The Mark of Bloodwolf

[Jade_Dragon]

He crept through the ventilation shafts, his movements almost completely silent, even in the metal ducting. Bloodwolf moved slowly, cautiously, but with purpose, following the twists and turns of the maze unerringly. Finally, he found himself at his destination, a vent overlooking a plush office.

Bloodwolf dropped onto the carpet, landing with only the slightest thump. He waited there in a crouch, listening for noise outside the room. When he heard none, he stood, and still moving just as cautiously, made his way to the door. The door was locked, but he was on the inside, so he simply unlocked it, making only the slightest click as he turned the latch.

Outside in the hall, two guards, in the red and white costumes of Freedom Corps, were surprised as the door flew open. A shadowy figure in black and grey leaped at them, his attack swift, sudden and unerringly precise. His first blow was to the back of the neck of the closest of the two guards, and he fell to the ground, unconscious.

The second guard had just enough time to gather his energy, as Bloodwolf's foot smashed into his midsection. He was still winded by the blow. The guard swung in a counterattack, but Bloodwolf avoided it effortlessly. He stepped back, dropping into a waiting stance, letting his opponent make the first move. Now that he was out in the open, the guard could make out his target. It was a tall, muscular man in black and grey camoflage, his costume accented with red boots and gloves, and a mask over his eyes. Even the red highlights were a dark color, a sort of dark crimson.

"Wait a minute", the Hero Corps agent said, studying the dark figure intently. "I know you. You're a hero, the one who leaves the mark in blood behind. Bloodwolf. We're on the same side, man!"

"I know. That's why I'm doing this." With astonishing speed, he leaped forward, and striked at the Freedom Corps agent's stomach. The man steeled himself, knowing that his invulnerability would take most of the damage, but Bloodwolf's attack was not aimed at his body. A second too late, the guard realized that Bloodwolf had put something on his belt.

It was a small transmitter, and as it touched the hero's Medicom Badge, it sent a signal that convinced the device that the man's heart had stopped. The Medical Transporter System automatically kicked in, and teleported the man to the hospital. Bloodwolf took a moment to send the other hero to the hospital as well. They were fine, of course, but by the time they ran all the way from the hospital back to here, he would be done.

Bloodwolf slipped back into the office, and shut the door behind him. He walked over to the large, ornate desk, and sat down behind it. He took a moment to look at a photograph that was sitting on the desk. It was a picture of a slightly greying man, with a beautiful blonde woman, who was wrapping her arms around him tightly. They were both smiling, in an idyllic setting, a picnic at a park somewhere. They looked very happy.

There was also a computer on the desk, and Bloodwolf looked it over, switching on the monitor before leaning down to study the CPU. As he expected, it was locked. Bloodwolf produced a lockpick from his belt, and inserted it in the lock. He snapped it open easily, with a practiced motion, and then turned on the computer. It's amazing what you can learn in the prison systems these days, he mused for a moment, as the screen powered up.

He quickly opened the computer's mail program, and looked through the messages. As he expected, the ones he was looking for had been deleted. He pulled a disk from another pocket in his belt, and then inserted it into the disk drive. With the same skill he had demonstrated with the physical lock, Bloodwolf hacked into the computer's hard drive and undeleted the mail files. He then quickly found the one he wanted.

He opened up a few more programs, and copied the mail messages into them. He added a few other data files he had found on the computer, further evidence that he had been right about this so-called hero. With the speed of the Internet, the files had been spread across the Web, and mailed to at least 10 reporters with Paragon City newspapers.

As Bloodwolf powered down the computer, the door burst open. "Hey! Who's in here!" It was the man from the picture. Frenzied Flare, a hero who had fought during the Rikti War. He had retired soon after the war, but had been recruited by Freedom Corps as an advisor, and had worked his way up through the ranks in the Records Department. He was currently one of the top men in the organization, and most of the scheduling and bookkeeping for the hundreds of heroes on Freedom Corps' roster went through his division.

While Flare hadn't actually fought crime in a couple of decades, Bloodwolf figured his power, the ability to fire energy blasts from his hands, hadn't lost that much of its punch over the years. Sure enough, Flare pointed his fist at the intruder, and a blast of blue-white light shot at him. Bloodwolf was already moving, leaping over the desk to give himself more momentum, as he dodged the attack. He flipped in the air, striking the wall of the office, and kicked off of it, flying straight at the Freedom Corps officer. A second flare of light shot past him, but the attack missed and slammed into the wall.

Flare would be somewhat reluctant to damage his own office, and Bloodwolf knew he could use that to his advantage. The old man was a trained martial artist, and as Bloodwolf neared him he fell into a defensive stance, but Bloodwolf had experience and youth on his side. Flare's skills were somewhat rusty from disuse, and his movements were slow. Bloodwolf was able to easily duck his counterattack, and grab the man's arm, as it came at him. With a savage twist, he snapped Flare's elbow joint.

Flare roared in pain, his expression growing enraged, both at the shock of having his arm broken, and the embarassment of realizing that he was outmatched. A ball of energy erupted around his fist, and he struck wildly, with the berzerk, dizzying technique that had earned him his name. His opponent easily dodged every blow, making it look effortless. This only made Flare's anger grow.

He swung to attack again, but the shadowy figure swept his feet out from under him. He fell onto the carpet, and Bloodwolf leapt at him, smashing his fist into Flare's face. A few teeth were knocked loose. Flare tried to fight back, but again found himself swinging at shadows. A foot caught him across the midsection as he tried to stand, then he was thrown across the room and crashed into the couch.

