Reggie no longer waited for night to move.

  The ice user fight had burned one truth into him: hesitation kills.

  So he changed the rhythm.

  He started hitting during daylight hours—when the targets felt safest, when the streets were loud with normal life, when people looked but didn’t see.

  He wore the mask less. Hood up. Jacket zipped. Bat hidden under a long coat. Lightning kept low, barely a spark, just enough to feel it in his veins.

  He had learned.

  First target after the ice user: a mid-level collector who ran protection rackets out of a barbershop on Jefferson Street. Reggie watched for four days. The man never varied: opened at 10 a.m., took envelopes from runners all day, closed at 6 p.m., drove home in a black SUV with tinted windows.

  On the fifth day Reggie waited in the alley behind the shop.

  When the collector stepped out to smoke at 5:45 p.m., Reggie was there.

  No kick-in. No dramatic entrance.

  He simply walked up behind the man, bat already swinging low.

  The collector turned just in time to see steel coming.

  Reggie cracked the bat across the back of the man’s knee. The collector dropped with a wet crunch. Reggie stepped on his wrist, pinned it to the pavement, leaned down.

  “Safe.”

  The collector’s hand shook. Pointed to the shop’s back door.

  Reggie dragged him inside. Made him open the floor safe under the sink. Cash stacks. Ledgers. A pistol. Reggie took the cash and the extra ledgers. Left the pistol. Left the man zip-tied to a chair with his own belt, bleeding from the mouth where the bat had clipped his lip.

  No interrogation. No rage.

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  Just the work.

  Next night: a dealer who moved product out of a storage unit in Antioch.

  Reggie arrived at 3 p.m. — middle of the day, sun high, people mowing lawns, kids on bikes. He parked the motorbike two blocks away, walked up like he belonged. Hood up. Coat open. Bat hidden.

  The dealer was alone, loading boxes into a van. Reggie waited until the man turned his back, then stepped in.

  Bat to the kidney.

  Lightning to the neck — just a jolt, enough to drop him twitching.

  Reggie opened the van. Found the cash bag. Took it. Left the dealer face-down in the gravel, zip-tied, alive.

  No words. No threats.

  He was done talking.

  The pattern continued.

  A trafficker who used a laundromat as a front — Reggie waited until the man was alone counting cash in the back room. Walked in through the employee door. Bat to the wrist. Lightning to the chest. Cash taken. Man left zip-tied to the dryer.

  An enforcer who collected from corner stores — Reggie hit him in the parking lot behind a liquor store at 4 p.m. Bat to the elbow. Lightning to the hand. Cash roll taken. Man left screaming.

  Ten more fell the same way.

  Always daylight.

  Always quiet.

  Always efficient.

  He didn’t break bones unless he had to.

  He didn’t linger.

  He didn’t monologue.

  He took what he needed and left them breathing.

  The money piled up. Reggie bought more lumber. More concrete. More roofing. More plumbing. The shed became a real building—small, ugly, functional. Single room. Loft bed. Stove. Table. Still unfinished. Still rough. But it was his.

  He trained between hits.

  Steel bat swings until his shoulders burned. Lightning drills until the air smelled like ozone. Deadline Swing—compress, wait, release. Each rep a memory of Kenji. Each arc a promise.

  The mask stayed on during every hit. Too big. Slipped when he sweated. He adjusted it. Kept going.

  Ten down.

  Six left.

  The remaining four high-tier targets got wise.

  They met in a back room of a downtown bar—dim lights, no windows, no cameras. Four men in suits, faces hard, voices low. They knew the kid with the bat and the lightning was dismantling their network. Twenty-four collectors gone. Cash flow cut. Reputation bleeding.

  One of them slid a file across the table.

  “His name is Reggie Banks. Seventeen. Lives in some rebuilt dojo on the edge of town. Lightning powers. Street-level, but climbing fast.”

  Another man leaned forward.

  “He’s not stopping. We need someone who can stop him.”

  The fourth man smiled—cold, thin.

  “I know someone.”

  He opened his phone. Dialed a number.

  The voice on the other end was guttural, low, almost animal.

  “Speak.”

  “We have a job. Kid with lightning. Fast. Smart. Dangerous. We need him gone.”

  A pause. Then a low chuckle.

  “Price?”

  “Six figures. Half now. Half when he’s dead.”

  Another pause.

  “Send the file.”

  The line went dead.

  In a dark warehouse on the outskirts of Nashville, Major K looked at the photo on his phone.

  Young black man. Mask. Steel bat. Lightning in his eyes.

  Major K smiled—yellow teeth, sharp.

  “Interesting.”

  He accepted the contract.

  Reggie’s name was now on the radar.