The Secret Origin of Direwolf - part 4 "...That's Got to Hurt!"
by Direwolf

As the only member of the Brain Trust with a running car, a 1958 Ford with more primer showing then paint, Devon had the all important task of driving whenever any of the trio needed to pick something up or drop something off. Taking the fledgling hero Direwolf to the edge of the Devil's Kitchen late Sunday afternoon qualified as dropping something off.

Everyone in the city knew Devil's Kitchen was a blight on the Patriot City map. Located at the south end of the city by the river docks, the term Devil's Kitchen was given to the area back in the 1880's as a description of the 'air of squalor, villainy and complete lack of moral fiber aptly written on the face of all it's tenets'. Long the neighborhood of last resort of the fallen from grace or new immigrants with out families to help them, the Devil's Kitchen remained a place of danger and lawlessness despite the periodic promises of city politicians to clean up the area. Even the city police traveled in force in the Kitchen and seldom left their squad cars.

As Skip said, "It's the perfect place to find bad guys to womp on."

"I feel like we should have packed him a box lunch or something," Devon quipped from the front seat of the car. They were parked at the intersection of 18th Avenue and Paul Revere Drive. The Devil's Kitchen officially began two blocks south.

"Think we should walk him to his first class so he doesn't get lost?"

"Very funny, guys" Jason said from the back seat. He was stretched out the full length to distribute his weight on as many springs as possible. "You still can't come along."

They had been over this at length. Skip and Devon wanted to tag along at 'a safe distance' to watch him in action. Jason insisted that since he was planning on working the rooftops, there was no way they could keep up and were more apt to get lost then see any action. What he didn't say was that if they were along, he figured he'd spend more time trying to keep track of them then trying to spot criminals.

They agreed once he promised to fill them in on everything that happened.

At dusk on a Sunday, this part of the city seemed deserted. Jason felt a sudden flutter of nervousness in his gut as he looked out the window at the quite streets. The only thing moving was a sheet of newspaper propelled by the wind.

"This is absolutely crazy," he thought. "I should be back at home working up a lesson plan for the week. What made me think I could be a crime fighter even with that bolt of purple light! I'm a geologist, not some sort of masked hero!"

But even as he argued with himself, Jason opened the car door and got out. Suddenly self-conscious and feeling a little ridiculous, he flipped up the collar of his coat to sort of hide his mask.

"I'd say break a leg, but that's for a play and you might take me literally." Devon offered. "Let us know what happens. Everything."

"Uh, sure, have a good night, I'll find my way back to the house." Jason was appalled at how shaky his voice was. He realized he had to do something to settle his nerves or he was in real danger of chickening out of this whole mad escapade.

Jason took a hesitant step away from the car. The next was easier, and the next easier still. He took one deep, centering breath and ran down the street, aiming for a ramshackle three-story building with its doors and windows boarded over. It seemed he was intent on plowing into the wall.

"Boy, look at him run," Devon murmured. Jason had accelerated like a racecar. "He's going to jump!"

"Hope I was right about that density thing..."

A few yards away from the building, Direwolf leapt. Skip and Devon watched their friend gather himself in mid stride and suddenly catapult upward. He easily cleared the top of the building by more then ten feet. Then it was as if he lost his balance. Arms and legs flailing while the leather great coat flapped around him, Direwolf tumbled from the sky. They didn't see him hit the rooftop but they clearly heard the reverberating crash.

"Geez, that has to hurt!"

Jason lay on his back and looked up at the sky. He'd lost his balance towards the end of his jump and tumbled, smacking into the worn roof and sliding until he'd hit an old brick chimney. The impact knocked the wind from him but otherwise; he realized he was uninjured.

"And I made it," he thought, "I actually jumped more then thirty feet into the air! Way too cool."

He stood up and swatted away most of the brick dust, then walked to the edge of the building and looked back to the car. Skip and Devon were staring back up.

"Well they saw my first heroic belly flop," he murmured. He waved at them to show he was ok and they waved back. Jason turned south and estimated the distance to the next roof. It was only a twenty-foot broad jump.

"Piece of cake."

He sprinted across the roof and leapt off the edge. With a whoop of excitement, he flew straight and landed in a stumbling run. The next roof was down and a little closer.

