ISSUE #1 (April 2018)
Written by Jake Hawkins Featuring: The Red Hood
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*Writers note: This story takes place after the current events in Red Hood and The Outsiders
HANK’S 24 HR DINER LOS ANGELES, CA You’d think I’d be tired by now. Of always trying to confront the inevitable. Smacking my head against the proverbial brick wall. I’ve been sitting here for the last two hours, trying to take my mind off seeing her like that, a broken shell of the woman I was too busy to pay attention to when she needed me. I’m on my fourth cup of coffee, pouring the pint of Hennessy I copped at the liquor store three blocks back judiciously into the mug the moment the waitress takes off. My hands won’t stop shaking, and I take another generous sip, letting the liquor do its job, hoping it’ll dull the anger coursing through me. The only problem is, I don’t have anybody to blame for all this but myself, and that just pisses me off all over again. Jason’s phone rang, snapping him from his daze.” You got something for me?” “You should know I went to great lengths to conceal the obtaining of this information from not only my father, but Pennyworth and the nosey Gordon girl as well. You owe me not one, but several, Todd.” The voice of Damian warned Jason in his usual biting tone. “I’m sending you the police report and toxicology workup on the drugs they found in her apartment. Check your phone.” Damien hung up abruptly, leaving Jason to study the information he had just acquired. Jason slapped a twenty dollar bill on the table before briskly storming out of the diner without a seconds hesitation. He hopped in his baby blue Porsche 356 and peeled out of the parking lot. A small screen rose from where the radio usually sat and a copy of the warrant issued by LAPD appeared next to an old mug shot of the suspect. David Parker. The epitome of an @$$ nobody in every since of the term. Which means either the entire investigation is being run by idiots, or those federal agents I saw at the crime scene last night are trying to bait the big fish. I don’t have the patience Dick or Tim have, it’s one of my more prominent faults. Still, sometimes my lack of temerity comes in hand at times like this, because I’m not about to wait for whoever or whatever clandestine agency to play their games. In the back of my mind as I round the corner to the club I can’t help but feel every stride of progress I’ve made these last few months begin to unravel. LA VIDA GENTLEMAN’S CLUB Jason parked his car a block away from the venue and popped the trunk. Inside lay his gear; Twin 9mm Glock 17s, cartridges of both live bullets and the special tranq bullets created by Bruce and Lucius, and his helmet. He unzipped his jacket to reveal an upgraded version of his body armor, the red bat insignia glows as the armor’s operating system connects with Jason’s helmet. From Jason’s point of view, his heads-up display synchronizes, alerting him to its activation with a “Welcome” greeting flashing in front of his eyes. He slams the trunk shut as he watches a few patrons file into the club. I leave the guns, partially because I don’t need things getting messier than they already will be. But mostly because I can’t guarantee I won’t end up doing something I’ll regret once I hopefully clear my head. The bouncer standing to the left of the main entrance is immediately bewildered by the Red Hood as he calmly approaches La Vida. The Red Hood doesn’t even look in the bouncer’s direction, instead attempting to walk right past him into the club when the bouncer steps in front of him brazenly. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, but I’m going to need you to back up and turn around. Club is closed tonight for a private party.” The bouncer looks him up and down, his eyes lingering on the bat symbol for a moment. “You got the wrong coast bruh, ain’t no Penguins and Iceberg’s in here.” Jason smiled underneath the helmet. Moments later the bouncer goes flying into the club, crashing over a drink laden table where a group of patrons were enjoying the show on stage. The crowded club freezes, everyone in either awe or shock as The Red Hood stepped into the room. “I’m looking for David Parker. Nobody else has to get hurt. I’d just like to be pointed in the right direction.” The room stayed silent. A bartender slipped from behind the bar and attempted to creep behind Red Hood, a bottle of Ace of Spades in hand and ready to swing. I hear him coming up from the left, and I know everything is about to go to hell. I’m not surprised by how little I care. Usually in these sort of situations you want to exercise crowd control as much as possible, give the target as slim a chance of slipping away in the chaos as you can. However, for