Chapter 1
The criminal underground of New York City; a hub for traffickers - drugs, children, anything with value - and mercenaries to cross paths and exchange favors. For years, since the first uprisings of speakeasies and city-wide police bribery, it’s never received even a glance from citizens, service members, and politicians alike. Each harbored their own cautions regarding the occasional encampments set up with the sole purpose of committing felonies.
However, the recently skyrocketing sights of figures, shrouded in shadows, hurling themselves into the thrill of the battle has brought a tenseness to the shoulders of various people all across the city. Figures who speak with static, who move with the grace of a panther. Figures who fight in a whirlwind of blood and pain and righteous justice. Some dodge bullets, some don’t even feel them. One eats them, on occasion (but we advise that you avoid him. At all costs). And suddenly, the criminals and the high-and-mighty politicians don’t feel so safe anymore, hiding behind their horsemen and mahogany desks. Because vigilantes, unlike the police, don’t seek monetary gain for their efforts. Their payments are strictly accepted in the form of hospitalizing child traffickers and rapists and abusers.
Though, as most things, when there’s a dramatic change, when crime rates fall tenfold, there will be people who dedicate their livelihoods to reversing that change. And thus, supervillains are formed. An attempt to combat the vigilante powerhouses that have overrun the streets once owned by isolating darkness and suffocating fear.
The vigilantes dedicate themselves to the people, and if they turn tail and run at the first hint of another metahuman seeking to cause them harm, they’d lose their titles as the city’s dedicated protectors. So they fight. They fight and fight and fight, relentlessly and endlessly, accepting the chances of an untimely demise as long as the people of their city are able to safely flee the scene. The determination of a vigilante outlasts that of any hero, for a hero acts to save the day, while a vigilante acts to save the people. They don’t mind the views or potential for monetary gain. Quite the contrary, actually, seeing as more publicity yields more vulnerability to the media and its prying, hungry eyes. Its scratching and relentless hands digging into the seams of their masks.
Spider-Man. A man of small stature, yet unimaginable strength. A man who wears a bright red and blue suit, yet seems to know everything about everyone despite being entirely undetected in the shadows that seem to stretch too far or shroud too deeply. Nobody knows his name, or his face, or his relation with other vigilantes. All they know is Spider-Man, and expressive eye lenses, and how there always seems to be a Devil of a man lurking on the rooftops above and behind him, or a hulking figure wielding twin katanas waving at him from the street. And if one dares to take aim at the man (boy?), the last thing they hear is the release of a gun’s safety, and the last thing they see is the snarling mug of the esteemed Punisher glaring down the barrel of his firearm.
A telling trait of vigilantes is their aversion towards hospitals. Really, any building with the ability to identify them or their abnormalities tends to be a no-go. So, they deal with it. They roll with the punches and learn their own ways of mending bullet wounds, collecting small metal casings in their bathroom cabinets and storing newfound knives in their kitchens once the red stains manage to disappear.
Another obvious tell of a vigilante? The suit. Generally red, the nighttime acts tend to don a movie-esque costume, with the purpose to both conceal identities and provide any advancements to their persons - hidden weapons, technology, Kevlar, you name it. The red theme that seems to be followed by over half of the midnight scene has been suspected to stem from the desire to conceal wounds.
Along with these consistencies, the aforementioned villains have begun to appoint their own shticks. Countless aimed at the Spider or the Devil, which tend to end in thousands lost due to property damage and the villain of the week detained behind bars (only to be back on the streets in under a month). Despite their best efforts, the vigilantes never get away unscathed. They drag themselves back to their respective homes and receive first aid attention, be it from a nurse friend or from their very own hands.
And yet, despite the injuries - mental, physical, and potential - they keep going out. They scour and they lurk and they comfort. They protect the “little guys,” the people who may as well just be another vote or another money-grab. And despite their violence; despite their hurling fists and beastial grunts, the people below the penthouses find them to be worth letting go of their ebbing fear. The people recognize the sheer dedication and stubbornness of these strange, costumed individuals and decide that as long as they’re out there, there’s no need to be afraid for yourself. For, if you so much as flinch, you’ll be catching the ears and eyes of the enhanced, brutal beings hellbent on protecting the citizens of this very city.
After all, the best protectors have been the most unfortunate victims. And who better to protect you from harm than the ones who’ve been at the receiving end of it more times than not?