A/N:
" " : Dialogue,
' ' : Thought,
"Italicized text" : Telepathy,
[ ] : System.
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Nolan POV
To say that I felt nothing looking at my dad's corpse would be a lie. Sure, he almost handed me over to organ harvesters for some drugs, but he was still my dad, goddamn it. But I still couldn't bring myself to cry over his death, maybe as a result of assimilating Killua. I remember that apart from Alluka, he didn't really have any fondness for anyone in his family. It might have messed with my emotions, but right now, it might be for the best.
After paying the 'small' sum of $1500 for a private funeral, I stayed and watched them dress him up, put him in a coffin and began preparations to actually bury him. I told them that I'd take care of the digging and the headstone, and that all they'd have to do would be to lower him into the grave. When they heard that, they were about to offer me a reduction in the price, but I told them to keep the money in exchange for a small favor.
"I want you to bury him beside my mom. She was Melanie Simmons, died about five years ago." I tell them, and they listen to my request, and thanks to whatever form of coincidence that was at work, the plot on Mom's left was free. Using one of their shovels, I use Shu on it, then begin digging into the ground, Nen-covered metal moving through soil like a hot knife through butter.
For the next twenty minutes, I shovel dirt out of the ground. Ironically, I ended up digging my dad's grave after he died. Once I reach the six-foot mark, I hop out of the hole and call the cemetery staff. They come by with his coffin, ready to lower him into the hole. They ask me if I want to say some last words to him, but I tell them that I'd already reached closure with him, and with that, they lower my dad into the hole.
Once they had lowered him into the hole, two of them join me as we use wheelbarrows to pour the dirt into the grave. Dad had always hoped that he could reunite with Mom. While this isn't exactly pleasant, I guess he got what he wanted at the end. For his headstone, I asked them for a loose granite slab, which they gave without asking questions.
Taking a loose branch, I made a straight cut near its end, flattening it out. Using Shu on the branch, I wrote out a short epitaph for him: "Abraham Monroe Simmons. 1964 – 2010. Beloved husband and father. A good man that fought against a broken world until he couldn't anymore." It was the last bit of respect that I could give him, and for better or worse, it was also the most accurate description I could leave behind for him.
After writing out the epitaph, I smoothed the edges of the slab, then forced it into the dirt, right beside Mom's grave. With that, I was done with the life that this body had before I occupied it. From now on, it will be my life to live. And with the system and the blessings of RNGesus, I will be able to live as freely as I wish.
…
Omniscient POV
As Nolan left the cemetery, the newer staff there whispered amongst themselves, asking if he was a metahuman, as they had noticed him using a tree branch to write on granite. Since they didn't have Nen or any skill in using it, they couldn't see the aura that he used to do just that. One of the older staff came by and interrupted their mutterings.
"It's best that you young'uns keep your noses out of that. Last set of people I knew that messed with a meta weren't ever seen again." He warned them, hoping that they would take his advice and not antagonize a metahuman, especially one that he felt had nothing to lose.
As for Nolan himself, he was moving to make preparations for his eventual debut as a vigilante in Gotham. Although he had the Nightingale Armor as a tentative suit, the lack of integrated tech was becoming uncomfortably noticeable for him. And so, he moved firstly to deal with that.
He wanted to make a downgraded version of Batman's cowl that only had its sensory capabilities, with some electromagnetic protection, and maybe some tracking capabilities. While it was overkill for most other people, he felt that he should have that as a baseline, and then later upgrade from there.
Finding the tech that he would need for this would normally require him to get into black market dealings, but he didn't want that trouble hanging over him. So, he chose the somewhat safer option of going dumpster diving… into Wayne Technologies' dumps, or since they were more environmentally conscious, their equivalent of one.
While such a notion would have been absurd by any amount for a normal person, Nolan was anything but normal. With the enhancements to his body via assimilating the Beheaded and a version of Killua Zoldyck that was stronger than the canon version as well as the Ability Cards, he was capable of feats that can only be seen as superhuman.
Finding the Wayne Tech building wasn't hard for him, it was getting in that was the challenge. Although he referred to it a dumpsite, it was still a branch of Wayne Enterprises, so he immediately accounted for cutting-edge security, especially because it's Wayne Tech.
