(A/N) Hey guys, sorry that this is going up a bit late, was working late last night and just didn't have time to make the necessary edits before putting this up. I hope you'll all enjoy this, I had a great time writing it. Our next update will go up on Thursday the 18th of July, and from then on the updates will occur weekly on Thursdays, so keep an eye out for them!
For those interested in applying for our sequel to Phase One: Genesis, we'll be closing our forum for applications in a week, so if you're interested please hurry up and apply. This will be the last warning you'll get!
As before, enjoy!
Chapter Two – Making the Canary Sing
Ray Narvaez Jr / X-Ray
Written by NicKenny
"Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become." - Brooke Foss Westcott
X-Ray and Vav flew through the city's streets on the back of their twin motorcycles, X-Ray's a dark green, Vav's a royal blue, negotiating their way through the traffic with confidence and ease. Their route took them from the more affluent areas of Achievement City to the parts that had once essentially been slums, back when the various gangs ran the city, but now were on their way to recovery. Nevertheless, these areas were still the homes of the poor, the addicted, and most of what was left of the criminal element after X-Ray and Vav's campaign against crime.
Not exactly prime real estate.
They slowed to a stop as they reached their destination: a rather dilapidated apartment block, poorly lit, no doubt the home of former criminals, junkies and down on their luck tax collectors, almost identical to all of the others that surrounded it, but for one thing:
Denecour lived here.
The heroes left their bikes behind them without a second thought. Everyone in this city knew who they belonged to, and no one would be stupid, brave or suicidal, enough to steal them. Not after the last guy who had tried to do that ended up hanging upside down from the tallest tree in the city park, stark naked.
"Do you remember what we originally planned to travel in, back in the day?" X-Ray asked Vav, a slight hint of amusement in his voice.
His partner nodded, his brow slightly furrowed as he sought to remember. "You wanted a…pogo-stick, right? And I was going to go around in a wheelchair with a filing cabinet on the back."
The duo paused, lost in their memories of the past, until Vav suddenly shook his head and glanced at X-Ray. "We were fucking idiots."
"What do you mean, were?"
They climbed up the stairs at the side of the building, nodding to the handful of people leaving their apartments for the night, their lives undisturbed by the recent murder. When they reached the door of Denecour's apartment, the heroes stopped, and X-Ray motioned for Vav to knock.
After a moment's hesitation, Vav quickly rapped on the door with his knuckles, withdrawing his hand with a sudden gasp.
"Are you ok?" X-Ray asked guardedly, as his partner raised his hand to him mouth and bit down on it in order to prevent himself from screaming.
Vav looked over at him and removed his hand, hissing, "I think I just stabbed myself with a splinter. Bastard should get a new door."
X-Ray stared at him in shock. "Not like you to swear. You alright? You've been a bit off today."
The other hero sighed and looked away. "Kerbal Gunnerz is dead, X-Ray. He might have been a bit of an ass at times, but he was a good guy. I don't like it when people die. That's why we do what we do, isn't it? We try to protect people."
"We do protect people. How many lives have we saved over the last few years?"
Vav just shook his head and continued to avoid X-Ray's gaze. "Tell that to Kerbal Gunnerz."
Anything more to be said was interrupted by the door in front of them opening, revealing a pair of suspicious, if not downright hostile eyes, partially hidden behind a dishevelled brown fringe. Denecour was a small man, thin and weedy, but his eyes displayed the intelligence that dwelt within. His mouth was open, framing the words of what would no doubt be a rather impolite dismissal, when he suddenly realised who his visitors where, and he froze, for the briefest moment, in shock, before turning and making to flee.
Before he was even able to take a step, X-Ray's eyes glowed a vivid red as he fired an optic blast at the smaller man, sending Denecour flying into the wall at the far side of the room, which he hit with a dull thud, falling onto the floor a second later.
The pair strode into the apartment, glancing around them as they looked for any potential threats. Denecour normally worked alone, but it paid to be careful in their line of work. Kerbal Gunnerz had proved that.
Denecour groaned as Vav picked him up off the floor and lifted him into the air. "What the fuck are you guys doing here? How did you find me?"
Vav just laughed and glanced over at X-Ray. "He wonders how we found him. How do you think we found you? The power bills the city charges you are through the roof! Did you really think you could run your operation here without us noticing?"
He dropped Denecour to the floor, who landed in a heap and slowly picked himself up, staring daggers at the two heroes. "What do you want?" he spat out, glaring at them.
X-Ray shrugged, smiling slightly. "Well, we're definitely not interested in taking you in. Although, we could, you know? Illegal hacking, substance abuse, possible drug running by the amount of weed you've got in the next room."
When Denecour started, glancing at the wall next to him, as though it had suddenly turned to glass and revealed all of its secrets to the heroes, causing X-Ray to laugh. "Come on, you know I can see through walls. Did you really think you could keep any secrets from us?"
Denecour's shoulders sagged, and he ran a hand through his dishevelled hair. "Fine, you win. Why are you here?"
He walked over to a threadbare sofa, and flopped down onto it, taking a glass bottle off the adjacent table and taking a swig of whatever it contained, sighing as he did so. Vav glanced at X-Ray, who gave a half shrug, and turned back to Denecour.
"You know why we're here, Denecour. We want to know who killed Kerbal Gunnerz."
The man took another swig, shaking his head slowly. "Terrible business right there, kid could have achieved so much. But what makes you think I'd know anything about it?"
