World Forged by Powers New York IC

[Zombiedude101]

"Ey' maricon!" A 45. round impacted the back of the Welder's suit of armour. It was obvious who the shooter was: Cesar. "Haven't you got anything better to do than beat about a bunch of helpless addicts, pendejo? And that costume of yours, it makes you look like a reject from a Monty Python film." He was gripping onto an M1911 Pistol which, according to the smoke emitting from the barrel, had been recently fired. Behind the Sureno was a 1963 Chevrolet Impala, and seated in the Impala itself was a hooded figure, the notorious graffiti writer Anon no doubt, alongside a Doberman Pinscher Dog which seemed to be recieving more than enough attention from the hooded figure. Smirking, Cesar brought a finger up to his sunglasses, pushing them upwards momentarily so he could look upon the Welder with his own eyes. "You know..." He slides the M1911 back into it's concealed position, slowly clapping his hands. "I might just have taken you seriously if you weren't driving a shitty knock-off of the Batmobile, and wearing something out of a medieval fair." He turns to Anon, who's affectionately stroking the Doberman, Perro. "Ey' Nate, pass me the Remmy." Wordlessly, Anon reaches down to a Remington Model 870 Pump Action shotgun which is resting against the glovebox, tossing it over to Cesar who quickly grabs it and turns back to the Welder. "Now maricon, are you gonna leave that poor fucker you have there alone or do I have to make you leave 'im."

[CalPal]

"Wh - how am I -"
"Listen, it's real simple: you walk to which dock the deal's goin' on at. You give me a signal letting me know it's happenin' there, then you can walk away."
"But they're five blocks away!"
"Really? You're going to complain about walking five blocks when -"

Suddenly, a loud twang sound echoed through the night as a bullet shot glanced off of the Mad Welder's armour. Before he could even turn around, a man started calling him out, probably some older, Mexican fellow by the sound of his voice. Leaning over the drug addict, the Mad Welder simply began laughing to himself.

"Oh god, you aren't gonna kill me, are you?!" The addict asked, fear building in his voice.
"No, heh, no, this is good. Just walk a few blocks ahead and wait for me. That last part is important; you REALLY don't want me to come and find you, right?"
"Yeah, no, I understand completely!"
"Good... and hey: no sudden movements. Understand?"

Nodding his head, the Mad Welder leaned off the car and backed up, letting the drug addict walk a few blocks towards the docks. Turning around, Johnny could see what was apparently an older, taller Mexican man and a younger black kid standing near a Chevy Impala. The older man was holding a shotgun in his hands now, aiming it straight at the Welder. Noting all this to himself, the Mad Welder leaned on his car and chuckled some more.

"I gotta admit, son, you're a pretty funny fellow. You know, I cannot, for the life of me, recall a moment on these streets where a guy like you shot me in the back like that, trying to help an 'innocent man' like that guy. But hey, you know what? I'm not a thug like you'd think. I know, it's probably a little hard to imagine considering I just killed his two friends, but I just... reacted badly to what I thought was them trying to attack me. It happens, and it sucks."

Shrugging his shoulders, the Mad Welder raised his hand to look at the forge hammer he was currently holding in his hand, twisting it around so as to examine it. He then did the same for the shield mounted on his left arm, still gleaming with the blood of the man he killed not even a moment ago.

"But I'm not interested in killing him. That's the last thing I'd like to do. In fact, I need his help for an errand I'm running down by the docks. I promise he'll never get involved in what I need to do. Just need him to show me a place, and then he can walk. As for what I'm interested in, well... there's some bad people that deserve more than what these two guys got" he said, pointing to the two bodies on the ground near him. "So, if you're all good fellas, and we all walk away and accept that this was just a bad accident on my part, then hey, we'll all be happier people in the long run. Otherwise, well... they don't call me the Mad Welder for no reason."

He then walked over to his driver seat and opened the door, the car angled so that most of his body was already hidden behind the completely bullet-proof car. He leaned on the hood of the car, waiving the hammer in his hand as if expecting a response.

