It was early morning and Damian went through the trouble to wake up. He’d watched a crappy action movie with Elisa and took their time to diss it as they watched before they went home. They split ways and went home. Aside from the problem with the strange man there were no strange occurrences. The strike on the Red Band would take place today and he had to go to school to provoke the girl more. Standing outside the classroom, through the window of the door, he could see that some more morons encircled the one he beat up some days ago.

As he walked in, they dispersed and walked out the room. The hoe had a smile on her face as she looked at Damian. Too bad that smug face would turn to frustration, or even despair soon. If they’d be operating on an imperial scale, then the Red Comets had to utterly annihilate all crime in their own city first. Only then they could move up to the larger pieces. As much as Damian hated to admit it, Red City was a rather small time city.

The bell rung, the teacher never walked in. Instead, several armed men came in. The other students walked away, only leaving the hoe next to her henchmen with a crooked smile. Damian scowled. He could beat them up if he wanted to, but there was something highly resembling a Tinker-tech in one of their hands. Also, it’d most likely reveal his status as a hero or get the Red Band on his tail. That was a good plan.

He brought out his phone and tapped in Clinton’s number. After a few beeps, he picked up, breathing heavily.

“I’m in the middle of training here. What do you want?” He asked.

“Found the Red Band. Get to Fortuna High ASAP. Call the others.” Damian said and put the phone back into his pocket. He’d planned the fight at noon, but they happened to be here before school started.

“I’ll give you two choices. Kneel down and beg for mercy and I might let you live. Resist, and you die.” The hoe said, acting high and mighty.

“Quite the contrary. I’ve been thinking of hunting you guys down for a while. The Smithy got done in pretty easily.” Said Damian, showcasing his teeth in a violent grin.

“Enough bluffing. Make your choice.” The hoe said, raising her hand. The henchmen raised the crossbows with it. The metal thing looked like a gun, but nothing like that still existed, Tinker-tech, or not.

“Shut your trap, you slag.” Said Damian. It was nice to use the grandfather language once in a while.

“Kill him!” She shouted. The arrows hit him and fell to the ground, harmlessly bouncing off his body. Underneath, he had worn his costume given by Edwin. The Tinker-tech was charging, and Damian wouldn’t give it the luxury to complete. He smashed through the window with his accumulated energy and jumped down.

The henchmen looked down the window, and Damian smiled at them. They hadn’t had the time to recharge yet. Looks of disbelief were on their faces as they stared at him run off. Damian wanted to change and go back to fight them, but it was a job better done by people unrelated to him. He tapped on Clinton’s number on his phone and called him again.

“Where are you? I found some members. They’re on the second floor, in a class numbered 1-3.” Damian said.

“I’m about there. Two minutes at most. Tina’s next to me.” Said Clinton and the call ended. He chuckled. They got done in by their own trap. The concept of having to extract information from a teenage girl was rather disturbing for Damian. Seeing what Tina did with that fake blood and fallen mob, Damian theorized anyone not used to seeing dead people would be traumatized, and the torture too. Even a mafioso was sent to a mental institute instead of a prison like his partner. But if it was just another gangster, then he had no problem with it.

It was a question of morals.

It didn’t take long for the henchmen to come out. The one with the Tinker-tech was first, his weapon loaded and ready to fire. A black ball appeared from the gun, travelling slowly. The air around it rippled and twisted. After a moment’s thought, Damian picked the most logical choice possible: running for the hills. Whatever it was, being hit by it would be bad.

A groan of frustration sounded from behind and Damian shot a look over his shoulder. The weapon holder was hitting the Tinker-tech with his palms, and he threw it down. The others arrived after him and loosed another round of arrows. That only let him gain more energy. He used it to jump over the fence. These tricks came flying to his mind when he thought of his physical weakness compared to Comet. She was fast, strong and could fly.

He simply had to learn how to do such a thing with his own gift. He then realized he could imbue his entire body with kinetic energy to move it in mid-air or jump higher instead of simply punching things hard. That also meant he had the option to run away from dangerous people like that mist-man.

A piece of concrete on the ground flew up and from below it appeared two figures that Damian recognized as Tina and Clinton, both in costume. Clinton rushed toward them with blade in hand. He was fast, even faster than Damian would be if he forced his body to move with the kinetic energy. Before they could reload their crossbows, Clinton had already cut the weapons in two. That sword was sharp, he had seen it, made from some strange steel. Apparently the harder metals weren’t suited for forging a sword and that was the only viable choice.

Then Clinton backed away, appearing next to Tina. She did what she did best: scream, mentally. They collapsed onto the ground and the fight ended there.

“Shadow, take one of them.” She commanded and jumped back into the hole. Clinton followed, shouldering one of them. For safe measure, Damian decided to go home, or it was just his procrastination. He didn’t care, never did.

≈

The occasional scream sent shivers down Clinton’s spine as he sat before his computer. It was in rare occasions that he wasn’t training, eating, sleeping or fighting crime, but the situation called. Suspicious movements of people were reported by the Red City police and warned citizens to stay away from them during the night. Edwin said to investigate this case.

