NOVEL WEB Chapter 11: Crime Fighting
Chapter 11: Crime Fighting
Brooklyn, New York.
One of the things that makes Red Hood different from the rest of the Bat family is that he uses guns to carry out his attacks. Regarding marksmanship, Jason is one of the most proficient in the world and can shoot at a pace that even superhumans have had difficulty approaching him.
The percentage of Todd’s persona was slowly creeping towards a hundred percent, and with that came more of Jason Todd's infamously deadly arsenal.
There is no doubt that Todd's most commonly used weapon was his Glock; unfortunately, that weapon was becoming obsolete as Todd's power and influence grew; now he possessed one of Todd's most iconic weapons, a pair of modified M1911 pistols that were chambered .45 caliber rounds.
He was also developing another aspect of his evolution simultaneously; he was beginning to recall the night his parents died. With the increasing ability of his analytical skills, he was slowly piecing together fragments of knowledge from his childhood to make sense of it all.
His passage through the darkness was unnoticed by the families huddled in their homes, the neighborhood had once been one of the upper-middle class neighborhoods, but that was no longer the case; ever since Rand Enterprise purchased the block, the homes soon followed, causing the once idealistic neighborhood to become crime-ridden, and the occupants' actions to bleed outward toward the neighboring communities.
Speaking of Rand Corporation, Danny Rand was still missing and presumed dead; upon checking social media, he learned that the Defenders weren't what he remembered. Although his memories of the show and comics were far from perfect, even if he could use his personas multiples minds in conjecture, it didn't give him total recall, at least not yet.
With Rand out of the picture and Daredevil, the moral support and leader of the group, who was possibly becoming an agent of SHIELD, the events he remembered from the shows were insufficient to devise any plan, which meant The Hand was growing exponentially. He could not develop any plan because he had no idea what to do with it. He suspected that even with his smash and grabs, he was barely a nuisance. He believed his civil forfeiture would not affect their bottom line because the multi-millionaire corporation was under their control.
The idea that the Defenders were not operating at total capacity was alarming to him. He could recall a few figures in his mind who could be a problem even for the Avengers if their aspirations were allowed to grow unhindered and beyond street level.
Once again, here he was, trying to figure out what version of Earth he was operating on. Is it better to ask if his knowledge has influenced the storyline, or is it just a coincidence?
After firing the grappling gun, Cole could pull himself smoothly up on the roof of a three-story house that had seen better days; it had been abandoned for some time. There is no doubt that the drug dealers are the ones who have driven the families that were able to leave out of their homes.
The place he was perched on was parallel to the trap house. It was a trap house operated by Tombstone that he had his eye on tonight, and supposedly, the boss of the trap house was a brother of Tombstones.
The house had heavy traffic, cars, and foot. The sheer audacity of the criminals made his blood boil. He wasn't a hero, but he hated peddlers of drugs that destroyed families and lefts, children and orphans.
He slid his black leather coat to the side. His newest acquisition strapped around his waist tightly as he expertly tapped one of the many compartments.
He thrust his hand toward the house; the silent Boas drones, a welcomed discovery, each of the items in his utility belt, were, for all intense purposes, Batman's most prized possession. What was hidden inside made him understand that adage with prep time, Batman is undefeated.
Boas drones silently hovered around him; their experimental tech and powerful miniature rotors gave them the maneuverability of a hummingbird.
The drones happened to be a multifunctional piece of technology; Batman had repurposed it during the Arkham Knight debacle; originally, it was Todd's forces tech.
He had learned charging in a building with his current abilities wasn't ideal; mutants and mutates were popping up everywhere.
Even though he had been careful since battling the mutants, the arrogance of the Gorgon had irked him; the mutant did see him as a threat, and he bet that has changed since they parted ways. He still had a score to settle, it was something about his first fight against characters brought to life from the pages of fiction that thrummed with him, and then there was the rage, almost burning hot rage that coursed through him when he fought.
Boas drones whirled away, the low light pollution of the neighborhood, which from a cursory glance at the damaged street lights, were by design and the cloak of darkness, his slight touch of Wayne R&D stealth paint, the technological wonders were optically invisible.
A key element of comics has always been technology - even the most influential characters in comics have used technology, some so advanced that they cannot be distinguished from the arcane.
In Arkham Knight, Jason Todd used a sniper rifle that could be separated into two smaller guns and put back together again. Those two guns were the modified M1911 pistols he had unlocked.
He was upping the ante. He failed to convey the correct message to his adversaries with his heavy but sparing hand. His once weariness and hesitation were because of Peter Parker, they weren't best of friends, but they both had a lot in common, and he didn't want to put the neighborhood spider down if he came after Red Hood.
Cole had positioned himself; he slid the magazine into the heavily customized sniper rifle, his cowl technology synchronizing with the rifle and twin drones.
His target was Carl 'Boss' Thomas, the brother of Tombstone. It was time to draw out the manipulators, discover who killed his parents, and get the justice that Jeremy York deserved.