"So... what d'ya say? I'd like to just get down over there before the deal's done, and I really would rather not do this fighting crap. For that matter, isn't the one kid there in your car a little too young to be involved in all this violent crap? Come on, you gotta have parents or someone to go back home to."

[Zombiedude101]

Cesar looked towards Anon, who responded to the Welder's query with only a few words. "Me? I'm just one of the FAA, Free Artists of America. Not that a toy like you would understand." Cesar took a single step forth and spoke to the Welder yet again. "My friend here? He's the notorious Anon, maricon. And he can handle himself in a fight, trust me. Just ask the several dozen officer's he's taken out after some bombing, you don't want to fuck with him. Believe me." He takes another step forwards, continuing his speech. "And that guy? Sure, he's far from innocent, but he isn't necessarily scum either. He doesn't commit rape, murder or sexual of abuse of children, does he? No, he's just a poor fucker who got hooked on drugs, like a few people I knew back in my hometown. And so were his friends, and you murdered them. You're no better than the dealers, and it's a shame because I was tempted to give you some info on the people you're after." He pauses momentarily, reaching into his pocket to slide out a half-eaten Snickers bar, which he promptly bites into, once again continuing his speech. "So to be frank, you can go fuck yourself for all I care. Your name sounds like something out of a 60's Batman TV Show, and to be honest that combined with a few other things prevents me from actually being intimidated by your whole Hero gig you have there."

[CalPal]

"That's adorable... yeah, so I guess nothing's gonna happen after all. Hey, I'm all right with that. No way in hell I can see a guy like yourself wanting to even help out a fellow like me, anyways. We don't exactly see eye-to-eye, for starters. Ya think a guy like him is completely innocent, but come on, he's not funding those drug habits legally. None of them do. As well, you assume a guy like me was looking for information on those drug dealers. I already have all the info I need, though. Or I will soon enough, anyways. No, it's not the info I'm going after... it's their heads I want."

After saying that, the Mad Welder leans inside his car, closing the door behind him and starting the engine up. After revving it to life, he starts driving away, not before doing a 270 degree turn and rolling down his bullet-proof window to give the two one last message:

"Also, one more thing: we didn't get off on the right foot, but I got no other reason to think you guys are bad people. That being said, consider this your blank cheque. If I ever find you being dumbasses in this city and doing something you shouldn't be doing, hurting people, shooting me, I won't hesitate in hunting you down. You can ask the people on the streets for proof of my kind of work."

With that, rolling up his window, the Mad Welder continues down the road, eventually driving out of sight of the two men in the car and rolling up beside the drug addict, who had upheld his word and waited for him down the street.

"Good man" the Mad Welder said, rolling down his window to talk to him. "Now, start walking, and give me a good clue on which building it's happening in."

Once the man was far enough ahead of him on the sidewalk, the Mad Welder slowly rolled after him, waiting for the man to give his cue.

[Zombiedude101]

Releasing a sigh, Cesar passed the Remington back to Anon, who promptly propped it against the glovebox. With that, Cesar got back into the Chevrolet and started it up, releasing the handbrake and adjusting the gear before pushing his foot against the pedal to accelerate the car. Integrating into the traffic, he raised an eyebrow as he spotted an overhead billboard in the distance and looked to Anon momentarily, considering the fact that the Mad Welder would most likely pass it soon enough. "Ey' Nate, how about we send that pendejo a message, huh?" Picking up on Cesar's idea, a smile began to form as he nodded, and soon enough Cesar pulled over by one of the poles supporting the billboard, reaching down to a half-empty case of Corona contained between the rears of the front seats. Grabbing a bottle, he undid the cap and nodded to Anon, who by now had begun to make his ascent up the ladder leading up to the walkway for the billboard as Cesar called out to him. "Take your time, ese! No need to rush this fine moment.."