some reason I find myself going against every shred of common sense as I begin to wreak as much havoc as I can stir up. There were six other ways to get in here, and yet I chose the front door. What does that tell you? The Red Hood easily sidesteps the customers swing of the bottle, delivering a wicked chop to the back of the neck as he passes, and he’s unconscious before he even hits the floor. A slew of bouncer’s rush The Red Hood, who doesn’t move an inch as he anxiously awaits the onslaught coming towards him. In the basement of La Vida, David Parker sits in the middle of a heated game of spades. Cigar smoke fills the room as the waitress tending the private bar keeps the players glasses filled. A few bundles of cash and baggies of cocaine lay in the middle of the table, the prize for the winners. Suddenly a dancer rushes down the stairs as all four players turn to see why they are being disturbed. “Some guy upstairs is tearing $h!t apart, looking for you.” She warned David, who immediately puts out his cigar and grabs the winnings from the middle of the table, tossing them into a duffle bag that laid near his feet. “Aye man the game wasn’t over yet, what you doing?” One of his opponents shouted as the sounds of the chaos upstairs finally reached their ears. David paused for a moment, before looking to his partner and nodding. The man quickly pulls out his pistol and fires three shots each into both their opponents before throwing the duffle bag onto his shoulder. “Let’s bounce. We can slip out through the dressing room.” David directs his crew as the group of four turn towards the staircase. However, David freezes as the noise from above ceases and the sound of footsteps treading down the stairs echoes throughout the basement. The Red Hood entered the room, removing his helmet, a red domino mask the only thing left to preserve his identity. He made his way over to the bar where the waitress cowered, setting his helmet down on a stool next to him. He rapped on the counter a few times until the waitress finally stood up, a stream of tears in her eyes. “Hennessy, straight please.” She nodded and reluctantly poured his drink, sliding it across to him, her eyes wary. He downed the glass, then motioned with a jerk of his head for her to leave. The waitress didn’t waste another second, sprinting towards the stairs and moments later she was out of sight. David and his crew stood statuesque still, his eyes lingering on the streak of white running through Jason’s otherwise jet black hair. “I know you. You used to run around town with one of Egon’s broads. Look man I don’t know what your problem is but if you don’t walk out of here right now-” “How about we play a game? You’re supposed to be a smart guy right, David? You somehow worked your way up from small time pimping and leg breaker work to dealing straight poison, you should enjoy this one. It’s called assume the worst, and basically the rules are if you don’t give me answers that I find satisfactory, well you get to assume what’s the worst thing I could possibly do to you. Not the most fun game I know, but hey, consequences are consequences.” Jason reached over the bar and grabbed the bottle of Hennessy, pouring himself another glass. “I grabbed this off a lovely waitress upstairs,” Jason tossed a baggie of yellowish cocaine at David’s feet before he gulped down another glassful, “Whose supplying you?” David looked down at the bag and sighed deeply before quickly firing his pistol at Jason, who ducked as the bullets spray the wall full of bottles behind the bar. Jason tossed his empty glass at David’s jaw, the cup shattered against his face on impact. He didn’t waste a bit of movement, closing the gap between himself and David in a matter of seconds. He hit the man on his left with a wicked roundhouse kick, before elbowing David in the throat, leaving him gasping for air. He then grabbed the man clutching his jaw from the kick and tossed him back first into the flatscreen TV behind him. The last man standing between David and Jason took off for the stairs, deserting his partner without another look back. David, refusing to go out without a fight, groped for the pistol he dropped amidst the brawl, his fingers finally reaching it under the table. Before he could even think about getting off a shot, Jason’s hands were around his wrist, breaking it with an audible snap. David screamed in pain as Jason wrenched the arm behind his back and slammed him face first on the table. He didn’t stop there, as he slammed repeated vicious elbows into the back of the head and side of David’s face, who was barely conscious at this point of the beating. Jason took a few steps away from his prey, taking a few deep heavy breaths to calm himself down. It takes every ounce of self-control I have to pull me off of him. I can’t see straight, and there’s a drumming in my head that keeps telling me to jump back on that &%$#@!