The church wasn't the only fire the Fireflies started yesterday night. As I slept, three other places of worship went up in flames, and now they lay in ash across the city. From what Peter can gleam from the police scanners, the fires and explosions were so hot that they left absolutely no trace or clue on how they were ignited. Not surprising. Why would anything be easy? Why would there ever be any actual clues? Nah, better to make me run across the city in a wild goose chase instead. That's the better use of everyone's time.

The video doesn't tell us anything, either. It was clearly recorded before the attacks actually happened, and the mask and voice modulator makes it impossible to tell who actually is speaking. Pete has been trying to find out who uploaded the video to YouTube, but so far all he's found is a bunch of pings from public wifi locations. Whoever the Firefly is, he or she is one hell of a smart cookie.

I'm still not sold it's multiple people. The mask, the phony cult speech, and the plural name is all a smokescreen, if you ask me. Just a distraction to make the cops chase down some new, wacky church in the dark corners of the city, while whoever Firefly really is goes around burning everything his heart desires. Probably nothing more than a pyro with some fancy equipment.

"Can you believe how close we were?" MJ says from beside me as she pops a french fry into her mouth. "We could have been incinerated in a blink of an eye!"

"Yea, well," I shrug, deep in my own thoughts, "I guess after a bald, naked, silver alien drops out of the sky and plays around with the strongest heroes in the world, a lot of people's worldviews will go haywire. Must be some religious nut who can't handle the fact that science is swiftly overtaking what we all thought was possible a few months ago."

I've been trying to keep my mind off the appearance of the Silver Surfer. Partly because I have enough on my plate with Spider-Woman, Peter, school, Dad, and everything else. But I'd be lying if part of my desire to keep it from dwelling in my mind is because I would have stood no chance in hell if the alien had decided to drop into Times Square and put me through his test. It's a reminder that while I may be powerful, there are things out there that can wipe the floor with me. I may enjoying playing the plucky, punk underdog who fights to the last, but I'd rather not end up smashed on the windshield of a chrome, cosmic god.

More frightening than what would happen to me in that case, however, would be what would happen to the people who I protect. What happens when someone like the Surfer brings down the Empire State Building or something? I may not have been alive when 9/11 happened, but I know if I was and had my powers, I would have tried to help people. And probably would have failed miserably doing so. I can't match up with someone like that, and if I can't, who knows how bad things could get.

My comment about worldviews isn't far from the mark, I think. His appearance has changed everything. For one, the first meeting of superheroes has given people hope that even if someone like this shows up again, we will have a chance. That would be the good news, of course.

The rest is hearsay and rumor, but enough of it is hitting home for me to know that it's got some truth to it. I've heard Dad whisper about new arms and ammunition coming into the NYPD from some technological think tank to combat metahumans and be ready for any invasion. To say it has me on edge is a ridiculous understatement. If Dad and the NYPD are getting new toys, it's almost a certainty that governments across the world are scrambling to catch up to the new paradigm.

And considering human history, when scared, powerful men rush to keep up, bad things happen.

"Well, I think it's crazy how crazy things have gotten," MJ sighs, clearly trying to grab more attention than I'm giving her. I continue to mostly be off in my own world, so she throws something at me I can't ignore, "Speaking of crazy I hear you're starting at the loony bin tomorrow."

She's, of course, talking about my new internship at the Ravencroft Institute on Stryker's Island. I've been counting down the days until it starts, and the Firefly incident actually has me more excited, in a morbid way. I want to know how these kind of people think. Not just because that means they'll be easier to catch, but maybe easier to help as well. It's a pipe dream, probably, but it's worth a shot. Plus, I don't know what else I'm going to do with my life.

I shoot her a dirty look, "It's a center for the criminally insane, MJ. Loony bin isn't something you should say anymore. These people are sick. They need help. Well, most of them are."

My mind floats back to Max Dillon. What he did to those people. What my dad went through trying to catch him. He may be insane, but he does not deserve pity. I'm not sure he deserves help.

Maybe that's another reason I'm excited to learn from Doctor Kafka. Sometimes we need to see beyond our feelings and search for empathy where we have none.



Ravencroft lies on an island in the middle of the East River, shared with Stryker's Island Prison. The facility is one of the most secure in the country, and actually has a good record in rehabilitating its prisoners and patients. Still, it's an imposing sight as I cross the bridge towards the main building.

Ravencroft sits in an old Victorian mansion, once the home of some nineteenth century oil tycoon. The structure's flowing architecture dominates the island. At the center of the house is a large, imposing spire, with a rust red roof sticking like a spear into the sky. On both sides are long, low wings. The building almost looks like a volcanic eruption, with the blacks and greys of its bricks mixing with the red of its roof.

"You be careful in there," Dad says as he drops me off. "You know the kind of people they have in here."

I give him a big hug and smile, "Relax. I'm mostly just here to observe. I'm not going to have contact with anyone."

"Yea, well, I know you," he gives me an amused look. "You tend not to listen to what you're told."

"Yea, well, when mass murders and the like are the other option, I think I'll behave."

"I'll keep that in mind for the next time I catch one."

"Okay, Dad," I feign annoyance. "That's not creepy at all."

Closing the door, I make my way towards the entrance of the asylum. It seems to loom over the entire island like a huge monster. It blocks out the sun as I move through the front gate and towards the front door. The double doors look like a mouth ready to swallow everyone who steps through them. For a place that actually helps people control their minds, this place is scary as hell to walk into. I just have to hope it's way nicer on the inside.

As the doors open in front of me, the inside is indeed more comforting. It's clinical, of course, as any hospital would be. But there seems to be an energy about the place. A calming energy that soothes. It could be my desires playing on my mind, but the inside does not match the outside. It's clear significant money has been poured into the hospital to bring it into the modern age. The halls are white and clean, with a modern design flair in the common spaces. Clean lines and soothing furniture adorns the walls and spaces.

Standing by the front desk waiting for me is Doctor Ashley Kafka, head of the Institute. A long white lab coat flows down her slender body, covering meager khakis and a blouse underneath. She stands about my height, with dark hair in a messy pixie cut, glasses hanging on the edge of her nose.

She looks up and smiles politely at me, "Ms. Stacy! I'm glad to see you made it. Welcome to Ravencroft."

"Thank you, Doctor Kafka," I take her hand as she presents it. "I'm really excited to get started."

"Please, call me Ashley," she waves away the use of her formal title. She begins to walk the halls and I follow her. "People like to complain about not being called doctor after all that training, but it helps people to trust me. Here, trust can be everything. Without talking in good faith, none of our patients can really make any progress."

We tour the halls of the hospital, and I marvel at how the treatment rooms are so informal. It's clear the idea is to make the patients as comfortable as possible. The rooms have couches, TVs, water coolers. They're leagues different from what you'd see in the movies or TV. It's more like a hotel than a hospital, made even more remarkable by the fact that this place houses some of the most dangerous people in the world.

"I don't see anything to restrain the prisoners," I comment. "Do you really risk getting into the room with them?"

"We have experimental restraints," Kafka explains. "Any sudden movements or movements outside the range we allow result in the loss of motor control. Totally painless, but ensures we stay safe in our sessions. Again, we want to give them as much freedom as possible. Some cases we can't allow that much, but we try the best we can. We cannot hope to treat and cure these men and women without treating them like human beings. Showing them that the world around them is sane helps them to grip reality. And that's all we can really hope for."

I felt exposed out here, standing on Dave's doorstep. The sounds of children playing in the street, dogs barking, cars driving by... It reminded me that I was in public, and I wasn't exactly in a crime-ridden area, which meant a squad car could be driving by right behind me. The seconds between me knocking on the door and the door opening felt like minutes, hours even.

The door opened. Dave looked at me for a moment, adjusting his glasses as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. His arms wrapped themselves around me, catching me off guard in one of the biggest hugs I've ever had. At the same time, he pulled me in, and shut the door. After a moment, he let me go, grinning. "Frank, man, it's so good to see you!" he said, sounding not unlike a child unwrapping their Christmas presents.

I chuckled, taking a seat on his couch. "It's only been about a month, Dave. No need to get all teary-eyed on me."

He shook his head, laughing, and took a seat in his recliner. "Heh... I know, but still. I wasn't expecting to see you so soon, man. How's it been?"

"Could be worse. Been living out of that van for a while, sticking around the shittier areas of Harlem. How's it been with you? Still working for the department?"

"Yeah, still doing the same sorta stuff. Stopping hackers and the like... So what're you doing here, man? You're not the type to just come over and play catch up. There's some sort of ulterior motive."

I paused, as if mulling over how to word it. "... I'm getting back into the game. The vigilante game, that is. Y'know, being the Punisher."

He quirked an eyebrow. "No shit? Not sure if I should say 'that's great' or 'you're a fucking idiot'."

"Let's hold off on that for now. You still got my guns?"

In response, he stood up and walked over to a rug which, from what I remember, wasn't in his living room before. He pulled it up, and lifted a piece of wood covering a hole. He pulled a duffel bag out of the hole, and tossed it to me. I opened it: lo and behold, my arsenal and 'costume'. "Was a pain in the ass cutting a hole into the floor. You ought to be thankful."

"Believe me, Dave, I am."

"So," Dave said, plopping back down in his recliner. "What happened this time? Russians killed your dog so now you're going to topple the Russian mob?"

"Very funny, but no... Earlier today I saw something in a neighborhood in Harlem. This gang, just terrorizing the place, and no one did anything about it. I wasn't even going to do anything about it either... But I did. Because I realized that there's still people out there profiting off the suffering of others, and I'm not going to sit around letting them do that."

He nodded slightly, looking as if lost in thought. "... You don't have to do this, y'know? Cops are after you, whatever's left of Manfredi's organization is after you, and that's not even mentioning Spider-Woman. This is just painting a bigger target on your back."

"Better to go down doing what I think is right than wasting my days away, waiting to die..." I pause for a moment. "So... Know of anything that needs a 'gentle touch'?"

His contemplative frown twists into a mischievous grin. "Maybe."
Dave tipped me off about an illegal chop shop, run by some white supremacist gang in the predominately black area of Harlem who frequently harass the minorities there. Gangs, like baggy pants and gold chains kind of gangs, were one thing. Neo-Nazis were another. I wouldn't need to feel bad about gunning them down considering they were practically asking for it.

I parked my van a block or so away from the chop shop, an old factory the gang had repurposed. I listened outside, hearing the screech of machinery, the occasional voice, and a radio playing some weird techno music. I set down my duffel bag, putting on vest, pulling out each gun, loading them, and attaching them to the various hooks on the vest. I slid a few magazines and shells into the pockets of my pants and vest, clipped a few grenades to the vest, took a deep breath, then made my move.

