as written by Calcos and Ronin
It was a typical night in Van Leugen: the dark quiet permeated through the streets,a ghostly blackness that harbored unsurety and danger within its inky embrace. The citizenry walking the streets had just as equal probability of getting mugged or murdered as they did making it home unscathed that night. Tentativeness crept up everyone’s spine as they walked past each other, each expecting to face the whip of a coat tail and come face-to-face with the business end of a handgun, as well as the unsavory individual on the trigger end of it.
Elsewhere, patrol cars made their rounds, the officers within searching infinitely into the bleak and dark midnight, some trying to catch a glimpse of even a hint of criminal activity so that they can bring some semblance of justice to the streets. Other officers were out partaking in crime, cutting underhanded deals with the criminal elements around the city, taking bribes to turn a blind eye to those things which poisoned Van Leugen’s infrastructure: drug trafficking, illegal arms trades, sex slavery; none of it mattered to the corrupt so long as their palms were greased and their consciences paid for.
Undoubtedly, there was at least one store being broken into, the junkie perpetrating the infiltration looking to snatch the cash from the register to maintain his daily dose of hard narcotics, to feel the needle penetrate the skin once more as they plunged themselves into a destructive euphoria that transmogrified itself into what felt like eternal damnation until the next time they could connect the needle to their shriveled veins. Their lives and the lives of countless others be damned, they just needed their fix.
And from the darkness,
Samuel saw these things; countless times he’d encountered the wickedness and debauchery, the corruption and unethicality. Many times he had put a stop to it, personally, donning the guise of the Blue Mantis to strike back at the criminal underworld that was rotting his city so. Even tonight he watched, looking for an opportunity to strike, his breath kept and his eyes sharpened, a predator lurking in the hollow dark, having become like an apparition, prowling the night and preying upon evil at every turn.
This was his city, and he’d be damned if he let it waste away in the hands of the morally twisted and the ethically bankrupt. He was determined to destroy every facet of it, to stamp down what seemingly cannot be stopped. This city was sick, and he was going to fix it, piece by piece.
And yet, even as he resolved to make whole what was broken, he was oblivious to the powers at play, what things that lurked in the darkness beyond his understanding. He was not ready to see the evil that lay far out of his reach...
____
Glass shattered. Alarms rang into the night. Boots rapped on concrete and assault rifles clacked in eager hands. A team of well-armed bandits were robbing a local jeweler.
"Move, move!" the leader barked, his accomplices forcing open the barred window with a plasma torch. A moment later they were inside - two of them grabbing whatever they could while another headed for the back room. Two other stood at-ready outside, warily scanning the streets for cops.
"Forget the cheap shit, get the rock in the safe!" the leader growled, pushing a giggling bandit off of a display case full of gold rings. "That's why we're here you idiot! Get to work!"
The same bandit laughed hysterically. "But we still get to torch the place, yeah? Gonna watch it burn? Watch the bitch
burn burn burn..."
"Shut the hell up, Flick," the leader turned him around and kicked him squarely in the ass, "no fires. Boss wants this clean. Now do your goddamn job."
____
It was time to move. He clambered out of his car, lurking in the shadows as it had been, and began to make his way across the roadway to where the robbery was in progress. The two mooks at the door, armed with assault rifles, likely wouldn't expect a trench coat-wearing, mask-and-fedora-donning individual to rain hell on their parade, but he was determined to. A quick, under-slung toss of a smoke grenade would serve to start the night's affairs, a soft
hiss as the white cloud poured from the metal canister, itself making a rather loud
clang as it contacted with the pavement.
From there, the Blue Mantis would rush up, keeping low as to avoid stray gunfire, seeking to drive his open palms under the chins of the two guardsmen, hopefully shattering teeth and inducing unconsciousness in both men. No need to start spraying bullets; he wanted to preserve the shop, after all.
____
"Hey, who's that asshole?" one of the guards squinted at the approaching figure.
"Some bum," the other grunted, waiving his gun at the vigilante, "hey! Street grime! Get the hell outta here if y'know what's good for ya!" He fired a warning shot into the air.
"Wait, Mike, look he's throwing something!"
"Holy shit it's a-"
The smoke grenade landed before the word left his mouth. The cloud of gas rushed up about them, rendering them both virtually blind.
"Shit!" Mike hacked, "spread out!" He slammed his fist twice against the door, "Jax! We gotta a problem out here, and it's NOT the co-"
It seemed the poor thug was doomed never to finish a sentence. The Mantis' palm connected squarely with the underside of his jaw and he flew three feet in the air before collapsing to the sidewalk in an unconscious slump - three teeth missing from his mouth. The other thug, having obeyed orders and moved away from his partner in a defensive position, had avoided Mantis' rush. Though unable to see the felling of his partner, he did hear the cut-off of his sentence and the slump of his body. He swiveled, gun trembling slightly in his hands.
"M-Mike! Say something!" his finger tensed on the trigger, bare seconds away from squeezing.
____
The smoke began to clear on a gentle breeze, and the Mantis could make out the silhouette of the other thug through the dissipating screen. Bearing logic in mind, he figured the thug would notice the same of himself, and start being able to take shots more accurately.
To that end, he needed to act fast. Reaching into his coat pocket, he retrieved a small, green-colored sphere with a red button atop it. Pressing the button, he hurled the device towards the other robber.
"Catch," he said, hoping the mook complied. Whether he did or not wouldn't matter...
The canister was full of enough anesthetic gas to be effective either way.
____
Luckily, the goon wasn't a veteran. He was only supposed to be lookout. As the canister flew towards him, he acted on his trained instinct to obey orders. Coupled with the intimidating image the vigilante cut as the smoke cleared around his figure, the poor crook could only focus on that one directive: 'Catch'. Okay. His gun dropped and hung by the sling on his chest, and for a moment the thug looked at the cylinder in his hand with terrified apprehension...
