The night swallowed him whole. Tyrone didn't walk out of that alley as a boy. He didn't even walk out as a man. He left as a DarkForce of Vengeance.
He moved as a shadow with purpose, like a living absence of light. His emotions were fully controlling his actions, and in this form, he moved as if the city itself was merely a canvas for him to unleash all of his emotional turmoil.
The boy inside him had finally died, and now it was time to punish those who were responsible for the death of his family.
He made sure to move through the darkness, invisible to regular humans as he headed towards three clusters of persons, the three gangs involved in that shootout.
Black Serpents.
Los Huesos.
Iron Dogs.
He would start with the Serpents. Their hideout was a converted auto shop, the kind with a rusting sign, half-lit fluorescents buzzing weakly, music pounding from inside. Laughter. Shouted bets. The stink of cigarettes and cheap beer drifted out.
Occasionally, a woman would walk out of the shop with a limp in their step, and only the catcalling of other gangsters towards these women echoed throughout the street.
Tyrone found himself on the rooftop, and the shadows around him quivered like small animals, puffs of darkness spilling off of the roof and slithering down the wall like spilled ink, seeping under the door and into the shop.
Tyrone could instinctually sense all of the gang members directly beneath him and their current posture.
Inside, a man was taking a chug of a beer when he paused and frowned, "What is this shit. Why'd it get cold all of a sudden,"
Before the others could respond, the ceiling exploded in a burst of black.
Tyrone dropped among them like a calamity.
The first man barely had time to scream before Tyrone's hand, nothing but swirling Darkforce, punched through his chest. The man stared down in shock at the gaping hole as shadows leaked from it like smoke.
Before the man could even comprehend his death, he was taken, sent into the DarkForce Dimension within Tyrone's cloak to satiate his endless hunger.
"WHAT THE FUCK!"
"GET DOWN!"
"SHOOT THAT THING!"
Chaos immediately erupted in the shop as all of the gang members scrambled and screamed out orders, pulling their guns and unleashing a barrage of bullets towards Tyrone, but none of their actions mattered.
Every bullet was devoured by the darkness before it reached him, swallowed with lazy disinterest.
Tyrone moved with impossible speed, his hand snapping outward like a beast's maw, grabbing a man by the legs, yanking him up, then slamming him down so hard the floor dented.
In this form, Tyrone could truly feel his immense power. He felt completely SuperHuman, not just with his Darkness abilities, but even his physical skills had transcended Humanity.
While he hadn't received systematic combat training, it was more than enough to handle these goons.
~CRACK!~
The bones of another gang member shattered in a wet, muffled crack.
Another Serpent sprinted for the back door, but Tyrone's cloak shot forward, catching him around the waist. The man dangled upside-down, screaming and kicking as he was dragged across the ceiling toward the yawning darkness.
Tyrone felt a flicker of excitement, anticipation, like a starving animal sensing meat.
He fed the man to the cloak, and the man's ear-piercing scream disappeared into the void. And with it came the rush, the satisfaction, that first tasted like relief…
…but not enough.
Not nearly enough.
His hunger gnawed, growing bolder, demanding more.
Tyrone slaughtered the rest quickly, gaining more control of his powers as he did so, until the garage was painted red and silent. Bodies cracked and twisted lay strewn across the floor.
He stood among them, the cloak flaring and retreating like breath. With his intense adrenaline and emotions running rampant, he had barely even understood the brutality he just enacted, but he knew it felt good, extremely good, and he wanted more.
***
The Huesos operated out of an abandoned apartment building. Half boarded windows, half graffiti, full misery, its halls reeking of mold and stale sweat.
Tyrone appeared in the stairwell without sound.
At the top floor, ten men gathered around a table stacked with money, pills, guns. One of the, a tall man with a serpent tattoo, flicked ash onto the floor.
"Javier said the Serpents got hit tonight, cops are already swarming the scene, keep your fuckin heads down for the next few days, hear me amigos? Boss is out negotiating with the other heads, so we don't need no funny business,"
Before the others could even speak, the entire room dimmed, the lights flickering into nothing as all brightness was strangled out of existence.
A thin, cold wind swept through. And in its wake, the shadows began to move.
"W-what the, "
"Yo, turn the damn lights back on!"
"They are on fucker, they're on!"
"Well why can't I see shit motherfucker?"