Rather than call a cab, Nolan chose to put his now enhanced body to work. With the crackling sound of lightning, he activated Godspeed, and the next instant, he vanished, running through Gotham City at supersonic speeds. In just 7 seconds, he had covered the 10-mile distance from the Cemetery to the street where Wayne Technologies' headquarters was located.
Skulking into a dark alleyway with no cameras, he took out a clean pair of black boxer-briefs from his inventory and fashioned it into a makeshift ski mask that he wore over his face. To make sure that no one would be able to identify him, he also used the Transform ability to turn into Shihai Kuroiro from the world of My Hero Academia. With the combination of his dark clothing and dark skin, he now looked more like a shadow than anything else.
After ensuring that his identity was protected, he moved to infiltrate the Wayne Tech building. Using his agility in tandem with Zetsu, Anpō, his proficiency in stealth, and Kuroiro's ability to meld into black surfaces, Nolan snuck past the guards in the outer complex with inhuman speed. Due to the enhancements to the Killua Zoldyck card that he got, many of his capabilities surpassed the canon version of Killua that was used for the Jump Force game.
For one, his mastery of Anpō had made it so that all of his movements were silent, not just his footsteps. He was also immensely more physically powerful than the canon version of Killua, with the Legendary rarity Killua being able to leisurely push open all the Testing Gate doors, without the use of Nen.
He was considerably faster, had greater endurance, and greater mastery over his Nen. He had even developed a technique that combined the principles behind Godspeed's Whirlwind with his Ten, allowing him to swiftly react to attacks and hazards, even if he wasn't conscious of those dangers, essentially giving him something similar to Spider-Man's Spider Sense.
On top of that, he had even mastered En, with him being able to extend his aura to a radius of 73 metres, and hold it for well over an hour. The Legendary rarity Killua developed a technique that allowed him to extend it even further, reaching a radius of 650m , with the tradeoff being that it only lasted for ten seconds, which he called Pulse.
With all of these as part of his arsenal, Nolan moved like a phantom through the internals of the Wayne Tech building. He avoided cameras, stayed out of people's sight, while surreptitiously snagging a few keycards here and there. He used the building's internal map as a guide, and eventually, he got to his destination – the Discarded Projects room.
As he stepped into the room, he felt a pulse quickly leave his body and return, almost immediately. The instant it returned, the full layout of the Wayne Tech building was practically downloaded straight into his brain, the reason for each room, and the location of every living being now vividly ingrained into his brain. After blinking for a few seconds, Nolan smiled behind his mask, now knowing firsthand how the sensation of the Explorer's Rune activating felt.
He didn't waste any time and began pilfering the room of the tech that was in it. He didn't discriminate on what tech he put into his inventory, taking in computers, cameras, circuit boards, sound setups, screens, and more. As he populated his inventory with what he saw as old age tech, he kept up his En and soon he noticed someone heading his way.
Clicking his tongue, he activated Godspeed for a short burst and moved everything that wasn't nailed down into his inventory, opened the door, then booked it out of the building. He put all the keycards he had snatched into a cardboard box, and dropped them off at the lobby as he exited the building. He wasn't trying to show himself as a criminal, after all.
…
When morning came by, Wayne Tech was in a frenzy, trying to find out who had broken in and stolen so much tech from them. Lucius Fox, who was one of the managerial staff, was having a headache from the whole situation. He had no way of understanding how, even with the surveillance that was in place, they had been infiltrated so easily. While they were somewhat relieved that it was only tech that had been discarded, the alarm of being broken into without even their surveillance systems going off was of greater priority.
They checked the log of projects that had been discarded, and much to their relief, none of them were weapons or weapon adjacent. They were mostly communication and interfacing-based tech – screens, receivers, microphones, and the like – with the small exception being a few experimental alloys that were eventually put away, as they didn't seem to be satisfactorily effective for what they needed.
Nolan, however, didn't think the same, as using his superior experience with making and altering technology, he was able to fashion a few things to help himself. He had integrated a thin malleable screen as part of the Nightingale Armor's mask, giving it a HUD equipped with full-range EM vision, tracking, audio and video recording capabilities, and a police channel scanner, all controlled by a small external neural transmitter at the back of his neck. He used the experimental alloy to make a pair of grapnels that he attached to the arms of the Nightingale Armor, but went in a different direction with their creation.
