Episode 0

Rebirth

It was a calm and peaceful night in Edging... relatively speaking of course, compared to nearly any other city it was a horrible night to be out and about. The gangs roamed around neighbourhoods, corrupt business men participated in less than moral practices, innocent civilians were mugged in the street and that was just the tip of the iceberg. Amid all the chaos, one thing stood out as especially abnormal.

A lone car drove through one of the old neighbourhoods which had yet to be torn down and turned into acceptable living accommodations. The car stopped outside one of the houses and from the passenger seat stepped Scott Nexton, recluse billionaire, who was well into his seventies. Before closing the door to the car he turned around and poked his head into the car "I won't take long, just wait here." Mr.Nexton said to the driver who simply gave him a nod.

Scott walked into the house taking his time to look at every aspect of the suburban home from its broken floorboards to its mood filled walls. Meanwhile outside another car drove up but this car was very different from the car that Mr.Nexton had ridden in. This car was adorned with spikes and flame decals, all the tell tale signs of Rioteers. Before the driver of Scott Nexton's car had time to react one of the Rioteers had broken the window of the car and knocked out the driver, all with one powerful punch.

On a bad day Scott would have noticed all the noise coming from outside and today was a good day so naturally he was well aware of the thugs outside. With a face that displayed no emotion he walked towards the door, fists clenched. He may not have been as fit as he once was but he was likely still leagues ahead of everyone of the thugs outside. Scott left the door ready for a fight but was taken off guard by one of the Rioteers who had been hiding near the door.

It was not a pretty scene as the Rioteers began beating on Mr.Nexton who was simply biding his time, looking for an opening but one passerby would throw off Scott's plans, one passerby would be destined for greatness, one passerby didn't know what he was getting himself into if he decided to defend the old man.

It had been a regular day for Ted at college, it started with chemistry and physics, he didn't care much for chemistry, but physics mattered as he could see real life applications for that one in his sportscareer – having an understanding of how to hit the ball sure does help. After lunch – pizza – it was Razorball practice. 3 on 3, he and his two teammates versus three of the other star athletes at the school. At the forefrunt was Nick Daniels, Ted's nemesis. He was such a jerk, pissing Ted off and being a total dick to everyone else. He was a bully and quite likely a thug, showing sympathy for the local gangs.

”See you at the court, Richie.” Nick taunted with a smug grin as Ted shrugged. ”Screw you too.” He said under his breath, putting on his protective gear.

During practice, the two got at it, as usual. Hitting borderline illegal-balls at each other, each shot being more violent and powerful than the last, going for body blows on each other over actually scoring. Nick smashed a ball directly into Ted's knee, sending Richards to the floor. ”Son of a” Ted cursed, holding his leg. Nick walked over to him with a smug smile ”Bitch. Like you.” The young man said, his teammates patting him on the shoulder and cheering him on, throwing the towel on Ted.

Theodore cleaned himself off and headed into the locker room, getting dressed in his regular clothes. His T-shirt, jeans and leather jacket. A black and green – the school colors scarf around his neck, and his trusty baseball cap, an all black one on his head. He headed out, walking home he took a detour – walking through the less privileged parts of Edging helped him get perspective on days like these, days like most others.

How wrong he would be.

A car sped past him – decked out with spikes and skull decals, moving at high speeds. Four young thugs stuck their heads out a window each and shouted profanities at him, as well as loud howls. They were gang thugs – and they would cause nothing but trouble. Most days, Ted would let it pass. He shouldn't get involved, but today.. Today wasn't one of those days.

Running in the direction the car was going, he came towards a rundown building – a very expensive car standing outside, getting boxed in by the vehicle Ted was chasing. Out walked the five thugs, they pulled the driver of the nice car out and hit him over the head, knocking him out, before targeting an older man who just walked out of the building, they were kicking and stomping on the poor guy, and a fire erupted in Ted's stomach. Running up to them, Ted jumped, using the trunk of the man's car as a springboard, leaping onto the group of thugs, grabbing two of them by the neck as he landed on the ground, sending them both to the concrete hard.

“The hell are you?!” One of the thugs shouted. Ted grunted, as the thug lunged at him – only to get met with a firm fist to his jaw, knocking him on the ass. The second and third thug lunged at him, he sidestepped – his foot towards the front of the knee, with a sickening crack he displaced the thug's knee, blocking a swing from the other guy with his forearm. His martial arts training still held up.

And then from his side, the third thug came at him, expecting a fist, Ted was surpred that he had a knife, cutting him in side of his ribs. Adrenaline was running high, and Ted could bring down his elbow and his knee up onto the guy's arm, snapping the knife out of his hands, uppercutting him to the floor. Leaving two thugs left, but the old man was back on his feet.