I climbed up to the roof, looking down through the skylight. The men inside were all bald, with various... Anti-color tattoos, to put it simply. They were working on an assortment of cars, all stolen probably. I saw a room that, from the windows it held, appeared to be an office of some sorts. If their leader was anywhere, that'd be it.

Now, I could climb back down and go in through the front, but that would be suicide. I could go in through the back, maybe take out a few, then get gunned down. Or I could jump through the skylight and break my neck when I hit the ground. But another, better option, was swinging in through the skylight. Times like this make me wish I had some web shooter thing like my old 'friend' Spider-Woman. Maybe even a grappling hook or something... Wonder if Dave could find an arms dealer that sold those sort of things.

I shook my head, clearing it of that train of thought, and, as I did, spotted a length of wire nearby. It appeared to be from a power line, which may have snapped, fallen on the roof, and was left there long after the wire had been replaced. I pulled on it, testing the strength. It might hold. Deciding to say 'fuck it', I tied it around an air conditioning unit, tested the strength and, once happy with it, gripped it in one hand.

With the other, I pulled out a smoke grenade, bit off the pin, and threw it through the skylight. As smoke poured out of it and filled the room below me, I heard the shouts of the gang. It went silent for a moment after, the only sound being the song on the radio. I took a deep breath, pulled out my MP5...

And swung in.



I fired the gun off, the smoke shrouding the room preventing me from getting a clear shot on anything. But judging by the sounds I was hearing, shouts of pain and the distinctive thumps of bodies hitting the floor, I didn't need to see. I continued to fire until the gun was empty, then dropped it while continuing to swing.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as I let go of the wire, twisting upside down in mid-air. I pulled out my pistols and fired blindly as I fell, twisting once more before I hit the ground, thankfully landing on my back instead of my head. The smoke was clearing, my pistols were empty, and I heard the shouts of a man ordering the gang to move. I unholstered my smaller SMGs and prepared to meet them head on.

As soon as the smoke cleared, I rolled under a truck. The gang looked all around, occasionally firing off a gun or shouting a threat in an attempt to intimidate me. I looked around for something to take advantage of... And spotted a group of three, all standing under a hydraulic jack which currently held a Toyota Prius high above their heads. I took aim at the jack's control mechanism, and fired.

*CRA-SLAAM!*

The bastards barely had time to scream as the car came down on them, crushing them under its weight. The others spun around to face the hydraulic jack, and I decided to give them a quick hello. I scrambled out from under the truck, SMG in either hand, and began to fire. A handful went down before the others could react. I pressed on, swinging my guns wildly to hit opponents all around, while twisting and ducking occasionally to make it harder to draw a bead on me.

I heard the telltale clicks of empty guns, dropping my SMGs and swinging the assault rifle around from my back. I gunned down the bastards in front of me, then spun back around and fell to my knees, mowing down more as they approached. Here I was again, outnumbered and outgunned, but too stubborn to get killed without taking dozens more with me.

I jumped to the side, mowing down the rest of the gangsters in front of me, before pulling myself to my feet and sprinting in the direction of the office. Bullets whizzed past me, and I rolled over to the office, coming to a kneel as I stopped, and killing the group of gangsters that fired at me. The M16 was empty. I dropped the gun, pulled out my shotgun, and spun around, blowing away two others who were firing at me from behind.



I turned to my right at the sound of shouting and took aim, firing off once, twice, and falling to the ground to avoid any gunfire they might've gotten off. I stayed still for a few moments, shotgun at the ready, tensed up and waiting for the moment another came out to attack. But nothing came. After a moment more to make sure, I pulled myself to my feet and walked over to the door of the office. Just a few more, Frank. Just a few more...

*KRAAAAK!*

The door gave to the force of my boot slamming into it, swinging wide open. I rolled inside, coming to a halt in front of a few gangsters, all unarmed. I aimed the shotgun. "Wait, no!" one of them shouted. I didn't listen. I fired, and three of them fell to the ground. Two were still alive, so I fired again. I thought I saw one twitching on the ground, so I fired a third time. There was nothing else after that.

I didn't stick around long after that. I just gathered up the guns I had dropped and left the scene of my massacre.

Compton
2015

2015 Music

“Shit was tight.”

“Shit was shit,” K2 said dismissively to Rey.

They were standing in the shadows outside Kenny’s NightKlub, passing a blunt between the two of them. A few people mingled in the parking lot, talking while an idling car thumped the latest Drake song. Lil Rey took a hit off the blunt and swayed in time with the music. He was K2’s cousin and DJ. He chose not because he was good, or even because he was cheap. Lil Rey was his cousin and he worked for free. And free was all K2 could afford at this moment.

“There was a few people nodding their heads,” said Rey. “You had some of them feeling that shit.”

“Nigga, they put on recorded music after my third fucking song,” K2 said after a deep drag off the blunt. He coughed up a puff of smoke and tried to catch his breath.

“That’s three more than you been singing in front of.”

Rey tried to reach for the blunt, only for K2 to pull away from his cousin and take another drag off of it.

“C’mon, man. I paid for that shit. Let me smoke it.”

“How the fuck am I gonna get signed if I don’t get a chance to pack clubs?”

“Nigga, you sixteen,” Rey said as K2 finally passed him the blunt. “You need to slow your roll. You gonna have a chance.”

“Sixteen, going on motherfucking sixty,” said K2. “Living in Compton, if I make it to twenty-five it’ll be a goddamn miracle. Same with you, nigga.”

"You is a dramatic bitch," said Rey.

“Hell of a show,” a voice said from behind the two teens.

They turned and saw a man in a red suit, two muscle bound men flanked on either side of him. Like the man in the suit, they wore exclusively red. Both K2 and Rey tensed up at the sight of Lance Rawlings. They’d never met him, but of course they knew who the fuck he was. Everyone in Compton new who Lance was and what set he claimed. Scary stories about him were a dime a dozen in this part of LA, just like they were with his predecessor. But if Suge was Don Vito, then Lance was Michael Corleone. The next evolution in the gang shot caller turned businessman. And as fucking scary as Suge was, the stories they told about Lance made that big motherfucker sound like the washed up ex-jock he really was.

“Thanks,” said K2. “Wish everyone in that club agreed with you.”

“Niggas out here don’t know a good thing,” said Lance. “They like produced things. Sleek. That ain't you. You good, but you raw as hell, boy.”

A soft smile came on Lance’s face as he looked between K2 and his cousin.

“Look at y’all. Out here hustling with your big dreams. Shit takes me back.”

The two muscle heads flanking Lance laughed and slapped hands with each other. K2 noticed the guns in their waistbands. They were front and center and tucked near their belt buckles. No subtlety at all. But when you rolled with Lance you didn’t need to be subtle.

“When a man likes me makes it out I like to remember where I came from,” said Lance. “Trifling ass niggas think that means I’ll give any motherfucker some ends. Nah, what that means is I look for talented people and try to give them a chance. Same thing happened to me years ago. A successful, powerful man saw potential in me and gave me a chance. Much like I'm doing with you.”

K2 looked at Rey and smiled. This was the chance he had been waiting for. For all the bad shit he heard, he knew that Lance took care of his people. Rey’s expression was less than thrilled. Obviously, he took stock into a bunch of bullshit that was probably spread by some jealous ass bitches. K2 shook his head before turning back to Lance. The older man had an eyebrow raised in curiosity.

“So y’all little niggas want to put some work in?"

---

East L.A.
Now

“You tripping!” the spirit of K2 said as soon as Charlie Rembrandt shuffled into Constantine’s apartment. The deceased rapper ignored Rembrandt’s bloody face and limp. All he could focus on was how he had been wronged. “Leaving me behind like that was some bullshit. This is entrapment or some shit.”

“Shut your goddamn mouth,” snapped Rembrandt. “Take your head out of your ass long enough to look at my face, okay? Your boy Lance jumped us on the way back here. They got Constantine.”

K2 blinked in surprised. “What they want with that old motherfucker?”

Charlie flopped down on to Constantine’s couch with a loud sigh. He started to check himself out. There was a cut above his eyebrow that was the cause of all the blood on his face. As far as he could tell, nothing was broken. He was just sore as hell. In the past John had talked about having uncanny levels of good luck. Maybe some of that luck was rubbing off on him?

“He’s got more power than you,” said Charlie. “In Lance’s eyes, you’re small fish.”

“Well… good,” K2 said with a laugh that sounded fake to Rembrandt. “Let Lance take that dusty old bitch anyway. That means I get to stop from being sucked into his goddamn ruby.”

“For now.”

Charlie stood up and limped into the bathroom. He washed his face in the brown water that came out of the sink before he started to look around for anything like bandages or alcohol. No surprise to him, but all he could find was toilet paper and a bottle of vodka in the medicine cabinet. He put a splash of vodka on his cut and grunted in pain before applying a wade of TP to his forehead cut.

“What do you mean for now?” K2 asked as he walked through the wall into the small bathroom.

“The type of shit your boss is into? It’s only a matter of time before he comes after you next.” Charlie didn’t even bother to look away from the mirror as he spoke. “He consumes and consumes. Like gluttony. He’ll never be full. Once he gets hungry again, he’s going to come after you.”

“Then I’ll be gone, like a goddamn ghost.”

“You are a ghost,” Rembrandt said with a laugh. This time he made eye contact with K2 through the mirror. “But you don’t think that medallion of his can’t find you? Your best chance to avoid dangling around Lance Rawling’s neck just got himself taken prisoner.”

“Fuck,” K2 cried. “You playing me straight? You ain’t just bullshitting about that punk rock lame ass nigga?”

“No,” said Rembrandt. “That’s why we’re heading to Lance’s mansion. But something tells me John is already three steps ahead.”

---

Brentwood

MUSIC

“Turn it off,” John said for the third straight time. “Turn it the fuck off right now.”

He was tied to a chair in Lance Rawling’s opulent mansion. His expensive, six figure sound system blasted out the punk music of Mucus Membrane. Music that featured the vocals of a young and hungry John Constantine. When John heard "Venus of the Hardsell", he was always taken back to his past as a cocky, youthful cunt that thought he'd never die. He was still a cocky cunt that thought he'd never die. He was just less youtful.

“Painful memories, John?” Lance asked with raised eyebrows.

“Yes,” said John. “Memories of how shite my singing was. Now, turn it off.”

“Afraid not.”

Lance had stripped down to a pair of red boxers. He medallion still hung heavily around his neck. The mansion’s living room was covered in candles. The expensive hardwood flooring had symbols and sigils drawn on their surfaces. They were crude, but John recognized them well enough. Voodoo markings designed to bring forth souls.