...and then he was on the ground, out cold.
---
Inside the jewelry store, the crooks were in a frenzy.
"Mike and Andy are down," one of them growled, mopping the sweat off his brow, "Jesus Christ he's got grenades and gas ... who the hell is this guy? Spec ops?"
"Doesn't matter who he is," Jax, the leader, barked, "he comes in through that door, you drop him." He flipped over one of the tables and bunkered behind the wood. The other thug followed suit.
"Lars!" Jax bellowed, "how's that safe coming?!"
Lars, visor over his eyes, was welding into a steel safe in the back room with his plasma torch. "Twenty seconds!"
Jax growled. "We hold him here! Getting that rock is the most important thing." He looked around. "Flick! Where the fuck are you?! Get over here and help us lay down covering fire!"
The sound of Flick's giggles echoed throughout the room, followed by the cadence of liquid spilling on carpet...
The jewelry store was locked from the inside. The windows were barred, save for the opening the crooks had made earlier to get in. Jax and a crony knelt behind firm wooden tables, looking out the windows, ready to open fire the moment the smoke cleared entirely.
____
In the panic that ensued, the Mantis took the time to circle around the building through an alleyway. There was a back door to this establishment the criminals might have not noticed. With a swiftness, he picked his way through the lock and eased inside, slipping quietly unnoticed and making his rounds into the shop.
They were digging in, making fortifications and aiming their guns at the front; one of them was giggling like a madman and dousing the place in what smelled like gasoline. Their eyes were focused on other places...
...which was decidedly bad for their health.
He walked forward, quietly approaching the chuckling pyromaniac from behind. He would attempt to deliver a swift chop to the would-be jewel thief's neck, directly on the vagus nerve, where unconsciousness would immediately follow. Afterward, he would slip into the shadows of the darkened room, hiding until it was time again to strike.
____
The sound of Flick's laughter came to a gurgling halt as Mantis delivered his blow. The pyromaniac fell to the ground in a pool of gasoline, still smiling.
Jax and crony were desperately looking for their target out the window.
"He... he's gone."
"Like hell he is," Jax growled, "you don't show up with tactical smoke grenades just to piss off at the first sign of trouble. He's out there." He clipped a walkie off his belt. "Hastings, get that truck over here NOW." He called over his shoulder. "LARS! Are you done yet?!"
Lars came in from the back room, a diamond the size of his fist in his hand. It glowed with a mystical aura. "Soup's on," he grinned.
"Good work," Jax nodded, standing up and putting the diamond in a bag on his belt, "now let's get the hell out of here." He looked around. "Where's Flick?"
Silence. One of the cronies pointed toward the nearby hallway where a trail of gasoline was slowly leaking into the main room. All three of them suddenly realized that Flick wasn't giggling anymore.
"Son of a..." Jax readied his weapon, the remaining two cronies quickly preparing themselves. Their eyes went everywhere, guns trained ahead of them.
"Spread out," Jax growled. They quickly assumed positions throughout the room. Jax walked slowly towards the back hallway, teeth grit.
"Come out you bastard," he spat, "come out and play."
____
He hid in the shadows, allowing the man he assumed to be the leader of this outfit turn his attention to the rear portion of the store. With his priorities diverted, the Mantis was able to focus on the other two, thereby diminishing his available backup; letting that stone get taken would spell certain defeat, and he couldn't have that.
His focus was on the one the leader called Lars. Slipping from the shadows with the fluidity of water from a faucet, the Mantis crept about with the footsteps of a ghost, allowing nothing but the sounds of silence to permeate through the room. The air was tense, so he had to carefully plan his next steps.
With a quickness of lightning, he would sneak up behind Lars in order to give him a tap on the shoulder, before aiming to deliver a quick and decisive haymaker to the jaw, rotating the robber's head so fiercely they would be out cold instantaneously. From there, he could evaporate back into the shadows the dark storefront provided, hiding until he could lash out again.
____
Lars spun on his heels too late, his jaw cracking as Mantis' blow sent him sprawling to the floor. The other bandit, sweating like mad, turned just as the vigilante returned to the shadows, unleashing a torrent of gunfire in his general direction.
"Hold!" Jax roared over the sound, "hold it! Stop! You'll hit Lars!"
"I saw'im!" the thief was shaking, "I saw him, he was right there, he was RIGHT FUCKING-"
"Shut up!" Jax growled, "just hold out! We're almost out of this."
The sound of tires on asphalt screeched outside, followed by the hum of a diesel engine. Jax grinned. "The van's here. Come on, let's get the hell out of here. Rest of the team will have to post bail." They made for the entrance, covering their backs, warily searching for Mantis as the retreated.
____
It was now or never; if the robbers got away, this would all have been for naught. As their getaway vehicle came to a screeching halt outside, the remaining two thugs made for the door. This was his one chance to make sure they didn't leave this place with what they wanted.
If was a swift series of motions that saw the argon flash charge primed and ready, rolling across the floor in moments towards the entrance of the jewelry store, right in their paths. As he deployed the device, Mantis donned the most efficient defense he had for the imminent blinding light that was to come: sunglasses. With a rather loud
pop, the device detonated, illuminating the dark room with ultraviolet light; enough to disorient anyone looking in its general direction.
As the charge erupted, the Mantis procured the grapple device from his belt, aiming to ensnare the lead robber's leg with the steel cable. Aiming carefully, he fired, a sharp, barely audible
hiss emanating from the gas-propelled device, ready to pull it taught once the wire caught on to try and trip his quarry.
Afterward, he would remove himself from his current position, getting a running start to build momentum as to perform a jump kick on the other thug, hopefully knocking him into something sturdy.
