The Trilogy™

*[citation needed ~~too lazy to citate lmaoooo~~]*

"Breach and clear!"

The doorknob was knocked off by the end of a shotgun, the door swiftly
kicked open in succession. Inside was standard for a raid; drug operation, even
in the middle of a deal with a few clientelle.

"You're going in. Hands up, on the ground."

The man at the door reluctantly obliged, dropping his tools, putting his
hands behind his head and laid down on the ground, the buyers following suit
shortly after. The SWATs stepped inside, cuffing each of them and shoving them
back outside into the van to be transferred to a holding cell until their
trial.

"Good job out there." One of the officers pat the back of the
SWAT wielding the shotgun. "Don't get too good though, otherwise FBI'll
come take you away from me." The man chuckled and stepped back towards the
van.

"Hey, if it means I get a pay rise, I'll take it. FBI doesn't do too
much else anyway, usually just a couple more crooks so you need a couple more
guys to make 'em back down." The two got back into the van, stowing away
their weapons and driving back to the station.

The next day a letter was on the desk of the shotgunner. He dug his finger
through the upper portion of the envelope, flipping out the paper and reading
it over.

'It is with great honor and delight that, given your recent work and
efficiency in the LAPD SWAT force, you are eligible to be promoted to a
position in the FBI task force. Mail this form back to sender with the box
below marked, and you will be formally transferred within two (2) days. You
must be at headquarters within seven (7) business days.
Thank you for your service.'

The man looked up, delighted. He quickly grabbed his pen, filled out the
paper and broke the news to his commissioner. The two exchanged handshakes and
the gunner began home, stuffing the letter into his mailbox and waiting at his
home, relaxing and packing his things for the move.

It had been a few weeks, the man quickly sunk in with the rest of the
crowd. He was strong, intimidating, efficient, and charismatic to his fellow
agents.

"Task Force Four, you're on duty! Situation concurrent, we need you to
move, now!" It was his call. He quickly grabbed his gear, jumped in one of
the few vans and pulled on his bulletproof vest, loaded his weapon and donned
his helmet. He was first out of the van and slowly approached the door, careful
to keep quiet. He counted to three on his fingers, then once again, knocked the
doorknob off, kicked in the door and pointed his weapon around to.. nothing.

A small rug was hastily thrown near the back of the room, failing to cover
a small wooden hatch. The team began towards it, slowly opened it and looked
down the proceeding ladder. He was first in, yet again. He took his time in
descent, glancing behind him at yet another door. He grabbed a screwdriver,
jammed it through the rather soft wood and peered inside. In front of him was
massive glasses, filled to the brim with some manner of disgusting liquid
within. He turned around to his now-descending comrades. "Another druggie."
He sneered, ready to kick the door down. It was weak and didn't need anything
else to break it down. Once again, he counted to three on his fingers then
busted the door down.

The man at the jars jumped and quickly turned around. "Hands in the
air, on the ground, don't make a move!" He cocked his shotgun as the man
shakily kneeled down in front. The gunner slowly stepped towards, cuffs out and
weapon behind him. Inches away, the man quickly jumped to his feet, pulled out
a pistol and shot the agent in his stomach, throwing the jars on top of him and
jumping behind the desk to fire more blind shots into the crowd of
visibly-expanding agents.

After a few minutes and another gunshot wound to an agent, the man was
apprehended and brought back to the van. The two wounded were brought up and
sent into ambulances, taken to the FBI's ICU wing.

The second wounded agent was out within a day, though on worker's
compensation in order to fully heal. The shotgunner, however, seemed to be
faring much worse. The substance within slowly began to fester along his
wounds, both scarring and discoloring them, seemingly shifting colors between
weeks, nights, even hours.

For three months this continued, the agent never ceasing his groaning of
pain, until one day, his bed was empty. His bedsheets were stained a dark teal,
a trail leading out of the building shifting between dark and murky colors of
blacks, greens, purples and browns. He was never found.

The Godfather suddenly awoke from his bed, breathing heavily and propping
himself up with his hands. He darted his eyes around, re-familiarizing himself
with the room around him, his office. His breathing slowly leveled as he leaned
back against his headboard, lightly holding his chest.

"Another one of those dreams.." He muttered to himself, quickly
swearing under his breath after his acknowledgement of what woke him up. He
looked over to the door, still shut and sighed in relief.

"Good. No one heard it. Don't want any of them thinking I'm 'weak' or
anything, some of those guys.." He quietly chuckles. "Just might be a
bit crazier than I am." He quietly breathed out, slipping back into sleep.

