Boston
Now

James McCaleb looked through the two-way mirror at Special Agent Rachel Cole. They put her in the room shortly after she went to Boston SAC McCray with an honest to god break in the Bunker Hill Butcher case, their first one since the whole nightmare started. Using legwork, or so she claimed, Cole had discovered an apartment in the Charlestown neighborhood the killer was using to kill his victims. A crime scene unit discovered DNA evidence matching four of the five victims and DNA from an unidentified person, presumably their killer.

"How you doing, Rachel?" McCaleb said as he came into the interrogation room. "I'm Special Agent in Charge James McCaleb."

"I know who you are," Cole said once McCaleb was sitting at the table across from you. "Head of the BAU, serial killer hunter."

"That's right,' McCaleb said with a nod. "I read your jacket, you know. You applied to come to the BAU but instead got sent packing to Alabama, how'd that make you feel?"

"Angry," Cole shrugged. "But I got over it. Now, why are you interrogating me instead of working the breakthrough?"

McCaleb smiled. She had a point and he tended to agree with her for the most part. He'd been at the Bureau for close to thirty-five years and had been chasing mass murderers and serial killers for most of that time. As part of his profiling training he had learned to read people pretty well. And he could tell that Rachel Cole had nothing to do with the serial killer.

"So, you had a hunch and played it out and it worked out," said McCaleb. "What else do you have for me?"

"Like what?"

"Like a profile," said McCaleb. "If you've been following this case on the sly, then you probably have an idea of a profile on our unsub. What have you got?"

"Well, for starters he's smart. But he probably has a job where he doesn't get a chance to show off his intellect. That job is probably something that lets him be out and about a lot, a chance to stalk his potential victims. He probably has a family, but they have no idea what he likes to do in his spare time."

McCaleb nodded thoughtfully. Those three observations fit with the BAU's profile of their unsub perfectly.

"We're thinking it might be a city employee," said McCaleb."

"That fits," she said with a nod. "Bureaucratic work. Maybe part of the sewage department, or maybe a trash worker.'

"Rachel," McCaleb finally said after a moment's silence. "How would you like to do something more than catch bank robbers?"

Saigon
1973

(Mood Music for this part)

The Carousel Club was the kind of place that gave the bars in Saigon a bad name. GIs downed drinks while Susie Q by CCR pounded from the speakers and half-naked Vietnamese women go-go danced on makeshift stages around the room. Even more scantily clad women walked through the room, flirting with GIs and reminding them that for a small price they were all theirs.

Frank Castle walked through the raucous crowd with a cigarette in his mouth. He wore a field jacket that hid the name CASTLE on the breast pocket of his Marine fatigues. He hoped nobody would see him or remember his face, but it was obvious the second he stepped in he was overthinking it. The men here were more focused on having a good time with the drinks and girls and not looking at yet another soldier.

Frank walked from the bar area into the backroom. It reeked of opium and piss. Soldiers were laid out on cots, some actually smoking opium while plenty more had medical tubes tied around their arms and hypodermic needles by their side. This was the side of the war nobody back home ever knew. The shit here was so bad that plenty of guys went running to opium and heroin to ease the pain. It was a form of escapism that was a lot more intense than the partying going on outside, but it was all the same. Pleasure -- be it sex or drugs or drinking -- took your mind off being in the bush and fighting this horrible war.

"You looking for something?"

A small Vietnamese man was at Frank's elbow. He flashed a row of yellow teeth at Frank.

"I Uncle Ace, and I fuck you up for right price."

Hoang Tich Tran, aka Uncle Ace Tran, was the owner of the Carousel Club. According to the government intelligence apparatus, he was also a Communist sympathizer who used his club to gather blackmail and intel for the North Vietnamese Army.

"I'm here for you," Frank said as he pulled out a pistol with a suppressor on it.

Uncle Ace's eyes got wide as Frank fired two shots into his head. The junkies around him stayed in outer space as Uncle Ace flopped to the floor and twitched as he died. Frank tucked the gun back into his jacket and calmly walked back into the bar and joined the party.

Boston
Now

Frank Castle looked down at Chris O'Keefe as the man begged for his life. He'd snatched O'Keefe off the street after the man left his job. He'd worked for Code Enforcement for the city of Boston and had access to the city's work trucks. He cruised around town all day on jobs, inspecting homes and picking out his next victims. Castle walked up behind O'Keefe, grabbed him by the armpits, and they disappeared from the street without anyone noticing. Now they were at deserted boat ramp near the harbor.

"Please," O'Keefe pleaded. "I've got a family."

Frank's eyes glowed emerald green as he heard music in his head, a song from a long time ago. Two lifetimes ago.

What goes up must come down
Spinnin' wheel got to go 'round

"What about all the women you've killed," Frank said coldly. "They had families too."

He held his hand out and O'Keefe reached for his throat. He gurgled and tried to fight whatever it was that was restricting his windpipe. Frank remembered the song from a seedy dive bar in Saigon. It struck a cord with him because it reminded him of Karma. Back then, he prescribed to what he called the Big Wheel Theory. Karma and justice was a big wheel that kept spinning. Sooner or later, it caught up with you. That's what the Punisher had been, and now what the Spectre was. He was the wheel incarnate, an unstoppable force that you could never stop or slow. In the end, the wheel always catches up and overcomes you.

"This is God's vengeance," Frank said, the Spectre raging inside of him. "And this is divine retribution."

Frank balled his hand into a fist. A loud crack echoed as O'Keefe's neckbones were snapped in two. He fell on to his side in a slump. Frank looked down at him. The Bunker Hill Butcher was dead by his hands. But hopefully he had led the FBI agents on a trail that would lead to his eventual discovery. In the end, the wheel had crushed Chris O'Keefe. Castle turned away from the body and started to walk away. There were others who needed God's vengeance.

The wheel had to keep turning.

"Do you really think he'll at a time like this?" MJ asked Peter while they waited on the rooftop of their apartment. Normally, Peter would not stay on their rooftop for any extended amount of time because it could risk revealing his identity if someone put the pieces together. However, since it was long past midnight, the Parkers could rest easy knowing that, for the most part, no one would snooping on the roof. And even if someone did happen to walk in on them, Peter gave his wife one of his spare costumes so that it could hid her identity. Sure, he didn't have anything that would fit her spider-half, but at least she had his long-sleeved shirt and mask.

"Oh, I'm sure he'll be here." Peter reassured MJ, "Especially since he still owes me an IOU."

Right on cue, a magical portal opened up a few feet in front of the Parkers. A man dressed in a large, red cape stepped out from the portal.

"How may I help you this time, Spider-Man." Doctor Strange asked, although when he saw a woman, who was wearing the top portion of a Spider-Man costume, who had a drider-like appearance, he could guess the reason why hew as asked for immediately help at such an hour. "I guess we better get back to the Sanctum Sanctorum as soon as possible."

The doctor gestured both of his hands towards the portal, offering that his guests should go first.

"Ladies first."

When the three of them walked through the magical portal, Peter and MJ found themselves in an old, although well-kept up, Victorian-style mansion. While there were several common household items in this house, such as vases and rugs, just to name a few, the Parkers saw what looked like mystical artifacts were displayed, too.

"So, when did the symptoms appear?" Doctor Strange asked the couple, almost as if he were back in his medical days.

"It's this ring." MJ held out her hand, revealing the Egyptian ring that had been showcased at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "I've tried removing it, but nothing happens."

Doctor Strange then pulled out a thick book that categorized all the mystical items that were known to the Sorceror Supreme. He shook his head as he turned the pages. At first, he did not see an object that MJ wore on her finger. However, after he had almost gone through over half of this encyclopedia of magical objects, Doctor Strange finally sighed in relief, since he had found the correct page.

"This ring had be crafted in the reign of Ramesses II as a result of..." Doctor Strange began to read the text. However, MJ impatiently interrupted him.

"Alright! We've read the museum display! How do we fix this?" MJ gestured towards her spider half.

"Well." Doctor Strange continued, "There appears to be a curse on this ring that will permanently transform the user into an anthropod-human hybrid."

"What?" MJ cried in horror. "I can't be stuck in this form! Sure, I'm probably popular enough to come out as a mutant, but I've have an acting career to continue!"

"Don't worry, MJ. I'm sure there bound to be some sort of work for you in that form." Peter tried to console his wife.

"I'm just kidding." Doctor Strange broke the depressing moment, "All you need to do is focus on the ring and think about returning to normal."

"Are you kidding me?" MJ cried out, "All I needed to do was will myself back to normal?"

"And you can do the reverse in the same way." Doctor Strange mentioned as he closed his big book of mystical artifacts.

"So, how did we get that ring mixed up? I swear that I got back the right ring.

"When the ring is in danger, it can swap its appearance with a nearby object. Mystical objects of this sort sometimes have these sort of defense mechanisms enchanted upon them."

"Well, that explains the mix-up alright."

"You might also want to wait until you get back home before you transform back to normal." Doctor Strange recommended to MJ as she was about ready to try to restore her regular human form. "I hope I don't need to explain why."

P A S T - P A R T O F T H E W O R L D A T W A R S T O R Y

---

L O N D O N E N G L A N D

---

Jay ran up the building, so far he hadn't had a chance to do this yet. He could see Shazam in the distance doing his thing, and in all honesty actually watching it and paying attention made it all the more impressive. He literally grabbed a plane and forced it higher before causing it to explode. Part of Jay could very almost believe that the cause was some form of magic, if he wasn't so invested in the world of science that was. Look at him, nobody seemed to believe what he could do when they saw him but his powers were obtained through science not sorcery. The science was such that nobody really understood it, including him, but had science that seemed beyond man not always been seen as magic?

He turned his attention back to what he was doing. He ran up the building, faster than he had previously shooting himself into the air. As he gained height he caught sight of the bomb he was aiming for, reaching out he managed to pluck the seemingly un-moving object out of the air. Falling back down he was slower, until his feet made contact with the building allowing him to accelerate again. Nearing the bottom he pushed off, bomb still below his arm, running down the street towards the Thames. Pausing for a brief second he threw the explosive into the water, turning and then running back to the area being affected by the bombing.

It wasn't the quickest method, though with a large portion of the city already evacuated there wasn't much else he could do other than try and prevent even more damage. It did raise an all important question though, if he could stop a bomb would be be able to stop a bullet? Jay knew he could carry objects with his speed, and move them. Though he was yet to try so with a bullet...

K E Y S T O N E C I T Y

---

"Joan, I'm fed up of doing nothing." Jay sat collapsed on his sofa at home, it had been a while since he had returned home. Most of the time he elected to simply write a letter. Yet he had been away for too long, he just needed to get home. What with all the levels of crazy that was going on over in Europe, he had worked with Shazam a number of times but he still couldn't seem to get any further with him. What was the point in keeping his identity secret? Did he fear retribution, fearing that the Nazis would hunt his family down? He supposed the man was superstitious enough to believe that magic existed so anything was really possible at this point in time. He just wished he knew what made him tick. The similarities in their powers couldn't be a simple coincidence.

Joan put down a cup of coffee on the table infront of him, before sitting down beside her husband. "You're saving lives, what more do you want?" Jay shouldn't be surprised, when he had told her what he was going to do she was supportive, but resistant. Part of him felt that the only reason she suggested a costume was to see if he'd go for it, a test of faith and conviction he supposed. He couldn't blame her, she never wanted any part in this. They had fallen in love so quickly, and all that had changed when the accident had happened.

She had been his rock, kept him stead and kept him slow. Slow enough to remain grounded anyway. He had ran away to the war, and she had supported him through it. That's what a couple did, she had been resistant but had not stopped him. Now he was back, and talking about doing more. This wasn't fair.

"Joan-" Before he could get much more than the one word out - at regular speed - there was a knock at the door. Jay gave his with a quizzical look, when he recieved one in return he understood that this wasn't an expected visit. Standing up he walked to the front door slowly. Hand on the doorknob he turned it slowly, pulling the door ajar just enough to look through it. When he saw two men unmistakingly in military uniforms he opened the door the whole way. "Yes?"

"Jay Garrick?" The one on the left spoke up, from the decorations on his chest Jay would have guessed he was the ranking officer.

"Speaking."

"I'm glad we found you here, we've heard about your... actions in Europe. We're here to recruit you into a special operations program."

---

---

The cell door opened, and Batman stepped inside.

Edward Nashton’s cell was immaculate. What possessions he was allowed to keep (books; an enormous amount of them) were stacked neatly, according to size, on the desk to the left. His bedsheets were tucked beneath each side of his bed, straightened, without a wrinkle to be seen; the only ones present were those that formed beneath his weight. Everything in his cell spoke of severe obsessive compulsion: the books, the bedsheets – the clock, set to the nearest millisecond.

The Riddler reclined on his bed with the back of his head resting in his hands, legs spread outwards. Hearing the cell door clang shut, he looked up, his lips curling into a smirk as his eyes settled on Batman.

“What’s tall, bat-like and my intellectual inferior?”

His eyes twinkled with amusement and hatred in equal parts.

Straight to the riddles, as always.

“Your material’s getting sloppy, Riddler,” said Batman.

Nashton scoffed. “My writer is of questionable talent.”

He paused, examining a fingernail as he sat up. “What can I do for you, Batman? I don’t assume you’ve come to admit mine being the better mind, so why don’t you hurry up and stop wasting my time? I was quite happy staring at the ceiling.”

“Three men were murdered tonight in the Narrows. Whoever did it is a professional,” said Batman. “Dutch Hancock, Happy Ackerman, and Koby Hillam. Do those names ring a bell?”

“Should they?” Riddler raised an eyebrow.

“They worked for you.”

“And, what? You came here to ask me who would have it out for the sycophants I employ? In this city?” He paused, holding a hand over his heart. “Oh, my dear, dumb, Dark Knight. Just about everyone.”

That much was true. In the thirteen years since whispers of the Batman reached the ears of Gotham’s criminal element, the vigilante had made many enemies, and had seen them make enemies of each other. It was no exaggeration to say that nearly everyone would want the Riddler and his men dead. A man like Nashton was not easy to get along with, and his fanatic narcissism was polarising at best. For the men competing for control over the city – men like Oswald Cobblepot – it was easy to hate him, and even easier to want him and his operations gone. But for all of the potential suspects, something didn’t add up.

