I am not one of the Great Heroes of the Twencen. I am a dark threat, which rose not as myth but as urban legend. I am no prophet, I am a demon feared only by those who have heard the name. A story told to criminals, no matter the crop. A name unknown to the Good and Just, as it should be. But every man who picks pockets, who runs rackets, that fixes numbers and robs banks. They know the legend. I prey on the wicked. On the Kingpins. I am the threat to the moral weakness of our nation.
I am
DAREDEVIL.
***
{DAREDAREVIL 2099 - EYES WIDE OPEN, part 1: Lowered Expectations}
{written by Bowie Sessions ([email protected])}
***
[uptown, Stark Fujikawa-subsidiary HQ, "Geru Automotives", popular Maglev producers]
The night is unerringly dark and silent. Lights dimmed as the business of the day has surrendered to the weakness of sleep. Maglev cars seem to have come to a stop, with infrequent rushes of wind issued from railways and the skyscape to assure us of their presence, high beams splashing through the dimness of a neon-highlighted city at night. This dreary evening breaks in a crash of glass hundreds of stories above the building's solid foundation. "NOOOOOO!" screams the silhouette made against the background of the office tower’s lit lights. This silhouette falls to Earth, and just as quickly, sharply cries in pain when his leg stops his descent. His leg dislocating issues a sickening noise. The shoulder dislocates with ease. Legs take a lot of work. Above, however, is a very competent worker.
Around his ankle is a glowing red cable that slowly pulls him skyward as an angler might reel in their catch. Returned to the safe confines of his office building, his body drags over the broken glass, yanking in foot by foot. He suddenly turns and struggles, as if to get free of the bonds, crying from the pain of his injured leg. He seems terrified of me - terrified of his savior.
My victim’s eyes unable to glance away from me, I am made clear in the light of his office. I am his Guardian Angel, a soft halo of luminescence above my head from the executive's vantage. The light silhouettes my figure, making the complete black of my form-fitting suit seem an abyss in a world of light, horns prominently jutting from my brow, with only my glowing red eyes to cast me out of the shadows. A similar crimson light radiates from the strange baton in my hand, displaying the cable that recently ensnared the executive's ankle, now reeling into its peak. "I'll do it! I'll give you the shutdown codes!" There is silence. I am not moving. I am not flinching. Muscles do nothing to change at the insistence of the executive's desperation.
"...say something! Say yes! Something! Please! I'll do it!" No voice responds. I, this dark figure, kneel down before him, and the exec sits up, looking down over his own bleeding body to my personage, the devil at his base.
"What are you doing? What're you ..." he does not get to finish his sentence. I grip the man's other ankle, from his undeformed leg, and stand again, forcing my foot into the executive's crotch.
"I know you mean it. But I need you to stay right here, so I can find you. In case you're lying to me, Charlie," my voice is cold, deep and detached.
Charlie struggles for understanding, "...but I'm -- I'm not going anywhere! You -- my leg, you know I'm not--"
"I know you're not, Charlie. Not if it's both legs," my voice casually remarks in torment, and then without hesitation, I violently dislocate Charlie's only healthy leg. Well, it was his healthy leg. "Make sure you don't ... walk off." My masked figure walks out of his room as soon as I get Charlie's codes from him written down on scratch. It is only a quick walk through the building, past long since unconscious security guards, and finally finds me standing at a large terminal. Typing into it, I refer to the note of paper, and write in the set of codes. There is no loud bang. No dramatic noise. A simple ‘Bing!’ of affirmation, and I walk back through that hall. Once more past the downed security guards lining the floor, and into Charles Takiwara's office, as if I own it.
"Charlie," I begin, mask unable to show anything of my facial inflection, presenting the strangest sense of mystery to what I may be thinking. Charlie immediately begins to yank himself back, crawling in reverse over broken glass, dislocated legs awkwardly trailing behind him and his fear palpable.
"Charlie, I need you to know, you shouldn't be afraid of what your boss will do when they find out about this. You know what they’ll do. Let it go. Your life is much too short to live its last minutes concerned."
A staff forms from the red baton gripped in my hand, and I move forward in an effortless somersault, landing with my staff shoved against Charlie's chest to pin him down. This masked devil I appear to him as kneels down, replacing my energy-staff with my knee. The staff first returns to baton shape, before its edge chrysalises into a stake-shaped blade. Leaning forward, I grip Charlie's hair, and place the blade over the upper left of his forehead. "Be a man. A true man is without fear," I seem to offer in explanation, before I make to leave His mark.
"Who -- who are you?" The man asks; sweat beading down from his scalp, feeling the foreboding pressure of the blade.
"Oh, I think you’ll figure it out," the two letters ‘DD’ scrawled suddenly and mercilessly across the entirety of his face are the imprint left on the mutilated executive.
That broken window finds another silhouette against the neon landscape lunge through it. This one, however, is much quieter in its cries, as the wind rushes around my body, which languidly stretches through the sky as if I’m a swimmer in its dive. Then, as quickly, a bolt of red releases from the baton gripped tight in my black fist, cable trailing in the air to catch a passing rail line.
***
[apartment high-rise, Tormen Towers, eighty-fourth floor]
"You jolt it, Daredevil?" a tall, dark-skinned, shock-white haired woman asks, bitingly, as if expecting bad news. Her eyes, tight, crisp blue and bright as her hair, focus on my face that is formed in black. The red 'DD' subduely imprinted on my chest is overcome by the deep crimson of my glowing eyes, transfixed on her. She struggles not to shrink under my gaze ... I like that.
"I did," I respond, calm and dismissive as I perch on her balcony. One hand grips the rail, the other hand grips the baton, which reels its crackling cable into its hilt. The baton then dissipates, leaving both hands to grip the rail. I do this, and watch her, as if to gauge her, expression alien and unreadable behind the dark of the mask.
She still looks crossly at me, shooting a quick look over her shoulder, then immediately back, like I might leave if she blinks. "You need to understand the importance of this. They were going to eliminate thousands of jobs, and the technology could've been used to fabricate weapons that--"
I do not allow her to finish her rant, her cries of exultant support to 'The Cause' that Re-Activ-8 so constantly rants and entrusts into one of its champions. Me. “I never doubted the mission, Arc. I live for it. We can't let them make robot taxis. First - it'll be taxi fares. Then its the world."