"There he goes," Skip said as Direwolf vanished from sight. "I think he's going to do all right."

Two hours after moonrise, Direwolf stood atop a building in the heart of the Devil's Kitchen, watching the street below. The wind blew in from the east, bringing with it the scent of the outer harbor. Direwolf enjoyed the relatively fresh air. This part of the city had a powerful blend of harsh scents that he'd already come to think of as the smell of despair.

So far things had been remarkably quiet. He'd spent most of his time learning how to control his between building jumping and thought he'd gotten rather good at it. There had been only two more tumbles since the first one. In addition, he'd been practicing distinguishing sights, sounds and scents from the night. There had been one instance when he thought he'd get to break up a street brawl between two rival gangs, but the shouting match had ended without violence. In all, it had been an informative if somewhat anticlimactic, night.

Then he heard the scream.

It came from two blocks over and cut through the night like a razor. Direwolf's head snapped up as he locked onto the sound. There was no mistaking it, a woman in fear. Without thinking, he launched himself to the next building then dropped four stories to the street below. He raced across the deserted roadway, past the hulk of a vandalized car and vaulted up, landing on the roof of a run down apartment building. He speed across the cracked slate, boots striking hollow echoes until he could over look the dark alleyway below. There was a woman in a waitress's uniform pressed back against a graffiti covered wall. Two men menaced her, one with a worn baseball bat, the other with a small revolver.

"Give us the green backs, sister," the gunman sneered, "and maybe we'll let you walk."

"Incoming," Direwolf muttered as he jumped from the roof, aiming to land behind the two men.

The long leather coat fluttered around his shoulders like a banner as he fell. His heart rate accelerated and it seemed as if all his senses had just ratcheted up to an even higher level. He felt like time slowed around him. The fall seemed to stretch for minutes. Then he landed. He took the force of the impact in his legs, his knees flexing as he dropped into a crouch. The sound alerted the two muggers. They began to turn, seeming to move as if mired in molasses.

A low, involuntary snarl rose in Direwolf's throat.

"What the..." the gunman exclaimed as his pistol tracked towards the massive form.

Direwolf launched himself. The gunman fired.

The muzzle flair was impossibly bright in the dark ally as the sound crashed over them all. Direwolf twisted in mid leap. The bullet smashed into the brick wall scattering red chips and sparking off into the night. Before he could fire again, Direwolf hit him. The gunman flew across the ally and smacked into the far wall then slumped to the ground with a groan. Direwolf recovered his balance and turned to face the other mugger.

This one figured he had one chance to take out the huge figure looming out of the darkness and swung his bat over hand with the full weight of his body behind the blow. He knew from experience a good solid hit would cave in a man's skull. "Clobbering time!"

The bat connected with Direwolf's upraised arm. The seasoned hickory wood splintered on impact, numbing the man's hand. He stared dumbfounded at the stubby ruin of a handle.

Direwolf shook out his arm. The hit stung a bit but that was all. Right now, the adrenalin rush was urging him to pound the Babe Ruth wanna-be for a while but he held back, knowing that he could easily kill the man without meaning to.

"Two choices," Direwolf growled, "I hit you or you sit down, shut up, and do what ever I tell you to."

The man sat down. Direwolf turned his attention to the woman pressed back against the wall. She was coming up on middle age, with her graying brown hair pilled into a bun. He realized he could faintly hear her racing heartbeat and the scent of terror clung to her.

"It's all right ma'am, Miss Rebecca," Direwolf said, spotting the nametag on her pink and white uniform. "No one's going to hurt you now."

"Who are you?" she asked. "I mean, I saw you, come down for the roof and then..."

"Just trying to help, ma'am. We should take these two off to the police station so you can press charges and make sure they are locked up."

The woman blanched. "No! I don't want any trouble. Thank you, sir, for helping, really but I have to go."

And with that, she raced off into the night.

"Was it something I said?" Direwolf murmured.

"Uh, Mr., Hero, since she ran off, why not turn us loose?" The bat-wielding thug looked up at Direwolf expectantly.

Direwolf looked at him and snarled. The man shrank back. "Just an idea."

