Reckoning and Responsibility

"We're saved!" the hostage shouted, spotting the cloaked figure descend from the skylight. "It's the Reckoning!"

The costumed vigilante did a quick survey of the scene, then turned to the villain, a look of disgust on his face. "It's over, Strychnine!" he snarled.

The villain laughed, pushed a button, and two cage doors opened ion the wall, revealing the arrival of two rodents of extremely unusual size (and not small). They had been brought to eat the hostages alive; the hostages whose clothes were coated in the villain's namesake substance, which would (of course) kill them. It was a circle of death that pleased the psychopath, but alas (for him) the vigilante took out the two rodents with a gravitic pulse microgrenade and a quick thrust of his rapiers.

"En garde!" Strychnine shouted, and he hurled a trademark exploding dead rat grenade at the hooded figure. In a smooth, swift motion, the Reckoning batted it aside with one rapier, then caught Strychnine in his shoulder with the other. The paralytic on the swordpoint caused the villain to seize up, and the Reckoning finished him with an elbow strike to the top of the head.

"Lovely. A consummation devoutly to be wished," Strychnine purred as he collapsed to the ground, a sick smile on his twisted face.

"Easy folks," the Reckoning said, addressing the hostages while he handcuffed the villain. "Any unnecessary motion could loose the poison, and you might breathe it in. HASMAT team will be here soon and we'll get it off--"

"Aren't you going to kill him?" one of the hostages, a man in fine business attire, asked.

The Reckoning paused in mid-sentence. "Say WHAT?" he asked.

"This is the third time you've captured the guy and he keeps breaking out." the hostage said. "Each time he breaks out, he kills people. If he breaks free and kills one more time, it's all your fault."

"How do you figure that?" the Reckoning said.

"He's a killer. A fricking killer! He made Marty do his "Strychnine dance of death" for laughs." the hostage snarled, nodding toward the dead body of another hostage. "I figure it's your fault when you could have killed him when you had the chance!"

"And the police could kill him too. Furthermore, he ain't bulletproof. He announces his crimes in advance, he ain't hard to find. If I'm at fault, so's every able-bodied person in Millennium who can fire a gun and listen to a police scanner."

"But that's your JOB!" the hostage argued.

The vigilante's posture straightened, and he placed his hands on his hips. "My job?" he asked incredulously."I'm a citizen volunteer. Yes, I take it very seriously, but just because I do, just because I wear a costume, it gives me some special sanction? Or just because I ignore some of society's rules regarding vigilante justice. I have carte blanche to ignore the ones about murder too? When the state convicts this scumbag of a capital crime and appoints me to flip the switch, then I get to play executioner."

"You're gutless!" the businessman shouted.

"You're welcome," the Reckoning said, his voice dripping with irony. "I saved your life, asshat. If you think it's gutless to leave this scumbag alive, grow some balls and do the job yourself."

The sound of sirens could be heard blaring across Westside, closing in on their location. The Reckoning was still a fugitive from justice, owing to the beating he laid down on those three cops last year, the ones who'd been in VIPER's pay. Somewhat disgusted, the young vigilante activated a heat jet and glided through the skylight, back into the darkness from which he'd come.