"THIS IS NOT A JOKE--"
"I'm not laughing," I again cut in, voice curt, vicious, like the slices I left across the executive's paling face. "There must be humanity in all things. The ranks of the poor are swelling every day only so the rich can grow richer. This party line is forced down my throat, and I've eaten it, Arc. Don't treat me like an ignorant child. I bloody my fists for you, but it doesn't make me an ignorant barbarian. I know why I was there. Don't belabor the obvious."
Unsurprisingly, she is quiet. We contend each other with our stares, my eyes unseen behind the soft flicker of the glowing light. I always win these little stardowns, and so she finds herself losing the stoicism she seems to treasure. "There's something else for you. When you're ready, you know, rested up, we need--"
"I'm ready."
"Well... Okay, then," she slowly manages, taking that in stride with deep frustration burning her voice, "We've received word there's been a corporate takeover of a medical research facility, possibly by Stark-Fuji. They're trying to get its President to surrender... under duress."
I do not say a word. My silence is my response.
"You have to understand, I know you think this is just a pointless tasking, but every time a business is claimed, every single time Indy is made Glom, we lose identity, and we lose ground. We have to make a stand. With you, we can finally make a stand, Daredevil. DD." Finally, she begins to plead, "Cr--"
From the silence, my baton erupts into my hand. My stare is given new life, as if Hell wars beneath the embers in my eyes. "No names," I hiss, suddenly, and my eyes drill through her skull in a way she can feel from behind my mask. "I do not 'have' to understand. And I would question seriously if you have any idea what I think. These are favors that I do for you. I do them if I believe in them, and only then. You begged me, Arc. You begged me. And in this 'pointless tasking', I believe."
There is only a beat, a heartbeat, in-between my words, but the pause stretches what feels like a mile. "Where?"
***
[Dockside New York; the distribution centers of Daneshi Fishing, Inc.]
There is the loud crack of metal against flesh. The image is very clear - a woman's head whipping back as steel knuckles around a fist buckle against her demure face. The fist of a man who looks as if he may have spent his entire life bathing in steroids and cuddles with free weights when he sleeps. She cries, but behind tears and black flesh, she has the eyes of a demon, alive and fiery, face set and firm, chin tight and teeth that grit tight. She resists, and returns her head forward every time the behemoth of a man sends it nearly flying off her shoulders.
Around her stand four men. These men are not Japanese, a surprise to me. Arcadia is almost always right on. Almost always.
One looks Hispanic, but has a dark complexion - mix? Dominican? I do not know. They question her, interrogate her, 'convince' her - under duress. I coldly survey it, looking for other figures. Counting and calculating threats, I see a gunman stands at the doors on either side on the bottom floor, while they occupy the top floor's office for their attacks. I know. I have let them beat her for the last twenty minutes as I circled the facility, counting, deciding my actions and chances. I am thorough, not for hesitation, but for calculation. Six men before me, one is a brute, two are assault rifle-bearing gunmen, three are business-seeming men of Caucasian descents, one seems olive - Greek? Italian? He is the one interrogating her now, but he seems to take his directives from the slightly taller man to his right. Subject matter expert, but not the boss, perhaps. They all are packing heat. Both of the riflemen look confident, and one of those on the top floor looks comfortable with their arms - the director to the questioner's right. The rest seem nervous of the awkward weight packed on them.
This means I only have two threats. The questioner who does not know how to use it, and the Brute who will be unhesitant: the rest of them are predictable. And a predictable enemy is a dead enemy. Just one who hasn't figured it out yet.
So I play to my strengths. Drama. Shock them. Honestly, I have been waiting to do this for years. Just how many places have real skylights these days?
The glass shatters around me as I sail down and land in a three-point stance, one knee to the ground, one leg behind me and one hand to support me. Looking straight up from my prone stance, my right hand snaps forward, energy baton forming instantly from my gloved hand, and flying out of it with careful ease. It slams into the Adam's Apple of the brute, before returning to my hand with haste. I stand in an overly dramatic flourish of a flip and twist, leg sliding across the floor to draw an imaginary line as I take a formal stance. Dramatic action poses are bad for their morale, and fun for mine. The director raises a gun to her head, and I am really underwhelmed.
"Who the shock are you?!" he screams insensibly.
"Daredevil," I offer just so very politely, amusement filling my voice.
They collectively hesitate, and glance amongst each other. I am a legend, if only urban legend. The story told to little criminals to make sure they do not make mistakes. I see that shudder in them briefly. "I don't give a shock who you are, slag! One flinch and she's dead!" the director screams. I hear murmurs from the riflemen below. The director pushes aside the dusky-skinned questioner to better aim his weapon at the prisoner's skull. Unfortunately for him, he is one of them that can use his weapon. So I know he will not. They need her more than they want to admit. I see it in their eyes. Hear it in their voices. Smell it in their sweat.
The cable lances out from my club, its tip extending into three sharp tripod legs. My grappling hook, and it rushes around his hand in half a second. I pull him viciously with a tug of my hand, sailing him towards me. I hear the firing from below. Right on cue. I pull him into me, and leap backwards, grasping the rail of the catwalk in one hand. As he is pulled into range, I make a backwards flip to place my foot firmly in his sternum mid-flip. Leverage placed, I keep going in my flip, and my momentum carries him flying over the rail, while I simply land with my feet dangling, the rail I gripped keeping me from falling. It doesn't help him so much though, as he flies down to the floor below. I hear the wet smack of his body crunching against concrete below. The two gunmen below open fire on me as I hang above them. I got too excited and left myself exposed, like an idiot.
I flip back up with casual ease, and hurl the baton mid-air. I land again as the stick slams into the lower leg of the fleeing questioner, who cries when the impact makes him drop. Rifle fire soars all about me, but I do not seem to mind its scorching heat. The baton returns to my hand and I see the brute has recovered. No words, no zings offered, as the captured CEO stares with wide eyes and a prayer on her face. The brute swaggers ferociously towards me, fury disfiguring his face, and I am smiling widely beneath my mask. I really hope he can see the stretching of the cloth. His fist comes rushing for me, and my baton rises to catch his arm. We keep away from the rail as automated laser-fire below electrifies the air behind us. Neither of us seems to want to chance too close a walk. Really, no man would who is thinking right.
I step back under a swing, and then reverse spring. He comes rushing at me, and ducks as blaster fire races around us. I stand there, unhesitating, unmoving, the baton in hand pulsing threateningly. "You scared?" I ask the brute in a low, daring rumble. I, for instance, am not a man who is thinking right.