Luckily for the remaining Rioteers, Scott and Ted, Rioteers tended to be pretty big cowards and rathe than stay to fight they took off with incredible speed towards their car and drove off into the night, swerving around and leaving their fellow gang members behind. Scott was amazed that anyone who wasn't a some crazed gang member actually took the time to do martial arts anymore, though he didn't let this show through his rock like composure.

"That was dangerous, you could have caused a lot more trouble than you could have solved." Scott said as he began to take his unconscious driver out of the driver seat and put him in the passenger seat.

"Next time you see something like that you should phone the police. It's their job to stop this kind of thing." Scott grunted out as he managed to move his driver to the passenger seat.

As the thugs rummaged to their vehicles, Ted grunted. "You better run!" He shouted after them, as they sped off, a couple of them throwing curses his way. Ted walked over to the old man, whom was dusting himself off, about to ask him if he was okay and if they stole anything from him - but was cut off by getting lectured by the older man about it being dangerous to deal with the thugs, as he was climbing into the drivers seat, Ted grunted. "The cops are barely any better than the thugs." His words were venomous.

"I didn't see anyone else coming in to help you there. Don't say thank you or anything." Ted said, as he turned around to pick up his cap that had been knocked off his head in the fight.
As he bent down his side hurt, as he held it he felt something warm come over his hand, looking at it, his fingers were drenched in wine red liquid. The adrenaline had worn off and the young man fell to one knee. "Damn.." He said under his breath, the pain washing over him.

Scott was about to take off when he saw the boy collapse a little and his knife wound. Newton got out of his car and went by the boy to hoist him up and help him into the car. "Come on, I'll drive you to the hospital so you don't bleed out here." Scott said hoping the boy wouldn't fight the help he was giving to him. It was a shame that the city was like this now, everyone out for themselves but then again it had always been like that in Edging city... but maybe it didn't need to be. After helping the boy into the car and driving him to the hospital, Scott began to get an idea in his head that he hadn't truly thought about for years. It was high time the city had The Vigilante again. Scott knew that he couldn't do it again, not after what had happened so long ago but he knew just the person for the job.

After that person called Scott a lunatic and said they wanted nothing to do with The Vigilante, Scott went for his second choice, Ted. During the car ride Ted had lost quite a bit of blood and was currently being held overnight at the hospital. As Ted laid there, awake or asleep, a ominous wind blew something through the window and onto the sheets of Ted's hospital bed. It was a letter which in of itself was odd since nobody used paper anymore, but the oddest part was the infamous 'V' logo of The Vigilante on the front. The note read as follows:

Mr.Richards,

This city is in a state of decent that started when the first residents moved in. Yet somehow its been able to go on all these years even with all the crime and corruption but it can't get by on luck alone. The Vigilante was created as a way to slow the inevitable decent of this city into chaos but initially after his disappearance, my disappearance, things stayed roughly the same. Now crime is again beginning to run rampant through the streets of Edging with no one to stop it. That's where you come in. I'd like to offer you the position of The Vigilante and a chance to take down the scum that plagues this city. If you are interested then meet me two nights from now at Edging City Park at 9:00 pm sharp. If you are late or do not attend I will assume that you are not interested in which case I don't blame you. This city can be a cruel place.

Sincerely,
The Vigilante

And there he was - stitches and bandages around his ribs. Breathing was hard, he had bruised ribs and was afraid of tearing his stitches as he took small and short breaths, that soon turned into longer deep ones to calm himself. Standing in the park, at 8:55, cigarette in his hand and flipping a lighter in his other. He wasn't really a smoker, but like his father, tobacco helped calm his nerves in tense situations. Since he had been checked out of the hospital, he had went to see his mom - who's condition was ever getting worse, and yet, the doctors couldn't put her into the stem-cell treatment she needed because her employers refused to pay off her medical plan, and the Richards family did not have the money to fight their lawyers on the subject. Ted was annoyed, angry even about the whole situation.

IT was now 8:59 - soon to be nine p.m and he hadn't seen even a sign of V. He'd give it five more minutes, but if you demand him to be on time, Ted will demand you to be on time as well. Lighting the cigarette, he inhaled. It hurt. A lot.

"Damn knives.." Ted mumbled under his dark baseball cap.

"I've never been a fan of them myself either" came a voice from behind Ted. Turning around Ted would see the old man from a few days ago, Scott Nexton, standing there alone with his cane firmly grasped in both hands.

"I take it that you're interested in the job." Scott said simply as he looked at the boy. As he stood there Scott began thinking twice about his decision judging from the scene before him, a beat up tough guy with a cigarette in hand. Scott was about to suggest that he himself had made a mistake and would just send the boy on his way. It was then that Scott once again realized that Ted was pretty much his last choice before he began just asking anyone who would listen.