Once he'd reached the top, Anon set to work on his graff piece, taking the utmost care in his work so as to make sure it didn't look like a Toy's throwie. The piece itself seemed to depicting a caricaturised Mad Welder as a gorilla beating an elderly man to a pulp for littering whilst several police officers, depicted as humanoid pigs, ignorantly sit at a table eating dohnuts without even spotting the commotion. In the background a caricaturised version of the Iron Steed, depicted as a poorly constructed pile of scrap metal and wheels welded together. Next to the piece were a few words which read: "Mad Welder? More like Bad Welder. Playing Monty Python meets the Dark Knight isn't gonna scare me. Signed," followed by a blank patch, yet another reference to the name commonly given to him by people and the media. Satisfied with his finished work, he quickly slid down the ladder and climbed back into the Chevrolet, where by now Cesar had finished off the bottle Corona and had tossed it onto the nearby road into the path of a Police Cruiser's tyres which would soon be shredded by the broken shards of glass, much to the driver's eventual dismay. Inserting a CD labelled 'Vato's Music' into the stereo, Cesar set off along the road once again, curious as to when he'd next encounter the Mad Welder.

[CalPal]

Despite being alone on the sidewalks and constantly looking around himself, there was nothing suspicious-looking of the man who, just mere moments ago, watched two of his friends butchered by the Mad Welder and then forced to help him take down people who could do even worse to him. The night had begun to creep in over New York, giving way to street lights illuminating the way for the man. Farther down the road, a lone vehicle, massive for its type, continued to trail after the man on the sidewalk, rumbling away as it continued to roll forward.

Eventually, the man on the sidewalk stopped, then began scratching the back of his head feverishly before he crossed to the other side of the street. Taking this as his que, the Mad Welder rolled his Iron Steed right up beside the man and rolled his window down, giving him a thumbs-up as approval for what the man had done for him.

"Much obliged, sir. Now get out of here, I'll handle everything from here."
"Yeah, all right" the man said, looking down at the ground as he spoke to the Mad Welder. "No offense, but I hope you get your ass handed to you for what you've done."
"None taken. Now beat it."

Spitting on the sidewalk in disgust, the man finally turned around and walked away, disappearing into the city streets. Meanwhile, the Mad Welder, now confident in having the drop on these men, turned the car around to face the building that the drug deal was supposed to be going on. Sure enough, he saw a small boat pulling in, with what appeared to be armed thugs barely noticeable on the ship. There was no doubt about it, the uncle was right: his nephew was definitely involved in this drug deal. Now it was a matter of waiting until the boat pulled into the docks...

---

It wasn't common for these men to make a deal so early in the night, but they were more pressed for time than they would've liked. The newest member, a young kid with very little experience in stuff like this, was feeling a little jittery when one of the older men walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, if you ain't feeling all right, you can just watch the door. Don't need you making us look bad in front of these guys."
"N- no, I'm all right, just - I need the money, I promise -"
"Hey, you'll get paid regardless. Just keep people out, all right?"

Nodding to the older man, the young kid made his way to the main gate inside the building with a few other posted guards, while everyone else made their way towards the water as the boat finally pulled into the docks. As the men on land helped to tie the boat down, the first men off the boat immediately walked over to the others already in the middle of the building.

"You have the money?" the leader from the boat asked.
"The crack, first" the leader from the group spoke out. "We want to know you have it before we agree to anything."

Nodding his head, the boat leader waved his hand to the crew waiting for him back on the bow, scrambling back inside before coming back out with taped boxes in their hands. Setting one of them down beside their leader, he opened one of the boxes open with his knife before tossing a brick of cocaine to the other guy. Tasting a small sample of the coke for himself, the man nodded to the other one and motioned for another guy to come to his side, this time with a briefcase in hand.