The warning made it all too clear it wasn’t the work of one of their acquaintance gangs. The Red Band was a large one, but not as influential as the Smithy, at least in here. Their destruction would only be a matter of time. With the feed of almost the entire city’s surveillance cameras, it was easy to find out when and where they moved.

From all around the city, people gathered near Highpeak, the one mountain that was in Red City. It was a tourist attraction, the one thing to see about the small city. Twenty something people just stood there before they went back to their respective homes. It had already repeated three times during the past three days, exactly at 1 o’clock in the morning.

Clinton’s brows furrowed. This was definitely strange. After Edwin had managed to become the president of the corporation, the police have officially called in an alliance with the Red Comets and they had the right to request them to help with certain cases where their Acronyms were futile. This was one of those cases and Clinton received a note from the commissioner saying that they had to intervene with this. The people gathering there seemed not to care one bit about police warnings and one of those people shrugged off a car crash like it was nothing.

There was nothing that suggested they were anything special, just average Joes and Janes that a person could find anywhere. There were some teenagers thrown into the mix. A frown appeared on Clinton’s face, and he wrote back to the commissioner.

We will do what we can. Please investigate further and provide us with further information. Thank you for your cooperation.

The screams quieted down. She finally broke the poor man or he gave in. Which one, no one knew. They were in-between comatose and dead when she finished interrogating them either way. One who walks the path of evil had to be ready for an execution, after all. If they didn’t have connections and were caught on the scene, they’d be taken straight to the execution dock. They only died a more gruesome death. Nothing more, nothing less. Except they didn’t die. Worse.

He then continued to replay some of the feeds and one of them catches his attention. Instead of going to the Highpeak during midnight, one of them was held back by a train. He jumped into its path like it was nothing and had died. Gruesome, yes, but it was indispensable information.

Clinton then sent another message at the commissioner.

They do not fear death. Surveillance camera at the Peak Mall. A person jumped at a train without regard for his life.

Then he stood up, did some squats and walked over to the table. There was a takeaway burger in there, cold now, but he didn’t care about that. It tasted good either way. After devouring it, he proceeded to do his training. Training his body to this extent was hard. To grow, Clinton had to push himself to his utmost limit. If he could do five hundred push-ups, he’d push it to five hundred and fifty the next day. After overworking himself to near death more than a few times, he had gotten this physique, after all.

One hour of push-up, sit-up and pull-ups each. Then after that he’d sprint through the long halls under the city with all his weapons stocked for another hour. After that, he’d train his sword along with throwing weapons throughout the day. One reason he always did that was to become the first captain without a gift. There was none who could stand up to those with gifts. Thus he decided to dedicate his mind and body to become the first, before Edwin came to him.

Tina was at his side and since it was good training for real fights, not to mention the pay for doing what he wanted to do, the job was accepted in a minute by him. Various gym utensils were provided by Edwin but he didn’t truly use them much, except the pull-up bar and lifting and the dumbbells for some exercises he thought of.

Tina walked out the room in a cheery mood. She always had that expression when she pent-up her stress.

“What did you find out?” Clinton asked, doing his push-ups. He’d switch to wide-grip, knuckle, butterfly every one hundred repetitions, but always started the orthodox first.

“The Red Band’s moving in to take the vacuum that the Smithy left. Almost all smaller gangs have joined up with them and they were planning to request the lord to legalize their crimes. They don’t have many hideouts, just one at 7th district. They usually contact their members from a distance and their members don’t have to assemble at hideouts, doing their petty crimes by themselves. You get the point. We raiding today or tomorrow?” Tina said, and then asked.

“Maybe today. What about Damian and Elisa?” He asked.

“Elisa’s busy. Damian might be free. Who knows?” Tina said.

“We can’t go in without Elisa. Who knows what they have.” Clinton said.

“Then we’ll do it tomorrow, I guess. Can you get the guy to the police, pretty please.” She said with a wink. The girl tried to look cute, but she was a tyrant nonetheless. Straight from her manners to what she did. Everything about her shouted tyranny, and only multiplied by her gift. It was unfair, to say the least. With monsters like this on the loose, Clinton couldn’t understand how he even planned to become an army captain. That in turn incited him to train even more rigorously.

“Fine. I’ll do my jog with weights, then.” He said, and stood up.

“Thanks. Can you also get a pizza on your way?” Tina asked.

“Why not.” Clinton said and walked toward the left of the screen. There was a door blending to the wall perfectly there, and as soon as he opened it, the waft smell of iron hitting him like a hammer. Tied to a table was a man in his forties, with some blood dripping down. Not much, but enough to make a small puddle below.

It was disturbing how far Tina was willing to go to psychologically terrorize someone. She even bought several gallons of fake blood that felt the same, looked the same and even smelled the same as the real one, except it was made chemically rather than organically. For extra effect, she knocked out people at their bases and drenched them in said fake blood to practically make the interrogated person wet their pants, or even soil it. It was effective, sure, but immoral. Having her as an enemy would prove a nightmare. She could read surface thoughts and create a telepathic link with someone to knock them out with her scream, or she could whisper to her friends.

