Chapter 88

Beginning’s End 6

-:-

It was a calm sunny day.

Though a bit hot, a gentle breeze swept through Theo’s neighborhood like a lover’s caress.

The sounds of a crowded and bustling suburban area was a chaotic chorus that signified humanity’s daily grind.

An annoying ice cream jingle on a nearby school.

The loud machines of construction from a recent superhero battle.

A bunch of housewives noisily chatting on which one had the bigger purse.

Drowned in that chaos was another sound that was very common to the ever chaotic city of Vermilion

It was the sound of desperation as a man did everything in his power to break the vice grip around his neck.

He stabbed the arm, but was only met with a metallic clang as his pocket knife struck the unrelenting mechanical arm.

He tried to stab the person himself, but his blow was skillfully deflected before his hand was pinned to the floor.

He tried to kick the assailant, but to no avail because the attacker mounted him in a manner where his legs could not reach.

Nevertheless, the man struggled in futility as he felt the life quickly draining from his body.

But before his consciousness could fully fade to black, the vice grip around his neck disappeared and his lungs breathed in the much needed air.

However, the man’s small celebration quickly came to an abrupt end as the mechanical arm smashed the man’s skull with a sledgehammer blow.

With blood, brain matter and viscera scattered all over the small alleyway, the attacker used the dead man’s clothes to wipe the blood off of his mechanical arm.

“Killing people the old fashion way is surprisingly more fun than I thought. I need to do this more often” thought Theo as he stealthily walked away from his latest victim.

At the moment, Theo was silently eliminating the many bounty hunters that were stalking his home. And as much as he didnt like to admit it, he was having the time of his life.

Why?

It was because he was killing them as ‘Theodore Lorne’ and not as ‘The Boss’.

This meant that he had no power armor, no fancy tech aside from his spy drones and he had to rely more on more improvised means of killing.

Why do such a risky style of fighting when more efficient methods were available?

The answer was simple.

At the moment, Theo was being observed by the superheroes themselves.

Around 5 stealth planes with optical camo have been circling around Theo’s neighborhood for quite some time now.

Normally it would be hard for military grade surveillance equipment to spot them, but Theo’s tech was above and beyond such standards. His spy drones could detect heat, radiation, airflow disturbance, atmospheric pressure, sound, etc.

With such a wide array of instruments, it was relatively easy to spot the stealth planes.

Aside from that, Theo’s spy drones also detected some superheroes skulking around his neighborhood.

However, despite Theo’s rising kill count, all of them refused to move in and stop him.

This was a mystery on its own.

But based on what he could see from the spy drones, it was clear that the superheroes were allowing Theo’s slaughter not out of their own free will.

Every time Theo brutally murders one of the many bounty hunters, the superheroes would grind their teeth and clench their fist in frustration.

Clearly something was up.

There were only a handful of people that could force Superheroes to act against their own interest, and a few of them were in the higher positions of government.

But why would they bother with Theo?

For the omnigel?

Preposterous.

The omnigel was not worth so much needless death.

Another possibilities were influential extra dimensional beings.

But there were too many to count and none of them had any connection to him.

With a sigh of surrender, Theo had no choice but to keep going with his original plan.

He has to slaughter all the mooks that came his way until he can force whoever was pulling the strings to come out and come at him personally.

As Theo was about to move in for his next kill, his phone vibrated for the nth time in the last few hours.

This time around, it was his brother Bartholomew Lorne.

And as per usual, Theo ignored the call and put it back in his pocket.

His family, friends and a few people he didn't know were bombarding his phone with calls ever since the whole incident in the freeway.

Theo was touched that they cared so much for him, but now was not the time for explanations.

With in mind, Theo continued on with his rampage.

-:-

The next targets was on the third floor of a badly made 5 story apartment that was very common to Theo’s neighborhood.

It was an ideal location for a makeshift headquarters because it had a clear view of Theo’s apartment and everything around it.

Quite a smart move for a bunch of drug inhaling thugs.

However, Theo immediately discovered that these were not thugs.

Based on what Theo could see via his spy drones, there were 10 individuals with bullet proof vests, high quality AK47s and a fair bit of tech like laptops, drones, and an impressive coms system.

They were clearly a group of skilled individuals and probably the strongest group out of all the bounty hunters so far.

It seemed that the 2 million Rooks was quite the draw for the more morally flexible citizens of Vermilion City.

And Theo will make sure that ever last one of these fools will regret ever attempting to collect this bounty.

At the moment, there were 5 on the 3rd floor, 2 on the roof and 3 on the ground floor.

The anothing thing about this was they were in constant contact with each other.

If he took out one, even silently, the others would find out.

But most importantly, he was fighting without his beloved power armor.