"All counted for" he said as he slid the case over to the boat leader. "Pleasure doing business with you."
"Likewise -"

Just then, a massive car came crashing through the front gate, knocking the younger kid off his feet and pinning him in debris. Before people could even react, they were immediately being peppered by bullets being fired from the chain-mounted M16s. Some of the men that were hit started going up in flames, not realizing that the bullets were actually incendiary rounds. Everyone began to scramble as they desperately attempted to shoot back at the car, doing little to almost no damage whatsoever. One of the men back on the boat managed to run up to the side of the car and attempted to break the door open, only to be lit up as side-mounted flamethrowers torched him.

Finally, after all the initial chaos had died down, multiple bodies were strewn all over the place, with the survivors carefully watching the car in case it attempts to start shooting again. However, it seemed the advantage was theirs: everyone was hiding behind empty crates now, and the car was way too bulky to move around in this compact of a place. The only way now for the guy to kill the rest would be to step out of his car, leaving him completely exposed to fire.

"Fucking hell, I can't believe this shit!" the boat leader said to himself, double-checking to see if the man had come out of his car yet. "Half our boys are dead, the boat's full of holes and a shit-tonne of coke has been made garbage. Who the fuck is this asshole?!"
"... Son of a bitch, it's the Mad Welder!"
"The - the what now?!"
"The Mad Welder! He's fucking ruthless! He's one of the only things that keeps us awake at night, and he ain't in our pockets."
"And you let him get away with this shit?!"
"Oh yeah, we let him just walk all over our asses and kill everyone he even thinks has a hint of being crooked. We gotta get out of here before -"
"Oh no, I'm not gonna let him live like this... Hey, asshole!" the leader said as he walked towards the car. "Get your ass out here, and I MIGHT just go gentle on you when I cut your balls off!"

Just then, the door swung open, allowing the Mad Welder to step out of the car. Closing the door behind him, He walked over to the boat leader, stopping just shy of him as he stood there silently, refusing to say anything as the Mad Welder looked at him through his black, empty mask. Suddenly, the leader began bursting out in laughter as he pointed at the Mad Welder and looked back at everyone else in the warehouse.

"This guy?! THIS is the guy you're losing against? I - this is hilarious, really. Are you people for fucking real?! He's just a god-damn tin man, did anyone think of just moving AROUND him?! I mean, he's even wearing a welding mask, too! Did anyone think of shooting him in the face?! You pathetic dumb-asses! I can't believe THIS man is able to kill so many of you! A fucking tool like him would've been dead ages ago if I was running shit around here!"
"... Wow, how did that even occur to me?" The Mad Welder finally spoke up. "Man, I feel so stupid, I should've made this thing bullet-proof. Boy, I really fucked up there, didn't I?"
"Oh ho ho, you have no idea how much of a mistake you've made coming here by yourself -"

Without warning, the welder grabbed him with his left hand, threw him over the Mad Welder's head onto the ground and stomped on his chest, crushing it like a melon. The boat leader gasped for air before finally succumbing to his wounds and dying right on the spot. After a moment of silence, the Mad Welder pointed at his corpse and laughed right back to the men still left in the warehouse.

"Ha! Now THAT?! That right there was hilarious! Wow, you thugs are just the god-damn cream of the crop, aren't ya?"

With that, the Mad Welder leaped forward and began hunting down anyone that was still in the warehouse by this point, swinging away with his hammer and torching any within range.

[blazinvire]

Ceres sighed a little as she sat on the very edge of the rooftop of one of the high-rising buildings, staring down at the street below waiting for any number of things to occur. She had her trenchcoat and hero mask on as she was playing the other side in the act to come, so for the moment she had to be a typical superhero and stomp on any criminal activity in the area to make it look real.
Technically she was waiting for telltale noises to alert her to the heist that Valerie had organized, then she could run over and make a lot of noise fighting her clones in order to keep the common people at bay and give others pause when thinking about joining in.

A block away a vault-van was transporting money to a bank with a helicopter escort, and just as it drove down a street between two nondescript buildings on opposing sides of the street, the whole van just stopped.
The wheels were spinning madly but they were an inch from the road -the entire van had been levitated remotely.
Before anything else could click in their heads, there were several distinct sounds of a type of grenade launcher firing a couple of times, pitching a dozen smoke grenades neatly around the street to blanket the entire street from sight.