The man limped through alleys, it was just past midnight, and he was easily
under the cover of darkness. One arm clutching his wound, the other dangling by
his side as he crept along the streets. He was getting more hungry each passing
day with this wound, but the doctors wouldn’t give him a morsel extra, despite
his wishes and complaints. ‘Bad for his health’, they’d mutter to each other
upon any request for additional sustenance to his constantly growing hunger.

After hours of next to nothing he even began to search through dumpsters,
he peered through a window to check the time on a clock within another
building, it was drawing near to 1:30AM. His efforts remained fruitless as the
minutes dragged on, only finding rotted or rat-infested scraps left behind,
nothing safe for him to eat.

His wound began to sting, feeling like it was burning a hole into his side
even moreso than before, like someone had taken a blowtorch to it and was
constantly cranking up the heat. After a few short minutes he collapsed from
the pain and had to check on it, it blackened further, spreading to nearly his
entire torso, though not yet to his arms or legs. He groaned and tried to
stand, holding back screams of the pain it was bringing to him. His teeth were
locked together, his tongue pulled far back in his mouth so he wouldn’t have a
chance to bite it off on accident. However, his body could only manage so much
pain before simply blacking out, rotting in the back alleys.

He awoke after a very long sleep, it seemed to be dusk of the next day as
he stood back to his feet. He still hurt, everything hurt. The pain remained
excruciating for him as he tried to move around, but it was far more manageable
than the previous day. He looked down at his arms, slowly saturating away from
his normal, peach tone to the same coal-blacks that had been his chest. He felt
around to see what he had on him; a small handgun, some loose dollars, and the
blood that seeped into his pocket that his pants were unable to soak in, due to
how oversoaked they already had been. Fortunately for him, the gun and money
was in the opposite pocket, unaffected. He was still hungry, his mind aching
for anything to sustain his body for that much longer. He slipped behind a
restaurant, waited for the cook to throw out yesterday’s scraps and moved
inside, stowing away under a counter until he was preoccupied again.
Afterwards, he raided for as much food as he could, small cuts of cooked meat
that had gone cold, though not rotten, bits of cheese in the fridge and slices
of various breads. He couldn’t make himself too known, otherwise the cook would
know someone is or was in his kitchen.

He continued this behavior from building to building, slowly filling his
stomach to as close to the brim as he could manage. He looked back down, his
hands like an ashen gray, upper arms holding the same jet black as he imagined
they would become. He wondered once again what had been in those jars.

Come nightfall, he was on the outskirts of the city, nearly invisible under
the shroud of darkness along his newly night-colored skin. He took one last
look back, realizing that he’d be classified as a freak of nature, something to
be dissected by the government, not of this world. He’d be killed, tortured and
maimed in his current state. It was best for him to leave, and he moved out
into the empty woods nearby.

Hours of walking eventually met him with a wooden manor, miles out from
civilization. It was his one chance for any form of shelter for the night. He
knocked on the door, greeted by a spectre. The two were equally confused by the
other, and he was led inside, as the two began to speak of their own
experiences.

The Godfather jerked up again, it had been two days since the last time,
and he was progressively getting more and more irritated and fed up with the
rude awakenings. He swore under his breath again, once again checking his door
to ensure no one had heard him. He grumbled to himself and shut his eyes once
more, taking just over twenty minutes to drift back into his sleep.

The skies were dark and cloudy, the rain pouring down around him. He pulled
his hat down over his head to try and shield him further from the rain,
grumbling to himself.

"Helping run a castle was boring, anyway. I didn't wanna be there, it
was just something to pass the time." His scowl deepened, continuing down
the street. He was lying to himself, it was the only thing he had ever done, it
was the one thing he knew how to do right.

He glanced over to his side and chuckled watching two people bet something
on the street, a somewhat young girl cleaning out a man in his late thirties. "Sucker."

He stepped into a building and sat down at one of the tables, a man in an
apron walking to the table. "Looking for something?"

"Uh.. got any meat?"

"Sir, this is a butchery."

"I'll take whatever's cheap, rare."

"Whatever you say."

The man in the apron left, the one at the table glancing over at another
nearby table, watching a girl hack into her own slab of meat. "Careful
there." He mumbled to himself. "Might cut a thing or two, if you're
not careful."

"Already have, guy!"

He jumped, unaware she was listening, then began towards the bathroom.
"I need a break from all this-" He cut himself off, looking inside at
a somewhat young man puffing smoke outside the window.

The man turns around, "Got a problem?" He flips back around and
puffs another round of smoke out the window.

"What are you even smoking, you're just inhaling from a damn
pen."

"My own speciality, piss off if you're just gonna complain about
it."

The two exchange glowers, the first man exiting the bathroom and seeing his
meat on the table. He stuffs it in a bag and puts it in has jacket pocket,
exiting the butchery.