“The music is part of the sacrifice,” Lance said with a smirk. ”As much power as you have as a mage, John, I want it all. That includes the legends that come with you. While not on par with Big and Pac or Kurt Cobain, the Newcastle Incident has its own little slice of macabre music history to claim. What’s the official story again? A crazed fan killed all those people.”

“Something like that,” said John. “Look, if you’re gonna hold bloody court all day, could at least give us a cig?”

“A deranged fan decapitated sixteen people?” asked Lance.

“It was the eighties. PCP is a hell of a drug.”

“I bet,” Lance said with a twinkle in his eyes. “But play coy if you must, I’ll learn the truth soon enough.”

“Tell you what,” John said with a grin. “I’ll tell you the story about Lance Rawlings instead. Skinny little boy from Compton, oh I’m sorry, I meant Bompton. Gotta get it right less you think I'm rolling with the blue buggers. Don’t want you getting the wrong idea about where I stand in your little color war.”

Lance rushed forward and slapped John so hard the chair toppled sideways. Constantine spat blood and laughed wildly.

“You fucking ponce,” he said between cackles. “You think you’re a gangster? Just a poof in a bloody suit. Even got your pretty costume jewelry.”

“Shut up!” Lance shouted. He kicked John sharply in the ribs before walking backwards towards the symbols on the floor. “It’s time for you to die, motherfucker.”

“Well, where’s your men?” John asked, trying his best to look around even though he was on the floor sideways. “You’re a hands-off type. Gotta call the real gangsters in when it’s time to kill.”

“Fuck you. I’ve killed motherfuckers. I put in the work.”

“Bullshit,” John laughed from the floor. “Just an accountant playing like a hardass.”

“You know who would disagree with you?”

“Who’s that, squire?”

“My old boss, Orlando Miller. This Crip bitch-asss motherfucker from around the way named Antonio, a Russian cat named Vlad, this bitch Nina that I knocked up, a fucking cholo named Apache, even K2’s little homie Rey. Motherfucker wouldn’t buy into the program so he had to go. Each and every one of them killed by hand and absorbed into my ruby. Just like you about to be.”

“Beautiful,” John said with a wide grin that showed off his bloody mouth. “Fucking beautiful.”

The stone in the medallion began to glow. Lance looked down at it confused before looking back at Constantine.

“What the fuck?”

“You’re a talented mage, I’ll give you that,” said John. “Powerful, but you aren’t well-versed. Time for a lesson, Lance. The circle you’re standing in is more than a trap for my soul. The spell it produces is a two-way street. Things can come in, but also things can come out.”

Lance looked around in horror as spectral shapes formed a circle around him. The faces staring at him were the dead. Every single person he had just mentioned stared at him with lean, gaunt faces that had been ravaged by hunger. The ghost of Nina had a protruding belly that squirmed with the ghost of Lance’s child. The Russian Vlad has a large slit across his throat where Lance had slicked him almost ten years ago. Lil Rey looked at him through glasses cracked and caked in blood. Antonio’s body was covered in bullet holes from the night all those years ago Lance had taken his life.

“See names, even street names have power, Squire,” John said from the floor. “And invoking the names of the dead is like a fucking invitation to join the party.”

"Sup?" Orlando said to Lance with a nod. Blood and brain matter leaked out the neat, round hole in his forehead. "Lancelot, you done come up in the world. But you always was a trifling ass little bitch."

Lance let out a scream as the ghosts encircled him tighter and pounced.

^{Baton Rouge, Louisiana
An old plantation
July 11th, 6:00 p.m.}

---

Upstairs in the drawing room of the old plantation sat a man in a white suit, purple cravat, white pants, and white alligator shoes. Peppered grey strands of hair sprinkled the top of his head. He was reading a copy of The National Voyeur; there was a story in there about a hero whose moniker was Wonder Woman. A lifted eyebrow, smoke from a pipe shimmering above and into the ceiling. Before Hunter sat Ulysses Klaw, twiddling his thumbs and fidgeting; the two had not spoken a word to one another since Klaw got here twenty minutes ago. Klaue enjoyed silence in small doses, but this was grating his nerves. He spat some words which hoped to cut the silence,

“So, heh… about this uh, this assassination thing. You expecting me to uh, infiltrate this Wakanda place just... “ he put two fingers to his temple and pulled his thumb-trigger, “pew! Their king? You don’t think maybe, uh, there might be some… insatiable desire for, y’know, revenge?”

Outside was the butler, an African man named Kwame, who was preparing tea and pancakes. He and the wait staff, who were also all of varying nationalities, were at work with several tasks: cleaning the interior, assuring tomorrow’s breakfast was prepared and in the freezer, checking the international communication line back to Wakanda to assure its securities were up to date. Kwame entered the room, two tea cups and saucers in hand. From his reading, Hunter looked up; demure eyes were judgemental of the ragged and rugged Klaw.

Hunter gate-folded his newspaper and let it rest on his lap. He sat straight up, back pressed comfortable into the cushion of the couch.

“You are not dumb as your employers made you out to be, Ulysses.”

“Klaue.” the mercenary objected,

“Right, Ulysses,” Kwame broke the rhythm of Hunter’s speech with the clang of both tea saucers on the table. Hunter nodded and Kwame left, “I am sure General Moore has told you briefly who I am and what it is that I do?”

“Uh-huh,” Klaue scratched his mangly beard and indulged his tea without tact, “all you types talk a bit too much for my taste, can we get on with it?” Hunter smiled before he continued,

“Yes, yes. On with it.” with a waft of his hand, he pulled up a holographic map of the African Union’s meeting quarters for the 2018 summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

“You will set up here facing the east side of the building.” an index finger corresponded his words, “ 1.25 miles adjacent is where your nest will be. All of your equipment will be there and waiting for you. The windows are re-enforced, which is why you will be using the bullet we have provided for you. There is but one of these, Ulysses. You cannot and will not miss, understood? Expect your death to be swift should you fail. My men will be blocking any escape exits. You will not fire until one of my men give the signal.”

Klaue rolled his eyes, “I’m quaking in my li’l old boots! Haha! Sure, sure; I don’t want the boogeyman under my bed at night.” he put his palms together and bowed, “I will not fail you, Lord Hunter,” another mucus laden laugh. Hunter had a flashing thought of ending Klaue on the spot, but he continued,

“Think this a laughing matter, Ulysses, but it is not I who will kill you if you fail--it will be the Wakandans themselves.”

Klaue still found these ominous threats plump with hilarity, but he stopped laughing and let Hunter continue. He wanted this to be over with. Still, he knew he had to be cautious,

“So, uh… I guess this is the point where I ak a few questions. One of them is, ‘anything I need to be worried about? Bodyguards? Tracking systems? Other snipers?”

Hunter smiled, “Not at all, Ulysses. If you do as you are told, no problems will come to you. If you find yourself compromised, however, you will be on your own.”

“Sucks to be me then, huh?” Klaue was nervous; this was a big job with an even bigger payout. All he had to do was follow orders.

“Okay, right… but are you sure there aren’t any bodyguards I have to worry about? How the hell am I getting out of there after?”

Hunter had another sip of his tea, ice grey eyes not having left Klaue the entire time. Ulysses was unsure if the ‘White Wolf’ had blinked even once,

“It has all been arranged. As for… wild cards, there is the problem of the Dora Milaje.”

“The who?”

“Do not worry about it. Never mind that I said anything, my men will deal with them, too.” the Wolf knew he needed to plant that seed of doubt in Klaue’s mind.

“The King’s guard; I need not explain them to you, for if you were to see them face to face it would not matter. They would be the last thing you saw. I believe that is all I need of you, Ulysses.” Hunter set his teacup down, “please, see yourself out.”

“But I haven’t even finish my tea!” Hunter did not find Klaue amusing in the slightest; Klaue found Hunter uptight. He hoped the Wakandans weren’t that way, dead King or not. Klaue’s smile died. Hunter spoke up,

“Kwame,” the head butler arrived, “please send Ulysses some breakfast to go.” Kwame nodded and went to the kitchen to wrap some pancakes and a plastic container of syrup in some aluminum foil. When he returned, he handed it to Ulysses who accepted with glee.

“It has been a pleasure, Ulysses.”

“Hey, strange as you people are, you got some damn good hospitality.” Klaue gave a playful bow, waved non commital to Kwame, and made his way out.

Hunter and Kwame stood in the room alone. Hunter spoke in Xhosa to Kwame,

“Xelela abahloba bethu ehkaya.”

Kwame nodded and exited. The White Wolf finished his tea. T’Challa and his father would know how much they needed the Hatut Zeraze even if Hunter had to bring war to Wakanda’s doorstep for the King and his son to see it.

The Weapon X Facility, Canada
The Summer of 2018

The men at the controls wound up their tenth marionette
And ground his gears against their second,
who fought more viciously than the first had
but had come up short a bit more than a tad.
His howls rang in the ears of Weapon X's third,
who was by far the stronger man, though less learned.
Their third fought like a lion, though his shortcomings
were long enough that Ten snatched him out of the running.
The third would've drowned in his own blood if not for the fact
his lungs were taken to be used as a sanguine wine sack.

Doctor Cornelius was amazed that the fourth
had an enviable path compared to the fifth's course.
Their fifth Weapon was once a man reminiscent
of their tenth killer, given how he was creative and efficient.
Yes, it was the fifth that made the tenth soldier of Weapon X
break a sweat, the fifth made him flinch and had made him flex.
But despite the merit that their fifth weapon had displayed,
he was decapitated and his fighting spirit quickly decayed.

Weapon Six had a sinister smile plastered on his face,
and he blasted like a ball off the walls, all over the place.
He was a fast one, he tripped the tenth weapon up like a vacation planner,
but he destroyed himself in a blast of nonchalance with a casual manner.
His very arrogance burnt his chances like a napalm covered idiot,
and his failure left his body in ribbons, though he fought harder than obsidian.

Weapons seven and eight wisely united, presenting an attack that was coordinated,
but their target didn't taken well to being cornered, in fact he grew quite frustrated.
Though he'd been ambushed many times, they weren't something he could appreciate.
Anyhow, he was more than willing to reciprocate--yes, he'd readily retaliate.
The arena was a mess of slishes and slashes and snikt's.
The tenth weapon picked them apart like a seasoned critic.