He tried making them as Nen-tech, but rather than doing something as advanced as the Greed Island consoles that Ging Freeccs and his cohorts created, he went for something much simpler. He knew that the entire branch of Nen-tech was considerably difficult to work with and implement, but he was no stranger to difficulty, Nen or tech. Granted, it was the project that took the most of his time, but he succeeded.
The cord of his grapnel was a long sturdy wire with a pointed cylindrical weight at its end, which depending on the intensity of his electric Nen that he sent into it, would shift forms. Unlike the canon version of Killua, the Legendary version had greater control and a better sense of his powers, so measuring and letting out small voltages was easy for him. At 20V, the weight would shift into a sphere, becoming a bludgeon. At 50V, it would shift into a bladed hook, which would pierce and hook onto objects. At 100V, it would shift into a circular blade, which would be used as a mid-to long-range weapon.
He then cannibalized the computers and Frankensteined together a monster of a machine that put anything that wasn't a supercomputer or higher to shame. He had made a smaller one, which he then used to reprogram the first computer from scratch, replacing its OS with the most widely used OS from his Earth – JANK. Despite the name, it was anything but janky, as it was the OS that was used to manage and optimize a large majority of his Earth's industries to great effect.
Windows, MacOS, Linux and others faded into obsolescence, as JANK took the best parts of all of them, regardless of their versions, and cranked up everything to 11. And since it was made to be backwards compatible and user-friendly, it very quickly became the flagship OS of humanity. JANK was even functional on the computers used during the earliest Apollo missions, and was multiple times faster and more effective at all the jobs that needed multiple computers to complete, all because it was hyper-optimized.
Add an OS that seemed to come from a sci-fi story to a computer the size of the average laptop from the 2020s, and you had a machine that people would kill for in a heartbeat. But for Nolan, this was a subpar computer that he just had to bear using, as he was used to much more powerful machines.
As for how he was able to work on these, getting good enough tools was pretty easy for him to do, seeing as he could just transform into someone else, even if no one knew the person he transformed into. Add to that the 'abandoned' storage facility he was in, which was still connected to Gotham City's power grid, and the question of where he'd get the space and power to do all that work was very quickly resolved.
After he finished kitting out the Nightingale Armor with the few tools, he packed up all his tools into his inventory and left the storage facility as stealthily as he entered it. He then headed to a diner and ate his first meal in over thirty hours, and he ate a lot. By the time he was done eating, he had racked up a bill of over $700, leaving the diner workers with smile and dirty dishes, which he arranged on the table before leaving.
When he was out of anyone's line of sight, he quickly made his way to the vacant rooftop of a ten-floor apartment building. From there, he began using his computer to hack into as many networks as it could detect, then used them to get into the surveillance systems around the area, tracking down any and all traces of members of the Berretti Crime Family, which he identified by first finding the faces of the men that came to his home 4 weeks ago to harass his father. While he was sure that they definitely had orders to keep their activities under wraps as much as they could to avoid drawing Batman's attention, Nolan was sure that they would slip, and when he caught that, he would make his move.
…
Nolan POV
The perpetually gray skies of Gotham had now begun turning black as nightfall drew closer, and I was now ready to make my move. Donning my modified Nightingale Armor – which despite its fabric-like appearance, really is armor – I feel my presence become even more muted, as if the darkness itself is moving to obscure me from the senses of others. It would seem that whatever boons from Nocturnal that the Nightingale Trinity had were still effective on their armor.
That just makes me wonder if items that deities from game 'verses would ever make their way here from their 'verses. It could either be a chaotic mess, or it could be quickly taken care of by the Source Wall. Moving away from that train of thought before I get sidetracked, I quickly check on how much GP I've got.
[GP: 42]
I got 10GP from meeting Paula, and 2GP from beating up Berretti's men that attacked me last night, which put into perspective how significant just meeting Artemis was. Setting aside that thought, I begin traversing the rooftops, with the surroundings blurring as I move. Right now, I'm heading to intercept one of the Berretti family's 'shipments' at the dock.
For all the secrecy that they try to operate under, the Beretti Family's goons are… unbelievably sloppy. There's so many camera feeds and sound bites that I gathered that were incriminating, that you'd think they were trying to get convicted. That is how I even got the info that they would be smuggling people over for organ harvesting and sex trafficking tonight. Sure, this could be a trap for Batman. But there's one thing that they didn't consider: I'm not the fucking Batman.