“An owl’s face was drawn with your men’s blood at the scene,” said Batman. “Do you have any idea what it could mean, who that symbol could belong to?”

“Actually, I don – ” Nashton’s smirk disappeared, his mouth hanging agape, eyes wide. “Oh, no… no, it can’t be…”

He ran a hand through his hair. “No, no, no… not them…”

He looked at Batman. “The Court of Owls.”

Nashton chuckled, and the Dark Knight turned away, knocking on the cell door so the guard on the other side would open it. If the Riddler was going to waste his time, as was his nature, Batman was better off following up on what little clues he could uncover at the crime scene.

“Batman,” Alfred said through the comm-link, “If you’re done, sir, there appears to be a robbery in progress at Gotham National Bank. I thought you might like to pop in and grunt ‘hello.’”

“Thank you, Pennywise,” he answered, walking out of the cell as its door swung open. “I’m on my way.”

---

---

---

---

With the press of a button, Batman cut off all electricity to the building. Anything that could hint at him being there – security cameras, alarms – was shut down, deprived of power.

He was perched on the balcony of the bank manager’s office. Below him, two men stood guard, balaclavas covering their faces, shotguns at the ready – twelve gauge by looks of them, cheap in materials and make. They were scared, agitated, looking erratically over their shoulders in the direction of their accomplices, who were gathering money from the bank’s vault. That the building was empty, but for them, was a relief. The lack of professionalism the two men displayed, their inability to keep their cool, would only heighten the chance of an innocent being killed. Batman couldn’t allow that. This way, he could take care of the criminals before they knew what hit them.

“Hey, T,” whispered the thug on the left, “How much longer d– ”

Batman dropped from his perch, plummeting down onto the crook, his cape slowing his decent just enough to prevent the man’s death. The thug crumpled beneath his weight, losing consciousness on impact. His gun fell to the floor beside him, and Batman picked it up, discarding the shells.

“What the f– ” began T, aiming his shotgun at the wraith before him.

He was met with a shotgun butt to the chin, falling down with crunch.

Batman dropped the first thug’s firearm, stepping behind one of the balcony’s pillars. Alfred had told him that there were up to five robbers in the building, and with two down, that meant three were left inside the vault. On the other side of the pillar was the hallway leading to it. He could hear the tap-tap of uncertain steps clicking on the tiled floor. A gruff voice called out.

“T? Ax?” It got no answer. “Yo, stop messing around. We heard some noise. You’re our getaway, remember?”

Batman scowled. Not only was this crew unprofessional, they were stupid, too.

“Shit,” exclaimed another voice, unsettled by the silence. “It’s the Bat. He’s here. Dammit, Buchinsky, I didn’t sign up for– ”

“Quiet, you idiot,” interrupted a third voice, Russian in its accent: Buchinsky. “Take point. If it’s black and has horns, shoot it.”

Buchinsky’s identity was no mystery to Batman. Calling himself Electrocutioner, Lester Buchinsky was likely the reason this crew was so incompetent. With an ego as inflated as his, there was no doubt that he thought he could pull off this job the way he did – with his getaways acting as lookouts, and his crew too nervous to work coherently. No, when you were Lester Buchinsky, you didn’t need a good plan or a professional team. You just needed your glorified tasers.

Buchinsky’s point man exited the hallway, shotgun resting on his shoulder, each step bringing him closer to Batman.

“All clear,” he called out, stepping past the pillar the vigilante hid behind.

Batman grabbed the barrel of his gun, pushing it away from himself, simultaneously striking the man across the face, wrapping his punching arm around the thug’s neck in a reverse chokehold. He struggled, weakening with every passing second, his muffled cries waning along with him. Within three, he was out cold. Batman emptied his gun and moved back into the shadows.

Buchinsky and his remaining man stepped out of the hall. The gunman walked in front, protecting Electrocutioner, his breaths heavy – scared. Batman ducked low, waiting for him to walk past the pillar, sweeping his leg across the floor – catching the gunman on his shins, kicking his legs out from under him. The gunman fell forwards, chin hitting the tiled floor with a loud thud. He was out of the equation, for now. Batman emptied his gun, and leapt towards Buchinsky.

The crook didn’t even have time to taunt the Dark Knight. His gauntlets – the glorified tasers – crackled with electricity, and yet he couldn’t bring them up fast enough to defend himself. His surprised yelp was cut short, Batman’s fist crunching into his nose. He hit the ground hard.

Ka-chk.

What –? A shotgun.

Batman ducked to his right, his instincts taking over –

The shot barely missed him, pellets shooting past his head. Hand reaching for his belt, he grabbed a Batarang, turning to look over his shoulder and throwing it at his would-be shooter.

The projectile embedded itself in the gunman’s hand – the one he’d tripped – and he dropped the gun, cursing, blood trickling down his hand.

Batman brought his fist up beneath his chin, and the gunman dropped like a brick.

The vigilante had to hold back a curse of his own as he realised his mistake. He’d emptied every gun of ammunition – every gun but one. He’d neglected the second lookout’s firearm… the one called ‘T’.

Stupid.

He grappled up to the balcony, making his way towards the air vent through which he’d entered the building.

He didn’t notice the figure that hid in the shadows. After he was gone, it smiled to itself.

“Getting sloppy, Bruce.”

Jefferson City, Missouri
1873

Jonah Hex crouched down behind a pew in the church. He opened up the chambers of his big revolvers and dumped still smoking shells on to the sawdust covered floor. Close beside him was Timothy Perkins, outlaw turned preacher who found himself in a delicate position. Hex had come to collect the bounty on him. He would have to hang in Kansas in order for Hex to get his money. The alternative was the big man walking through the church with a shotgun.

Bill DeVery, Perkins' old partner from his outlaw days, had been cutting a path of dead bodies across Kansas and Missouri. One by one Bill killed the other members of their gang until only he and Perkins remained. He was after Perkins' piece of the map Migs Malone had drawn up five years ago when they robbed millions of dollars in paper money from a US Treasury train. By themselves the individual map pieces did not tell much, but all together they showed the location of the money.

Church got a backdoor, Rev?" Hex asked as he loaded his revolvers.

"Afraid not, Mr. Hex. The only entrance is through the vestibule."

"Heard that," DeVery said from across the room. "Only way y'all got in and out is through that door. Lucky for me."

Hex peaked his head up from the pew and took a potshot at the direction of DeVery's voice. He flopped back down as DeVery opened up with his own blast.

"Not a bad shot. Who's your friend, Timmy?"

"I'm a bounty hunter. Come to collect your friend here. Judge out in Lawrence is paying a fair price to see him hang. You, too, DeVery. It's why I'm only shooting to wound."

"That's mighty white of you, mister. All things considered, I think I'm gonna turn down your offer."

Hex looked at Perkins and made a talking motion with his hands. He put a finger to his lips and laid his spare revolver at Perkins' feet. The preacher nodded as Hex started to quietly slink through the pews towards the pulpit. Perkins picked up the gun and held it close.

"You know you don't have to do this, Bill. The money, the map, it's all yours. I can give you my piece and you can go on to get it without any violence. I have no desire for the money and all it entails."

"Obviously," DeVery said with a wry chuckle. "You got a good racket here, Timmy. Pulling the long con here, you'll make more than we ever could by robbing any bank or train. Sure as hell wished I'd have thought of it, but then again you was always the brains of the outfit."

"It's not a con, Bill. It's genuine. I've changed and seen the error of my ways. I got saved."

"Right, and how do you feel about tall, dark, and ugly over there? You're gonna stroll arm in arm with him to the gallows?"

Across the church, Jonah Hex approached Bill DeVery from behind. The big man's back made a clear target. He had his revolver out and raised. He made one step forward to plant his foot and prepare for the shot. The tip of his boot stepped on a loose floorboard and made it squeak.

DeVery whipped around, the shotgun aimed square at Hex's face. The gun went off just as Hex fell to the ground. He felt pellets cut through the top of his hat as he fell. Hex rolled to the left as DeVery used the second shot in his double-barrelled gun to destroy a floorboard where Hex had been. The bounty hunter scampered under a pew for cover as DeVery ditched his empty shotgun and pulled out a five-shot Smith and Wesson from his waistband. The outlaw walked through the pews, watching the floors and trying to avoid getting his ankles shot out by Hex.

"Saw from your hat that you was wearing rebel gray," DeVery said as he stalked the pews. "Take it you served for them traitors during the war."

"I fought on the wrong side that had the wrong ideas," Hex said from somewhere close by. "But I fought for my own ideas. I fought for what I believed in."

"Mighty poetic of you."

"Thanks!"

Hex popped up in front of DeVery with his Bowie knife out. He sunk the sharp blade into the outlaw's shoulder and twisted. DeVery yelled out and tried to shoot with his gun. Hex's free hand, the one that had been holding the knife, slapped DeVery's gun away and tried to get his own gun leveled to take a shot. The two men wrestled on their feet for control of Hex's lone gun while Hex's big Bowie knife stayed stuck in DeVery's shoulder.

KRAK!

DeVery's eyes went wide and he cursed as the fight suddenly left him. Hex looked over DeVery's shoulder and saw Timothy Perkins, holding Hex's spare gun in his hands. DeVery slumped over a pew and weakly tried to pry the knife from his shoulder. Hex saw the big bullet wound in his back, right where the heart was. Years later and Perkins was still a crack shot with the gun.

"Son of a bitch," DeVery mumbled. Blood gushed from his body and started to fill the pew where he was laying. "Son of a..."

"This could be the end of it," Perkins said as he looked down at Hex's gun. "Bill's dying. I could kill you, too. Run away from here, get the money, and then set myself up at another church somewhere else. A new name and a new flock. Another chance."

"You can try, Rev."

Hex held the gun in his hand ready. Perkins was good, but Hex was better. If he tried anything, the preacher would be dead before he realized it. A moment later, Perkins dropped the gun to the floor and looked at Hex.

"You were right, Hex. I am the preacher Timothy Partlow, but deep down I am still the outlaw Tim Perkins. I am a pious man now, but there is still evil and violence in my heart. Nothing will change that, and nothing will make right what I have done. 'Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it fully.' So say the Bible. I understand His justice fully, now, Hex. I have been granted salvation in God's eye, and now I must face man's justice. I will go to Kansas willingly with you."

"My horse is waiting outside, Rev. Let's go."

The two men began to head towards the exit. Hex stopped and walked back towards the pew where DeVery's body lay. Hex looked down at the corpse befoe rooting through his jacket and pulled out his pieces of the map. Scraps of paper that together were telling him something, but it was incomplete without Perkins' part. Sneering, Hex tore up the pieces and tossed them into the air.

"Goddamn map cost me four bounties."

He spat at the dead body's feet and turned back to Perkins, escorting the condemned man out the door and to his impending death.



Janesville, Wisconsin
1935

"Mr. Ford, Mr. Ford!"

James Ford looked up from the road plans in his hands. Today was the third day of their roadwork project. Part of the PWA and the New Deal, the road crew Ford was supervising were building a brand new highway from Janesville to the Wisconsin/Illinois state line. Once there, the folks on the Illinois side would take over and build a new highway from the state line to Rockford. All told the project was creating at least a hundred jobs for the folks around Janesville, something a lot of folks were grateful for.

"What is it?" Ford asked the two workers who came up to him in a hurry.

"We were starting back on the grading of that hill, and the ground started to get all crumbly. A few of us went down and found something. You gotta see this, sir."

Ford scowled and lit up a cigarette. He'd been doing road work for nearly thirty years and had seen all kinds of stuff beneath the ground. Junk, a few buried cars, and even one time a body. Nothing much would faze him. He followed the workers a few hundred yards to where the crew had been busy leveling out a hill to prepare it for gravel and eventual paving.

"It's a couple of trunks. Big ones. We got 'em popped open. It's the damnedest thing we ever saw."

Ford puffed on his cigarette and looked down into the small hole the men had dug out. There were three large trunks the size of a regular man on the ground. The tops had been opened and inside was what had once been money. The stuff had the shape and form of dollar bills, but it was so waterlogged and degraded it looked more like mush.

"How much you thank that is, Mr. Ford?"

"Who the hell knows," Ford said with a long exhale of smoke. "It's all worthless now. Whoever buried it must have thought the trunks were waterproof. Looks like that rain runoff has been seeping into those trunks for years. Probably was worthless a few years after it got buried."

Ford shook his head and checked his watch.

"You boys move it out of the site and I'll call someone to come take a look at it. Get a move on, now, we got work to do."

Ford watched the workers move the trunks out of the hole and carry them to a safe spot. He made sure that they all got back to work on grading the hill before he finished his cigarette and went back to his own work.

The End

---

September 23rd(?), 1940

Somewhere in France(?)

...I have no godsdamn clue where I am

No matter how many times it's happened over the years, I've never gotten used to getting knocked unconscious. I still felt the same weird, ethereal floating feeling. It was like I was falling in reverse as the world cleared. My memories were fuzzy and this time I couldn't see worth shit, but K'un-L'un teaches a man other ways to know the world. The scent and feel of rough burlap against my face probably meant there was a thick sack over it. Good, I wasn't blind from a concussion, then. My tongue felt like a wooden board in my mouth, and I had the kind of ringing headache that'd make me want to kill a man. Probably I'd been drugged while I was out, to keep me that way while enemies brought me...wherever this was.

A quick assessment revealed that I'd been tied to a chair, legs to its legs and arms to its' arms, real thorough-like. I focused beyond the pain in my head, the cotton-stuffed sensation from the drugs and the stink of the bag. I could smell the dampness of the air, dust and mildew. Cooler temperatures against my skin than a summer night in most parts of France, too. Probably a basement somewhere. Great, drugged up, strapped to a chair in a basement with a sack over my head. That only ever meant one thing. Well, one of two in some of the more enjoyably seedy parts of France, but knowing my luck...