A dozen women in gas masks exited the buildings and swiftly walked over to the van, one opened the door to the van while another climbed in and electrocuted the two men in the cab to unconsciousness with just her fingers.
Upon neutralizing the driver, the van thumped back onto the ground and the others got to work.
One placed her hand on the truck and closed her eyes for a moment as her mind stretched along the electronic pathways of the circuits of the security systems, before merely pointing to a part on the truck which was promptly attacked by a plasma-welder. A few seconds later the main breaker for the dimensional stabilizer had been torn clean out of the van's wall and another woman bent reality to open the back of the van without actually touching anything.

Alas, Ceres finally heard shouts and vigorous movements from the helicopter weaving about the buildings trying to see, and she merely sighed and stood up. Valerie was getting a little too ambitious for her tastes, but she'd been around far longer than Ceres so perhaps most of it could be excused...
Still, apparently the black market wasn't enough to satisfy Valerie's funding issues, she had to resort to blatantly ripping the city off with generous usage of unregistered superpowers.
And so Ceres began sprinting along the rooftops towards heist-in-progress, sliding down several floors along the side of a building before launching off and catching a street light and flinging her onto a car moving in the same direction to catch the rest of her momentum.
She departed from the car and the alarmed occupants and ran over to the smoke-covered street. Her sisters were probably ferrying all the cash out of the van by now, and the police were bound to be here in force within a minute or two, maybe a super or two as well.

Ceres ducked down behind one of the many abandoned cars that had been caught in the smoke, the owners had obviously fled so the entire street was probably clear of civilians by now.
"Everyone freeze!" Ceres called out, drawing guns akimbo and awaiting the violent response of her sisters.
The blare of assault rifles suddenly filled the air for a moment, filling most of the cars near Ceres full of holes so she responded with some bullets of her own. Except of course, there was the squealing of metal which indicated one of the abandoned cars had be tossed about to use as an impromptu barricade, so her bullets didn't make it far.

[CalPal]

With blood now starting to drip from his hammer, the Mad Welder continued to break crates apart, looking for anyone that hasn't already run away from this place. Feeling that he had done a job well done, he began to walk back to his car, when he heard painful moaning near the front where he had crashed his car through earlier. Walking around the area, he noticed a young kid struggling to lift debris off his body, clearly suffering from some kind of broken bone. The Mad Welder walked over to the kid and looked down at him.

"Hey, kid," the Mad Welder said as he leaned down towards his face, "what the hell were you thinking helping out these scumbags?"
"No, please - *cough* - I - I don't wanna die!"
"Hey, snap out of it" the Mad Welder snapped, lightly slapping his face to get him to focus. "Tell me what the fuck you were doing here."
"I - I needed money!"
"Yeah?"
"M-m-my family... they aren't doing well. I - *cough - these guys were gonna pay well. I wouldn't kill anyone if they started shooting!"
"Yeah, I bet you weren't... you think people would OD on drugs like these?"
"Huh? Yeah, maybe, I dunno."
"Mhm... you think your family is more deserving to live than anyone that loses their lives to these drugs?"
"Wh - what?!"
"Listen here, kid: you and these guys are what's wrong with the world. You make these deals and sell those drugs, never thinking beyond yourself and what few people you say you care about. At the end of the day, the whole world could burn with everyone on it as long as you get what you want out of it. I've seen this act over and over... and it's starting to really piss me off."
"But - but they're just drug addicts; nobody cares!"
"No, YOU don't care! You and those thugs, people like you don't care about them. Not one of you would lift a damn finger to help every single person dying from your drugs and crimes and piss-poor life of wretched crap. But unlike everyone in this city, I'm trying to do something to keep people off this kind of life before they're got no other choice but to get involved. Even if I'm forced to make a bloody mess of this entire fucking city, I'll keep going until no one ever stops to even consider helping scum like you and those guys I killed. Oh, it don't matter what kind of a person they are: if they've done something to make this city worse because they're selfish pricks, they're as good as dead in my eyes... and I'm looking at a dead man now."
"I - please, let me live! I'll change, I promise!"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah! I'll even - *cough* - move out of state, you'll never see me again!"

