Archive for November 17th, 2011

#16 – Cobra

Jason To is the only good cop left in a city filled with bad cops.

It all started when Johnny Law came to town. Up to that point, the Triads had been more than happy to keep a low profile and to simply avoid the police as much as possible. “Too much hassle, not enough money” they used to day. Johnny Law didn’t believe in keeping a low profile, or in keeping appearances. He also didn’t care much for the law. Once he obtained control of the drug trade, he began a very public and bloody war against the police. Family’s were slaughtered and displayed on the streets; officers were taken out of their patrol cars and beaten senseless in the best of cases. In the worst of cases, they were maimed or disfigured.

Cops and detectives began quitting left and right. And the people that was coming in and replacing them were clearly already in Johnny Law’s pocket. He had crippled them, humiliated them and now pretended to turn them into their servants. But they were still people inside the department who believed in the letter of the law. People like Jason To and his partner Lei Wu. Together, they brought together every clean cop left in the force and formulated a slow but safe plan to put Law and his goons behind bars.

It took them months of planning and preparing, finding just the right opportunity, until it finally presented itself. And it would have worked. The drugs were there, Johnny Law and his people were there, the Czech smugglers were there. However, Law’s crooked cops were there too. They had all been warned of their plan by one of their own. A rookie cop who’s daughter had been killed in the slaughters, and had sold his brothers in arms under the promise that his family would not be harmed any further. Law thanked the rookie’s gesture with a bullet to the head. The rest of the cops were also mowed down. They were made to look by Law’s police as if they’d been the ones behind the drug smuggling, their names and reputations forever tarnished, as if death was not enough.

The only reason To survived was because he was protected of most of the bullets meant for him by his partner, Detective Wu. In his dreams he can still see him, dancing that epileptic death dance caused by the shrapnel entering your body. He woke up in a body bag, only half an hour after the massacre, while they were carrying them to the morgue. He managed to escape without being detected, but didn’t manage to make it very far. His wounds were still fatal. He was gonna die either way.

Fate decided to intervene that day and save To’s life in the form of a street bum who found him out lying on the streets and decided to help him. In a different life, he had been Li Fang, a brilliant surgeon who lost all will to live after his wife was killed during a gang shooting. He cared for To and managed to hide him until he recovered. But it didn’t matter that the bum had saved Jason’s life, the man who had been Jason To had died that night with the rest of his brothers. He felt cold and empty inside, and there was now a rage boiling in his gut that he couldn’t calm down no matter how much he tried.

It was in that moment that the creature who had once been Jason To renounced to everything he had once believed in: He renounced happiness, camaraderie, justice and mercy. If he was to bring Johnny Law and his corrupt police department down, he would have to renounce all of these things, for these things meant nothing o Johnny. He operated above them, and simply could not touch him. This creature stalks and continues stalking the lonely allies and seedy corners of the city. It is in every shadow, coming when least expected, guns a ‘blazing, its manic laugh chilling crooks and lowlifes to their core. It enjoys playing with them, especially Law’s little cops. It enjoys frightening them, chasing them and marking them, sending them back to Law so that he can know that it is out there and it will not rest. It wants Law to know that he created it, and that it will one day work his way up to him. And it will enjoy the journey.

Fang continues to be by his side, acting as his conscience and trying to bring out what little’s left of Jason To in order to contain the raging fury of the creature. But Jason To has lost all will to live. He’s a broken shell of a man. And the creature, Cobra, is ruthless, venomous and angry enough to continue living through all the pain and disappointment until he’s shed the blood of everyone it’s deemed guilty.