This required him to fight a little bit differently

Theo scanned the building for potential area’s he could sneak in. Unfortunately, there were none.

All of the ‘seemingly unguarded entrances’ had a surveillance camera pointed at it.

There were also cameras that monitored outside the building in case of someone tried to climb the wall.

This guys were no pushovers, that’s for sure.

As such, Theo decided to fight in a manner that was unique to him.

After scanning the buildings beside the 5 story building, Theo snuck into one with the least amount of people and went down the basement.

After consuming one of his super duper high calorie energy bars, Theo began using his midas alchemy to transmute a path underground from the building he was in to the enemy’s position.

Naturally, he made sure to close the path to avoid any backstabbing.

A few minutes later, he entered the building via a non functioning freezer room.

He transmuted the door open and began setting up a couple of traps that were banned in the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

The Punji Spike Trap.

Theo transmuted a small pit about 1 foot deep and placed wooden spikes on the sides of the pit. All of the spikes were angled slightly downward in order to make it excessively hard for the victim to pull his leg out without causing catastrophic damage to himself.

He place a couple of traps outside the view of the cameras in places where there was a high chance of people passing through.

With that done, Theo moved into a room and stacked up a bunch of furnitures as silently as he could in order to reach the ceiling.

He then transmuted a decently sized hole and climbed through it.

So far, so good.

He made one last weapons check before he starts the operation.

At the moment, he had 4 Colt M1911 pistols and one crowbar.

He originally had an M4 Carbine but he decided not to use it this time around since he had to run around a fair bit. The M4 was too bulky for the sneaky scenarios he had to go through this time around.

And like his power armor, he didn't take any of his prefered guns in order to avoid raising the superheroes suspicion.

As such, he made sure to use only the weapons he took from the cops and thugs in the highway incident.

The 4 Colt M1911s were already given since it was one of the most used pistols in the law enforcement business.

The crowbar on the other hand was a different matter entirely.

For some unknown reason, Theo found an affinity with the crowbar similar to his love for the P90 submachine gun.

He’ll probably use it as one of his staple weapons from now on.

Anyways, he decided to look for a bladed weapon in the event that he had stab someone.

Fortunately, there was a heavy duty scissor just lying around.

Not bad at all.

With that done, Theo began taking action.

He observed the 5 in the floor above him via spy drones.

At the same time, he quietly began stacking furnitures until he could easily touch the ceiling.

And then he waited.

The beauty of Theo’s neighborhood was the fact that all of the buildings were built in a manner that sacrificed quality to save money.

Pretty much all of the walls and floors were much weaker than the standard.

The moment one of the bounty hunters walked right above him, Theo’s left hand smashed through the floor and grabbed the man’s leg.

Theo jumped off the mountain of furniture and used his entire weight to pull the man’s leg down.

Without missing a beat, Theo stabbed the man’s leg with the scissor and forcefully dragged it down to open a large gaping wound.

He made sure to aim at the Femoral Artery located in the thigh for maximum lethality.

The moment blood gushed out from the wound, the poor bounty hunter had about 3-5 minutes to live.

The scream of agony was so loud that it immediately alerted the others

Like the experienced mercenaries that they were, everyone was quick to respond to the sudden attack.

2 on the third floor went to help the man Theo attacked while 3 went to the stairs with guns drawn.

Theo relocated in a room just in front of the stairs and prepared for an ambush.

The 3 shuffled down the stairs in a precise manner.

The way they moved reminded Theo of how he was trained in stairs clearing in the HAA.

Clearly these guys had military training at the very least.

As they began clearing the room next to where he was hiding was the moment Theo made his move.

He fired the moment he rushed out of the room and caught the 3 by surprise.

He blew a hole into the 1st’s forehead before ramming into the corpse and began using it as a meatshield.

The 2 tried to retaliate but they hesitated at the idea of firing at their own comrade.

Theo rewarded this split second hesitation by shooting the 2nd in the head twice.

The 3rd recovered from his surprise and began fighting back like a pragmatist.

He shoved the body of the 2nd into the 1st before ramming into both.

Theo quickly stepped back, thus causing the 3rd to tumble a bit along with the 2 corpses.

Before the 3rd could recover his stance, his head exploded from the sheer force of Theo’s crowbar smashing into his skull.

Such was to be expected when Theo uses his left arm.

As Theo began looting the corpses for their AK47s, a painful howl echoed from the first floor.

It seemed that Theo’s Punji trap found a customer.

Theo grabbed an AK47 and rushed towards the room where he climbed up from.

He jumped down the hole and quickly spotted the victim of his trap and the second one that tried to help his comrade.

Theo turned the 2 into swiss cheese with a hailstorm of bullets.

It happened so quickly that neither were able to aim their guns at him.

All in all, his rampage was off to a good start