Like it or not Ted was probably his last chance to get The Vigilante going again.

Ted Turned around quickly as he heard the words, wrinkling his nose as he saw the old man, Scott Nexton, the man he had saved yesterday. "Y-You?" Ted asked him, confused for a minute, but when he thought it over, it made sense that Scott would be The Vigilante. Regaining his composure, Ted grunted. "Yeah, I suppose I am. Hope the pay's good." He joked cynically. Noticing the older man's glare at the cigarette in his hand, Ted scoffed, digging into his pocket. "You want one?" He said dryly, flipping the bud he had between his fingers into a trashcan, before getting out another one and lighting it.

"Not actually a smoker, but desperate times." Ted grinned as he lit the cigarette again. "You really wanna talk here?" He asked, nodding towards the few people who were walking through the park.

"In this line of work theres a lot of desperate times. Relying on something like cigarettes to calm your nerves is going to have you end up as a chain smoker." Scott said displaying his clear disgust for cigarettes. Scott adjusted his coat and began walking away at the mention of having somewhere else to talk "I have a place." As he began to walk, he expected Ted to follow him to his car which was parked not to far away with the driver from the other night sitting in the driver's seat with a discoluration on his cheek from where he got hit the other night. Mr.Nexton opened up the back seat's door and sat down as he waited for Ted to get in the other side.

Ted chuckled. "The vindictive type, huh? Figures." Flicking the half-lit cigarette onto the wet sidewalk. He followed Scott silently, a thousand thoughts running through his head. Would they do training? Would he get taught all of the skills The Vigilante needed? Or was Scott just gonna use him to find someone more suitable for the role - someone more like Scott? Ted's train of thought was broken by his phone beeping in his pocket. It was from his father, saying his mother had been sent to the hospital again. A pit came into his stomach - he was about to excuse himself and take a raincheck with Mr.Nexton, but he knew that if he did, he'd blow his only chance at every finding out the truth.

And he needed the Vigilante. He needed The Vigilante to save his mom.

He got in on the other side of the car, nodding at the driver. "You all right there?" He asked the driver whom nodded. "And you?" Looking towards Ted's side. The young man grinned "'Tis but a flesh wound."

"It'll take a lot more than a few punks to do anything worthwhile to me." Scott said as the Driver began driving towards their desired location. After a hour or so the car began to pull up on a very ominous looking house that looked like it was built in the early 2000s. Scott lead Ted up to the building without saying a word and opened up the door showing off the lavish inside though it gave off an empty, almost fake, vibe to the room. Scott just ignored everything in the room as he headed up to a door and opened it revealing stairs to the cellar.

"Watch your step, its dark down there." Scott said as he descended into the darkness of the sub-level of the house and headed towards a wine rack. Upon further inspection it could be seen that there was a ton of wine racks in the filled to the brim with wine of different ages. Eventually Scott made his way to a certain bottle and tugged on it slightly, opening up a door in the wall.

Scott entered the door with a smile on his face that was completely invisible in the low light. With the flick of a switch, the lights began to come on in the room through the door revealing an awe inspiring sight. The room was a large white disc, housed in a cave with a large computor in the middle of the room and a few objects covered up by a sheet near the computer.

"This is HQ." Scott said simply as he changed his smile back to his normal stone faced expression.

Ted grinned as Scott mentioned it requiring more than a few punks to take him down. "A small army, I'd imagine would do it, though.." He said under his breath. Ted followed quietly behind the older man, taking in the sights. He had heard about the Nexton grounds, but he had never actually seen it, there weren't even pictures of it. There were well trimmed hedges and a fountain, even a few sculptures, the lawn was well cut and the entire place looked very proper. It was jarring, how was the grounds kept in such good shape, nobody had seen the grounds? It was like walking into the Garden of Eden.. Or Wonderland.

And the rabbit hole got deeper once they got into the house. The house looked more luxurious than anything the young man had seen in his entire life, yet it seemed.. Hollow. It looked like a place, sure, but not like a home. It was creepy, honestly. Scott headed with determined steps towards a door leading down to the wine Cellar. "It's after 5 o'clock, after all." Ted tried to joke as he watched his step down the stairs, only for the revolving case to switch open, revealing a big dark room, impposible for Ted to see just how big it was.

Scott flipped the switch and the room lit up, Ted grunted as his eyes adjusted to the room. Big computer, sheets over things in the room. It was a big hollow cave, how had Scott kept this secret all of those years?

Intrigued, Ted walked down, putting his hand on a few of the objects covered in the sheets. They felt like they were walls - no, glass. He knocked on it slightly with one finger. Yeah, definately glass.

"Uh-Huh." Ted spoke, flabbergasted by the sights. "You are, I mean, were.. Him.. Right?"