X-Ray laughed. "Because you know everything that goes on in Achievement City. That's the only reason that we allow you to continue with your…business. That's the only reason why we haven't hauled your ass up before a judge after all this time. So are you going to cooperate, or are we going to have to convince you to?"
Next to him, Vav cracked his knuckles, grinning maniacally, and Denecour swallowed nervously, setting the bottle back onto the table. "All I know is the bare details, once the Feds took over, all my info went dry. I don't have any sources within the FBI."
The heroes glanced at each other. "Well, what do you know?" X-Ray asked, guardedly, his right hand sneaking into his pocket, making sure that the plastic package Agent Heyman had given him was still there.
"I know the kid was wasted crossing the street, taken out by a sniper up high on the next building. I know the sniper didn't leave any traces, no DNA, no fingerprints, no cigarette butts, nothing. Even took his shell casings with him. That means he's a professional, but I could list out about four dozen guys who fit that description, just living in the city."
X-Ray produced the package with a flourish, noticing Denecour's eyes widen as he focused on the item within the plastic. "Is that what I think it is?" Denecour asked slowly, glancing back up at X-Ray.
He nodded, wondering what else Denecour thought it could be. It was a bullet, after all, and only one was relevant to their current conversation. "Yes," he replied, for clarification purposes. "This is the bullet they pulled out of Kerbal Gunnerz."
Denecour got to his feet and walked up to X-Ray, his hand outstretched. "May I?" he asked, slightly hesitant. X-Ray nodded, and handed the package over, watching Denecour closely as the other man held the package up to the light, his eyes scrutinizing the bullet within.
After a brief moment, he sighed. "I assume I can't take this out, right? Police property, can't compromise evidence, yadda yadda yadda?"
When X-Ray nodded he just sighed again, and handed it back to him. "I noticed some faded etchings on its surface, I suppose they were probably all but erased after the coroner removed it from the body. Any chance you guys know what it said?"
"Your light's gone out," Vav replied, before X-Ray could speak. He glared at his partner for giving up the information, but Denecour didn't notice the exchange between the two, too focused on the message previously inscribed on the bullet.
After a moment, he snapped his fingers and glanced up at the heroes. "I've got it!" he exclaimed, beaming from ear to ear. "I've heard about this guy, uses the same calibre bullets as the one we have here, etches them very finely to inform his opponents of his next target, rumoured to never miss a shot. Lot of rumours centred on him, some say he used to be a top moto-cross racer before getting involved with a drug cartel and forced to serve as hired muscle, becoming a hitman after it collapsed. Others say he serves a couple of years in the Marines, before becoming a hired mercenary in the Middle East. I thought he was only a legend, really, although Interpol and the CIA have him on their Most Wanted lists."
The duo glanced at each other once more, and spoke the same question at the same time. "Who is he?"
Denecour shrugged apologetically. "I don't know what his name is, no one does. According to the guys that told me about him, he goes by the name of Bullet-Beard."
"Bullet-Beard?" Vav asked sceptically. "What kind of name is that?"
Denecour shrugged once more. "Coming from two guys called X-Ray and Vav, I find that a bit ironic."
X-Ray left them to their argument, leaning against the far wall, deep in thought. Why would an international assassin kill a superhero? Why would he come all this way to make so dangerous a hit?
Why do assassins do anything?
"For money," he murmured to himself, and then his mind flicked over to all of the possible enemies Kerbal Gunnerz had made over the years, and which of them had the means to hire an assassin to take him out. Not all that many, to be honest. Most of the major players in Achievement City had already been taken out by X-Ray and Vav by the time Kerbal Gunnerz had arrived on the scene. There couldn't be more than one or two guys with the sort of cash and hatred to have hired this…assassin.
"Vav," he suddenly said, pushing off from the wall. "We need to call J-Roll, see if he can get us access to anyone who could have put the hit on Kerbal Gunnerz."
Vav nodded, and turned away from Denecour, who followed them to his front door, hesitantly hovering over their shoulders, making sure they didn't damage anything on their way out, as they were wont to do. X-Ray turned to thank him, somewhat sarcastically, for his time, when Denecour spoke up.
"That message, 'Your light's gone out'…that couldn't be a threat against Lamp, could it?"
X-Ray paused, a sudden terror filling his bones, as he ran the thought through his mind. Lamp was a fellow hero, and a long-time partner of Kerbal Gunnerz, with the ability to turn invisible at will. Denecour had said that Bullet-Beard's bullets always were etched with a hint towards his next target.
"Fuck," X-Ray murmured, sweat suddenly appearing on his brow. "We need to warn him, get the Feds to protect him, anything!"
At that moment, his phone suddenly went off, filling the air with air with the Pokémon theme song. He pulled the phone of his pocket, flipping it open and raising it to his ear. "What is it?" he asked, although the sense of dread that was currently filling him indicated that he already knew exactly who was ringing him and why.
"It's me," Agent Heyman replied over the phone, his voice tense and uneasy. "We've got a situation, X-Ray."
X-Ray sighed, glancing at Vav and Denecour with a grim expression on his face. "Let me guess, it's Lamp, isn't it?"
He could feel J-Roll nod, even though he had no real way of knowing this. "Yeah, it's Lamp, X-ray," he paused for a moment, swallowing, not quite sure of how to break the bad news.
"He's dead."