Palm City is a beautiful and shining city in the light of day. But the sun went down hours ago. Clouds had been hanging around all day with an ever present threat of rain. They finally made good their promise. A man in a trench coat was walking down a long dark alley way that. He had on a big brimmed hat that kept the rain out of his face.
"Spare a few bucks friend?" A homeless vagrant was sitting in a cardboard box that was on the other side of a trash bin. It kept him out of sight of the few police that patrolled this area. He was ragged. From his patched together clothes to the missing patches of hair on his head.
"Sure." The man threw a wallet to the old man and kept walking. The old man grabbed it greedily with his long grimy fringes and began to look through it. There was no ID card or credit cards, but it was full of cash. The old man held multiple one hundred dollar bills that amounted to about nine thousand dollars.
"Thank you. Thank you. You sir are a saint. A saint I say!" The old man called out to the man who had been so generous. The man didn't so much as turn back.
Just before the trench coated man got to the end of the alley way, a couple of thugs blocked his path. "How about showing us some of that generosity?" The thug on the right spoke up. Saying that he was really speaking was generous in its own way.
The man in the trench coat didn't even stop. He kept walking and bumped shoulders with the one who spoke.
"Hey man! We speakin' to you!" Click. The thug flicked out a small switch blade knife. The click caused the man to turn to the two men. "Damn dude! Looks like you seven shades of dead already. How bout we put you out of yo misery?" The trench coated man's face was badly scared and had what kind of looked like boils on it. He looked like he had pulled himself out of a grave, after having been there about five years.
"You know what? This may be just what I was needin'." The man in the trench coat made a quick movement and took the knife out of the thugs hand with his right hand. He gave a little move and sent the knife from his right hand to his left and stabbed the thug in the throat with his own knife.
"What the fuck man!" The other thug yelled.
"You better pull that piece you have down the back of your pants if you want at least a chance of killing me." The young man started moving for his gun, but quickly changed his mind when his friend made a gurgling sound as the life left his body. The realization that he would be in a one on one fight with an opponent who was obviously trained, brought out the coward in him, and he ran.
The man in the trench coat continued walking out of the alley. He walked across an empty street, and straight into a children's playground. He needed to think. He knew that the thug who ran away would most likely come back, and this time he would have all the members of his gang that weren't out doing other things. That wasn't what he needed to think about. He was accustomed to violence. It may even give him an outlet for the frustration over the problem he was having.
It took the thug longer to get his courage and seek out his comrades for help then the trench coated man thought it would. He'd grown tired of standing and waiting for them at the half hour mark, and set in a swing to wait. It was still another two hours before the thug came back. He must have brought his whole crew with him. The man took the time to count them all. There was twenty-seven.
The park had a few lights around it. Concerned parents didn't want their kids finding used condoms', needles, or the likes that drugged out teenagers may leave after using the park for their deals and parties, so the city put them in as appeasement. They also had the added benefit of letting the man see the gang members. They were all wearing baggy clothing, but other than that there was nothing to show they were all of the same gang. They weren't wearing kind of unity in color or style. But that could be smart on their part. If a gang doesn't look like a gang, then it's just a bunch of hoodlums hanging around.
"I take it you're the man who killed my boy back there?" This was a man's voice, and it was coming from the back of the pack. It made sense. It would take a leader to think that the gang shouldn't wear identifying colors.
This might make the night even more interesting. These kids had a variety of weapons. They mostly had weapons for close and personal, like chains, knives, and clubs, and some may have had a gun, but the arrival of a leader meant someone with brains. The man didn't say anything.
There was no banter. The leader of the gang took the man's silence as a challenge, so he sicked his hounds on the rabbit. At least that was what he thought he was doing. The man waited for the thugs to get closer.
The first one to attack him did so with a chain. The thug swung the chain, but was too slow. The man in the trench coat ducked under him, put his shoulder to the thug's midsection, and used his own momentum to flip him over the man's back. The next one came at the man with a knife. He was not as lucky. The man blocked the attack, and countered by snapping the thug's arm at the elbow. The man didn't stop to do more to the thug. He just moved on to the next one.
After seeing how fast the first two went down, the remaining gang members got shoulder to shoulder and went in slower. There were too many people and too many directions an attack could come from for the man to fight them off. He gave an eerie smile, and drew two submachine guns from their hiding spot in his trench coat. The few gangers who had hand guns didn't have time to react, and the ones who were moving in for close combat where worse off. The man brought his submachine guns around in a semicircle, moving his arms from outstretched at his sides to crossing each other.
The first two to be taken down by the man were the lucky ones. They might not feel it right now, but they were already on the ground and didn't have to worry about the spray of bullets. The fight was now over. The man didn't know how many of the gang members were dead, and he didn't care. They were only mean to wear him down for their leader to take care of him. They were out of commission now, and the man and the gang leader could dance.
"You're just full of surprises." The man in the suit was casually walking into the park. He hadn't made any attempt to get closer during the attack. Almost as if he was expecting the trench coated man to do just what he had done. "I'm not gonna give up my territory without a fight."
"Dilligaf."
"Excuse me?"
"I don't care about you, your gang, or your turf. You guys just happened to be the first bit of entertainment I'd found. So, we gonna do this or you gonna run off?"
"I'm not out for entertainment." The leader pulled out a lighter, and light a cigarette. The flame gave the man a chance to see the leaders face. He looked like he had scales for skin. "There's nothing for me to gain by fighting you, so I'll just take my leave."
"I know better than that. Word gets around that you stood back and let someone take out your crew and you lose face. So you're gonna have to come down here and fight."
"You're half right. I'd lose face, but I don't have to fight." The gang leader pulled something that looked like a long flashlight out of a pocket. He threw it at the trench coated man. The part lights showed that it was some kind of explosive. There was no fuse or counter so the man had no idea when it would detonate. He didn't have to wait long.
The explosion was powerful. It caused some alarms that belonged to parked cars to go off. The swing set, where the man in the trench coat had been sitting, no longer resembled anything by that name. What chains were left had been melted into slag, and the poles that once held it up where now twisted beyond repair. The gang leader smirked at his handy work. A crater that still had smoke bellowing from it.
ARK security had responded to the explosion in their usual stellar expedience. These were paying customers after all. It didn't take detectives to know what had happened here, or at least to guess what had happened here. But their job was to keep the scene secure until it had been thoroughly investigated. Two guards were standing by the hole while a few others tried to do crowd control. They were having more and more crime scenes like this since The Cape made himself a fixture in the city. They were accustomed to the rubber-neckers and general oddities, but they were not expecting to hear a laugh come from the still smoking hole they were guarding.
"Muwhahahahaha. Hahahahaha. Caaaaoooogh. Haaaack. Oh that was exactly what I was needing!" The ARK security guards turned their flashlights to the sound. They illuminated a naked man dragging himself up out of the hole. His skin was some weird grayish color, and was covered in boils and scars. It looked like a zombie climbing out of its own grave like in one of those old black and white horror movies.
"What the hell?" Both ARK guards shouted.
"No time to chit chat fellows. I have things to do." And with that, the man turned back to the smoking hole to hide himself as he ran away.
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