Angel in Devil's Clothing: Chapter 2 – Relatable Enemy

Chapter 2 – Relatable Enemy

Giovanni calls me to his office with the offer to take down another of his competitors, this time the Humphrey Collective, which is a strange one to go after. When I see Giovanni, I see him wearing his usual white dress shirt, purple vest, gold tie, grey pants, and black shoes. He has his black hair slicked back like usual in the same fashion as me and his green eyes are as filled with confidence as usual.

I close the door behind me, take a seat, and ask, “So, what’s this about going after the Humphrey Collective?”

“First things first, do you want coffee, water, or any alcohol to start the day?” Giovanni asks.

“I had my coffee before I got here, thanks.”

“Do you make it or does your wife?”

“My wife does.”

“I wish I had a wife. I can pull the strings of the country around me and the world to the extent but can’t manage to get a date. Sad, isn’t it?”

“And what’s the point of mentioning it?”

“Nothing. Just making small talk before business. Do you know the Yarrows, the competitor we ruined thanks to the hidden records they kept at the bank?”

“Not really beyond them being a food producer. Are you saying that they’re guilty of similar crimes to the Humphries?”

“Not exactly. The Humphries are a collection of charities that raise money for various causes and do things like giving homes to the homeless, food to the poor, medicine for the sick, and money for medical operations.”

“That’s why I’m curious. What are they guilty of? Using the money donated to them for themselves more than the causes they help?”

“Well, there is that, but they also are anti-Catholic and anti-God.”

“Most people are these days. What makes them different either than them giving out abortions to the poor?”

“Nothing really. You see, back at the founding of the faith we believe to be the only true one, our faith was illegal, and practicing it was punishable by death and torture. It still is in some countries, so it’s only a matter of time before hatred of the Church and God turns into action.”

“This sounds like something evangelists handle.”

“Oh, but you know how sin darkens the intellect and makes people call evil actions necessary or good, so I’m sending you out with help to find this evidence of their misdeeds.”

“But we’re just bringing them down because they don’t believe the same things we do.”

“Exactly. How can a world act in harmony if it doesn’t ascribe value in the same way? Common sense is a myth in today’s world since everyone’s beliefs are unaligned and no one values things the same way others do. Now you can see that my battle to change the world is more of a crusade than anything. Those who know anything about the world want it to change for the better and believe in what they do and I’m just doing the same, but the difference is that we’re actually right while they’re wrong.”

I look out of the windows of Giovanni’s office and process the information he gave me.

“I see and get what you mean, but what if we don’t find anything on them, or what if what we find isn’t enough to put them down?”

Giovanni smiles and says, “I’m sure you’ll find something. If not, my friends in the government are writing laws that will make certain actions of theirs illegal and my lawyers will spin your findings so their deeds will seem worse than they are.”

“Of course. You would have every aspect of your fight against them rigged so you win no matter what.”

“That’s what happens when you want to change the world. You can’t leave anything up to chance.”

“What about the superhumans that are allied with them? I’m not sure you can spin the killing of a hero or us getting into a fight with them.”

“Heroes making heel turns or going crazy due to circumstances or imbalances in whatever makes them tick is common. Both legitimate and vigilante heroes occupy a grey area of the law as it is, so it isn’t too much trouble justifying you killing or fighting one, though I would recommend you avoiding them as much as you can unless they are your target.”

“So, we will be fighting one?”

“Eventually since we are doing damage to the company they serve, so I hope you’re ready to play the role of a villain.”

I smile and say, “I already am one as far as the world is concerned.”

Giovanni’s smile widens as he says, “Now, you fully understand what it means to work in the realm of the alegal.”

I meet up with the squad I’m working with, two of the cops I originally joined Coronamento with, and am given a briefing of our task for today. We’re going to a desolate part of the city where our spies say that Humphrey is holding some of their records. We aren’t given another enhancement injection since what we have should put us on par with the small-time heroes and normal people in the area, so all we really need are our wits, masks, codenames, body armor to wear under our clothes, and pistols with knockout ammo, regular ammo, and ammo meant to take down superhumans. This should be a much simpler time than the previous one, and since my friends were on separate missions, I tell them what I did and then ask what they had to do as we are being driven to our destination.

“I snuck into Usato’s offices and stole weapon schematics and research on enhancements,” Olimpia says.

“Mine was a straight-up hit. We went into this area yesterday to shoot up a meeting between poor criminals and those in the government. They were exchanging money for drugs and an agreement to keep crime here instead of the city,” Marco says.

“And did you kill everyone?” I ask.

“Yes. Not one person escaped and we burned the money. That kind of dirty money isn’t worth touching.”

“Good.”

“We couldn’t do any of the things we did as cops and it feels good to act without a hand tied behind our backs finally, isn’t it?” Olimpia says.

Marco and I agree with Olimpia and talk about what the other cops we joined Coronamento may be doing and getting more people to join, especially my brother Renzo. When we get to our drop-off, we walk the rest of the way to the information we’re looking for. From the outside, the place looks like your typical food pantry, with people dropping off food, water, and clothes and bringing them to locals. We ensure no one sees us before putting on our masks and entering the building through the back door. Olimpia disables the cameras and opens the locked doors with her lockpicks while Marco knocks out anyone who gets in our way with his CQC moves and hides their unconscious bodies in closets and empty boxes.