"There's a police station four blocks from here. You can walk, or I can carry you, after making sure you won't twitch too much," Direwolf said, shouldering the still faintly groaning gunman before retrieving the fallen revolver.

"I'll walk! I'll walk!"

No one bothered them as they walked the four blocks to the 16th Avenue Police Station.

Located at the edge of The Devil's Kitchen, the 16th Avenue police station had more the feel of a castle under siege then a bastion of law. Heavy metal shutters covered the windows and the barbwire around the parking lot looked much used and repaired. The 16th Street station had a less then stellar reputation with the entire Patriot City government. It was a dumping ground for malcontents, troublemakers or any officers who weren't wanted by any other station in the city and were unwilling to get the hint and find other employment opportunities. Moral was low and it took a near riot to get the officers to move out on any sort of call after dark. The running joke was that the officers of the 16th had seen everything and didn't react to anything. Tonight, they saw something new.

Two officers in raincoats stood by the graffiti emblazoned front steps to the tattered 16th street station discussing the latest City University hockey game when the three men started up the stairs. Only two of the men were ambulatory. The big guy with the long leather coat and black mask was carrying one of the other two over his broad shoulder.

"Excuse me." The large man opened the reinforced door and gestured to the other man who meekly walked in.

"Isn't that Lenny the Rat?" One of the officers asked as the door swung shut.

"Yeah, it was! And the baggage sure looked like Thumbs Simpson!"

The officers pulled open the door and followed the odd trio. They saw the back of the masked man as he set Thumbs Simpson on the floor by the Desk Sergeant's desk and leaned down to talk through the wire reinforced glass.

"Ummm...Officer? I sort of caught these two men trying to mug a woman four blocks away. I wasn't sure what to do with them so I brought them here."

The desk sergeant stared in amazement at the masked face in front of him while he tried to figure out what this was all about. His first thought was that officer Sanchez was getting him back for that rubber snake in her locker.

"I need to call someone," the desk sergeant said. Kicking a problem ‘upstairs' was always a good idea. "Uh, Sarge, can you come down to the desk? We have a ...situation I think needs your touch."

Sergeant Joe Wojosky had been with the Patriot City Police force for nearly 20 years. His carrier effectively ended two years ago when he accused his captain of graft. Though true, the captain in question was very well politically connected. He couldn't be summarily fired without taking a lot of other carrier with him. Instead, he took an early retirement and the whistleblower was shunted off to the 16th. Too proud to quite, Sergeant Joe kept trying to make a difference and prove that a good man in a bad situation could still make a difference. It wasn't easy. The urge to give into apathy was ever present. If no one cared, why should he? But somehow, he kept trying in the hopes that things would get better. He suspected they couldn't get worse.

Joe came down the stairs from his office where he effectively ran the station. The last captain of the 16th left nine moths ago to work over seas. So far, no other officer of rank had been exiled to this backwater. He found the desk officer trying to start the paperwork on a ‘citizens complaint' while a half dozen cops stood around nervously, not quite going for their guns.

"Your name?" the poor man on the front desk asked.

"Direwolf."

"First? Last?"

"Yes."

The officer gapped. The other cops chuckled. Sergeant Joe stepped in.

"I take it you caught these two lowlifes in the act?"

"Yes, sir. And here's the gun that one tried to shoot me with."

Everyone tensed up while the young man set the revolver on the counter.

"Surprised he missed. Simpson has a rep as a shooter. What about the victim?"

"A woman in a waitresses' uniform. Her nametag read Rebecca. I didn't do anything to her, she just said she didn't want to get involved."

"We get a lot of that here. Don't the rest of you yokels have any real work to do? If not I can find you some..."

The watchers vanished quickly, leaving Sergeant Joe, the desk officer, the two muggers and Direwolf. Joe quickly assembled the pieces in his mind and thought he understood what was going on. "You a new addition to Freedom Force?"

"Uh, no. Kind of an independent operator."

"Right." Joe nodded. "Officer Kelly will process these two, let's you and I have a talk. You hungry. Fat's diner is only a block further along and has an excellent Rubin. My treat."

Direwolf smiled and Joe had a sudden realization that he was dealing with a very young man.

"That would be great, sir!"