Just as a young lion sharpens his fangs on the bones of the old,
Weapon Ten shattered Nine like a steel cube through a circular hole.
Stubborn as a goat, the ninth refused the tenth's orders to fold,
so he loosened the tenth's fangs, tired of being bullied and being told
that he would lose, that it was the will of God that he would fall,
because he'd told told the first eight the same, telling each one as he told them all.

Weapon Ten howled victorious, standing tall over than the rest
All agreed he wasn't particularly nice, but at what he did he was the best.

"You will not hold me!" Aleksi Sytsevich rages as he bangs against the bars of the Stryker's Island prison cell he is now assigned to. His orange prison suit, the largest size the prison had in its selection, was struggling against the sheer mass of the prisoner. His muscular forearms are already ripping the sleeves like sausage stuffed into too much casing. His massive fist strike the door, rattling the metal. It may have broken if he was allowed to keep at it. "No prison can hold me!"

"Shut up you giant bastard," Mac Gargan grumbles from the top bunk of the cell, flipping through a well worn copy of War of the Worlds. He has been cursing his luck ever since he was assigned the giant Russian as a cellmate. Prison is never going to be comfortable, but sharing a cell with a seven-foot-tall, three-hundred-pund man made of pure muscle sure doesn't help the situation. "If you're gonna fill up my space the least you can do is shut the hell up and let me read in peace."

"Heh," the giant grunts. "Reading. Meanwhile we rot in here."

"Just because you can't read doesn't mean the rest of us don't enjoy it," Gargan smiles over the book, revealing the chipped tooth in the front of his mouth.

Sytsevich roars and shakes the bunk, "You're always insulting me! I can read! You think you're so smart! But all you did against Spider-Woman vas get captured!"

"Yea well the rest of you didn't do jack shit either!" Gargan growls back.

This is how it's been between the Enforcers since their capture by Spider-Woman and the police. The four of them had never been stopped before now, and the taste of failure seems to sit bitter in their mouths. The infighting, now prevalent, had never happened while they were a well oiled machine. But then they had never had to deal with someone like Spider-Woman before, either.

"Quiet, the two of you," Digger Harkness hisses from the next cell over, trying to keep the peace. He knows they won't be in here long. The Tarantula won't allow it. What he doesn't know is what he'll do when he gets out. The world is changing, and he has no idea if he even has a place in it anymore. Maybe it's time to cash out and walk away. Maybe head back home and disappear into the Outback. That wouldn't be so bad. "We'll be outta here in no time. Then you can take out all your aggression."

One thing he has heard in the joint is that Silvio Manfredi had failed himself, felled by the hand of a man known only as "the Punisher" on the streets. That meant Black Tarantula may be without the Enforcers, but also without their biggest roadblock up until this point. At least there is a bright side.

"I'm certainly gonna show Spider-Woman what it's like to be beat down and embarrassed," Gargan seethes. While the man is a good tactician, Digger always thought the ex-military man was too quick for a fight, allowing bloodlust to mar otherwise good tactics. "She's gonna pay."

"Yes," Aleksi nods. "We vill make her pay."

"Oh yea?" Digger laughs mockingly. "And how are you gonna do that? You're two dumb bastards with no powers. She's a goddamn superhero. Best just leave her alone, gents."

"Whatsamatter, Harkness?" Gargan sat up in bed. "You losing your mojo? Can't get it up anymore?"

"Heh."

"Maybe I just don't wanna get my teeth kicked in by some super powered kid again," Harkness mumbles. "Maybe it's time to realize this life is short term anyway. Maybe with all these freaks showin' up is a sign for us to move on. Cash out."

"Yea, you go do that," Gargan rolls his eyes. "More loot for me."



"So I take it you like her?" Peter interjects, slightly bored, after I've been going on about Doctor Kafka and the Institute for a good twenty minutes as I swing through the city on patrol. He's at Oscorp, taking his data on the lizard rats Doctor Octavius and Doctor Connors have been working on. He seems about as enthused about that as he does in my gushing over my new boss. Peter may be a genius, but it'd be a lie to say he doesn't know he's a genius. He wants to be challenged. Wants more to do on the project. He'll get there. I tell him to be patient, but it doesn't help much.

"Sorry," I respond sheepishly. "But yea. I think this is really what I should do with my life."

"Other than your extracurriculars?" he interjects slyly.

"Yea, obviously that doesn't end." As I back-flip-swing over a group of kids below, they go nuts, and I give them an excited wave, which only increases their excitement. "But I need to make money somehow. And the two could end up helping one another."

"Like with the Fireflies?"

"Yea," my voice drops. Ever since the night of the fires, they've been quiet. The way they, or he or she, was talking, the fires would be coming fast and furious. Instead, we've got nothing. Not even more random YouTube videos of their weirdo manifestos. I definitely expected more of that. "I asked her about that. She thinks it's just someone with delusions. The manifesto is meaningless."

"You don't agree," he can hear the trepidation in my voice. It's not a question. It's a statement.

I hate that he can see right through me. Well, not so much hate as love.

"No. The fire was too hot. Too powerful to be some random crazy guy with some gas and a match. He's been outfitted."

"I considered that as well," Peter agreed. "Which means we have to find where he got...whatever he used."

"Well, we need to find him first."



"Mister Parker," Otto Octavius announces his presence in the lab, causing Peter to jump in his chair slightly. Being a Friday in the summer, most of the normal staff is already home or on their way to a vacation. "You should be at home. With Gwen. No reason for you to still be here. Go enjoy your youth. Live your life, young man. Plenty of time for science later."

"They've been acting weird," Peter motions towards the rats in their enclosures. "Plus Gwen started at Ravencroft today, so she's busy."

"Ah, I will have to contact Ashley to see how they got along," Otto smiles down at the boy before turning his attention to the rats. "Doctor Connors had mentioned they were acting odd the past few days, but I've had other matters to deal with recently. What have we been seeing?"

The rats, spliced with the healing genes of a lizard, are the first in the line of true tests of Connors and Octavius's belief that gene therapy like this could one day cure cancer, paralysis, and maybe even the loss of limbs, should it work as they theorize. The idea, if it works, could be the the thing that revolutionizes the medical field, saving millions upon millions of lives. Pete is honored to work on the project, even if he thinks he can be doing more.

"The injuries we've seen are healing rapidly," Pete gives his report. "The genes don't seem to have a obvious negative effect. At first. We've been seeing increased aggression between the rats when they're in the communal space, recently. The increased aggression leads to fights, which leads to increased healing. The healing then seems to lead to even more aggression. I think we're looking at a feedback loop. Something, whether it's adrenaline or what, is causing the lizard genes to take over. We haven't seen any physical transformations, but at this point I'm not ruling it out."

Peter looks up at Doctor Octavius, and can see the wheels turning in the genius's head. Parker still cannot believe how lucky he is to work with one of the greatest minds in the world. Octavius has pushed forward robotics, genetics, and computing in his many stops. He's worked for entities like STAR Labs and Stark Industries before coming to Oscorp. Hell, people think that he'll get the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physics at some point.

Peter only hopes he can be as great as Octavius one day.

"Well, we should keep up the tests," Otto rubs his chin. "We want to know the worst that could possibly happen. On Monday we'll take a blood sample of the aggressive animals and see what we can find. For now, go home, Parker. Enjoy your weekend. School starts soon. Not much freedom left."

"Sure thing, Dr. Octavius," Pete hops off the stool and heads towards the exit of the lab. "Have a nice weekend."

"Oh I will, Peter," Otto smiles broadly. "You do the same."

As the boy leaves, Otto turns back to the rats, his friendly smile melting into a malicious grin. He opens the doors to the communal area of the rats, allowing the supposedly-aggressive rats into the shared space. The scientist watches eagerly as the two rats entered, and immediately began tearing into one another. As their teeth and claws tear into their bretheren, the gashes and scrapes they leave heal almost instantly. As the fight continues, it becomes more and more ferocious, with neither rat able to gain an upper hand.

As the struggle continues, Otto notices that not only are the animals' aggressive tendencies increasing, their strength does as well. And while most animals would have been tired by the struggle by now, the two rats are not losing steam in the slightest.

"Well, well," Otto separates the rats and puts one back into its enclose. He holds the other, wriggling creature, snapping unsuccessfully at the scientist's hand. Otto can see green scales begin to form under the creature's fur as it continues to struggle. Otto picks up a syringe and takes a blood sample before putting the test subject back in its pen. As its anger subsides, Octavius can see the scales fade, and flake off.

"Time to start the next round of trials," Octavius muses as the red blood int the syringe glints in his eyes.



Obi-Wan had it wrong. Mos Eisley is not the most wretched hive of scum and villainy in the universe. A seedy bar town on the edge of the galaxy where bounty hunters and criminals hang out probably isn't the greatest neighborhood, but I mean, I've been to the Bronx. Nope. That isn't half as bad as Reddit and 4chan. Those would make a Jedi Master's beard whiten faster than a decade or two in the desert sun.

Which makes them the perfect place to try and find out where the Fireflies came from. The YouTube video from the other night shows whoever is leading them is ready and desperate to broadcast th"eir nutball message. They didn't start broadcasting that message after their first attack. There's a trail somewhere out there.

"Jesus sex robots need to be a thing yesterday," Peter grumbles from the bed as he surfs the sites as well. "You'd think guys who can't get laid would be in nirvana now. 10 years ago you had to pay for porn. I assume."

"You've never been laid, sweetheart," I stick my tongue out at him.

"Yea, but I don't act like that's some grave injustice against me. You find anything?"

"Too much, to be honest," I shake my head. "There's plenty of threats against superheroes. A lot of chatter about rising up against them. A lot of mentions of Jameson. Thanks Triple J."

"Lot's of keyboard warriors," Peter responds idly. "Wait.."

"What?"

"Some similar rhetoric here. Talking about humanity being forsaken. Cleansing fire. Similar stuff in posts from the user over the past 6-ish months. It all fits."

Standing, I check my backpack to make sure my costume is inside, "Can you find the user?"

"Sure, it might take me a while," he nods. "I'll let you know when I get a ping."

"Thanks, babe," I give him a kiss as I go to leave. "I'll be swinging, so I'll be ready."

---

---

Unknown SHIELD Facility

The elevator doors sliding open was matched by the sliding of rifle bolts. That threshold was met with the cavernous roar of a dozen guns, each pouring hellish amounts of fire into the tightly backed interior. Jaime didn't have even a moment to prepare himself before he felt the sting of exploded rounds striking against his body.

If he wasn't wearing the Scarab's chitin Reyes would've been torn apart in less than a second. Still, he felt every individual shot ring against his chest and against his skull. The armor squirmed, hardening like steel around every super-sonic bullet, catching it in that liquid shell. Most of the energy was successfully diluted and absorbed; but a volley of thousands was nearly enough to overwhelm the Scarab's natural defenses.