@ animal while I have the chance. I focus on Karlee. I see her smile in my head, and everything slows down for a moment while I try to put things back into perspective. Jason pulled a zip tie from his utility strap and bound David’s hands before dragging him off the bar and up the stairs. He led the way out of the club, pulling him by his feet as his head skidded roughly against the pavement, finally leaving him smack dab in the middle of the parking lot, delivering a kick to the gut for good measure before heading down the block. David stirred on the ground, his eyes swelling shut as blood seeped from his mouth. He turned over just as Jason’s Porsche roared into the lot, one of his front tires stopping inches from David’s face. He hopped out, leaving the engine running as he knelt down next to David. “You put Karlee on to that toxic waste you’re peddling up people’s noses, and I can’t think of a better reason to put you out of your misery right now. Nobody would miss your ass.” Jason taunted as he got back up and headed to the drivers seat. “Me?! I never gave her a damn thing man, I swear to god! Egon hit me up a few months ago saying he wanted to get in the game, saying he had a crazy connect we were gonna blow up on,” Dave yelled back at Jason frantically, “He had me meet him at some chemsex party on campus at USC, Karlee was there trying the stuff out with a bunch of girls he brought. If anyone got her hooked it was him!” Jason paused for a moment before turning back. “Where’s Egon now?” “Last I heard from him he was shooting some stuff out in Santa Monica. I was supposed to head out there and re-up. The address is in my phone, I swear to god man.” Dave pleaded through labored breathing. Jason reached a hand into one of David’s front pockets, grabbing his phone and tossing it in his car before he got in. As he pulled away, he stuck his head out the window. “Theirs a warrant out for you, it’s why I came here first. If I find out you’re lying to me, there isn’t a cell or institution built to keep me from finishing what we started here tonight. And without another word Jason sped away from the carnage he’d left in his wake. Egon Quasar. I met him a few months after Karlee and I moved in together. The guys the epitome of the words “bottom of the barrel”, it got to a point where I lost track of how many times I told Karlee I didn’t want her around him. What kind of a porn director had deep ties to the LA Russian Mob? Even still, none of this was quite adding up. I’d been around Egon enough to know that if he cared about any of the girls he worked with, it was Karlee. It was just one of many contributing factors as to why we hated each other. SANTA MONICA EGON’S MANSION Music blasted throughout the night air as Egon sat on the deck by his pool, smoking a cigarette. A couple of girls behind Egon chopped a few lines of the yellowish coke as a pair of Russian gangsters exited the house through the sliding glass door and approached him. “I hope you two are enjoying yourselves. How were the girls Adrien?” Egon asks, eager to impress his guest. “We appreciate you inviting us, and for the generous deal.” He nods, to the bricks of coke Sergei is busy stuffing into a Gucci bag. “Our boss is eager to do business with your supplier, is he here tonight?” “Gentleman, we’ve had this discussion numerous times,” Egon chided them as he brushed away one of the girls handing him a rolled dollar bill,” My employer won’t be in the country for some time, and he has tasked the approval of any joint ventures to me. Now if talking to me won’t make your boy happy, I don’t know what to tell you. Please, sit, have a drink.” He hopped up and headed into the house. He made his way into the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of Vodka from the freezer and snatching three glasses off the counter. As he turned, he saw the reflection of a red helmet, and a strange dark glow behind him. He shook his head, thinking to himself the alcohol must be kicking in. Suddenly he’s snatched by back of his shirt and tossed into the fridge, smacking the back of his head and slumping to the floor. He’s pulled back to his feet and stares at his reflection in the helmet of the Red Hood. “Egon, you’re going to die tonight. How quickly and painless that death will be, is entirely up to the way the next two minutes goes.” The Red Hood tightens his grip around Egon’s throat just as a bullet ricochets off the back of his helmet. “Drop him slowly. Then I will want to know how you found this place. Then we will kill you.” Adrien threatened as Sergei burst into the room as well and