NOVEL NEXT Vol.11, Ch.354 – A Police Story
“Suspect is on foot, traveling down Lai Chi Kok Road! Think you can get to him before he makes it to the station, Lau?”
“Do you have to ask, Jiro? Not like the guys here are hindering me anymore.”
Lau relaxed from his fighting stance. Only his hair was a mess, making him a moderately well-dressed man that decided to leap through a few hoops on the way to work. But a quick look around the room spoke of the reason for his excitement. Furniture was upturned and men were sprawled on the ground. They would be unconscious for a while, long enough for another team to sweep in. Right now, his priority was slowly making his escape.
Lau tapped his headset and immediately headed toward the balcony, where a landscape of high-rise buildings met his gaze. Power had been shut off to the building and the stairs were blocked. It would take most people too long to descend twenty floors due to the barricades, but Lau was not one of them.
He quickly eyed several ledges that were evenly spaced downward, and without a moment of hesitation, he jumped off the balcony and caught one. Like a monkey, he dropped from one to the other, scaling several floors in the span of a minute.
The pattern of the building changed after ten floors, but Lau simply swung over and landed gently upon a structure jutting out of the side. A series of scaffolding was fortunately present, allowing him to hop and swing his way downward like a child on a playground structure.
Eventually, he made it to the ground, not even pausing to smirk at how it took him only minutes to descend over 100 meters.
“Very nice maneuvering there, Lau. If only you could shoot webs or something, you’d be Hong Kong’s resident web crawler!”
“C’mon, enough of the B movie references. I’m here to do my job. Where’s our guy at right now?”
“Took a right off a side street, passing by the Dragon Centre Mall. You can cut him off by going through the street markets.”
Lau’s feet took off, carrying him past the dingy collection of hand carts, pop-up tents, and people hawking their wares. Lau’s gaze avoided them as there was never anything good that came from cheaply-made imitations.
Squeezing himself through a tight alley, he was forced to leap over various short walls in his way, but his parkour skills made such a feat as easy as skipping hopscotch. His body tumbled through the urban jungle without missing a single beat, and not long after, his path opened into a wide cross street.
He looked to his left, seeing a man in the distance approaching. But as their eyes met, the other person’s expression fell into a panic. He skidded for a bit before turning around and redoubling his efforts.
Lau smiled and cracked his knuckles, grateful that he had such a clear view on this street. If it were rush hour, there would be so many people packed that he would have trouble filtering through them all. This was a city of opportunities, but only if one knew how to find them. But a sign as clear as this could only be divine providence.
Lau dashed forward. The thicket of people on the streets slowed down the target in question as he bumped and pushed others aside. Meanwhile, Lau swayed and slithered past those same onlookers, moving like water through the cracks.
He reached out and grabbed the man by the collar, and just like that, the chase ended. However, the man wasn’t ready to give up yet, swirling around and taking a swing at Lau. Seeing this, Lau quickly deflected the punch with a well-timed push to the elbow, causing the man to overturn and spin out of control. The crowd had backed up from the ordeal, converting a conspicuous gap in the sidewalk into a fighting arena.
The man followed up with several kicks that Lau simply brushed off, before grabbing his foot and rotating it. The man’s body spun in the air before landing with a splat on the concrete. A quick knee to the back and the click of a pair of shiny cuffs later, the man was left flailing helplessly.
“Suspect apprehended, Jiro. Looks like I won the bet.”
“That you did… And I was waiting so patiently at the station for him to arrive too… Dinner and drinks are on me then.”
Lau bent down and looked at the man he caught in the eye. Giving him a light slap on the cheek, Lau brandished a smile.
“You hear that? I’m in a good mood today, so I won’t be roughing you up. Aren’t you lucky that I’m a nice cop?”
Picking the man up to his feet, Lau prodded him forward to walk to the nearest station.
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The clink of ice sounded in glasses as it melted. Dim lights flickered, and the melody of an automatic piano played in the background. It was a nice atmosphere to end the workday.
“What will it be, gents?” A barkeeper approached two men at the counter.
“Scotch on the rocks.”
“An Old Fashioned, with an extra twist of citrus.”
This was their favorite place to unwind after a tough job. Particularly for this one, catching the head of a money laundering business had culminated into a standoff inside of an apartment complex. With the place barricaded and difficult to enter, there was literally only one option – infiltrate by force.
“You really did a number on them, Lau,” Jiro teased as he took a swig of his scotch. His longer hair and glasses made him look less tough, but anyone that knew him would laugh nervously at the thought of trying to strong arm him. His nice attire and trenchcoat made him seem docile, but there were merely hiding a lion underneath.
“Had no choice. Not like a little bit of property damage would matter when it was all bought with dirty funds. It was their fault for putting stuff in my path to obstruct the law.”