Reyes let out a blood-curdling scream, equal parts pain and terror, as he felt burning lead stab into his gut. He threw his arms up in front of his face, letting the bullets stop inside of his arms instead of his skull. Anguish spread like fire through his sinew and marrow, forcing the boy down to his knees. He'd never been shot before...it was a pain without compare.

Another sound played in synchrony with his cry. A far less human shriek, like that of the damned. It's meaning was less clear to Jaime than the one upon his own lips. The Scarab's emotions were...less than human, and difficult to read.

Was it pain that Khaji Da felt?

Or was it rage?

Either worked in equal measure, Reyes realized, as he felt his own arms lower of their own accord. He felt them shift unnaturally, melting and melding with the chitinous exterior until a pair of wicked blades were all that was left.

Both pain and rage were sufficient motivators to violence.

This was the first time Jaime didn't immediately black out when Khaji Da took control. It was the first time he would get to see what the Scarab was like in action.

It was somewhere between a beautiful dance and a stomach-churning massacre.

Every movement of the Beetle was quick, precise and measured. Jaime felt himself lurch, his arm splaying out toward the closest SHIELD agent. These men were armored, surrounded in a shell of plastics and titanium plating. Soldiers. Yet even still, those wicked, wicked blades wielded on Reyes's arms seemed to slice through them as if the armor wasn't even there.

Both of the first man's arms were sliced deep, straight to the marrow. Hee let out a terrible, agonized cry as he hit the floor. Khaji Da knelt down, the blades retracting to let his fingers take hold of the agent's fallen firearm. It was automatic assault rifle of unknown make and model- likely a SHIELD exclusive tool for dealing with beings like the Scarab.

Their weapons proved less than adequate this day.

Thin, snaking tendrils coiled from the chitin, grasping the gun like a hundred tiny fingers. They pulled and tugged at it, dragging the rifle down into the ever-growing mass of otherworldly material. Jaime felt just a little sick as he watched the two become one.

His ears rang painfully at the cacophony of gunfire that followed. Each of the eleven soldiers sent to apprehend them went down, his or her limbs exploding in a crimson mist as they went down. Reyes wanted to protest the sickening sight, but the pain in his stomach told him that Khaji Da had done what was needed.

'At least they're still...alive...'

The sentiment rang hollow, but there was no time to think on it any further. Life and death hung by a thread, and it was all Jaime could do to press onward. He ran from the elevator, making a break for the large gate on the other end of the room. Stacks of cargo crates strapped together filled the room, standing sentinel beside barrels of what Reyes assumed to be oil or gasoline.

His arm transformed once more, the newly assimilated rifle mutating into the Scarab's plasma cannon. Reyes raised the heavy device, his teeth gritting together as he felt streams of heat bow over him. An explosive sphere of energy tore the door in twain, melting through several inches of solid steel like it was tissue paper. Climbing through, Reyes was hit in the face by two things:

A massive gust of wind, and the realization that he couldn't see anything but clouds for miles. No land, no sea, no trees; at first he thought a fog must've fallen over the airstrip, but it was made readily apparent that was not the case.

"Uhh...Where are we?"

'We appear to be twenty four thousand feet above sea level."

Reyes could only scoff at the ridiculousness of the claim. "Well how the hell are we gonna get outta here, ese? Can...we fly?"

'Not yet. Approach that pad to your right.'

He turned, eyeing up the ground. It took him a second to take notice of the square indent in the metal. "A trap door?" He muttered, starting toward it at a jog. He felt unsteady in the beating, merciless embrace of the zephyr. "What's under here-" Hesitant fingers reached down into the indent, finding some purchase underneath. With a heave Jaime lifted, surprised by how easily it seemed to give way. Metal screeched in protest as gears were turned. Something-likely a safety lock- snapped.

The doors were forced open, revealing the vehicle nestled inside. Some kind of fighter jet, Jaime could tell, though it wasn't a model or design he was familiar with. "So this is how we get outta here? Can you fly this thing?"

'Not exactly. Place your hand upon it.'

Reyes reached down and did so, and immediately felt a shock run through his fingers. He watched the armor on his arm bend away, revealing the flesh underneath as it splayed out over the metallic hull of the airplane. Tendrils of ebony snaked around toward the back end of the jet, wrapping their inhuman feelers around the engine.

With a heave and a monstrous tug, Khaji Da broke the engine off the back of the jet, dragging the hefty object toward Jaime. Another merger, much like what had happened with the gun, made Jaime's skin crawl- literally, in this case.

"What're you-" His mouth snapped shut when he felt something stab into his back. Craning his neck over his shoulder let the teenager catch a glimpse of the mutating hunk of technology now protruding from his back. It looked like what an ant might conceive to be a jetpack- covered in a hard shell and pulsating like a living entity. It was a disconcerting sight, to say the least.

Khaji Da wasn't going to give his human host time to process what was happening. 'I will explain when we are out of danger. Running flight protocols.'

Jaime's body jerked upward without any further warning fast enough for his head to whip forward, his chin smacking his chest. He briefly wondered of this was how his dog felt whenever he tugged on her leash- if he was tugging her at somewhere between mach 1 and 30 through open air.

His terrified, less-than-dignified screams were cut short after they'd risen high enough for Jaime to get a full look at the structure he'd been kept prisoner on. Or, more accurately, the flying aircraft carrier he'd been on.

"Shit." He whispered under his breath, eyes as wide as saucers. "That's...cool."

Then he heard something of a sputtering from behind him. Then he stopped going up.

And started falling down.

'Odd.' Khaji Da started, amidst the screams for help from his young partner in crime. Ignoring the prayers for help from the boy, the Scarab attempted to rationalize what was happening. 'Perhaps I should have mentioned this earlier, Jaime Reyes, but when I was reactivated in the interrogation room, I noticed that several of my files had been corrupted. Included in these were memory, mission parameters, and several of my unit's basic functionalities such as flight controls-'

"Holy shit!" Jaime screeched, his arms flailing helplessly through the clouds as he plummeted toward the earth at terminal velocity. "I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. You killed me- you fucking killed me-"

'Not to worry, Jaime Reyes. This unit is designed to survive atmospheric reentry. We should be perfectly safe.'

"S-SHOULD BE?!"

'Theoretically.'

So Jaime Reyes screamed. And he screamed. And he screamed some more, until his throat was too raw too continued. He screamed until the clouds broke and he saw the ground approaching.

Then he hit.

And everything went black.

M A R V I L L E, O K L A H O M A:

---

---

---

---

---

Music


Iris hadn't proactively taken part in the punching match, given that the surfer had kind of been out with her range. This was all happening and she was well outside of her comfort zone. Now Superman was here, and if that didn't make her realise that she was in over her head nothing would. On the bright side at the very least Superman had managed to put him off balance, but the last thing they needed was for this to devolve into a punching match that nobody could necessarily win. Had she taken a punch like that she would have been out of it, or her head would be scattered somewhere in the badlands. Instead it seemed like the two of them were merely inconvened by the blows. Whatever had given Superman his powers, Iris kind of wish it given a little to her. She could do with that level of invulnrability right about now.

She took a beat, a deep breath to calm herself. "Superman, right?" She let out what may have been the most high pitched nervous laugh she had ever let out. Her skin behind the mask going a colour that wasn't entirely disimilar than the red she was wearing. Then again, what woman wouldn't be nervous getting to talk to Superman. The situation didn't entirely help.

"It appears that we're having humanitys first contact with alien life, and it also appears that alien life isn't entirely happy with us. He calls himself the Silver Surfer and claims he was sent by his master to test me. To be fair he seems quite willing to answer questions. So while you plan on-" She moved her hands to try and help her with what she was trying to say "-how you're going to punch him, I guess. I'm going to see what information I can get." She winked at him before kicking up dust as she headed for the crash site in which the Surfer currently resided.

Iris doubted that he was out, it wasn't going to be that easy. She was however starting to come up with a theory on how to beat him, or at the very least contain him long enough to beat him. Hopefully.

She skidded to a halt as she neared him, raising her hands up in a non-threatening gesture. "Hey, uh... Silver Surfer?! Listen, we don't need to fight. Who's your master? I am sure we can find another way to resolve this without ending anymore life, you can't enjoy this anymore than we do. Help us help you." She walked toward him slowly as she spoke, keeping her hands raised and non-threatening. If it came down to it she was ready to move, and she would do so the second he made any form of threatening gesture. The plan was simple, try and talk him down. If that failed, try and contain him.

Iris had managed to contain his energy, somehow, with her own by creating a vortex around it earlier. She was hoping that she could do that on a grander scale, maybe it would interfere with whatever held him to the board as if she was a betting woman, that had something to do with his power.

Compton
1988

1988 Music

The house party was in full effect. Gangbangers, slingers, hood rats, and all manner of Compton’s finest danced along to the song of the summer. Everyone at the party was either full members of Mob Piru, or affiliated with them in some way. Red shirts, pants, and baseball caps as far as they eye could see. They were all blowing off steam after a hard day on the corners. Almost all the money they made that day had gone in to the booze and drugs and girls for this party.

They spent anything they made as soon as they could, they ate and drank and lived like there was no tomorrow because for nearly their entire life there was no tomorrow. Growing up in Compton, every new day for them had been a challenge. Some of them never knew where their next meal would come from, where he would sleep that night, and how they would make it to the next day. To people not from Compton it was impulsive, but to them it was just instinct. They sold crack and robbed liquor stores because they could, and who the fuck could actually stop them? Nobody.

That was what LAPD didn't realize. They came in with their riot gear and armored vehicles in search of drugs, their jackboots looking to stomp their spirit out. But it couldn’t be killed. The rowdy ass house party was testament to that spirit. The cops could roll through with their dead-eye stares, but they always stood tall. Regardless of how bad it had been the night before, they were always back out on the corners the next night in search of another payday. Each and every one of them a kingpin on the rise in their own minds.

While the party continued on towards its crescendo, the real kingpin held court in the backroom of the house. Orlando Miller, head of Mob Piru, pointed a gun directly at his drug connect. The motherfucker had the balls to walk into the party without an escort or backup, demanding to see Orlando. One of the kids who dealt for him brought the guy into the backroom.

“You no longer trust me?” the man asked with a smirk. He spoke with a French Patuá accent. “You think I am an informant?”

“Fuck no,” said Orlando, gripping the gun tighter. “I know enough about you to know you won't snitch. What I want to know IS why my last shipment was short a few keys.”

