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MidReal Story
Shadows of Justice
Anonymous
May 11
Scenario:Nighttime. Washington, DC. Black Americans in all-black combat clothing with no helmets on engage gang members. Their faces are intense. People take cover behind cars and buildings. Fires and explosions. There are casualties on both sides. The Washington Monument is in the background. Modern.
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The sound of the helicopter blades cut through the air as we flew over Washington, DC.
The city was dark and quiet, but I knew that wouldn’t last long.
Gang violence had been on the rise for years, and the government was doing nothing to stop it.
In fact, they were probably making it worse by turning a blind eye to the corruption.
I sat in the back of the chopper with my team, all of us dressed in black combat gear.
We were a group of vigilantes who had taken it upon ourselves to clean up the streets when the police couldn’t or wouldn’t do their jobs.
We’d been at this for a few years now, and we’d become pretty good at it.
We’d taken down some of the most powerful gangs in the city, but there was one that continued to elude us.
They were smart and wellorganized, and they had a lot of money and power behind them.
But tonight, we were going to take them down once and for all.
I turned to my secondincommand, Elena “Raven” Cortez, who was sitting next to me.
She was the deadliest sniper I’d ever met, and I trusted her with my life.
“Give me a status report,” I said quietly.
“Weapons are loaded and ready for action,” Elena said in a stoic tone.
She had an athletic build and piercing blue eyes, which made her look even more intimidating when she was focused.
I nodded and turned to the other member of our team, Marcus “Viper” Lee.
He was our tech guy and worked closely with Elena on most missions.
“Comms are working perfectly,” Marcus said with a mischievous grin before pulling out a small tablet to doublecheck.
He was short and wiry, but he was one of the most intelligent and resourceful people I’d ever known.
“Good,” I said as I pulled out my own gun and checked the safety.
“Get ready to breach.”
We were almost there, and it was time to get down to business.
We had our masks on as we jumped out of the helicopter and made our way to the roof of the building we were going to infiltrate.
The city was still dark and quiet, but I knew that wouldn’t last much longer.
We had to move quickly if we wanted to get in and out without being detected.
Luckily for us, we were experts at moving quickly in situations like this.
I motioned for my team to take their positions as we scoped out the warehouse below us.
According to our intel, this particular stronghold belonged to the Apex Gang.
They were one of the most ruthless gangs in the city, and they’d been on our radar for a long time.
They were involved in pretty much every type of crime imaginable, from drug trafficking to human smuggling, and they had a lot of blood on their hands.
Their leader was a man known as Nathanial “The Bull” McCallister, a name that he’d earned long before he started running the gang.
He was tall, burly, and more than capable of living up to the nickname.
He was also a sadistic bastard who got off on torturing his victims before killing them, which was why I was itching for this mission to start.
I wanted nothing more than for this son of a bitch to pay for everything he’d done, but I knew we had to be smart about it if we wanted to take him down for good.
I turned back to Elena, who was lined up directly across from me on the other side of the roof with her sniper rifle at the ready.
She gave me a nod, and I knew she was ready for action too.
It was time to do this thing.
I gave the signal for Marcus to hack into the security system so we could get inside without being detected, and we were off, moving quickly and silently through the building with our weapons at the ready.
The weight of our objective bore down on us as we advanced toward the stronghold, our boots stomping out a methodic rhythm as we navigated in the dark .
“Raven, do you have eyes on target?”
I kept my voice low and even as I spoke to Elena through our comms—we’d opted not to use communication devices for this mission to maintain our stealth, instead relying on our years of experience working together to be as efficient as possible.
We’d been training for this for weeks, and we were all more than prepared for what was to come tonight—because tonight, we were going after The Bull and his Apex Gang, and I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he realized that the tables had finally turned on him after everything he’d done over the years.
Elena’s voice crackled back over the sound system, her tone stoic and deadly accurate as she spoke into her headset microphone, her gaze unwavering as she peered through her scope from her position high above us on the roof across from me.
I could see her crouched down in the darkness, her athletic build taut with anticipation as she scanned the area below for any sign of movement.
“Negative,” she said quietly.
“The perimeter is clear.We’re good to go.”
I turned to Marcus and motioned for him to lead the way as we made our way down the stairs toward the entrance of the warehouse at the same time that Elena adjusted her position on the roof, her gaze locked onto the building as she waited for our signal to take out any enemy combatants who dared to stand in our way.
We moved quickly and silently as we breached the front door and entered the warehouse with our guns drawn, our weapons glinting in the dim lighting as we descended upon our unsuspecting prey like hungry wolves in the night.
The Bull’s men were busy loading crates onto trucks, completely unaware that their lives were about to come to a screeching halt in a matter of moments.
Our goal tonight was simple: gather enough evidence within these walls to put The Bull away for good and finally bring an end to his criminal empire once and for all.
I’d been waiting for this moment for what felt like an eternity, and I was more than ready to make The Bull pay for everything he’d done—or die trying.
As we crept through the shadows and trained our weapons on our targets, I couldn’t help but notice how eerily silent it was in the warehouse.
It was the calm before the storm—the eye of the hurricane—and something told me that it wouldn’t be long before all hell broke loose inside these walls.
I glanced over at Elena and Marcus and gave them both a curt nod before I turned back toward our target and raised my gun in preparation for the battle that was about to begin.
The time was now to make The Bull pay, and I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he realized that there was no one who was going to save him from our wrath this time.
It was as if everything we’d been through—the loss of my brother, the injury of that poor little girl, all the bloodshed and violence—had built up inside me until I felt as if I was about to burst with rage and fury from all the pain and suffering The Bull had caused.
I needed to make him pay—and tonight I was going to do just that.
As we inched closer to The Bull’s stronghold, my focus remained razor-sharp as I kept my eyes locked on my target and moved with purpose toward the warehouse where he was holed up inside with his men, completely oblivious to the fact that we were about to crash his party and put an end to his reign of terror once and for all.
My body was humming with anticipation—and rage—as I tried to keep my emotions in check and maintain control over my rapidly beating heart in order to keep my cover as we crept closer and closer toward our objective in order to take out The Bull and his men without raising any alarms or alerting them to our presence until it was too late.
We’d been training for this moment since we first came together as a team, but nothing could have prepared me—or any of us—for what was about to happen when we finally came face-to-face with The Bull once and for all.
The Bull was going down tonight—and nothing was going to stand in our way…or so I thought until the explosion went off, forcing me to hit the ground as chunks of debris rained down from the ceiling above, knocking me off my feet and sending me crashing to the ground in a tangled heap as I struggled to catch my breath amid the chaos that had erupted all around me in seconds.
I couldn’t hear—or see—anything through the smoke, my vision was still swimming as I tried to get my bearings amid the chaos that had erupted around us without any warning, leaving me disoriented as I called out to my team, praying that they were still alive at my feet, even though I knew that it would be only seconds before The Bull’s men descended upon us to finish what they’d started with that explosion—or worse.