Scott watched as Ted marvelled at the cave and its contents. "Yes, I was the Vigilante, but that was a long time ago." Scott explained with a hint of dread in his voice. "Now then, are you ready to begin training? The sooner your ready to head out on the streets the sooner this city begins getting safer." Scott said as he began to get a bit of nostalgia from back when he was just starting out as The Vigilante, back when fighting crime was a lot simpler.

As Scott waited for Ted's answer he walked his way over to the first covered, glass case and took the sheet off revealing something that the city hadn't seen in years; the very last Vigilante suit to see use in the city, scratches and all. The suit was very simple to the untrained eye, it was jet black with a dark blue 'V' emblem on the chest and two white eyeholes. What couldn't be seen by the average onlooker was all the tech that lay just beneath the visible layer of cloth.

Ted's eyes widened, he nodded his head as Scott confirmed his question. The man that stood before him was The Vigilante - the man Ted had hailed as his hero since he was a child. He couldn't decide if he was thrilled or disappointed. The old man wasn't that impressive. But his thoughts were stopped by Scott asking him if he was ready to begin training. "Training?" Ted asked, expecting some sort of resort to a desolate place in Siberia where the two men would duel with katanas on a frozen lake.

That would be utterly ridiculous.

Ted's eyes widened again, as he looked on, amazed, by the suit in the glass case. He walked over to it and put his hand on the glass. "This the suit? The real Vigilante suit?" the young man asked, looking for some kind of confirmation that he wasn't getting pranked. Scott looked just as serious as he had been all night. Ted gritted his teeth. "I'm ready." Ted spoke, confidently. "But, I have to ask, what's behind the other cases?" He said, admitting that his curiosity got the best of him.

Scott turned to the other glass cases and looked on in silence for a moment "Just some suits. Their not important right now. I'll have them moved out of here this week so don't worry about it." Scott said as he turned back to look at Ted. "Now." Scott began as he began walking towards the Vigilante suit "put the suit on and we'll start your training." and just as he finished his sentence Scott placed his hand on the glass container which retreated into the ground leaving the suspended suit ripe for the taking.

When Ted managed to put on the suit his vision was flushed with a bunch of readouts from the suit such as power levels and oxygen storage. "Alright. First things first your going to have to learn to climb. The suit has retractable claws on the fingers specially made to puncture through nearly anything and leave you with a good grip. The suit also multiplies your basic abilities by about two give or take so when you jump be prepared to go a lot higher than you normally would." Scott explained as simply as he could. This was all very nostalgic for Scott as he remembered first putting on his first suit which had little more than a utility belt and a grapling hook. "Now try climbing up the cave wall in here." Scott said as he got ready to watch and evaluate.

Ted nodded and put on the suit, dressing down in private before emerging from a changing room in the suit, flexing and stretching his arms. Putting the cowl over his face once he was back in Scott's precense. He saw a HUD, like that of a video game appearing in front of his eyes. "Why would I ever need to know the barometric pressure?" Ted asked once that parameter showed up. "And what does the suit run on? Am I standing inside of a nuke?" He asked, just as curiously.

He flexed and looked at the wall. "You want me to climb the wall? Aren't the claws gonna cause thousands of dollars of damage to the surfaces I climb on?" He asked again, his words might have seemed sarcastic, but they were genuine curiosity. Scott talked about increased strength and Ted nodded, jumping up and down twice, it felt a lot less restrictive than normal - kind of like being on the anti gravity fields in Razorball.

Walking towards the wall, he put his hand up against it, and for a second, his hand was stuck on it. But when he pulled it off, the grip gave way, releasing him. He put a hand and a foot on the wall - just like climbing a climbing wall at the amusement parks, he thought to himself. Soon, he made his several meters up. "Now what? Do I just jump? Or is that gonna break my legs? I have wings? Grappling hook?... Alien pet?" Ted asked, this time sarcastically, both his hands on the wall, so he couldn't exactly pat his suit to find any such thing.

"The suit runs on a battery meaning its going to need recharging from time to time." Mr.Nexton explained ignoring the first question as he figured it didn't really matter why some of the functions were there. While all of the questions from Ted were starting to get on Scott's nerves, he was glad about this fact. It at least proved that he wasn't one for simply accepting things and was willing to get to the bottom of something.

As Ted got ready to climb Scott answered his second question "The claws can do a lot of property damage if you don't use them properly. I've always been fond of jabbing them in so you don't make any distinguishing scratch marks." Scott addressed as his protégé began climbing. Finally when Ted got to the top Scott decided to enact another test within the test. "In the field your going to have to go with what you know or try your chances with a theory. You have to figure out how to get down wether that be simply by climbing back down or seeing if you've got a 'alien pet' to help you out." Scott said as he walked over and sat at the chair by the cave's main computer.