"What the hell is going on?"
"The police! It's the—"
Crackle.
"We're being—"
Screams. Panic. The allied channel given to the elites of the three largest criminal organizations was becoming haywire. The fear snowballed and grew. The other captains could hear and were gripped with the primal fear that they were next.
"Silence! Reports! Give me reports!" Mr. Negative himself had joined the channel and found nothing but chaos. Four teams had been deployed by the NYPD. Four large production facilities had been invaded simultaneously. Much of it was located in Chinatown as well, so there was no running. The NYPD was on lockdown. Police sirens rang throughout the streets.
"Bos—"
"Herbie, close the channel."
Crackle and shut.
'Everything is going according to plan. Mr. Negative is officially in full-panic mode.'
Spider-Man sat perched on a brown building in Mott Street, watching. The green neon colour of his lenses faded as he entered Stealth Mode. Mott Street was the unofficial main street of Chinatown, narrow and vast. Bright lights casted by lanterns were strung up everywhere. Web-swinging would immediately catch the attention of the civilians below. Bouncing between rooftops was the best way to move. Due to the crowding and normalcy of the street, it was the best place to avoid detection by the media, police, and criminals.
Several cameras were appearing in his lens, each giving him a live update for the four invaded locations. The one in Franklin Street was almost over. Time to head out. He turned and leapt toward the nearby rooftop.
Step one: take care of the five production facilities for Shade and cripple the manpower of the Inner Demons.
Step two…
'Defeat the Hand.'
The ninjas were quick on their feet—and awfully predictable. As the primary spies and information gatherers, they were bound to check on one of the four scenes in question. Herbie's interface zoomed in and found three men coated in black on a rooftop overlooking the invaded location. Police sirens echoed. Red and blue colours brightened the surroundings. He found one of the ninjas putting a finger to his ear and trying to communicate with their boss. But before they could inform their boss—
Thwip!
Felix burst forward and slammed his foot into the back of the ninja's head and into the ground. He twisted and punched the second ninja, knocking him unconscious. The third ninja unsheathed his sword. He should have stuck to his fists. Felix closed the distance between them in less than a second, grabbed their face, and slammed the third ninja into the rooftop ground.
The battle was over.
One hand kept the ninja down while the other pried his mask off. Felix snatched the earbud and had Herbie scan it.
"Loading..loading…intercepted!"
The Hand had an independent channel to receive orders and coordinate with other members. Felix wasn't going to let that happen. 'These guys pride themselves for being stealthy and well-trained. Unfortunately, if I can predict all your moves, all that stealth means nothing.'
All he needed was this second step. Once he captured one member of the Hand, the rest would fall into place. For the next two minutes, Felix had Herbie analyze the channel and track each and every member of the Hand.
"Confirmed!' Herbie announced. 'There are thirty-three total members of the Hand in Chinatown. Two are already on their way to this location! As planned, the private channel analyzed will be jammed. No communication between the Hand and Otomo, the leader, will be conducted.'
Excellent. Felix stood over the restrained Inner Demon, his senses on high alert, and went ahead and hid at the back of the building. True to Herbie's analysis, it wasn't long before three shadowy figures emerged onto the rooftop, their movements silent and coordinated. Stuck to the wall, Felix peered his head over. He heard confusion and mutters of, "How did this happen?" and "We must report this."
Just like before, as soon as they attempted to contact Otomo (which was pointless anyway), he waited for the perfect moment to strike. Confusion seeped further into the two Hand members who scanned the area in confusion and a higher state of alertness. That was when Felix sprang into action, launching himself from the other end of the building, his hiding spot, with incredible speed. With a swift and silent thwip of his web shooters, he ensnared one of the Hand members, trapping him in a cocoon of sticky webbing before he could react. It was as though Felix had teleported next to him and magically summoned a cocoon. It was absurd yet it was reality.
The second Hand member, caught off guard by Felix's sudden attack, attempted to retaliate with a series of swift strikes from his sword. But Felix was prepared, his heightened reflexes allowing him to dodge each blow with fluid grace. He could have easily dismantled his enemy before he could unsheathe his sword but he wanted to check something.