After about a minute of running, double-jumping, and vertical wall-running, the dock comes into view, and I use Pulse, marking all life signatures. I count 40 people and 20 SUVs, meaning that their 'shipment' hasn't gotten here just yet. With the dock being empty save for these fools, it also meant that I was free to tackle this however I wanted, before the shipment arrived.
I move into stealth, sneaking up on the group of men. With Zetsu, Anpō, and the Nightingale Armor hiding my presence, I essentially became a phantom, moving through the dock undetected. I get close enough to hear them talking and choose to eavesdrop on them for a bit, just to see if I can get some insider intel about the Berretti Family.
"Fuck the Maronis!" One of them shouted. His voice seems to be on the older side, early to mid-40s thereabout. "Those bastards think that just 'cause the big boss is out of Gotham, they can come around and take our territory?!!" He shouted again. So, it seems that the Berretti Crime Family is going through its death throes, but is still keeping up its enterprise.
"Calm down, Louie. And besides, they ain't taking it. We're just having a merger." Another one of them said, sounding like he was also within the age range as Louie, whoever he is. "Call it whatever the hell you want, Vinnie. But I know a takeover when I see one." Louie, probably Louis, replied.
"Listen, Louie. From what I heard, the Maronis have been making deals with some out-of-towners recently. And they're packing real heat. Stuff that could even take out the Bat for good." Vinnie, probably Vincent, said with a tinge of excitement in his voice. "Oh, yeah? And when they take out the Bat, who the hell do you think they'll turn their guns on next? News flash, Vinnie. The Maronis will see everyone else as henchmen under them, and if you don't get in line, they'll off you." Louie said, rightfully distrustful of the Maroni Crime Family.
"Hey, you two. Quit bitching around about it." This voice was… familiar. "Not like we can change anything about it. Or what, you want the guys under Maroni and the guys loyal to the boss to come after you?!" After the guy spoke again, I was finally able to pinpoint exactly where I'd heard his voice before. This guy… he was the one that came to the house back then. I remember that he came with three guys to pressure Dad, but he was the only one whose voice I heard then. I shoved the violent thoughts that were beginning to bubble up to the back of my mind, so that I could get more information from them.
"Listen, alright. I don't like this as much as the next shmuck on the road. But if we take advantage of this, we can line our pockets with just a bit more green. Everybody wins. Well, except for the whores and junkies, but who cares about 'em." He said, the disdain from his voice feeling almost tangible. "Haha, yeah. By the way, are we really doing this, Joey? Ambushing the Bat, of all things?" Vinnie asked, confirming that this was indeed a trap for Batman and Robin.
"Yeah. The Maroni guys wanna test out their new heat. Feel that taking down the Bat and that fucking kid with him is a good enough test run." Joey replied, not even batting an eye towards trying to kill a child. Not that I'd have expected him to, seeing as he likely ordered the guys I took care of back in my neighborhood to kidnap me.
"Speaking of junkies, what happened to that one guy you told us about last time?" Louie asked, his voice dripping with mockery and schadenfreude. "Wait, which one?" Joey asked, as if he had been pulling his shtick in places other than Gotham Heights. "Y'know… the one that tried to sell you his kid." Louie replied, clearly referring to my dad. "Oh, Abe? Last I heard, the fucker OD'd and died. So that's goodbye to that payday." Joey said with an exasperated sigh.
That's what my dad was reduced to in their eyes – a temporary source of money that could be disposed of at their whims. I felt my head pounding with murder, because while I didn't like what my dad had become from him putting his vices above all else, I didn't hate him anywhere near enough to not react to the very person who pushed him further down that path ridiculing him for entertainment.
"What about the kid?" Vinnie asked. "Couldn't even get the kid. Sent over some of our boys to grab him, but they're now in comas over at the hospital. Asked our guy in the PD, and he said it wasn't the Bat's MO." Joey said, letting me now know that they had at least one mole in the GCPD. "The hell?! We've already got the Bat and his brat being a problem, and now you're saying that a third guy has shown up?!" Louie said, clearly exasperated that I had come to make their activities just that much harder to do.