“You get what you pay for, no?” The man flashed a row of gold teeth when he smiled. “I expect theft, Orlando. I account for you and your people to take a small cut. This is how business is done in our line work. But you take too much, enfant stupide.”

“So, you just come in here without no back up and expect to walk out of here?”

“Yes,” said the man. His eyes began to glow purple. “Your man is going to see to it that it happens.”

“What man?” Orlando asked.

Orlando’s answer came in the form of a bullet. The shot to the back of the head dropped him to the floor. With the music booming from the other side of the house, it hadn’t been heard by the army of gangbangers less than one hundred feet away. The little boy with the big gun looked down at Orlando’s twitching body before looking up at the man, a purple glow fading from his eyes. He was scared. He'd heard words in his head, telling him to pull out his gat and do what needed to be done... and he sure as hell had done that.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” he said softly.

“Of course you did,” said the man. “All I did was allow you to express your innermost desire. What is your name, boy?”

“Lucas… everyone calls me Lance.”

“Why is that?”

“That knight from history or some shit. Sir Lancelot. They say I run up on Crips like I’m that motherfucker.”

The man laughed deeply and ruffled the boy’s head. He reached into the pockets of his purple jacket before he pulled out a gold necklace. A matching medallion with a ruby red pendant dangled around the chain.

“You are fearless and hungry. I can sense this. This necklace, I give to you as a gift, garçon. Your boss was a weak man, no? Stupid and greedy. Do not become like him. Use this necklace to become something better.”

The boy took the necklace from the man and put it over his head. He could feel an instant connection from the thing. It seemed to speak to him, soft whispers that only he could hear. And the necklace was saying one thing: It was hungry.

“Thank you, sir,” said Lance.

“Please,” the man said with a large smile. “Call me Papa.”

---

Brentwood
Now

Charlie Rembrandt approached the glass door at a crouch, his gun out and at the ready. He’d been in his car when he heard the shots. Several in quick succession, sounded like multiple shooters to him. He called it in with dispatch. The nature of this thing made him hesitant to get the LAPD at large involved, how in the hell would he explain this to his bosses? But gunfire popping off in Brentwood would draw police attention regardless.

“Yo,” K2 said, his head sticking through the wall. “You gotta come see this shit.”

Charlie slid open the glass door and walked through into the mansion, following K2. He found a dead body sprawled on the hardwood floor of a hallway. The body of a bulky man dressed in red stared straight up, his face a mask of blood and bruises. The angle of his neck let Charlie know he was dead, and he had probably died a few seconds after his neck was twisted that way.

“That’s Country,” said K2. “One of the niggas Lance has on payroll. Muscle and anything that needs to be roughed up, Country is who Lance go to. Country does the hurting, Pooh Bear does the killing.”

Rembrandt kept moving forward, stopping as he heard more gunfire and a scream. He came out of the hallway and into a living room illuminated only by candlelight. K2 followed in his wake as they came upon the body of Lance Rawlings. Like Country, his body was beaten and broken with limbs twisted in unnatural ways. A look of horror was frozen on his face for all eternity. The necklace that had granted him so much power in life pulsated slowly, like a heart on the verge of failure.

“Little help,” said a voice on the other side of the room.

John Constantine was sideways on the floor, tied to a chair. Charlie rushed over and untied him before helping him on to his feet.

“What the fuck happened here?” K2 asked. "Who got him?"

“The past caught up to Lance,” said John. “And here comes the past right now.”

He pointed down the hallway. They turned and saw Lonnie Sledge running at full speed towards the living room as a mob of ghosts chased after him.

“We can smell him on you,” they chanted in union. “Lonnie! Lonnie! Lonnie!”

“Leave me alone!”

Charlie aimed his weapon at the spirits. John put a hand on his wrist.

“Bullets won't do any good with that lot. Anyway, we’re safe, mate. The invocation was aimed at Rawlings and his men.”

Sledge slipped on the floor and the ghosts pounced, dragging him to the ground. They mobbed the prone man and started to punch, beat, kick, and bite every inch of his body.

“That’s the downside of being a familiar,” said John. “For better or worse, you’re linked.”

"We gotta do something to call them off," said Charlie.

"It's too late," John said.

He nodded towards the mob. The spirits had shuffled away from Sledge’s dying body and stared at John, Charlie, and K2 with the same faraway look they had earlier before the killing had started.

“Rey,” K2 said in surprise. “What are you doing here? Bunch of Crips got you.”

“Your boy,” Rey said with a finger pointing towards Lance’s body. “He lied to you, K. He did me in himself. I apparently was too much of a risk to the K2 money train. I told you he was bad fucking news, nigga.”

“Fuck,” K2 sighed. “I’m… sorry, man.”

“Don’t worry,” Rey said with a humorless smile. “I got that motherfucker back.”

“Where’s the other one?” Charlie asked. “The other guy Lance had as a bodyguard?”

“Pooh Bear?” the ghost of the Crip, Antonio asked. “That nigga jumped into the pool, thinking we couldn’t get him. But we could get him... He’s floating now.”

The ghosts all shared a laugh.

“Shouldn’t have done that,” said John. “Now that you’ve been called forth, Lance and his cronies was your only sure-fire way to move on. He was the one to bring you forth and he would be the only one to call you back. But now that he's roasting in hell, you lot are stuck here.”

“The fuck you mean?” asked K2.

“Doomed to walk the earth,” said John. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a stub of chalk. “Never touching anything, or tasting anything, or only having less than one percent of the population actually see you. It's like a bad fucking fantasy story. I do have a backup if you're interested.”

Bending down, John drew a sigil on the floor. He looked up from it at the ghosts. Police sirens could be heard off in the distance.

“This circle here is a backdoor,” he said to the spirits. “All you need to do is step on to it and it will take you wherever you’re headed now that your life is over. Heaven, hell, whatever you believe in. Who’s first?”

“Me,” said K2.

He stepped up and stood on the sigil. His eyes fell on Rey and he shook his head.

“I’m sorry, cuz. But I’ll see you on the other side.”

The sigil glowed as K2’s feet left the ground. He hovered in the air, looking straight up at the ceiling with a look of rapture on his face. The smile faded and he began to look around.

“Wait… why do I smell smoke?”

The sigil opened up, a gnarled and rotten arm reached through and grabbing the rapper around the ankle. He screamed as the arm pulled him down. He tried to fight back, his hands desperately reaching for purchase on the wood. With a final yell, he disappeared through the sigil in a flash of fire.

“Like I said,” John said to the spirits. “It takes you wherever you were already headed. I can't change what kind of life you lot lived. Seems that K2 is a little more than the play-acting gangster he pretended to be.”

“You need to go,” Charlie said. “Patrol will be here in a minute, uniforms and brass to follow. This is going to be a major shitshow and I can explain most of this, but I sure as hell can’t explain you.”

“Wait,” Rey said. “What the fuck about us?”

“You got the sigil,” said John. “Best I could do.”

Without another word, he started for the door. Charlie looked at the spirits and raised his eyebrow.

“So, who’s next?”

---



East Los Angeles
4:21 AM

John knew that he was not alone the second he stepped foot into his apartment. He dropped his keys and pack of cigarettes and began to make motions with his hands. A shield of energy formed in his left hand as a fireball ignited in the palm of his right. He felt familiarity in the darkness. A presence that he had encountered before. That didn't make it an enemy, but there was little chance it was a friend.

“Don’t bother.”

Dispelling the invocations, John stepped forward into the apartment. He knew the voice’s words were right. He could feel the power and knew exactly who was sitting in the dark waiting for him. To fight here, in L.A. of all places, would be pointless. The power behind the city was enough to crush John. In this scenario, he was the ant and the voice was like the kid with the magnifying glass.

“Long time no see,” the man said from the metal folding chair that was John’s only real piece of furniture. “You know how hard you are to find?”

“Dead men often are,” said John. He reached down and picked his cigarettes up.

The man watching him was dressed in a white t-shirt with black pants and a black jacket. His feet were bare, the soles of his feet blackened by a long, long life of walking without shoes.

“You wanted to be found, at least eventually,” he said with a laugh.

“Bollocks,” said John. “The magic I threw down to convince London I was dead was some serious shite, squire. The only reason you bested it is because... well, even I have trouble tricking deities."

Jack Hawksmoor, god of the cities flashed a smile at Constantine.

“And you ran to Los Angeles of all places. One of my favorite children. If you live in a city -- even if it's Pigshit, Nebraska -- I can find you if I want to.”

John grunted as he lit up a cigarette.

“So what do I owe the… pleasure to, Jack?”

Hawksmoor sighed and stood from the chair. In the dim lighting, John could see that Hawksmoor's usual dark head of hair was now white, his face aged and weathered. That wasn't suppose to happen to gods.

“London’s calling. I need your help to save it... and me.”

"Hey, kid, when you talk to Kilowog, ask him about that little maneuver at Tyegin."

It was raining.

Through the downpour, the Slyggian slogged through the water collecting in the street. A trenchcoat, flat cap, and a scarf shielded him against the moist chill that seemed to cut to the bone.

Abin's ring -- that is, Kai-ro's ring now -- was in the palm of the Slyggian's hand. The recording creating a flickering recreation of the small H'lven Green Lantern as Salaak tracked the transmission back to it's source. Passing from off the street, the four armed xenoform entered into a cheap motel. Passing the desk, he went straight for the stairs. Up six flights of stairs. Down the hall, fourth door on the left.

It was like putting on a favorite pair of old slippers, and feeling the maggot larvae between the toes. Precise thoughts forming the lock-picking tools from out of the emerald light, even as it still felt so strange to use his ring after a decade of complacency on Oa.

What had Ch'p been thinking? Being a Green Lantern was a game for the young.

Something neither Ch'p nor Salaak had been for some time now...

He let himself into the room. There was a muffle of surprise from one of the occupants inside. On the bed, a man was passed out with a bottle of liquor and the remnants of some kind of narcotic lingering on the nightstand. Next to him, was a brightly colored female whose occupation spoke for itself.

Picking up her garments, the prostitute hurried out of the room, as the Slyggian made his way over to the window. Across the street was the nightclub. Robot Emotional Underground.

A hologram of a chipmunk huddled into a scrap of wool cloth flickered into being on the windowsill. "Night, kid," the illusionary recording of Ch'p uttered, before winking back out of existence.

The well of emotion was marked only by the motion of the Slyggian clenching his jaw.

Salaak's eyes scanned the area around the window. No signs of a struggle. Whatever had happened to Ch'p hadn't taken place in this room.

Sliding his fingers underneath the window, the Slyggian poked his out. A green light enveloped him, as he moved outside and began floating upward. Had Ch'p made a move on the club?