Right on cue, there was the sound of a door scraping open, then the unmistakable clatter-thump of boots on a staircase. Jackboots, specifically. I'd heard enough of 'em squelching through mud and charging over fields to get the sound burned into my brain. Well, some things never changed. There were three sets of boots. The first one was lighter than the others, steps more precise and with a sharper sound, the metal parts less worn. The other two were heavy, rushing down the stairs and clomping after the first, irons all-worn out enough that they barely registered.

The set of footsteps I decided to label 'Thug One' walked over and took up a position behind me. 'Thug Two' and the one I'd already started thinking of as 'New Boots' stopped in front of me. New Boots spoke up then, all crisp, lightly-accented French, well-educated too. I decided I'd kill him first.

"You are a mystery I would very much like to solve. Earlier this evening you were found alone, attempting to sabotage the train meant to deliver our K12 artillery to the coast. A single, masked man. But they say you killed twenty French soldiers with pistols that shot fire, then ten more with your bare hands, before you were subdued. I'm disinclined to believe such exaggerations. The guns found on you were ordinary, the reports so much nonsense to hide incompetence and embarrassment. Yet, there are still some very intriguing things about you."

I worked my half-dead tongue around in my mouth for a minute before I could speak "Look, I can see what you're getting at here. Sorry to disappoint you, but I ain't really the man-loving type. I mean, it's gotta be tough for you, I hear the Fuhrer doesn't appro-" The slight scuff of Thug Two's boots as he shifted weight was just enough warning for me to tense my core for the gut punch. The chair rocked back with the force as I felt it hit like a howitzer, but Thug two caught the back before I could topple. Smart. I let out a wheezing laugh, not as short of breath as I shoulda been.

"Your boyfriend doesn't know how to hit, kid. What, am I supposed to confess out of embarrassment?"

They chose to ignore the taunt, New Boots kept going like the little exchange never happened. "You wear a mask, but when it was removed after we captured you, not a single man knew your face. Then there's this strange symbol on your chest," He prodded the Mark of Shou-Lao, top probably barely visible above the ropes. "Just what are you? A spy for the British? Some foreign sympathizer of the so-called 'Free French'? Or just a madman with a death wish?"

I wished he could see my smirk through the bag, but I settled for tone of voice. "I'm called Iron Fist. I'm an Immortal." To his credit, Thug One chuckled, like a gorilla with the hiccups. I decided I'd kill him last. The answer earned me another punch from Thug One, this time to the side of the head. I rolled with the strike as best I could once I heard it coming, but the starry explosion still rattled my teeth and I tasted the hot, coppery tang of blood from my cheek mashing into them.

New Boots started tapping his namesake against the floor, let me know I was getting to him. "You think this is a joke? I'm being gentle with you now. But try my patience and I can show you more hells in this world than you've ever imagined. Now, who are you working for?"

As a test I just spat some blood out against the bag for an answer. I felt Thug One grab the chair, then Thug Two made my torso his punching bag for a minute or two. After a childhood spent under learning Lei-Kung the Thunderer, even his hardest punches felt like love taps. I almost felt bad for his knuckles. Almost.

"Enough! What are your plans?!"

I gave it some thought, then decided to be honest.

"Well, the way I figure it, I'm gonna kill you, then beat the scheiß out of your scheißtypen friends, then get out of this chair and kill them. Then I'm gonna-"

I never did get to finish, I felt a gloved backhand crack across my face. This one was hard enough to knock a tooth loose, which was just perfect. Thug Two was allowed to pummel me for a long time after that, long enough that I started feeling the rhythm to his swings between blows to the chest and head. After a while I even started feeling the pain from them. It felt like hell and I had to work not to give them the satisfaction of screaming, but it also helped burn through the last of the fuzziness from the drug.

Once Thug Two was done, I felt New Boots breathing close to my face, his voice all quiet and angry like as one hand gripped my chin. "You will break eventually, and when you do I'm going to-"

I tuned him out, focusing instead on reaching out with my mind to become one with that golden sea of fire within myself. I felt the power that was mine alone flow from the Heart of the Dragon into my body, from there to the blood in my mouth...

...From there to the loose tooth tucked against my lips.

I spat enamel and blood and burning dragon-fire into his face, he barely had time to scream as he died.

I rocked my chair back to avoid another panicked swing from Thug Two instinctively and heard it whizz by, snapping my head back as I fell to headbutt Thug One in the solar-plexus when he moved to catch me on reflex. As the winded brute slumped over me I let chi-powered strength flow into my limbs and broke the ropes holding my arms, reaching up to grab him and rolling forward again to throw him into where I judged Thug Two to be.

I was rewarded with a satisfying crash and wild shouting and flailing, before I used the momentary distraction to slip the bag off my head and snap the ropes holding my legs.

I still had a chair awkwardly tied to my back, but as I blinked my eyes against the light at least I could see that I was in an almost empty cellar with New Boots dead at my feet and Thugs One and Two still tangled with each other on the floor, but slowly getting up.

I let them stand, gave them that much. After all, they deserved a chance.

Thug Two rushed me first, but I whirled around so that the back legs of the chair still strapped to me slapped into his knees and sent him sprawling. Then I jumped backwards and let the remainder of the chair shatter against him. Thug One tried to rush me while I was still prone from body slamming his partner. I rolled back and pressed up into a sort of back-handspring kick that staggered him, the sort of flashy acrobatic fighting they teach in K'un-L'un. Then I dropped down and made sure Thug Two stayed down for good with a bunch of curb-stomps to the throat and head that they definitely don't teach there.

When I turned back around Thug One had already drawn a knife in his right hand. Poor idiot. He came at me with a lunging stab, but it was slow enough that I could pass the blade out to the side and grab his wrist. I struck him with my free hand, chop to the throat, then with two knuckles extended to the eye in what Lei-Kung called the Golden Star Gouge. At almost the same time I twisted my body around his, grasping his knife hand and plunging his own blade into his abdomen, pushing in again until blood and viscera had to bubble up around the hilt. Then I let him slump and die on his own.

Three more corpses on the pile, but there was no time to think about it.

I had a train to catch.

Coolsville, California
1997

"I just can't believe it," Fred Jones said softly to himself.

"Stanley Jenkins," Daphne Blake shook her head. "Who would have thought?"

"I did," Velma Dinkley replied. "The second we saw that phosphorus paint on the dock. No ghost leaves marks like that."

The three teenagers stood on the shore of the beach while Stanley Jenkins was led away in handcuffs by police officers. He was still partially dressed in the glowing green outfit of a pirate captain. Rumors of some kind of ghost pirate near the beach had been plaguing the town for two weeks before the boys and girls of Mystery Inc. decided to get involved. The four teenagers spent three nights investigating the area until Velma found enough clues to spring the trap.

With the help of the sheriff's department, they had uncovered that the so-called ghost was actually Stanley Jenkins dressed in glow in the dark clothing and paint. He'd been scaring people off from the beach because that was how he was making money. Mr. Jenkins was smuggling in guns out of the beach and into the waters so they could be smuggled into Mexico. The trap had been set and Jenkins had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

"So long, Mr. Jenkins," Daphne called out with a wave.

"I would have gotten away with it too!" Jenkins snarled. "So fuck you!"

"Like, no thanks," Shaggy Rogers said as he walked up to the group, his Great Dane Scooby Doo by his side. "But I imagine you'll have a lot of that where you're going, man!"

"Shaggy!" The other three teens all said at once before they laughed all together.

---

Cool County, California
Now

Velma adjusted her glasses as she got out the car. She had her notebook, pen, and voice recorder in her hands as she approached the ramshackle house. Besides her unmarked car, a single patrol car sat outside the house with its lights still on. The deputy who called it in had been instructed to wait on her before deciding on backup. He called it in as a DB with a possible 187. If it was a 187, then more cops would be called on scene.

"Coming in," she announced as she came through the door. "It's me, Dinkley."

Deputy Mathis stood in the middle of a dirty living room piled with old food boxes, waterlogged newspapers, and moldy magazines. The smell was strong enough that if a dead body was rotting somewhere in the house she'd never been able to smell it.

"Come this way, Detective."

He led her to the body in the bedroom, face down on the floor. A pool of blood was underneath it.

"There's blood, but I don't see an exit wound," said Mathis. "It's why I'm not sure what happened."

"Call for backup," Velma said as she squatted. "It's likely it's a .22 round. Those little bastards and pinball through a human body and never exit."

Mathis did as he was told, speaking into the mic on his shoulder, while Velma removed a pair of latex gloves from her jacket. She put them on and squared her glasses before trying to find a wallet on the dead body. Nothing in any of the jean pockets. She looked up at Mathis.

"What got you out here?"

"Check up call," said the deputy. "Guy who lives here hadn't shown up for work for at least four days now, and his boss was getting worried. Said he didn't have many friends or family so somebody needed to see if he's alright."

"What's the name of the employee?"

Mathis pulled out a notebook and looked through it until he found the page he needed. "Rogers. Norville Rogers."

Velma felt a cold spot form in her stomach. She looked at the dead body. She couldn't tell from the back... but the dead body was tall, about the right height. Could it be? No...

"Detective?" Mathis asked. "Everything okay?"

"Yes," she said quickly. "Come here, help me flip the body."

"Shouldn't we wait?"

She shoved a pair of latex gloves into Mathis' hands and ignored him as she grabbed the dead bodies' shoulder. Mathis joined in and the stiff body flipped over on to its back, revealing a face heavily bruised and beaten. She spotted the bullet entry wound just below the neck in the upper chest. The face was swollen, and twenty years had not been kind to him, but Velma had no doubt as to who the dead body on the floor was.

"Oh, Shaggy..." she said softly. "Who did this to you?"

Detective Sergeant Thomas Burke sat at his desk in the detective's squadroom of the GCPD Western District House. The rest of his four man Narcotics unit were still at lunch. They'd taken a break from the usual morning routine of popping low and mid-level drug dealers for food while Burke went back to the station to do paperwork. He was in the process of completing incident reports for the day when the phone on his desk rang.

"Burke."

"You motherfucker!"

Burke immediately recognized the voice on the other end of the line.

"Why are you calling me here, Skeevers," he hissed. "We have a deal!"

"You goddamn right we do," Jefferson Skeevers yelled. "And that's why I wanna know how four police are riding up an elevator to come get me? How'd you let that fucking happen, Burke?! For what I'm paying you--"

"Shut your mouth," Burke snapped. "And tell me the situation. Did something happen in the projects today for cops to be there?"

"Naw, man. Ain't shit going on, so why the fuck are three rollies and a knocko coming down the hallway towards my apartment?" Burke heard movement on the other line. "Hey, Manman, they po-lice, don't fuck with them and do what they say!"

"I gotta go," Burke said quickly. "I'll look into it, that's all I can do."

He heard Skeevers protest as he put the phone back in the cradle. Burke leaned back in his chair and shook his head. What was going on? Three rollies and a knocko, to decode the slang of the street, meant three patrolmen and a plainclothes narcotics detective. There was no way someone from the Western would be over at the Finger without him knowing. That left... downtown. IA, or one of the other units like Major Crimes. If a downtown unit was coming for Skeevers without notifying the district that meant... they might know about Burke's deal with the drug dealer. They might know about the money and women in exchange for the muscle.

Burke quickly pulled his cell phone out and dialed Arturo Garcia, his second in command in Narco.

"Art," he said quickly. "Get everybody together and get over to the Finger right now."

"What's going on?"

"I don't know," Burke said, standing and walking towards the door. "But we're going to find out."

---

Jefferson Skeevers put his hands up as the door came open and the cops rushed in. A black one with a shotgun leveled it right at his face as two white cops, one in a suit, and a hispanic one came through the door. Skeevers' two bodyguards, Manman and Rocky, were already against the wall with their guns out of their waistbands and on the ground. All three men knew the score when it came to the cops. As much as Burke was indebted to him, he couldn't do a damn thing if Skeevers tried to hurt a police. In Gotham, the cops could be bought but they could never be bullied.

"On the ground," the one in the suit said. He had a pistol down by his side, but his face was hard enough that a gun wasn't necessary. "Spread 'em."

Skeevers did as instructed and hit the ground. He was quickly restrained with plastic tie cords to his wrists. His two bodyguards were tied by both their wrists and ankles while Skeevers was stood up by the knocko in the suit.

"Let's go."

He and the black cop grabbed him by the arms and led him out the apartment. Instead of going left towards the elevators, they went right towards the next apartment. Skeevers felt his chest tighten as the black cop knocked on the door with the butt of the gun.

"The fuck are ya'll--"

"Shut up," the white one snapped. "Tell the guys inside to open the door. Tell them it's the cops."

Skeevers did as instructed. A second later the steel bolted door came open and he was led inside by the two men, the other two police officers coming in behind them. The count room happened towards the end of its first shift and the entire small apartment was filled with bills that were counted and stacked and ready to be redistributed back. The two counters in the room had their hands up and were complying as they too were restrained by their wrists and ankles.

"Alright," the knock said with a nod towards the others.

All four men reached into their pants and pulled out folded up duffel bags that they quickly unfolded and opened. The three rollies started to shovel cash into the eight bags the four men had secreted into the room. Skeevers started to look around, making eye contact with the tall knocko with the mean face.

"The fuck kinda cops are y'all?"

The knocko put the gun in his face. "The kind that doesn't need to worry about justifying a shooting. Someone get the gag."

Skeevers started to yell for help, but by then it was too late. The hispanic one slipped a ball gag into his mouth and tightened it until he made no noise except a quiet muffling. The white one with the mean face scowled at him. He pulled out a rough floor plan of the housing project that showed every floor and room number.

"If you want to live, Skeevers," the man with the mean face hissed. "You're going to show us where you're keeping your dope stash."

---

"Something's not right."

Burke looked up at the project house with a scowl. Besides the four detectives, the entire plaza was deserted. The cop car was the reason why. It was just left out in the plaza, still running, its lights still flashing. No backup, no other cops watching the front door. Nothing.

"What's that?" Burke asked without looking away.

"Something's not right," Officer Chase said. "This car is fucked up."