Sneering, he threateningly offers me his particular brand of poetic response, "Only that I might break my knuckles on your face, retread!"
I see out of the corner of my eye the untouched questioner who is pointing his weapon valiantly at me, while trying not to focus on the pain in his leg. He aims, eye closed, focusing, hand shaking ... and I let him. I rush into the brute, and let him catch me when I see the questioner prepare to fire. And when I see him close his eyes, which is the clear sign of an untrained firer about to fire, I pull in my shoulders that I had spread out when the brute caught me, and use my smaller figure to drop, hands catching his tightened forearms to yank the brute down as I fall. He is shot in the neck by his coworker instead of me, and sent stumbling back from the force. He goes far enough back that he slams into the rail behind us and topples over it, blaster-fire welcoming his falling body before it firmly meets the concrete below.
I stand again, and taking the club, I turn slowly, threateningly, to look at the nervous gunman. I walk up to him and he stumbles back for a moment, fearfully. It takes him many seconds to gain the resolve to reaffirm his aim and, to my surprise, readies it to fire.. "Go ahead," I tell him, and he makes to fire. Until I continue, warning him, "But when I stood up, I threw a monofilament wire into your barrell. It's jammed. You fire, the backfire will kill you," I explain to him calmly.
He sweats, checking and double-checking his weapon as I step forward. Its several moments spent while sweat beads his forehead. He pulls the trigger, eyes clenching in fear and he cries out as it fires. Well, I thought he'd buy it. I groan viciously as he shoots me in the arm. That hurts. That hurts a lot. I whip forward, and yank the weapon from him with my hand.
The questioner seems shocked he didn't die, rather then that I lived, "You said--" he begins. I pistol-whip him across the face with my good arm, sending him sprawling out. I turn the gun around and shoot him in the stomach.
"I lied." I drop the weapon, and kneel down beside him.
I pull his lighter out of his pocket, even as I hear the gunmen racing up the steps behind me, trying to get to this level. I have a few seconds. I approach the weaponless inquisitor, playing with the lighter. "What's your name?" I ask him, curiously. He hesitates. The energy baton becomes a staff and I viciously slap him across the face with it, making him cry out again. I kneel down beside him, not saying another thing. He is sweating. I light his shirt on fire. He begins to answer, amidst screams and the tip of the staff becomes sharp. I slam it through his thigh and remove it. He screams in his pain. "--Alec de Luca!" He cries, desperately, trying to paw at his chest but screaming when he touches the fire and burns his hands. He begins to smolder as he wails.
"Who do you work for, Alec?" I ask calmly. He hesitates. And I realize as they crash that last step - the guards are here.
I hook him in the side with the staff, and use its leverage to launch his burning, flying, screaming body at the stairwell as the riflemen enter. Launched off the top step, he hits the two who rush up the stairwell and sends them all toppling, scrambling from fire. I flip and leap, catching a pipe above to swing me closer, and with another flip meet them all. Reactively they fire, and strike me in the leg, in the stomach. I land on them, and send a fist before one fires and strike me in the chest, sending me soaring back. I hit the floor with a groan.
They begin to stand, staring, and move towards my limp body. They shove me to see if I respond - and at their first touch, I jump back up, and I rage. "Possum!" one manages to yell as I pound his friend viciously, angrily, slamming fist and baton across faces and guts, breaking ribs, breaking jaws, letting blood coat my gloved fists. They fall under the assault, backs striking metal, tears and teeth shed from their faces, skin breaking under my strength. Its solid minutes of fury that is unleashed upon them, before I stand back up finally, removing myself from their battered forms. Blood is splattered over my costume. I breathe, slowly, catching my sanity. I stand back, staring at the injured gunmen. I grasp the questioner by his neck, his shirt having burnt onto his chest and flame snuffed during the conflict. I lift him skyward before I turn and hurl him against the floor again. "It's your turn to be asked questions, Big Man. Who do you work for? And don't tell me he'll kill you. Because, trust me ... I won't. Don't test which one's worse. Just look at your lively friends." I advance on him again, staff forming once more from my glove. His eyes widen and he holds up his hand, defensively.
"Herrera! Jeffrey Herrera!" There is silence. I look taken back. It lasts just a second or two, and then I slam my baton once more across his face, sending him into a pained sleep. My head turns to stare at the current president of JR Biotech.
"What's your name?"
"L-- Lena Russell--" she manages, eyes wide, terror filling her vision. She just watched this all. She looks unsettled. I guess I can understand where she's coming from. I get angry sometimes.
"We're leaving, Lena." It is a simple matter to cut her free, throw her over my shoulder and leap skyward, swinging us back to Arc's lovely apartment..
***
[The Baxter Building, HQ of Stark-Fujikawa]
A man known by the respective title of Hikaru-san sits in his office and drinks a simple tea as he reviews a touch-screen that unfolds in front of him, scrolling over data with a sharp eye clear on all the things crucial to his involvement. "Takiwara-kun," the esteemed man offers as the doorway opens to a humbled man stepping forward, a guard assisting him on either side of him, forbibly.
Takiwara seems unable to find his own feet, dragged along the carpet, wincing at each ounce of weight he presses on his ruined legs. Released to kneel, he cries out shortly in the pain. Hikaru does not seem pleased by the wincing. "Takiwara-kun. Bow to me," Hikaru orders with his lips tight and eyes set, his voice not changing in octave but clear in its tone and briskness. He is displeased, no matter how pleasant he seems.
"Hikaru-dono," Takiwara offers, head bowed, on his hands and knees, tears flowing from his eyes in the pain, using the most subservient of honorifics he can think of in a desperate desire to please his master. Hikaru inclines his head, and sips his tea. Takiwara kneels backward, wincing, his tears visible now to his Lord, the scarring of two letters - DD - clear upon his face clear for the first time. Hikaru sits impassively.
"Tell me, Charles-kun. This one man, who managed to infiltrate our defenses, defeat seventeen of our trained employees and one specialized security troop - your bodyguard - on his way from his furthermost undetected entry to the point of our R&D lab in your facility. This 'demon', this 'Oni' you speak of, who made his mark on your face ... you do not know him? His name?" He sips at his tea, again, and makes an invitational gesture with his hand. A guard steps forward and lifts a ceremonial sword from Hikaru's wall, an award he received - for his excellency in bringing their family esteem in this empire, according to its engraving. The guard turns, and kneels before Takiwara, placing the katana at his knees.
