Chapter 4: Vigilantes

"Did you hear about the Crimson Cloak? I heard that she took down a whole drug cartel last night," A random teen said to his friend, who's eyes widened to the size of plates.

"What? Are you for real? Why is this the first time I'm hearing this?!" He basically shouted, excitement in his voice.

The Crimson Cloak was a vigilante in the Lynchburg area, a rather populated city of the Union. It wasn't completely littered with crime, but it definitely was not the best city to live in.

It was lunchtime once again, and the cafeteria was once again buzzing with the chatter as the teens spoke with a new type of vigor this afternoon. In every one's mouth, was the talk of the vigilante striking once again.

However, the only one who was not buzzing was Leo, who just ate his lunch calmly as he worked on some homework he was assigned, plus three other student's work. He didn't mind if he were to be honest, it was easy.

He was a genius, after all, he was good at multi-tasking. It was his job to be good at everything, it was how he was trained.

Now, this Crimson Cloak was an interesting topic to Leo. A vigilante that hunted criminals down and killed them. It was interesting, to say the least. But, how come he hasn't heard of them before? He's been there for two weeks and hasn't heard a single thing about the Crimson Cloak, so why was it so sudden?

It didn't matter. He'd have to find out tonight.

Lynchburg City was about to get its newest vigilante.

Leo sat on the ledge on top of one of the bigger buildings in the city, everything he wore being mostly completely black, including the gas mask, which covered only the lower half of his face, his red eyes seemingly glowing through the darkness as he peered at the city below him.

His outfit was lacking complexity. He had on a baggy pair of black shorts that went right below his ankles with steel-toed shoes on with a pair of black socks on each foot that went right above his ankle.

He also had a red long sleeved shirt that was almost hidden under a plain black shirt that had a hood, covering his brown hair. He wore black fingerless gloves and had a foot-long knife strapped to his waist, the handle wrapped with a black cloth that seemed worn out from overuse as if it had been grabbed at and swung thousands of times.

And it has.

This blade alone has taken one-hundred and eighteen lives in total, Leo counted everyone he has killed with each weapon so that he would not forget what he's done.

What he became.

He was interrupted from his thoughts when he heard a small muffled scream echo in his ears from the alleyway below.

'Wow, that's actually kinda convenient," He thought as he stood up and walked across the ledge of the building before peering over the ledge and looking into the alley, and to his mild surprise and disgust, he saw three different men ganging up on a women, a piece of metal shining in each of their hands, obviously being a weapon of some sort.

Leo quickly stretched his arms before he smirked under his gas mask as his red eyes seemed to glow even brighter than before as he jumped off the twenty story building. As he approached the ground, Leo quickly took out a small knife that had a rope attached to it.

He threw the knife and it hit a metal staircase that was about six yards away from the ground. The knife looped around the railed of the staircase before hooking onto one of the stairs as Leo swung like Spiderman as he slowed his movement mid-air before he let go of the rope and landed on the ground, just a couple feet away from the three men that were apparently terrorizing the woman.

"Hello," Leo greeted as he turned around. "Scum."

"Help me!" The women shouted as tears flowed down her rosy cheeks. Leo didn't even look at her, focusing on the three men in front of him. They were all the average height, around five foot nine. They were also dirty, having dirt plastered all over their face and clothes, which weren't anything but grey rags.

They were obviously homeless, and by the looks of it, they were desperate for money. But, that did not excuse them for robbing a defenseless woman. Leo looked at the woman and nodded to her.

"Go ahead and run," Leo said softly, but his voice was a lot deeper due to the gas mask, making him seem almost demon-like. The woman didn't hesitate and bolted in the opposite direction, most likely going to find a police officer of some kind.

"You bastard!" One of the homeless men shouted angrily. "That was our meal ticket!"

"Guess we'll have to sell whatever you got on you to make due," Another one said, holding his rather clean knife in the air, making Leo raise his eyebrow.

"And how did you acquire that? You couldn't have afforded it, so we have one of two options. Someone gave them to you, or the more likely option, you stole them."

"Who the hell are you to judge us?" He shouted as he rushed forward, ready to pierce Leo's stomach with the silver blade, only for him to instantly be pinned to the brick wall of the building that Leo was standing on not five minutes ago.

"Someone who doesn't have tolerance for people like you," He punched the man in the stomach and watched as his eyes rolled back into his skull, effectively knocking him out and watching as he slumped to the ground.

Leo then turned to the two other men, taking out his knife as he held it in a reverse grip.

"Well come on, you aren't going to get my wallet if you don't come on," The men looked at each other for a split-second, as if speaking to each other with just their looks and facial features before their faces turned to ones of doubt to ones of determination.

"Don't blame us if you get hurt!" One of them shouted before they both charged at once. Leo took a single step forward, and suddenly, the men stopped.

"W-What the hell," The one on the right muttered under his breath as he dropped his knife as he took a step back, a look of pure horror covering his face. Leo tilted his head.

"What?" He said in his deeper voice. "Scared?"

"Not of you," A female's voice spoke up from nowhere before two knives flew past Leo's head on each side before piercing the two homeless men's throat, killing both of them almost instantaneously, making Leo's eyes widen.

"What the-" He began as he whirled around, only to stop as he saw a knife sticking out of the man he had knocked out just moments before skull. "Why? Why did you kill them?" He shouted angrily.

"Trash deserves to die, don't they?" The figure asked rhetorically. "Now tell me, who the hell are you and what are you doing in my city?"