I had been sitting at twenty-four thousand FP for a few days, a fact that drove me insane.
My progress in improving my proficiency using Dead Bone Pulse was moving slowly. Far slower than I was comfortable with.
I guessed that it was a matter of me lacking combat talent, I mean, I was just a regular joe back on Earth, well, my old Earth.
That was why I felt that the Hanma template was perfect. Beyond the fact that it'd pretty much make me a supersoldier right on purchase, the combat talent of those guys was ludicrous.
Hopefully, with that boost in talent, I'd have some more luck getting the most out of Dead Bone Pulse.
Anyway, I needed to get to work. I was close to coming to a conclusion on Shaw's offer, but I still wasnt sure yet. For the timebeing, I decided going for my old past time would be alright.
One of Fisk's men had given me a sort of map detailing all their criminal operations in New York.
In other words, I wouldn't be touching them.
Anyway, for whatever reason New York City was literally crawling with criminals to the point it was actually insane, so even without Fisk's operations there were still plenty of options for me to take on.
It was still 2011, and so the idea of a 'superhero' was still in its infancy. There weren't any street level heroes like Daredevil or the Punisher active yet. Matt Murdock was probably still in law school and Frank Castle would still be an active duty marine.
That got me thinking for a moment.
Would I still get fear points from scaring them before they became heroes?
Like, take Peter Parker for example, he would still be a snot nosed kid, it would be very very easy to make him cry.
"...Wait, huh."
That was actually a good idea.
I knew the homeless shelter May Parker volunteered at, so even if it was incredibly... whatever, I could easily tail her and scare the little kid.
I filed away that thought as I approached yet another shady warehouse near the docks.
It was night, meaning that there were was a far lower chance of being seen, something that was important considering what I was doing.
Up until now, I hadn't really used Dead Bone Pulse in combat.
Right now, I felt that my proficiency was good enough to use it in a fight, so today would be the night.
I walked closer whilst growing a mask onto my face. I saw that a single man stood guard at an entrance to the warehouse.
Turning on my Sharingan, I approached him whilst hardening my bones.
"Hey, this is private propety-" The man paused halfway through his statement, actually getting a good look at me as I approached near the lights of the warehouse.
His eyes landed on mine.
Even with the bone mask covering the lower half of my face, the red glow of the Sharingan was pretty hard to miss.
"...It's you," he said, in the voice of a man who had heard stories he had hoped were exaggerated. "The red-eyed-"
I held up my hand, not particularly interested in hearing about whatever reputation I had.
Rather, I wanted to test something.
A single bone spike extended slowly from my index finger, pushing through the skin with a faint organic sound I had gotten used to but to anyone else would be ablsolutely disgusting. I allowed it to continue growing, longer than practical, just to see what the thug would do.
I said nothing.
I just let him look at the pale spike which had grown from my finger.
[You induced intense fear in a hardened criminal! +40 FP]
The number made me blink.
This was more than I'd usually get form no-name criminals like these when using Haki.
Perhaps the disgust and terror of seeing something he couldn't understand produced a more potent form of fear than the simple dread upon feeling Haki?
I continued approaching the man, who held his gun whilst awkwardly taking steps back.
"H-hey, j-just, please, I'll shoot!" He seemed to be experiencing many emotions at once.
"Shoot." I dared him.
Bang!
The bullet caught me in the shoulder.
I didn't go down.
I stumbled back slightly from the force of the impact, more from surprise than pain.
Unfortunately, it wasn't painless. The hardened bones beneath my skin took the brunt of the attack, but the pain was still there.
Even so, it was bareable. Much better than having a bullet enter my flesh.
The man stared at me.
He had shot me. Point blank. Yet I was still standing.
[You induced intense fear in a hardened criminal! +50]
I reached up and slowly pulled the flattened bullet from where it had lodged against the hardened bone just beneath the skin.
I held it up between my two fingers in a way he could clearly see.
The gun fell to the ground.
And next, so did the man.
'Huh.'
He had fainted.
---
Natasha crouched at the roofline of the opposite dock warehouse, watching.
She had seen a lot of things in her career that could be called abnormal. This was one of them.
"You seeing this?" Clint's voice came through the earpiece.
"Yes," she said simply.
Below, the surveillance target had just pulled a flattened bullet out of his own shoulders. The guard who fired it was unconscious on the ground, apparently having fainted.
In the target's hand was a 2 feet long... spike, of sorts. A spike that he had pulled out from his finger.
"That mask... do you think?" Barton didn't finish his question.
"Bone," she said, knowing exactly what he was asking.
There was a silence.
"His own bone." She repeated.
"Yeah."
Another silence before Barton spoke again.
"Okay, that's new."
[A/N] I was thinking S.H.I.E.L.D. should have a codename for him, maybe you guys have some ideas? Can be either cool or goofy idk