Hikaru makes no comment towards its arrival, except to dismiss the guard with a similar gesture, as Takiwara's silence proves his ignorance. "Yes, you told us that he said 'we would figure it out'. And I have. That emblem, this action - there was once a legend among the Heroic Age. His name was Daredevil. He was a hero of the destitute, the poor. A selfless warrior, trained in our family's ways. The Way. Bushido. And yet he finds conflict with us. This disturbs me."
Takiwara cannot take his eyes off the sword. Hikaru sips gently at his tea. "But he is dead. This man is a lie. He troubles us; he has made an enemy of us. This will be his death. Yet, he has proven us weak and this ... too ... cannot be forgiven. Takiwara-kun. I wished you to know two things: The name of the man that shamed you. Also, to know that we will avenge you." These words Takiwara knows the meaning of. You cannot properly avenge the living.
Hikaru takes one last sip of his tea, as Takiwara's tear-stricken eyes fix to the hilt of the blade laid before him. Tentatively he grips it in his shaking hands. Hikaru kindly speaks to him, "You may take this chance to absolve your shame, as well, and honor your ancestors. I myself find honor in being witness to your courage." Hikaru smiles softly, now.
***
[apartment high-rise, Tormen Towers, eighty-fourth floor]
Lena screams the entire trip back, my energy-cable carrying us through the night sky, taking us quickly to our destination. It is with a 'thud' that I let her go the very moment we meet the balcony. She falls through the doorway with the force of the landing and rolls, arms and legs still bound and mouth newly taped shut. She was loud, after all. "Intercepted the package," I inform Arcadia dismissively as I slide off of the rail, standing now with my arms crossed, eyes watching the scene behind the glow of the mask.
"What did you DO to her?" Arc accuses me as she tosses a book at me angrily. I lift it up, and glance at its title as if the secret to her anger is in it. It is titled 'Good Omens'. I've read this one. A long time ago. I'm more amazed its a book - in this day and age? I glance up to her, expecting an explanation. I try to remember what its about.
"I'm -- give me that, I'm reading it! I just -- threw it at -- get her untied!"
There is a long moment, once more, where wills contest. Finally, I surrender, because there's really no point. I throw the book to her, and kneel down, untying Lena and removing the tape from her lips. She has stopped crying, which is a little more convenient. I look to her, as she struggles to her feet and brushes herself off. I explain her for the sake of Arcadia, "It wasn't SF raiders. Jeffrey Herrera. Corp?" She looks to me quizzically.
"He uh ... no idea. Sounds ... I'll look into -- are you okay?" She does her best to answer me, but she's frazzled, excited and she may actually shows a considerable concern for the injured and broken woman at my feet. Explains her throwing scraps of answers to me.
"What did they want from you?" And it is then made clear - maybe she is just approaching the question from a different angle. The questions the men I just brutalized asked moments ago. I find myself deeply concerned, but not for the CEO's welfare.
"I'm fine, miss, I'm ... Lena Russell, I'm the head of JR Biotech..."
"I know who you are," Arc calmly responds, cleaning Lena's blood with a soft hypo-sponge. Drains blood into it as if a vacuum.
Arc cannot help but smile, so calmly, so easily. "I'm Arcadia Davers, a humble helper. We are with Re-Activ-8. A... group dedicated to the freedom of individual dreams. Daredevil, our agent, was sent to save you from a dark fate. It's really going to be okay, now. We'll protect you, and help you get your feet back on the ground..."
I see it spinning in her eyes. Lena is not rescued. Lena is captured. She just has a much prettier looking leash. Worry mounts.
"Thanks. I ... we just work on cures and prosthetics, alternative ways of having a comfortable life, I don't ... I don't understand why they'd want to do this, why they ... killed so many of my friends, why ..." Her fingers tighten and clench, eyes closed. For a moment, I could have been certain I heard a low rumble. I dismiss it. Arc comforts her, taking both of Lena's hands in her own.
"That's what we want to find out. So we can stop them," I hear Arc say, and I see my world change in those simple words.
Paranoia? Epiphany?
I step back from the building, as their voices mingle. Suddenly I am discomforted, in ways I cannot begin to describe. I walk away, unaware of her calling to me, and simply step over the rail off of her balcony, to the gusts of wind whipping about me as an answer to her any question. The darkness welcomes me and I become it. There is bitterness in the air. I think I might have brought it with me.
***
[across town, undisclosed warehouse]
Three men lay on the ground, being brutalized.
This night fills with the sound of skin being torn from injury.. The sound of boot leather across the face of the man splayed across the ground. "What do you mean, 'Daredevil stopped you'? What do you mean that -- did Santa Claus' sleigh wrap your Maglev around a tree? Did the Easter Bunny egg your car? Did Thor swing his hammer and usher in the crazy?" His voice, rich Spanish accent, is saturated with anger as he viciously kicks the man in the stomach again, folding him around the boot. Blood spills from a closed wound being opened again.
"He ... he said he was Daredevil! ... and he ... wouldn't stop coming, like ... like bullets meant nothing ... straight from Hel, I swear it, sir, I swear--" Again he's answered with a kick, spitting up blood across the cement. Alec de Luca looks like his discomfort is not at an end yet.
"You find this leech, you bring him to me. Knock that 'Hel' and 'Valhalla' trash, slag. You bring him to me and we have words. I'm squashin' this lunatic 'fore he scares more of you girls. I hear you say his name, whisper it, think it too loud, you're recycle." The boot makes one more breath-crushing contact before he tries to walk away. Then, a slight pause, while one of the other two man kisses feverishly at his Spanish lord's passing boots.
"Mr. Herrera, please--" The pleading voice of the boot-kissing servant displeases Mr. Herrera, and he kicks that boot viciously into the man's teeth, eliciting cries of pain. The boss seems not to mind the strangled cry.
"No. I'm becoming merciful in my old age. Alec, I let you live - not your fault, sweet boy," he smiles to him, then his face returns to his sneer. His eyes snap to a corner, to a brutish figure admiring the display. "You recycle Angelo and Sam here. Then you go find our masked man. We handling this today."
Angelo cries and his eyes widen. "But, I -- I promise, it won't happen--"
"--again? Oh, I know it won't," Herrera offers with a dark smile, as he walks away, taking a napkin from another's breast pocket, to wipe at his bloodied shoe.
Angelo looks terrified, and begins to cry, quietly. "Mr. Herrera... please..." he begs, for his life.