Standing up on his feet, the Mad Welder easily grabbed the debris on the kid and tossed it aside before grabbing the kid's collar and dragging him onto his feet. He was badly hurt and bleeding from his mouth, but he still managed a smile as he looked at the Mad Welder.

"Thank you..."
"See, kid? You just proved my point."
"... W - what?"

Without any time to react, the kid was lifted in the air by his neck before being violently thrown to the ground. As he struggled to climb back on his feet, the Mad Welder, pinning his back to the ground with his foot, took his shield arm and drove it straight through the kid's skull, instantly killing him with the force and mass behind the shield. Certain that the kid and everyone else in the place was dead, the Mad Welder walked back to his car, revving the engine to life once he was inside and turning it to face the boat and pile of drugs sitting nearby. Pulling hard on the trigger, the Mad Welder watched as all the drugs, cash and the boat started catching on fire, eventually becoming brighter as the Mad Welder focused his pyrokinesis on the flames.

With the sirens wailing in the distance, the Mad Welder turned the car around and drove out of the warehouse, back into the streets of New York to disappear and make his way back to the shop without being seen by anyone, just as he has done many times before.

[Zombiedude101]

More likely than not, the Welder would end up passing the billboard which Anon had tagged up, though by now both the Notorious Graff Artist and Cesar and departed, having returned to Cesar's neighbourhood. Across the street from where Cesar's apartment could be found, there was a shop which sold a variety of artistic supplies, most but not least paint. Unlike most other stores, most graff artists never racked paint from here, instead getting it at a discount from the owner, a man in his late fourties who also happened to be DK2, a Graff Legend infamous for bombing a multitude of subway cars during the late 70's and 80's. Most had respect for such a legend, and would often come here to get a view of the different photographs of varying throwies which had been framed on the wall. They'd add it to their Black Books, and after grabbing some paint they'd usually be on their way.

[CalPal]

"Sometimes I will, then again, I think I won't.
Sometimes I do, then again, I think I don't.

I looked at my watch and it was a quarter to one,
I said 'come on baby, let's have us some fun'.

We were reelin', rockin' and rollin', child,
Reelin' and rockin' and rollin' 'till the break of dawn."

Grinning to himself over another job well done, the Mad Welder was tapping his hands to the beat of the song and just waiting to get back home and pour himself a strong drink when a billboard caught his attention. Normally, most billboards advertised things such as products and services, but this one in particular was advertising neither. In fact, it wasn't so much an advertisement as it was a smear job.

He pulled the car over to the side of the road and stepped out of his car to admire the effort put into the advertisement.

"'Playing Monty Python meets the Dark Knight isn't gonna scare me'... ah, you kids sure know how to make me laugh. Heh heh heh... yeah, this is gonna be loads of fun, I can already see that. Well, Mr. Anon and Remmy, I am quite certain that two can play this game. I hope we get better acquainted soon enough... it'd be just a god-damn hell of a good time."

Stepping back into his car, he revved his engine to life and drove off, continuing his path back to his shop. Once he finally arrives, absolutely certain that no one was following, he drives the car into the garage doors then quickly closes them behind himself. He positions his car over a special lift, then getting out of the vehicle, he presses the red button from earlier and watches as his car descends back into the basement before the floor slides across the space. Satisfied, he starts taking his armour off and puts it all back into the locker, hanging his black gloves and apron inside as well. He locks it up with multiple, high-endurance locks, then, wiping himself clean with a towel, makes his way upstairs to his personal living space, where he grabs himself a nice bottle of Daniels and leans back in a chair, sipping away with glee.

Johnny Goode was always happy to come back home.