[A/N: Hope everyone will have a HAPPY NEW YEAR! Let's grind this Level 2026… Damn, it feels like 2019 was just yesterday. It's like we fckin skipped a few years.]
Guy was a professional. In the underworld of New York City, he was known as a "Cleaner"—the man you called when you needed a problem to cease existing without leaving a stain on the carpet.
His employer, Frank, was a man of diversified interests: narcotics, smuggling, and human trafficking. Based out of a high-rise in Hell's Kitchen, Frank ran a tight ship.
Four days ago, a crew of Frank's mid-level enforcers had vanished. They had gone to collect "merchandise" in an alleyway and simply never returned.
When Frank sent a cleanup crew, they found nothing but scorch marks and the lingering scent of ozone.
The police had closed the case due to a lack of evidence, but Frank didn't need a badge to investigate.
He bought the surveillance footage from a nearby bodega. It was grainy, but it showed a young man leaving the alley shortly after the crew disappeared.
Then came the carnival. The viral video of Light Inksworth kicking a pumpkin bomb back at the Green Goblin.
Frank paused the video, comparing the blurry figure in the alley to the high-definition footage of Light saving Harry Osborn. The build was the same. The movement was the same.
In Frank's mind, 1 plus 1 equaled a dead loose end. He didn't care if Light was actually the killer or just a bystander; in his line of work, you pruned the branches before they grew into problems.
He made the call.
Chelsea, Manhattan
Guy adjusted his baseball cap, blending into the shadows of the alley across from Light's loft. He spoke into a burner phone, his voice low and devoid of emotion.
"I have eyes on the target's residence."
"Wait for an opportunity," Frank's voice crackled in his ear. "Don't leave a mess. And the girl... bring her to me. If she's young, she has market value."
"Understood."
Guy hung up and waited. He checked his equipment: a suppressed pistol, garrote wire, and a custom alloy combat knife.
Minutes later, an electric scooter hummed down the street. A delivery boy in a generic uniform pulled up to the curb, checking his phone.
Guy smiled. Opportunity.
He moved with the silence of a ghost. As the delivery boy dismounted to retrieve a bag from the thermal box, Guy struck.
A chop to the carotid artery dropped the boy instantly. Guy dragged him into the alley, stripped him of his jacket and cap, and checked the receipt.
Inksworth. Apartment 4B.
"Perfect," Guy whispered.
He didn't kill the boy; a dead civilian would draw NYPD homicide detectives. A mugging victim just drew a patrol car.
He put on the cap, grabbed the food bag, and walked to the building's entrance.
Inside the Loft
[Present]
The movement was a blur. Guy dropped the bag and drew the alloy knife in a reverse grip, slashing upward toward Light's jugular vein with practiced, lethal precision.
He had executed this move fifty times. It was undefendable.
CLANG.
The sound wasn't the wet tear of flesh. It was the high-pitched ring of metal striking an anvil.
Guy froze.
The tip of his knife was pressed against Light's neck. The skin hadn't even broken. There was no blood. It was as if he had stabbed a marble statue.
"What the..." Guy's eyes widened, staring at the point of impact. "The fuck...?"
Light looked down at the knife, then up at the assassin. His expression shifted from annoyance to a terrifying, cold indifference.
"That's not takeout," Light said.
"Mutant!" Guy hissed, trying to retract the blade.
Light didn't let him.
His left hand shot up, clamping onto the blade.
With a casual twist of his wrist, he snapped the high-grade alloy steel like a toothpick.
SNAP.
Before Guy could reach for his gun, Light's hand closed around his throat.
Light lifted the 1.9-meter, 200-pound hitman off the ground as easily as if he were a ragdoll.
"Who sent you?" Light asked, his voice flat.
Guy clawed at Light's iron grip, his legs kicking uselessly. "Go to hell... freak!"
"Wrong answer."
Light didn't have time for torture. He didn't have time for games.
He summoned an Energy Ball.
HUMMM.
A sphere of blue-white energy, slightly larger than a grapefruit now that it was Level 2, materialized in Light's free hand.
He pressed it against Guy's chest.
"Cleanup on aisle four."
BOOM.
The energy released instantly. It wasn't an explosion that spread outward; it was a contained demolition. Guy didn't scream. He simply ceased to exist as a biological solid.
Blood and viscera threatened to spray across the hallway, but before a drop could hit the floor, a shimmering purple field enveloped the mess.
Gali stood in the doorway, her hand raised. The purple field contracted, compressing the remains of the assassin into a dense, dark sphere the size of a marble.
She floated the sphere over to her hand and sniffed it.
"Low quality," she critiqued, wrinkling her nose.
"Dispose of it," Light said, wiping his hands on a handkerchief. "Can you trace him?"
"Simple," Gali said.
The sphere vanished—consumed or disintegrated, Light didn't ask.
She picked up the burner phone that had fallen to the floor. Her eyes glowed with a faint purple hue.
"Scanning... Triangulating... It is a secure line. Origin point: Frank D'Amico. Import/Export office, West Side."