Burke finally turned away and approached the patrol car. A quick glance inside proved Chase right. There was no radio, no scanner, no crime computer or GPS, nothing that the came standard in every Gotham patrol car. Four cops in a car like this go into the projects, going up specifically for Jefferson Skeevers and...

"Shit," Burke cursed. "We gotta get up there."

"Why?" Garcia asked with a raised eyebrow.

"They're not cops. They're stick up men!"

P R E S E N T

---

C H I C A G O

---

Ted's reaction, born of decades of surviving and thriving in dangerous situations, was to fight with the nearest weapons available. More specifically: to toss his blankets over the holographic Carapax's body to entangle it, throw a pillow as hard as he could into its face to knock it off-balance, then vault out of bed and slug the smarmy hardlight projection with everything he had when it stumbled. Carapax went down in one punch, but the projection was built to be durable. Oh sure, it still shattered in an iridescent burst, but even after using the goosefeathers like an improvised boxing glove, Ted was left rubbing sore knuckles. Still, Batman ought to get a load of that move! Ted Kord: Master Pillow-fighter.

He was smirking to himself and wondering if maybe he should just skip the nap and get up early when he heard the voice over his P.A. system

"Did you really think it would be that easy? Cut off one head..."

Three more projections of Carapax materialized between Ted and the door, while at the same time a metal panel slid over his balcony entrance. The three Cara-...Carapaxes? Carapaxii? Carapeople? In any case, all three spoke in unison.

"It's not just your holographic assistants I control. I'm in your system now. It may have taken time to free me, but no longer am I confined to the scrap and circuits of my indestructible battle armor. Once I was able to go wireless it was child's play for my genius mind to bypass your antiviral measures. Now All of your little Kordtech inventions are mine, your security systems, your secrets, your-HEY!"

Ted took advantage of his old enemy's monologuing to snatch a box from under his bed, then use it to vault off of, somersault past him to the door. He took off at a sprint into his hallway. A little turret popped out from a wall on his right and started firing compressed air blasts at Ted, but he'd designed the system himself, so it was easy enough to duck and roll through its' blind spots until he reached the elevator. He took the top off of the box he still had tucked under one arm, smiling to himself. Inside was a multitool and a very special set of gloves he'd been repairing for a few days.

He slipped the gloves on and pried open the service panel for the elevator, then went to work manually rigging the door to open. Faced with the empty elevator shaft, Ted looked down into its’ depths and felt his stomach drop into his feet. There was only one way to tell if the repairs on the gloves worked, so before he could hesitate any more, Ted dropped the multi-tool and jumped into open space with hands outstretched. Thankfully, life rewarded Ted with a quiet buzz as his hands stuck to the wall of the elevator shaft. He let out a breath he didn’t notice he’d been holding as he carefully unstuck one hand and lowered it to stick again, slowly climbing down.

As he did he decided to take stock of the situation: He was trapped in his own incredibly high-tech home-slash-personal laboratory by a disembodied ex-HYDRA scientist with a digital brain who had been trying to kill him since he was thirteen-years-old and playing boy genius sidekick to Dan Garrett. No big deal, just get past a small army of holographic clones and repurposed security measures, down to the subbasement underneath his underground lab, then shut off power to the whole building. All that, armed with nothing but these gloves, his wits, and his pajamas.

It was no big deal, right?

Before he could freak out any further, Carapax’s electronic voice echoed down to him.

“It was so rude of you to leave before I could finish talking. Garret was a fool and a thug, but at least he had a little respect for tradition.”

Ted didn’t respond, having reached the particular door he was looking for, instead he just leaped back over to the other side and clung there. Then, he balanced himself on the lip of the doorway and started forcing the doors apart, even though Carapax had locked them. Carapax had been quiet for a while by this point, and Ted was starting to wonder why when the air filled with humming, soft at first but growing louder…

…The elevator, rushing up to squash him against the ceiling like a…well, like a bug.

Ted heaved on the doors until he could feel every muscle straining, watching the light from the opening widen bit by bit as speeding metal doom hurtled towards him from below. Finally he got the opening just wide enough to tumble through –it was time to lay off the junk food for sure-and sprawled gasping on the floor as the elevator blasted by behind him and slammed into the roof of the shaft with an explosively loud, sickeningly close crash.

“Is…-is that…all ya got, chrome-dome? Get…get it…’cause you’re bald…and also made of metal now…bwah…ha..ha.”

Despite his exhaustion, Ted was feeling more optimistic. This floor contained his personal gym, entertainment center/hangout room and of course his kitchen. Most importantly, the kitchen had an entrance that ran up and down to his laboratory that was of vital importance. Not only because it was great for snacks in between long hours of science-work, but also because it was hidden and didn’t appear in any of the building’s schematics or security protocols.

Ted caught his breath and got up off of the floor, creeping across the little entryway and straight for the kitchen.

He came face to face with the same three Carapax simulations waiting for him. Or maybe three different ones, it was hard to tell. The important thing was that the first one lunged for him with a very big knife. Ted pivoted to the clone’s outside and grabbed the hologram’s wrist as he spun, using his momentum to push it off balance and twisting the knife back on him with a trip to throw it down hard enough to break it.

A second knife-wielding Carapax rushed him from the side, but Ted jumped up and stuck his hands to the ceiling, then dropped down onto its head to shatter it into rainbow light particles. The third one was circling, biding its’ time. Ted circled with him, moving across the kitchen, trying to find an opportunity. He paused and faced the last Carapax, Ted now behind the table while the hacked projection stared at him from in front of the fridge.

Something seemed off to Ted, something other than the ice cream in the freezer on top.

Why wasn’t Carapax just mobbing him with projections? Could his control over Ted’s systems not be as complete as he claimed? Inspiration struck!

“Kitchen: Open Freezer!”

“Wha-“ The small freezer door flung open and clocked the Carapax hard in the back of the head. As it stumbled, Ted grabbed a frying pan, vaulted over the kitchen table and brought it down hard into the projection’s face, satisfied as it dissipated.

“Beetle’s off the menu, Carapax! Take some time to chill, see if anything else pans out!”

Luckily, he was Ted Kord: Master Quip-Maker.

Carapax’s disembodied voice groaned audibly.

“If I have one solace in this world, Theodore, it will be that once you are dead I will never again have to deal with your INSUFFERABLE humor!”

“Yeah yeah, so you’ve been saying for the past few decades, but guess who’s still funny and who’s stuck in a moving metal can?”

Blue Beetle opened up what looked like a rotating cabinet for herbs and spices, turned it a bit, and then removed a little jar of thyme. The cabinet’s interior slid away to the side to reveal a staircase down to his lab, one he’d used many nights and early mornings.

Well, this time he would use it for some real good.

He opened the side-passage to his lab’s main area only to freeze in his tracks at the sight of the massive, twelve-foot-tall, gleaming red and gold killer robot standing right by the entry hatch to the power supply in his subbasement.

“Oh, did I neglect to mention, my ‘walking metal can’ as you call it is out of lockdown and fully operational. Minus of course the missile payload you oh-so-cleverly turned against me the last time.”

Ted let him talk, creeping over to the hatch just behind his robot body and staying in all the camera blind spots. Unfortunately, Ted had forgotten to oil the hatch and it made a wailing [color=slategray[i]shriiiiiiiiiiiek[/i][/color] as he opened it. Carapax whirled and Ted had to fling himself backward so that the incoming backhand didn’t crush him. Instead he was sent tumbling first through the air then painfully across the ground before crashing into an open storage room.

“Disappointing! The old Blue Beetle was never this pathetic, even if he was stupid enough to believe that a washed up archaeology professor with a good right hook and some magic tricks was a match for my genius! But then again what are you really, Theodore? You’re just an insignificant mind with a few bright ideas, a powerless pretender in blue pajamas!”

Ted’s head was spinning as Carapax stomped toward the darkened little room. He already felt like he was nothing but bruises and shredded muscles, but Ted couldn’t die here, couldn’t let Carapax win. If Dan were here, he’d just use the Scarab and beat him mano-a-mano. Dan had always been able to make things work for him. But that wouldn’t help, Ted didn’t have the Scarab and couldn’t bring himself to use it, with or without magic. Besides, his own gear was in a different part of the lab near the hangar for The Bug. The only thing he kept in this closet was experimental medical supplies: portable artificial life support systems, big cryogenic freezing pod, cybernetic limbs-

-and a strength-enhancing exo-skeleton for patients with atrophied muscle tissue!

There were no cameras or sensors inside the storage room, so Carapax had to bend down and visually confirm Ted’s presence inside. When he did, he got a double-punch to the faceplate with all the power Ted’s considerable strength and engineering prowess could put behind it. The huge robotic madman got knocked onto his back and skidded across the lab’s floor as Ted emerged grinning over him with a whirring, mechanized skeleton encasing his body and a grin on his face.

“Like it? It’s one of my bright ideas!”

Ted let Carapax get up, just smirking as the titanic terror charged him. As the ex-scientist took a swing at him Ted turned the attack into a shoulder throw that slammed his metal shell into the wall, cratering it. Carapax was nearly invincible, ridiculously powerful and surprisingly fast for his size. Then again, he never did know how to fight and after over a decade in storage he was bound to be running low on power. Ted pummeled the cybernetic man with a rain of blows, one after the other until the wall Carapax was up against gave way and they crashed back into the storage room.

Even then Ted didn’t let up, kicking him across the floor before advancing on Carapax, panting.

The Indestructible Man got up, moving ponderously in the small space but as unharmed as his name indicated.

“You cannot win Theodore! You can beat me back and throw me around all you like, but in the end I AM indestructible! After you tire or the batteries for that little gimmick run out I’m going to slaughter you, then everyone you’ve ever loved, then anyone you’ve ever known! Then I’ll find what’s left of HYDRA and-“

“Didn’t I tell you to chill?”

Ted pressed a button and the cryogenic pod closed up around Carapax, perfectly positioned by Ted’s last kick. A synthesized howl of rage came from the robot, echoing all around Ted, but the process had already begun. Carapax tried to bull-rush the door, but even as he smashed it down his lower half froze in place. He flailed and raged, but couldn’t remove himself from the pod.

Ted quickly unstrapped from the now-battered exoskeleton, its frame barely holding up considering it was unarmored. He finished opening the hatch, dropped down and reset the system in a matter of minutes, plunging things into darkness. Ted climbed out, satisfied at a job well done.

Then he heard the sound of Carapax’s laughter echoing through the lab again.


Ted rushed over to Carapax, a frown of confusion on his face. “What gives, Incoherent Man? I cut you out of my systems and soon enough I bet you’ll run out of power. I won!”

Carapax kept laughing “No, you’ve lost. You were too late! It was never just about killing you. it was about destroying you utterly. You see before you cut me off, I had time to do one last thing: Hack into a satellite made by Kord Omniversal and have it alter trajectories to plow right into downtown Chicago. Think of all that death and destruction, and you’ll be to blame!”

Carapax suddenly fired the rocket thrusters attached to his back, melting the ice encasing him with the heat. But Ted didn’t have time to fight him again, he was already running to the Bug. He leaped inside with Carapax storming after him, unable to get the hatched closed before the man in the machine got inside. It didn’t matter, Ted stayed at the controls of the airship as it took off, the force of going from zero to hypersonic down the exit tunnel as fast as possible tossing the Invincible Man to the back of the ship in a crash that destroyed most of Ted’s on-board lab equipment.

Ted worked furiously, locating the satellite and plotting out maneuvers into the Bug’s A.I. to intercept it, roaring out of the tunnels and up into the atmosphere higher and higher in a desperate race to catch a man-made meteorite. The airship had its’ magnetic field, its’ shields and its grasper claws all extended at full power as it soared to near-space flight, meeting the burning, falling satellite head-on. ..and stopping it cold.

Ted slumped forward in his chair as the G-forces stopped crushing him back into the seat and the bug started to gently descend. Satellite stopped. Day saved. But he still had Carapax to deal with. Now that there was nothing pressing him into the back compartment he stomped into the cockpit growling with rage. Ted felt done in, helpless. Carapax was just out of his weight class as a hero.

Out of his weight class...

Ted's mind started racing and he punched in commands as fast as he could. As Carapax wrapped a huge, cold hand around the top of his head and lifted him up to crush him, Ted lashed out with a kick that flipped a lever on the Bug's controls. The Bug responded by executing a neat little parabolic arc.

Ted grinned as the inevitable happened: At just the right point during the maneuver, gravity ceased to have any effect. Himself, Carapax, all of his shattered equipment, everything floated up elegantly into mid-air inside the ship.

In those few almost beautiful moments of freefall, free of the planet's pull, Ted Kord threw a twelve-foot-tall monster out of a window so hard that it saw the curvature of the Earth.

Ted had to engage his sticky-gloves against the back of his chair to keep from being sucked out from decompression forces, but in the end, he won.

Too bad the Justice League hadn't seen it.

Ted Kord: Master Crime-Fighter.

---

It didn't take Ted too long to find Carapax. He just had to look for the smoldering robot-sized crater in the countryside. He descended from the Bug on a rappelling line and gave Carapax his most annoying grin despite how destroyed he felt physically.

"So! How was the trip?"

Error! Power failing! Emergency Shutdown Required!

"Aww, well that's too bad."

Carapax's voice came out weak and tinny "You...you...this isn't over...I didn't escape by myself. They released me and now they know...about where you hid it...about the Scarab. Haha...ha..ha."

"Shut up, Conrad. You talk too much."

The Invincible Man powered down with a low whine and Ted called in the Bug to pick him up. He'd have to devise a better security system for him. But even with his enemy beaten, the battle won and not a single life lost there was a problem.

Someone was after the Scarab.

The Preserve
May, 1888

The Hunter listened hard for any sounds of movement in the brush. His quarry was nearby, he was almost certain of it. He’d wounded it twenty minutes ago as it fled through the night into the underbrush. He saw it limping away into the treeline. The Hunter followed a blood trail, slight though it was, through the growth. He must have nicked the poor beast in the leg.