The cleaning of the blood stops suddenly. Herrera steps forward, and kicks the bloodied boot back into Angelo's mouth that fills with far more blood now.
"No. You don't get to say my name. Name to you, its The Kingpin."
END
I am
DAREDEVIL.
***
{DAREDAREVIL 2099 - EYES WIDE OPEN, part 1: Lowered Expectations}
{written by Bowie Sessions ([email protected])}
***
[uptown, Stark Fujikawa-subsidiary HQ, "Geru Automotives", popular Maglev producers]
The night is unerringly dark and silent. Lights dimmed as the business of the day has surrendered to the weakness of sleep. Maglev cars seem to have come to a stop, with infrequent rushes of wind issued from railways and the skyscape to assure us of their presence, high beams splashing through the dimness of a neon-highlighted city at night. This dreary evening breaks in a crash of glass hundreds of stories above the building's solid foundation. "NOOOOOO!" screams the silhouette made against the background of the office tower’s lit lights. This silhouette falls to Earth, and just as quickly, sharply cries in pain when his leg stops his descent. His leg dislocating issues a sickening noise. The shoulder dislocates with ease. Legs take a lot of work. Above, however, is a very competent worker.
Around his ankle is a glowing red cable that slowly pulls him skyward as an angler might reel in their catch. Returned to the safe confines of his office building, his body drags over the broken glass, yanking in foot by foot. He suddenly turns and struggles, as if to get free of the bonds, crying from the pain of his injured leg. He seems terrified of me - terrified of his savior.
My victim’s eyes unable to glance away from me, I am made clear in the light of his office. I am his Guardian Angel, a soft halo of luminescence above my head from the executive's vantage. The light silhouettes my figure, making the complete black of my form-fitting suit seem an abyss in a world of light, horns prominently jutting from my brow, with only my glowing red eyes to cast me out of the shadows. A similar crimson light radiates from the strange baton in my hand, displaying the cable that recently ensnared the executive's ankle, now reeling into its peak. "I'll do it! I'll give you the shutdown codes!" There is silence. I am not moving. I am not flinching. Muscles do nothing to change at the insistence of the executive's desperation.
"...say something! Say yes! Something! Please! I'll do it!" No voice responds. I, this dark figure, kneel down before him, and the exec sits up, looking down over his own bleeding body to my personage, the devil at his base.
"What are you doing? What're you ..." he does not get to finish his sentence. I grip the man's other ankle, from his undeformed leg, and stand again, forcing my foot into the executive's crotch.
"I know you mean it. But I need you to stay right here, so I can find you. In case you're lying to me, Charlie," my voice is cold, deep and detached.
Charlie struggles for understanding, "...but I'm -- I'm not going anywhere! You -- my leg, you know I'm not--"
"I know you're not, Charlie. Not if it's both legs," my voice casually remarks in torment, and then without hesitation, I violently dislocate Charlie's only healthy leg. Well, it was his healthy leg. "Make sure you don't ... walk off." My masked figure walks out of his room as soon as I get Charlie's codes from him written down on scratch. It is only a quick walk through the building, past long since unconscious security guards, and finally finds me standing at a large terminal. Typing into it, I refer to the note of paper, and write in the set of codes. There is no loud bang. No dramatic noise. A simple ‘Bing!’ of affirmation, and I walk back through that hall. Once more past the downed security guards lining the floor, and into Charles Takiwara's office, as if I own it.
"Charlie," I begin, mask unable to show anything of my facial inflection, presenting the strangest sense of mystery to what I may be thinking. Charlie immediately begins to yank himself back, crawling in reverse over broken glass, dislocated legs awkwardly trailing behind him and his fear palpable.
"Charlie, I need you to know, you shouldn't be afraid of what your boss will do when they find out about this. You know what they’ll do. Let it go. Your life is much too short to live its last minutes concerned."
A staff forms from the red baton gripped in my hand, and I move forward in an effortless somersault, landing with my staff shoved against Charlie's chest to pin him down. This masked devil I appear to him as kneels down, replacing my energy-staff with my knee. The staff first returns to baton shape, before its edge chrysalises into a stake-shaped blade. Leaning forward, I grip Charlie's hair, and place the blade over the upper left of his forehead. "Be a man. A true man is without fear," I seem to offer in explanation, before I make to leave His mark.
"Who -- who are you?" The man asks; sweat beading down from his scalp, feeling the foreboding pressure of the blade.
"Oh, I think you’ll figure it out," the two letters ‘DD’ scrawled suddenly and mercilessly across the entirety of his face are the imprint left on the mutilated executive.
That broken window finds another silhouette against the neon landscape lunge through it. This one, however, is much quieter in its cries, as the wind rushes around my body, which languidly stretches through the sky as if I’m a swimmer in its dive. Then, as quickly, a bolt of red releases from the baton gripped tight in my black fist, cable trailing in the air to catch a passing rail line.
***
[apartment high-rise, Tormen Towers, eighty-fourth floor]
"You jolt it, Daredevil?" a tall, dark-skinned, shock-white haired woman asks, bitingly, as if expecting bad news. Her eyes, tight, crisp blue and bright as her hair, focus on my face that is formed in black. The red 'DD' subduely imprinted on my chest is overcome by the deep crimson of my glowing eyes, transfixed on her. She struggles not to shrink under my gaze ... I like that.
"I did," I respond, calm and dismissive as I perch on her balcony. One hand grips the rail, the other hand grips the baton, which reels its crackling cable into its hilt. The baton then dissipates, leaving both hands to grip the rail. I do this, and watch her, as if to gauge her, expression alien and unreadable behind the dark of the mask.
She still looks crossly at me, shooting a quick look over her shoulder, then immediately back, like I might leave if she blinks. "You need to understand the importance of this. They were going to eliminate thousands of jobs, and the technology could've been used to fabricate weapons that--"
I do not allow her to finish her rant, her cries of exultant support to 'The Cause' that Re-Activ-8 so constantly rants and entrusts into one of its champions. Me. “I never doubted the mission, Arc. I live for it. We can't let them make robot taxis. First - it'll be taxi fares. Then its the world."
"THIS IS NOT A JOKE--"
"I'm not laughing," I again cut in, voice curt, vicious, like the slices I left across the executive's paling face. "There must be humanity in all things. The ranks of the poor are swelling every day only so the rich can grow richer. This party line is forced down my throat, and I've eaten it, Arc. Don't treat me like an ignorant child. I bloody my fists for you, but it doesn't make me an ignorant barbarian. I know why I was there. Don't belabor the obvious."