'They're good,' Felix thought, a blade swiping close to his shoulder. 'But they're the best a normal human can be.' Felix countered the Hand member's sword with a barrage of well-aimed punches. With each strike, the ninja staggered and panted. 'They have bullet-proof vests underneath their black garbs,' Felix noted. 'Unfortunately…'
Bam! Bam!
Two punches and he broke the bullet-proof vest apart. Blood seeped through the dark ninja garbs and despite the Hand member's best efforts to push through, Felix's superior specs proved too much to withstand. With a final, decisive blow to the throat, he incapacitated his adversary, leaving the two members of the Hand defeated and immobilized on the rooftop.
"Thirty-one members of the Hand remain," Herbie stated.
'Once I can track their movements, these ninjas are no threat to me. Tonight, I'm going to make the Hand disappear.'
***
"Master! We need—"
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Felix's fist smashed against the cheek, ensuring a clean knock-out. 'I'm getting used to this,' he thought. It was like practising with living, breathing punching bags. Felix never went at full-strength even when he targeted the bullet-proof vest. He learned from a prior member of the Hand that doing so would rupture their ribcage. He wasn't dead, luckily, as Felix swung him over to the nearby hospital. Definitely in ER though.
An hour had passed and the last of the thirty-three members of the Hand in Chinatown were defeated. The singular member that Felix had just knocked out needed to be taken elsewhere. He grabbed the man by the front of his black tunic and bounced over to the rooftop a kilometre over. Uninhibited, he crossed the distance in twenty seconds and tossed the ninja over to the pile already there.
"Officer Grimm has been contacted! He is on the move!" Herbie announced. "They will arrest these men in an estimated ten minutes!'
Excellent, excellent. Step two was finished.
Well, almost. Felix managed to beat the Hand members in Chinatown faster than anticipated. He predicted two hours. He still had one hour to spare. That meant he could do a bit of improvising.
"Open up the Hand's main channel again," Felix said, a hand on his hip as he walked away. There were a little over a dozen ninjas behind him. Defeated and humiliated in spite of their lifetime of training, dedication, killing, and experience. To Felix, they were nameless fodder. Mere numbers to rack up at the end of today's mission report.
Because he planned to rack up those numbers by double or maybe even triple.
Members of the Hand beyond Chinatown did exist. Why not bring them over? Sure, there weren't as many members outside Chinatown as it was a Chinese-based organization. Even if Felix stopped now, he would have effectively crippled the Hand for years to come. But stopping them for five or eight years wasn't enough. If possible, he wanted to be permanently commissioned. "Analyze Otomo's voice and do real-time voice cloning. I want to send everyone outside Chinatown a message: come to Chinatown. There is a pressing matter to attend to."
"Yes."
"Be sure to include their codes and lingos. You should have the channel's back-up data. Use it as best you can."
"Where should I lead them, Dr. Faeth?"
"I believe I saw an empty building in White Street."
"Loading…empty building located."
"Good. If you need an excuse, tell them they located Spider-Man, are tracking him, and require back-up. Ah, and remember, exclude the real Otomo from the transmission as well as any Hand members in his vicinity."
"Of course," Herbie replied.
By the way, where is Otomo? And how many members of the Hand are with him?"
"He is currently at the Brooklyn Shipyard. He is with a total of twelve members of the Hand."
"How many members of the Hand exist in America total?"
"Their presence is limited to New York. In total, there are a hundred."
"Then let's hunt as many as we can. He will be last."
Step two was supposed to just be the dismantlement of the members of the Hand in Chinatown. His heart pounding, he decided to get greedier. Spider-Man decided to go for them all.
In one minute, Herbie was able to synthesize an artificial voice of Otomo based on recently saved data of the channel and send up-to-date messages for the Hand to follow. Otomo had a particularly dull tone of voice so putting emotion wasn't an issue. He gave out an order and the Hand followed. Simple as that. Moreover, because rank did not exist, practically everyone came to the empty building.