That's when he saw him.

The body was lying in the open. Broken upon the roof top, where it had been picked over by scavangers, but recognizable as that of a H'lven.

---

---

---

---

The yellow lab slept at the Guardian's feet.

Seated on a log, before blue and violet cocoon encasing the boy's form, the long-haired dwarf puffed on a pipe as he used a stick to make several lines into the dirt at his feet.

As he finished, the runes illuminated. Rising from out of the ground, the burning icons swirled violently for a moment, before they encircled the cocoon.

...and shattered.

Ganthet frowned. Reaching up, he plucked the pipe from out of his mouth and set it down atop the log beside him. Then, levitating up so that he was eye level with the boy in the cocoon, leaned in for a closer appraisal of the situation.

The body seemed to have healed well enough. So what about the rest of him?

Passed inside of the cocoon, the dwarven figure seemed to step through into another dimension. An astral plane. The horizon on which the child's mind existed.

He found himself in the middle of space, staring at a stellar nursery.

This was the moment of the boy's death? Beautiful, but not a good place for the mind to dwell upon itself. Turning, the squat, blue man craned his head back and saw a child hovering in a fetal ball.

Except the child wasn't human. He was Ungaran.

"I've gone to some rather great lengths to meet you," Ganthet complained bitterly, raising himself so that he was on the same level as the boy. "So, I should appreciate it if you would wake up."



The line for the club snaked around the building.

As he made his way across the street, toward the door, Salaak reached up to remove his cap. The scarf fell away, onto the street, as the Bolovaxian bouncer on the door turned to put a hand out to stop the four-armed figure.

That was cute.

The door to the club didn't come off it's hinges. Instead, the door frame shattered, as pieces of the wall broke away with the force with which the Boloxavian was put through the entry into the club.

As he followed, through the now open doorway, Salaak casually pulled the fire alarm. The klaxon was loud enough to be heard even over the din of club music, prompting people into a panic as the innocent denizens rushed past the Slyggian in a mad dash for the exit.

There was a Daxamite in the ubiquitous all-black attire of a bouncer.

No, two Daxamites.

The Bolovaxian was picking himself up off the floor. And the bartender was just standing there with his jaw on the floor.

"Why don't you go find a Kryptonian?" Salaak noted sourly, as he casually started making his way toward the bar. "Maybe then it'll be a fair fight."

The Silver Surfer watched as the Flash approached him with palms upturned. He understood it to be a gesture of submission on this world. It was quaint. It suggested that one so insignificant as the Flash could ever harm him. The Surfer felt no more or less threatened by the woman with her hands in the air than he did fending off punches from the Kryptonian. With the power cosmic running through his being, there was nothing that could harm him.

Least of all an Earthbound metahuman yet to master her powers.

The Surfer cast a judgemental gaze upon the Flash. Her voice was calming, a well-practised stillness exuding from each word, and her features, obscured to those with a lesser eye by vibrating her molecules, had a sororal quality meant to put the Surfer at ease. Her efforts were misplaced – and her understanding of the Surfer's role in balancing the cosmic scales was sorely lacking.

"RESOLUTION? YOU SPEAK OF FORCES YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND, HUMAN."

The Surfer's flat, emotionless voice boomed from atop his surfboard. In more worlds than the Surfer could remember, there had been those that fought to the bitter end – raging against the inevitable until their world's were little more than smouldering embers. Some sought to bargain and beg. It always ended the same way.

Soon the inhabitants of Earth would find that out for themselves.

"ONLY DEATH AND DESTRUCTION AWAITS YOUR WORLD SHOULD YOU REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE IN MY MASTER'S TEST."

One of the Surfer's hand began to glow with the power cosmic. The power was so volatile that it's throbbing was audible even to the Flash on the ground. At the first sign of the Surfer raising his hand, the Flash broke into a sprint. The Surfer tracked her gait with his eye as he prepared to unfurl the cosmic energy in the speedster's direction.

"AND IT IS MY DUTY TO DELIVER IT."

---

---

---

---

"Who is your-" Iris started, however she was unable to go continue before the Surfer raised one of his hands. The surfboard glowed with energy, and it passed over up to his hand. As soon as that happened she started off. Breaking into a sprint she started circling him at high speed, such as she had done earlier to contain his blast of energy in the street. What she needed to do was somehow disrupt his connection to the board, when she ran at high speeds Iris found that she could sometimes cause electrical disturbances. Usually she tried to avoid doing that. Today, she was actively tryin to cause disturbances.

Trusting the rumours that Superman had super hearing she spoke over the sound of the rushing wind. Her voice distorted by the speed she was going at, she had to draw out her words to make sure he could hear her. "Try and part him from his board." She pushed herself harder. Lightning swirling around as the dust kicks up in the air in a way similar to that of a tornado. She varied her speed, slowing and speeding up at random intervals to try and prevent the Surfer from succeeding to strike her. This had to work. The longer this fight went on, the more abilities the Surfer seemed to pull out of his bag of tricks.

Now that there were two of them? It was the time to strike.

She turned to see his feet lift slightly off the board and she smurked. Pushing on the speed now that he was off balance she kept pushing until the point where he and the board began to separate, he went to tumble and she shouted over the wind as she turned to grab the board. "Get him! I got the board!"

S T A R C I T Y, C A L I F O R N I A:

---

M A R V I L L E, O K L A H O M A:

---

London.

If you got any records by The Clash nearby now would be the time to play it, yeah?

She’s over two thousand years old. Romans officially founded her, though there were villages around that particular patch of Thames thousands of years before any of those toga wearing pussies even set foot on the island. What started as a few shacks by the river is now one of the largest cities in the world and the capital of western civilization for a millennia.

They say that a city is only as good as its people. I think there’s some truth to that. L.A. is a vapid, polluted cesspool because of the vapid, polluted people that occupy it. London is… something else entirely. It's because of its people. The city has been through it all. Plagues, war, riots, serial killers, Beetlemania, take your pick and Londoners went through it with a stiff upper lip. A fire burns 80,000 homes? We'll rebuild. The bloody Luftwaffe bomb the city every night? One your bike, Adolf.

But that thick skin has its downside. They get too busy keeping calm and carrying on they miss things. Children go missing and are never seen again, a mad man kills five Whitechapel working girls and disappears without a trace, a whole neighborhood in the grips of mass hysteria lynch black sailors for fighting with white dockworkers. And it's all to due with what's below. There’s something down there, beneath the Underground and the shit pipes and power lines and rats, something below the ancient catacombs. Something that beats as the heart of hidden London. A place of ghosts, monsters, and urban legends. A place where myths become flesh and blood.

It’s a place that no mage has gone into and come out sane. Well… no mage except one.

---

The Underground
1968

Roy Parker kept one hand on the wound in his side, the other hand on the bag of cash. He was slowly limping down the underground corridors. The job had gone wrong. And of course it fucking had, thought Roy. That’s what he got for letting Calum plan the bloody thing. A simple armored car job, he had said. The wanker hadn’t planned on the guards actually having guns. Both sides opened up and started a fucking massacre in the middle of street. Wounded, Roy grabbed a bag of cash and ran during the fight. Calum was dead and their driver Carl was on the way to being dead. With no car, Roy ducked into the Underground and then a side door near the tube platform. He kept going without thinking of where he was going. As long as he got some distance between himself and Old Bill that would be fine.

But now he was... where the hell was he? With a sigh, Roy leaned against the wall of the corridor. The cold stone felt good on his back. He looked down at his side and sighed in relief. He was bleeding, but the wound looked like it was just a nick. It was still bleeding, but he was confident that it would slow and clot sooner than later. He cursed when he saw a trail of blood drops on the ground leading towards him. He had to hurry less the police managed to find the trail.

Taking a deep breath, Roy started back down the corridor. Wherever he was, it didn’t look like anything else he had ever seen. The walls were stone, like something out of the bloody middle ages.All Roy needed was a fiery torch to complete the look. The sound of something shuffling cut off Roy’s thoughts. He pulled his hand away from his wound with a grunt and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a revolver.

“Who’s there?”

Squinting in the dark, Roy could make out a small shape further down the corridor. It was crawling his way slowly but surely. He finally made out the form of a rat scuttling across the floor, smelling and licking the drops of blood on the floor. When it was close enough, Roy stepped on its spine. It squealed and thrashed as it died.

“Fucking vermin,” he spat.

Roy turned away and started back down the corridor. He was only a few feet down when he heard the shuffling noise. This time, it was accompanied by squeaking. A dozen rats were now making their way down the hall towards him, using his blood as a roadmap towards him. Cursing, Roy took a shot and blew one of the rats away. The gunfire in the small hallway hurt his ears, but it kept the rats at bay. They hurried back to where they came from while Roy hitched the bag up and turned back to run.

He started to hurry down the hall as fast as his injury and bag of cash would allow him. He heard more scuttling and more squeaks, more than he could imagine. He looked over his shoulder and saw dozens of rats heading towards him, this time moving far faster than they had before. Roy started firing over his shoulder at the rats as he was now running outright with the loot. His foot hit some uneven part of the floor and sent him sprawling to the ground. The gun slipped from his hand, the bag of cash ripped and sent pound notes flying in the air. On his back and covered in cash, Roy saw hundreds of the rodents rushing towards him. He screamed as the pack of rats overtook him.

---

Brixton
Now

“Of course it’s bloody raining.”

John Constantine stood outside the tube station, taking in the site of the Brixton Road. Ten years since the last time he stepped foot on the road and it was still the same. Still filled with the same shops and same depressing overcast sky with drizzling rain. Same slow moving traffic and jaywalking pedestrians daring the cars to hit them. For the first time in a long time, John thought of Chas. Chas was one of the many who thought he was dead. He wondered how he would react to knowing his old friend was still alive.

“Wouldn’t be London without the rain,” Jack Hawksmoor said with a smile. None of the passing commuters seemed to take stock of the barefoot man standing in the rain. “Of all my children, London is among my favorite. Not the biggest or the oldest, but I'll take her over New York, Los Angeles, and all the megacities in China any day.”

John grunted as he pulled a fresh cigarette from his jacket and lit it up.

“Sure as hell isn't because of the weather… or the food. C’mon, I know a pub close by.”

A few minutes later they were settled in to a booth at the pub. John had a pint in his hands while Hawksmoor took in the surroundings.

“This building didn’t exist three hundred years ago. This whole part of London was farmland back then. Brixton was known for its windmills. When I would jump around rooftops, I could see them off in the distance.”