Unsurprisingly, she is quiet. We contend each other with our stares, my eyes unseen behind the soft flicker of the glowing light. I always win these little stardowns, and so she finds herself losing the stoicism she seems to treasure. "There's something else for you. When you're ready, you know, rested up, we need--"
"I'm ready."
"Well... Okay, then," she slowly manages, taking that in stride with deep frustration burning her voice, "We've received word there's been a corporate takeover of a medical research facility, possibly by Stark-Fuji. They're trying to get its President to surrender... under duress."
I do not say a word. My silence is my response.
"You have to understand, I know you think this is just a pointless tasking, but every time a business is claimed, every single time Indy is made Glom, we lose identity, and we lose ground. We have to make a stand. With you, we can finally make a stand, Daredevil. DD." Finally, she begins to plead, "Cr--"
From the silence, my baton erupts into my hand. My stare is given new life, as if Hell wars beneath the embers in my eyes. "No names," I hiss, suddenly, and my eyes drill through her skull in a way she can feel from behind my mask. "I do not 'have' to understand. And I would question seriously if you have any idea what I think. These are favors that I do for you. I do them if I believe in them, and only then. You begged me, Arc. You begged me. And in this 'pointless tasking', I believe."
There is only a beat, a heartbeat, in-between my words, but the pause stretches what feels like a mile. "Where?"
***
[Dockside New York; the distribution centers of Daneshi Fishing, Inc.]
There is the loud crack of metal against flesh. The image is very clear - a woman's head whipping back as steel knuckles around a fist buckle against her demure face. The fist of a man who looks as if he may have spent his entire life bathing in steroids and cuddles with free weights when he sleeps. She cries, but behind tears and black flesh, she has the eyes of a demon, alive and fiery, face set and firm, chin tight and teeth that grit tight. She resists, and returns her head forward every time the behemoth of a man sends it nearly flying off her shoulders.
Around her stand four men. These men are not Japanese, a surprise to me. Arcadia is almost always right on. Almost always.
One looks Hispanic, but has a dark complexion - mix? Dominican? I do not know. They question her, interrogate her, 'convince' her - under duress. I coldly survey it, looking for other figures. Counting and calculating threats, I see a gunman stands at the doors on either side on the bottom floor, while they occupy the top floor's office for their attacks. I know. I have let them beat her for the last twenty minutes as I circled the facility, counting, deciding my actions and chances. I am thorough, not for hesitation, but for calculation. Six men before me, one is a brute, two are assault rifle-bearing gunmen, three are business-seeming men of Caucasian descents, one seems olive - Greek? Italian? He is the one interrogating her now, but he seems to take his directives from the slightly taller man to his right. Subject matter expert, but not the boss, perhaps. They all are packing heat. Both of the riflemen look confident, and one of those on the top floor looks comfortable with their arms - the director to the questioner's right. The rest seem nervous of the awkward weight packed on them.
This means I only have two threats. The questioner who does not know how to use it, and the Brute who will be unhesitant: the rest of them are predictable. And a predictable enemy is a dead enemy. Just one who hasn't figured it out yet.
So I play to my strengths. Drama. Shock them. Honestly, I have been waiting to do this for years. Just how many places have real skylights these days?
The glass shatters around me as I sail down and land in a three-point stance, one knee to the ground, one leg behind me and one hand to support me. Looking straight up from my prone stance, my right hand snaps forward, energy baton forming instantly from my gloved hand, and flying out of it with careful ease. It slams into the Adam's Apple of the brute, before returning to my hand with haste. I stand in an overly dramatic flourish of a flip and twist, leg sliding across the floor to draw an imaginary line as I take a formal stance. Dramatic action poses are bad for their morale, and fun for mine. The director raises a gun to her head, and I am really underwhelmed.
"Who the shock are you?!" he screams insensibly.
"Daredevil," I offer just so very politely, amusement filling my voice.
They collectively hesitate, and glance amongst each other. I am a legend, if only urban legend. The story told to little criminals to make sure they do not make mistakes. I see that shudder in them briefly. "I don't give a shock who you are, slag! One flinch and she's dead!" the director screams. I hear murmurs from the riflemen below. The director pushes aside the dusky-skinned questioner to better aim his weapon at the prisoner's skull. Unfortunately for him, he is one of them that can use his weapon. So I know he will not. They need her more than they want to admit. I see it in their eyes. Hear it in their voices. Smell it in their sweat.
The cable lances out from my club, its tip extending into three sharp tripod legs. My grappling hook, and it rushes around his hand in half a second. I pull him viciously with a tug of my hand, sailing him towards me. I hear the firing from below. Right on cue. I pull him into me, and leap backwards, grasping the rail of the catwalk in one hand. As he is pulled into range, I make a backwards flip to place my foot firmly in his sternum mid-flip. Leverage placed, I keep going in my flip, and my momentum carries him flying over the rail, while I simply land with my feet dangling, the rail I gripped keeping me from falling. It doesn't help him so much though, as he flies down to the floor below. I hear the wet smack of his body crunching against concrete below. The two gunmen below open fire on me as I hang above them. I got too excited and left myself exposed, like an idiot.
I flip back up with casual ease, and hurl the baton mid-air. I land again as the stick slams into the lower leg of the fleeing questioner, who cries when the impact makes him drop. Rifle fire soars all about me, but I do not seem to mind its scorching heat. The baton returns to my hand and I see the brute has recovered. No words, no zings offered, as the captured CEO stares with wide eyes and a prayer on her face. The brute swaggers ferociously towards me, fury disfiguring his face, and I am smiling widely beneath my mask. I really hope he can see the stretching of the cloth. His fist comes rushing for me, and my baton rises to catch his arm. We keep away from the rail as automated laser-fire below electrifies the air behind us. Neither of us seems to want to chance too close a walk. Really, no man would who is thinking right.
I step back under a swing, and then reverse spring. He comes rushing at me, and ducks as blaster fire races around us. I stand there, unhesitating, unmoving, the baton in hand pulsing threateningly. "You scared?" I ask the brute in a low, daring rumble. I, for instance, am not a man who is thinking right.
Sneering, he threateningly offers me his particular brand of poetic response, "Only that I might break my knuckles on your face, retread!"