"Enough!" The man roared. "I don't know what game you're playing, boy, but I don't have to take this. The police will deal with you." He reached down and toggled a switch on his Medicom Badge. Nothing happened. He looked up in shock, and then, as Bloodwolf watched him, waiting, in terror. He was not teleporting away.

"What have you done? Why won't you let me escape?"

"No." Bloodwolf walked towards him, his eyes cold, judgemental. "There is no escape for you. You will bear your punishment. You will take it like a hero. The hero that you say you are."

Flare tried to gather a point blank energy blast, but the man in black and crimson struck at him before he could finish. He knocked him back into the couch. As he tried again to stand, Bloodwolf again swept his feet out from under him. With a single, lightning fast strike, he shattered Flare's leg bone. Flare screamed in pain, but somehow managed to remain conscious.

"No," Bloodwolf corrected him. "I won't let you fall unconscious." Flare looked up into his eyes, and realized that he meant it. Bloodwolf had him at his mercy.

Flare collapsed on the floor. He was in agony, unable to fight back, only barely able to defend himself. He met Bloodwolf's stare, confusion and fear in his eyes. "Who are you, man? You're Bloodwolf, right, you're a hero, a good guy! Why me? Why are you doing this to me?!!"

"Did you really think that no one would find out! Did you really think that you could give away Eli Hunt's location to the Sky Raiders, and no one would know?"

His eyes widened in shock. "No! I didn't know what would happen, I swear! I didn't know what Duray was going to do with that information!"

"Didn't you? You were a member of Vigilance. You worked for Duray. You didn't think anyone still knew that, did you? You worked hard to cover up your connection with the Sky Raiders. But Duray called in one last favor..."

He nodded. "He said he would go public with my connection, if I didn't tell him where Hunt and the others were meeting. I... I guess I knew what he was planning, but I told myself that I didn't want to know..."

Bloodwolf picked him up by his collar. "A man is dead because of you! A hero, who put his life on the line to protect the innocent!"

"I know! I fought alongside Captain Indomitable! He was my friend! I thought he could handle it!"

Bloodwolf grabbed the picture from off of the desk, shoved it in the frightened man's face. "He has a wife, too, you know! HIS wife will never get to see her husband come home again! She will live every day in an empty house, wishing that she could be with him, just one more time!"

Flare stared back at him in shock, his eyes still wide. Bloodwolf could see the realization beginning to dawn. "Whatever reason you gave for betraying him, whatever excuses you made to yourself, to relieve your guilty conscience, it's not enough! A man is dead, and deep down, you know what you have done!"

"Come tomorrow, the whole world will know what you have done. And you will turn yourself in and face justice. Not because it is the right thing to do, not because it makes you a "hero", or because it makes up for Captain Indomitable's death. Not even because of the guilt you feel, or even because of your fear of me."

"No, you will do it because of this..."

Bloodwolf pulled off his glove. He then reached down, and pulled a knife out of a sheath built into the side of his boot. He held the knife up in front of the former hero, watching for the flicker of fear in his eyes. He held it just long enough for Flare to lean away from him, in terror, then pulled the knife back. With a single, swift motion, he drew the blade across the back of his hand, cutting deeply into his fingers, just below the knuckle. That area on his hand was already heavily calloused, criss-crossed with fine red scars. The man's eyes grew even wider.

Standing, Bloodwolf drew his hand up the wall just behind the couch. He first pressed the back of his hand against the panelling, drawing it upward, then swept across the streaked blood with his palm, spreading it into an arc. Practice had made the movement almost second nature to him, and he made it swiftly, almost gracefully. It formed the same image as always, a wolf's head, it's muzzle and ears formed by the upward streak, the fur of its face and jaws by the arc across it.

He had made the Mark of Bloodwolf a thousand times, since the day he killed the corrupt sheriff who had murdered his wife. The sheriff who had framed him for the murder, who had taken away his life, his freedom, his very identity. He hadn't wanted to kill him, not really, but somehow, in the struggle, there was a knife, and then the man was dead. He had wiped the blood from his hands, trying to get rid of it, the guilt over what he had done, and the face had appeared. It always appeared, somehow, from the stain of blood, a face of anger, of vengeance, of violence.

Bloodwolf put the glove back on. His hand had already stopped bleeding.

He knelt back down, in front of the man who cowered before him. "You will turn yourself in, now, because it is over. The wolf has run you down. He has you, and there is no longer any escape."

"IT IS THE END."

Holding up his jamming device in front of the man's face, Bloodwolf pressed the switch to turn it off. Flare vanished, teleporting to the hospital.

Bloodwolf stood, and looked back at the mark on the wall behind him. The wolf's head snarled back at him, crimson red with rage, ready to strike. The police said that Bloodwolf left his mark to scare other criminals, to let them know he was coming for them, too. But that wasn't true. It wasn't crime that Bloodwolf hated, but abuse. Abuse of power. And it was not a warning, it was a second chance. A sign, to let his victim know that there was still time to turn back.

Turn back, while you still can. While you still have something to lose. Because if you do not, the next time HE will come for you. And he will leave you with nothing.

Bloodwolf turned back to the desk. He picked up the picture, gazed for a moment at the beautiful woman and her husband together, enjoying a day in the park.

I don't even remember what you look like, my darling. I can't even remember your face. I miss you. I miss you so much...

He set the picture down. No one should ever have to lose a loved one. No matter what he has done, not matter what the crime. No matter what the circumstances. No one should ever have to live on, knowing that the one you love has been taken from you.

The dark figure slipped back into the shadows, disappearing from view as he left the room. Behind him, the Mark of Bloodwolf watched, as if stalking its prey, cast its solemn judgement, and waited for its chance to bring the end.