joined his partner in training his weapon on the vigilante. Red Hood dropped Egon to the floor once again but in a flash drew his twin glocks and fired a bullet into the forehead of each of them. They drop in a heap next to each other, the pair of them dead right in front of the patio door. One of the girls outside screams as she turns and sees the bodies. Egon’s guests stormed out of his backyard gate as Red Hood began to drag Egon out of the kitchen and tosses him onto the living room couch roughly. He the grabs a chair from the kitchen and sets it directly in front of Egon before taking a seat himself. “I have to admit, I never saw any of this in you. Sure you had the connections, but I never figured anyone would take you serious enough to plug you in. You get a steady supply of something no one else has and you flood the streets with it. I bet you couldn’t be more pleased with yourself. You might even think of yourself as important. But thankfully, I’m here to bring your high opinion of yourself crashing and burning back down to earth.” Red hood removed his helmet, and Jason smirked at Egon as he pulled a knife from his belt with a jagged blade, a gift from Talia a long time ago. Egon recognizes the blade, and a realization washes over him. “I didn’t know that this stuff was toxic when I started distributing. By the time I saw firsthand what this crap could do, she was in too deep. There was nothing I could do, she was going through an eight ball every week. This stuff ain’t made for that.” Egon pleaded his case to the fuming Jason. “Spare me the tired excuses. Let’s not pretend you didn’t know how things were going to end for her the moment you decided people’s lives were far less important than you padding your pockets and feeling more important than usual.” Jason placed the tip of the blade at Egon’s throat, drawing droplets of blood that dripped onto his shirt. “I didn’t want to see her dead, you’re not the only one that loved her…”Egon managed to rasp out, sweat pouring down his face as he kept his eyes on the blade. “Things were getting rough out here. I had trouble getting girls to shoot, distributors stopped putting my movies in stores after a while. I got an offer I wasn’t stupid enough to refuse.” “It’s amazing how every drug dealer I’ve ever come across defaults to one of two settings when they run head first into a brick wall full of consequences. They either lament how it was them or everyone else so they chose themselves, as if that line of thinking couldn’t have resulted in any other action than peddling whatever vice they’ve chosen. Or they opt for the sympathy route. Spouting some regurgitated pity party story about how their life was so hard, they never had anyone but themselves, and the life they lived never gave them any other options.” Jason quickly pulled the blade away from Egon’s throat before grabbing him by the wrist and slicing off his index finger in one swipe. Egon screams as blood spurts on to the white sofa, leaving a gruesome stain on the expensive furniture. Jason grabs the same hand again, his blade in hand ready to take another piece of Egon. “I have very simple questions. I advise you to answer them quickly. I have no qualms with leaving you missing quite a few chunks when your body is found.” Unbeknownst to Jason and Egon, on the roof of the mansion, seven men dressed in black suits and wearing stoic expressions move in absolute silence towards the skylight above the kitchen. The one in the lead reaches the glass first and lifts the hatch that leads into the house. Below in the living room, Jason wrenches Egon off the couch by the throat and puts the blade to his left ear. “Look I don’t know who he is. He sent this guy named The Machinist every time we did business from jump. And before you ask he always contacted me first. We switched the day, time, and drop off every re-up. Look just let me go and I won’t tell them about any-“ A blade made of a strange, crackling, yellow energy plunges straight through the chest of Egon. Jason dropped Egon back onto the couch out of sheer shock. In front of him in the kitchen stood the seven, clad in all black men, each with a blade of the same energy. Jason doesn’t hesitate to act, quickly tossing the blade at one of the men to the right, sinking it into his shoulder. Jason drew his twin glocks as his opponents leaped into action, the one with the knife in his shoulder barely seemed to notice it. He fired at the men, diving into the hallway to create a bit of distance. He quickly reloaded and peered around as one of the men rushed directly at him, tackling him roughly clean through a wall and into a first floor bedroom. Whoever they are, they’re damn good. Too damn good. They managed to slip in without me noticing, and those