In his hands, the Hunter carried a Remington-Lee bolt action rifle with a large telescopic sight on top of it. Supplementing the rifle was a Colt double-action revolver on his right hip, on the left hip was a large hunting knife sharpened to a razor edge. He’d used all three weapons at one time or another to deliver killing blows to the various animals he'd killed over the years. If the rifle couldn’t kill from far away, the revolver was perfect for a bit closer, and the knife for when you could feel the animal’s breath right in your face. That close encounter, now that was hunting.

A twig snapped nearby. The Hunter stayed stock still and listened. He heard the sound of footfalls through the woods, at least twenty or thirty yards based on the sounds. Something scampered nearby and the Hunter gave chase. The beast huffed and puffed as it lumbered through the woods. It might as well have been advertising to the Hunter where it was. It ran into a clearing and ran as fast as it could run with a wounded leg.

The Hunter emerged into the clearing and saw the animal running through the open field even in the night time light. He got on one knee and aimed the rifle at the fleeing beast. He sighted the silhouette through the telescopic sight, exhaled slowly, and pulled the trigger.

KRAK!

The Hunter let out a cheer of excitement as his bullet went through the animal’s neck and dropped it. He whistled a cheerful tune and walked towards the downed animal, the rifle slipped over his shoulder. He looked down at the beast. She was a young woman, no older than twenty-five. Her long, black hair was tangled around her face and she wore a simple cotton tunic with bare feet. Blood covered the top of the tunic. She gasped for air and sputtered blood from her mouth. Her clear blue eyes were wide with terror, tears rolling from them and down her cheeks.

“P-please.”

“There, there,” the Hunter said in a reassuring tone. He sounded almost like a father reassuring a frightened child.

He pulled the long, sharp knife from its sheath. It glinted in the moonlight and sent a fury of panic through the wounded girl. He started to scream through her blood-filled mouth.

“No need to struggle now, girl. I’m here to put you out of your misery.”

She let out a long muffled scream as the Hunter’s knife went in for a killing stroke.



En Route
June 30th, 1888

Jonah Hex stirred from his nap and looked around the jostling train car. It was filled with people headed towards the city like he was. Even though the car was packed he was given a wide berth from the rest of the passengers. He caught a glimpse of his reflection against the train window and figured why he was alone. Hex, scary looking even in the worst saloon in the west, looked nearly demonic to the people in the east.

He still wore his Confederate gray even now with the war over for two decades. It was faded and worn, but Hex continued to keep it in good shape. The years had caused his scars to settle in on his face and sharpen in detail as he aged. His hair was short and hidden under his hat, but it was now almost completely white. This year was his fiftieth one. He thought about that for a bit. It was hard to believe he’d made it past five years, let alone fifty. With all he’d seen and done, sometimes it felt like two hundred years. Hell, he was a granddaddy now. Papa Jonah. Those words were unnatural, as unnatural as seeing a horse walking upright.

A conductor said something about a stop, followed by another, and finally the end of the line in the city. Hex kept to himself as the passengers got off and on at their stops. He had the faded telegram from two weeks ago in his hand. A Western Union man had managed to track him down to where he was holed up in the Arizona Territory. He had to give the man a lot of credit for finding him since plenty of people had tried and failed over the years. Hex opened the telegram up and read it again.

Mr. Jonah Hex,

I have heard of your many exploits and adventures in the West. Your services and skills are needed in the East. Men of your gumption are badly needed in city. Enclosed is five hundred dollars, what I am told is a significant sum for the services you provide. More money to follow if you come to the city by the first of September. Address to my home follows. I hope to see you soon.

Yours,
E.D. Kane

Hex had planned to just take the money and ignore the telegram. He’d gotten plenty of appeals over the years from people, wanting his help in this matter or that. He had apparently become a figure of some renown across the country. Hex blamed that damn writer from Montana ten years ago. A simple affair turned complicated and Hex had to make a stand in a small town called Justice. The writer saw Hex square off with six armed men in a bloody shootout and went back east to write about the whole affair. Ever since then he was known as an “adventurer” and a “hero.”

Right. A hero.

The only reason he was here was because whoever this person was asking him to come east, he obviously had more money than sense. If some big city dude wanted to pay Hex money to feed him a load of bull hockey about the Wild West and make him feel like a big shot, then that was okay. He’d done worse for less money.

The conductor announced the end of the line as the train pulled to a stop in the station. Hex waited until the car was nearly empty before he grabbed his bag and walked out into the station. People were hustling and bustling through the station, but Hex was given another wide berth through the place. He came out the station and into the street.

The city was filled with throngs of people going to and from somewhere. Carriages and horses clopped down the dirt streets and nearly struck pedestrians trying to cross. Hex turned his nose up at the town. It was dirty, stuck ten times worse than any corral filled with horse crap, and was filled with dirty, stinking people who were all underfed and miserable. It smelled of pollution and desperation. This stench was the smell of progress and industry, the poor and exhausted people the great teeming masses who made the United States' growing wealth and prosperity possible. The Gilded Age, some fancy writer called it, but like anything gilded all that glittered was never gold. And this city was one the hubs of American wealth and industry. It was called the shining beacon of the East.

“Gotham City.”

Hex spat on the dirt street and wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve.

“Hell of a town.”

---

The Fortress
Somewhere in the Arctic Circle
July 16th, 2013

"So," Conner says, his hands in his pockets as he looks around at the vaulted crystalline ceilings and morphing liquid-geo displays, "This is the Fortress, huh? Kara never let me in here while you were gone-- she said it's because she's worried I might have some Cadmus sleeper-program left in me, but I think she just does it to tease me."

"Well, you won't have to worry about that anymore," I say as I enter in a sequence of gestures at one of the many computer terminals. After a moment, the swirling nanite cloud forms into a slim pentagonal key with the El family crest at the head, and I pluck it from the cloud and hand it to him. "Your very own command key. Now you've got full access to everything the Fortress and Kelex can do, just like Kara and me."

Conner eyes the key, then gives me a skeptical look, but ultimately takes it and puts it in his jeans pocket.

"This is still really weird," he says, looking downward. "Not coming to the Fortress, I mean, just.....this whole thing, it's......I don't really know how to deal with it."

"I know how you feel," I say, trying to put a hand on his shoulder, but he walks away before I can.

"You really don't," he mutters as he walks off, down the winding corridors towards the Interstellar Zoo.

"Don't mind him, he's always like that," says Kara, flitting through the air as she greets me. "Everything with him is always so grim and so serious. I've been telling him he needs to start dating; it'd do him a world of good. Maybe see if Batgirl's seeing anyone? Or if Wonder Woman knows any Amazons who are looking for--ooh! I know! That Raven girl from the Titans! She's always all 'ohhh, look at me, I'm so dark and misunderstood, isn't that coooool,' she'd be perfect for--"

"You know he's got super-hearing like us, right?"

"Pffft, I say that to his face all the time," she shrugs it off.

"Still, I'd appreciate it if you'd go easy on him," I say, taking a sterner tone, "He's having a tough time getting used to, you know......the situation."

"Okayyy, fine," she relents. "Speaking of, how are you doing?"

"Oh, you know," I shrug, "about as well as someone can be doing, given everything that's happened while I was.....away."

Kara raises an eyebrow.

"You're saying that like you went on vacation," she says. "You were dead, Kal. I was supposed to look after you, help raise you, and by the time I came to Earth you'd already lived out your life. I only knew about you through stories, hearing the members of the Justice League talk about you, seeing your statue in Heroes' Park. Now you're back, and you've been acting like you'd just stepped out for a long lunch or something."

I sigh.

"Honestly? I've just been trying not to think about it," I admit. "The world's changed so much since Doomsday. And not just the 'tights and fights' part of my life. Lois is having a hard time with all of this. And I'll be honest, it's not easy for me to get my head around it, either. So for now, I think it's best if I just focus on the job and let everything sort itself out."

"Well, if you ever need an ear, I'm always here, cousin," she says, opening her arms wide. "Hugs?"

"Okay, but-

"Huuuugs!" she exclaims, squeezing me with enough force to crush a mountain.

"Nnngh!....Kara.....can't breathe--"

"Oh! Ogmigosh, sorry!" she gasps. "I got a little carried away there."

"Not to break up the touching moment here," says Conner, re-entering the main hall, "but that Kelex computer just told me there's a pretty massive storm approaching Thailand. Do we wanna, I dunno, go help people or something?"

"You're right! We should go save people together! It'll be awwwwe-sommmme!" She exclaims, zipping out of the Fortress's main entrance and into the open air. Before I go, Conner grabs my arm.

"Hey, um, Superman," he says. "God, I don't even know what to call you. I mean, are you like, my dad now? My big brother? Or--"

"Let's start with Clark," I say with a slight chuckle.

"Right, right, um, Clark," he nods. "I know everyone's going through a weird time right now, and maybe I'm not the best about dealing with it. I just wanted to say, y'know.....thanks. For being cool with, y'know....with me."

"Don't worry about it, Conner," I say. "I don't where you came from, or what Cadmus or ARGUS or anyone else wanted you to do. You're family now, and whatever you decide you want to do, whoever you decide to be, I've got your back."

That may actually be the first time I've ever seen him smile.

"Now come on," I say, giving him a pat on the back. "We've got a force of nature to fight. You up for it?"

"I'm always ready," he says, cracking his knuckles.

I take to the skies, and look down to see Conner bounding across the frozen plains, taking a half-mile or more with every stride.

Things are strange these days, everything's so uncertain. But it's times like this where having people who are there for you means the world. My second lease on life was a gift, to be sure, but having a family to share my life with this time.....that's a whole other gift entirely.

---

September 23rd, 1940

Near the Ain Gorge, France

Unfortunately for me, the bastards who tied me up had enough imagination to do it somewhere remote. But once I had my memory back it hadn't taken me long to remember enough of France to find the right train tracks again and follow them here. 'course, I had to kill a few more men to point me in the right direction once I got out of the basement, not to mention burn chi like crazy to get here fast enough. But the important thing was I'd gotten here alright.

The 'here' in question being a big old monster of a stone bridge all set to carry rail-mounted guns and who knew what else out of Paris...or was it into Paris? A night of breathing in what I could only assume was enough ether to knock out a dragon, ontop of dealing with my own drug-based demons and several blows to the head, well it all made for a pretty hazy state of mind. It took time and focus to properly heal oneself with the Chi of Shou-Lao, and right now I was shit out of both. But I could remember the mission well enough, which was more or less to smash up trains and train-lines however I could. Which brought me here, staring up at a big stone bridge where the forest met the shores of the Ain River.

I had no gear, no backup, and no explosives but my plan was pretty simple. I figured I'd just destroy it with my bare hands, considering it'd be the last thing anyone would expect. Well, that was provided I could still use the Iron Fist at all. Parlor tricks with a knocked-in tooth were fine, but I hadn't tried the Iron Fist proper since I walked out of that bomb-blasted drug den in Marseilles and signed on with the Resistance the very same day. Hadn't wanted to find out I might...

There was no more time to think about it, I leaped up into a tree and started hopping up from tree-branch to tree-branch. By the time I reached the tip-top of the one nearest to the bridge, I figured I could make it onto the first crossing level, the one for cars that needed to cross, as long as I had a good jump in me. I breathed in, let the breath fill me with that energy-that-surrounds-all-things Lei-Kung was so fond of rambling on, then sailed through the air easy as a summertime kite. There was an easier approach to the top level of the bridge, but there was also no sense getting spotted by some antsy villager or a collaborator on guard who needed a piss over the side.

I landed in a roll on the hard stone and didn't waste any time looking for guards here on the lower level. If they spotted me I'd have to keep going anyways, or risk failing the mission. So I just found a crack in the stones to use as an initial handhold and started climbing the support pillar that connected the two levels of the bridge. I guess most men wouldn't have tried to scale the masonry that way, in the dead of night, in hostile country, and with no tools. Most men weren't raised in the mountain heights of K'un-L'un, made to climb every day since the age of eight even when their fingers were numb with frostbite and a long day of punching buckets of hot gravel. I inched up that wall, willing strength into my fingers and toes, punching new handholds in where I found none, and grateful for the Thunderer's training having already deadened my hands to pain for decades.

I wondered what the Thunderer would think of me now, greatest student of my generation, covered in muck and blood, once again fighting in the wars of mortal men. He'd spared my life last time he saw me, recognized me for the broken weapon I was and left me to rust in peace. Would he feel sorrow to see me, or pride? Maybe he'd just throw some ancient wisdom in my face, impassive, but always teaching. Even after all these years my old master was still a mystery.

The bastard.

My thoughts trailed off as I grasped the top of the ledge and pulled myself up. I walked to the center of the bridge, preparing my mind for what came next. I breathed slow, reaching out for the Heart of the Dragon, letting its' fiery energy course through me more than I had in years. The night sharpened until I could count the stars in the sky, hear the rush of the river over seventy meters below me like I had my ear pressed to it, feel each bump and smooth spot in the stones through my boots. I burned with life, feeling it all, connected to it all. No more haze of ether, no more crawling, squirming addiction. No more ghosts staring at me out of the corners of my eyes. This, this right here was the only drug I could ever need. I was powerful, I was immortal, I was...

Alive.

I tried to focus it, the living fire inside me, temper it with all that I was, all that made me Orson Randall, focus it into my fist...

I would've screamed loud enough to give myself away if I didn't bite down on my cheek until I tasted blood hot on my tongue all over again. My hand felt like I'd just caught an exploding grenade, blasted it to bone chips and meat pulp. Even after looking down at it with my own eyes it was hard to believe it was still there, unharmed. The shock of it had me shaking in my boots and wanting to collapse right there on the train tracks. But I couldn't give up, just the thought of it started to make the ghosts drift out from the river underneath me. I just had to...

My hearing, still sharpened by the energy that had just tried to devour my hand, picked up the unmistakable sound of a train barreling down the tracks. I was too late. I'd been too slow or got knocked out too long, couldn't control my powers to destroy the bridge fast enough. The reason didn't matter, I'd failed. I could see the faces of everyone I'd already failed drifting in front of me again. There were so many from the last war, the one we thought would end all of them. Wendell was there too, always there looking like he did right before I'd lost him to K'un-Lun: so angry, with a hunger in his eyes for a life I could never give him.