The two Boas drones had the capabilities of thermal and Infrared imaging. While the former uses heat to produce images, the latter uses light.
Cole tapped the side of his cowl, enabling the sound amplifier, still synchronized with the drones; he could hear everything from phone conversations to the heated argument between the two gang bangers guarding the back door entrance.
"Bro, I'm telling you, the boys in Harlem are moving weight!" Said the skinny Caucasian gangster.
"Them Haitians running Harlem Parasise? I bet. They got the plug straight from the islands. We got that good stuff, too, though." Responded the bulkier black banger.
"Yeah, them boys, Stokes Crime Family, managed to carve a piece of territory from the Four Families."
"Sam, you want to see about us and the gang hitting them or some?"
"Nah, Reap, we got the block sowed up here; we just need to wait until Boss takes over the rest of the neighborhood." Said Sam.
"Right. Tombstone could wipe them out; that albino motherfucker is powerful as fuck." Sam Said.
"Yeah, but ol boy that we've heard about is operating in that area; you have seen the videos? He's bulletproof."
Interesting. Cole had been hearing things about Brooklyn and the Stokes crime family. From what he heard from the thugs and addicts he had been dealing with, the Four Families, we're having trouble coping with The Hand.
He adjusted his aim, not that he would be sparing the men; they weren't wasting his ammo. Tonight he would send a direct message to Tombstone.
He tapped the other side of his cowl, syncing with the other Boas; he switched imagery, his body going stiff, and before the drone could send the sound to him, he had already tuned everything out. He saw red, the cold calm of his rational mind vanished, and rage burned in his veins.
He inventoried his weapon, the rifle winking out of existence, and in its place was the grappling gun that Batman used against Arkham Knight. He pointed it toward the tree beside the house. He zipped toward the tree, barely pausing before he lunged over the fence and in between the two horrified gangbangers.
He lashed out, his blows sending the two across the yard in a broken heap. His strength had grown. He was now beyond peak Captain America across the board. He was inching closer to base superhuman levels.
He knew the cries of the gangsters would alert those in the house, but he didn't care.
In his rage, he had a single thought, ‘old habits never die.’
He timed his breach with the arrival of a thug with a shotgun. He kicked the door off its hinges, sending the thug and the splintering door into the other two men who came to investigate.
He growled, the cowl technology enhancing his displeasure to an audible level that caused instinctual fear.
The music was blasting inside the drug den; he could smell marijuana in the air; he stepped into the door frame, reached down and grabbed the shotgun, pumped it, and blasted the thug coming into the hallway back the way he came.
His notifications flashed in his peripheral, and a mission was uncovered. His action has consequences, like the man upstairs that touched his bottom line.
He heard someone shout around the corner as he strolled down the hallway. His drone whirring around the house; as he tracked the men's movements set against him. He pumped the shotgun with a single arm and pressed it against the wall; the family portraits of the owner were still hanging; they were all smiling; the young lady resembled the figure of the woman he saw upstairs, tied to a bed, the heat signatures showed three men in the room, three men that would die tonight.
He pressed the trigger, and the thundering blast of the gun and subsequent wall exploding sent the men reeling. The man nearest the wall lay slumped across the kitchen.
He forced his way through the hole. Inside the kitchen, where he could see cocaine packages and half-sorted coke, the cookers and preparers had long gone from his abrupt entrance.
He placed his hand on a full duffel of coke as he made his way through; the duffle vanished, sold to the system.
A thug screamed and ran at him with a bat; he caught it mid-swing, pulled the man toward him, head-butted the man, and swept his legs from under him; the man head clipped the counter on his way down; Cole walked across him, uncaring, his rage simmering.
He cleared the first floor in a matter of minutes. The common thugs weren’t remotely capable of hindering him.
Cole crested the steps, like most houses in the once upper-middle-class neighborhood; it was three stories. Upon his arrival on the second floor, a giant of a man roared and lumbered toward him.
The Red Hood suit he had now vastly differed from his previous one. This one had a technology hilt inside, a grade or two down from the more robotic case of Arkham Knight. Jason Todd also used a Taser built into his body armor. It was activated through the red Bat symbol on his chest, and it's powerful enough to stun an Amazon, as seen when he used it on Artemis. He also used it on Batman to give his adoptive father a taste of what it means to fight dirty.
The symbol glowed menacingly as electricity sparked across the surface; the brute made it a breath from Cole before the electricity snaked out. The man screamed as his body locked up and the high voltage coursed through his body.
Cole watched as the notification in his peripheral tacked down as the charge began to dwindle. He allowed it to flow, knowing the kinetic adaptation added to it would refill it almost instantly.
The man began to simmer, the voltage so pronounced he was immolating. His clothes caught fire, followed by his eyes, and his scream became stranger, and then his tongue boiled in his mouth.
He was dead long before he kicked the man over the railing. He moved ahead, his rage brewing inside; heat poured from him, his presence causing the surroundings to shimmer causing the temperature to rise.