“Time marches on,” John muttered into his pint. “Nothing gold can stay, etc. You come back in ten years, I bet this pub will be either a Sainsbury's or a Starbucks. So when do I get to leave, Jack?”

“When you help me.”

Jack laid his hands on the table for John to see. They were spotted and worn, the blue veins noticeable against the pale skin. There were red spiderwebs of infection arching from the veins and into the flesh of his hands and arms. They looked to John like a sign of blood poisoning.

“I think I’m dying.”

“That’s impossible." John shook his head and blew smoke from his mouth as he spoke. “If you were some Celtic water sprite I’d say yeah, but you’re god of the cities. Billions of people worship at your altar, knowingly or unknowingly, every day. You’re not exactly the Endless when it comes to power, but you sure as hell got more juice than any of the Judeo-Christian lot.“

“You’d think,” Jack said, his eyes looking down at his hands. “But you have the proof here for yourself. This is a new development. At least the past decade I've been feeling... something like death. I spent that time tracing the source of my decay through all my children until I finally found it to be in London in a very unique place...”

“Lemme guess where that is,” John said with a scowl.

“The Underland,” said Jack.

“No. Fuck no.”

“Please, John,” Jack pleaded. “You’re the only person who has gone down there and emerged unscathed.”

“If that’s what you want to call it,” John said softly. “Unscathed. Why should I help you, Hawksmoor? You’re just a manifestation of belief. Like a bloody cloud that runs on hopes and dreams. You get wiped out, so the fuck what? That won’t end the world. Guess what happened when they stopped believing in Apollo? The sun rose the next day.”

“What if it’s more than that?” Hawksmoor asked, his hands balling up into fists. “What if the thing that’s in the Underland is killing me off to take my place? For over ten millennia, I’ve been a benevolent god. What if what comes after me isn’t so nice. What then?”

John’s reply died in his throat. Two men in suits stood in front of their table. John could sense them reaching out to him, trying to get his measure. It was a common enough trait among the magi community of London. They called it scanning the barcode. John did the same and knew exactly who they were and who sent them.

“Mr. Constantine,” one of them said. “Ms. Sackville requires your presence.”

“Of course,” said John. “Haven’t even been in town for an hour yet, but already the Tate Club comes calling.”

Marc Spector.

His name was Marc Spector. He was a former marine. He fought like he was born to it, and any weapon he used was like a natural extension of his body.

Marc sat in a hospital bed surrounded by white sheets and looked at the drip connected to the back of his hand in disgust. He was here for precautionary measures. That wasn’t what the doctor or nursing staff said, but it was how Marc read it. Any kind of competent field doctor would have him written up as such. But this wasn’t a field hospital. These were civilians.

So he sat in bed, kept watch on his surroundings, and ran what he knew about himself through his head.

Marc Spector. Marine. Born fighter. In Egypt for questionable reasons. DuChamp hadn’t wanted to say too much in front of Marlene Alraune. Why? Were his reasons for being there alongside someone like Raoul Bushman more nefarious than they originally let on?

Marlene was asleep in the corner of his room. Head slumped over one shoulder in what couldn’t have been a comfortable chair. Jean-Paul DuChamp was nowhere to be seen.

Was that right? The man who claimed to be his oldest friend had just disappeared after things turned bad, meanwhile a woman he just met, who must know he bears SOME semblance of responsibility over the murder of her father stuck it out by his side by a hospital bed. Where was the Frenchman? Was he really his friend? Maybe he was calling Bushman after things turned sour at the dig site?

He had told him his name though. And Marlene was convinced that he had opened fire upon her persuers.

“Hi…”

She had woken up. He could remember she was a beautiful young woman the night he first saw her, but now with her hair unkempt from the night on the chair and the goofy grin of someone just waking up she looked almost comical.

He creased his lips into a tight smile, it was the least he could do considering the discomfort she must be experiencing. He returned a “Hi.” himself.

“Are you alright there? That chair can’t be comfortable.”

She sighed a yawn, “I’m ok.” Her yawn told him otherwise though.

“’Allo.”

DuChamp was standing in the doorway with a cardboard cupholder with four cups in it. “Good to see you have awoken, Marc. I brought coffee. The cafeteria downstairs… it is not fit for human consumption. It is, as we say, les ordures. Swill.”

“Thank you, Jean-Paul.” Marlene said, reaching out to the Frenchman for a cup. “Which one’s mine?”

“That depends, you didn’t say how you have your coffee. I have regular cappuccino, dark espresso, macchiato and a mocha, in case you were after something different.” Tapping each cup as he rolled off the options.

“Thank you, macchiato, yes?”

“Oui.” The stylish Frenchman looked happy with her selection as he pulled the mocha out for himself, resting it on a table, before pulling out a cup and putting it in front of the patient.

“There, Marc.” He said. “Don’t look so miserable, it’s your favourite.”

“Is it?” Marc picked up the cup. “What is it? Or do I have to guess, when other people tell me what my favourite things are these days?”

DuChamp eyeballed Spector as he lay in the hospital bed. “Marlene, these came from a nice little shop just across the street. Maybe you might like to have lunch there. I think it’s time I start my shift here.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a money clip, passing her two sizable bills. “It’s alright. Marc and I have some things we need to discuss.”

The Frenchman had his omnipresent smile pressed upon his face, but Marlene could see that much of the warmth and humour it generally carried was gone. This smile was going to drop soon, and it seemed a warning that she wouldn’t want to be around when that happened.

“Thank you, Jean-Paul.” She took the money and left, waving at Marc, a look of genuine concern on her face.

“Such a nice girl. A nice, sweet girl… and a miserable SALAUD!” He slammed down the cupholder on the small table across Spector’s lap. Coffee splashed up through the lid, going everywhere.

“Whoa… Settle down, you crazy French—“

“No! Right now this stops. No more feeling sorry for yourself. Inacceptable!”

“Feeling sorry for myself?! I don’t even know who ‘MYSELF’ IS!”

“You are Marc fucking Spector. My friend and one of the most willful people I have ever known. You had the audacity to go private after—“

The Frenchman pulled up.

“What?”

DuChamp looked around the room. He got out of the plain chair, walked across and closed the door to the room. He gently walked back to his chair all with the pensive face of a man who is not sure how to say what he knows he must.

“You were a field operative in one of your country’s intelligence agencies. If I were to guess, I would say you were CIA, but I must admit that is me, how you say, filling in the gaps and making assumptions. These people we work for are often not so forthcoming with information, despite having the gall to call themselves intelligence agencies.”

“I would say, most likely, you were CIA. Myself, I was on loan to the DGSE from the French Foreign Legion. We were working a collaborative international effort in—“

Once again he looked at the door.

“You know, the details of our mission are not necessary to pass along at the moment, and this place is not the kind of secure location where this matter should be discussed. Suffice to say, we had a mission that went very bad. The team as a whole was disbanded. This was where you and I met. And in a place filled with shadowy figures fighting dirty wars, we both found it refreshing to actually find a fellow soldier who was relatively clean and straight forward.”

He rocked back in his chair.

“So there you have it. We are friends, although I admittedly don’t know that much about your home life. That said, I don’t think either of us have had much of what we would call a homelife for quite some time. This mission… it’s also where we met Raoul. He was called a “consultant”.”

“A consultant?”

“Oui. But in the circles of these people we were affiliating with “consultant” was a term for any person of questionable past that our employers were trying to keep dealings with off the books.”

“So we knew he was a scumbag?”

Jean-Paul shrugged, then facepalmed and rubbed his hand through his hair in frustration.

“Well, we had reason to believe he was unsavoury, yes. The extent that we knew him was not great. And considering our choices at the time.” He sighed. “They were extremely limited. We could not exactly just go out and get a new job like most people. The work we’d been doing for our nations severed us both from our networks. We knew each other, and this guy said he had work opportunities.”

“What did we think he probably was?”

“We didn’t know. Best case scenario though… He was leading some kind of rebellion or coup against some African tin-pot dictator or another.” He laughed without warmth. “…and probably becoming a new tin-pot dictator in his place.”

“There’s blood on both of our hands, Marc. But the truth of the matter is, before we ever met, before we even knew of the other’s existence there was blood on both of our hands.”

Suddenly a light shone from the blankets them, followed by a heavy vibration.

Marc picked up his phone and looked at the screen.

“Samuels.” He showed the phone to DuChamp. “Do we know a Samuels?”

“I do not. But like I said, Marc. I know nothing of your homelife.”

He cursed to himself softly before putting the phone to his ear and answering the phone.

“Hello..?”

“Good evening, sir…”

An awkward pregnant pause filled the air.

“…yes…?”

“Ah..!” An air of recognition seemed to come through the man on the other end of the phone. “I’m calling on behalf of my employer, a Mr Steven Grant.”

The door opened and Marlene walked through carrying three silver logs of something wrapped in aluminium foil. "Shawarma!" She announced. She was hushed by the two men.

“Yes, and what does he want?”

“Well… Mr Grant has some business he was hoping you may be able to assist him with. He’s presently away due to taking care of some other business in New York City, but he has offered to put you up here in the estate until he returns…”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh…” Marc said, whilst waving to DuChamp for a pen and some kind of paper. “And where exactly is this place.”

“Oh! Of course, sir… It’s located at…”

“Uh-huh…” Marc scrawled rapidly, “So repeating this back to you, that was Grant Mansion located by 2401 North Lake Shore Drive, North of Gold Coast, Chicago, Illinois…”

“I’m from Chicago!” Marlene called excitedly, before covering her mouth.

“Just a moment, would you hold?”

“Absolutely, sir.” Marc pressed the screen on the hold button.

“So what are we all doing? Are we all doing this?” Marc asked.

“A mansion. Wow. My Dad used to lecture Egyptology at University of Chicago so I know it pretty well, and he had a place there.”

“I don’t know. We don’t know anything about this Steven Grant.”

“We didn’t know anything about Raoul Bushman either.”

“Exactly… and how did that work out?”

“Well, we could try this place, and if it all falls through… do you have any connections in Chicago, Marlene?”

“My brother still lives there. And my father’s house is still there too. If you don’t mind slumming it.”

Marc took the phone off of hold. “Ah, Mr Samuels, I have two…” he looked to the other for a term, both shrugged “…work associates, I’m… entertaining… at the moment. Would there be any way that I would be able to— I mean… would there be any way that you could..?”

“Accommodate them, sir?” Samuels finished. He turned and looked around the spacious palatial estate of Grant Mansion. “Yes sir, I think we could find a way to cram them in somewhere.”
The phone call concluded, Samuels hung up and walked to the kitchen.

“Nedda. I believe we have a Scenario Five. With two stragglers. Preparations are in order.”