He continued down the street, muttering and thinking to himself, entering
other shops and continuing about his day, watching the rain further pour down
around him.

After a few hours, his hat, jacket and almost everything else had been
soaked like a sponge. He continued down the street, trying to save anything
left of his dry clothes from getting drenched, finally approaching a large
three-storied building. He looked inside the window, seeing a complete mess;
cobwebs littered the inside, chairs knocked over and tables far out of reach.
With a small flick out of a screwdriver he jammed it into the lock, opening it
with ease, then immediately bringing his undershirt over his mouth and nose,
coughing at the wave of dust and stale smells within.

"It'll do, I guess."

He began swiping away at the dilapidation of the first room inside,
cleaning a small couch off just enough to sleep on. He laid down and shut his
eyes for the night, ready to manage something with his new property in the
morning.

It quickly became midday, the parlor of the building finally becoming
presentable in some manner. It was spatious and clean, a full transformation
compared to what had existed beforehand. Leaning back into the couch after a
day of work felt fantastic to him, until he immediately realized there was
another two stories to clean, as well as everything else on his floor.

"What am I gonna even use this damn place for, anyway? Not like I
can-"

Gunshots began to break the moderate silence of the nearby roads. He jumped
outside, watching a few people in ski masks trying to rob a bank down the
street, only to be shut down as soon as they exited the large doors by awaiting
SWAT officers.

He scoffed, "Amateurs. Anywhere but there would've been a good
idea." He began on his way back inside, slowly growing a smile across his
face as he looked around the large parlor of the building. "Maybe I *can*
find some use for this place.." He scrambled around for any scraps of
remaining paper and extra writing tools and began to scribble down.

He stood outside the doors of the building, checking the time and glancing
up and down the street, waiting. He began to let the arrivals inside at 9:30,
waiting until just past ten before everyone had stepped inside. He followed the
last one in, locking the door behind him and stepping atop the large staircase
near the side of the room, looking down at the others from atop a balcony.

"I'd talk more, but I'd rather to just cut to the chase." His
voice became cool and charismatic, avoiding his previously bitter tone at all
costs. "You all have some skills that may be of use to me, and I'd like to
see if any of you would be up to the task."

A small handful began to open their mouth, just as he interrupted. "Of
course, there will be compensation for doing such." All but one then shut
their mouth, leaving a young, snow-haired girl in the back.

"And what do you want?"

The man atop the balcony smiled. "We're going to get rich, ladies and
gentlemen. You see criminals, muggers and crooks get brought down by the police
department or SWATs on the daily, I'm sure. This is different. You are all
specially chosen for your talents in one way or another, whether for guns
blazing or mind racing, I want each of you to help me in the greatest crime
spree the world's ever seen."

The small crowd glanced across the table at one another, many hesitating on
responding at all.

"I see you're skeptical. Let me make something a bit clearer - I know
the vast majority of you are either homeless, just scraping by, or hate your
meager existence as is. You want something more, you want to do something more.
I am offering just that. Riches beyond your wildest dreams, fame and infamy
beyond your most feverish imaginations. Perhaps that may change some of your
minds."

He watched as they slowly grew into agreement, finally settling on
remaining with him.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome home. It needs a bit of cleaning, but
it's better than nothing. Say hello to your new Godfather." He grinned,
figuring they wouldn't question anything in their newfound home and lifestyle.
They didn't. "Now, as much as I hate to damper the party.. This is the
only clean room in the entire building. We need to start cleaning the place
up."

The crowd groaned, but obliged. The new Godfather stepped backwards into a
room atop the stairs, looking around inside. It was somewhat large, the walls
were coated with an elegant wooden finish, and it seemed to be the only room in
the building not infested or run-down. He looked to the corner, seeing a small
cot to sleep on. Nothing much yet, but it'll do until some money comes flowing.
He stooped down and laid upon it, shutting his eyes with a wide grin.
"Maybe this place won't be so awful after all.."

The Godfather slowly arose in his bed, rubbing his hands on his face to
wake himself up. He smiled, finally, a pleasant dream. It seemed vivid, yet it
wasn't lucid. Maybe he just forgot something down in the past behind him,
though, it's not like it mattered much anyway. The past is past, only the now
and the future really matter. He got out of his bed and looked across his
balcony at many of his 'patrons' playing cards, the one exception being a
white-haired girl, her arms crossed bitterly in her chair. She was too good at
cards for the rest of them.

He smiled and stepped back inside his office, sitting down on the edge of
his bed and picking up and dropping bullion of gold within a sack, tapping his
leg with the clacks of metal.