Cracks in The Wall

Chapter Twenty-Three

Nightwing and Spider-Woman crouched down on the warehouse rooftop as the sound of firearms unloading echoed from below them, resounding throughout the night air.

"Wait, so you're telling me that one of your teammates is in there, and we didn't know about it?" Dick asked in slight disbelief at being told that another hero was inside the building.

"Not exactly," Jess replied, shaking her head. "He's one of the good guys, but he generally works alone in this district. He’s one of those hard-up stoic types.”

"I know the type," Dick responded with a barely visible smirk, "but who is this guy, exactly? Why’s he here?"

"He's kind of like you, but with a red costume and a grumpy disposition. Hits criminals with sticks and jumps around rooftops. As for why he’s here, I suspect that whatever is in that truck has something to do with one of his cases. He had apparently been at the tower about a month ago following up on a lead. Regardless of why he’s here, it’ll be mutually beneficial to help him, the sooner the better," Jess asserted, shattering the window with her elbow.

As Nightwing and Spider-Woman had been conversing above, two semi-well dressed gunmen who had been knocked out on the upper deck were simultaneously waking up. One rubbed his bald head as he sat up from the dusty floor, a fresh imprint of a boot throbbing on the left side of his head. "Freaking horn head… That’s gonna be there for days," he complained angrily, wincing each time he touched the injury.

"Least he ain't gonna come back up here. He thinks we're KO'd, and he’s got his hands full down there," the second guy commented, picking up his gun and aiming it down at the fight below. "We can take him out from up here. Imagine what th' boss'll say when we tell em we took out th' biggest thorn in his--"

The man was cut off by the sound of shattered glass crashing down on top of him and his co-worker. Both men instinctively covered their heads with their rifles in an attempt to shield themselves, the shards of glass slitting their white formal shirts as it rained down above them.

As the glass settled on the dirty upper deck, the bald man looked up, moving his rifle out of the way. "Who the h--" he began to question angrily, but was cut off, receiving yet another boot to the face, knocking him out again.

"You boys won't be removing any thorns today," Spider-Woman quipped as she swept the legs out from under the second gunman, flooring him.

With the wind knocked out of him from the fall, he couldn't get up, but he was able to move his head just in time to see a red baton send him back to dreamland.

"Looks like these two got lucky. Everyone else up here seems like they'll be out for a while, to say the least," Dick observed, surveying the area.

"Our friend in red must be on his last legs for the night. He’s normally a lot more precise, from what I know of him. If he didn’t fully incapacitate these two, then the rest could also get up. It’d be in our best interests to end this fast," Jessica insisted, looking down at the chaos ensuing below them. "Down there in the navy blue is Bullseye. He's an assassin with quite possibly the best aim in the world. He’s the biggest threat, and is probably in charge of these goons. We need to take him down as soon as possible."

Dick looked down to see the man called Bullseye pull out three knives, throwing them across the room at a man in red who rolled behind a flipped table to avoid the attack, but also being pinned in that spot, two other gunmen firing at him as well.

"I'm guessing that's the guy we're supposed to be helping?" He assumed, pointing to the crimson-clad man.

“Yeah. That’s Daredevil. He’s one of the most famous street-level heroes. They call him ‘the man without fear,’” Jess explained, exaggerating Daredevil’s nickname mockingly.