"Kelly, get Shaffer to lend a hand and let's jug these two for now. And make sure Simpson there doesn't need a doc. Come on...Direwolf; let's find some chow. How's the weather outside?"

"Clear for now..."

The two walked out, leaving the paper work to officer Kelly.

Pinewood Heights had started its existence as a well to do post war suburb of Patriot City. Located just across the east river, Pinewood Heights was one of those planned communities that had carefully laid out strips of track homes interspersed with shopping areas and just enough ‘green spaces' to meet urban planning requirements. What no one had planned on was the chemical plant accident of 1957. The resultant damage, clean up, lawsuits and bad press effectively killed Pinewood Heights as a neighborhood of choice. The area was sliding ever deeper into decay. Making it a perfect haven for the Red Skorpions.

Tony "The Chain" Datillio was worried. The Skorpions were his creation, pulled together from old reform school buddies and hard cases he'd meet in his life on the wrong side of the law. He always figured that some day they would achieve greatness. All they needed was a big break to put them on the map and he kept looking for that opportunity. Such was the price of leadership after all. He'd thought he'd found it, knocking over a small container ship as it left port for Europe. Modern piracy sounded like fun. The plan had worked perfectly, stolen powerboats got them to the ship and they we're able to over-power the crew and force the captain to make an unscheduled stop at an old wharf on the river. Then things fell apart.

The cargo container of high-end transistors they had arranged to sell to Dark Star Labs was way too big to off load into the van they brought. Then, the skipper of the ship mentioned that a Mister Joey Rigotta, aka. the crime lord Pinstripe, was a majority owner of the ship. And then the harbor police showed up. Tony got away with most of his gang on their waiting motorcycles but he kept thinking the cops would come for them soon. And he didn't have money to lead the gang into safer turf.

Though he knew he'd regret it latter, The Chain was just about ready to slip out of the abandoned house on Whispering Pine Drive and leave the rest of the gang to take the rap, when the front door, despite the dead bolts securing it, banged open. Expecting Pinstripe's goon squad, he leveled his sawed off shotgun at the doorway while the rest of the gang, those still sober at least, went for their own weapons. Maybe some of them could escape in the confusion.

But it wasn't a pack of gun toting gangsters or a police strike team. There was one petite woman dressed in a silver and black costume, black hair cut to her shoulders and what looked like a mask of shadows covering the top of her face. There was something the size of a baseball in her left hand.

"Who ordered a stripper?" Larson, one of The Chain's most recent recruits asked as he slipped his revolver into the waistband of his jeans and swaggered towards the woman. "If you're looking for a party, you came to the right place."

The woman said something in a language both guttural and musical at the same time. A thin stream of shadows, like an inky rope, shot from her, wound around Larson and constricted. Suddenly choked of breath, the outlaw biker crashed to the floor. Someone fired a shot and the bullet glanced off something unseen a few inches from her skin.

"Hold it!" The Chain snarled. He was still in charge so his words were obeyed. The only sounds were Larson's strangled coughs. "What do you want with us?"

"I find myself in need of...people to help me with my grand plan. Fate drew me to you and believe we can forge a ...mutually beneficial arraignment."

The woman reached into the silver bag that hung from a belt shaped to look like a snake swallowing its own tail. All the Skorpions braced for an attack. Instead, she took out a packet of bills and threw them across the room to Tony. He caught the money, keeping his shotgun ready though he suspected it wouldn't be of much use, and took a look at what she threw him. It was a thick stack of one hundred dollar bills. He whistled past his gold front tooth in approval.

The shadowed woman walked forward, seeming to glide around the Skorpion's accumulated junk with the grace of a hunting snake. She stopped in front of Tony, The Chain, and looked up at him, her eyes veiled in shadows.

Tony was a big man with an aura of barely leashed violence around him. He stood nearly six foot two with wide shoulders and a thickened belly. The red scorpion tattoo on his forearm stood out amid the thicket of bristly hair. Tony knew he was an intimidating figure and used that to his advantage. But this slender young woman radiated a cold aura of power and confidence that he knew he would never match. One way or another, The Chain figured this was the Skorpions last best chance for greatness.

"Lady, you just bought yourself a gang."

To be continued...