"Frank D'Amico," Light repeated the name. "The drug lord."
He walked back to his studio and grabbed his coat.
"Gali, get your shoes. We're going out."
"For food?"
"For pest control."
Frank D'Amico's Headquarters, West Side
Frank adjusted his cufflinks, staring out the window of his penthouse office.
"Boss, Guy hasn't checked in," his lieutenant said nervously.
"He's a professional. He'll call when it's done," Frank dismissed him.
Suddenly, the building shook.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
Automatic gunfire erupted from the lower floors. Screams echoed through the ventilation shafts.
Frank calmly picked up his phone. "Report."
"Intruders!" a voice screamed over the radio. "Two of them! They're tearing us apart! One is... Jesus, one is a little girl!"
Frank frowned. A rival gang? The Punisher?
"Send everyone down," Frank ordered. "I don't care who they are. Kill them."
The Lobby
The ground floor was a slaughterhouse.
Two figures moved through the chaos like hurricanes. One was a large man in a tactical Batman-esque suit—Big Daddy.
The other was a small girl in a purple wig and a plaid skirt—Hit-Girl.
"Check your corners, Mindy!" Big Daddy roared, reloading his shotgun with one hand while blasting a thug with the other.
"I got it, Daddy!" Mindy flipped over a reception desk, her double-bladed staff spinning. She sliced through a gunman's wrist, planted a kick on his chest, and put a round in his forehead before he hit the ground.
They were efficient, brutal, and highly trained. But they were outnumbered.
Frank's reinforcements were pouring out of the elevators. Heavy machine gun fire chewed up the marble pillars Mindy was using for cover.
"Suppressive fire!" Big Daddy yelled, throwing a smoke grenade.
Just then, a yellow taxi screeched to a halt outside the shattered glass doors.
The driver, a terrified immigrant, looked at the war zone. "Sir, are you sure this is the place?"
"Keep the meter running," Light said, handing him a hundred-dollar bill.
Light stepped out of the taxi. He wore a simple black coat, his hands in his pockets. He looked at the chaos—the flashing muzzle flares, the bodies, the father-daughter vigilante duo pinned down behind a statue.
He walked through the front door.
A stray bullet whizzed past his ear. Light didn't flinch.
"Hey!" a thug on the mezzanine shouted, spotting the new arrival. "Another one! Light him up!"
Three submachine guns turned toward Light.
BRRT!
Bullets struck Light's chest, his shoulders, his legs.
They flattened against his skin like they were hitting a tank's armor plating.
They fell to the floor with a rhythmic tink-tink-tink.
The shooting stopped. The thugs stared. Even Hit-Girl peeked out from behind her cover, her eyes wide behind her domino mask.
Light dusted off his coat. He looked up at the mezzanine.
"Elevator," he muttered.
He walked past the stunned gangsters, ignoring Big Daddy's confused look, and pressed the call button.
Ding.
The doors opened. A thug inside raised a shotgun.
Light punched him.
He didn't wind up. He didn't shout. He just extended his arm.
SPLAT.
The thug exploded.
The back wall of the elevator was instantly painted red.
Light stepped inside and pressed the button for the top floor.
The 4th Floor
The elevator doors opened to a sea of guns. Frank's elite guard was waiting.
"Hold fire!" the lead enforcer shouted. He was a tattooed skinhead holding dual MP5s. "Who are you?"
Light stepped out, the blood on his coat stark against the black fabric.
"I'm the guy who ordered takeout," Light said.
"Takeout?" The skinhead laughed nervously. "You crazy? Kill him! Cut him up!!"
BANG.
The skinhead fired point-blank at Light's forehead.
The bullet struck Light's skin, deformed instantly, and dropped to the carpet. A red mark appeared on Light's forehead, fading within seconds.
"Mutant!" someone screamed.
Light sighed. "I warned you."
He moved. With the [Monstrous Power] fragment active, he was a blur. He closed the distance instantly, driving a fist into the skinhead's gut.
The shockwave blew out the windows on the other side of the room. The skinhead didn't just fly back; he folded.
His body became a projectile that took out three other men behind him.
"Daddy, look at that!" Mindy whispered from the stairwell door, where she and Big Daddy had just breached.
"Stay back, Mindy," Big Daddy warned, his voice grim. "That's not a vigilante. That's a monster."
The remaining gangsters broke. They dropped their guns and ran.
"Wait!" Frank's voice boomed over the intercom. "Don't be rude to our guest."
From the shadows of the executive office, a massive figure emerged.
He wasn't Frank. He was a black man standing seven feet tall, wearing a pristine white suit and a white fedora. He cracked his neck, the sound like a gunshot.
The air in the room suddenly grew hot. Blisteringly hot. The carpet began to smoke near his feet.
_______________________________
Word count: 1685
Comment below on what you think so far.
If anyone of you is interested in reading some advanced chapters, you can check out my p@ tr*on.
p@ tr*on.co m/Rai_jin
Thanks for reading guys!