No, I couldn't fail them all again. Not even with a train barreling down on me like a falling mountain. I reached deep into the Chi of Shou-Lao, opened myself up to it even more, diving into an ocean of fire. I poured it all into my hand, forcing through the agony as I felt my hand start to smolder, to glow, to burn. The light from the front of the train lit the night, the scream of a hell-beast came from the engine as it spewed smoke into the black sky, shaking the whole world with its' unstoppable charge.

A three hundred ton dragon made of fire and steel and all of mankind's sorcery raced towards me.

I'm The Immortal Iron Fist.

Killing dragons is my specialty.

P R E S E N T

---

C E N T R A L C I T Y

---

"The names Professor Zoom. I'm with the Flash."

Barrys heart skipped a beat, and for someones who had a heart that beat far faster than the average humans, that was a big deal. He had missed training someone about the Speed Force, not to mention having Wally by his side but this guy said he was with him. That was a bit of a leap. Before he could say anything though people were accosting the man in yellow with questions.

"Are you the Flash from Keystone?"

"Are you faster?"

"Where did you come from?"

The one Barry honed in on was the last one. "Do you know who the Flash is?"

"Yes." Not good.. Even before he knew Batman he knew that one of the most important secrets he had was his name, not that Batman had ever needed to figure out who he was. At that moment Barry ran up the steps towards him, placing his arm around 'Zooms' shoulder and waving to the crowd. It wouldn't do good to get into a confrontation here, not infront of all these people.

"Can I have a word, Partner?" He made sure to put emphasis on the word, to anyone thinking that the two of them actually knew eachother it would possibly seem normal, perhaps even congratulatory. He was hoping that this Zoom character would pick up on it's true intent, it was to show this Zoom character that Barry wasn't impressed, nor happy. If he had been approached beforehand about a possible pairing then that would be a different matter. It was like if the man in yellow had just taken to the streets using his name. No, this needed to get sorted now. He needed to know more before he could be associated with the man in yellow.

"Sure thing Flash!" Did he sound, excited? He ran off down the street, turning and looking back he saw that Zoom was keeping pace. He wasn't catching up, but wasn't falling behind either. If Barry were to push it however, would Zoom be able to keep up? If this was Wally he surely would have, though the situation was far too serious. First this individual had turned up out of the blue, running around the city not really doing anything before taking down Trajectory and now he claimed to be Barrys partner? It was all too co-incidental, the CSI in him didn't believe for a moment that that was all there was too it. Was Professor Zoom the 'Doctor Elias' that Ted had told him about? If so, what was his motiviation for becoming a speedster? If he wasn't Elias then who was he?

Too many questions cluttered his brain, and he needed answers. He came to a skidding stop outside of the city limits. "So, just who are you Professor Zoom? As the man in yellow eyed him up, surprisingly he went to peel back his mask from his forehead.

"You don't know it yet, though lets just say-" He pulled the cowl all the way back off his face. "-Where I come from, we know eachother very well." No wonder Ted had found the face so familiar, it was like Barry was staring face to face with a mirror. The man wore his face. Were they twins? No wait, where I come from. He knew Time Travel was possible, he had ran back in time by accident on one occasion.

"I don't.." Barry shook his head. "I don't understand."

"You will Barry, you will. Given time."

There it was again. Time. The differences in the suit, the name. The voice even sounded coarser, older. He wasn't ready to jump in head first with the belief that this Zoom character was an older version of himself, though there was certainly some form of connection. He just couldn't see it yet. He could almost hear Bruces voice in his head, erring him on the side of caution. He shook it off. He had spent too much time around the Dark Knight, he was starting to get paranoid. This Zoom character, seemed alright. The fact that he knew Barrys secret identity alone was cause to give him a break.

"So who are you? Really."

Gotham City
June 30th, 1888

If a city could be compared with a body, then the city of Gotham was a sickly one. Jonah Hex saw that with every street he walked down and every house and every face that he passed. Factory workers traveled down the crowded city streets, their raggedy clothing covered in soot and their sallow faces streaked with creosote. Workers of all ages, stoop-shouldered old men to boys still with their baby teeth still intact all did the same dead-eyed shuffle through the streets after twelve hours hard labor in the factories. The buildings here were five and ten floors tall and eclipsed some of the tallest buildings he had seen out west. These tall buildings all crowded close to each other down the blocks, row after row making the city seem to be one large tenement to house its stinking, malnourished, and diseased residents.

Hex saw whores as well. Just like those that worked in the factories, women as young as twelve and as old as sixty were on the corners at every junction trying to sell their flesh for whatever the going rate was. They had the same vacuous gazes as them that spent any amount of time in the city. That look came natural after a certain point. As many whores here as were the entire population of a town like Dodge City.

Stench, squalor, and despair. Civilization. That's what the Europeans who came here called what they brought with them. They stole and raped and murdered everything worth stealing, raping, or killing. Yet they were supposed to be the civilized ones in the story. This was their civilization in action, this rotten town was one of the shining examples of what it mean to be civilized and advanced. They could keep it, Hex thought as he walked through the mud and filth.

Hex was given room to walk without much interference. Even in a place like this he was recognized as someone not to be trifled with. The twin Colts on both hips helped hammer that fact home. Still, there was some fool who thought he could approach him.

"Say, friend," a skinny man in a baggy suit and a straw boater hat said as he approached Hex. He had in his hands a bottle filled with turquoise liquid.

"You look as if you could use some of Dr. Jerimiah von Hausen's Miracle Elixir. It's the cure for whatever your ill is. For just two dollars, it can be yours."

"Some sorta wonder tonic?" Hex asked with raised eyebrows.

"Yes, indeed," the man perked up at the thought of a potential client. See you have some nasty scar there, friend. This can cure it and anything else. Why, there's nothing it can't do."

Hex nodded before he spat a large wad of tobacco juice on the salesman's lapel.

"How's it work on stains?"



The house was big and looming. Three floors high, it stretched out across the rural outskirts of the city where it sat on a hill that had a clear view of the bustling metropolis. Hex sat in the foyer of the mansion, his hat off and awaiting the return of a stuck up butler who answered the door and led him inside without so much as two words.

"Mr. Kane will see you now, sir."

Hex was led to a study that had bookshelves covering it from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. Every inch of the shelves were crammed and chocked full of books of different sizes and thicknesses. A man sat in a leather chair near an empty fireplace, reading intently at the small book in his hands.

"Mr. Hex, sir."

The man looked up and his fat, ruddy face broke out into a wide grin. He had a thick mustache that went down to his chin and was dressed in an expensive three-piece suit that tried to hide his portly figure. The man leaped up and bounded across the room with an energy that took Hex off guard.

"Jona Hex? Eliot Davis Kane. Damn smashing to meet you!"

He took Hex's hand into his pudgy one and vigorously shook it.

"Have a seat. Mr. Miller, you're dismissed."

The butler left them alone while Kane settled back into his chair and Hex took the seat across from him.

"I am thrilled to meet you. I have heard so much of your exploits over the years, sir. Why, I myself spent some time in the Dakota Territory some years pass. There was a bit of family tragedy involving my wife and I had to leave city life behind for a spell. I served as a ranch hand and deputy sheriff out there. It was a smashing good time."

Hex grunted in a non-committed way and played with the hat in his hands. Kane's sharp eyes fell upon the hat and his expression brightened.

"I forgot you were in the War! The War of Northern Aggression, I believe you Rebs called it. I wanted to serve, tried like hell to. I'm afraid I was too young to fight. Oh, what fun I missed out. I would have been a cavalry man, you see. I could imagine protecting Sherman's flanks as he tore through Georgia. A time I would have had!"

Hex thought back to the Battle of Shiloh, over twenty-six years ago he fought in Tennessee. Hex wrestled with a Yankee in the mud for nearly ten minutes before he got the upperhand and pinned the man to the ground. He strangled the man to death with his bare hands. The Yankee's last words before he died were a choked sob of "mommy."

"Yeah... it was a time," he said sardonically before looking at Kane. "Listen, Mr. Kane. I appreciate the big money ya sent me, but what do you want? I'm not gonna sit around here and listen to you gab no matter how much you paid me."

"There's that prickliness I've heard so much about! I would expect nothing less from Jonah Hex."

Kane rose from his chair and walked around to the back. He leaned against it as he spoke to Hex with a soft smile.

"After coming back to Gotham I got into public service. It was what I had to do, you see. It's expected of me as a Kane. The people I come from made this city what it is."

"Don't know if that's something I'd brag about."

Kane flashed a wry smirk and continued.

"Public service to the city of Gotham is a Kane tradition. My grandfather was mayor, my father a City Councilman. I intend to follow my grandfather to City Hall, but for now I currently serve as one of three civilian commissioners for the Gotham City Police Department. We form a reviewing board that oversee all actions the police make. I fancy myself as something of a reformer, but it is a tough slog to attain progress. The majority of policemen are either corrupt or apathetic and it seems nigh impossible to change that. Over the past few months, Mr. Hex, I have begun to notice a startling trend among the working girls in the Bowery."

"Whores, you mean?"

Kane bristle at the word. "... Yes, for lack of a better word. A steady rate of them have gone missing. It wouldn't be a problem, women of that sort often do come and go like the wind, but the steady numbers has my attention. I think a gang of bandits and kidnappers may be behind these abductions, Mr. Hex. I have tried to raise the question with my fellow commissioners and other policemen, but I am mostly ignored. They do not care. Nobody cares about those poor girls."

"If a whore gets killed and ain't nobody around to see it, is she actually murdered?"

"Exactly," Kane said with an animated jab of the finger. "An what's more, the police department do not care. I could cause a panic by taking this to the press. I could hire a Pinkerton, but they cannot be trusted for this. You, on the other hand. You have a reputation as a fearless fighter, a man who will do the right thing when it comes down to it, and an expert hunter. I need those hunting and tracking skills now."

Hex looked down at his boots and thought it over. It was a damn fools errand, finding a killer or killers in this town was like finding the right needle in a stack of needles. But... somebody was gonna take advantage of this damn fool Kane, and it may as well be him.

"Pay me another five hundred dollars and I'm yours for at least another month."

Gotham City
July 1st, 1888

Jonah Hex smoked a cigarillo while he and Eliot Kane rode in the back of the rich man's personal coach and buggy, pulled by a great big cart-horse. Hex blew smoke out the open window and watched the street as they passed by. There were plenty of people out and about in the early evening. The hot summer night was humid to the point of being unbearable, and being inside made it worse. At least outside there was the faint hope of a wayward breeze. Hex had only been in Gotham for a little over a day and he was already tired of seeing so many people together. They looked like cattle herded up in a pen, all waiting to head to the slaughterhouse. He exhaled smoke and ruminated on that last part, figuring that all life was a long wait for the inevitable slaughter.

"Tonight begins the hunt," Kane said vigorously. "I am not embarrassed to admit, Mr. Hex, that I am as excited as a child await St. Nicholas' arrival. Somewhere out there is a man, or men, who are preying on the less fortunate of the world. It is our duty to protect those who cannot protect themselves, Mr. Hex!"

Hex grunted neutrally. He wasn't entirely sure what to make of Kane. The man talked like a jackass and loved to hear the sound of his own voice. He was definitely the picture-perfect definition of an Eastern Dude with his immaculate clothes that cost more than everything Hex owned or had ever owned. Still, underneath all that, there was something that intrigued Hex. Yes, his constant yammering was annoying, but underneath it seemed a genuine desire to help the people of this hellhole of a city. Like employing Jonah Hex himself to help him find a man abducting prostitutes. Hex wasn't coming cheap and he was paying for it out of his own pocket. That may mean Kane had more money than sense, but he was at least trying.

"On the topic of Shanghaiing, there is a particular street gang here in the city that is rumored to use kidnapping as one of their methods of terror. They take anyone they can get their hands on and sell them to whoever is interested. There are stories of women being sold to Siamese princes, men being impressed into working as little more than slaves for the Russian Imperial Navy."

"Sounds like a good place to start."

"They call themselves the Bowery Boys," Kane said with a wry chuckle. "They are a motley group of Polish and Italians who intermingle in the name of criminal enterprise. Jews and Catholics mixing together, you can hardly be surprised that crime is where they would turn to. Those hyphenated Americans, the German-Americans or the Italian-Americans or the Jewish-Americans, are where this country will find its downfall."

Hex grunted again and flicked what was left of his cigarillo out the window. He leaned forward and looked at Kane, his hands on his knees as he spoke.

"I don't give a good goddamn about any of that, just take me to where we gotta go."

"We shall," Kane said with a grin. "We are going to meet one of my allies in the police force. He runs a special strong arm squad that works the Bowery's street gangs and polices vice. You'll like him, Hex, he's a lot of like you. A rough man who has to do rough work, but all for the greater good. I see you two getting on smashingly."



Hex and Kane climbed out of his coach in a back alley and approached a loading bay hidden by shadows in the early evening. A man stood waiting for them.

"Jonah Hex, Lieutenant Worthington Smythe."

A big, beefy man with a thick mustache and pince-nez glasses looked Hex over while the bounty hunter did the same with him. He was almost as tall as Hex, and at least fifty pounds heavier. Not all the weight appeared to be fat, Hex noticed. While he wore a crisp suit with a flat cap and a snapped brim, a gold GCPD badge pinned to the chest, he carried himself like a brawler. Hex confirmed that when they shook hands and he saw the scar tissue along the man's knuckles.

"The name rings a bell," said Smythe. "Aren't you some kind of gunslinger or something?"

"Or something."

"I have brought Hex into the city to show him a taste of city life, Lieutenant. I would like him present with us on tonight's raid."

Smythe raised his eyebrows at the commissioner before he looked at Hex. The lieutenant wore a look of passive annoyance that Hex could only speculate on. With Kane's nature, there was no way this was the first time he had asked to tag along on a raid. Now, he was also asking that a stranger come along with them.

"Commissioner... I..." he stammered and tried to find an appropriate response.