In the army they used something called a ‘giftometer’ to know what level of strength that recruits had. Edwin brought it here some time ago and according to that, Tina was a level 8 telepath, 2 points from the maximum. Clinton did have a gift, even though he never thought he did – when he adopted his dream. In the army, they called it stealth. Apparently, his level was 5. This was a number high enough to be accepted as a captain of a minor squad or a scout of a larger one.

Ever since, his determination had somewhat felled and training was more of an obligation than anything. That is when Clinton realized that he could become a captain of one of the 3 great squads if he truly tried. Anything was possible as long as people were willing to put their minds to it, Clinton was the embodiment of that. A bullied kid, or at least a rather weak one, he wasn’t the type to be seen as army material, before he started to train. His veteran grandfather then decided to send him to the military, further cooing him into training more, giving him determination.

“Please, no! I told everything, I swear! Just don’t!” The poor man said. Clinton sighed. This was his third time doing this.

“Don’t worry. She’s gone. I’m here to help.” He said and the blindfolded man breathed hard.

“I swear I don’t know more than that! I have a family, please.” The man proceeded and Clinton sighed.

“We’re getting you out of here.” He said, and shouldered him much like when he brought him here, still with the blindfolds. Clinton wouldn’t let the enemy see what their base looked like, let alone letting them know where one of the entrances was. That was just inviting trouble. He swiped his card on the door and it slid open. His sprinting training then began.

The police station was close by, and it wouldn’t take even ten minutes to get there. While the other side was a tunnel that was built as a tunnel, this side consisted of the sewers. Clinton looked back at the wall of stone descend to the ground, hiding away the door to the Red Comets’ HQ. It now simply looked like a dead end as was on the map of Red City sewers.

The putrid stench of the sewers made it hard to do exercise, and he preferred to sprint in the other tunnel except on errands like this. True to his word, he arrived there in eight. It opened up to the basement of the local police department. Brushing away the cleaning utensils all around him, Clinton walked up the stairs and onto the reception. The middle-aged woman sitting behind the table looked over Clinton’s costumed form and nodded her head, pointing to a door at the far end of the place. Strangely, no one looked at someone carrying a bleeding person over their shoulder, wearing a ninja outfit and carrying two swords at his waists.

He kicked the door open and the police doctor told him to place the man on the bed.

“Also tortured?” The old man asked as he looked over him.

“Yeah. Broken, maybe. Injured, definitely.” Clinton said, pulling down his mask.

“Serves him right for being in a gang... Ah, sorry. My son was in the Smithy and he got punished for leaving.” The doctor said.

“I can relate.” Clinton lied. “Am I free to leave now?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll fix him up and send him to a prison.” The doctor said and waved him goodbye. Clinton nodded his head and walked outside the room, closing the door behind him.

“Hey, Shadow.” Said an obese man with a moustache over his mouth. His mostly grumpy expression wasn’t present, or it was easier to describe him by no emotion existed on his face at all.

“Commissioner. What do you want?” Clinton asked.

“Can you follow me. We have to talk about something real quick.” The commissioner said and pointed up at the stairs. “There is someone who would like to meet you upstairs.”

“Of course. I’ll meet that person.” Clinton said, nodding his head.

The commissioner led him upstairs, passing by some other police officers with blank faces. Maybe something to arouse such a reaction happened recently. The commissioner’s name was Ronald. He was a good friend of the lord’s, and agreed to help them by providing information only the police had access to. That was indispensable and they agreed. Edwin didn’t interfere with matters like these, lest he reveal that he was supporting the Red Comets.

Ronald walked into a room named ‘Commissioner’s Room’, clearly his own. Sitting behind the desk, however, was a teenager a few years younger than Clinton, around thirteen. The age, however, wasn’t the first thing he noticed about the boy. It was the hair, a pure color – snow white without even an indication it was painted.

“I’d like you to answer a few of his questions, if you won’t mind, of course.” The commissioner said.

“I’ll answer.” Clinton said.

“Well then, Mr. Shadow, may I ask what your real name is.” The boy said with a sweet smile.

“Why should I tell you?” Clinton asked back.

“May I know if you will tell me or not?” The boy asked again.

“Of course no.” Clinton said, and then everything blanked out.

The boy chuckled, then laughed, then laughed like a maniac.

“Oh my god, I should thank those bullies.” He said under his breath, and pointed at his newest minion. “You’ll go and hunt down the rest of the Comets.”

The Shadow nodded his head, and walked out.

“Ronny, go and bring in three boys. Their names are Brian, Fred and James. 25th school, 7th grade.” The boy said. “By the way, make them believe they’re really being arrested.”

Shadow: Let’s meet up at 11PM tonight 7th district, the tallest building. We will be attacking the Red Band.

Psycho: Yay.

Comet: I’ll be there at 11:30

D: Sure.