Going into the basement, we find a hidden door that takes us into a deeper basement where no one is and the information we’re looking for should be. While Olimpia hacks their computers to copy their records and Marco keeps an eye out for trouble, I look through the records written on paper. Looking through the papers, I see that they kept a lot of receipts and blackmail in this format because there are more hackers out there than normal break in and enter thieves, especially with superhumans and vigilantes protecting their most important assets. There are records of transferring aborted child body parts to certain people for ritual and consumptive purposes. I’d rather not know what that’s about unless it involves me shooting the people involved, but this should be useful.

What’s this? There are journal pages here from several of the founders. They detail how they started the Humphrey Collective as a way to help the poor when churches, companies, governments, and other charities failed to help their families and friends. I don’t see anything too shady here though there is an admission of killing an officer in self-defense when their home was unjustly entered into. I think I remember this event that my dad told me about when he came back from work and how the officers were desperate to make themselves look useful so funding for them wouldn’t be cut again. Despite being on the fence about taking this, I pocket it with everything else.

“I got everything I could here,” Olimpia says.

“Good because it’s getting busy upstairs. Let’s go,” Marco adds.

Seeing as there’s no reason to stay for more, I take whatever else I can and leave the room. Olimpia relocks the doors as we head out and leave the food pantry without any trouble, that is until I hear the sound of someone running and jumping above us. We look up and see a man wearing a bandana as a mask and street clothes jump from rooftop to rooftop until he descends from a rusty fire escape staircase and where we are. Before he can say anything, I shoot him with my silenced pistol three times.

“That was quick, Gold Devil,” Olimpia says, referring to me by my codename.

“Dad taught me to shoot as soon as you recognize a threat. Didn’t he do the same for you?” I ask.

“He did.”

“Good thing too. I didn’t want to hear his hero speech about how he was going to stop us. Let’s get out of here,” Marco says.

We radio for pickup and are quickly surrounded by a group of about twenty people with makeshift guns, baseball bats, and other basic weaponry. The vigilante who we thought was down shakily gets up and ready to fight.

“Now, you’ll have to listen to me,” the vigilante says as his wounds struggle to close. “It’s a sin to steal from the poor, so you better give what you stole back to us.”

Olimpia, Marco, and I start shooting at the hostiles closest to us, especially those with guns. I shift my attention to the vigilante who starts getting in my way and tanking every shot I shoot at him including shots to the face.

“Who sent you? Tell me and I might let you live,” the vigilante says.

“You’re out of your league, kid,” I say as I dodge his punches and kicks while shooting and whacking him with my pistol. “You also chose the wrong party to partner up with since your powers aren’t making you heal too well.”

“Shut up! The Humphreys gave me a home when no one else would and took care of this and many other communities while others left it to rot!”

The kid is inexperienced, fights sloppy, and relies too much on his enhancements in this fight, which he loses as a result of doing so. I finish off the remaining hostiles with Marco and Olimpia before making sure everyone is dead and no one follows us to our pickup location. As we’re about to get into the car, we hear the vigilante scream in the distance. His scream sounds monstrance, and after a few seconds, we hear screaming, sounds of fighting, and then see him up into the air and go in a direction away from us.

We report what we heard and saw to Giovanni who says, “This is good. We can use this opportunity against Humphrey who will have to take the blame for their vigilante’s rampage. Take off your masks, put the poor boy out of his misery, and save whoever you see so we can take credit for cleaning up their mess.”

“Yes, sir,” we say.

The three of us put our masks in the car and load up on ammo meant for superhumans. Meanwhile, my mind remembers when Renzo and I used to play with superhero figures, that we’d be superheroes as cops, and that I’d protect him no matter what.

“I’ll protect you too, big bro!” he said.

The memory brings a small smile to my face, but then I shake it off because of what is happening now. With Olimpia and Marco, I chase after the vigilante who isn’t hard to find thanks to all the chaos he is causing. We find him mutated and out of his mind attacking his fellow members of the Humphrey Collective, their friends, and their families. Several are already dead and more are injured, and thanks to us, we are able to stop him before he hurts anyone else by filling with a clip each from our pistols. As I stand over him with my gun pointed at his head, his mutation subsides and he looks more like he once did. He seems to have realized what he just did and starts to cry.

“I…I just wanted to help people…” he says as I see my brother’s face flash in my mind for a second.

“Me too, kid,” I say before delivering the final shot and then cross myself.

The locals tepidly thank us as the authorities come here in cop cars and ambulances. On the news, this incident is reported as one of Humphrey’s vigilantes going crazy because of a chemical imbalance in what gave him his powers. As for those we shot, that gets handwaved away as your daily shooting in the desolate part of the city with no connections to us, however, Coronamento is given credit for stopping the vigilante.

Giovanni goes on the news to say, “This is why heroes and vigilantes are heavily regulated and must be associated with a legitimate government, corporation, or association. That poor teenage boy was under the legal age to be a vigilante and if he wasn’t taken advantage of by the Humphrey Collective, he would still be alive today.”

Later in the day, I meet with Giovanni in his office who says, “How did you like that? God sometimes grants us greater opportunities to break down our enemies when we least expect it.”

“I would call that a tragedy rather than an opportunity,” I say.

“Of course it was. Nevertheless, you and your team did well. This along with the information you got, there’s a good chance that the Humphrey Collective won’t last another month.”

“I understand the incident with the kid hurting them, but the information we obtained isn’t too damning to do anything else to them in a legal sense.”

“I’m having my lawyers comb through it. Even if there isn’t, I have scientists and researchers who will definitively classify fetuses as children, and that, along with what you found about them selling parts of aborted children to people is enough to be the end of them. We won’t have to make abortion illegal at this rate since it automatically will be.”

Always two steps ahead like usual. Now, I see more clearly why Giovanni and the Coronamento Corp are feared and respected.