A Challenger Appears #60

Gotham

The Bowery

I took a deep breath as I took cover behind the bar, bullets, glass shards, and alcohol splashes flying right over my head as I held on to Ebony and Ivory, raising them next to my face.

It had been three days since I took the Gunman class, and I managed to raise my Guns skill by an additional eight levels thanks to my eagerness to stop sucking at using Ebony and Ivory.

I spent most of my time hunting for thugs, taking them out with my guns to grind the skill, but I quickly noticed a pattern that whenever I went out, a bunch of Black Mask's goons would always show up whenever I stirred a fuss.

And being the homicidal maniacs one would expect them to be, they usually just start shooting as soon as they'd see me. I welcomed them with open arms, of course, since more thugs meant more EXP, and even started targeting Black Mask whenever I had the chance.

And it led me to the current situation, where after a bit of hacking, I discovered this neat little bar that was a front Black Mask used as a drug lab and came knocking. On Black Mask's goons' heads. With my guns.

I might have grown a bit cocky as of late since Guns wasn't the only skill I was grinding, even now while I was in the middle of a shootout. I was using the Personal Computer power and also working on the computer skill, raising it quite a bit, but I'll get to that later.

I still had a bunch of gangster fucktards to deal with and all that jazz. I'm sure you understand.

I looked around and spotted an alcohol bottle, causing me to grin as I picked it up and threw it high over the bar. The trigger-happy thugs immediately turned their attention to it and opened fire, the hail of bullets shattering the bottle to countless pieces.

I emerged from behind cover as the bottle's contents began raining over my head, guns in hand and ready to shoot, and shoot they did as I pulled Ivory's trigger like a maniac with my right, firing five shots in a single second.

My left wasn't idle as I fired Ebony, firing one from the dark pistol for every five from its counterpart. And whereas one in every five shots fired from Ivory missed with the others slightly deviating but hitting the target, all Ebony's projectiles landed where I wanted them precisely.

The thugs started dropping like flies as I ran sideways, continuously firing my guns without stopping as I dodged and weaved through an almost never-ending hail of bullets hitting everything but me.

And no, Black Mask's goons weren't storm troopers, but I was making it very difficult for them to aim with my constant movement, and I could predict any shot that might hit and adjust my course accordingly.

So yeah... sucks to be them, I guess.

My eyes darting around, I located the last two-four thugs standing and calculated the trajectory of their bullets based on where they were looking, the way they held their guns, and their posture as they began firing.

I could easily avoid getting hit if I kept going, but I wanted to show off for no particular reason, and I stopped in place and threw myself to the side, spinning my body as the first bullet flew right over my abdomen.

I raised my left hand, taking aim with Ebony and firing a single shot that hit the furthest thug between the eyes, causing them to roll back as he fell to the ground in a boneless heap, very much unconscious.

One spin and another bullet flying past my shoulder later, I fired Ebony again, causing the second furthest thug to fall, suffering pretty much the same fate his buddy did.

I put Ebony in my inventory and reached with my now free hand for a table below me, gripping the edge to balance myself in a one-hand stand as several bullets flew past me.

My grin deepened as I fired two energy projectiles from Ivory, the first of which hit one of the last two standing thugs in the forehead, knocking him out, while the latter missed, flying just over the last one's head, much to my chagrin.

'Damn it... that would have been sick as fuck if the last shot didn't miss...'

I pushed myself off the table, landed on the ground with a flip, and turned to the last thug, holding back a snort of amusement at his petrified expression.

He flinched and stood frozen for a second before pursing his lips and hurriedly began touching his body, inspecting to find a gunshot wound that wasn't there.

His petrified expression quickly turned smug, and his pursed lips stretched in an obnoxious smile that gave me the urge to punch him in the face as he realized I'd missed.

"Hah, guess ya weren't all that, ya damned wraith!" The tug exclaimed as he raised his index finger and pointed at me with a jubilant expression that quickly disappeared as I retrieved Ebony and put an energy bullet between his eyes.

"Who you calling a wraith, bitch?" I remarked, scowling under my mask as I walked over the unconscious thugs, making my way to the bar's backrooms to look for some sweet loot.

Just because I went a little far with my Phantom Belt and spooked a bunch of thugs for no reason other than sheer boredom doesn't give him the right to call me a wraith!

After a bit of looking around, I found a secret room, and when my eyes widened as I opened it at the sight of dozens of guns, crates full of drugs, and a suitcase full of cash.

I ignored everything as I walked to the suitcase, throwing it into my inventory before I started doing the same to the guns, leaving nothing but the drugs in the secret room.

'What to do with these...?' I mused, hesitating as I scratched my head while looking at the several drugs-filled crates. I might be a thief, but even I wouldn't stoop to peddling drugs like some common third-rate thug.

I could leave the drugs here for the GCPD to find, but they would only stay in their hands for a few days before some crocked cop smuggled them out of the precinct and back into the streets.

Though I was taking out thugs to grind my skills, and my motives for acting were selfish, it didn't change the fact that I was actually doing some good and cleaning up the streets.

"Oh well, when in doubt, kill it with fire..." I remarked, chuckling and shrugging my shoulder as I turned back to the bar and started hauling the unconscious thugs outside.

I didn't leave a single drop of blood in the restaurant this time, but I was still going to burn it down to get rid of the drugs, which was a refreshing turn of events, and it felt like I was doing something because I wanted to, not just for survival like I usually do.

I retrieved a gas canister from my inventory and headed back inside, dousing the entire bar with gasoline, starting from the secret room full of drug crates.

Once finished, I went outside and lighted up the bar as I turned to the neat heap of unconscious thugs, looking for a phone to call the police. But I didn't have to as I heard police car sirens echoing in the distance.

"Whelp, my work here is done..." I casually remarked as I equipped my Steel Wire and prepared to swing away. But a brief look at my pigeon drone's video feed made me reconsider, as I spotted a suspiciously unique-looking guy on a rooftop nearby looking directly at me.

The man was tall, broad-shouldered, and had a bald head resting on top of one of the meanest faces I'd ever seen in both my lifetimes. He wore a tight bronze shirt with a tiger stripes pattern that empathized his muscular torso, covered by a brown leather jacket and a fang necklace hanging around his neck.

And you know how shit in comics goes; the weirder and more unique someone looked, the more likely it meant they had a part in the story, signifying the guy's probably a named character from the comics.

'I wonder who this guy is...?' I wondered as I turned to the man, and he raised an eyebrow upon realizing I'd spotted him. Still, he looked unphased by the realization and even had the audacity to smirk at me, clearly issuing a challenge.

'Challenge accepted, bitch...'

...

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