Kane held a hand up to silence the cop. "I promise you, Lieutenant, tonight will not be a repeat performance of that fiasco six months ago. I shall stay well enough back, as will Mr. Hex. We just wish to observe, I promise you."

Lieutenant Smythe stared for a long moment before he spat and shrugged.

"Very well. Come with me."

They followed Smythe down the alley and through a doorway. Inside, six men were cleaning and loading weapons. Like Smythe, they all wore suits and ties with a GCPD badge pinned to their lapels. Five of them carried small revolvers while a sixth loaded up a scattergun with shotgun shells.

"Listen up, men," Smythe said with a motion towards Kane and Hex. "Commissioner Kane and his guest will be joining us tonight, but I have their word that they will not interfere. The commissioner is a man of his word, so I believe he will fulfill that promise to stay back. Tonight's agenda..."

Smythe pulled from his jacket a crinkled and faded photograph of a swarthy young man with dark hair and a Roman nose. Underneath his face were the words "GCPD: 10/4/87" written in white chalk. The man stared straight ahead at the camera with a look that could only be described as smug indifference.

"This is tonight's target. Giuseppe Maroni, better known on the streets of as Gyp the Blood. He's something of a mover within the Bowery Boys. He's got a crew of ruffians at least six deep. Robbery, extortion, murder for hire, you name it and they do it. I want him taken alive, got it?"

The men mumbled acknowledgment and Smythe nodded. He looked back at Kane and Hex and slightly sighed.

"Okay, mount up."

CRAAAASH!

The sudden sound of a door being smash though bellowed through the air, A young boy, no older than 16 was now backing away from what was now a completely shattered door. He attempted to run full stop, which he did succeed at doing. However, what he was running from was just as fast…even faster. The Boy grew into a panic seeing that he could no longer run from it in his own home and needing to find a way to escape. Nervous and with short breath, he proceeded to look around to see that the only way out of his house was the fire exit toward the roof. He took the Opportunity moving to the window and outside to the fire escape, He proceeded to head up the metal stairs, the clanging of his timberland boots hitting the steel stairs as he elevated himself upon the rooptop.

But He was still followed, his own shadow seemingly sliding up the stairs effortlessly without even moving a beat. The Young man, Stared at a nearby building and saw his only hope. It was a few feet away but easily jumpable. With a sprint, he proceeded to run to the edge of the building, before taking one leap, landing on the other. While it wasn’t the cleanest landing, it still gave him room and a chance to escape. One he was not willing to waste. He kept his running pace, his haggard breathing becoming faster and more panicked. He moved toward the next building and attempted another leap…

Only to find his legs grabbed by a black Miasma.

He was caught.

The figure became to form from the Ethereal black mist, Forming into a humanoid shape, Grey and black adorned the form as he laughed at the man. “Oh, you thought you was just gon take off huh, nigga?” The Creature slowly took the young boy toward the edge of the roof. “Nah, It ain’t going down like that, You know what happens to snitches right?”

“Nigga, The Fuck you talki-“

“Shut the fuck up, bitch. Think I’m going to believe you, I saw the papers, I heard your plea deal, Tell them I got the connect and take me down right?” He laughed as he saw the young boy cower in fear, As the young boy slowly realized who he was. "E...Ebon?" The young man eyes widened in shock as he realized that he had been found out. Maybe it wasn't too late maybe he could reason with...whatever Ebon had become. "Bruh, It Ain't even Like that man I was Ju-" He was interrupted again. “Oh Yeah, didn’t think I was there right, I heard it all. I am everywhere little nigga, My ears are all over these streets.” He then inched the boy down letting go slowly to his ankle, loosening his grip more, and more. The Child began to panic.

“Please bruh, Don’t take me out man, I swear I won't say a word I-AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

He didn’t get to finish, as the figure had already let him go, letting the young boy body fall. The sound of the young man scream as he quickly dropped to the ground, was swiftly accompanied by the horrid sound of the body hitting the pavement below.

Krrrraaaaaaak!
The sound of broken bones and punctured flesh echoed in the alleyway in which he fell in. The shadowy figure stared down at the body the face now lacking any definition could not betray the cold emotion the creature felt. There were more, and they would all pay for their insubordination.

---

Philadelphia, PA; March 12th, 2017; 03:25
Raphael slid the manhole cover away and climbed out into the dark alleyway. He crouched there for a moment and looked up and down the alley to make sure there was no one around before he slide the metal cover back over the manhole and straightened up. Seeing that there was no one around, he reached behind the nearby dumpster and pulled out the gear he dropped there earlier when he was on patrol with his brothers: a hockey mask Casey had given him before they moved to Philadelphia from New York, a Yankees ballcap April had given him for his sixteenth birthday, and a long coat he had found abandoned on the street. He slipped his gear on and made for the fire escape toward the end of the alley, leaping up and pulling the ladder down with ease.

On the roof of the dingy brick building left to fester like one of many in the turtles’ new home, Raph looked out over the city and took it all in. It was still different to him, much more different than living in New York. Perhaps the thing that was the most different and hardest was the fact April and Casey had to stay behind in New York to finish college and could only occasionally visit them, even though he’d never admit it affected him negatively. Instead, he just dealt with it and continued on doing the same thing night after night: training exercises with Master Splinter, patrol with his brothers, and then sneaking out to do his own patrol in the gear he hid near the manhole that led to his new home. Some nights the routine helped, other nights it drove him crazy. Why were they still hiding away in the sewers when there were more and more mutants popping up in the world like the X-Men? Like Spider-Man? Superman? Maybe some of them weren’t full blown mutants or metahumans, or whatever the news was calling them nowadays, but there were mutants out there helping people instead of hiding. Others like them who weren’t sticking to the shadows and operating in secret, no more than an urban legend.

Master Splinter had told him it was because the Foot Clan was hunting them, that while there may be mutants out in public, others like them, that they were still in danger by being revealed because of their origins. The Mutagen, from Stock Gen. Between the Foot Clan and the researchers at Stock Gen, it seemed like everyone wanted Raph and his brothers and father, probably to cut open and study more than anything else. What about the other mutanimals in New York? He wondered if they were hunted down and rounded up like everyone tried to do with the turtles and Splinter. Most likely. Hey might be in a lab right now being subjected to who knows what. Even Apec and his gang, as tough as they were, were probably hunted down by Stock Gen and captured. He felt a slight pang in chest thinking about the innocents in Apec’s little community being rounded up when really Apec and his enforcers were the only ones who deserved to be hunted down like the animals they acted like. One of his calloused green fingers found the scar from the bullet Apec had put into his leg during a fight once. He had gotten lucky Apec missed his shot, but Apec wouldn’t be lucky if they ever ran into each other again.

Same with The Shredder. He may have bested him in battle last time and nearly killed him, but he was training harder than ever now and would be ready for the leader of the Foot. The scars on his body were still fresh, not nearly as fresh as the scars to his ego though. Those would probably never heal, unless he got another shot at fighting the old ninja. And that would only happen if the Foot found them again or they took the fight to the Foot. If the ninja clan did find his clan first, he would fight tooth and nail to protect his brothers and make sure he paid back every last bit of what he owed their leader.

The young mutant was pulled from his thoughts of beating the Shredder in battle by a commotion below him in the alleyway adjacent to where he had surfaced. He peered down from his vantage point and watched as three men cornered a fourth along the alley, brandishing weapons of various types. It looked like one was swinging a pipe around while another brandished a switchblade, and the third massaged his knuckles.

”Probably wearing brass knuckles,” Raph thought to himself as he descended on the scene, unheard and unseen.

The first thug raised his pipe at the cornered man, but before he could swing his weapon, three shuriken sunk into his arm. He yelped and dropped the weapon. Before he could do more than that, Raph had swept his legs and landed a punch to the chest. The thug fell the ground, winded and clutching his chest. In a fluid motion, the young ninja leapt over the first thug and brought his knee into the head of the thug holding the knife. As they both hit the ground, Raphael rolled toward the third thug as the second one rolled around holding his head. As he came up from his roll, he brought his head straight up into the chin of the last thug standing. As his head snapped back from Raphael’s headbutt, the ninja landed a blow to his solar plexus, sending him reeling like the other two.

”You ok,” Raphael asked as he turned away from the thugs rolling on the ground to look at the man they cornered.

“I - I’m fine… Thank you.”

”Don’t mention it. Just get outta here.”

“Ri- right,” the would-be victim stammered before running off.

Raphael swept his eyes over the thugs before heading down the alley the opposite way the other man had run and began his own patrol. He wasn’t going to stand on rooftops and hide in the shadows forever. He had to be out here, helping people as much as he could. In a way, he felt obligated to help anyone he could.

---

Glenmorgan Square
Metropolis
April 1st, 2016

"Gotta hand it to ya, Spit-curl, you sure are persistent!" the cackling aberration says as he hurls a pulsating purple bubble towards me. "I've literally turned your entire world upside-down and inside-out, and here you are, still thinking there's a way you can strong-arm your way out of this!"

Well, he's not entirely wrong, I say to myself flying downwards towards the bottomless sky-pit to avoid the bubble. It bursts against an office building, causing it to sprout enormous hairy legs and begin to tap-dance, sending clouds of dust and shattered glass and debris tumbling upwards into the crackling ground high above us.

I'd been having such an easy day, too, until Jimmy transformed into a sock puppet and all the air turned green.

The entity calls itself.....well, I can't really pronounce it, but the closest approximation you can make with a humanoid mouth is something like 'Mxyzptlk.' He--I assume it's a "he," anyway, given that he's taken the form of a diminuitive balding man with a purple suit and bowler hat-- claims to be an imp from the Fifth Dimension, a being of pure infinite possibility, who enjoys messing with lower-dimensional beings to keep himself entertained. I faced him once about ten years ago, and his 'pranks' were no less destructive and bizarre than they are now.

"I don't have to out-muscle you, Mxy," I say as I weave my way between bolts of nightmares. "I remember the rules from last time I defeated you, and I can do it again."

"Oh right, right, you 'defeated' me," he mocks, rolling his eyes and making exaggerated air quotes from actual thin air as he gestures with his fingers. "I've been giving this sad little slice of time-space you call a 'universe' a subatomic wedgie from the word go today, and so far you haven't even managed to get me to say a single syllable of my name backwards! All you've done is zig-zag around while I've taken pot-shots at you! Speaking of which, BOOM!"

Mxyzptlk points his finger at me, and a beam of white-hot nothing screams towards me. I put every ounce of energy I have into speed, zipping up and down the streets and avenues, banking hard and looping back on myself to keep out of the way of his attack as it slices through skyscrapers like a hot knife through butter. I really hope everything goes back to normal like last time, or the reconstruction effort is going to take ages.

"What's your game, Mxy?" I call out, rolling to the left to avoid a rift in timespace and the thousand gibbering horrors that pour out. "If you can go anywhere in any universe you want, why come back here?"

"Who says I spend all my time here?" he replies, lazily lobbing nightmares after me as I come close to completing the pattern. "This form, this name 'Mxyztplk?' It's like an avatar, a username for an account in one of your video games--well, not your video games, those are all terrible. Maybe more like one of those internet forums where some fat loser in his thirties thinks he's really clever by breaking the fourth wall like that isn't a total cliché by now. Anyway, I use variations on this gimmick all over the place, and I've messed with a whole bunch of different yous."

I have no idea what he's going on about, but it doesn't matter. I've got to keep him talking, keep him throwing his attacks at me, following the pattern....

"And it's not like I just mess with Supermen," he continues. "Sometimes I got and stir up trouble with a space captain in the future. Sometimes I dress up like a triangle and mess with a kid in Oregon. Every once in a while I go screw with a bunch of cartoon horses. But none of those are ever as fun as messing with Big Blue."

The sky below me turns black, and what looks like a gigantic grapevine made of gnashing mouths comes swirling up to chase after me.

"It still sounds like you're a one-trick pony, Mxy," I say, veering near a row of shops as the mouth monster drags itself across them, ripping up the brick and mortar facades. "It sounds like a pretty dull way to live if everywhere you go, all you can think of doing is messing with other people's lives."

"Oh, come on, Boy Scout," he sneers. "You're talking about an infestation of bags of wet meat, some fuzz on a wet rock, like they're actually people? I mean, you're essentially to them what they are to the bacteria in their stomachs, and you think they're your friends! Get some perspective!"

With that, I fly up directly towards him, stopping inches from his face.

"I think you're the one that needs some perspective today, pal."

"Oh yeah? And what exactly do I need to--"

Casually, I glance downward to the crumbling buildings, the swirling sky-pit and the rings of circling debris.

Slowly but surely, he sees the destruction he's wrought has formed a pattern.

Or rather, a sequence of letters.

"Wha......I, err.......you--"

By trying to hit me with his most devastating attacks, he wrote it with his own actions into the fabric of the universe itself. In huge flaming letters.



"You know the rules, imp," I say, the game truly over. "Now put everything back the way you found it, and then get the hell out of this dimension."

"But.....that's--....I just....you....ahhhh! HA! He suddenly starts to laugh. "AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!"

It's not a laugh of triumph, or of a villain whose master plan has just come to fruition. It's the kind of laugh a con man might get when he realizes he's been out-conned.

"Oh! Oh, you are good, Spit-Curl! I gotta say, I'm impressed!" Wiping tears of laughter from his eyes, Mxyzptlk snaps his fingers, and without so much as a 'poof,' the sky and ground are where they should be, the gibbering horrors are banished to the dark places of the multiverse, and none of the people are sock puppets or vegetables or chalk drawings anymore.

"Don't worry yourself, farmboy, I'll stick to my word and make myself scarce," he says, slowly fading away as the laws of probability reassert themselves.

BUT KNOW THIS: his voice rings through my mind. A CRISIS IS COMING, FAR GREATER THAN ANYTHING YOUR PUNY REALITY HAS EVER KNOWN. NEW GODS ARE AWAKENING, AND THEIR WAR WILL SOON SWALLOW ALL. BEFORE THIS IS OVER, YOU WILL STAND ALONE AGAINST THE DESTRUCTION OF ALL THAT WAS OR WILL EVER BE. AND YOU WILL FAIL, SUPERMAN. YOU WILL FAIL.