The building was grey and slightly weathered. From the brief analysis that Herbie gave, it was once an Oscorp office building that closed down after a major lay-off a decade ago. It was sudden and over a hundred people went unemployed. The back-lash was not pretty and Norman Osborn got a lot of heat for it. The billionaire did not care. He told the press that they were downsizing and for the laid-off employees to just deal with it.
'Ha, I doubt Mr. Osborn knows that I'm currently using this old building of his for my own purposes. Thank you, boss.'
The sixth floor was where Felix hid. It was an empty space save for a couple leftover tables and chairs. The lights were turned off. Felix remained hidden in the shadows, hands and feet sticking to the bulkhead ceiling. The front door opened. Two members of the Hand arrived. They slowly crept toward the centre of the floor, looking left and right, until—
Thwip! Thwip!
"Huh—?"
It wasn't a matter of incompetence. It was a matter of facing an infinitely superior human. Faster, stronger, and possessing the element of surprise. No matter how honed their senses were, compared to Felix, they were nothing. He pulled them up to the ceiling, knocked them out, and then stuck them to the ceiling.
Everything was still dark. Everything was still in the shadows.
Five minutes later, the next pair arrived. Then the next. Then the next.
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!
The members of the Hand weren't even aware they were being attacked. Like bugs falling into an innocent cobweb, they were dismantled one by one.
Felix didn't just plan to leave them unconscious. Including the ones from before, he had Herbie disguise himself as a civilian and contact the police to inform the presence of dangerous ninjas. His primary contact was Officer Grimm. From the perspective of the police, the man was on the hunt tonight. No doubt, given the sheer scale of arrest, he was going to be promoted.
Good. Felix could use a cop in his back pocket.
"Well, that was that."
Forty minutes later and the ceiling was sprinkled with the muffled voices of the Hand. Felix counted over forty. A couple of them entered through the window, not that it made a difference. They were subdued and defeated in ten seconds and no less.
'Only Otomo remains. Should I go after him first? Or…Mr. Negative?'
…
…
…
Otomo, the leader of the Hand, stood in the captain's cabin aboard the massive ship docked near Brooklyn Shipyard. His stern expression betrayed no hint of emotion as he listened to the report from his subordinates over the main channel. It was exclusively intended for members of the Hand. The Inner Demons and Maggia were excluded.
"Tell me, are you sure nothing is amiss?" Otomo asked.
"Nothing has happened," the Hand member said.
Otomo's index finger released his earbud. "There's something off," he said to himself. "Or am I just going mad?"
Otomo was quiet. Suddenly, a faint sound caught his attention from above. His gaze snapped upward, his keen eyes searching the shadows for any sign of movement. This was the captain's cabinet. Infiltration was next to impossible now that they had departed from land. Not to mention he had three of his finest trained members here with him.
"Hey, be on alert—"
His gaze drifted back down. What he saw sent a chill down his spine.
Three of his most skilled ninjas, stationed to guard him, were nowhere to be seen. Panic surged within him. Someone had infiltrated his ship, bypassing his defenses with alarming ease. But how? How!?
With a swift and fluid motion, Otomo drew his katana, his muscles tensed and ready for battle. His senses honed to a razor's edge, he scanned the cabin for any sign of the intruder's presence. Behind him were several computer screens that outlined the path they were taking. It was a self-driving ship, a one-of-a-kind commissioned vessel for the sake of transferring the chemicals for Shade.
Thud…!
"Behind…!"
It was slight. So, so quiet that if it weren't for his decades of training, he would have failed to catch it. Perched on the center monitor was a male in a sleek black suit adorned with a neon green spider symbol. The masked vigilante known as Spider-Man stood before him. His enemy. The man just hours ago he planned to temporarily put aside for the sake of Mr. Negative's. At that moment, Otomo understood his grave mistake. He never should have let Spider-Man. He never should have split his forces.
"You…!" Otomo's grip tightened on his katana as he faced his adversary, his mind racing with strategies and counterattacks. He refused to back down, determined to protect his honour and the secrets of the Hand at all costs.
But would he? How did he get here? Where did his men go? The longer Spider-Man didn't move, the deeper the fear.
"What…" Otomo swallowed. "What in the world are you?"
His green lenses flickered, then disappeared. The light in the captain's helm followed.