Prologue- The Demon Saint

--- The Demon Saint ---

He wasn’t a good man.

He never lied and told anyone he was, not even himself.

But even if he wasn’t a good man, that didn’t mean he could let bad things happen so long as he had the power to stop them. And of course when a hero gave him the opportunity to gain more of said power, he took it without a second thought. (Worst mistake of my fucking life.)

He was beaten, broken, and left for dead. (Not that I was nice enough to die for them.)

Perhaps that’s why he returned to the place he grew up?

Everyone who lived in the Way had been beaten, broken, and left for dead by the rest of the city, with spite being the only thing keeping half of them alive. (Just like me…)

And being Sinner’s Way, he hadn’t even been home for a full hour before he came across some asshole who refused to take ‘no’ for an answer.

Every ‘hero’ in the city would have beaten the man and called the cops to pick him up. (Not that they’d’ve shown up.) And he’d have been back on the streets bothering another woman the moment his bribe went through to the arresting officer.

Him? He broke the fuckers legs and smashed his skull open against a brick wall, before walking the poor woman to the local clinic and then back home.

And after helping that first woman, well he couldn’t stop himself from helping anyone else who needed it. (It was only fair.)

No matter how many bodies he left in the gutter. (It really is only fair.)

Of course the gangs took exception to all of the killing even if the cops didn’t and it was just the scum of their various groups rather than anyone important. They still had to protect their street cred after all. (Not that it’s much good when you’re dead.)

This, this was when people realized he’d been playing nice.

Seven days, sixty-two bodies, and three dead gangs and they were all but begging him to start playing nice once more. (I politely refused.)

That was when the crazies tried taking over.

Every gang worth a damn had a Deviant, and given how many Deviants had no place else to go, the gangs of the Way had more Deviants than usual. And at the tippy-top of these Deviant gangs were the Bosses.

Crime lords who’d spent years taking over the rest of the city while idly bickering over the Way, since it was the one part of the city where crime was in the very blood of the streets and getting a foothold there was as easy as handing over a fist full of bills. At least until there was more blood than those bills could wipe away.

And so the gangs started sending Masks after him, people with body counts and rap sheets so vicious and vile that they’d terrify anyone who saw them. (Unless you were twice as vicious as them.)

For most of these gangs he found leaving their hired Mask’s head gift wrapped on their Boss’s doorstep was enough of an indicator that they should leave the Way to whoever wanted it.

The rest however kept sending people after him.

And he kept sending them back. (With a quick detour to the morgue of course.)

This was the point Vigilance noticed him.

Vigilance was the city’s hero, the man who stood against the tide of violence and crime that the city spat out on a daily basis. The man who for years waged a one man war on the criminal underground, before eventually inspiring a number of heroes to fight alongside him as his age began to creep up on him.

The old hero acknowledged that he had done good, that he had protected the innocent from the insane. And for a moment, just a moment, he thought maybe, just maybe they could make things work…

But, but, the old hero wanted him to change. Believed that he was too violent, too dangerous, too unstable despite wanting to make the Way a better place for all of the poor bastards living in that hell hole only they would call home.

He refused, knowing that not everyone was redeemable, that there were some monsters that needed to be put down for the good of all. Mad dogs that wouldn’t hesitate to rip the throat out of a newborn babe if they thought they could profit.

The old hero foolishly thought he was talking about himself, told him it wasn’t too late, that he wasn’t too far gone yet, that if learned to control himself he could still become a ‘good man’.

…

Well, like he said, he wasn’t a good man, and he didn’t lie about that.

Their exchange ended with fists, blood, broken bones, and broken bonds.

Vigilance never stepped foot in the Way again.

Not even to warn him about the kill warrant the corrupt government was putting on his head, so that they could start getting their kickbacks from the crime of the Way again.

This brought a whole new wave of crazies, hunters, and what have you after him. A wave notably more trained than the Masks native to the hell he called home, and dangerous in a whole new way.

Unfortunately for them, they lacked the vicious stubborn grit that made its way into the blood, body, and soul of even those civilians crazy enough to call it home.

A grit that was the only thing keeping him alive some days.

It didn’t take him long to explain to the various corrupt politicians why they should think about receding that kill warrant on him. (Hell, it wasn’t even that hard, just had to leave a few… presents in their beds for them.)

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Undetected.

At night.

While they slept in said beds, without realizing he’d been there until they woke up to the face of one of his bounty hunters staring at them with cold dead eyes. (Well, actually it was probably the holographic trading cards I left staring at them.)

He was very proud when he found out he’d gotten his own trading card. Showed it off to everyone he knew, and bought a dozen of them off the internet despite not actually playing the game they’re for.

Still, by the end his problem of bounty hunters trying to kill him had largely been sorted out and settled. Though that did little to slow the number of criminals still trying to kill him, (because for some reason everyone thinks that just because I’m not a Deviant that means I’m not a real threat.)

Honestly, at this point he was pretty sure the token effort to kill him was an attempt by the higher ups to get lucky with one of their grunts lucking out and offing him for good. (Who knows maybe death thirty-seven will actually stick this time?)

Regardless, for five years this was his life. A life of blood, violence, and vengeance with rare commercial breaks of watching life and hope slowly return to the Sinners walking the streets of the Way.

It may not have been the best life, but it was his and he was content with it.

At least until he found a specific someone in need of help. (Whether they realized it or not.)

Which was of course followed by someone blowing up his house while he was still dealing with that mess. (Because that’s just my fucking luck!)