swords they’re swinging are unlike any tech I’ve ever seen. I’ll have to get one of them back to Bruce to study, if I live through all this. Good thing I brought the glocks, but none of knockout bullets for these guys. They don’t deserve it. Jason kicked his assailant off him, firing three shots into his chest for good measure before he got to his feet. He stepped back through the hole created by the tackle just in time to dodge a slash from another one of the mysterious crew. He sidestepped another mighty swing, firing point blank at the head of his attacker, who somehow managed to deflect each of Jason’s shots with the energy sword. Jason doesn’t waste any movement, slipping under a slice meant to take off his head and delivering a slew of kicks to the midsection of a reinforcement who was closing in on him. He immediately ducks aside after delivering one more kick, dodging an attack from behind that slices the man in front of him clean in half. Jason watches in a bit of shock as the man’s body begins to fall apart, revealing complex circuitry and a spewing green liquid emitting from his inner tubing. Drones. Not too different from the one’s Ra’s had in Wonder City. But these are far more advanced, their fighting skill is almost on par with Dinah’s, definitely ahead of Tim. The deeper I descend into all this madness the more nothing is making any sense. I’m getting tired of not having any god damn answers. Just then Jason is kicked in the face by one of the robots, sending him skidding across the kitchen floor. He gathers himself, wiping the blood that had begun to trickle from the corner of his mouth before springing back to his feet. He leaped at the robot who still had Jason’s knife sticking out of his shoulder, putting his foot directly into it’s chest and driving it back first into the ground with a nasty stomp. Jason ripped the knife out of the robot and drove the knife repeatedly into the machine’s head. He’s ripped off the incapacitated machine by another robot and tossed across the kitchen island and into the hallway. Before Jason can fully recover the machine is all over him, as he narrowly avoided the slash of it’s sword that takes out a section of the wall behind him. Jason rolled away to create some distance between him as the remaining four robotic assassins lunge into the hallway in pursuit of him. There’s these sort of moments, where I can feel myself slipping. I remember Talia once said her father was against her throwing me in the pit. That I was an unknown force, and that it was insanity to give such an entity the power of the pit. He explained to her that he had lived from it’s waters for over six hundred years, and that “He knew what blackness lived in his heart”. It was this story that drove me to reconciling with Bruce. It’s why I wanted to bring together the Outsiders. If I’m being honest, I was scared. I don’t think I could live with myself, If I let whatever’s bubbling inside of me take over. If I let my anger shape me. I let it once, and the slippery slope of rationalizing every extreme action I made forced me to take a hard look at what I was on the way to becoming. It’s now, as I feel that same rage pulling at my mind, throbbing against the back of my skull, that I can’t see Karlee’s smile to keep me off the edge. All I see is her lifeless eyes, the vomit she choked on spilling from her mouth onto that carpet she hated so damn much. Jason reaches into his utility straps and pulls out a slew of rectangular shaped charges before tossing them at the oncoming robots, two of them each magnetically attaching to every one of their chests. Jason dives into the bathroom and through the window as he presses a button on his belt and a massive explosion rocks the house, taking out the entire ground floor. Jason lands roughly in the back yard, getting to his feet just as it begins to rain, he stares at the smoldering wreck. Well there goes any leads I might have had, which I’m assuming was the goal of whoever sent those things. Jason turned just a moment too late, as a gloved fist crashes into the side of his helmet, cracking it slightly. He falls to his knees, stunned by the devastating blow. His helmet’s heads up display reads “System malfunction” across the now cracked lenses as Jason turns to see the Midnighter walking across the wet grass towards his prey. “I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time for you. We aren’t about to play this game, where you screw something up and we’re left scrambling with all the pieces. So I’m going to…what was it you said to Parker? Put you out of your misery, right here and now. I advise you to stay off your feet boy. I won’t leave as much of your face left for an open casket funeral this time.” TO BE CONTINUED IN ISSUE 2! |