Matt Murdock stood behind a tall pane of glass. His eyes hovered above the Great City of New York.
The bright street lights, the people walking, the cars moving… the tall buildings rising above one another to reach the sky itself.
Yet, he stood at the top. Staring down below at them all. All the rats, all the lizards… all that called themselves human.
Dressed in black trousers, a white shirt, a black tie, and a coat… the Kingpin of New York furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.
Something was terribly wrong.
The abnormality was small at first, but it rose rapidly, and Kingpin could not find its source.
'Just how… what is happening to my city… without my permission.'
In just a week… a sole week… the drug market had crashed. There was a new drug on the streets, one that the druggies called Lollollolpop.
Lollipop-shaped. Delicious to taste and blissful to experience. A completely new drug on the market. A new substance itself.
And yet… Matt had not been able to get his hands on a sample of the drug or even a peddler supplying it.
A rumor claimed the drug was the wine the devils drank, brewed somewhere beneath the city.
Men who tasted it once spent everything they owned for another piece.
Others swore they had seen addicts clawing through concrete drains, convinced the underground itself was calling them.
His fingers slowly tapped against the glass.
"An invisible hand..." he murmured.
"Interesting."
Any fool could create a new drug.
Very few could replace an entire distribution network in a single week.
Whoever this person was... they were not merely selling a product.
They were rewriting the underground.
A sudden whisper entered his ear at that moment.
"Your Highness. The Maggia is requesting a Sit Down. All the families and all the gangs will be present. They have answered."
The Kingpin's eyes narrowed. His gaze landed on the ground below. The humans looked like little rats scurrying around.
Releasing a small sigh, he nodded.
"Very well. The call has been heard, relay the message. The Sit Down is allowed. May the underground come together."
The shadow in the darkness nodded and without making a single sound, disappeared back into the abyss it had crawled out of.
Matt continued staring into the distance. His gaze landed upon the New York skyline and slowly but surely, his lips curled similar to the horizon.
"Heh…"
He removed a pair of glasses from his coat, perching them upon his nose.
"Show yourself."
A few steps behind the Kingpin, a tiny white lizard lazily clung to the wall.
Its tongue flicked once as it blinked nonchalantly.
Ms. Speepee had successfully infiltrated the Kingpin's office.
~
Within the hour, black sedans began weaving through the streets of New York. The police had no clue nor did any of the higher-ups.
It was a last-minute meeting of absolute secrecy where the entire underground was coming together.
One after another...Figures stepped inside a dimly lit hall. Old men draped in expensive suits. Tattooed giants guarding them.
Representatives of every major criminal family. Every syndicate… and every gang worth acknowledging.
A circular table occupied the very centre.
At the head of the seat sat the Kingpin.
He remained motionless. His eyes behind his glasses hid any trace of emotion.
Matt was quiet. Terribly so… but the room around him…? Not as much as him.
One accused the other as if Lucifer himself had descended spreading his unholy influence.
"My doing? My routes vanished before yours."
"The East Side belongs to my family! Your men crossed the line!"
"They weren't my men."
"Liar!"
Every man present believed another had made the first move.
Matt was listening. Giving them all the opportunity to express themselves. His fingers rhythmically tapped the armrest.
The smart ones, the experienced ones… were quiet. Staring at the young Kingpin, waiting for him to speak… the room however was in chaos.
What else could one expect from the barbaric underworld? Elegance?
Not every rat and lizard from the streets had that temperament. It was something built through loss and understanding of the system.
By the end, every mafia is a business.
And they were businessmen first.
Cutthroat, shrewd businessmen who would readily cut throats to buy some bread.
"...Enough."
The single word cut through the room sharper than any blade and the room instantly defeaned. Every eye turned to the source of the sound.
The Kingpin.
The entire room was silent, each observing Matt Murdock. He leaned forward slightly. His voice was soft as he spoke, almost a whisper.
"It was not any one of you."
Confusion spread throughout the dimly lit hall as he glanced at each party"
"It wasn't the Maggia. No not the Russians. Not the Triads nor any family here."
His voice remained frighteningly composed.
"A new player has entered our city. A devil maybe…. and this player has rewritten the distribution of an entire market... Drugs do not move themselves… someone recruited distributors, someone established supply… someone financed production and someone protected transportation without any of us noticing. My question is… how? Under our noses. We haven't become so blind that we can not see from our high towers. Is it the government? But we would have known if it were… they have never meddled before… why would they when they profit from us. Is it Israel? Illuminati? A different top secret organisation? However even then… we would know. So how?"
No one spoke.
Even the loudest among them found themselves unable to refute those words.
Matt slowly interlocked his fingers.
"For the first time in the history of New York, it has produced a ghost."
A tiny white lizard crawled upside down across the ceiling. Its round little eyes stared directly at the gathering below.
Its tongue flicked once.
Ms. Speepee listened very carefully.
After all...
The boss loved gossip.
"My sources however tell me… although probably not very credible. A pimp named Bob… that we have at least learned the name of this foreign gang if not a schizophrenic dream of this man. They call themselves… The White Devils."