Lau turned the orange peel in his drink around, letting it soak up more zest before taking a sip. The tanginess lingered on his tongue before the rich tones of whiskey took over. It left a warmth in his stomach that felt nice. He stretched his back and sighed, feeling glad to be limber and young.
“Don’t relax just yet. One job down, and another one pops up right away.”
A folder slid toward Lau, which he languidly opened. Within it, a few pictures of a blurred figure crashing through areas with a bag slung across his shoulder caught his attention. Reports of small-time heists of jewelry shops and banks were in a stack behind them. At first, Lau was skeptical, but there was no other evidence of more than one perpetrator.
“What the hell? Who goes around pulling off the lone thief trope in this day? This has got to be a stunt.”
“That’s not the funniest part. You missed the card.”
Sure enough, there was a business card of sorts within the pictures.
“The heck? This guy trying to pull a-”
“Modern day Arsene apparently. He’s a slippery one for a normal squad of beat cops to be tripped up all ten encounters against him. I hear he’s quite gifted when it comes to martial arts.”
That was all Lau needed to hear to pique his interest. He slowly cracked his knuckles, thinking that he had been missing a good fight. Being a cop was his chance to use his abilities like the Hong Kong action stars Wackie Chun and Bet Ri.
“Alright, when’s the next one?”
Jiro merely gave him a smile.
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It was a busy night as always. Hong Kong was a city that never truly slept but merely napped for moments. The lull of people on the streets made it obvious when the thief would strike next. The bright glow of police lights around a skyscraper made the normal flow of people steer clear, like a stage was being set up. This was the site of Mizuho Bank, along the harbor. It was a conspicuous area with many escape routes to cover, even with preparations in place.
Of course, it was all according to plan, just like the other ten times it happened.
Lau and Jiro looked up and caught the sight of a dark figure rappelling down the building, swift like he was jogging down the side while ignoring gravity. All at once, the police panicked as they hadn’t expected for him to arrive from above as the vaults were underground.
“Move out! Let’s go! Let’s go!”
The thief leapt and swung right into a window, making a loud crash as he tumbled into some office floor forty stories above. Police swarmed the building and up the stairs to block him off. However, a forty-story ascent was a bit much to ask for some people.
“Damn it, why is he making them take the stairs? Cutting the power out each and every freaking time!”
“I think that’s the purpose, Lau. To wear us down. He merely has to go down, which offers the high ground.”
Lau and Jiro were on the ground floor, letting the others go ahead for the time being. It was likely that the thief would glide past them anyways and make it to the vault. After encumbering himself with a load of cash, it would be best to strike at that point.
Forty floors above, the sound of mayhem rippled through the offices. Policemen were thrown through cubicles and crashed into desks all around. The mysterious thief seemed to be superhuman as a swift punch or kick sent people across the room.
Even SWAT team members had little luck as their shields caved in and were ripped from their hands. The thief picked one up and swirled it around like a fancy sign twirler, smacking everyone in the vicinity with it. A few men with guns took some well-aimed shots, but the stolen shield merely batted the bullets away.
The thief picked up various objects – mugs, stationary, and the like – and with a single throw, it pegged the shooters in the head and knocked them out as well.
Clearing out the immediate group, the thief chuckled before finding the stairway. And with a leap, he tucked the board under his feet and sailed down the stairs. With a swift kick, it made a U-turn at the bottom of the flight and continued onward. Another group of policemen where on the way up, only to be met with the sight of a board rounding the stairway and crashing down onto them.
Like they were stairs themselves, the thief slid across the people and continued down the next flight, much to their chagrin.
“Catch me if you can!” he called out, having a blast.
Try as they might, the policemen found themselves in a bind. The tight confines of the stairway limited what they could do. One person tried to lift their shield up to block the thief’s path, but he merely jumped over it and skipped on by.
Others down below were informed of the ‘stair rider’, so a makeshift wall had been constructed to barricade his descent. However, a single punch blasted through it all, like the thief possessed the strength of a giant.
“How the hell do we stop this guy?! He’s a god damn monster!”
“Use the explosive charges!”
The cries of people getting smacked away and the futile suggestions to stop the thief over the walkie talkies made Jiro and Lau shake their heads. The target in question had obviously cultivated himself to an alarming degree.
“Well, guess it’s our turn, right?” Jiro nodded to Lau, who grinned.
“It’s been a while. Guess it’s time to let loose!”
A purple aura leaked from them. Suddenly, there was a difference in the air as others subconsciously backed away. Even though they could not see the change, an instinct flared that no normal weapon of mankind would be a match for these two.
“Jiro Kinkou and Lau Ki Young, heading off for active duty!”