--- Mercer ---

He hit the ground with a heavy thud, and felt his consciousness fading in and out as he tried to hold on.

In his peripheral he noticed a group of men picking another body off the floor and dragging them into the back of a white van.

(Fuck that.) He groaned, pushing himself off the ground and forcing himself onto his feet.

He barely made it two stumbling steps before realizing that his shoulder was too messed up to let him break someone’s face.

Growling he grabbed his shoulder and forced it back into socket, something that he knew would fuck him up in the long run but keep him going until he could find the missing girl and then a healer to actually fix him.

Turning his attention back to the now moving van he raised his hand and shot his grappler at it, or rather he would have if the thing hadn’t been damaged in the explosion.

“Mother fucker!” He cursed the machine, ripping it off and throwing it on the ground as it spat out its cables in every direction.

(No jacket, no guns, no helmet, fucked up body, and now no fucking grappling.) He saved lives in worse condition, but he just knew Betty was going to rip him a new one for going out like this.

He pushed through the pain and chased after the car on foot, ignoring the way his body screamed with every step as he told it to (shut the fuck up and suck it up, there’s someone in danger!)

Turning on a street he caught sight of someone being held up at gunpoint despite the fact that there’d been an explosion not even a block over. (Got to fucking love Sinner’s way.)

Quickly noting which street the van turned down, he rushed the mugger before tackling them to the ground, making sure to grab them by their gun arm first to keep them from shooting the victim. A move that proved necessary when the mugger pulled the trigger and shot the wall as they hit the ground in a tangle of limbs.

“Yeah, don’t have time for you, but I’m stealing your gun.” He told the mugger as he ripped said gun out of the man’s hand before standing up and stomping the criminal's skull once.

Moving once more he idle heard the victim -a working girl, named Sarah- tell him “Thanks Mercer!” as he continued down the alley in hopes of catching up with the van.

Checking the gun as he ran, he pulled out the magazine and did a quick count before nodding to himself. (Fourteen bullets, going to have to make it work.) Given how his preferred guns were a pair of six shooters, it’d be easy.

Stepping onto the street he briefly considered whether it was worth it, before firing a single shot at the van’s tires as it sped past him, knowing that a single shot would barely register in the Way unless the tires- (Nope they’re armored.)

Shaking his head he watched the car make another turn, likely in an attempt to throw off any potential pursuers (such as me) before rushing another one of the alleys he’d grown up in.

“Where you off to in such a hurry?” Frank, a homeless guy he knew, asked upon seeing him.

“Kidnapping!” He threw back as he rushed past.

“Break their legs!” Frank told him.

“Planning on it!” Well technically he was planning on shooting them (but semantics.)

Stepping out of the alley he couldn’t help but curse as he realized the van must’ve passed or taken a different turn. “Fucking hell!”

Glancing around as he decided what to do he noticed a blind kid walking by on the other side of the street while holding onto a necklace glowing through their fingers

“Daredevil, speeding van, which way?” He called out.

The blind kid seemed to pause for a moment, the glow from his hand growing brighter for a minute before he pointed in a specific direction. “North East, looks like they’re turning west though.”

“Thanks.” He nodded, knowing it was fifty-fifty on if the kid’s magic would catch it.

“I’m adding this to your tab by the way!” The (money grubbing) teen told him as he started running north in an attempt to catch up to the van.

(North, north, who works North? Uh, that’s the Twin’s territory, but they don’t deal in people… Not after I helped them kill their father anyway.) Turning down another alley he continued to go down the list of people who could be responsible for this. (Crime family? No, if they knew where I lived they’d salt and burn the whole block, not just my apartment. So, who does that leave?)

Shaking his head, he stepped out onto the street and spotted the van he’d been chasing parked in front of one of the Way’s numerous abandoned (or at the very least run down) buildings.

(Right, need to be smart, but I need to be fast too since she might be an active danger.) Which wasn’t something he was willing to risk at the moment. “Fuck it. I’ve got no idea where she is in the building anyway.”

Running up to the building’s front door he checked to see if it was locked, before stepping back and kicking the door hard enough to break it.

“Fuck!” He cursed remembering his own injuries, as the impact worsened something in his leg.

“Hey who are-” A bullet cut the guard’s response off and told the building, (Here’s Mercer!)

Walking through the building’s halls, he found most of the rooms were still in disuse, though there were also a number of guards more than what could’ve fit in the van outside. (And they’re at least semi-professional given the armor and gear they’re packing.)

A guard rushed out of one of the doors he’d yet to check, gun half raised before a fist to the face half lowered it, and a hand slamming the guard’s skull into the wall made them drop it on the third slam.

Hearing something shift from his right he stepped back through one of the open doors just in time to avoid a flurry of bullets passing by.

Back against the wall, he held his breath waiting as a faint shuffling from down the hall grew closer as he slid towards the ground. (Not proper assassins given how loud they’re moving. Hell, I can hear them over the tinnitus from all the gunfire.)

When the person the steps belonged to was just outside the door he rolled around the corner and shot upwards catching two guards with five bullets. All without return fire, seeing as they’d been aiming for the body/head of someone standing a few meters away rather than laying on the ground so close to them.

(Armor is blocking half my shots.) He grimaced upon seeing how many shots it took to take these guys down. (Can not get my girls back soon enough. Face armor does jack shit against those babies.)

Rolling his shoulders he continued through the building before making his way up to the second floor, where he found a silver eyed teen ripping a man’s throat out with her teeth, while surrounded by half a dozen dead. “I already told you to fuck off!”