I see out of the corner of my eye the untouched questioner who is pointing his weapon valiantly at me, while trying not to focus on the pain in his leg. He aims, eye closed, focusing, hand shaking ... and I let him. I rush into the brute, and let him catch me when I see the questioner prepare to fire. And when I see him close his eyes, which is the clear sign of an untrained firer about to fire, I pull in my shoulders that I had spread out when the brute caught me, and use my smaller figure to drop, hands catching his tightened forearms to yank the brute down as I fall. He is shot in the neck by his coworker instead of me, and sent stumbling back from the force. He goes far enough back that he slams into the rail behind us and topples over it, blaster-fire welcoming his falling body before it firmly meets the concrete below.
I stand again, and taking the club, I turn slowly, threateningly, to look at the nervous gunman. I walk up to him and he stumbles back for a moment, fearfully. It takes him many seconds to gain the resolve to reaffirm his aim and, to my surprise, readies it to fire.. "Go ahead," I tell him, and he makes to fire. Until I continue, warning him, "But when I stood up, I threw a monofilament wire into your barrell. It's jammed. You fire, the backfire will kill you," I explain to him calmly.
He sweats, checking and double-checking his weapon as I step forward. Its several moments spent while sweat beads his forehead. He pulls the trigger, eyes clenching in fear and he cries out as it fires. Well, I thought he'd buy it. I groan viciously as he shoots me in the arm. That hurts. That hurts a lot. I whip forward, and yank the weapon from him with my hand.
The questioner seems shocked he didn't die, rather then that I lived, "You said--" he begins. I pistol-whip him across the face with my good arm, sending him sprawling out. I turn the gun around and shoot him in the stomach.
"I lied." I drop the weapon, and kneel down beside him.
I pull his lighter out of his pocket, even as I hear the gunmen racing up the steps behind me, trying to get to this level. I have a few seconds. I approach the weaponless inquisitor, playing with the lighter. "What's your name?" I ask him, curiously. He hesitates. The energy baton becomes a staff and I viciously slap him across the face with it, making him cry out again. I kneel down beside him, not saying another thing. He is sweating. I light his shirt on fire. He begins to answer, amidst screams and the tip of the staff becomes sharp. I slam it through his thigh and remove it. He screams in his pain. "--Alec de Luca!" He cries, desperately, trying to paw at his chest but screaming when he touches the fire and burns his hands. He begins to smolder as he wails.
"Who do you work for, Alec?" I ask calmly. He hesitates. And I realize as they crash that last step - the guards are here.
I hook him in the side with the staff, and use its leverage to launch his burning, flying, screaming body at the stairwell as the riflemen enter. Launched off the top step, he hits the two who rush up the stairwell and sends them all toppling, scrambling from fire. I flip and leap, catching a pipe above to swing me closer, and with another flip meet them all. Reactively they fire, and strike me in the leg, in the stomach. I land on them, and send a fist before one fires and strike me in the chest, sending me soaring back. I hit the floor with a groan.
They begin to stand, staring, and move towards my limp body. They shove me to see if I respond - and at their first touch, I jump back up, and I rage. "Possum!" one manages to yell as I pound his friend viciously, angrily, slamming fist and baton across faces and guts, breaking ribs, breaking jaws, letting blood coat my gloved fists. They fall under the assault, backs striking metal, tears and teeth shed from their faces, skin breaking under my strength. Its solid minutes of fury that is unleashed upon them, before I stand back up finally, removing myself from their battered forms. Blood is splattered over my costume. I breathe, slowly, catching my sanity. I stand back, staring at the injured gunmen. I grasp the questioner by his neck, his shirt having burnt onto his chest and flame snuffed during the conflict. I lift him skyward before I turn and hurl him against the floor again. "It's your turn to be asked questions, Big Man. Who do you work for? And don't tell me he'll kill you. Because, trust me ... I won't. Don't test which one's worse. Just look at your lively friends." I advance on him again, staff forming once more from my glove. His eyes widen and he holds up his hand, defensively.
"Herrera! Jeffrey Herrera!" There is silence. I look taken back. It lasts just a second or two, and then I slam my baton once more across his face, sending him into a pained sleep. My head turns to stare at the current president of JR Biotech.
"What's your name?"
"L-- Lena Russell--" she manages, eyes wide, terror filling her vision. She just watched this all. She looks unsettled. I guess I can understand where she's coming from. I get angry sometimes.
"We're leaving, Lena." It is a simple matter to cut her free, throw her over my shoulder and leap skyward, swinging us back to Arc's lovely apartment..
***
[The Baxter Building, HQ of Stark-Fujikawa]
A man known by the respective title of Hikaru-san sits in his office and drinks a simple tea as he reviews a touch-screen that unfolds in front of him, scrolling over data with a sharp eye clear on all the things crucial to his involvement. "Takiwara-kun," the esteemed man offers as the doorway opens to a humbled man stepping forward, a guard assisting him on either side of him, forbibly.
Takiwara seems unable to find his own feet, dragged along the carpet, wincing at each ounce of weight he presses on his ruined legs. Released to kneel, he cries out shortly in the pain. Hikaru does not seem pleased by the wincing. "Takiwara-kun. Bow to me," Hikaru orders with his lips tight and eyes set, his voice not changing in octave but clear in its tone and briskness. He is displeased, no matter how pleasant he seems.
"Hikaru-dono," Takiwara offers, head bowed, on his hands and knees, tears flowing from his eyes in the pain, using the most subservient of honorifics he can think of in a desperate desire to please his master. Hikaru inclines his head, and sips his tea. Takiwara kneels backward, wincing, his tears visible now to his Lord, the scarring of two letters - DD - clear upon his face clear for the first time. Hikaru sits impassively.
"Tell me, Charles-kun. This one man, who managed to infiltrate our defenses, defeat seventeen of our trained employees and one specialized security troop - your bodyguard - on his way from his furthermost undetected entry to the point of our R&D lab in your facility. This 'demon', this 'Oni' you speak of, who made his mark on your face ... you do not know him? His name?" He sips at his tea, again, and makes an invitational gesture with his hand. A guard steps forward and lifts a ceremonial sword from Hikaru's wall, an award he received - for his excellency in bringing their family esteem in this empire, according to its engraving. The guard turns, and kneels before Takiwara, placing the katana at his knees.
Hikaru makes no comment towards its arrival, except to dismiss the guard with a similar gesture, as Takiwara's silence proves his ignorance. "Yes, you told us that he said 'we would figure it out'. And I have. That emblem, this action - there was once a legend among the Heroic Age. His name was Daredevil. He was a hero of the destitute, the poor. A selfless warrior, trained in our family's ways. The Way. Bushido. And yet he finds conflict with us. This disturbs me."