Panic spread like wildfire. Tyrone stepped out of the deepest shadow, cloak dragging darkness with it like spilled blood.
One of the gangsters screamed and emptied his clip into Tyrone's chest.
The bullets were devoured by the cloak instantly.
Tyrone vanished from their sight, reappearing and landing a brutal punch to one of their chest, crushing his intestines and killing the regular Human on impact instantly.
He turned and grabbed a second by the neck, squeezing as hard as he could until it popped, his hand soaked in blood while his cloak took care of a third, and he devoured all 3.
A fourth tried to run.
He got halfway before Tyrone levitated and his cloak transported into a portal that pulled the goon back. The henchman clawed desperately at the ground but the shadows dragged him back until he too was devoured by the cloak.
With that, Tyrone rampaged through the rest of the gang headquarters, slaughtering the remaining members in his sight in a similar manner.
He used his newfound SuperHuman Strength, alongside his cloak to take most of them down, devouring their bodies to feed his endless hunger.
But …the hunger remained.
Actually, it felt worse now. A crawling emptiness gnawed at his chest, cold and aggressive, whispering to him with every beat of his heart.
'Not enough~Need more~Need Light~Need Light~NEED'
Tyrone clutched his head and let out a snarl as the shadows around him jittered and writhed, responding to his fraying control.
No.
Not now.
He forced the DarkForce down, stuffing it deep inside him.
But it fought back with a vengeance.
He staggered, gripping a blood-stained counter, breathing hard. His human form flickered for a moment, his hands losing substance, turning smoke-like.
He exhaled slowly.
"Tandy…" he muttered.
He hadn't realized how much he needed her light until tonight. The further he went, the emptier he felt, even surrounded by death, even gorged on vengeance.
Humans didn't feed what he truly needed.
Tandy's light stabilized him. Kept him sane. Kept the DarkForce from swallowing him whole.
He realized that at the start, he was merely co-existing with the DarkForce. If he wanted to not only control it, but completely dominate it for himself and transform this endless darkness into his own, permanent power, he needed Tandy always by his side.
But she wasn't here.
And he wasn't done.
Not yet.
One more gang.
Then he would see her.
He promised himself.
***
The Iron Dogs were the biggest. Most violent. They weren't scared of cops, they owned them. Their warehouse was lit like a fortress, armed guards everywhere, metal gates, watchtowers.
They thought they were safe.
They had no idea that safety had just been erased from the dictionary.
Tyrone attacked similar to the previous two times, and before long, he was being barraged with bullets, all of which were devoured by his cloak.
Shadows grew thicker and the men stumbled blindly, colliding with each other or crashing into crates.
"W-what the fuck IS that thing!?"
"LIGHT! SOMEONE GET A LIGHT!"
"WHERE DID HE—ARGH—MY ARM!"
Tyrone sliced through the air like a guillotine.
Limbs vanished. Bodies dropped.
Some men were pulled into the darkness screaming; others were launched across the yard, spines snapping on impact and their insides now a pile of bloody mush.
Tyrone barely noticed them.
He was hunting the leaders, the three men who were in a war and caused his father and brother to be caught in the crossfire, now discussing a drug deal, because to them, the past could be forgotten for profits, but not him, Tyrone could never forget his family.
The first died gasping, head swallowed by the cloak.
The second tried to bargain. "We didn't know he had a kid, please, please, man, "
Tyrone snapped his neck without slowing down.
The third ran.
A mistake.
Tyrone appeared in front of him, grabbing him by the jaw.
"You killed my family."
"N-no, no, it, it was business, just business, "
Tyrone ripped him in half.
The two halves hit the ground with a splattering thud.
And still…
Still…
He was hungry.
The DarkForce coiled in his gut like a starving serpent, whispering, hissing, growing louder,
LIGHT~LIGHT~LIGHT.
Tyrone clenched his fists as his vision blurred. His cloak lashed out wildly, the DarkForce growing unstable.
He doubled over, breath ragged, skin flickering in and out of solidity. He needed her. He needed Tandy.
Now.
Tonight's carnage had only made the monster inside him hungrier. More desperate. More aggressive.
Human life didn't satisfy it anymore.
Pain didn't slow it down.
Vengeance didn't soothe it.
Only Light.
Only Tandy.
He had to find her before he lost himself.
Before the DarkForce consumed what little was left of Tyrone Johnson.