Below me, life goes on like nothing had happened. People are heading to and from their work, popping into stores, trying to catch the cross-town bus or riding the monorail. The LED banners in Glenmorgan Square start playing an advertisement for LexCorp's new 'Net of Tomorrow' software. The Meteors are warming up for the afternoon's game against the St. Louis Cardinals.

And just like the last time, I'm floating above it all with a look of bewilderment and a tinge of horror.

I feel something in my hand that wasn't there a moment before. It's a note, hastily written on a scrap of paper that simply hadn't existed.

Supes,

Don't think I'm a bad sport. I left you a prize for winning today, but I'm not telling you what it is. You'll find out soon, though, and I can't wait to see how you handle it.

-Mxy

Off across the bay, I hear a fire siren. I find myself blinking a few times before I shake off the surreal daze, and then I crack my knuckles and get back to work. Whatever 'prize' the imp has gifted me, I can deal with it later.

For now, I've got a job to do.

P R E S E N T

---

N E W Y O R K CITY

---

Standing by one of the many windows, Wilson Fisk watched the sun slowly rise over New York. It was very much an everyday routine, or perhaps a ritual. The morning routine never changed. First, Wilson would make his way from the bedroom to an oversized bathroom and do that routine, then brew and pour coffee before putting it on a tray at the very window he was now standing at. Fisk didn't like very hot coffee, and while waiting for it to cool a little, he would do what he did now - shave while watching the sunrise. It was a meditative experience, he found. Helped him acquire the patient, calm demeanor he was known for, and avoid the aggressive outbursts that had made him infamous. Sunny mornings like today made it all the easier. Fisk finished his shave and put the razor down. He lightly dabbed his face with a warm cloth folded in front of him and took his coffee. He drank it while reading the morning newspapers.

The top stories was the same as it had been yesterday. "Chaos ensue as violence escalate". The article went on about the recent skirmishes in the criminal underworld, and in particular what by this journalist was called the massacre of New Year's Eve which left over thirty people dead in three locations, all members of organized crime. While Fisk had no doubts the police was of a different opinion, media had already connected the sudden killing spree to a vigilante, or several vigilantes. "The next Punisher" was one of the headlines, the article elaborating that organized crime might be in for a very difficult future. Fisk had no doubt the stories would become more sensible as the initial sensation wore off, but it did make for an entertaining read.

The attacks on New Year's Eve was indeed worthy of being called "massacres". They had all been carried out to the letter, with every single target left dead. One of Fisk's men had succumbed to a bullet from one of his own - the result of crossfire - but other than that, the operation had been executed to perfection. The Maggia leadership had been wiped out in one swift stroke, and with the snake decapitated it was also rendered nearly harmless. Without the organizational structure intact, Fisk had no doubt the large local manpower of the Maggia would be very willing to switch sides.

So why, then, did his mouth tighten and his fingers restlessly drum against the kitchen table? It is nothing, he thought. But it wasn't. It was a silly, simple thing, but while Fisk wanted to put the thought away he knew he could not. During one of the attacks on New Year's Eve, the one in the port district, Richie Kalinski had said something. Kalinski was a made man of the Maggia, and one of the most prominent ones. He had been in charge of smuggling various goods in and out of the city by sea. Fisk's men had reported that as Kuklinski bled out on the ground, the man had taunted his attackers, saying that taking his life meant nothing. They had responded that Kuklinski wasn't the first man that had died that night, but that the leader of the New York Maggia, Damian Adelardi, was dead as well. Kuklinski had laughed and managed to blurt out "Adelardi? Who fucking cares? You people don't know anything, do you?" before being shot dead. One of the men had had the good grace of notifying Jack Rose, the leader of the operation, who in turn relayed the quote to Fisk.

It was just a few words spilled out of a dying, panicked and likely shocked man, but Fisk thought that all the more reason to take it seriously. It didn't seem entirely unlikely that something wasn't as it should, after all. Fisk had never held Adelardi in high esteem, and had at times wondered how a man of such common intellect was able to lead the Maggia. Fisk had assumed it came down to the actual heads of the Maggia, those ruling over the entire east coast, being hands on in their approach, guiding Adelardi in his task. But perhaps there was something more to it. The more Fisk thought about it, the more it seemed like a plausibility rather than improbability that Adelardi was a front of some sorts. A living target, someone to attract the attention others did not want. Still, that was a very risky game to play and sounded more like something out of a novel than a ploy that might actually be used.

Fisk spit the coffee back in the cup. It had grown cold. He rose from the table and entered his walk-in closet. He chose a charcoal suit with a plain mulberry tie and proceeded to get dressed. Yesterday had been a hectic day. Fisk had made sure to keep the pressure up, continuing to hit the Maggia across town, albeit hits of a smaller magnitude. What surprised him was that the Maggia was yet to hit back. He had anticipated attacks on a number of locations, and had prepared accordingly. Instead his enemies seemed to whimper in a corner, perfectly content with Fisk taking over the house. That did not seem right, and another reason to lend credibility to Kukinski's dying words. Fisk wished his men had been clever enough to interrogate the man rather than finish him off. The logical conclusion now was that the Maggia was preparing a large scale counter attack, likely organized by the east coast leaders or, possibly, by an unknown party in New York. Yet even if Fisk assumed that was the case, how should he react? What would they do, and how could he stop it? What capabilities could they still possess, and where would they hit?

---

The mansion was positively huge, its property sprawling over acres and acres. The mansion itself had stood for nearly two hundred years. It served as the seat and home for whoever was in charge of the east coast at the moment, and had done so for nearly a century. As such, it was one of the Maggia's more secretive locations. Not its existence, naturally, but rather its purpose. Flicking through the folder, the silver-haired man leaned back in his chair and peered at the subordinate seated in front of him.

"This is our man, I take it?"
"Yes sir, our contacts mark him as the premiere professional available for the job. He supposedly has extensive military experience, and rumors have it he's even taken on the Punisher back in the day and, well, survived."
"Supposedly? Rumors?" the silver-haired man asked, raising an eyebrow.
"His background has been difficult to figure out sir. He, or someone, has done a very good job of hiding it. What we do know is that he's taken on at least fifty contracts just in the U.S., and that he is responsible for killing a whole lot of men, including mutants."
"And how many contracts has he failed?"
"None, as far as we are aware, sir. If I may ask though... why are we not letting Joseph deal with this instead of involving outsiders?" The old man in the chair scratched his chin.
"Because we have lost enough important men already. I would not have Joseph do something this risky when we have a man that appears more capable and of less importance able to do the job." He made a gesture to his subordinate, who left him. The man looked down on the folder again, reading it properly. There was indeed no doubt this man was capable of the job. By the looks of it, the man might well be a mutant himself. He even had a moniker to match. In fact, all he had was a moniker, as his real identity remained unknown. And what a silly moniker it was. Bullseye.

---

The sound was dull and quick, but Fisk knew the thud he'd just heard was what had awaken him and not part of whatever he had been dreaming of. With agility and deftness improbable of a man his size, Fisk got out of bed and silently picked up a very big, almost proportionate to his own size, loaded .50 pistol from his nightstand with one hand and a metal baseball bat from underneath his bed with the other. Weapons in hand, he stood still and listened. The sound had appeared to come from inside the apartment. Unsure if he was imagining the nature of the sound or not, Fisk nevertheless thought it sounded very much like a body dropping to the ground. It wouldn't be impossible. Jack Rose had been guarding his apartment while Fisk slept for the past nights as Fisk grew increasingly worried of the Maggia's retaliation, or rather the lack of it. He knew damn well that this apartment was protected - there was no way anyone outside of his organization knew he lived here - but Fisk was not one to take chances, never mind underestimate his enemies.

Another sound was heard. It was a dull sound like the one that had woken him, but this one was nearly inaudible. Yet Fisk had no doubt what he heard straight after was a very human hushing. On the wall next to him was three switches. One would light up the bedroom, one would light up the entire apartment, and one would trigger the panic alarm. Fisk flicked the panic button as well as lit up the entire floor. For all he knew, there was a team of Maggia men or crooked police on the other side of the door wearing night vision goggles. Without further consideration, Fisk lifted his gun simultaneously to flicking on the light and aimed at what would be the average man's chest height. He then proceeded to squeeze the trigger and methodically empty his clip as he strafed the bedroom door and wall. The gunfire was incredibly loud and Fisk knew all pretense of secrecy was certainly blown now - he would have to switch safe house. Yet a move was entirely preferable to death. As his clip emptied, Fisk listened for more noises as he quickly reached for one of the magazines kept in the drawer of the nightstand. Before he had a chance to react, another bang - this time from the other side of the bedroom wall - rang in his ears and he felt a dull ache in his arm. He'd been shot. Instinctively, Fisk knew that if he had been a normal sized man, that bullet would have hit his head rather than arm. He managed to grab a hold of a magazine and tried to reload, when the bedroom door suddenly burst open.

The man in front of Fisk looked like nothing he'd expected. Geared in black and white tights and armed with two pistols, the man positively looked like a clown, much like the costumed super heroes. This guy was obviously no hero, however. Impossibly fast, the man leveled his guns at him and fired. Fisk felt at least one, possibly more, bullets hit him as he reflexively threw the baseball bat at his attacker. It hit, causing the intruder to stumble and drop one of his guns. Fisk was already on the move, and before his attacked could fire again, Fisk took dropped his empty gun and grabbed the nightstand next to him, hurling it straight at the man. It hit him square in the chest, causing the man to fly back out of the room along with the nightstand. Fisk lunged after.

As he exited the bedroom, he saw the intruder lying on the floor. Yet before Fisk had time to assess the situation, the man threw a leg from the broken nightstand at his head. The impact was surprisingly hard, given the man was of average size and had thrown it while lying down. It was also accurate, hitting Fisk square on the nose. Fisk felt it breaking.
"Fuck!" he exclaimed, before simply jumping at the man. The intruder tried to roll away, but Fisk managed to grab his leg, meaning the fight was all over. He quickly pulled the man towards him and him him in his chest once with his free hand, feeling the ribs breaking underneath his fist. Yet somehow the attacker didn't relent, pulling out a stun gun from his belt. Fisk knocked it out of the man's hand with a backhand.
"Enough!" he exclaimed and sat on the man, breaking any resistance. "Who are you and who sent you?" The man beneath him seemed to have trouble breathing, but after wheezing a little and giving off a weak chuckle, he answered.
"Why, I'm Bullseye, and I was sent by someone who doesn't like you very much. For some reason though, they neglected to mention the fact th-*cough*-that you're a fucking monster." he said with a strained voice, forcing himself to stifle another giggle as it seemed to hurt. Fisk looked at him incredulously.
"Who sent you? Give me a name and you may survive this yet."
"Would-would you please stop squeezing me to a puddle? So that I can answer with-without fucking dying." Fisk slowly release the pressure, pinning the man's arms instead. "Ahhh, much better, thank you. Listen pal, I don't have any loyalties to the guy employing me. I'm a freelancer. How 'bout you give me a better offer, and I'll kill him for you instead."
"And why should I trust a word coming out of your mouth?"
"Pick my left pocket, there's a PDA there." Fisk carefully put Bullseye's arms in one his left hand before reaching into the man's pocket, pulling out a little electronic device. Bullseye navigated him towards a folder.
"Silvio Manfredi?"
"That's the guy. "Silvermane" they call him. He's heading up the Maggia on the east coast. Real big shot. He hired me to kill anyone I found on this address, this apartment. Told me there'd probably be a big guy there. Again, though, he didn't say you're this big." With the man seemingly finished, Fisk tried to take it all in.
"You certainly do not seem to have a problem divulging information you should not share, Bullseye."
"Well, the way I see it, I'm dead anyway if I don't give you something, right? Plus, more importantly, you seem like a hell of a lot more interesting employer than that old self-conceited fuck. Oh, and I know you're the one behind the massacre of New York's Eve of course. I'd love to be a part of something like that. So what do you say, Wilson?"

Mary Jane sat on the edge of her bed, rubbing her arms against her legs. Just minutes ago, she was panicking about her recent situation, where her lower body, up to her waist, had been magically replaced with a giant spider by an ancient Egyptian ring that by chance had fallen into her possession. But now, after receiving some helpful information from this universe's local Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange, MJ was able to reverse the effects caused by the ring.

"Alright, MJ. I've got to take that ring back to the good doctor. Especially if I want to get any sleep tonight." Peter was still in his Spider-Man costume, with only his mask pulled up off his face, when he inquired about the Egyptian artifact.

"This is an interesting situation." MJ muttered aloud.

"You're not thinking about stealing it, are you?" Peter asked, shocked at what his wife was saying, especially since she was quite startled by the powers of the ring. "That sounds like a terrible idea, especially since we would have one of the most powerful sorcerers and a prestigious museum hounding for that artifact."

"Don't be silly." MJ brushed off Peter's initial concerns, "Even if I did want to steal it, you're guilt-complex would be quite problematic."

"Then what are you suggesting?"

"Well, since you're the only one with the superpowers in this relationship, maybe it might be insightful to walk a few days in your shoes, so to speak."

"It's still stealing." Peter continued to protest the idea of his wife committing a crime.

"Still stuck on the stealing thing?" MJ placed her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes at Peter. "We won't be stealing it. We would just ask Doctor Strange if we could borrow it for a little bit. He even said that he was going to talk to the museum about transferring the item to his possession to further safeguard it. If whoever was trying to steal it is planning to make another go at the ring, we would have the benefit of surprise because they wouldn't know that we have the ring."

"I don't know about this..."

"Please just ask."

"Fine." MJ bounced off the edge of their bed and planted a kiss on her husband's cheek. She then handed over the Egyptian ring, so that if Doctor Strange wanted Peter to give it back, he wouldn't have to come all the way back to their apartment to do so. "I guess I'll be back."

"I'll brainstorm some costume and name ideas while you're gone." MJ had already started to pull out some paper and art supplies even before she had finished her sentence.

"Great."