Takiwara cannot take his eyes off the sword. Hikaru sips gently at his tea. "But he is dead. This man is a lie. He troubles us; he has made an enemy of us. This will be his death. Yet, he has proven us weak and this ... too ... cannot be forgiven. Takiwara-kun. I wished you to know two things: The name of the man that shamed you. Also, to know that we will avenge you." These words Takiwara knows the meaning of. You cannot properly avenge the living.
Hikaru takes one last sip of his tea, as Takiwara's tear-stricken eyes fix to the hilt of the blade laid before him. Tentatively he grips it in his shaking hands. Hikaru kindly speaks to him, "You may take this chance to absolve your shame, as well, and honor your ancestors. I myself find honor in being witness to your courage." Hikaru smiles softly, now.
***
[apartment high-rise, Tormen Towers, eighty-fourth floor]
Lena screams the entire trip back, my energy-cable carrying us through the night sky, taking us quickly to our destination. It is with a 'thud' that I let her go the very moment we meet the balcony. She falls through the doorway with the force of the landing and rolls, arms and legs still bound and mouth newly taped shut. She was loud, after all. "Intercepted the package," I inform Arcadia dismissively as I slide off of the rail, standing now with my arms crossed, eyes watching the scene behind the glow of the mask.
"What did you DO to her?" Arc accuses me as she tosses a book at me angrily. I lift it up, and glance at its title as if the secret to her anger is in it. It is titled 'Good Omens'. I've read this one. A long time ago. I'm more amazed its a book - in this day and age? I glance up to her, expecting an explanation. I try to remember what its about.
"I'm -- give me that, I'm reading it! I just -- threw it at -- get her untied!"
There is a long moment, once more, where wills contest. Finally, I surrender, because there's really no point. I throw the book to her, and kneel down, untying Lena and removing the tape from her lips. She has stopped crying, which is a little more convenient. I look to her, as she struggles to her feet and brushes herself off. I explain her for the sake of Arcadia, "It wasn't SF raiders. Jeffrey Herrera. Corp?" She looks to me quizzically.
"He uh ... no idea. Sounds ... I'll look into -- are you okay?" She does her best to answer me, but she's frazzled, excited and she may actually shows a considerable concern for the injured and broken woman at my feet. Explains her throwing scraps of answers to me.
"What did they want from you?" And it is then made clear - maybe she is just approaching the question from a different angle. The questions the men I just brutalized asked moments ago. I find myself deeply concerned, but not for the CEO's welfare.
"I'm fine, miss, I'm ... Lena Russell, I'm the head of JR Biotech..."
"I know who you are," Arc calmly responds, cleaning Lena's blood with a soft hypo-sponge. Drains blood into it as if a vacuum.
Arc cannot help but smile, so calmly, so easily. "I'm Arcadia Davers, a humble helper. We are with Re-Activ-8. A... group dedicated to the freedom of individual dreams. Daredevil, our agent, was sent to save you from a dark fate. It's really going to be okay, now. We'll protect you, and help you get your feet back on the ground..."
I see it spinning in her eyes. Lena is not rescued. Lena is captured. She just has a much prettier looking leash. Worry mounts.
"Thanks. I ... we just work on cures and prosthetics, alternative ways of having a comfortable life, I don't ... I don't understand why they'd want to do this, why they ... killed so many of my friends, why ..." Her fingers tighten and clench, eyes closed. For a moment, I could have been certain I heard a low rumble. I dismiss it. Arc comforts her, taking both of Lena's hands in her own.
"That's what we want to find out. So we can stop them," I hear Arc say, and I see my world change in those simple words.
Paranoia? Epiphany?
I step back from the building, as their voices mingle. Suddenly I am discomforted, in ways I cannot begin to describe. I walk away, unaware of her calling to me, and simply step over the rail off of her balcony, to the gusts of wind whipping about me as an answer to her any question. The darkness welcomes me and I become it. There is bitterness in the air. I think I might have brought it with me.
***
[across town, undisclosed warehouse]
Three men lay on the ground, being brutalized.
This night fills with the sound of skin being torn from injury.. The sound of boot leather across the face of the man splayed across the ground. "What do you mean, 'Daredevil stopped you'? What do you mean that -- did Santa Claus' sleigh wrap your Maglev around a tree? Did the Easter Bunny egg your car? Did Thor swing his hammer and usher in the crazy?" His voice, rich Spanish accent, is saturated with anger as he viciously kicks the man in the stomach again, folding him around the boot. Blood spills from a closed wound being opened again.
"He ... he said he was Daredevil! ... and he ... wouldn't stop coming, like ... like bullets meant nothing ... straight from Hel, I swear it, sir, I swear--" Again he's answered with a kick, spitting up blood across the cement. Alec de Luca looks like his discomfort is not at an end yet.
"You find this leech, you bring him to me. Knock that 'Hel' and 'Valhalla' trash, slag. You bring him to me and we have words. I'm squashin' this lunatic 'fore he scares more of you girls. I hear you say his name, whisper it, think it too loud, you're recycle." The boot makes one more breath-crushing contact before he tries to walk away. Then, a slight pause, while one of the other two man kisses feverishly at his Spanish lord's passing boots.
"Mr. Herrera, please--" The pleading voice of the boot-kissing servant displeases Mr. Herrera, and he kicks that boot viciously into the man's teeth, eliciting cries of pain. The boss seems not to mind the strangled cry.
"No. I'm becoming merciful in my old age. Alec, I let you live - not your fault, sweet boy," he smiles to him, then his face returns to his sneer. His eyes snap to a corner, to a brutish figure admiring the display. "You recycle Angelo and Sam here. Then you go find our masked man. We handling this today."
Angelo cries and his eyes widen. "But, I -- I promise, it won't happen--"
"--again? Oh, I know it won't," Herrera offers with a dark smile, as he walks away, taking a napkin from another's breast pocket, to wipe at his bloodied shoe.
Angelo looks terrified, and begins to cry, quietly. "Mr. Herrera... please..." he begs, for his life.
The cleaning of the blood stops suddenly. Herrera steps forward, and kicks the bloodied boot back into Angelo's mouth that fills with far more blood now.
"No. You don't get to say my name. Name to you, its The Kingpin."
END