"If all this works out, we won't have to worry about the Bat or anyone else getting in the way again. And I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather be on the payroll of the family that rules Gotham than be the boss of the ones fighting for scraps." Joey said. At this point, I believed I'd heard all that I needed to, and decided that it was time I start taking them down.
Letting out a quick breath, I dashed forward, faster than any of them could hope to react to, and snapped every single one of their limbs in four places, except for Joey – he'd be the last one I'll get to. When Vinnie and Louie went down screaming in pain, I didn't stop, and went on to the other goons. The screams alerted them, causing them to pour out of the SUVs with guns in hand. Shotguns, pistols, SMGs and assault rifles were being waved around as they shouted, but it wasn't going to do anything to save them from me.
Since they were relatively packed together, taking them down was a lot easier, as I dashed between them, and using Domino, gave them the same treatment I had given Vinnie and Louie before stopping in their midst, as they fell to the ground. Joey, upon finally seeing me stationary, opened fire with his SMG. I was oh so tempted to use Ten, but I refrained from it, instead choosing to contract of my muscles, just in case the bullets got through the armor.
But rather than feeling the pain of bullets hitting me, I instead heard the constant *tink**tink**tink* of bullets ricocheting off the armor. Controlling the muscles in my throat, I altered my voice to sound like J.K Simmons. "So lead has nothing on ebony, huh? Good to know." I said, then dashed over to Joey, grabbing his arm and shattering his radius and ulna. Before he could open his mouth to scream, I smacked his jaw, the force breaking all the bones into fragments.
For the time being, I wasn't going to kill anyone, but I'd make it that these pieces of shit would want to die, but be unable to do anything to kill themselves. And so, with very quick, well-placed strikes, I smashed up every… *Whack!x4* single… *Whack!x4* bone… *Whack!x5* in his body. The meaty whacks that come from the resistance of hitting bone soon began to sound squishy, like hitting very tender raw meat. Although his clothes weren't torn up, they were soaked with blood. His survival was entirely in the hands of whoever would choose to try and save him… if they could save him.
I dropped him to the floor, then walked over to Vinnie and rummaged through his coat pockets, until I felt the metallic sheath of a butterfly knife. I pulled it out, and with a quick flourish, revealed the blade. Vinnie groaned, and I quickly smacked his face, breaking his jaw. After that, I stabbed the back of his neck, specifically the area around the C3 vertebrae, and pulled the knife out, while avoiding his trachea, esophagus, jugular vein and carotid artery. With that he should soon begin feeling quadriplegia set in, and not bleed to death.
Walking over to the others, I gave them the same treatment, all the while keeping an eye out for their backup. They were here to set a trap for Batman and Robin, so it wasn't hard to make the conclusion that the Maroni Family's men were meant to come around after receiving some sort of distress call. The only thing now that is left to figure out is who supplied them their weapons.
…
Omniscient POV
After permanently crippling the men from the Berretti Crime Family, Nolan hid himself closer to the pier of the docks, with a walkie-talkie he had stolen off one of them in one hand, and an SMG in the other. He then copied Joey's voice and the few vocal mannerisms he had heard from him, then sent out a distress call, as he fired into the air and at metal posts, simulating the sounds of a tense battle. He received an affirmative response from the other side, and smiled to himself, happy that he had more mobsters to take out.
To busy himself while waiting for the Maroni Family's men to arrive, he dragged the fallen Berretti Men and arranged their quadriplegic bodies into what he wanted his 'hero' persona to be named. He cared nothing for their conditions, as he felt that getting rid of the members of Gotham's organized crime scene was more helpful than constantly taking down the villains, who were mostly victims of Gotham City's corruption and its other messed up situations… mostly.
After he was done with that, he made his way to a nearby rooftop, where he waited for the Maroni Family's men to arrive. And a few minutes later, he eventually heard the sound of multiple engines approaching the docks. He fired off a quick Pulse, locking onto the new presences and counting up a total of 50 people. But right before the time for the Pulse elapsed, he felt 2 new presences make their way into his detection range, their auras considerably stronger than each of the men on the ground.
He immediately sighed with exasperation, and soon, a shout that he was expecting came from one of the men below. "It's the freaking Bat!!"
Chapter End.
Word Count: 4,621
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